July 22, 2026 • 42 mins
An open secret: cover-ups are nothing new to the world's militaries, and the United States is no exception. In the first chapter of this special two-part series, Ben, Matt and Noel dive deep into the standing controversy -- and accusations of conspiracy -- surrounding the nation of Israel's 1967 attack on the USS Liberty. Everyone acknowledges the facts of the attack. And both countries issued statements indicating this was an accident. But... decades after the fact, even now in 2026, multiple survivors and investigators are convinced there's much more to the story.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They called me Bed. We're joined as always with our
super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here that makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know? And fellow conspiracy realist
on Netflix or your podcast platform of choice. Tonight's episode
has been quite some time in the making. You know
(00:55):
you guys will recall that ever since we started the show,
certain conspiratory oriole subjects kept popping up repeatedly, and Matt,
you'll re called this, and Noel, you'll recalled this. We
used to spend a lot of time in the YouTube
comments on our original show. It would be going back
(01:17):
and forth through like hundreds of week and noticing different
things that kept resurfacing.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Spiracy, Whack the mole man, conspiracy, whack them all. This
is a fascinating one, A vaguely maritime naval navally themed
episode and an absolute conspiracy that has been I know
you've been following for a long time.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Then, well, fourteen years ago we put out episodes on
the Old House Stuffworks channel about false flag attacks. We
did a multi video series on false flag attacks, and
that got us extremely interested in all the various times
that countries and powers have used the flag of so
someone else to get something done.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
It's dirty, pool man. Isn't that kind of like against
the rules of engagement?
Speaker 5 (02:06):
And it seems like, I mean.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
You know what I mean, it's kind of if you
if you at least, yeah, it's a bad look. I
agree with that. If you study the passage of Empires. Uh,
it's street ball. What's the trojan horse? Is that a
false flag attack? Or is that just a trojan horse attack?
That's a trojan horse attack? Correct, Yeah, congrats to everybody
who built that one off one of these topics. Look
(02:31):
for the movie right right what it's an odyssey. I'm
sure hopefully not, Honda. One of the one of the
things these topics that we continually saw way back in
the day was historically considered too sensitive to be in
your textbooks in the United States. This is a true story.
(02:54):
Even talking about this could get you in trouble, and so,
inspired by a recent conversation on our weekly listener mail segment,
we decided to dive in. This is a story of death.
It is fraught with communication breakdowns, quite possibly depending upon
whom you ask. This is one of the biggest cover
(03:17):
ups in modern American history.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
And one of the primary reasons we're talking about this
today is because a guy named Thomas Massey went before
Congress and kind of laid it all out as a
Congressional record. Not that it wasn't already a part of
American history. The thing we're talking about today and a
known thing has been known for a long time, but
a human being that is on the upper echelons of
(03:41):
our legislature spelled it all out in front of everybody
because he had recently met with some folks who were
at the heart of the thing we're going to talk
about today. So I think that's important just to put here,
because you can go right now and you can listen
to those remarks. You can read some Snopes articles that
are in relation to theories that have popped up around
(04:04):
the Internet about the things that Thomas Massey said. There's
a lot of red meat there and things to discover,
and we're going to be talking about it today. It
is vastly important, but it is it is heated up
I think because of that action.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Agreed, this is the true story of the USS Liberty
or We're going to give you what we know, folks,
and we want to hear from you. So conspiracy at
iHeartRadio dot com. You tell us your thoughts at the
end of this exploration, well, pause for a word from
our sponsors. Will be right back. Here are the facts
(04:45):
USS Liberty. It's a ship, right.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
Body mcbotface would have been a more appropriate name, though, no,
it was not that.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
But it was not originally called the USS Liberty. This
ship has had a long and surprisingly distinctive, unique story.
It was originally called the SS Simmons Victory, that is,
the ship that would become the Liberty. And it was
finished being built on May the fourth, nineteen forty five,
(05:12):
intended to serve in.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
World War Two.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
The day after it was completed May fifth, nineteen forty five,
it shipped off for the Pacific Theater and then, of course,
as we know, world War two ended, so the Simmons
became part of what was called the National Defense Reserve. Fleet,
which meant essentially that it was helping assist commercial charter
(05:37):
vessels and cargo carriers, right, the kind of things you
would see all around ports in the United States. They
removed all of the armament so it couldn't fire on,
you know, a rogue cargo carrier. This ship, the Simmons,
could have spent the rest of its career just cruising up, down,
(06:00):
and around the Hudson. Also, we should note that in
maritime culture and tradition, we're supposed to refer to vessels
in a gendered way. We're gonna say it instead of she,
just for the sake of conversation.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
That makes sense.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Unfortunately, things didn't really work out that way. The Simmons
could have stayed the Simmons and probably have been up
and down and around that area of the US until
the seventies, but war was not done. The Simmons got
pulled back into action during the Korean War. From nineteen
(06:40):
fifty to nineteen fifty two. It made something like nine
trips to the Pacific theater, primarily to carry war supplies.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
Well, what are we talking here, like, how many sailors
would have manned this vessel?
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Pretty small amount in comparison to the naval might we
here when other US vessels are discussed to.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Not a warship per se, not like a battleship. This
is more of a courier. Like you said, it was
there to ferry supplies to and from the theater of war.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Right right, a logistics supplier, and it did that function
during the Korean War. The Korean War reached its current
state as we record on July fourteenth, which is a
Tuesday in twenty six folks, it's important to remember, maybe
the West won't tell you as often as they should,
(07:34):
the Korean peninsula is still very much in conflict. They
just hit the pause button. They've been in a cartoonishly
long cease fire for decades.
Speaker 5 (07:46):
What's a cold war of its own?
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Right?
Speaker 4 (07:47):
I mean essentially between the North and the South. They're
just in like the what is it called the what's
that line of demarcation called the DMZ the DMZ, right.
But then there's also Joint Security Area.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
Yes, got it.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
That's a little blue building that you.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Could where they show you a video if I'm not mistaken, Ben,
that you experienced, right, mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah, it's all about how the DMZ is great for birds.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
That's right. I knew there was. It was bird related.
If I'm coming back to me now.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Oh yeah, next time we hang out there. Man, you
got to check out the film.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
Sounds good.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
The Simmons, we do know, survived the Korean War. It
comes back to the United States and it is deemed
a missillaneous auxiliary ship. And that's I'm reading tea leaves here.
But it does sound a lot like Uncle Sam said
down loud. Yeah, it's been in two wars, it hasn't sank.
(08:48):
We should just you know, keep it around. It's a
lunch of money.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Too though, right, Like it's sort of like saying that
maybe it's seen, it's it's time, right, and maybe it's
time to do something different with it.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Yeah, and different happens. This is the story of the
Simmons and it's transformation. It's June of nineteen sixty three,
when the Simmons gets a new lease on life. It
is renamed. It is now the USS Liberty, and it
is reclassified. No longer civilian stuff, no longer helping cargo carriers.
(09:24):
It is now a Belmont class Technical Research Ship or
designation agt R five. Can't let the euphemistic name, fool us.
It is a spy ship.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Now, I mean it's researching the business of the enemy basically.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Right, yeah, Joseph or anybody, right.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Yeah, it's gathering intel.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
It's gathered it's it's data mining, you know, out there
in those high seas.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah, and this is highly important to our story today,
this moment. Don't let it slip past you. The concept
that a ship was refitted to be a spy implement
that floats around on the water and is big and imposing,
but also just a ship and it's a research vessel.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
It's fine, where do they get all those marvelous toys?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Happened right now? This is why we're saying it's a euphemism.
