Middle East In Focus - Sunday, June 7, 2026

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1. This is Curt Ellen. You're listening to KPFK, 90.7 FM Los Angeles, 98.7 FM Santa Barbara, and on the World Wide Web at kpfk.org.
2. Night town, lady bright, in the arms of night.
3. Welcome to Middle East in Focus. I'm Estee Chandler.
4. Last week, Ben Freeman wrote at Responsible Statecraft about Congress quietly moving to integrate the U.S. and Israeli militaries this way.
5. Quote, at a time when the American public is expressing unprecedented levels of distrust in the Israeli government, Congress just proposed tying the U.S. to the Israeli military more than ever.
6. End quote. He's referring to Section 224 of the House version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, entitled United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.
7. Freeman believes if passed into law, it would, quote,
8. end quote.
9. Section 224 lays the groundwork for bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and seemingly every manner of U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation.
10. The U.S. and Israel already work together heavily on missile defense,
11. but this provision would greatly expand coordination to seemingly every area of defense tech,
12. including AI, quantum, autonomous systems, cyber, biotech, and more.
13. It also proposes network integration and data fusion.
14. In other words, the U.S. military's data could soon be the Israeli military's data.
15. If fully enacted, this proposal would provide a higher level of military-industrial integration than the U.S. has with any other country in the world.
16. Folks should keep that in mind when they read about H. Rez 1339, a conservative-led bipartisan resolution, which the author, Representative Marlon Stutzman, and media talking heads claim, quote, seeks to phase out the traditional $3.8 billion in annual military aid to Israel, end quote.
17. Of course they fail to mention Section 224 of the NDAA or that the resolution does not have the force of law which is why it great PR for politicians who support the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is actively backing the initiative as they watch public support for Israel plummeting among progressives liberals moderates and conservatives alike According to Freeman Section 224 would quote
18. also bring extraordinary Israeli influence to the U.S. beyond what it already has
19. through the Israel lobby and its robust network of social media influencers, end quote.
20. Personally, I can only imagine what the survivors of the USS Liberty would think about that.
21. The USS Liberty was part of a secret program in the 1960s run by the U.S. Navy and National Security Agency, or NSA,
22. in which the United States dispatched two cargo ships repurposed into mobile listening platforms to eavesdrop on the world's hotspots,
23. places including Cuba, North Korea, and the Middle East.
24. Though the Liberty was officially classified as a technical research ship,
25. her towering 45 antennas used to soak up communications of foreign nations
26. made it obvious to any trained observer that she was a spy ship.
27. This week in 2007, Captain Ward Boston, the senior legal counsel for the 1967 Navy Court of Inquiry into the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, wrote at the San Diego Union Tribune, quote,
28. 40 years ago this week, I was asked to investigate the heaviest attack on American ship since World War II.
29. As senior legal counsel to the Navy Court of Inquiry, it was my job to help uncover the truth regarding Israel's June 8, 1967 bombing of the USS Liberty.
30. On that sunny, clear day 40 years ago, Israel combined air and naval forces attacked our American intelligence gathering ship for two hours, inflicting 70% casualties.
31. 34 American sailors died and 172 were injured.
32. The USS Liberty remained afloat only by the crew's heroic efforts.
33. Israel claimed it was an accident, yet I know from personal conversations with the late Admiral Isaac Kidd,
34. President of the Court of Inquiry, that President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara
35. ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of mistaken identity.
36. The ensuing cover-up has haunted us for 40 years.
37. What does it imply for our national security, not to mention our ability to honestly broker peace in the Middle East, when we cannot question Israel's actions, even when they kill Americans? End quote.
38. Luckily, we don't have to imagine what survivors of the USS Liberty would think about Section 224 of the 2027 NDAA or what they know about the attack on their ship 59 years ago this week.
39. With us today to discuss the horrific attack on the USS Liberty, the failure to conduct standard investigations, and the facts President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara were trying to cover up are four members of the USS Liberty Veterans Association,
40. an organization that has spent the past 55 years telling their firsthand accounts of the attack on the USS Liberty by Israeli forces during their six war against five of Israel neighboring Arab countries Our guests today are USS Liberty
41. veteran survivors Larry Bowen, Mickey LeMay, Larry Slavins, and Don Pogler. Larry Bowen
42. had a 43-year career at the NSA, after which he worked as a defense contractor. He was awarded a
43. Purple Heart for his service on the USS Liberty and currently serves as treasurer of the USS
44. Liberty Veterans Association. And he's joining us today from Norfolk, Virginia, along with
45. his Liberty shipmates, Mickey LeMay and Larry Slavins, all attending their yearly reunion.
