The crew believed they were safe because the Israeli reconnaissance aircraft identified them as American and friendly, and they were assured by their captain that they were clearly marked as American.
The initial reaction was confusion and fear, as they assumed the attack was by an Arab state due to the unmarked jets. They quickly realized they were under attack and scrambled to their general quarters stations.
A radioman, Terry Haldabardier, took an offline antenna and ran a long wire to it, allowing the SOS signal to go out to the 6th Fleet, which was picked up as far away as Vietnam.
The jets were recalled by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and later by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who said, 'I don't care about a few dead sailors. I will not embarrass my ally, Israel.'
The Israelis took pictures of the ship before the attack, identified it as American, and even took a life raft as a trophy. They also dropped napalm and fired torpedoes, actions that indicate they knew exactly what they were doing.
The crew, despite being two-thirds dead or wounded, managed to keep the ship afloat and provide medical care to the injured. A doctor, despite being shot in the abdomen and knees, operated for 17 hours on the wounded.
The surviving crew members were ordered to remain silent about the attack, with threats of imprisonment or worse if they spoke out. They were also treated poorly by the U.S. government and Congress for decades.
The survivors are still fighting for recognition and have recently been trying to get records released through FOIA requests. They are also planning a speaking tour to share their story with the public.
Phil Turney is frustrated and believes that many politicians are cowards who lie to the public and are more loyal to Israel than to American servicemen. He calls on President Trump to help the USS Liberty survivors.
The website for the USS Liberty Veterans Association is usslibertyveterans.org, where people can donate, view pictures, and read articles about the incident.
All right, you guys, I'll get right into this. A couple of weeks ago, I received a letter that changed my life, certainly changed the course of my life in politics. And I'm going to read you that letter now and let you know that the author of it is sitting across from me. It reads, My name is Philip Turney. I am 77 years old today. On June 8th, 1967, I was just 20 years old when the gallant crew of the USS Liberty was savagely attacked by
Our American flag was proudly flying on our ship in the Mediterranean Sea that day. The designation A-G-T-R-5 was clearly painted on the bow, port, and starboard sides. USS Liberty was written in English on her stern. When we arrived on June 7th, we were overflown by Israeli reconnaissance aircraft, and the same activity was repeated on the morning of June 8th. We were positively identified as American and friendly by the IDF.
We had requested a destroyer escort long before we entered the Mediterranean, but we were denied twice. Our captain assured us that we were clearly marked as American and we therefore had nothing to fear. We were alone, 12 and a half miles off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula, always in international waters. The Israeli reconnaissance aircraft were clearly marked with the Star of David. We therefore felt secure seeing a flying boxcar and other smaller recon propeller aircraft taking good care of us.
The attack began at 2 o'clock on a beautiful, bright, sunny day by French-made Mirage and Mr. A jets painted black with no markings. We had no clue who was attacking us but assumed it was an Arab state. During the first pass by, the jets took out all but one of our transmitting antennas as well as every watertight door above the waterline. The air attack lasted about 25 minutes, killing and maiming our firefighters and any sailor who moved.
Our radioman took one antenna offline, so it wasn't transmitting and wasn't hit. He ran a long wire to it, and the SOS went out to the 6th Fleet. It was even picked up as far away as Vietnam. Rockstar, rockstar, under attack by an unknown jet aircraft. Help us, help us. Captain Tully, skipper of the USS Saratoga, sent jets to come to our aid. Before the jets hit the horizon, they were recalled by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
Captain Engen of the USS America in Tully relaunched more aircraft to aid us. They were also recalled, this time by Lyndon Baines Johnson himself. He said, "I don't care about a few dead sailors. I will not embarrass my ally, Israel. Return to base immediately." How did he know who was attacking us if we did not? We were set up by our own government to let a foreign government have their way with us. The IDF even dropped napalm on the bridge of our ship.
How low they would go, we would soon find out. Three motor torpedo boats headed our way and one torpedo hit our starboard side. We saw the Star of David on the boats. They were there to sink us. The attack continued for another hour and a half.
"Attacking jet aircraft destroyed all but three of our life rafts, which we had put overboard. We were going to place our most seriously wounded in them so that they would have a chance at life. But the IDF would have none of that. They shot two of them out of the water and took one aboard their boats as a trophy of the kill. They continued shooting and killing my mates. They left and we thought that it was over, but it wasn't. IDF helicopters were sent with troops armed and ready to board our ship and finish us off. Then they just left.
I guess the gig was up when the mighty IDF could not sink our defenseless ship. When it was all done, there were over 821 rocket and cannon holes and over 5,000 armor-piercing bullets riddling the ship. NatBomb was burning us up, and a 40-by-40-foot torpedo hole was in her side, causing the ship to list badly to our starboard side. We then waited 17 hours for help. I guess they hoped that we would sink that night.
Help was only 40 minutes away from us, but they left us out alone to die. When the USS America and the USS Davis arrived to help us, they took our wounded to care for them. Their wounds were so horrific, words cannot explain. Admiral Kidd boarded our ship a few days later, and the cover-up immediately began. We were ordered to never speak of the attack to anyone, not even with one another. Penalties would be fines, imprisonment, or worse, and we all knew that worse meant death. We have been treated like garbage for the last 57 years.
Congress has been bought and paid for with the exception over the years of a few brave lawmakers. Their names are Representatives Pete McCloskey, Paul Findlay, and Jim Traficant. As the courageous Rep. Thomas Massey has noted, all Republican members of Congress except for him have AIPAC handlers. We can assume this is also true of nearly all Democrats. We are the most decorated ship in naval history for a single engagement. I believe God saved us that day to allow us to communicate the truth of this attack to leaders like you.
We give all power to Jesus Christ. We are just his servants that horrible day and now. The USS Liberty survivors are the biggest whistleblowers this country has ever seen. We have been smeared as anti-Semitic, Jew haters, and Nazis. Our only sin is that we survived. We didn't kill anyone. Israel did all the murdering that day, and the U.S. government did all the covering up. I'm asking you to help us save America by telling other the facts about the slaughter of my mates.