Fellow conspiracy realist, that title technical research it refers to
in this case, when the million dollars worth of spoopy
Dupe upgrades, and for a quick inflation calculator, that equates
to a little over two hundred and nineteen million dollars
(10:39):
worth of upgrades here in twenty six.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
That's the budget of Avatar three f ash And so
of course they expect to return I think so how
it hopes to.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, it's an interesting thing. To consider because often on
the show we've talked about spy planes and satellites, you
know technology that's usually up above that has the capability
of looking down and observing things.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Well, it makes more sense logistically, like it's a bird's
eye views, and it's a lot more out of the way,
it's easier to kind of hide. But these, you know,
naval vessels out in the ocean, they're also got their
own kind of way of hiding for sure.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
But if you're going to do any kind of let's say,
visual spying, you're at sea level literally, and anything you
know above sea level, you're going to have a problem
checking out and seeing. If you've got high level microphone
systems they can pick things up from far away. You're
going to pick up other vessels potentially, or stuff at ports,
(11:37):
things that are happening very close to the coastline. It
does maybe wonder what are they actually, like, how are
they spying on people?
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Ben, Yeah, the mission of the newly minted Liberty is
to support our friends at no such agency, national Security Administration,
by collect national security agency, by collecting and processing what
is called signals intelligence. So, like you were saying, Matt H.
(12:07):
Scuttle butt off the port radio communication WORSE code, which
was very huge at the time. Anything related to a
very vague definition of national interest is up for grabs,
up for hoovery. It also got four pretty heavy machine
guns added on to you know, make it look serious
(12:29):
in the case, right, justin.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
You know you have not need it, then need it
and not have it, you know.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, you get in situations.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
So they're they're intercepting. That's what they're out there.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
They're out there in the in those seas, intercepting communications
and then funneling that information to the appropriate parties in
the NSA that they can then add that to their
bundle of intel.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
You know, yeah, intercepting but not interfering. Kind of like
lurking on a subreddit. This is photographers want to get
back to what you were saying earlier, because this is
a pretty brilliant concept. The problem with so much land
based collection stuff is that your HQ often ends up
(13:11):
being static. It's difficult to move all your equipment without
being noticed, and once an enemy force clocks you, the
jig is up. So if you basically what they did
with the Liberty is they created a pop up spy
store on the high seats. It was very easy to
move and as long as you're not looking for something
(13:34):
super far in land, you have a catbird seat. Pretty cool,
and they were pretty successful for a while. So where
are you going to park your pop up spy store
right if your uncle Sam. In June of nineteen sixty five,
(13:55):
the Liberty went off on its first leg of monitoring missions,
and like you were saying earlier, Nol, they were not
intervening in things, they were collecting stuff. Into your earlier
question that I think we know they had radio monitoring capabilities,
so totally if they could, if they could clock or
(14:18):
track some sort of aircraft, they were doing that too.
They were off the western coast of Africa and Ran
I don't want to sound too weird about it or paranoid,
but they ran five missions that we know of, five
spy missions in that area on the western coast of
Africa from nineteen sixty five up to nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
And we were talking a little bit off Mike, just
trying to like come up with an appropriate comparison in
the spy world of like a land version of this,
and I think we landed on like it's sort of
like the unmarked van sitting outside of like you know,
a mafia headquarters, like with the dudes with headphones on
the end, but at sea and completely moveable and much
(15:03):
more focused on intercepting communications rather than like listening in
on like you know, physical bugs or something like that.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Yeah, like a spy food truck. You know, there you go.
Everything changed in nineteen sixty seven, in summer in June,
the Liberty deployed to the Mediterranean. And this is where
it lingers technically in international waters, so they're not intruding
upon sovereignty. They're in international waters near the north coast
(15:35):
of Sinai, Egypt. And as in previous missions, they're not
there to fire munitions, they're not there to try to
storm the beach or anything. They just want to collect
as much intelligence as possible. So why the Mediterranean, right,
why West African coast to the Mediterranean.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Well, historians seem to have a pretty good idea of
why the Mediterranean, and that would be the infamous Six
Day War, right.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yeah, pretty much everybody in the know felt something bad
was in the wind, kind of like remember that scene
in the Lord of the Rings adaptation where the elf
legalis walks out on a promontory and says, there's a
fell wind.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Oh I do love a fell wind. And that's an
elden ring thing too, the fell omen isn't that one
of the bad guys? Margot, Margot, Margot anyway, Yeah, fell
it's a good word, very very spooky.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
An open conflict had not broken out in the Middle
East just yet, but everybody was thinking this is inevitable.
It's a matter of when rather than a matter of if.
The usual diplomatic off ramps are failing. So Uncle Sam, understandably,
the biggest superpower post World War Two, they want to
(16:56):
know what's going on, and they successfully predicted, as you
mentioned earlier, Noel, a six day war. They didn't call
it that until after it was.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
Over, for sure.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Yeah, I was not aware of the Sixth Day War.
Were aware of the Hundred Years War and other spans
of time, but didn't know about the Sixth Day War.
So maybe some folks out there didn't either. So let's
jump into what that was all about. It took place
from June fifth to the tenth six days of nineteen
sixty seven. It was an escalation of ongoing tension.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
It's been going on for so so long.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
It's exhausting in the Middle East, with the nation of
Israel fighting a group of other countries in the region,
mainly we're talking about Egypt, Syria.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
And Jordan.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
I'm not an historian, but it is a fascinating moment
in history. The reason that six days is literally because
of six days, but it also reminds everybody how quickly
the conflict was ended by Israel, right like it was
one and done. We knocked this out six days. That's
what's up. It was a coalition of countries and I
(18:05):
mean you could there's gorilla groups involved. There's just as
we talk about in many of the conflicts that have
occurred in the Middle East, there's money flowing into you know,
groups right that end up operating and doing things and
attacks taking over places like in an individual city, a town,
a region. But then you also have full fledged countries
(18:29):
that are stepping up and doing military operations. There is
a lot to learn about the Six Day War. I
would just put out there, and we're not going to
be able to cover all of it right now, but
this is we're going to give you the overview.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Yeah, the quick and dirty. The quick and dirty is
this Israel had already stated to the nation of Egypt
that if they closed the straits of Tehran t I
r a n, they would consider it a hause for
a hot war, an open conflict. And they were saying
(19:04):
this because Egypt had banned Israeli vessels from that straight earlier.
The reason that's important is because the vital port of
Israel El Yat is you need the street to get there,
basically for shipping to happen Egypt.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Before we keep going there, just think about how much
this is lining.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Up with.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
It seems like it's like a one to one with
like the Straight of Hormuz, only in this case we
did the action that led to the closing of the strait,
whereas this was I'm curious it's maybe some a little
more uh detail around why.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
They closed it in the first place.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
It didn't seem like they were provoked in the way
that Iran was in this current situation.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
There was a lot of back and forth leading up
to the Six Day War, and these nations, not the
people necessarily the government, hated each other. They're an economic competition.
They are both attempting regional control. That's just the truth,
plainly put. And Egypt pulled Israel's bluff and they banned
(20:14):
not all ships from the strait because they still wanted
to make money, they banned all Israeli flagged ships. Israel
did retaliate. They had something called Operation Focus. This was
a series of concurrent air strikes and ground force movements
that absolutely demolished Egypt's air force, establishing regional air supremacy.
