1967 Mideast Crisis Messages

Displayed are text reproductions of most of the relevant official U.S. military messages generated during that period known as the 1967 Mideast Crisis (May and June) as well as messages related to the attack on USS Liberty. The majority of the messages were sent via radio-teletype circuits not only between Washington, D.C. and various commanders in Europe, but also between commanders within the European theater. Also included are a number of messages between diplomatic posts and Washington.

The following two published works are recommended to the reader as sources for gaining a more detailed understanding of the nature of not only world-wide communications by the U.S. military, but also communications capabilities and limits then in place as of the mid-1960s:

      Command in Crisis: Four Case Studies; Joseph F. Bouchard (Columbia Univ.
      Press, 1991) and "Communications Technologies and Vulnerabilities"; Ashton
      B. Carter in Managing Nuclear Operations; Ashton B. Carter, John D. Steinbruner,
      and Charles A. Zraket, eds. (Brookings Institution, 1987).

This comprehensive collection of messages are presented in text format, rather than copied as PDF files in order to improved readability. It often took two or more copies from various archival sources to come up with a readable text. Secondly, text format shortens the access time for a reader and takes up less on-line storage space. Third, by using HTML files, it was a simple process to link referenced messages together in order to allow the reader to directly access related messages.

Using text reproductions raises the issue of "typos." In order to improve readability, spelling errors originally made in a 1967 document have in some cases been corrected in the text reproduction. In no case has any message document been altered that would mis-represent the actual facts contained within that message.

Finally a brief word on how these messages are referenced. As the vast majority of messages are naval, references are by its date-time-group (DTG) assigned by the originator. The date-time-group reflects the date-hour-minute-month-year when the message was originated. For example: 081414Z JUN 67 would be June 8, 1967 at 1414Z (or 2:14 PM Greenwich Mean Time –– as the military uses a 24-hour clock as well as day-month-year format.) The DTG assigned by an originator is very close to the time that the message was released for transmission, but it is not, repeat, not the time that the message would have been received by any command addressed in that message. The time an addressee receives a message is called the TOR (time-of-receipt.) The reader is directed to the detailed Time-Line file in order to view various examples of the time delay between a specific DTG and a TOR.

For messages not originating from a naval command, but for example from diplomatic posts and the State Department as well as the Defense Department, one will find reference to a message by its "cite" (or sequence) number and perhaps the assigned DTG, or perhaps not. Thankfully, when the U.S. Navy made reference to such a message, the normal practice was for that command to include the DTG, making it possible to insert the original non-naval message into the proper DTG sequence, and by that DTG will the message be linked herein.

And lastly, a glossary has been created to help the reader understand most of the various abbreviations, voice call signs, and acronyms used by the military in these messages; which it is famous for creating and using.

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