We are begging you to support us. Respectfully, Phil Turney, the President of the USS Liberty Veterans Association. Great honor to have you here today. Thank you, Candace. It's a great honor for me to be here and represent the gallant crew of the USS Liberty that had been treated so badly, as I said in the letter, for 57 years.
So I just want to start just really at the beginning, I guess. When did you sign up to be in the United States military? I joined the Navy at 17 years old at San Diego, California, is where I went to boot camp. I did two tours of Vietnam before I got aboard the USS Liberty. And I did three tours with her, including your last. So that was my naval career.
I got out of the Navy and then I wasn't working at the time. I thought I'd never go back in because why would I go back into a place where people are going to try to kill me? But I wasn't working. I had a baby. So I went back in and I got aboard the USS Maddox, DD-731, which was in the Tonkin Gulf, which was another false flag. So just as a question, I mean, most people just...
being in the Vietnam War. I mean, that was traumatizing enough, obviously. So you came back and you decided that you were still going to serve the country. When exactly did you find out that you were going to be aboard the USS Liberty? I found out when I got orders to go to the East Coast from the West Coast. I was on an ammunition ship then, USS Mauna Kea AE-22. I said, well, great, I'm going away.
to the East Coast and I always wanted to go there anyway. So I ended up on the Liberty. When I got aboard the Liberty, they said it was a ship that mapped the bottom of the ocean. And I said, wow, how could that be when all the antennas are going straight up? But I was a dumb kid. I believed anything they told me until a few months after that. And I said, no, no, this ain't right. We're a spy ship.
Okay, so they initially said to you, they didn't even, you're serving on a ship and they don't even tell you the truth about why you're there. So here you are and they're like, you're just here to map the bottom of the ocean? Yes, that's what they told me. Okay. Well, there were two different crews aboard that ship. There were 200 spies, CIA and NSA spies.
And I was in ship's company, engineering. And there were a hundred of us with the other guys, boats and mace, cooks, things like that to run the ship. Our only job, Candice, was to make sure that the communication technicians got where they had to go so they could do their deal.
Okay. And so when did you notice, or I guess, when did it become apparent to you, how long had you been aboard before you went, eh, I don't really think that we're here to map the bottom of the ocean? Did they tell you, hey, I'm actually in the CIA or I'm in the NSA? No, they didn't talk to us and we didn't talk to them. We weren't allowed to. Okay. And so it was two different crews. And I, you know, we figured it out pretty quick what was going on, you know, but...
Yeah, it was so secret. I mean, everything was secret. Very, very secret. And did you, just wondering how the setup is, are you sharing a room with four or five people? How does that work on the ship? Well, I was in a bunk room with about...
70 men. 70 men in one room. Wow. Okay. Yeah, that was engineering spaces. And up forward was the boatswain mates. That's where they had their birthing. The spikes, the spies were in the back of the ship. Okay. And so what's a typical day like? Typical day was get up, take a shower, go to chow, go to work.
stand your watches and When we were out of sea with sunbathe a lot because you know We were only always off the coast of Africa and we were doing a Reconnaissance there up and down the coast four or five miles an hour all the time And we just go up and down and up down we go to ports different ports Luanda
Angola, Abidjan, you name it, all the ports on the West Coast. - So it's beautiful. - Oh my, was it ever. Great taste, pineapples, everything was great. I love those people, they were good to us. - And you're also thinking this is very low risk. You're going, hey, in terms of having an engagement, I'm being sent out here, it's beautiful weather, we're sunbathing, things are looking up. - Yeah, things are, it was great. I mean, it was good duty, it was great duty.
But on the last cruise, we were headed to Africa again, just like we always did. We stopped in Abidjan, and this was in June, and we got emergency orders to leave. We had just gotten there, and we got emergency orders to leave, get everybody back aboard ship ASAP,
And we took off for points we had no idea where we were going. But the Six-Day War was going on. And we didn't know it. Oh, you didn't know it was going on? No, not until a little bit later. Okay. Okay. So at this point, and just to be clear, how long had you been aboard the USS Liberty?
- I did a little over two and a half years on the Liberty. - Oh, I didn't realize it was that long. - Yeah. - You had C-Sec, not C-Sec at all then, I guess. - I got C-Sec after Jim and I went out for about a week and then it was gone. - Okay. So now you get these emergency orders and you have no idea where you're going. Are they giving you any information or they're just saying it's an emergency, everybody get back in?
Everybody get back in and we headed to, rode to Spain. We picked up three Marines. They were linguists and a civilian, Alan Blue. He was a, he was killed by the way. He was another linguist, but he worked directly for the NSA. Okay. Okay. So he gets on board. You're in Spain now. And then where do you go?
We had entered the Mediterranean, you know, and to go through the Rock of Gibraltar and all that. And all the ships were going this way, going the other way. We were the only one going that way. And still nobody's informing you about the Six-Day War? Yeah, we did find out that we were going into a war zone. Okay. And what information, if any, did they give you? None. None. You're just going into a war zone. Prepare for anything.
No, we were prepared because our captain, Captain McGonagall, we trained all the time for, you know, different situations, chemical drills, fire, all kinds of different stuff. And what's the general mood as you guys are heading towards there, the conversation between you and your shipmates? Apprehension. In fact, we had to star David. We knew what was going on then. People had to star Davids all over the ship, inside the ship.
hoping that Israel would win because they were our best buddies in the whole wide world. And come to find out, they weren't. So now it's June 7th. Is that correct, when you arrive into the Sinai Peninsula? Right. We got there on the 7th, and the Israelis started overflying us then, taking pictures of us. Same thing happened on June the 8th. A flying boxcar, which is a two-engine plane, the
Doors were open. You could see the cameraman taking pictures of us. So they're that close. They're that low. Oh, yeah. You could see the pilots. We would wave at them. They'd wave at us. Very friendly. They would dip their wings like everything's great. And we felt good because our best friends were there. And we had no worries. I mean, none at all because they were going to protect us. But it ended up they didn't.