(20:39):
And then they entered and occupied the Snai Peninsula. It
was terrible for the innocent people living on the peninsula
at the time because the Egyptian government said, hey, everybody
has to evacuate, and this land was overtaken. And this
occupation of the Nai peninsula inspired or galvanized, we could say,
(21:04):
other Arab nations to join with the cause of Egypt.
Now they weren't all like Syria and Jordan, weren't all
attacking with the same ferocity, but they were very much
on on on the side of Egypt. So we've got
the one nation, Israel, and then we've got the other
nations responding in force. This is one the multiple fight.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And again i'm I might get some of this wrong,
but this is my understanding. So if we've got historians
right in and tell us and we can we can
fix things. But my understanding is that that is a
pretty aggressive move by Egypt to say, hey, everybody could
come through, but you Israel, you can't come in.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
That's a pretty out.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
I mean, that's like you know, calling calling them out
and then the most you know, public way possible or
at least among the coalition.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
But it's still not hot conflict, right, it's not.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
That's not a violent, dangerous It is a lead up
to that, for sure.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
It feels like, yeah, them's fighting words, right.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Last thing here is just that the attacks that that
Israel carried out in response to some of this uh
been the way you describe them as perfect. But there's
that there's a word that's really important in here. And
this is my understanding of it too in writing about it.
Even the US historian on the website you can find
(22:28):
now talks about the surprise, the nature of the surprise
attacks like the not that attacks are announced. Right, it's different, right,
It's it's all of a sudden, bombs are going off
at an airport, an airfield, and now you can't get
any flight, like you can't send anything out of that
(22:48):
airfield anymore. And it just happens like that, and it's over.
When Ben you were you were talking about gaining air superiority. Again,
just the nature of it happening in a flash, rather than.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Even some warning me.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Again, they did say, they did say if you, if
you ban Israeli vessels from the Strait, this will be
caused as belly, which is the Latin phrase for reason
to go to war. Egypt called their bluff and the
other nation responded. And we're just being objective about that.
We're not we're not trying to tilt the scales on
(23:27):
this one, folks, but we do want you to know
the context because in the midst of this sudden chaos
and bloodshed what could indeed be called disproportionate response, our
little USS liberty is continuing its mission and they get
they get notes from I call it good stuff.
Speaker 5 (23:50):
I bet they're getting some good stuff during all of this.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Well, they get. What was going to say is they're
getting notes from their command that says, okay, scoop back
a little bit further, right, make sure you're in international waters.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
My understanding is that on June second, so before this
this whole conflict got hot, they were headed from Spain.
I think there were the USS Liberty was in Spain
and it was heading towards that Egyptian coast over there
by the Sinai Peninsula. But so they were already, as
you're saying, they were already doing their thing kind of
(24:24):
all the way over there, and then all of this
takes off. Isn't that a little I mean, I guess
if their tensions happening diploma, you know, diplomatic tensions occurring
openly the way it was going down, you might send
your your ship over there just to check things out.
Or you're saying one side.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
You're saying, maybe it was already in the zone because
this was sort of like brewing, and it was predicted
that maybe this was going to go down, and then
once it really popped off, the bosses to your point, band,
we're like, just pop a little scooch so you can
get right out of harm's way, but stick around enough
to keep those tapes rolling.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah, and again they had previous since that fell wind.
That's why they were sending the Liberty in the first place,
because the United States was technically a neutral country in
the war, but they wanted to know what's going on.
They wanted visibility Israel. According to the sources we've looked at,
(25:20):
their government asked the US government to remove quote any
vessels from its shore and end quote there. And they said, look,
at a bare minimum, let us know the exact position
of any US vessels in the area. So if you
have some reason, Uncle Sam, that you cannot get these
(25:42):
out of our way while we're doing this war, let
us know who not to shoot. That was their message.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah, well that in that God, that makes sense.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Hey, we're in a hot conflict right now. We're attacking
things actively with our airplanes in our or the rest
of the arsenal we have. Let us know if you're
going to be around, because we are shooting stuff in
the moment, and people fly false flags sometimes, right. What
I'm saying is somebody else could be flying an American
flag potentially out there on a.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Ship, and again, not an unreasonable request.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
Guys, I didn't really know that.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
So that's obviously the term false flag attack comes from
this concept, but it's sometimes as simple as that as
someone literally hoisting a decoy flag.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Check out our episode on Russian shadow fleets.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
It's been a long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Nobe, I.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Think think back to our experience on the Virgin Voyages cruise.
And imagine looking out in the distance and seeing a ship. Yea, right,
and now imagine you can look at that ship with
binoculars and some high powered optics from your ship, or
you can connect with them via some kind of communications. Right,
(26:54):
How else are you going to verify who that is
from that distance?
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Yeah, for sure. Now I gets the concept.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
I just the simple subterfuge of just hoisting an artificial flag.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
For lack of a better term, I just think it's so.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
We're responding with colms that you are of whatever nation,
for sure.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
And so it came to pass. On June eighth, nineteen
sixty seven, Israeli forces attacked the USS Liberty. This is
not a matter of speculation. This did occur. There were
jet fighters bombing from the sky. Israeli naval forces were
launching torpedoes. Over one hundred and seventy people on the
(27:36):
Liberty were injured, some grievously. Thirty four crew members died
on that day within about twenty three minutes to an hour.
The ship is basically dead in the water. From what
we understand from what has been declassified, the attacking forces
led up and relented when they thought the Liberty was
(27:59):
due to sink into the water. Make no mistake, folks,
this was the deadliest assault on a US ship since
World War Two. There are a bunch of inquiries.
Speaker 5 (28:12):
As there should have been.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Well, guys, we know what they found. Both nations they concluded. Well,
the government of Israel concluded that the attack was mistaken identity.
It was a deadly a deadly mistake, but it was
a mistake. Nonetheless, the US investigation largely agreed. They stopped
(28:34):
short of saying it was an accident, but they definitely
did not say it was malevolence. And the issue is
even now people don't buy the official story.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Yeah. Well, and it's also gosh, it is wrapped up
with all kinds of terrible stuff. I'm not gonna put
this guy's allegations of anti Semitism if you think about
this too much, or you talk about this too much.
I'm looking at the Anti Defamation League's website. It's a
(29:10):
great article which I recommend you read, The USS Liberty Incident.
How a tragic mistake became an enduring anti Semitic trope.
So we do know that it can be used and
weaponized the topic we're talking about, this attack, this mistake,
whatever it is, it can be used in a very
negative way. But it is important to be able to
explore a topic like this and everything that we're going
(29:33):
to be doing today without that fear of being labeled
something just because you're exploring history.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
It's a tricky well, it's a tricky moment now in
particular for that kind of stuff, just with a lot
of the division, you know, between Israel and Palestine and
all of that stuff. I mean, it is kind of
become this hot It has been a hot button issue
for a long long time, but now in particular, I
think that fear is very valid. But that is we are,
of course coming at it from a place of ultimately historical,
(30:02):
not neutrality, but just we're talking about history here.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
And we have to ask what actually happened. Thank you
again to everybody who has written in inspiring this episode.
Will be right back after a word from our sponsors.
Here's where it gets crazy. Okay, Factually we can all
(30:26):
agree the events themselves are pretty cut and dry. What
we mean by that is we know when the attack occurred,
we know that it did happen, we know the planes
the aircraft, the vessels involved. We know the rough time span.
