ABBREVIATIONS
NANational Archives at College Park (Archives II), College Park, Maryland
LBJLyndon Baines Johnson Library & Museum, Austin, Texas
GF Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan
NHHC U.S. Naval Historical & Heritage Command, Washington Navy Yard, D.C.
VU Vanderbilt University Television News Archive, Nashville, Tennessee
AMHI U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania
HI Hoover Institution, Stanford, California
NSA National Security Agency, oral history series, Fort Meade, Maryland
WW Woodrow Wilson Center, North Korea International Documentation Project, Washington, D.C.
RG Record Group
NSF National Security File
RP Record of Proceedings of a Court of Inquiry, Convened by Order of Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet, to Inquire into the Circumstances Relating to the Seizure of the USS Pueblo (AGER 2) by North Korean Naval Forces Which Occurred in the Sea of Japan on 23 January 1968
CA Classified Annex to Record of Proceedings of a Court of Inquiry, Convened by Order of Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet, to Inquire into the Circumstances Relating to the Seizure of the USS Pueblo (AGER 2) by North Korean Naval Forces Which Occurred in the Sea of Japan on 23 January 1968
Inq Inquiry into the USS Pueblo and EC-121 Plane Incidents, Hearings Before the Special Subcommittee on the USS Pueblo of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, 91st Congress, First Session, 1969
The Russians buried Dunham: Larry Tart and Robert Keefe (The Price of Vigilance: Attacks on American Surveillance Flights, Ballantine Books, New York, 2001), 29.
Reconnaissance aircraft were shot down: Figures on the shoot-downs are drawn from Tart and Keefe, ibid., and LBJ, “Memorandum for the Record,” 16 Feb. 1967, NSF, Country File, Asia and the Pacific, Korea, Pueblo Incident, Events Leading Up To, box 264.
“Provocative incidents”: NA, “Encounters Between US and Soviet Ships and Aircraft,” RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Office of the Executive Secretariat, Korea Crisis (“Pueblo Crisis”) Files, 1968, Entry 5192, Lot 69D912, box 5, folder: Misc. Pueblo, 2/1/68-68, Book II of II (folder 1 of 2).
Russian captain rushed: ibid.
CHAPTER 1: SPIES AHOY
He didn’t get drafted: Author interview with F. Carl (Skip) Schumacher Jr.
“Where’d you come from?”: F. Carl Schumacher Jr. and George C. Wilson, Bridge of No Return: The Ordeal of the U.S.S. Pueblo (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., New York, 1971), 46.
“Intellectual barbarian”: Author interview with Lieutenant Commander Allen Hemphill, U.S. Navy, retired. Hemphill was a onetime shipmate and longtime friend of Bucher’s.
Operation Clickbeetle: For a fuller account of Operation Clickbeetle, see Trevor Armbrister, A Matter of Accountability: The True Story of the Pueblo Affair (Coward-McCann Inc., New York, 1970), 81–87.
“Pipe-smoking characters”: Lloyd M. Bucher and Mark Rascovich, Bucher: My Story (Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1970), 14.
462 mechanical and design deficiencies: Armbrister, op. cit., 149.
“Overzealous”: Bucher, op. cit., 14.
Fourth century B.C.: Author interview with Peter Langenberg.
Steering engine had failed 180 times: Bucher, op. cit., 81.
Missive found its way: Ibid., 30.
Harrowing attack: For two very different views of the Liberty incident, see James M. Ennes Jr., Assault on the Liberty: The True Story of the Israeli Attack on an American Intelligence Ship (Random House, New York, 1979) and A. Jay Cristol, The Liberty Incident: The 1967 Attack on the U.S. Navy Spy Ship (Brassey’s/Potomac Books, Washington, D.C., 2002). Ennes, who was on board the Liberty when it was hit, concludes that Israel attacked deliberately. Cristol, a federal bankruptcy judge in Florida, argues that the attack was a tragic case of mistaken identity, as Israel maintained.
“A little unfair of me”: Schumacher, op. cit., 47.
“The Lonely Bull”: Author interview with Lloyd M. Bucher.
Double-fingered whistle: Schumacher, op. cit., 58.