46. Mickey LeMay was a second-class electrician mate at the time of the attack on the USS Liberty in charge of the electrical department.
47. He was on the O-4 level above the main deck and was seriously injured when the first jet fighters attacked.
48. And Larry Slavins was a 20-year-old newlywed before he found himself advanced to E-4 quartermaster on the USS Liberty in June of 1967.
49. His general quarters position was as a gunner on the forward port gun mount on the 04 level above the main deck.
50. He was also seriously injured as the first Israeli jet fighters strafed the Liberty with automatic gunfire as it operated in international waters about 12 miles off the coast of Gaza.
51. It is my honor to welcome Larry Bowen, Mickey LeMay, and Larry Slavins to Middle East in Focus.
52. Thank you very much, Estee.
53. This is an honor for us to be on your show and to tell your listeners what actually happened that day.
54. the deliberate attack on a U.S. naval vessel, a noncombatant,
55. and we were in international waters on a clear day,
56. and there's absolutely no mistake that we were flying a flag,
57. we were properly identified,
58. and that the IDF had all morning doing overflights to recon our ship
59. and know exactly who we were and what we were doing.
60. So for us, it's obvious it was a deliberate attack,
61. and you'll never get any of our crew members to say otherwise.
62. Larry, I want to begin by thanking you all for your continued service to our country.
63. I realize that June 8th, 1967 was likely the longest day of your life.
64. But I wonder if you can, as briefly as possible, describe that day up until aid finally arrived, please.
65. I got up in the morning at around 6 a.m.
66. I showered, shaved, and got ready for chow.
67. uh into chow and that morning i had a day watch in radio research number one i was a communications
68. technician second class in e5 and i was a radio man so i was copying international morse code
69. um that i had searched for um because we didn have any specific task um i rolled across a foreign language transmission that I started copying
70. and shortly after I rolled up on that the people from our processing and reporting center
71. came over to my position and started taking the papers out of my typewriter as I finished typing
72. a message. And
73. to me, I knew that what I was copying was
74. pretty important, but they didn't tell me anything. My buddy,
75. Bob Eisenberg, and I went to Chow at 1130. And
76. on the way over, he told me, he said, Larry, what you're copying is
77. extremely important, and I want you to continue copying it when you
78. get back from Chow. And I said, okay, I'll do that.
79. We couldn't talk about it outside of our secure spaces.
80. So when I got back, I went back to that position and continued copying this transmission.
81. The skipper called a general quarters drill at about 1230 that afternoon.
82. And it was a chemical warfare drill.
83. and it lasted about 45 minutes to possibly an hour.
84. And we went through our normal process of going to our general quarter stations
85. and doing what we would do if we, you know, were in any kind of serious trouble.
86. We secured from that drill at about 1.30 in the afternoon, maybe 20 minutes to 2.
87. and those people that were off duty
88. went up and started sunbathing. It was a beautiful day, clear skies,
89. light wind, and people were out in their
90. bathing suits, you know, taking it easy. At
91. 1400 or 2 o'clock, the first aircraft came
92. over and started strafing us. They hit us with
93. .50 caliber armor-piercing shells
94. with cannon fire.
95. They later hit us with napalm.
96. And later, three torpedo boats came out
97. and launched five torpedoes at the ship.
98. Fortunately for us, only one torpedo hit the ship,
99. but it landed right in our secure spaces,
100. right in our comm center.
101. It killed 25 of my shipmates immediately.
102. and it blew about a 20 foot by 40 foot hole in the starboard side.
103. That's in a lot of seawater.
104. We had watertight integrity down in our secure spaces.
105. So we were able to contain the water below the deck that I was on
106. because my general quarter station was one deck above where the torpedo went up.
107. the first thing on my mind and my buddy Clyde Wave's mind was to get out of our blown up spaces
108. and open up the hatch so that we could get our shipmates that were down below out.
109. That took us probably 10 to 15 minutes to get them out of there as the water was rising
110. and they were struggling to just stay alive.
111. But everyone that was still alive, we believe, made it out.
112. And I was handing out life vests to those survivors
113. as they were coming out.
114. And we secured after that and went about to the casualty collection stations to help our wounded shipmates.
115. And we did that all night long until the following morning.
116. 17 hours after the attack, we finally got support from the 6th Fleet.