I think I said this earlier, but twenty three minutes
to an hour, depending upon whom you ask. We know
(30:49):
the placing, the positioning, which was in international waters. What
we don't know is way more difficult to ascertain. Why
did this attack occur in the first Was it really
an accident? Was it later portrayed as such to sort
of calm the waters of international relationships between the US
(31:10):
and Israel. I think it's worth noting that from the
beginning the Nation of Israel apologized for the attack, has
consistently always said it was basically a screw up, and
their claim is that they legitimately mistook, in the fog
of war, the USS Liberty for an Egyptian ship.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
And just to be clear, at this point in history,
US and Israel were not nearly as cozy buddy buddies
as we are now.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Well that's an interesting question, though. They were pretty close.
Maybe not for I mean, countries don't really have friends.
They were pretty close because Israel was the US at
the time saw it as the bulwark of democracy in
(32:02):
the region, So this was their way in to the region.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
I guess what I'm asking is to understood if this
were to happen today, do you think that same streak
of anti Semitism and blame gamery would happen or would
it be much more quickly played off and supported by
the US government. That yes, in fact, it was a
dreadful mistake by our dear pals.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
It's a tough it's a sticky wicket. It's a bag
of badgers for sure. Because then is now, the US
response was deeply divided. We can't even talk about the
public of America just yet. We have to talk about
the political class and the members of the military, some
of whom immediately accepted this official explanation. A lot of
(32:48):
people had seen war before, they know terrible mistakes occur,
and they said, okay, we believe you. We are going
to launch our own US led inquiry. The problem was
from day one, the survivors of the attack on the
USS Liberty disputed all of this, and they said very
(33:10):
basic questions. Guys. They said, look, our signage is visible,
We're an American flagged ship. There's no way this is
an accident. For Pete's sake, the signage on our ship
was in English. It's not in Arabic, you know what
I mean. And also, if you're a highly trained military,
(33:32):
shouldn't you recognize what most of Egypt's naval forces will
look like, how they will present.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
Ah, do you think the fog of war is always
an excuse?
Speaker 5 (33:43):
Is more of like is it real?
Speaker 4 (33:45):
I know it is real, and we're literally talking about
on the battlefield friendly fire type stuff. But I'm with you, man,
this seems odd like they using that argument, you know
what I mean in this like, I don't know, Like
to Matt's point, you probably could have just used your
deck but binoculars and taking a look and figured out
what was going on in terms of who the ship
belonged to.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Well, it is weird to me. According to the Office
of the Historian for the United States Government, when you
can chere other website and the official stuff there it's
the US Department of State Bureau of Administration.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
To imagine, I have to imagine it's been edited a
good bed. Well in recent they've times right, they got.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Well, they've got official timelines here. The CIA has done
some significant writing about like trying to get to the
bottom of exactly what happened. There's all kinds of sources
you can find out there. The thing that that strikes
me as interesting in context of this is that the
ship was they call it orbited by two unidentified Delta
(34:46):
wing single engine jet fighters, and they are presuming that
these are Israeli Mirages, that's the type of vehicle, type
of plane or jet, And and that happens at nine
point fifty am and the attack doesn't officially start until
(35:07):
three zero five pm, which makes me think, if you've
got that amount of time elapsed between first buzzing this
ship with jets theoretically to warn and to perhaps estab
like fully identify the ship, that's just a lot of
elapsed time. And it's curious to me. And I do
(35:28):
wonder why that exists, why that was real. Do you
think that's normal buzz by a ship and then all
those hours later just do an attack, almost a surprise attack.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
The buzz is normal, It feels right to me. The
buzz is normal for sure, and.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Meaning buzz like what like just a little bit of
a low fly fly by, Yeah, if you want to
call it that.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Yeah. And we know that part of the reason we're
doing this episode is because of the survivors, the people
who made it. Through this thing, we know that they
were as consistent and have been as consistent in their
claims of a cover up. We also know that high
(36:14):
level military minds agreed. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff at the Times, a guy named Thomas Minman Morr.
He didn't. He's like a Smedley Butler level character, not
so much on bedside manner. He straight up accused the
President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson, of knowing the
(36:38):
official story was crap and hogwash, and he said, you potus,
have hovered up the truth. He's speaking, he's speaking hard
things to what is essentially kind of the King of
the United States, the commander in chief. Of This debate
continued for decades, and even now, as we're recording again
(37:00):
fourteenth July twenty six, survivors and their families and their
descendants they feel no justice was served. I do think
it's important for us to point out that, in addition
to an official apology and an official inquiry determining this
was an accident, the Israeli government paid millions in compensation
(37:24):
over decades, and pretty significant amounts of money as well.
We're talking three point three two million dollars in nineteen
sixty eight, which is again the year after the attack,
nineteen sixty nine. Another three point five seven million dollars
in March of that year. Fast forward to nineteen eighty
(37:45):
six million dollars in payment. This was agreed to be
the final settlement payment. Plus get this guy's thirteen years
of interest. I'm still weirded out about that part.
Speaker 5 (37:57):
Yeah, the interest, let's yeah, that's got to add up.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
That's a really good thing, though, Right a country, any country,
recognizes they've done something wrong in an attempt to make
something right, that we have to acknowledge how positive that is.
Speaker 5 (38:17):
I think I agree.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
It doesn't forgive, It doesn't forgive the you know, dead lives.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
It's taking responsibility at the very least and owning up
to it in a way that seems like has become
less and less a thing.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Right, it's a blood price. Sure. I'm just not a
fan of quantifying a human life well as a dollar amount.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
I don't think anyone's saying I just I just mean,
like it seems like lately just no one will ever.
It seems like no one ever admits they've made a
mistake in government anymore, or in these kinds of conflicts,
and this is there's something a little refreshing about the
framework of this.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
At the very least, it does feel like it goes
against the mantra of you know, never apologize, that kind
of thing that we hear in power.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Circles from gross people.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Most people say, never apologize.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
Yeah, I deny and always claim victory.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
It always claim it was somebody else's fault. Right, the
narcissist prayer, which is unfortunately very easy to look up
and see an action today. As we mentioned earlier, the
US had an official conclusion that largely agreed with the
inquiry of the Israeli government.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Right.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
The US stopped short of calling it an accident, but
did not determine purpose or malevolence. It turns out, even now,
there are a lot of problems with this story. Now, folks,
we talked backstage as we were recording, and we have
determined that this will be a two part series, So
(39:48):
please do stay tuned as we get into the problems
with that official narrative, the questions, the further investigations. I
can't wait to talk about Ward Boston, can't wait to
talk about survivors like Maurice Schaeffer. We have so much
more to get to. We cannot wait for you to
join us, and we want to hear from you, so
(40:10):
in advance of second chapter on the USS Liberty, we'd
love your thoughts. Please find us on the line, call
us on a phone. You can always send us an email.
Speaker 5 (40:21):
You sure can.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
If you want to find us on the lions, do
so by reaching out to the handle's Conspiracy Stuff or
Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on which of those platforms is
your thing.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yes, and we have a phone number. It is one
eight to three three std WYTK. It's a voicemail system.
You got three minutes. Give yourself a cool nickname and
let us know if we can use your name and
message on one of our listener mail episodes that show
up on our audio feeds where if you find those
in the meantime, believe before you come back for the
second episode, see if you can find the intelligence memorandum
(40:55):
the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty put together by
the CIA. It's only you can find it on the
CIA dot gov website. Check that out. We love to hear,
we'd love to hear your thoughts on that, in particular,
as we continue to explore this topic. Hey, we have
an email.
Speaker 5 (41:12):
We are the.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
Entities that read each piece of correspondence we receive. Be
well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back quick
pro quo, clarice. Send us a random fact. We will
send you one in return. I'd like us to end
chapter one of this series with an intelligence report we'll
get into in chapter two. This is a reading from
(41:36):
an Israeli pilot to the IDF war room. It goes, quote,
but sir, it's an American ship. I can see the flag.