Great Naked Art Heist: Details of the temporary theft of the painting are drawn from Bucher, op. cit. 105, and Ed Brandt, The Last Voyage of USS Pueblo (W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1969), 18.
“The captain of all captains”: Armbrister, op. cit., 154.
Dropped out of Princeton: Langenberg, op. cit.
A shy academic: Biographical details of Steve Harris are drawn from Schumacher, op. cit., 56, and Armbrister, op. cit., 107.
“Wish you were dead”: Langenberg, op. cit.
Lost electrical steering: Mitchell B. Lerner, The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy (University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, 2002), 40.
“Contingency plans . . . are written and approved”: Bucher, op. cit., 113.
Despite his pique: Edward R. Murphy Jr. and Curt Gentry, Second in Command (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1971), 72.
“Boosted morale about 600 percent”: Armbrister, op. cit., 162.
Plunged into the frigid ocean: Murphy, op. cit., 15–16.
Murphy sipped a ginger ale: Bucher, op. cit., 37.
Pass on the mincemeat: Murphy, op. cit., 73.
They were laughing: Bucher, op. cit., 121.
CHAPTER 2: DON’T START A WAR OUT THERE, CAPTAIN
“Put together like a plate of hash”: Trevor Armbrister, A Matter of Accountability: The True Story of the Pueblo Affair (Coward-McCann Inc., New York, 1970), 86.
Destroyer steaming at 30 knots: Armbrister, ibid., 122.
“All kinds of signals”: Author interview with Dick Fredlund.
24 hours to lock on: Lloyd M. Bucher and Mark Rascovich, Bucher: My Story (Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1970), 129.
“Boom-yakle-yakle”: F. Carl Schumacher Jr. and George C. Wilson, Bridge of No Return: The Ordeal of the U.S.S. Pueblo (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., New York, 1971), 51.
Angry and embarrassed: Author interview with Lloyd M. Bucher.
Landed an agent: Bucher, ibid.
“I admired them”: Bucher, op. cit.
Zech couldn’t reverse his decision: Armbrister, op. cit., 105.
Stack the excess: Edward R. Murphy Jr. and Curt Gentry, Second in Command (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1971), 78.
Electronic warfare policy: NA, RG 526, Records of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, box 13, folder: US6500, USS Pueblo, Feb 1–7, 1968.
At least a dozen code machines: NA, RG 526, Records of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, box 13, folder: US6500, USS Pueblo, Jan 1–25, 1968.
Told him to shape up: Armbrister, op. cit., 177.
No time to replace them: Ed Brandt, The Last Voyage of USS Pueblo (W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1969), 21.
A presail briefing: Details of the briefing are drawn from Bucher, Bucher: My Story, op. cit., 138; Murphy, op. cit. 95; and Armbrister, op. cit., 203.
“You’re not going out there to start a war”: Bucher, op. cit., 140.
CHAPTER 3: ALONG A DREAD COAST
“Sir, but I’ve got to puke”: Lloyd M. Bucher and Mark Rascovich, Bucher: My Story (Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1970), 46.
It wasn’t his fault: Edward R. Murphy Jr. and Curt Gentry, Second in Command (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1971), 110.
“Jesus Christ, mister!”: Bucher, op. cit., 149.
Terse language: The text of the sailing order can be found in Bucher, op. cit., 420–22.
That delighted the quartermaster: Author interview with Charles Law.
“A sailor first and foremost”: “Bremerton—An Anecdote,” online essay by Stu Russell, http://www.usspueblo.org/Background/Bremerton/Bremerton-P1.html.
Movies were shown: The list of film titles is from NA, RG 526, Records of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, box 12, folder: Pueblo #2.
“What the hell’s going on up there?”: F. Carl Schumacher Jr. and George C. Wilson, Bridge of No Return: The Ordeal of the U.S.S. Pueblo (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., New York, 1971), 77.
Black mountains: “Colder and Getting Colder—An Anecdote,” online essay by Stu Russell, http://www.usspueblo.org/Pueblo_Incident/This_is_Not_Real/Cold_colder.html.
Crosshatch the navigation charts: Trevor Armbrister, A Matter of Accountability: The True Story of the Pueblo Affair (Coward-McCann Inc., New York, 1970), 24.
“Unproductive”: Schumacher, op. cit., 72.