117. They had previously tried to send aircraft to our aid.
118. Those aircraft were recalled by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
119. And later, the second flight was recalled by the president, Lyndon B. Johnson.
120. And he said that he did not want to embarrass an ally, and he didn't care if the ship and everyone on board went to the bottom of the Mediterranean.
121. He wasn't going to embarrass an ally.
122. and that's in a nutshell what happened to me that day there were there's a lot that happened after
123. that but i want to give mickey and larry a chance to talk yep mickey unlike larry bowen you were
124. severely wounded during that uh initial israeli airstrike and you were eventually evacuated by
125. helicopter as the Liberty had only one doctor on it with two assistants and no capacity to treat
126. the severe wounds inflicted on so many of you because the Liberty was not built nor was the
127. crew trained for combat. With that, can you briefly tell us what happened to you and when and how you
128. were taken off the Liberty to get life-saving medical treatment. Yes. Hi, thank you, Esther.
129. I was an electrician, made second class, like you said, in charge of the electrical department,
130. and my duty station through the general quarters that Larry had mentioned was at the generator room.
131. For Larry to get into his secured section, he had to go by me. The door was right there where I was,
132. and after we secured from the uh general quarters i was going up to the o4 level which is just a
133. platform on the top of at the top of the superstructure i was going up there to inspect
134. the carbon arc searchlight was which we did it monthly and as i was getting to the top there
135. was a jet fighter flying along with us maybe guessing about 50 feet higher than us and he
136. was so low and so close that if he looked at me i could have waved at him and he could wave back
137. so in my mind there's no problem there that hey this is a u.s ship we had the gtr5 on the bow
138. on the stern and like larry said the american flag was flying so anyhow as i turned there was
139. an officer up there that reported any plane that flew by so i turned to him and said did you see
140. that fighter and it was unmarked and it was camouflaged uh by the way i think when you have
141. a war when you're fighting an enemy you leave your identification on the plane so they know
142. who's attacking them this was an unmarked plane uh french mirage fighter at the time
143. and as i turned at the officer to point to where i saw my fighter another one came from
144. started to port, bowed astern, diagonally across the ship and strafed us.
145. And I looked down and I had blood coming every part of my body.
146. And I looked at the officer next to me and he looked identical to me.
147. Now at this moment I was looking at him in the eye And he was looking back at me I turned ran slid down the ladder and went into the ship and i thought he was following me but they found him dead later on
148. i don't know if he had died and hadn't fallen yet or if they killed him on the second or third
149. strafing as i got into the ship my left leg had been shattered so i couldn't stand up anymore
150. and they my leg gave way and i fell on the deck and i crawled through a hatch
151. down a ladder headfirst into the officer's country and as i'm coming around one of my
152. shipmates timmerman said are you hurt and for some dumb reason i said no i like crawling on the deck
153. and we actually laughed at each other but anyhow he threw a tourniquet on my leg and says i got
154. to get help to get you to sick bay and it took a while he finally got me they put me in the stretch
155. and as they're carrying me to sick bay a corpsman comes by and says take that tourniquet off his
156. leg. Now, I'm still in the officer's country. We're going around the corner. And they put me on the deck.
157. And as they were untying the tourniquet, a rocket came through the overhead. So now I'm two decks
158. inside the ship, and I can see blue sky through the hole where the rocket came in. Now, that was
159. the moment I thought we were all going to die. Now, they took me down to sickbay, and I kept waking
160. and passing out, waking up, passing out. I heard, prepare for torpedo attack. I do not remember the
161. torpedo were hitting i do remember prepare to abandon ship i remember i canceled the prepare
162. to abandon ship but i didn't know they were canceling it because the uh is israel's were
163. shoe sinking every single life raft we threw over the side so they didn't want us to get evacuated
164. uh over the night after the attack was all over i would blank out wake up blank out wake out
165. And finally, in the morning, like Larry said, 17 hours later, a helicopter came and they escorted me up on the main deck and was carrying me to where they were going to put me into the helicopter.
166. And the captain and Lieutenant Golden, who was in charge of our department, came by and said my men had done really, really good.
167. He was really proud of them.
168. Thank you.
169. And then I was put on the helicopter.
170. And as I was pulled in, the guy said, I'll take one more after this one.
171. And I was unconscious for seven days.
172. So that's my experience.
173. Coming to you from the studios of KPFK in Los Angeles, this is Middle East in Focus.
174. I am Estee Chandler, honored to be speaking today with survivors of the June 8th, 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, Larry Bowen, Mickey LeMay, and Larry Slavins about their experiences on and following that infamous day.