So you had described in your letter saying that you had the American flag displayed. Can you describe for me, first and foremost, again reiterate where it was displayed and also how large the flag was? It was on the mast and the flag was brand new. It was a five by eight flag. Very visible. It was 12 knots going all across the deck.
You could see the flag. And in fact, the Israelis identified us as American and friendly. How do you know that? Well, we know it because of the intercept we picked up and they admitted it themselves. We were on their war table. They identified us as American.
And when they changed the watch, they forgot to tell the other watch commander that we were there. They took us off their war table. So we no longer existed. Okay. When you say take you off the war table, I'm not familiar with that lingo. Okay. So what does that mean? They took us off the war? Well, on the war table, they have like different ships or different...
Like literally set up the table that shows you. Right, and what's going on. And they took us off. So we were gone to them, they thought. But they knew exactly what they were doing. Exactly what they were doing. When they overflew us, they took the pictures of all the ship. They know exactly what to hit and when to hit it. And I might add, I believe, and I think most of my shipmates believe that this attack was planned a year in advance.
A year in advance? Yes. What makes you say that? Well, there was another spy ship in the area, USS Valdez. It was a civilian manned ship, but it was owned by the Navy. It could have done the same thing that we were doing, but they took them out of the area. Sinking the USS Liberty is a hell of a lot sexier than sinking the Valdez. Why is that? Well, it's all American sailors and Marines.
They wanted this at the bottom. So they could blame it on the Arab states and bring us into World War III. So let me ask you a question. Now it's the morning of the 8th, and like you said, on the 7th, they took pictures, they positively identified you, you were able to hear this over the radio.
Did they still have at that moment the CIA agents on board? Yes. Yes. The NSA agents were on board. So you still got the exact same amount of people that are on board here. Right. Okay. So we're talking about a pretty big sacrifice they were willing to make. Right. Total number of people. 294 souls. 294 souls. Okay. Take me through what happened on June 8th. You get up.
We get up at 0600 and like I say, we go to chow and take a shower, go to chow, go to work. We had a damage control drill just before the attack, say about one o'clock. And I was in damage control. I was assistant on-scene leader in damage control. And I was in an impregnated suit, which is a suit for washing down the ship of chemicals.
And it was very, very hot that day. I mean, 100 degrees on the deck, easier or more. And I thought it was going to pass out. It was so hot. Finally, it was over with. And I went and stowed my gear. Excuse me. The sound-powered phones weren't working on the Starbury gun mount. The sound? Yeah, they're sound-powered phones, you know, from just like, you know, you could put on headphones. But they were sound-powered. They weren't electrical. And...
For some reason, it wasn't working. And I went to the IC shop, and I got a friend of mine, David Skolak. He was an IC man, and that was his job, take care of the IC system there for sound-powered phones and the IC system intercoms on the ship. And he came up there, and the gunner's mate was up there also. They were manning the guns. We were in a condition three, just in case, because we could see the bombs going off and everything on the ship.
So we thought, you know, this is really not a good place to be. And just as soon as I left that gun mount, about 30 seconds after I left it, I got back to my work station and all hell broke loose. The attack began. - What's the first thing you remember? - First thing I remember was all hands get to your general quarter stations. We're under attack, we're under attack.
And I got to my GQ station, which is in the front part of the ship, and those two men that I just left there, not a minute, it took me to get back up there. They were dead. They were blown to bits. Anything that moved aboard that ship, they were shot at. As in the letter, they took out all of our antennas within three seconds. Our four 50-calorie machine guns were gone. Every watertight door was hit.
And this went on for 25 minutes, dropping napalm on us. I mean, 25 minutes of that, you can't imagine. Every second was like an hour. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. And you got people severely blown up, wounded badly, badly. And it continued and continued and continued for 25, 30 minutes. And then there was a lull. The
We saw the torpedo boats coming. And we thought, the Star David, you know, oh good. Because these were unmarked jet aircraft. We didn't know who was attacking us. We thought it was the Arabs. And then we saw the torpedo boats and the Star David, oh man, here's our best friends who are gonna come help us. No, they come to sink us. - When you talk about them dropping napalm, and so they did this immediately, what does that do for people that are not aware
What is the purpose of that and how does the body react to napalm, the chemical agent? It can burn you severely and it also can explode your lungs very, very hot. I tried to go up and put it out with CO2 and I couldn't do it. They shot up all our fire hoses too. We had no way to fight fires with water at all. They shot them all up. Instantly in that first 25 minutes? Yes. So they took out...
Everything. The antennas instantly, the fire hoses instantly so you couldn't take out fire. And during those 25 minutes, what were you doing specifically? I was getting people off deck, taking them to a tree ice in the mess decks. The whole mess decks was full of people laying on the tables, on the floor. It was a sea of broken and bloodied men. And it continued like that for, I could say for decades.
the entire attack, you know, and then the torpedo boats got up to us. They did, you know, they fired five torpedoes at us. So all the antennas are taken out, 25 minutes has passed, and there's, they're obviously assuming that you can't communicate your distress. You indicated in your letter, was it before the torpedoes that fortunately somebody had taken one of those offline? Yes, Terry Haldabardier.
He's a third class radio man. He strung a long wire to the only antenna. He took that antenna off, lying, because it wasn't working. So they didn't hit it because they were using heat-seeking missiles to hit all the antennas. Because when they're tuning, they throw off heat. And they took them all out except that one. And he got it. Thank God. I mean, there's reasons for all this happened.
And he got hooked up, rock star, rock star. And like I said, went to Vietnam. The 6th Fleet picked it up. They automatically sent aircraft from Saratoga and Captain Tully. And before they even hit the horizon, McNamara says, bring those aircraft back. Do not help Liberty. Turn around. So our Secretary of Defense, I mean, this attack could, in theory, since he was able to get that message out,
In theory, the attack could have been over how long after it started? Almost immediately. In fact, they could have saved 25 brave American lives, old spies that got killed when the torpedo hit. But instead... If they would have just let those planes come help us. But that wasn't the deal. We were set up by our own government to die.