“Eat our livers”: Stu Russell, op. cit.
Slipped past soldiers from the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 14, Telegrams to Seoul, tabs 20–22, box 33.
A suspicious Seoul policeman: Daniel P. Bolger, “Scenes from an Unfinished War: Low-Intensity Conflict in Korea, 1966–1969” (Leavenworth Papers No. 19, Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 1991), 63.
“Extreme tension”: Korea Times newspaper, Seoul, South Korea, Jan. 26, 1968.
Decided to concentrate on the Blue House: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 15, Telegrams to Seoul, tabs 9–17, box 34.
Only two were believed to have made it home: Joseph S. Bermudez, North Korean Special Forces (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Md., 1998), 85.
CHAPTER 4: SOS SOS SOS
“Balmy winters”: Lloyd M. Bucher and Mark Rascovich, Bucher: My Story (Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1970), 46.
Unbeknown to the captain: The flight of the C-130 reconnaissance plane was described to the author by a former crewman who asked to remain anonymous because he’d signed a lifetime Air Force secrecy pledge.
“We have approached the target”: Transcripts of this and subsequent radio messages from the North Korean gunboats are contained in LBJ, NSF, Country File, “Korea, Pueblo Incident, Vol. I, Part A (thru Jan.),” box 257.
A searching look: Bucher, op. cit., 182.
“I’ll be goddamned”: Bucher, op. cit., 184.
“For God’s sake, stop!”: Edward R. Murphy Jr. and Curt Gentry, Second in Command (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1971), 131.
“SOS. SOS. SOS. SOS. . . .”: Inq, 671.
“Everybody on your feet!”: Bucher, Bucheri My Story, op. cit., 191.
A sharp kick in the rear: Bucher, op. cit., 189.
“Answer the fucking phones!”: Author interview with Lloyd M. Bucher.
“I’m going to have to get busy”: Ed Brandt, The Last Voyage of USS Pueblo (W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1969), 48.
“A wild-eyed look”: Bucher, op. cit., 191.
Three pounds of paper at a time: Murphy, op. cit., 139.
A slab of human flesh: Bucher interview.
“AIR FORCE GOING HELP YOU”: Inq, 671.
Afraid he’d burst into tears: F. Carl Schumacher Jr. and George C. Wilson, Bridge of No Return: The Ordeal of the U.S.S. Pueblo (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., New York, 1971), 99.
Strike aircraft: Inq., op. cit., 898.
“Creature-comfort admiral”: Reminiscences of Vice Admiral Kent L. Lee, U.S. Navy (Retired), Vol. II (U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland, 1987–88), 479.
Port city’s air defenses: Inq, op. cit., 916.
“No overt action”: Inq, ibid., 1672.
McKee fired question after question: Author interview with Seth McKee.
But only four planes were available: It’s unclear exactly how many U.S. fighters were in Japan that day, and how many were flyable. Although General John McConnell, the Air Force chief of staff, told President Johnson there were 24 planes, General Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put the figure at 77. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara told congressional leaders “40-odd” aircraft were in Japan at the time. General Seth McKee indicated in congressional testimony that, in any event, none of the planes were combat-ready and immediately available.
Configured for nuclear bombs: NA, RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Office of the Executive Secretariat, Entry 5192, Korean Crisis (“Pueblo Crisis”) files, 1968, Lot file 69D219, stack 150/69/17/07, box 1.
Tip South Korea into war: AMHI, General Charles H. Bonesteel interview, Senior Officers Oral History Program, 1973, Vol. 1, 342.
“The goddamn Navy”: Author interview with John Wright.
“What’s happening to them?”: McKee interview.
CHAPTER 5: WE WILL NOW BEGIN TO SHOOT YOUR CREW
“I protest this outrage!”: Lloyd M. Bucher and Mark Rascovich, Bucher: My Story (Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1970), 208.
“Tell your colonel”: Bucher, ibid., 213.
“Share the wealth”: Ibid., 216.
“Inside my rectum”: CA, Vol. III, 1312–29.
He, too, bravely refused: Stephen R. Harris and James C. Hefley, My Anchor Held (Fleming H. Revell Co., Old Tappan, New Jersey, 1970), 13.
