1968_4_arabisraelwar

UNITED STATES AND UNITED NATIONS / 173
ports were sketchy and contradictory. Each side accused the other of having
started hostilities, and both claimed heavy damage to the enemy. Shortly
after 5 A.M. the President conferred with Secretaries Rusk and McNamara.
The big question was what Moscow would do. A message was sent to Soviet
Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko through normal diplomatic channels,
stating the American position and sounding out the Russians.
At 8 A.M. the first message from Soviet Premier Kosygin to President
Johnson came over the hot-line teletype circuit. The President quickly replied
in the first of a series of more than twenty messages that continued throughout
the week. The texts of the messages were not released. According to the
version published in Newsweek (February 12, 1968), the exchange involved
a potential nuclear showdown "every bit as grim" as the Kennedy-Khrushchev
confrontation during the Cuban missile crisis. As the Israeli forces penetrated
into Sinai, Kosygin allegedly told Johnson to present to the Israelis an
ultimatum that they either withdraw to the armistice line within a specified
number of hours, or "the Soviets would come into the fight with everything
they had."
President Johnson reportedly stressed in his response that U.S. forces were
in no way involved in the fighting, but also let the Russians know that the
United States had commitments and was prepared to meet any Soviet attempt
at intervention on the Arab side. To underscore the point, the nuclear-armed
Sixth Fleet was placed on alert and its units steamed toward
the battle area in the Eastern Mediterranean. Yet, Johnson was careful to
make it clear that the Sixth Fleet's role was only defensive and deterrent.
Thus, when planes of the fleet scrambled into action on June 8 to aid the
SS. Liberty, a U.S. intelligence communications ship which was attacked by
Israeli aircraft and patrol boats, the President immediately informed Kosygin
of the reason for the fleet's unusual activity, adding as a postscript the
message he had just received from the Israel government, acknowledging
responsibility for the incident and officially apologizing for mistakenly attacking
an American vessel. The hot-line dialogue, the President later said
in his 1968 State of the Union message, permitted the achievement of a
cease-fire in the Middle East, "without a major power confrontation.''
Misunderstanding over U.S. Declaration of Neutrality
The White House issued a statement on the morning of June 5, expressing
deep distress at the outbreak of large-scale fighting, and noting that "each
side has accused the other of launching aggression," but that "at this time
the facts are not clear." It said the United States would devote all its energies
to ending the fighting and called upon "all parties to support the Security
Council in bringing about an immediate cease-fire."
At a press conference shortly after noon, State Department spokesman
McCloskey was asked whether he would reaffirm American neutrality in the
light of reports that there had been anti-American rioting in several Arab