175. Larry Slavins, you told me that your day on June 8th, 1967, started out as a beautiful day on the Mediterranean Sea.
176. You went up to the flying bridge, the highest point that one could stand on the ship at about 6.15 in the morning and used a pair of binoculars that allowed you to see the coast, to see strikes from the Six-Day War that had begun on June 5th happening about 10 or 12 miles away from you,
177. which led you to conclude that the spot where the Liberty was sailing was not a safe place to be at the time.
178. What, if anything, did you know about that war as you watched it from the flying bridge that morning?
179. Well the thing that probably taught me the most is I seen tanks planes bombs being dropped huge plumes of smoke men running
180. through the desert off the Sonari Peninsula.
181. I knew that Israel was involved, but I didn't
182. know who they were fighting at that time, whether it was
183. Syria, Iran, or Egypt.
184. and didn't find out actually until I was medevaced to the USS America the next morning
185. who Israel was engaged with.
186. Larry Bowen, unlike Mickey and Larry Slavin, you remained on the ship as it limped all the way to Malta.
187. for repairs. Can you briefly tell us the most important things for Americans to know
188. about the six-day trip on the bullet-ridden, blood-soaked USS Liberty as it sailed all the
189. way to Malta with a giant torpedo hole in its side? Also, we can hear everyone in that room.
190. okay we'll try and get them all to to calm down there's there's only about eight other people
191. but but they are talking so we'll we'll try to get them to stop um that six-day trip to malta
192. was hair-raising for most of us because we didn't know if the ship was going to stay afloat or not
193. We had shored up the bulkheads below decks to try and prevent any water from getting outside of the classified compartments.
194. But most of us didn't know whether or not that was going to hold for six days or not.
195. It was about a thousand mile trip.
196. The Sixth Fleet senior leadership, the admirals, came on board the ship during that time.
197. to find out a little bit more about what happened, what we experienced.
198. Admiral Kidd made several stops to different parts of the ship to talk to crew members
199. and get their story as to what exactly happened.
200. He would take off his collar devices, put them on the table, and say,
201. okay, I'm now just like you.
202. I'm just one of the boys.
203. Tell me exactly what happened.
204. And everyone opened up and told him exactly, you know, what happened.
205. And then he, at the end of those discussions, put his collar devices back on.
206. And can you explain collar devices?
207. Yeah, it was his stars.
208. He had four stars.
209. He was a four-star admiral.
210. And so he threw his stars on the table to make it look like he was just one of us, you know, just a regular guy.
211. and when we got through talking to him he put the stars back on said okay now i'm an admiral
212. and if you ever speak to anyone about what happened you can't talk to the press you can't
213. talk to your family you can't talk to anyone we don't want you talking amongst yourselves
214. we will put you in prison you'll be fined or worse um so most of us myself especially because i was a
215. cryptologic technician or CT all my jobs were secret They were all classified So having someone at his rank tell me to keep a secret was just another secret I had to keep What I didn understand was that trauma caused me to have PTSD post stress disorder
216. And for over 50...
217. 59.
218. Yeah, I know, but it was over 50 years before I opened up to anyone about what was going on.
219. So I kept that internalized for over 50 years.
220. Couldn't talk to my wife, couldn't talk to anybody.
221. And it tore me up inside.
222. It still tears me up to this day.
223. I still have, you know, nightmares, a very vivid memory to what happened.
224. And what made things a little bit worse for us is that because we were communications technicians and had the security clearances, once we got to Malta, they made us go down into those previously flooded compartments and recover our 25 fallen shipmates and their body parts.
225. I mean, they were blown to pieces.
226. So finding a full body was not normal.
227. Right. We're going to get back to that with Don in a few minutes.
228. Larry Slavins, like I said, you were severely injured and flown off the ship.
229. You were eventually, after a long trip, many places, transferred to San Diego to continue your recovery.
230. Can you talk about your experience there and what you were told there or before about discussing your experience on the Liberty and what you and your fellow shipmates are now demanding from our government?
231. There were actually only two of us that ended up at Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego.
232. And I had not been there no more than 10 minutes and then walked to a rear admiral and a captain from Imperial Beach Communication Station.
233. And they told me that I could not talk about that incident on June 8th to anybody.
234. my family. I had been married two months to the day
235. that the incident happened. My wife,
236. my brothers, my sisters,
237. and they asked me if I needed anything, and I told them that
238. I didn't have any money for a geoducks.
239. A geoducks is the Navy of snacks.
240. The captain pulled out a $20 bill, and I said,
241. I'll pay you back, sir. And he said, no need. I want to take care of you. He says, remember what
242. we've told you today, that you cannot talk to anybody. And doctors would try to pry information
243. out of me. They said, hey, you know, you can tell us. And I said, no, I can't talk about anything
244. about what happened that day. I'm well aware of the consequences. Right. So you were all
245. muzzled.