“You have no military rights”: Bucher, op. cit., 220.
“Compromised for ten years”: Author interview with John Wright.
“Captain, you first”: F. Carl Schumacher Jr. and George C. Wilson, Bridge of No Return: The Ordeal of the U.S.S. Pueblo (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., New York, 1971), 9.
Sterile and lonely: Harris, op. cit., 16.
“How you feel?”: Bucher, op. cit., 229.
“You will be shot this afternoon!”: Details of the tribunal were drawn from memoirs by Bucher, Murphy, Steve Harris, and Schumacher.
“Sign this confession!”: Bucher, op. cit., 237.
“Without more unpleasantness”: Ibid., 239.
No ejected dud hit the floor: Details of the mock execution are drawn from Bucher: My Story and the Bucher interview.
A horrifying sight: Bucher: My Story, op. cit., 243.
“I will sign”: Details of this scene are drawn from Bucher: My Story and the Bucher interview.
CHAPTER 6: A MINEFIELD OF UNKNOWNS
Bucher’s admission: The full text of the captain’s “confession” was published in the January 25, 1968, edition of The New York Times.
“Look very closely at his record”: LBJ, Tom Johnson’s Notes of Meetings, Jan. 24, 1968, 1 p.m., Pueblo II, National Security Council, container #2. Johnson did not take verbatim notes of what was said at LBJ’s meetings, but instead paraphrased participants. The author has chosen to quote short sentences from his notes as the closest reconstructions of President Johnson’s otherwise unrecorded words during Pueblo crisis meetings that are ever likely to be available.
“The only thing I could think to do”: “The Capture,” Naval History, Fall 1988, 54.
“Drop the atomic bomb”: LBJ, National Security-Defense, ND 19, CO 151/1-30-68, box 205.
“Coward”: LBJ, National Security-Defense, ND 191, 5-25-65, CO 151/1-28-68, box 205.
“792 pounds of cargo”: LBJ, Tom Johnson’s Notes of Meetings, Jan. 25, 1968, 1:26 p.m., Pueblo 5 luncheon meeting, container #2.
“The fullest justification”: LBJ, NSF, Files of Bromley K. Smith, Meeting of the Pueblo Group, 1/24/68, 10:30 a.m., box 1.
“An act of war”: “U.S. Pressing Ship’s Release,” Washington Post, Jan. 25, 1968.
“Putting prestige factors in the refrigerator”: LBJ, NSF, Files of Bromley K. Smith, op. cit.
CIA pilot Jack Weeks: A number of published accounts credit another CIA pilot, Frank Murray, with locating the Pueblo after its capture. But a declassified CIA history of the A-12 reconnaissance aircraft program, “Finding a Mission,” says it was Weeks who discovered the ship in a small bay north of Wonsan on January 26, 1968. About four months later Weeks disappeared while flying a Mach 3–plus A-12 over the Pacific Ocean near the Philippines. His body was never found. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/a-12/finding-a-mission.html
No concentrations of troops and tanks: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, “Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 4, Day to Day Documents, Part 5,” box 28.
“Just crazy enough”: Author interview with John Denham.
KGB agent in India: LBJ, NSF, Country File, Korea, Pueblo Incident, Vol. I, Part B, box 257.
FBI men in Washington and New York: Information about the communist nations’ plans at the United Nations is taken from Lloyd Mark Bucher’s FBI file, File No. HQ 100-370055, Section 5, obtained by the author through the Freedom of Information Act.
“We going to have to do something”: LBJ, Recording of Telephone Conversation Between Lyndon B. Johnson and Arthur Goldberg, Jan. 28, 1968, 11:38 a.m., Citation #12613, track 3, Recordings and Transcripts of Conversations and Meetings, White House Series, WH6801.02.
“Is that clearly understood?”: LBJ, Tom Johnson’s Notes of Meetings, Jan. 26, 1968, 7:29 p.m., Pueblo Backgrounder with Hugh Sidey, container #2.
“I am neither optimistic or pessimistic”: Ibid.
NIS men grilled hostesses: Details of the Naval Investigative Service probe of Bucher are contained in multiple documents located at NA, RG 526, Records of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, US6500, Jan. 26–27, 1968, box 13. In an interview, Bucher conceded that he “may have chased around a couple of those little girls over there in Yokosuka.”