The IDF war room to the Israeli pilot responds, never mind,
hit it. We'll see you out here in the dark.
Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They called me Bed. We're joined as always with our
super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here that makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know? And fellow conspiracy realist
on Netflix or your podcast platform of choice. Tonight's episode
has been quite some time in the making. You know
(00:55):
you guys will recall that ever since we started the show,
certain conspiratory oriole subjects kept popping up repeatedly, and Matt,
you'll re called this, and Noel, you'll recalled this. We
used to spend a lot of time in the YouTube
comments on our original show. It would be going back
(01:17):
and forth through like hundreds of week and noticing different
things that kept resurfacing.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Spiracy, Whack the mole man, conspiracy, whack them all. This
is a fascinating one, A vaguely maritime naval navally themed
episode and an absolute conspiracy that has been I know
you've been following for a long time.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Then, well, fourteen years ago we put out episodes on
the Old House Stuffworks channel about false flag attacks. We
did a multi video series on false flag attacks, and
that got us extremely interested in all the various times
that countries and powers have used the flag of so
someone else to get something done.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
It's dirty, pool man. Isn't that kind of like against
the rules of engagement?
Speaker 5 (02:06):
And it seems like, I mean.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
You know what I mean, it's kind of if you
if you at least, yeah, it's a bad look. I
agree with that. If you study the passage of Empires. Uh,
it's street ball. What's the trojan horse? Is that a
false flag attack? Or is that just a trojan horse attack?
That's a trojan horse attack? Correct, Yeah, congrats to everybody
who built that one off one of these topics. Look
(02:31):
for the movie right right what it's an odyssey. I'm
sure hopefully not, Honda. One of the one of the
things these topics that we continually saw way back in
the day was historically considered too sensitive to be in
your textbooks in the United States. This is a true story.
(02:54):
Even talking about this could get you in trouble, and so,
inspired by a recent conversation on our weekly listener mail segment,
we decided to dive in. This is a story of death.
It is fraught with communication breakdowns, quite possibly depending upon
whom you ask. This is one of the biggest cover
(03:17):
ups in modern American history.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
And one of the primary reasons we're talking about this
today is because a guy named Thomas Massey went before
Congress and kind of laid it all out as a
Congressional record. Not that it wasn't already a part of
American history. The thing we're talking about today and a
known thing has been known for a long time, but
a human being that is on the upper echelons of
(03:41):
our legislature spelled it all out in front of everybody
because he had recently met with some folks who were
at the heart of the thing we're going to talk
about today. So I think that's important just to put here,
because you can go right now and you can listen
to those remarks. You can read some Snopes articles that
are in relation to theories that have popped up around
(04:04):
the Internet about the things that Thomas Massey said. There's
a lot of red meat there and things to discover,
and we're going to be talking about it today. It
is vastly important, but it is it is heated up
I think because of that action.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Agreed, this is the true story of the USS Liberty
or We're going to give you what we know, folks,
and we want to hear from you. So conspiracy at
iHeartRadio dot com. You tell us your thoughts at the
end of this exploration, well, pause for a word from
our sponsors. Will be right back. Here are the facts
(04:45):
USS Liberty. It's a ship, right.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
Body mcbotface would have been a more appropriate name, though, no,
it was not that.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
But it was not originally called the USS Liberty. This
ship has had a long and surprisingly distinctive, unique story.
It was originally called the SS Simmons Victory, that is,
the ship that would become the Liberty. And it was
finished being built on May the fourth, nineteen forty five,
(05:12):
intended to serve in.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
World War Two.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
The day after it was completed May fifth, nineteen forty five,
it shipped off for the Pacific Theater and then, of course,
as we know, world War two ended, so the Simmons
became part of what was called the National Defense Reserve. Fleet,
which meant essentially that it was helping assist commercial charter
(05:37):
vessels and cargo carriers, right, the kind of things you
would see all around ports in the United States. They
removed all of the armament so it couldn't fire on,
you know, a rogue cargo carrier. This ship, the Simmons,
could have spent the rest of its career just cruising up, down,
(06:00):
and around the Hudson. Also, we should note that in
maritime culture and tradition, we're supposed to refer to vessels
in a gendered way. We're gonna say it instead of she,
just for the sake of conversation.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
That makes sense.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Unfortunately, things didn't really work out that way. The Simmons
could have stayed the Simmons and probably have been up
and down and around that area of the US until
the seventies, but war was not done. The Simmons got
pulled back into action during the Korean War. From nineteen
(06:40):
fifty to nineteen fifty two. It made something like nine
trips to the Pacific theater, primarily to carry war supplies.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
Well, what are we talking here, like, how many sailors
would have manned this vessel?
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Pretty small amount in comparison to the naval might we
here when other US vessels are discussed to.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Not a warship per se, not like a battleship. This
is more of a courier. Like you said, it was
there to ferry supplies to and from the theater of war.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Right right, a logistics supplier, and it did that function
during the Korean War. The Korean War reached its current
state as we record on July fourteenth, which is a
Tuesday in twenty six folks, it's important to remember, maybe
the West won't tell you as often as they should,
(07:34):
the Korean peninsula is still very much in conflict. They
just hit the pause button. They've been in a cartoonishly
long cease fire for decades.
Speaker 5 (07:46):
What's a cold war of its own?
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Right?
Speaker 4 (07:47):
I mean essentially between the North and the South. They're
just in like the what is it called the what's
that line of demarcation called the DMZ the DMZ, right.
But then there's also Joint Security Area.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
Yes, got it.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
That's a little blue building that you.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Could where they show you a video if I'm not mistaken, Ben,
that you experienced, right, mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah, it's all about how the DMZ is great for birds.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
That's right. I knew there was. It was bird related.
If I'm coming back to me now.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Oh yeah, next time we hang out there. Man, you
got to check out the film.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
Sounds good.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
The Simmons, we do know, survived the Korean War. It
comes back to the United States and it is deemed
a missillaneous auxiliary ship. And that's I'm reading tea leaves here.
But it does sound a lot like Uncle Sam said
down loud. Yeah, it's been in two wars, it hasn't sank.
(08:48):
We should just you know, keep it around. It's a
lunch of money.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Too though, right, Like it's sort of like saying that
maybe it's seen, it's it's time, right, and maybe it's
time to do something different with it.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Yeah, and different happens. This is the story of the
Simmons and it's transformation. It's June of nineteen sixty three,
when the Simmons gets a new lease on life. It
is renamed. It is now the USS Liberty, and it
is reclassified. No longer civilian stuff, no longer helping cargo carriers.
(09:24):
It is now a Belmont class Technical Research Ship or
designation agt R five. Can't let the euphemistic name, fool us.
It is a spy ship.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Now, I mean it's researching the business of the enemy basically.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Right, yeah, Joseph or anybody, right.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Yeah, it's gathering intel.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
It's gathered it's it's data mining, you know, out there
in those high seas.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah, and this is highly important to our story today,
this moment. Don't let it slip past you. The concept
that a ship was refitted to be a spy implement
that floats around on the water and is big and imposing,
but also just a ship and it's a research vessel.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
It's fine, where do they get all those marvelous toys?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Happened right now? This is why we're saying it's a euphemism.