246. Mickey, I believe that you are involved
247. in a court case brought by journalist Michelle Kanoukan
248. under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA,
249. which seeks to obtain records...
250. that would likely shed light on what the U.S. government knew about the attack on the Liberty and when they knew it.
251. That case was filed in 2020.
252. But just this past March, judges at the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals heard arguments over whether the report is a congressional record and therefore exempt from FOIA or an agency record subject to public disclosure.
253. The case centers on the HAC report produced by a House Appropriations Committee that examined intelligence and communication issues surrounding the attack on the liberty.
254. The NSA acknowledges that it possesses a copy of the report, but it refuses to release it.
255. What is important for us and the public to know about that case?
256. And are there ways the public can support that effort?
257. I'm not sure how the public could support it other than just trying to get the information released so we can actually see what they recorded it to be.
258. I really don't know how my name got on this, but it did because I did do some interviews with Michelle.
259. And I guess I said some things that helped her file the claim against these papers.
260. but that has to i'm a co-sponsor of that i was the president of the
261. liberty veterans association at that time so michelle kanuken out in washington state had
262. found some lawyers that were willing to do pro bono work for us to file the freedom of information
263. act um it's still in the courts the ninth circuit court in in washington um the judge has the latest
264. uh rebuttal from the national security agency and we're expecting to hear
265. results from the judge later this summer um if if she agrees that those you know that
266. information, 360 pages of classified documents should be released, we'll probably get another
267. appeal from NSA saying that they don't want to do that because it's detrimental, I guess,
268. to national security. But after 60 years or 59 years, I can't see what harm would be done.
269. only the truth coming out and shedding light on what you were put through and who put you through
270. it um i do want to ask you guys if any of you have been following or have opinions about section 224
271. of the house version of the 2027 national defense authorization act further entwining the u.s
272. military with the Israeli military?
273. Well, from a USS Liberty standpoint, that really doesn't have anything to do with us.
274. You know, they, you know, personally, I think that it's not something that I would support,
275. and I don't think the American public would support it.
276. We don need to be any closer related to Israel than we are currently Or any country Or any country I can imagine any veterans more in a position to talk about why this would be a
277. bad idea than you guys.
278. Well, again, the Liberty Veterans Association
279. doesn't want to get into the political side of things.
280. We were only concerned about
281. getting justice for our 34 fallen shipmates, getting the truth out to the American public,
282. and hopefully getting a congressional investigation into what actually happened to us.
283. It's the only incident that I'm aware of where a U.S. naval ship had been attacked,
284. and it wasn't investigated by Congress. They never did.
285. That's my understanding as well. Larry Slavin, I've heard that Congressman Thomas Massey plans for the first time ever to honor the USS Liberty crew on the floor of Congress around noon Eastern tomorrow and that he has invited all survivors to attend that speech.
286. I'm hoping that it will be broadcast on C-SPAN so everybody in the nation can watch it.
287. Is that correct?
288. And do some of you guys, I know that there's a bunch of you there at the reunion.
289. Are you guys planning on going to attend that?
290. I have plans to attend that.
291. We're leaving tomorrow morning at 6 o'clock by bus.
292. there will be approximately, I think, 11, 12 shipmates going,
293. maybe a few more, and some wives.
294. And we're to be recognized by Congressman Massey,
295. I believe, around 12 o'clock D.C. time.
296. I can't thank you guys enough for taking the time for your service.
297. Is there anything else that you would like to say, Mickey?
298. No, I just want to thank you very much for this time.
299. Glad I could participate in it.
300. Well, I think as some of you know, because I think some of you might have appeared on this show when Don Bustani, the godfather of this show, was at the helm.
301. This was a very, very important story to him.
302. This was the first story I covered with him.
303. my first week as a host producer, and you guys remain in my thoughts all the time,
304. and this story is very important for the American people to know.
305. Thank you.
306. Thank you.
307. Thank you very much.
308. We all appreciate your program and your support to the USS Liberty veterans,
309. and you can have us on again.
310. We'd be welcome to come back.
311. I would love to interview some of you who attend that honoring in D.C., so I will be in touch.
312. Thank you.
313. Thank you.
314. Coming to you from the studios of KPFK in Los Angeles, this is Middle East in Focus.
315. I am Esty Chandler, honored to be speaking with survivors of the June 8th, 1967 attack on the USS Liberty,
316. about their experiences on and following that infamous day.