“Too involved with his men”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 4, Day by Day Documents, Part 5, box 28. The author obtained a partially redacted copy of the CIA profile of Bucher through the Freedom of Information Act.
Nine submarines: NA, RG 218, Records of General Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, box 29, tab 4.
Men hastily built bunkers: AMHI, General Charles H. Bonesteel interview, Senior Officers Oral History Program, 1973, Vol. 1, 353.
“A rather serious loss”: LBJ, NSF, Meeting Notes File, Jan. 31, 1968, meeting with congressional leaders, box 2.
“I just don’t see any value at all”: Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Historical Series), Volume XX, Ninetieth Congress, Second Session, 1968 (made public in 2010), 157.
“When you send out a spy”: LBJ, op. cit.
“Tension bouncing off the walls”: Author interview with Joseph A. Yager, former deputy director of the Korean Task Force.
Ten possible courses of action: NA, RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967–1969, Political and Defense, Lot File 69D219, Stack 150/69/17/07, box 1.
CHAPTER 7: SUICIDE IN A BUCKET
Profound sense of shame: Author interview with Lloyd M. Bucher.
Drenched and defeated: Author interview with F. Carl Schumacher Jr.
“You must be aware of the tortures”: Lloyd M. Bucher and Mark Rascovich, Bucher: My Story (Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1970), 263.
He’d decided to adhere rigidly: The full text of the Code of Conduct can be found at Inq, 937.
“You’re a weakling”: Author interview with Harry Iredale.
“I was determined”: CA, Vol. III, 1006–86.
“A brief confession”: LBJ, NSF, Memos to the President, Walt Rostow, Vol. 112, Dec. 26–31 (1 of 2), container 44, “Statement of Robert James Hammond.”
Scowling grimly: The Rules of Life are quoted in Bucher, op. cit., 281.
Stepped into a sunken tub: Ibid., 284.
“You will be given a special treat!”: Ibid., 287.
Schumacher sent back a note: Trevor Armbrister, A Matter of Accountability: The True Story of the Pueblo Affair (Coward-McCann Inc., New York, 1970), 282.
“That’s nonsense”: NA, RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Office of the Executive Secretariat, Korean Crisis (“Pueblo Crisis”) Files, 1968, Entry 5192, Lot 69D219, box 5, folder: Miscellaneous—Pueblo, 2/1/68–8/68, Book II of II, transcript: “Officers of the Armed Spy Ship ‘Pueblo’ of U.S. Imperialist Aggression Army Were Interviewed by Newspaper, News Agency, and Radio Reporters.”
They debated the exact meaning: Bucher, op. cit., 304.
Some signed hesitantly: Details of the collective signing are taken from Bucher’s and Schumacher’s memoirs and the author’s interview with Bucher.
CHAPTER 8: AT THE MAD HATTER’S TEA PARTY
People in the capital heard artillery: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 19, Telegrams to Posts Other Than Seoul (1 of 2), container 36.
“Tens of thousands of hand grenades”: NA, RG 526, Records of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Stack 630A/1/2/1, box 12, folder: Pueblo #2.
An East German diplomat: WW, Memorandum on an Information of 1 February 1968, Embassy of the GDR in the DPRK, Pyongyang, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, MfAA C 1023/73. Translated by Karen Riechert. http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/113741.
“Fat revisionist pig”: Obituary of Kim Il Sung, Daily Telegraph, London, July 11, 1994.
Their own request: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 12, CIA Documents [1], box 32.
Bulldozed and defoliated: Daniel P. Bolger, “Scenes from an Unfinished War: Low-Intensity Conflict in Korea, 1966–1969,” Leavenworth Papers No. 19 (Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 1991), 49.
Digging in for war: NA, RG 218, Records of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Records of Chairman (Gen.) Earle G. Wheeler, 1964–1970, box 29, folder: Korea (Pueblo) 091, 21 Feb. 1968, Vol. III.
“Seriously disturbed”: NA, RG 526, Records of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, box 13, tab 15, folder: US6500, USS Pueblo, Jan. 26–27, 1968.
