From the Shreveport Times:

NEW BOOK EXAMINES ISRAELI ATTACK

JUNE 1967 ATTACK KILLED SHREVEPORTER, INJURED ANOTHER

By John Andrew Prime • jprime@gannett.com • June 7, 2009

A new book that takes a long, hard look at an Israeli attack on the U.S. spy ship USS Liberty in June 1967 draws in part on reporting and commentary that linked the international tensions and the Shreveport-Bossier City area.

The book published Tuesday is "Attack on the Liberty," penned by investigative reporter James Scott, whose father, ship damage control engineer Ensign John Scott, survived the brutal assault that killed 34 sailors and wounded more than 170 others.

The June 8, 1967 attack took place in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea just off Sinai coast. The Liberty, which was clearly marked as a U.S. Navy vessel and also had an oversized flag displayed, was observed for several hours by Israeli jets, then strafed and finally attacked by torpedo boats.

One of the dead sailors was James Lupton, 25, from a large Keithville family with members in the military and local police. He died when a torpedo slammed into the secret compartment he and other communications technicians shared.

His father, Clyde Lupton, suffered a heart attack when he heard his son had been killed, and was dead within three years.

Among the wounded was Gary Wayne Brummett, of Kickapoo, who bears the mental and physical scars to this day and remains mistrustful of Israel and its forces.

A quote from Brummett opens the book:

"I know what a slaughterhouse looks like," said Brummett, a 3rd Class petty officer at the time of the attack. "That's what this was."

Brummett was "was incredibly helpful to me on the research end," says Scott, a former investigative reporter for The Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C., a recipient of the McClatchy Co. President's Award and the South Carolina Press Association's 2003 Journalist of the Year. "Gary was instrumental in helping me understand how the engine room worked and what it was like there during the attack. I interviewed him a number of times."

The tally of killed and wounded comprised 70 percent of the crew, a proportion of casualties rarely reached unless a vessel is sunk. And only heroic efforts by the officers and crew saved the ship from sinking, Scott asserts in the book, which relates how the incident impacted the lives of the crew members and their families.

He also delves into the inner workings of politicians and military leaders in Washington and Tel Aviv, and shares new research in which reveals that at least one key Israeli pilot knew the ship was American. He also looks into how the mindset of Washington gelled once it became apparent that initial outrage over the attack paled in comparison to the daily body count rising in the Vietnam War, and that many Americans, including but not limited to the Jewish community, was proud of how Israel had trounced national enemies in the brief but strategic war.

Those who know of the attack on the Liberty today tend to fall into two camps, with no real middle ground. There are those who condemn Israel for an attack on an ally, and those who swear it must have been an accident and the Israelis were not sure who they were attacking.

Few today remember though, that in 1967 the Israelis could not be sure that the United States was, or would remain, a steadfast ally. The last major military-political action in which the two nations had been involved, the Suez Crisis of 1956, witnessed the United States forcing Israel, France and the United Kingdom to abandon efforts to wrest the Suez Canal from Egyptian control. With that as a last memory, the impartial observer might infer that Israel would view a U.S. spy ship as much a threat as an asset while it attacked Egyptian forces in a new conflict.

The USS Liberty became the most decorated ship and crew in Navy history. Its skipper, Cmdr. William McGonagle, received the Medal of Honor even though his lengthy citation describes his heroism and wounding without once mentioning that the attack was by Israelis.

The ship and its crew also received the Presidential Unit Citation. Sailors received two Navy Crosses, 11 Silver Stars, numerous lesser awards for valor and 204 Purple Hearts, for a total of 840 medals. The casualty rate was 70 percent.

The official U.S. Navy report on the attack largely relieved Israel of responsibility. A Navy attorney who was part of the investigation later publicly charged that it had been purposefully misdirected.

Though Israel apologized within hours of the attack, its claim that its forces had mistaken the Liberty for a much smaller Egyptian horse and troop transport that was hundreds of miles way drew derision from the U.S. media at the time.

The Times' editorial on the attack, quoted in the book, noted that "almost as shocking as the attack itself has been the manner in which Washington — especially the Defense department — has seemed to try to absolve Israel of any guilt right from the start. Some of these efforts would be laughable but for the terrible tragedy involved."

The Times described the Israeli account as "far-fetched" and continued "mere apology is not enough in a case of this kind. Israel should guarantee stiff punishment for those responsible for the attack."

The official Navy inquiry lasted just eight days, "less time than it took to bury some of the dead," Scott said. Investigators interviewed only a dozen crew members; never visited Israel, reviewed its war logs or signals transcripts; nor interviewed any of the attackers, he added.

Scott's father was awarded the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest award for heroism, for his role during and after the attack. In late 2007, the elder Scott traveled to Israel with his son for research and met with Brig. Gen. Yiftah Spector, one of the pilots who attacked the Liberty.

According to James Scott, Spector stuck out his hand and said, "I'm sorry."

"Those were the words my father and many of his shipmates had wanted to hear for decades, the words no one in the Navy, the White House, or Congress had ever publicly been willing to say," Scott wrote in the book. "My father reached out and took Spector's hand and said, 'Thank you.'"

In addition to the toll on the ship and crew, the incident has had far-reaching repercussions that last to this day.

Relations with Israel and North Korea continue to be among the most festering the United States has.

The Liberty tie to North Korea came with Pyongyang's belief that the Liberty incident demonstrated the United States would not show any backbone if its intelligence ships were attacked. Within months, North Korea seized the spy ship Pueblo in international waters, holding its crew hostage and causing the nation's intelligence community harm that took decades to repair.

"The specter of the Liberty has haunted the Navy and intelligence community for decades," Scott said. "The attack raised important questions over how politics and diplomacy impact battlefield decisions and how we handle these situations. Those questions still resonate today."