USS Liberty Survivor Reveals What Really Happened the Day Israel Attacked & the Lies Covering It Up

**Tucker Carlson** (0:04)
Mr. Lockwood, thank you very much for joining us.

**Bryce Lockwood** (0:06)
My pleasure.

**Tucker Carlson** (0:07)
Tell us, the USS Liberty, many people have heard the name, they're aware there's a controversy about what happened to the ship in 1967 If you wouldn't mind starting at the beginning and telling us the story of the USS Liberty.

**Bryce Lockwood** (0:22)
USS Liberty was a spy ship back in the 1960s.
Several of the sub-Saharan African countries had just won their independence from Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, France. There was a heavy influence both from the Soviet Union and from Cuba. Cubans had a lot of troops around the area. That entire area is very wealthy in natural resources, precious metals. And the United States wanted to keep track of what was going on over there. Remind you, this is when satellites were pretty rudimentary. So the best way to gather that information is get close. The USS Liberty was a World War II Victory Class freighter.
She was originally commissioned as the SS Simmons Victory. She saw service as a cargo carrier during the Second World War. Mothballed, brought back out of mothballs for the Korean War. Ammunition carrier for the Korean War, back into mothballs. And in 1965, when the National Security Agency decided they needed vessels of that type, her hull was probably in the best condition, almost any of them that were in the Ghost Fleet or the Mothball Fleet. She was brought out of commission. The US government spent $26 million in 1965 money. Outquipping her with the latest in intelligence collection, we could suck up literally every frequency that was being used. We had aboard her the world's largest mobile computer, the Univac 500 At that time, the world's largest. You could likely do about as much with their cell phone now. But technology has come a long ways in the last 60 years.
She was equipped with linguists, cruised up and down the west coast of Africa, listening in on to whatever was going on.
As war appeared to be imminent between Israel and her neighbors in 1967, the neighbors included what was then called the United Arab Republic, primarily Egypt, and Syria to a lesser extent, some influence from Jordan and Libya.
The administration sent some F-4 photograph planes, high-performance photo-intelligence planes to a Tehran airbase in Spain.
Those markings were obliterated. The pilots were given neutral uniforms and neutral identification and set to overfly Israel's neighbors. When hostilities broke out in June of 1967, the Israelis had intelligence courtesy of the US administration, locating every aircraft, revetment, every tank, location of personnel where they were based and so forth.
Hostilities broke out on the 5th of June, 1967 The National Security Agency had ordered the USS Liberty proceed from her cruise up and down the West Coast of Africa with all due speed to the road to Spain, take on stores, refuel, pick up six additional linguists, and proceed with haste to the Eastern Mediterranean where they could monitor what was going on. She was stacked with linguists out of a crew of 294, aboard the ship, roughly 190 were intelligence personnel, linguists, code breakers, manuamorous operators, voice intercept operators, and so forth. The Soviets had a group of TU-95 long-range bombers equipped for intelligence collection. That's Alexandria, Egypt. They told the world that they had given those planes to Egypt and that they were manned by Egyptian troops. Such was not the case. They were Soviet troops wearing Egyptian uniforms. The task that we were given is linguists. There were three of us, Russian linguists aboard her. We had three watch sections rotating eight hours each. The three of us Russian linguists that were assigned as voice intercept section supervisors, our primary task was catching those Soviet Tu-95 intelligence aircraft at Alexandria. The aircraft would communicate in plain language Egyptian until they were airborne and over the Mediterranean Sea. Change frequencies and go to plain language Russian. It was ironic that while we were under attack, my relief came into the processing and reporting room where I was and said, Hey, Sarge, I got them.

**Tucker Carlson** (5:52)
I got them.

**Bryce Lockwood** (5:53)
He said, You got who, Jim? The Ruspies. Really? He said, Yeah, plain language Russian. He went back into the room where he was copying the intercept and torpedoes killed him.
Hostilities broke out on the 5th of June, 1967 We arrived on station on the 7th of June.
Throughout the day of the 7th and in the early morning hours of the 8th of June, we were overflown by several different Israeli aircraft. They flew very close to us. We could plainly see the pilots. We, fellows that were off-duty and sunning themselves on the decks, would wave to the pilots, the pilots would wave back. We had a drill general quarters at noon on the morning of the 8th. The captain came on the address system aboard the ship, the 1MC, and told us a few things he wanted us to improve, get to our general quarters stations a little more rapidly, get the watertight doors closed a little more rapidly, secure it from the general quarters. I was at my berthing spaces in the aft part of the ship.