“Sir, this is the break”: LBJ, NSF, Country File, Korea, box 57, folder: Pueblo Incident, Vol. Ia, Part A.
“Results could be explosive”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 15, Telegrams to Seoul, tab 9–17, box 34.
Berger’s retort to Porter: LBJ, NSF, Memos to the President, Walt Rostow, Vol. 58, Jan. 25–31, 1968 (2 of 3), container 28.
Park already had alerted his generals: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 16, Telegrams from Seoul, tab 8, box 34, “Final Vance Meeting with President Park,” Feb. 17, 1968.
“Getting nowhere”: Reminiscences of Vice Admiral J. Victor Smith, U.S. Navy (Retired), (U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland, 1977), 422.
“Putrid corpse”: LBJ, NSF, Country File, Asia and the Pacific (Korea), Korea cables and memos, Vol. V, 9/67–3/68, box 255.
LBJ was disappointed: NA, RG 59, Records of Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Rusk telephone transcripts, telephone call from Walt Rostow, Feb. 2, 1968, 10:13 a.m.
“[Smith] is not psychologically suited”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 16, Telegrams from Seoul, tabs 1–5, box 34.
“I’d sit up watching”: Author interview with Marion Smith.
A bridge leading to Panmunjom: Details of the students’ protest are drawn from wire service accounts printed in the Virginian-Pilot and the News and Courier (Charleston, South Carolina), Feb. 8, 1968.
“Appeasement, indecisive, disappointing”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 16, Telegrams from Seoul, tabs 1–5, box 34.
Arrested and paraded: Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (Basic Books, New York, 1997), 10.
“I resolved to uproot”: Park Chung Hee, The Country, the Revolution, and I (Hollym Publishers, Seoul, South Korea, 1970), 61.
“Ringleader of a Communist cell”: New York Times, May 20, 1961.
“An almost psychopathic fear”: NA, RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Office of the Executive Secretariat, Korea Crisis (“Pueblo Crisis”) Files, 1968, Historical reports relating to diplomacy during the Lyndon Johnson Administration, 1963–1969, box 4, folder: Vol. 6.
“Forceful, fair and intelligent”: Edward C. Keefer et al., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Vol. XXII, Northeast Asia (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1996), 543.
“Upheaval, division, and probably bloodshed”: NA, RG 59, op. cit.
Drinking heavily: Karen L. Gatz, editor, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Vol. XXIX, Part 1, Korea (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 2000), 377.
“We’re doing very well”: Author interview with Kent L. Lee.
“No, I am not”: LBJ, Appointment File (Diary Backup), 2/1/68–2/9/68, Feb. 2, 1968, container 89.
“Flat on our ass”: Gatz, Foreign Relations of the United States, op. cit., 554.
Ball destroyed all hard copies: George W. Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern: Memoirs (New York, W. W. Norton & Co., 1982), 436. A copy of Ball’s report in draft form, however, found its way to the LBJ Library, and the author had it declassified. The draft can be found at NSF, Intelligence File, “Pueblo (Jan. 1968),” box 11, document #2.
The United States “will not . . . humiliate itself”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 14, Telegrams to Seoul, tab 1–12, box 33.
“A pirate and a thief”: NA, RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967–1969, Political and Defense, Pol 33-6 Kor N.–U.S., 2/1/68 to 2/15/68, box 2276, folder: 2/8/68.
Emergency powers: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 12, CIA Documents [2], box 32.
Only a few hours: New York Times, Feb. 16, 1968.
“An absolute menace”: Gatz, Foreign Relations of the United States, op. cit., 377.
“We are not helpless”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 14, Telegrams to Seoul, tab 20–22, box 33.
“Gasped, sputtered”: LBJ, NSF, Memos to the President, Walt Rostow, Vol. 62, Feb. 14–16, 1968 (2 of 2), container #29 (1 of 2).
Fortifying themselves with whisky: Author interview with Abbott Greenleaf.
“Not strong enough”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 16, Telegrams from Seoul, tab 8, box 34.
“Profoundly disturbed”: Ibid.
“Going on for some time”: Gatz, Foreign Relations of the United States, op. cit., 378.
“A weak reed”: Ibid., 382.
