Blood in the Water: How the US and Israel Conspired to Ambush the USS Liberty

Hardcover book. 436 pages
ISBN: 9781633884649
Stock Number: 0328


In this important work, an eminent author presents startling evidence of collusion between US and Israeli intelligence in the murderous attack on a US naval surveillance vessel during the Six-Day War of 1967, and in maintaining a cover-up that has endured for more than 50 years.

During the Six Day War of 1967 between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the USS Liberty, an unarmed intelligence ship reporting to the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the auspices of the National Security Agency, was positioned in international waters off the coast of Egypt.

On June 8, 1967, it was attacked with deadly violence by unmarked jet planes firing rockets and machine guns and throwing napalm onto its deck. This ambush was followed by a torpedo strike that blew a 40-foot hole in the starboard side of the ship. Lacking the capacity to defend themselves, 34 sailors were killed and 174 wounded, many for life. By the end of the day, Israel had confessed to having been the aggressor, simultaneously arguing that the attack had been an “accident” and a “mistake.”

The facts say otherwise. So intense and sustained was the attack – it lasted for nearly an hour and a half – and so specific was the aiming for the antennae and satellite dish on deck, that it was scarcely credible that Israel's aggression was not deliberate. Such was the view of Marshall Carter, the director of the National Security Agency, his deputy director Louis Tordella, and Richard Helms, the Director of Central Intelligence.

Based on interviews with more than 40 survivors, knowledgeable political insiders, and Soviet archives of the period, investigative writer Joan Mellen presents disturbing evidence of complicity between US and Israeli intelligence in the attack, and in maintaining the decades-old cover-up.

The author, Joan Mellen, is professor emeritus at Temple University, where she taught literature and creative writing for 50 years. She is the author of 24 books.

Blood in the Water earned high praise from Richard Falk, a globally recognized scholar of international law and international relations who taught at Princeton University for 40 years. In a review published in Foreign Policy Journal, he wrote:

“If you are able read just one book in 2019, I urge it to be Joan Mellen’s Blood in the Water: How the U.S. and Israel Conspired to Ambush the USS Liberty. The author on the basis of meticulous research probes every detail to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that the sinking of USS Liberty in the midst of the 1967 War is the greatest moral and political scandal in all of American history. In what was long described as a ‘mistake’ or ‘accident,’ Israeli planes and submarines attacked the Liberty, killing 34, wounding 174 American naval personnel ... Her contribution goes far beyond what prior research and scholarly writing had established and alleged. She demonstrates that the real story of the Liberty attack was far worse than a cover-up of Israeli criminality, it was ‘collusion,’ that is, a deliberated collaborative attack by Israel and the United States.”

The respected Kirkus Review issued this assessment of Mellen’s book:

“... The attack on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War, left 34 dead and 174 wounded, along with myriad unresolved questions even after Israel admitted responsibility, claiming it had acted in error. This book represents a massive undertaking ... Disturbingly, the author’s solid research indicates that the United States and Israel collaborated in planning, executing, and covering up this operation in order to implicate Egypt, bomb Cairo, and precipitate Gamal Abdel Nasser's downfall ... Gripping from start to finish, with reflections on the price that soldiers pay for their commanders' war agendas.”