So Robert McNamara, who in interviews thereafter says he doesn't remember a single thing that happened that day. That's what he told the Chicago Tribune. He doesn't remember anything that happened that day. He recalls them back. And then what happened? Then the American entirely reconfigured their aircraft and they sent aircraft again because they went to a different command. It was their prerogative to go to a different higher command.
Because they're thinking, what do you mean pull us back? Like our American. And then LBJ gets on the phone and his exact words were, I don't give a GD if all those sailors die. I'm not going to embarrass my ally Israel. Like I said in the letter. Now, how did he know that if we didn't know it? He was attacking us.
So they then have the President of the United States. So this guy's trying to do the right thing, Captain Tully. He's like, we're going to help them. He gets called back by the Secretary of Defense. He's thinking, I'm going to go over his head because this is crazy. And now the President of the United States is saying...
I don't care. I don't give a GD if they die. I am not going to embarrass our friend and ally Israel. So he knew. He knew. And you know, they destroyed Captain Tully's career too. They fired him. He got fired for doing that. He was a World War II fighter pilot. Very, very highly decorated. Good man. In fact, he came to one of our reunions and broke down like a baby and cried.
So I said, "I'm sorry, I couldn't help you. It wouldn't let me." And he took that to his grave. He was a broken man. Wow, I can't even imagine what he went through. Yeah. Having to follow orders when the orders were so demonic. Yes, absolutely. So he gets called back again. This time it's from the President of the United States. And now you are seeing torpedo boats
with the Star of David. Now you guys know, and you're thinking, amazing, we're about to get saved. We've got these flags inside. We know who these guys are. We don't know who's attacking us, but we know these are our friends. When did you notice, wait a second, something's not right here? When the old man said, prepare for torpedo hit Starboard Side, I saw two torpedoes go aft.
Where the other two went, I don't know, but I know where one of them went. It hit in their communications spaces and killed 25 brave young men. And that's one of the reasons I'm here today, to be their voice. Because we're not going to let them die in vain. You know, there's only, there's not many survivors left that are dying out. And, yeah.
It's our duty as Americans and patriots to take care of them and make sure their lives didn't die in vain. And, you know, all presidents and all Congress, including Donald Trump, has not done anything for us. They're beholden to the Zionist state, AIPAC. You know, Donald Trump's a new president again. I call on Donald Trump to help us. I mean, we gave our lives and our blood for this country at the hands of the Zionists, Israel,
And does he stand with Israel or does he stand with the United States fighting men that were slaughtered that day by the Zionist state, covered up, say, with mistaken identity? I call on you, President Trump, to give the USS Liberty the same courtesy we deserve or any fighting man that was killed that day. But we don't get it because Israel did it. It's fine as long as Israel did it. Everybody, it's fine if it was a mistaken identity. It wasn't. Admiral Moore, he had the Moore Report.
It's a very, very detailed report. He's the longest serving admiral in the United States Navy. He served as the European commander and the Pacific commander and two times as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And he says, I'll never believe it was a mistaken identity. And he called on Congress over and over to have an investigation. Congress says there already has been an investigation. There never has been. There's been a board of inquiry by Congress
Admiral Isaac Kidd and his underling, JAG officer Ward Boston. They completed that investigation in seven days. Should have taken a year. They never even talked to Israel. They took Israel's word instead of ours. So you're watching, you're on this boat, you see this torpedo hit. That torpedo instantly kills 25 servicemen. And
you escape, fortunately, are able to escape this. What is going on in your mind? Because I just am thinking of that moment of consciousness when you think you're going to be saved because you see your friend and your ally, and then suddenly you realize that your friend and your ally is actually killing you, and they're in torpedo boats, so there's no way they know this is an American ship. Yes.
What's going on in your mind and emotionally in that moment, if you could take yourself back? That conscious switch of, wait a second, this is not my friend. I'm being betrayed. Well, I think Jesus Christ would know a lot about betrayal. And we were betrayed. And...
I think that's one of the reasons I'm here is because Jesus Christ didn't want us to die that day. He wanted us. Well, I'll put it this way. God saved us from God's chosen people. That's what he did. Exactly what he did. We put over three life rafts. That's all we had left. They shot all of our life rafts up. We put three over. They shot two of them. We were going to put our most seriously wounded in them so they'd have a chance at life. They shot two out of the water.
and took one aboard the boat as a trophy of the kill. It's at Haifa somewhere. - They took one aboard, so there's absolutely no way they did not know that this was an American ship. They take one on board as a trophy. They're shooting it out. You're now realizing that you cannot help the wounded. Torpedoes are hitting you. What happens next? - Well, when the torpedo hit,
We did what we could do for damage control, and we, like I say, put over the life rafts, and they shot them out of the water, and they continued and continued and continued doing that. And finally, they just quit, and we thought it was over, but it wasn't. They sent a troop carrying helicopters with Marines in it to board our ship, a scuttler ship, and...
and kill us all. I was on the main deck when they were coming over. What is your condition at that moment? Like, what were you doing on the main deck? I was on the main deck trying to still get people off the main deck. And then they got there, and this Marine, he had his foot on the skid. I thought they were going to come down in a rope or a ladder or whatever. And I just gave him the finger, and he gave it right back to me and just smiled. This is an IDF soldier. He smiled at you. Smiling.
Great big smile, and they just took off. The gig was up. I mean, they confessed, well, mistaken identity. He thought it was the El Cazir, but it was a horse transport and enemy ship. That's what they said, and that was their excuse, and they got by with it because of the crooked government then and now.
I just can't even imagine this. So you're watching your mates die, bleeding, torpedoed, napalm, and you make eye contact with this guy thinking he's going to board the ship. You give him the finger and he gives you the finger back and smiles at you. And then they leave. They leave. And we were left out there for 17 hours for help. This is the part that is so shocking to me because the President of the United States knows that you're under attack.
The Secretary of Defense knows that you're under attack. You know that, as you said, Captain Sully, Scully, Tully, tried twice to help save you. They know you're under attack. And you're telling me that after they went away, 17 hours later,
Take me through what you guys did, how many people at that moment were injured, dying, what was happening on that ship for the next 72, 17 hours? Well, two-thirds of the crew was either dead or wounded. And, uh, dock keeper, we had one, one dock aboard the ship. He had been shot in the abdomen, and, uh, both of his, uh, knees were shot up. And he operated for 17 hours on people.