“Will fight together”: Sergey S. Radchenko, The Soviet Union and the North Korean Seizure of the USS Pueblo: Evidence from Russian Archives, Cold War International History Project, Working Paper #47 (Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C., undated), 65.
“A defensive character”: Ibid., 66.
CHAPTER 9: THE ENDURANCE OF MEN
“Welcome to your new home”: F. Carl Schumacher Jr. and George C. Wilson, Bridge of No Return: The Ordeal of the U.S.S. Pueblo (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., New York, 1971), 162.
Pondering various ways: Author interview with Lloyd M. Bucher.
“I have broken into tears many times”: Time magazine, April 12, 1968.
“Time is running out”: NA, RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967–1969, Political and Defense, Pol 33-6 Kor N.–U.S., 4/1/68 to 5/1/68, box 2270, folder: 4/15/68.
His emaciation startled him: Details of Woelk’s experiences are drawn from an author interview with Woelk; an online essay he wrote, “D.P.R.K.’s Glorious Medicare Care,” www.usspueblo.org/Prisoners/Medicare_Care.html; and Ed Brandt, The Last Voyage of USS Pueblo (W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1969), 71.
“The typical day started in stupidity”: Schumacher, op. cit., 174.
“They have blinded the boy!”: Ibid., 166.
“We just don’t walk like you”: Trevor Armbrister, A Matter of Accountability: The True Story of the Pueblo Affair (Coward-McCann Inc., New York, 1970).
“Rascally fighting spirit”: Author interview with Peter Langenberg.
“You ought to be beaten”: Brandt, op. cit., 139.
“My head just exploded”: Author interview with Jim Kell.
“So hungry you’d be shaking”: Ibid.
“100 percent mechanized”: “My Pueblo Nightmare,” Boston Globe series, May 1969, episode 11.
“Talk and talk and talk and talk”: Kell interview, op. cit.
“They couldn’t sell us on their system”: Langenberg interview, op. cit.
Bought his own car for $3,200: Brandt, op. cit., 141.
“They haven’t perfected the goat”: Stephen R. Harris and James C. Hefley, My Anchor Held (Fleming H. Revell Co., Old Tappan, New Jersey, 1970), 101.
“Delirious with delight”: “Day 221: Mid summer, time to mow the lawn!” essay by crewman Ralph McClintock, copy in author’s possession.
“Look at him and grin”: Author interview with Charles Law.
“It scared the hell out of you”: Kell interview, op. cit.
“How dare you bring that up!”: Brandt, op. cit., 148.
CHAPTER 10: ALLIES AT ODDS
Description of Kaiser estate: LBJ, Appointment File (Diary Backup), April 15–17, 1968, Hawaii, container 96.
“A pyrotechnical spectacle”: Time magazine, April 19, 1968.
Under scrutiny by cryptanalysts: NA, RG 526, Records of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, folder: US6500, USS Pueblo, April 1968, box 13.
“Replying to the letters”: LBJ, Papers of Clark Clifford, folder: Pueblo—March 1, 1968–January 20, 1969, box 23.
His overarching fear: LBJ, NSF, International Meetings and Travel File, Korea, President Johnson’s Meeting w/ President Park, 4/68, container 21.
A turning point: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 21, Airgrams, misc., box 37.
A sense of destiny: Ibid.
Gripped by “intense fear”: LBJ, NSF, International Meetings and Travel File, Korea, President Johnson’s Meeting w/ President Park, 4/68, container 21.
A “relatively short war”: LBJ, NSF, Country File, Korea, Memos and Cables, Vol. VI, 4/68–12/68, box 256.
“Inimical to the U.S. national interest”: Ibid.
“A shock for the Asians”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 7, Day by Day Documents, Part 14, box 30.
“You must give us the main strength”: Ibid.
“Loaded with live bullets”: Ibid.
“We are treating them too well”: WW, Report, Embassy of Hungary in North Korea to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, 27 April 1968, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Crisis-Conf.Doc_reader-Pt1.pdf.
“Bourgeois pacifism and revisionism”: WW, Presidium of the Central Committee of CPCZ, Information about the Situation in Korea, February 5, 1968, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/NKIDP_Document_Reader_New_Evidence_on_North_Korea.pdf.