Fellow conspiracy realist, that title technical research it refers to
in this case, when the million dollars worth of spoopy
Dupe upgrades, and for a quick inflation calculator, that equates
to a little over two hundred and nineteen million dollars
(10:39):
worth of upgrades here in twenty six.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
That's the budget of Avatar three f ash And so
of course they expect to return I think so how
it hopes to.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, it's an interesting thing. To consider because often on
the show we've talked about spy planes and satellites, you
know technology that's usually up above that has the capability
of looking down and observing things.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Well, it makes more sense logistically, like it's a bird's
eye views, and it's a lot more out of the way,
it's easier to kind of hide. But these, you know,
naval vessels out in the ocean, they're also got their
own kind of way of hiding for sure.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
But if you're going to do any kind of let's say,
visual spying, you're at sea level literally, and anything you
know above sea level, you're going to have a problem
checking out and seeing. If you've got high level microphone
systems they can pick things up from far away. You're
going to pick up other vessels potentially, or stuff at ports,
(11:37):
things that are happening very close to the coastline. It
does maybe wonder what are they actually, like, how are
they spying on people?
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Ben, Yeah, the mission of the newly minted Liberty is
to support our friends at no such agency, national Security Administration,
by collect national security agency, by collecting and processing what
is called signals intelligence. So, like you were saying, Matt H.
(12:07):
Scuttle butt off the port radio communication WORSE code, which
was very huge at the time. Anything related to a
very vague definition of national interest is up for grabs,
up for hoovery. It also got four pretty heavy machine
guns added on to you know, make it look serious
(12:29):
in the case, right, justin.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
You know you have not need it, then need it
and not have it, you know.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, you get in situations.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
So they're they're intercepting. That's what they're out there.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
They're out there in the in those seas, intercepting communications
and then funneling that information to the appropriate parties in
the NSA that they can then add that to their
bundle of intel.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
You know, yeah, intercepting but not interfering. Kind of like
lurking on a subreddit. This is photographers want to get
back to what you were saying earlier, because this is
a pretty brilliant concept. The problem with so much land
based collection stuff is that your HQ often ends up
(13:11):
being static. It's difficult to move all your equipment without
being noticed, and once an enemy force clocks you, the
jig is up. So if you basically what they did
with the Liberty is they created a pop up spy
store on the high seats. It was very easy to
move and as long as you're not looking for something
(13:34):
super far in land, you have a catbird seat. Pretty cool,
and they were pretty successful for a while. So where
are you going to park your pop up spy store
right if your uncle Sam. In June of nineteen sixty five,
(13:55):
the Liberty went off on its first leg of monitoring missions,
and like you were saying earlier, Nol, they were not
intervening in things, they were collecting stuff. Into your earlier
question that I think we know they had radio monitoring capabilities,
so totally if they could, if they could clock or
(14:18):
track some sort of aircraft, they were doing that too.
They were off the western coast of Africa and Ran
I don't want to sound too weird about it or paranoid,
but they ran five missions that we know of, five
spy missions in that area on the western coast of
Africa from nineteen sixty five up to nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
And we were talking a little bit off Mike, just
trying to like come up with an appropriate comparison in
the spy world of like a land version of this,
and I think we landed on like it's sort of
like the unmarked van sitting outside of like you know,
a mafia headquarters, like with the dudes with headphones on
the end, but at sea and completely moveable and much
(15:03):
more focused on intercepting communications rather than like listening in
on like you know, physical bugs or something like that.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Yeah, like a spy food truck. You know, there you go.
Everything changed in nineteen sixty seven, in summer in June,
the Liberty deployed to the Mediterranean. And this is where
it lingers technically in international waters, so they're not intruding
upon sovereignty. They're in international waters near the north coast
(15:35):
of Sinai, Egypt. And as in previous missions, they're not
there to fire munitions, they're not there to try to
storm the beach or anything. They just want to collect
as much intelligence as possible. So why the Mediterranean, right,
why West African coast to the Mediterranean.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Well, historians seem to have a pretty good idea of
why the Mediterranean, and that would be the infamous Six
Day War, right.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yeah, pretty much everybody in the know felt something bad
was in the wind, kind of like remember that scene
in the Lord of the Rings adaptation where the elf
legalis walks out on a promontory and says, there's a
fell wind.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Oh I do love a fell wind. And that's an
elden ring thing too, the fell omen isn't that one
of the bad guys? Margot, Margot, Margot anyway, Yeah, fell
it's a good word, very very spooky.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
An open conflict had not broken out in the Middle
East just yet, but everybody was thinking this is inevitable.
It's a matter of when rather than a matter of if.
The usual diplomatic off ramps are failing. So Uncle Sam, understandably,
the biggest superpower post World War Two, they want to
(16:56):
know what's going on, and they successfully predicted, as you
mentioned earlier, Noel, a six day war. They didn't call
it that until after it was.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
Over, for sure.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Yeah, I was not aware of the Sixth Day War.
Were aware of the Hundred Years War and other spans
of time, but didn't know about the Sixth Day War.
So maybe some folks out there didn't either. So let's
jump into what that was all about. It took place
from June fifth to the tenth six days of nineteen
sixty seven. It was an escalation of ongoing tension.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
It's been going on for so so long.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
It's exhausting in the Middle East, with the nation of
Israel fighting a group of other countries in the region,
mainly we're talking about Egypt, Syria.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
And Jordan.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
I'm not an historian, but it is a fascinating moment
in history. The reason that six days is literally because
of six days, but it also reminds everybody how quickly
the conflict was ended by Israel, right like it was
one and done. We knocked this out six days. That's
what's up. It was a coalition of countries and I
(18:05):
mean you could there's gorilla groups involved. There's just as
we talk about in many of the conflicts that have
occurred in the Middle East, there's money flowing into you know,
groups right that end up operating and doing things and
attacks taking over places like in an individual city, a town,
a region. But then you also have full fledged countries
(18:29):
that are stepping up and doing military operations. There is
a lot to learn about the Six Day War. I
would just put out there, and we're not going to
be able to cover all of it right now, but
this is we're going to give you the overview.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Yeah, the quick and dirty. The quick and dirty is
this Israel had already stated to the nation of Egypt
that if they closed the straits of Tehran t I
r a n, they would consider it a hause for
a hot war, an open conflict. And they were saying
(19:04):
this because Egypt had banned Israeli vessels from that straight earlier.
The reason that's important is because the vital port of
Israel El Yat is you need the street to get there,
basically for shipping to happen Egypt.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Before we keep going there, just think about how much
this is lining.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Up with.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
It seems like it's like a one to one with
like the Straight of Hormuz, only in this case we
did the action that led to the closing of the strait,
whereas this was I'm curious it's maybe some a little
more uh detail around why.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
They closed it in the first place.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
It didn't seem like they were provoked in the way
that Iran was in this current situation.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
There was a lot of back and forth leading up
to the Six Day War, and these nations, not the
people necessarily the government, hated each other. They're an economic competition.
They are both attempting regional control. That's just the truth,
plainly put. And Egypt pulled Israel's bluff and they banned
(20:14):
not all ships from the strait because they still wanted
to make money, they banned all Israeli flagged ships. Israel
did retaliate. They had something called Operation Focus. This was
a series of concurrent air strikes and ground force movements
that absolutely demolished Egypt's air force, establishing regional air supremacy.
(20:39):
And then they entered and occupied the Snai Peninsula. It
was terrible for the innocent people living on the peninsula
at the time because the Egyptian government said, hey, everybody
has to evacuate, and this land was overtaken. And this
occupation of the Nai peninsula inspired or galvanized, we could say,
(21:04):
other Arab nations to join with the cause of Egypt.