I helped him in one operation, a guy by the name of Gary Blanchard. He was hit. He was hit bad. And he says, take my socks off. My feet are hot, hot, hot. So I rubbed his feet, tried to get some circulation. I went over to the side and looked at him. And he says, you think I'm going to die? I says, yeah, I think you are. And Doc cut him open, and he was dead. So that went on all night.
put a few stitches on him and put him on the side and just kept on doing it. What were some of the last words? Because I'm sure, as you said, many people died. What did they say? I mean, what were the conversations that you recall? You know, Candace, I really didn't recall a whole lot about that. I guess I just blocked it out. I do know that the Lieutenant Commander Armstrong, he died in the mess decks.
He was hit up bad too, but I remember he was a heavy smoker. I lit him a couple of cigarettes and then I left and I came back and he was dead. So the conversation was just helping people. Everybody was able-bodied to help them. I was in the walking wounded. A lot of them were walking wounded and all they did was want to help their fellow shipmates. Bravest crew I've ever seen in my life. I mean, we guys come together like none other.
We had none to fight back with but our will and our wits and with God's beautiful hand on us. In fact, when that ship got torpedoed, it was like the hand of God was holding us up because it was going like that, ready to roll over. It just stopped. Unbelievable. And you were just 20 years old. It was just unbelievable. Yes. And so 17 hours later, two-thirds of the crew is dead. What happens next?
What ship did you see first? What was going through your mind? Well, the first thing we saw was several days later when Admiral Kidd got there and he told them everything, what happened and why didn't you come help us and this and that. And he took off his stars. He says, I'm just like your dad. He had four or five of us in sickbay at the time. Three stars out there and he said, I'm just like your dad. Please tell me everything you saw.
We told him about the machining of the life rafts with the machining gun of all the people, the helicopters, everything that went on. And then he put his stars back on and he says, he got beet red and he got right in my face. He says, I'm telling you, you better never talk about this again to anybody or I'll make sure you end up in prison, fine or worse. You know what worse means? I said, yes, sir, I do. But he did that to everybody. In fact, they split up everybody. They took them to different bases.
There was one fellow, his name is Mickey LeMay. He's still got 50 pieces of shrapnel on him right now. They took him to Bremerhaven, Germany for medical care. He was in a room with a bunch of other people, a lot of different beds. They took him out of that bed. He got his own room and he was interrogated by an officer. He says, "Your name is no longer LeMay, it's Smith. You know nothing about the USS Liberty. Don't ever talk about it."
So you survive living hell, you watch your mates die, you wait 17 hours, and you're thinking, okay, at least now it's over, and instead you guys get reprimanded, and you're told, essentially, we'll kill you. Yes, absolutely. In fact, I didn't talk about it until 40, about 42, 43 years ago, when I met my second wife.
There was an article in the paper by a person by the name of, oh my goodness, Stan White. He was a chief, a master chief. And I felt like the whole world had just come off my shoulders because he was talking. If he was talking, I'm going to start talking. And I haven't shut up since. This is just unbelievable. Unbelievable. So you're all ordered into silence and silenced.
How long, you said, before you started speaking, how many years was that? Well, it was the, well, let's see, 41, 18 years after the fact. So you actually, you stayed silent on this? And I never, I didn't even tell my wife, Lisa, that I was ever in the military. I even forgot what day it happened. That's how far back I pushed it. And like I say, when I read that article, man, I was, I said, now I'm on it.
And I mean, the whole thing is when your own government betrays you and still betrays you and every congressman betrays you, say what you saw, you really didn't see. What you heard, you really didn't heard. Here, that's pretty bad. They're calling us liars, Nazis, and Jew haters, our own Congress. And I'd like to, I tell you what, I'd like to call out Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro
with this conspiracy theory stuff. If you think it's a conspiracy, debate me live on TV. I'd be glad to debate you. And my shipmates will be there too if you want them. Debate us if you think it's a conspiracy theory. Or do you have the courage? I don't think you got the courage. I think you're cowards.
Can I explain the USS Liberty incident? Sure. The USS Liberty incident is very frequently used by anti-Semites to suggest that Israel deliberately targets American ships and then pays no penalty. So both American naval records and Israeli Air Force records suggest that there was a case of mistaken identity wherein USS Liberty was in the Mediterranean in a place they were not supposed to be. Israel thought that it was an Egyptian ship and shot it.
That's the actual full story. Now, there are a bunch of conspiracy theories on actually both sides of this. There's a conspiracy theory on the American side that suggests that Israel, for no reason that can be discerned, decided to shoot up an American ship to accomplish no one really can explain what.
And then on the other side, there is a theory that I have not seen a lot of support for that the USS Liberty was being used as a transmission vessel to send Israeli military locations to the Egyptians during the '67 war, and Israel knew that and shot it. Again, I think the evidence is lacking on both of those things. There have been multiple naval investigations of the USS Liberty incident. They all come down on the same side, which is that this is a mistaken case of allied "friendly fire."
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Can't even imagine living through something like that and then being gaslit and told that you're liars or that you're conspiracy theorists or that as your letter said that you're Nazis or that you're Jew haters when you You went out there thinking you might be out there defending Defending the state of Israel only to recognize that your country betrayed you Presumably to stage a false flag attack and
- There was a submarine, the Russians were there too. If our ship goes down, Israel was gonna get nuked by Russia. And that's a fact. It's on tape by the people that were there. There were also the USS Andrew Jackson there and the USS Amberjack, our submarines, that didn't come help us. I heard they filmed it from the Amberjack. They probably got the film right now.