317. We are about to be joined by one more USS Liberty veteran.
318. What folks should know is that U.S. leaders had hoped Israel would punish the attackers,
319. as reportedly both Dean Rusk and Israeli Ambassador Harman had demanded However U officials soon learned that the Israeli judge tasked to examine the attack
320. instead exonerated everyone.
321. The assault on the Liberty, which had raged for over two hours on a clear afternoon
322. in international waters, as you've heard,
323. was the most violent attack on a U.S. naval ship since World War II.
324. Yet Israel's investigating judge could find no evidence of wrongdoing, no negligence, no violation of military procedure.
325. I suppose that that is evidence that the Israeli military carried out their mission as planned.
326. In 1968, Israel is said to have paid $3.3 million to the families of the men who were killed, and a year later, $3.5 million to the men who were injured.
327. Israel then balked about paying the $7.6 million they were being fined for the loss of the ship
328. and secretly offered at one point the token sum of $100,000.
329. Those negotiations dragged out until 1980, at which time the bill plus interest totaled more than $17 million.
330. Under the threat of a congressional investigation, the State of Israel struck a deal to pay $6 million in three annual installments, and the U.S. government accepted.
331. Joining us now is Don Pagler, who served in the Navy from 1966 to 1970.
332. He was a crypto technician second class on the USS Liberty when it was attacked on June 8, 1967.
333. He retired from a career at Hughes Aircraft Space and Communications Group in 2002.
334. It is always an honor to welcome my friend Don Pogler back to Middle East in Focus.
335. Thank you.
336. Can you hear us okay, Don?
337. Yeah, can you hear me?
338. Yes.
339. I also want to thank you for your continued service to our country.
340. As I learned recently on the first episode of Phil Turney's podcast from his guest, who was fellow Liberty survivor we just heard from, Mickey LeMay, there were basically two crews on the board of the Liberty.
341. The ship's crew, which included departments like engineering that was supplying anything the intelligence gathering or spy section of the ship needed, whether it be electricity like Mickey LeMay provided or laundry service, meals, etc.
342. And then there were the intelligence guys or the spies, folks that had security clearances who were listening to information coming from the shore, other vessels, planes in the vicinity, and that the two crews didn't interact much.
343. Now, Don, sorry, Larry Bowen was part of that. Do I have that story right? And can you tell us how long you had been on the Liberty and what your job was on that day in 1967?
344. Yes, first of all, I'd like to correct.
345. I was not second class on the Liberty.
346. I'd just gotten out of school.
347. I was a seaman, an E3.
348. I was an E5 when I left the Navy in 1970 Thank you for correcting me
349. We weren't supposed to, Larry and I were not supposed to talk outside our research working spaces about any of our work.
350. But just in case we did, they made sure that we were separated.
351. so all us intelligence guys slept in the aft part of the rear end of the ship
352. and the deck force slept in the front part of the ship
353. they didn't want us making some statement that would be overheard
354. and of course just like one child having something another child doesn't have
355. that created a natural friction between the two groups on the ship.
356. As far as when I got on the ship, I reported I'd just gotten out of school in Pensacola where I was trained.
357. I reported to the Liberty late March.
358. We went to sea May the 2nd, and were attacked June the 8th.
359. So I was about as green as anybody on the ship.
360. Now, Don, you were technically off-duty from your day job on the ship at the time of the attack
361. because you had done a shift from midnight to 8 a.m.
362. But you were quickly put to work transporting your wounded shipmates
363. to the temporary medical base set up in the mess hall.
364. They were using the tables in the mess hall as beds.
365. You were donating blood and aiding the doctor and his assistants as ordered.
366. You stayed, like Larry Bowen, on the ship as it made its six days journey to Malta.
367. Can you talk about the job you were given once the Liberty was in dry dock in Malta and why?
368. uh yeah well um one of the one of the duties i actually stood on the way to malta was um
369. uh they took me down to the bottom of the ship where the uh
370. drive chaffer in from the engine room back to the propeller of the screw
371. and gave me a set of headphones and said watch this
372. dive shaft and if it starts to leak water down here
373. I'm going to call the bridge and tell them we're going to have to abandon ship
374. and I thought that's great you guys might get off here I'm going to be stuck down in the bottom
375. of this thing so then when we got
376. there as Larry had alluded to
377. they wanted those of us with the top secret crypto clearances to go down
378. and clean up first
379. and out of the two days I only remember about 15-20 minutes
380. in the first 15-20 minutes I picked up a piece of equipment
381. and found Phil Kiki's arm
382. he had been a bodybuilder so I could figure out whose arm it was
383. after that I just shut out the rest of those two days
384. and the only thing I remember after that, after the two days is I went on Liberty and I was in a bar one night about six o'clock and was drinking cognac out of eight ounce tumblers.
