The Liberty Incident

08/06/2025 10 min Temporada 2025 Episodio 250608

Listen "The Liberty Incident"

Episode Synopsis

On June 8, 1967, in the sunlit waters of the eastern Mediterranean, an American ship flew the Stars and Stripes over calm seas. Her name was the USS Liberty, a lightly armed intelligence vessel serving under the National Security Agency. She carried 294 crew members, including sailors, Marines, and NSA linguists trained in Arabic and Russian. That morning, the Liberty cruised peacefully, 13 miles off the Sinai Peninsula, well within international waters. Overhead, Israeli reconnaissance planes circled the ship multiple times. The Liberty’s crew waved. Some even saw the pilots’ faces. At least eight overflights occurred in the hours before the attack. No warnings were given. Nothing seemed out of place. Then everything changed.