There's so many, we got FOIA requests right now from a federal judge in Washington. She's gonna decide whether we can get the records or not in a few days. And this has been going on for two or three years, trying to get, well, it's been 57 years total, but working on it for the last 41, 42, 43 years,
collectively with the rest of the crew. We've been trying to get this done, and this is the closest we've ever come to getting something. But they don't want their records out. The CIA is blocking it right now. They said they do not want to let that out. It's a matter of national security. If it's so easy to explain, how could it be national security? If it's so cut and dry that they thought it was a mistake, there's no mistake, and we can prove it.
How many survivors are still alive? Oh, I don't know, probably 50. Just 50? Out of 294. So it's, you know, it's, they just didn't attack our ship. They attacked you, you, all of you guys, all of America. They attacked us. It was an act of war and war crimes. And they don't, they didn't want to investigate it. I want to speak a bit about Lyndon Baines Johnson because there is a picture that seems to be emerging. And so I guess I'll,
sort of ask questions because there's other big events from around that time period that are similarly classified in a way that doesn't really make sense. You know, Lyndon Baines Johnson, the nation did not vote for him to be president of the United States, obviously. Yes. JFK was assassinated.
And it is a fact that prior to his assassination, he was adamant that he wanted AIPAC, which I think was going by a different name at that time, to register as a foreign agent and that they had ignored his demand that they register as a foreign agent. And then when he was shot a couple of months later,
He no longer had to register. They no longer had to register as a foreign agent. It is also a fact that leading up to his death, he was having fights, which they have not declassified, arguments with the prime minister of Israel at that time.
Ben Gurion, again, not declassified any of those conversations, so we don't know what it was that they were arguing about. But I would imagine Lyndon Baines Johnson would have known that he had
this sort of contentious relationship, obviously, with them trying to implement AIPAC and not wanting it to be registered as a foreign agent, and obviously him having arguments as a number two guy. You would think that he would know this. And before Muammar Gaddafi, the president of Libya, was murdered by
us, arming insurgents, he gave a speech in front of the UN where he demanded that they investigate the killing of JFK. And he said, everybody knows that he was trying to stop their nuclear armament. He spoke about the nuclear reactor and he had
heavily suggested in that speech in the UN that that was enough perhaps that could have been the reason that he was arguing with the Prime Minister of course we'll never know and so it's quite shocking to know that information to realize that JFK got killed and To also know that the person who allegedly shot him Lee Oswald Harvey said he didn't shoot him didn't kill him and then he was shot by a guy named Jacob Rubinstein who
Muammar Gaddafi alleges was also an Israeli national. Maybe he had dual citizenship. I'm not sure because, again, we don't have the files. I'm just speaking about what has been said in the public sphere. It's kind of shocking that Lyndon Baines Johnson would be such an ally to Israel so much so that he would.
tell people, I don't care if American sailors die, I'm not going to embarrass Israel, which means he didn't inherit JFK's frustration with the nation. He did not. If you remember, he says, you had a friend in JFK of Israel, but I'm going to be a much better friend. You have a better friend than you ever did. You know what? Actually, I don't know if you had...
read this article. This really shocked me. This was published in the Jerusalem Post in 2008. The article is entitled, "A Friend Indeed." I'll just read a bit of it. "A few weeks ago, the Associated Press reported the newly released tapes from U.S. President Lyndon Johnson's White House office, which showed LBJ's "personal and often emotional" connection to Israel.
The news agency pointed out that during the Johnson presidency, the United States became Israel's chief diplomatic ally and primary arms supplier,
But the news report does little to reveal the full historical extent of Johnson's actions on behalf of the Jewish people in the state of Israel. Most students of the Arab-Israeli conflict can identify Johnson as the president during the 1967 war, but few know about LBJ's actions to rescue hundreds of endangered Jews during the Holocaust, actions that could have thrown him out of Congress and into jail.
Indeed, the title of righteous Gentile is certainly appropriate in the case of the Texan, whose centennial year is being commemorated this year.
It then goes on and speaks about how he, while serving as a young congressman, arranged for visas to be supplied to Jews that were in Warsaw and oversaw the apparently illegal immigration of hundreds of Jews through the port of Galveston, Texas. A key resource for uncovering LBJ's pro-Jewish activity is the unpublished 1989 doctoral thesis by a student named Louis Gamelok, a University of Texas student.
And he speaks about LBJ's foreign affair background in this piece. And they were able to confirm through other historians and interviews with his wife and family members and political associates that the research was accurate. It says, quote, research into Johnson's personal history indicates that he inherited his concern for the Jewish people from his family. His aunt, Jesse Johnson Hatcher, a major influence on LBJ, was a member of the Zionist Organization of America.
According to Gamelach, Aunt Jessie had nurtured LBJ's commitment to befriending Jews for 50 years. As a boy, he watched his politically active grandfather, Big Sam, and father, Little Sam, seek clemency for Leo Frank. This says the Jewish victim of blood libel. He's actually, he murdered a young Catholic girl during Passover in 19, I believe it was 1913. I'll have to fact check that.
but they present him as a victim of a blood libel. Johnsons later told friends that Lyndon's family hid in their cellar while his father and uncle stood guard with shotguns on their porch in the case of the KKK attacks. So they say that he often cited Leo Frank's lynching as a sort of his opposition
But it's interesting because people I don't think knew this that LBJ was Jewish, that his aunt was involved in the Zionist organization and also that he pressured the administration apparently to have tighter ties with AIPAC. So we can probably trace when we are speaking about AIPAC
the marriage, I would say, between the United States government and AIPAC, we can attribute that to Lyndon Baines Johnson. How does it make you feel to know that actually, you know, he was in fact more loyal to Israel? - Absolutely. Much more loyal. In fact, on June the 8th, when our ship got hit, in his bed was a Irgun agent, Matilda Krim. - Really? - Really.