385. And I have no idea how I got back to the ship.
386. Yeah, I'm guessing you were not the only person who was in shock after what you guys had experienced.
387. Right.
388. Now, Admiral Kidd was put in charge of the court of inquiry that began when the ship reached Malta.
389. and we heard a little bit about him from Larry Bowen.
390. Were you interviewed at all for the Court of Inquiry?
391. No, I think probably mostly because I was so green
392. and had just gotten on board
393. that they probably figured I didn't have a lot to contribute.
394. But anyway, I was not interviewed by the court.
395. I knew that it was going on because I had been up on the dock.
396. I took a picture of the torpedo hole.
397. I and another guy were up there.
398. And there were two fairly high-ranking officers from D.C. standing fairly close to where we were.
399. So I knew the court was taking place, but I was not interviewed.
400. I see.
401. Now, before the attack, the ship was docked in Abidjan for a day or so.
402. When you got orders that the ship had to leave right away, and you went out with one of the officers in the ship's truck to try to round up guys to get them back to the ship,
403. I assume this...
404. Go ahead.
405. I wasn't actually with that,
406. but I was out in Abidjan
407. and when the officer in the ship's truck came by
408. and said everybody has to report back to the ship.
409. And were you told why you had to report back to the ship?
410. No.
411. and we had gotten orders from the Joint Chiefs of Staff directly
412. and they told us to proceed to Rota, Spain.
413. And the orders told us that we would get further orders after we left Rota.
414. So they weren't going to tell us where they were ultimately sending us,
415. probably for security reasons.
416. so we didn't need to know until we left Rhoda and were on our way to the Gaza Strip.
417. So that was a day and a half,
418. and we were supposed to be in Abidjan and on Liberty for four and a half days.
419. So our four and a half days at Liberty got cut short to a day and a half.
420. And they didn't tell you why they were cutting it short?
421. No, not at that point.
422. When did you return stateside?
423. And when you did, were you given any orders about what you could or couldn't say about the events of May 8th?
424. And I wonder if you were muzzled like the rest of the guys, how that affected you?
425. YES I DON KNOW EXACTLY A WEEK or two after the cleanup many of us especially as crypto technicians were flown back because we were never going to be doing our job again
426. They weren't going to need all of us to sail the ship back to the U.S.
427. And I was one of the ones that they sent back to Norfolk.
428. And so I flew from Malta to Rota.
429. And then they bused us from Rota to Madrid.
430. And then we flew from Madrid to JFK in New York, from JFK down to D.C. and then down to Norfolk.
431. when I got down to Norfolk
432. they gave me my
433. 30 days leave at home
434. debrief me and when they debriefed me
435. they said you've got the highest security clearance
436. anybody can get in this country
437. go away never talk about this to anybody
438. including your family
439. so for 20 years I kept it all bottled up inside
440. and in that report saying that um three israel paid 3.5 million dollars to the men who were
441. injured were you and your shipmates who you know offered any of that
442. i was given that uh around the same time that i was notified i was getting the purple heart
443. I was given, I got a letter from the State Department with a check for $300.
444. That is $300 for your wounds.
445. And here's a document for you to sign that says you agree to never sue the State of Israel.
446. Wow.
447. Wow. And I want you to talk a little bit more about the, you know, bottling all that up inside.
448. When did you begin speaking about your experience on the liberty and how did that change your physical and mental health?
449. so like I said for 20 years I never talked about it and with the survivor's guilt from cleaning up
450. the bodies and everything I ended up in the end of 1985 I started losing my vision I couldn't see
451. the center stripe in the road anymore and I ended up in a doctor's office and he came back in
452. what is a sheet after running his test and said,
453. I don't know why you're still alive.
454. You should have died a long time ago.
455. One of your major organs should have popped by now.
456. He said, your blood pressure is 240 over 145.
457. It's been that way for a long time to do the damage to the eyes.
458. So for a year and a half,
459. he put me on as heavy a blood pressure medication as he could.