Now they weren't all like Syria and Jordan, weren't all
attacking with the same ferocity, but they were very much
on on on the side of Egypt. So we've got
the one nation, Israel, and then we've got the other
nations responding in force. This is one the multiple fight.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And again i'm I might get some of this wrong,
but this is my understanding. So if we've got historians
right in and tell us and we can we can
fix things. But my understanding is that that is a
pretty aggressive move by Egypt to say, hey, everybody could
come through, but you Israel, you can't come in.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
That's a pretty out.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
I mean, that's like you know, calling calling them out
and then the most you know, public way possible or
at least among the coalition.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
But it's still not hot conflict, right, it's not.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
That's not a violent, dangerous It is a lead up
to that, for sure.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
It feels like, yeah, them's fighting words, right.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Last thing here is just that the attacks that that
Israel carried out in response to some of this uh
been the way you describe them as perfect. But there's
that there's a word that's really important in here. And
this is my understanding of it too in writing about it.
Even the US historian on the website you can find
(22:28):
now talks about the surprise, the nature of the surprise
attacks like the not that attacks are announced. Right, it's different, right,
It's it's all of a sudden, bombs are going off
at an airport, an airfield, and now you can't get
any flight, like you can't send anything out of that
(22:48):
airfield anymore. And it just happens like that, and it's over.
When Ben you were you were talking about gaining air superiority. Again,
just the nature of it happening in a flash, rather than.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Even some warning me.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Again, they did say, they did say if you, if
you ban Israeli vessels from the Strait, this will be
caused as belly, which is the Latin phrase for reason
to go to war. Egypt called their bluff and the
other nation responded. And we're just being objective about that.
We're not we're not trying to tilt the scales on
(23:27):
this one, folks, but we do want you to know
the context because in the midst of this sudden chaos
and bloodshed what could indeed be called disproportionate response, our
little USS liberty is continuing its mission and they get
they get notes from I call it good stuff.
Speaker 5 (23:50):
I bet they're getting some good stuff during all of this.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Well, they get. What was going to say is they're
getting notes from their command that says, okay, scoop back
a little bit further, right, make sure you're in international waters.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
My understanding is that on June second, so before this
this whole conflict got hot, they were headed from Spain.
I think there were the USS Liberty was in Spain
and it was heading towards that Egyptian coast over there
by the Sinai Peninsula. But so they were already, as
you're saying, they were already doing their thing kind of
(24:24):
all the way over there, and then all of this
takes off. Isn't that a little I mean, I guess
if their tensions happening diploma, you know, diplomatic tensions occurring
openly the way it was going down, you might send
your your ship over there just to check things out.
Or you're saying one side.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
You're saying, maybe it was already in the zone because
this was sort of like brewing, and it was predicted
that maybe this was going to go down, and then
once it really popped off, the bosses to your point, band,
we're like, just pop a little scooch so you can
get right out of harm's way, but stick around enough
to keep those tapes rolling.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah, and again they had previous since that fell wind.
That's why they were sending the Liberty in the first place,
because the United States was technically a neutral country in
the war, but they wanted to know what's going on.
They wanted visibility Israel. According to the sources we've looked at,
(25:20):
their government asked the US government to remove quote any
vessels from its shore and end quote there. And they said, look,
at a bare minimum, let us know the exact position
of any US vessels in the area. So if you
have some reason, Uncle Sam, that you cannot get these
(25:42):
out of our way while we're doing this war, let
us know who not to shoot. That was their message.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah, well that in that God, that makes sense.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Hey, we're in a hot conflict right now. We're attacking
things actively with our airplanes in our or the rest
of the arsenal we have. Let us know if you're
going to be around, because we are shooting stuff in
the moment, and people fly false flags sometimes, right. What
I'm saying is somebody else could be flying an American
flag potentially out there on a.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Ship, and again, not an unreasonable request.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
Guys, I didn't really know that.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
So that's obviously the term false flag attack comes from
this concept, but it's sometimes as simple as that as
someone literally hoisting a decoy flag.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Check out our episode on Russian shadow fleets.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
It's been a long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Nobe, I.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Think think back to our experience on the Virgin Voyages cruise.
And imagine looking out in the distance and seeing a ship. Yea, right,
and now imagine you can look at that ship with
binoculars and some high powered optics from your ship, or
you can connect with them via some kind of communications. Right,
(26:54):
How else are you going to verify who that is
from that distance?
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Yeah, for sure. Now I gets the concept.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
I just the simple subterfuge of just hoisting an artificial flag.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
For lack of a better term, I just think it's so.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
We're responding with colms that you are of whatever nation,
for sure.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
And so it came to pass. On June eighth, nineteen
sixty seven, Israeli forces attacked the USS Liberty. This is
not a matter of speculation. This did occur. There were
jet fighters bombing from the sky. Israeli naval forces were
launching torpedoes. Over one hundred and seventy people on the
(27:36):
Liberty were injured, some grievously. Thirty four crew members died
on that day within about twenty three minutes to an hour.
The ship is basically dead in the water. From what
we understand from what has been declassified, the attacking forces
led up and relented when they thought the Liberty was
(27:59):
due to sink into the water. Make no mistake, folks,
this was the deadliest assault on a US ship since
World War Two. There are a bunch of inquiries.
Speaker 5 (28:12):
As there should have been.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Well, guys, we know what they found. Both nations they concluded. Well,
the government of Israel concluded that the attack was mistaken identity.
It was a deadly a deadly mistake, but it was
a mistake. Nonetheless, the US investigation largely agreed. They stopped
(28:34):
short of saying it was an accident, but they definitely
did not say it was malevolence. And the issue is
even now people don't buy the official story.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Yeah. Well, and it's also gosh, it is wrapped up
with all kinds of terrible stuff. I'm not gonna put
this guy's allegations of anti Semitism if you think about
this too much, or you talk about this too much.
I'm looking at the Anti Defamation League's website. It's a
(29:10):
great article which I recommend you read, The USS Liberty Incident.
How a tragic mistake became an enduring anti Semitic trope.
So we do know that it can be used and
weaponized the topic we're talking about, this attack, this mistake,
whatever it is, it can be used in a very
negative way. But it is important to be able to
explore a topic like this and everything that we're going
(29:33):
to be doing today without that fear of being labeled
something just because you're exploring history.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
It's a tricky well, it's a tricky moment now in
particular for that kind of stuff, just with a lot
of the division, you know, between Israel and Palestine and
all of that stuff. I mean, it is kind of
become this hot It has been a hot button issue
for a long long time, but now in particular, I
think that fear is very valid. But that is we are,
of course coming at it from a place of ultimately historical,
(30:02):
not neutrality, but just we're talking about history here.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
And we have to ask what actually happened. Thank you
again to everybody who has written in inspiring this episode.
Will be right back after a word from our sponsors.
Here's where it gets crazy. Okay, Factually we can all
(30:26):
agree the events themselves are pretty cut and dry. What
we mean by that is we know when the attack occurred,
we know that it did happen, we know the planes
the aircraft, the vessels involved. We know the rough time span.
I think I said this earlier, but twenty three minutes
to an hour, depending upon whom you ask. We know
(30:49):
the placing, the positioning, which was in international waters. What
we don't know is way more difficult to ascertain. Why
did this attack occur in the first Was it really
an accident? Was it later portrayed as such to sort
of calm the waters of international relationships between the US
(31:10):
and Israel. I think it's worth noting that from the
beginning the Nation of Israel apologized for the attack, has
consistently always said it was basically a screw up, and
their claim is that they legitimately mistook, in the fog
of war, the USS Liberty for an Egyptian ship.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
And just to be clear, at this point in history,
US and Israel were not nearly as cozy buddy buddies
as we are now.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Well that's an interesting question, though. They were pretty close.