-Unbelievable. -True story. Yeah, it even says that Johnson raised substantial sum for arms for the Jewish underground fighters in Palestine. He was doing all of this illegally. He armed the Jewish underground of "freedom fighters"
And did all of this alongside his closest advisors were strong pro-Israel advocates, Benjamin Cohen, who 30 years earlier was the liaison between the Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Chaim Weizmann, and Abe Fortas, the legendary Washington insider. I mean, that's just how did we go from a president who...
wanted to stop this to a president that Was involved in the underground and was pushing our government to get more involved with Israel It leads I mean it certainly I think it's fair for people to wonder What it is that is classified and that they're so afraid to release to the public about JFK's Remarkably suspicious death. Yes his death
was not by a lone government in my belief. In fact, I saw the day that Oswald got killed by Rubinstein. He says, "I'm nothing but a patsy, nothing but a patsy." And he was a patsy. So there's so much to be said for that. And the USS Liberty is covered up just as deep, and it all goes right back to Israel. Is our country really America first?
or is it Israel first? Are we an occupied nation? I think we're an occupied nation. And, you know, look at all the wars. Okay, let's just go back to the Iraq War and Afghanistan War. They were fought all for the greater good of Israel. That's my belief. And it's a lot of other people's beliefs too. They sacrificed men. It's a war machine, you know, like Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex.
And he was absolutely right. I remember that because I was a kid then. I mean, I think it's difficult for me and why I say that this has been such a turning point. It's difficult for me to take seriously now any of the politicians who declare themselves to be America first.
I mean, just to be clear, Congress passed through in the blink of an eye to ensure that people would learn about October 7th in school. Oh, absolutely. Yes.
And yet I went through school, I graduated college, I have two degrees, and I had never learned about the USS Liberty in its entire context until I received your letter. Yep. It was covered up, and it's not in the history books, which it should be. It's a very important part of history. Something very interesting, back in the 80s, I did a speaking deal with the old Spotlight newspaper.
And the two older gentlemen, they were entrepreneurs in Wisconsin, Grafton. They read it and they sent me a letter and said, "We're building a new library and we were gonna call it the Grove Library. Now we wanna call it the USS Liberty Memorial Library." And the whole Milwaukee area, everybody around there, the Jewish population says, "No, no, no, no, you cannot do that.
because it's anti-Semitic to bring up USS Liberty. Anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitic. And the Grove brothers said, to heck with you guys. They've already put a million bucks up. And they said, we'll just take our money out. And then the town said, no, no, no, no. We'll name it the USS Liberty Memorial Library because he threatened to take all the money, both of them threatened to take all the money away from it. So...
And we had to have SWAT teams on the roofs, bomb-sniffing dogs, because we were all threatened. They were going to get us right there, dedicating the survivors, dedicating that. That's when Pete McCluskey, former Congressman McCluskey, was there, and he spoke at their dedication, as did others. So you had told me that you had been threatened by the Mossad. Can you tell me more about that?
Yes, I was in California with my wife. We were going out to visit my son. He was graduating from Budd's SEAL. And we were in a restaurant. Well, we were at the bar getting a drink, waiting to get our table. And this guy come up and got on my right side of me. He said, "Oh, you were on the Liberty, huh?" And I said, "Yeah, how'd you know that?" And he said, "I know a lot." And he had a big watch, and he put it right up front of my face.
I said, "Get that out of my face, man. What is it, a camera or a speaking device? Or why? Is he going to squirt me with something? I don't know." And then he said, "Listen, I know everything about you. I'm a Mossad agent. And the best thing for you to do is just shut up." My wife heard that. She come over me and boy, she gave him all... I mean, whoa, I can't tell you. And then security had to take us up to our room and make sure everything was okay.
And I went down the next morning and the guy, free text, he told everybody he was a doctor. He'd been there a couple days before. But he was waiting on me and my wife is what he was doing. How he found out we were there, I don't know. It could have been, they traced it somehow, credit card or who knows.
- That's just incredible. - It is. - They have a remarkable ability to be on the ground when big events take place. Like it was confirmed that the Mossad was on the ground, the day that JFK got shot, it has been confirmed that they were on the ground recording
at least according to ABC News, who investigated this the day that 9-11 took place, which you could say was obviously the beginning of us being involved in these never-ending wars in the Middle East. And
Obviously, the USS Liberty, they got caught executing another false flag at the exact same time of the Levant affair, which they were going to murder Americans in order to drag us into war with Egypt. So I don't know if that was before or after the US Liberty, but.
There's a lot of, I mean, you can't say that Israel is not involved in false flags because the Levant affair proves that they are. King David Hotel. King David Hotel means, exactly proves that they are. You survived what you believe to be a false flag attack. And yet we have people in America who get on stage and refer to them as our greatest friend and ally.
I mean, how does that make you feel to just even hear that, to hear people say they're our greatest friend and ally? And by the way, I want to be clear, I count myself among those people for the first six years of my career. I genuinely had no idea. Most people don't, and it makes me furious. It really does. They're not our best friend. They're not our ally.
They got more money when they murdered my shipmates than they ever got in their entire existence. And the Israelis said they paid $6 million. They didn't pay $6 million to our ship. Our own government did. The ship alone was worth $40 million, and they settled for $6 million. The most seriously wounded got some, and they very well should have been, of course, the dead. Most of the crew got $200.
and in order to shut up, then I was ordered to sign that where I could never sue Israel or the United States, which I signed it gladly. - You signed it, ordered, 'cause you were ordered to sign it, which means you could never sue Israel or the United States for what you survived. - Yep, yep, and that was under duress.
And I don't think it's worth the paper it's written. I don't think it's worth anything. No, of course. It's not worth anything. But that's what they did to us and they continue to do it. They can't wait till we're dead. You know, we're all dying out. We're getting older. I'm 78. I got guys that are 85, close to 90. You know, some of them can't even get out of their house much anymore or they got disease or whatever, you know.
We lost three or four in the last year, cancer and things like that. I'm not going to give up until my dying breath. I'm going to be here speaking the truth. And we plan on trying to get together a speaking tour around the country for survivors to speak to the public and tell them about our government and the Israeli government. As far as I'm concerned, Candace, they set us up. Israel were the hit men.
And our government paid them to hit us. And then when we didn't sink, they tell us that it was mistaken identity. Us, the survivors, they thought we were somebody else. They shot two of our flags down and we put up another one, 7x13. They say they didn't see that one either. 7x13, that's a big flag. They call it holiday colors. And that's what we flew into Malta. A thousand miles away, we went from Malta.