460. And he could only get it down to 140 to 180 over 100 to 140, which is still high.
461. And so in April of 1987 I thought I can live this way any longer I ended up finding out about post stress disorder called the VA hospital in Long Beach and they said well we don do anything with that here but the closest vet center to you
462. is five blocks north of Disneyland. Within a month of being able to talk about what happened to us,
463. Both blood pressure numbers dropped 30 points.
464. No change in medication.
465. Wow.
466. And when did you begin speaking publicly about it?
467. I'm assuming that you at that point felt like you had to be able to talk to your doctors about it to save your own life.
468. When did you start speaking publicly about what had happened to you?
469. Well, I don't remember exactly when I had to get confronted to be able to do it.
470. I, uh, one night in group, my, uh, counselor, there's about eight of us in my group.
471. Uh, my counselor had been a Green Beret in Vietnam.
472. Uh, he looked at me and he said, did you ever read your DD 214, which is a separation document
473. when you leave the military?
474. And I said, yeah.
475. and he said, well, I want you to go home this week and study it
476. and come back next week and tell us what you find.
477. And I came back the following week,
478. and he could tell there was steam coming out of my ears.
479. And he said, so what did you find?
480. And I says, well, on my DD-214,
481. where it says Purple Heart in parentheses behind that.
482. So I ended up writing the Board of Corrections,
483. and I said, first of all, you guys know the rules better than I do.
484. If I qualify for the good conduct medal, please add that to my DD-214.
485. Secondly, 10 years after we were attacked,
486. you guys finally decided we had been in combat
487. and authorized the combat action ribbon,
488. so we add that to the DD-214.
489. And oh, by the way, if RVN behind my Purple Heart stands for Republic of Vietnam, would you please get the right part of the world on there?
490. They sent me a DD-215, which is a correction.
491. And on it, it says remove Purple Heart, RVN, add Purple Heart, doesn't say where.
492. so you've still yet to get what you were
493. asking for
494. yeah well I got the
495. falsehood taken off
496. the government
497. has been very careful
498. to never mention Israel
499. in any of our documents. Kevin McGonigal's Medal of Honor, my and everybody else's
500. presidential unit citation all say we were attacked by foreign jet aircraft and motor torpedo boats Never mentions Israel We just have a couple Sorry
501. No, that's okay.
502. As you say, we just have a couple minutes left.
503. And so I wonder if you can explain why you are not in Norfolk, Virginia with your brothers today as you've been.
504. What are the repercussions of your wounds?
505. Yes, I really didn't finish that.
506. As a result of that high blood pressure, the damage to the eyes, the eyes hung in there,
507. and I did have blind spots in my left eye, and I ended up going blind about five years ago in my left eye,
508. and then this last year in my right eye, so I'm totally blind now.
509. and it just seemed too difficult for me to try and get on a plane being blind and whatever.
510. And lastly, in our last minute, I want to ask you about, as you explained,
511. that because the missile hit right into that compartment where so many men were working,
512. unfortunately for many men, what you guys were able to put together were body parts
513. and that those were buried in a mass grave.
514. And can you say what it said on that headstone
515. and how you guys fought to get it changed?
516. My understanding, I didn't see it because I was still hidden out.
517. When they first put up the gravestone, it said,
518. died in the eastern Mediterranean.
519. Again, they didn't want any mention of anything.
520. and so my understanding is it took people 15 years to raise enough hell to get it changed to kill USS Liberty.
521. Don, thank you again for your service and thank you again for joining us on Middle East In Focus.
522. From an affidavit of Captain Ward Boston entered into the congressional record, the evidence was clear.
523. Both Admiral Cade and I believed with certainty that this attack, which killed 34 American sailors and injured 174 others, was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew.
524. I am certain that the Israeli pilots that undertook the attack, as well as their superiors who had ordered the attack, were aware that the ship was American.
525. I saw the flag, which had visibly identified the ship as American, riddled with bullet holes, and heard testimony that made it clear the Israelis intended there to be no survivors.
526. Not only did the Israelis attack the ship with napalm, gunfire, and missiles, Israeli torpedo boats, machine-gunned three lifeboats that had been launched in an attempt by the crew to save the most seriously wounded, a war crime.
527. That's from Captain Ward Boston.
528. Once again, I want to thank our guests, USS Liberty survivors, Larry Bowen, Mickey LeMay, Larry Slavin and Don Pogler.
529. I also want to thank our team for their production support today from the studios of KPFK in Los Angeles.
530. I'm Estee Chandler thanking you for your continued support and for taking this hour to put the Middle East in focus.
531. To engage in any activity
532. that shall contribute to a lasting understanding