OK, I did a search on DT and forum and found nothing, but am intrigued to know if any 'Catters are familiar with the story of the USS Liberty.

Last night Dutch TV showed a documentary (it appeared to be British-made) about the sinking of a US electronic intelligence ship the USS Liberty by the Israeli forces at the start of the Six Days' War and the subsequent cover-up by the US defence authorities. The incident led to the deaths of 35 unfortunate US personnel. But it also led to the launching of A4s carrying nuclear bombs, prepared to bomb Cairo on the assumption that the attackers had been Egyptian. The attack on Cairo was called off on McNamara's then Johnson's personal instructions with only minutes to spare.

The explanation of the cover-up was that there was a contingency plan for a staged incident involving the "Liberty" as a pretext for the US atacking Nasser's Egypt, and it appeared that the Israelis had got carried away with the idea. The plan was cooked up by a "303 Committee" in the US intelligence community whose specialisation was dirty tricks carried out with the tacit acceptance of politicians but no detailed knowledge so that the politicos could plead innocence.

Where it gets really nasty is the extent to which the US's supposed ally Israel went in their attempts to ensure that there were no survivors, following up an aerial bombing and cannon strafing with napalming, then torpedoing by the navy and even machine-gunning of life rafts which had broken loose.

It was an extraordinary story which I had never heard even the remotest reference to before. It was all of a piece with the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and retrospectively even the Cuban interpretation of the Maine incident looks perfectly moderate.

Today I found several websites devoted to the incident, including this one. I'm quite amazed to have remained completely unaware of a story like this until now.