That torpedo hit 1,000 miles away with a 40-by-40-foot hole in the ship. It opened me at sink. Well, what I can tell you is that this has completely changed a lot for me. I just...
first and foremost, I just want to apologize to you. I'm genuinely embarrassed at my ignorance and it's confounding for me that I thought that I was on the side of the party of truth and America first and patriots and caring about our veterans. And I'm realizing now that so many of these people are cowards. They're cowards. They know the truth. They lie to people as they're coming up in this movement.
And they are completely occupied. There are some that are brave, obviously, Thomas Massey, but I do want to offer to you that for, I promise you, as long as you live, I will hold a candle for the USS Liberty. You forever have a platform. If I have a platform, you know, I almost feel...
ashamed of myself and I thought to myself this year, oh my gosh, I'm getting so attacked by the Zionist media because I had a heart over the Palestinian children that were dying and I realized I had to survive digital attacks. I mean, you survived. What you survived is unbelievable. And I
I first and foremost, I know that you have an organization. So I want to pledge to you that personally, my family will donate $40,000 every year to your organization. And I'm asking if every single person who is watching this right now, and this will be in the millions, if every single person gives a dollar, just $1,000,
We can keep their organization going. We can give them what they need to speak about this. And we can show them that despite the fact that we may all be existing under a government that is occupied, this is not who we are as Americans or people worldwide, because we have an audience all over the world who I think is similarly starting to wonder how many of our nations are occupied by lobbying from Zionists and spending money.
Can you tell my audience a bit about your organization? Yes. Our organization is veterans and like-minded people, family members. You can go to usslibertyveterans.org, usslibertyveterans.org. And this is a brand new site we put up. It's very technical. I mean, I don't know a whole lot about it. It takes a lot of people a lot smarter than me, but they got...
People doing it and it's you can donate there. You can go through look at pictures. You can read articles the more report and I was just thinking about Ward Boston the Jag it was with Admiral Kidd I should have brought this up earlier, but There was a man named AJ crystal. He was a bank for bankruptcy judge and he wrote a book to Liberty Estes and he's Jewish and
And he lied about it. And then Ward Boston signed a declaration. He said, "We were ordered by our government to lie. We knew it was a no mistaken identity. It was a deliberate attack to sink it, sink that ship." And he felt bad about it. You know, he says, "I was a military man and I followed orders." But that brought him out and he just couldn't do it anymore. And soon after that, he died.
Yeah, I can't imagine being ordered to. Absolutely. Our ship is the most, from the Medal of Honor, Navy Cross, Silver Stars, Bronze Stars, 208 Purple Hearts, Combat Action Ribbon, and the Presidential Unicitation, and nobody knows about it.
- What do the objects mean if they keep you a secret and call you Nazis for trying to speak out? It means nothing. None of it means anything if you don't have a government that truly honors and respects you. - Yes, I honor old veterans. They go in to serve the country. In fact, when I put on the uniform the first time, I was the proudest man in the world to do that, to serve my country and to be abandoned and to be killed.
for all these years and abandoned right now. I'm asking you front out, President Trump, don't abandon the crew of the USS Liberty, please. I see your picture there with beautiful canvas. And who is that other man? Is that? That's my husband. Oh, that's your husband. I'm sorry. That's George. But President Trump, please help us. Don't abandon us. This is an act that should be brought out. The truth should be told, sir. Please help us.
I'll tell you, I have never, ever, ever had an inkling to run for president of the United States, despite people insisting on it. But...
hearing what happened to you, if I ever do run, it will be to honor you guys in the way that you should be honored and to give the middle finger right back to the government. - I hope you do because my daughter said that yesterday. Tell her I want her to run for president, Candace for president. - If I did it, it would be to honor the memory of the USS Liberty and I would say it every day when I was on stage because what happened to you is despicable. It is abhorrent that we have men that are raising money pretending to be America first.
that are more concerned with getting invited to dinners and fancy dinners, peddling lines that they don't actually mean in their heart. And the worst thing is they say that they're the party of God.
that they are the party of God, and yet they commit themselves not to a higher power. They commit themselves to politicians. They commit themselves to lobbyists. They commit themselves to money. And to the people that partook in this lie, I hope and know that all of them are burning in hell. And to every person that's watching this that is going to continue to lie, to call you conspiracy theorists, to call you a Nazi, those people too will either repent or they will burn in hell. I truly believe that. I do too.
Two weeks ago, I was in a church, a Zionist church. They had an Israeli flag and an American flag hanging side by side. I was asked to speak there. Pastor Jason Neely. And he says, we don't condone everything that Israel does, and the truth has got to be told. And the people in the church were very receptive, and a lot of them were, you know, weeping. Another good pastor, Pastor Chuck Baldwin out of Kalispell,
Montana, he's on our side. He teaches what's really in the Bible, not what they want you to believe. - Well, obviously, the Zionists funded the Schofield Bible. - Absolutely, the Schofield Bible. - That's a whole 'nother episode that I've gotta get into to teach people real history. Other than going to your website and supporting you, is there anything else that we can do and that we can send our audience to?
Well, we need their hopes and their prayers. If they would go there and, like you said, donate. And you're a generous donation. My God, I almost fell on the floor. I promise you, you will have that annually from my family. Even if we fall in hard times, we will pick up side jobs and we will make that donation every single year until the
last veteran of the USS Liberty is no longer here. You will have that donation. God bless you. Just God bless you, Candice. God bless you. And I know that right now Christ is with us. Christ is King and the truth is powerful enough. It is. And
I want to thank you again for getting me on the map and I certainly appreciate it. If there's any other people that you can figure out that I could go to or any of my other mates, I'd walk there if I had to. We'll host you every year. I promise you we'll get other people on the show.
You guys, thank you so much for joining us. I am sure your mind has been equally as blown as mine has been. I'm sure you're equal parts sad and equal parts frustrated and angry, disappointed, I think, also in our government. But I really think that things are going to change. And so thank you so much for listening to the story. And Philip, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for the invite. And again, God bless you, Candice. You're a wonderful woman. Thank you.