Maybe not for I mean, countries don't really have friends.
They were pretty close because Israel was the US at
the time saw it as the bulwark of democracy in
(32:02):
the region, So this was their way in to the region.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
I guess what I'm asking is to understood if this
were to happen today, do you think that same streak
of anti Semitism and blame gamery would happen or would
it be much more quickly played off and supported by
the US government. That yes, in fact, it was a
dreadful mistake by our dear pals.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
It's a tough it's a sticky wicket. It's a bag
of badgers for sure. Because then is now, the US
response was deeply divided. We can't even talk about the
public of America just yet. We have to talk about
the political class and the members of the military, some
of whom immediately accepted this official explanation. A lot of
(32:48):
people had seen war before, they know terrible mistakes occur,
and they said, okay, we believe you. We are going
to launch our own US led inquiry. The problem was
from day one, the survivors of the attack on the
USS Liberty disputed all of this, and they said very
(33:10):
basic questions. Guys. They said, look, our signage is visible,
We're an American flagged ship. There's no way this is
an accident. For Pete's sake, the signage on our ship
was in English. It's not in Arabic, you know what
I mean. And also, if you're a highly trained military,
(33:32):
shouldn't you recognize what most of Egypt's naval forces will
look like, how they will present.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
Ah, do you think the fog of war is always
an excuse?
Speaker 5 (33:43):
Is more of like is it real?
Speaker 4 (33:45):
I know it is real, and we're literally talking about
on the battlefield friendly fire type stuff. But I'm with you, man,
this seems odd like they using that argument, you know
what I mean in this like, I don't know, Like
to Matt's point, you probably could have just used your
deck but binoculars and taking a look and figured out
what was going on in terms of who the ship
belonged to.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Well, it is weird to me. According to the Office
of the Historian for the United States Government, when you
can chere other website and the official stuff there it's
the US Department of State Bureau of Administration.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
To imagine, I have to imagine it's been edited a
good bed. Well in recent they've times right, they got.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Well, they've got official timelines here. The CIA has done
some significant writing about like trying to get to the
bottom of exactly what happened. There's all kinds of sources
you can find out there. The thing that that strikes
me as interesting in context of this is that the
ship was they call it orbited by two unidentified Delta
(34:46):
wing single engine jet fighters, and they are presuming that
these are Israeli Mirages, that's the type of vehicle, type
of plane or jet, And and that happens at nine
point fifty am and the attack doesn't officially start until
(35:07):
three zero five pm, which makes me think, if you've
got that amount of time elapsed between first buzzing this
ship with jets theoretically to warn and to perhaps estab
like fully identify the ship, that's just a lot of
elapsed time. And it's curious to me. And I do
(35:28):
wonder why that exists, why that was real. Do you
think that's normal buzz by a ship and then all
those hours later just do an attack, almost a surprise attack.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
The buzz is normal, It feels right to me. The
buzz is normal for sure, and.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Meaning buzz like what like just a little bit of
a low fly fly by, Yeah, if you want to
call it that.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Yeah. And we know that part of the reason we're
doing this episode is because of the survivors, the people
who made it. Through this thing, we know that they
were as consistent and have been as consistent in their
claims of a cover up. We also know that high
(36:14):
level military minds agreed. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff at the Times, a guy named Thomas Minman Morr.
He didn't. He's like a Smedley Butler level character, not
so much on bedside manner. He straight up accused the
President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson, of knowing the
(36:38):
official story was crap and hogwash, and he said, you potus,
have hovered up the truth. He's speaking, he's speaking hard
things to what is essentially kind of the King of
the United States, the commander in chief. Of This debate
continued for decades, and even now, as we're recording again
(37:00):
fourteenth July twenty six, survivors and their families and their
descendants they feel no justice was served. I do think
it's important for us to point out that, in addition
to an official apology and an official inquiry determining this
was an accident, the Israeli government paid millions in compensation
(37:24):
over decades, and pretty significant amounts of money as well.
We're talking three point three two million dollars in nineteen
sixty eight, which is again the year after the attack,
nineteen sixty nine. Another three point five seven million dollars
in March of that year. Fast forward to nineteen eighty
(37:45):
six million dollars in payment. This was agreed to be
the final settlement payment. Plus get this guy's thirteen years
of interest. I'm still weirded out about that part.
Speaker 5 (37:57):
Yeah, the interest, let's yeah, that's got to add up.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
That's a really good thing, though, Right a country, any country,
recognizes they've done something wrong in an attempt to make
something right, that we have to acknowledge how positive that is.
Speaker 5 (38:17):
I think I agree.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
It doesn't forgive, It doesn't forgive the you know, dead lives.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
It's taking responsibility at the very least and owning up
to it in a way that seems like has become
less and less a thing.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Right, it's a blood price. Sure. I'm just not a
fan of quantifying a human life well as a dollar amount.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
I don't think anyone's saying I just I just mean,
like it seems like lately just no one will ever.
It seems like no one ever admits they've made a
mistake in government anymore, or in these kinds of conflicts,
and this is there's something a little refreshing about the
framework of this.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
At the very least, it does feel like it goes
against the mantra of you know, never apologize, that kind
of thing that we hear in power.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Circles from gross people.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Most people say, never apologize.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
Yeah, I deny and always claim victory.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
It always claim it was somebody else's fault. Right, the
narcissist prayer, which is unfortunately very easy to look up
and see an action today. As we mentioned earlier, the
US had an official conclusion that largely agreed with the
inquiry of the Israeli government.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Right.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
The US stopped short of calling it an accident, but
did not determine purpose or malevolence. It turns out, even now,
there are a lot of problems with this story. Now, folks,
we talked backstage as we were recording, and we have
determined that this will be a two part series, So
(39:48):
please do stay tuned as we get into the problems
with that official narrative, the questions, the further investigations. I
can't wait to talk about Ward Boston, can't wait to
talk about survivors like Maurice Schaeffer. We have so much
more to get to. We cannot wait for you to
join us, and we want to hear from you, so
(40:10):
in advance of second chapter on the USS Liberty, we'd
love your thoughts. Please find us on the line, call
us on a phone. You can always send us an email.
Speaker 5 (40:21):
You sure can.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
If you want to find us on the lions, do
so by reaching out to the handle's Conspiracy Stuff or
Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on which of those platforms is
your thing.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yes, and we have a phone number. It is one
eight to three three std WYTK. It's a voicemail system.
You got three minutes. Give yourself a cool nickname and
let us know if we can use your name and
message on one of our listener mail episodes that show
up on our audio feeds where if you find those
in the meantime, believe before you come back for the
second episode, see if you can find the intelligence memorandum
(40:55):
the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty put together by
the CIA. It's only you can find it on the
CIA dot gov website. Check that out. We love to hear,
we'd love to hear your thoughts on that, in particular,
as we continue to explore this topic. Hey, we have
an email.
Speaker 5 (41:12):
We are the.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
Entities that read each piece of correspondence we receive. Be
well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back quick
pro quo, clarice. Send us a random fact. We will
send you one in return. I'd like us to end
chapter one of this series with an intelligence report we'll
get into in chapter two. This is a reading from
(41:36):
an Israeli pilot to the IDF war room. It goes, quote,
but sir, it's an American ship. I can see the flag.
The IDF war room to the Israeli pilot responds, never mind,
hit it. We'll see you out here in the dark.
Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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