220 miles up the east coast: NA, RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967–1969, Political and Defense, Pol 33-6 Kor N.–U.S. 4/1/68 to 5/1/68, folder: 4/15/86, box 2270.
CHAPTER 11: SUMMER OF DEFIANCE
“Every little nitpicky thing”: Author interview with Jim Kell.
“It would cost them a lot of money”: Author interview with Lloyd M. Bucher.
He’d make it his solemn business: Ibid.
Bucher mumbled that he no longer cared: Ed Brandt, The Last Voyage of USS Pueblo (W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1969), 151.
“I’m happier than shit”: Author interview with Charles Law.
“Goddamn it, I didn’t kill the goddamn plant”: Brandt, op. cit., 145.
Strano husbanded his growing stash: Ibid., 152.
“He’d realize we got to him, and he’d send us off”: Law interview. op. cit.
“His head down”: Trevor Armbrister, A Matter of Accountability: The True Story of the Pueblo Affair (Coward-McCann Inc., New York, 1970), 308.
“Christ, there goes my career”: Ibid., 309.
“You lose a .45[-caliber pistol] in the Navy”: Author interview with F. Carl (Skip) Schumacher Jr.
“If you got five or six guys who saw it one way”: Bucher interview. op. cit.
“No tender private thoughts could be conveyed”: Lloyd M. Bucher and Mark Rascovich, Bucher: My Story (Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1970), 335.
“I told you it was gonna make me sweat”: Armbrister, op. cit., 309.
“Run over him”: Interview with Donald Richard Peppard, Library of Congress, Veterans History Project, Oct. 29, 2002.
“The majority were . . . CIA operatives”: NA, RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967–1969, Political and Defense, Central, Pol 33-6, Kor N–U.S., 7/1/68, box 2272, folder: 7/1/68.
Two crewmen were beaten: HI, unpublished excerpt from Bucher: My Story, Bucher Papers, box 17.
The “12 ball problem”: F. Carl Schumacher Jr. and George C. Wilson, Bridge of No Return: The Ordeal of the USS Pueblo (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., New York, 1971), 177.
Harris’s nighttime dreams: Stephen R. Harris and James C. Hefley, My Anchor Held (Fleming H. Revell Co., Old Tappan, New Jersey, 1970), 100.
The infection in Murphy’s foot: Edward R. Murphy Jr. and Curt Gentry, Second in Command (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1971), 267.
“Let the evil spirits out”: Armbrister, op. cit., 318.
“Good luck, everyone”: Brandt, op. cit., 164.
“That means a lot to me”: Kell interview. op. cit.
Still more coordinates: Murphy, op. cit., 269.
“Oh, how I long to walk”: “Text of Pueblo Crew’s Press Conference,” as prepared by the Korean Central News Agency, Sept. 16, 1968, 12.
“The proof is irrefutable”: Ibid., 16.
What a North Korean court-martial was like: Brandt, op. cit., 182.
Toilet paper stayed in Bucher’s pocket: Bucher, Bucher: My Story, op. cit., 346.
CHAPTER 12: AN UNAPOLOGETIC APOLOGY
“Defeatism, puny protest, and wishy-washy talk-a-thons”: Congressional Record, July 22, 1968, pp. H7168–7169.
Such mishaps . . . had to stop: LBJ, NSF, Country File, Korea memos and cables, Vol. VI, 4/68–12/68, box 256.
“Maximum exploitability”: NA, RG 218, Records of Gen. Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, box 29, folder: 091 Korea, 5/1/68–4/31/69.
“Wipe out” potential American invaders: Washington Post, June 1, 1968.
“U.S. restraint in the Pueblo affair probably strengthened this view”: NA, RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Policy Planning Council, Korea through Philippines 1967–1968, box 306, folder: Korea, 1967–1968.
Code-named “Freedom Drop”: NA, RG 218, Records of Gen. Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , box 29, folder: Korea 091, 1 May 1968–31 April 1969.
Cynical and unpleasant: WW, 15 April 1969: 11:00 p.m., Telephone conversation between National Security Adviser Kissinger and Dr. Kramer, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Crisis-Conf.Doc_reader-Pt1.pdf.
“Maximum violence”: LBJ, NSF, Memos to the President—Walt Rostow, Vol. 76, May 9–14, 1968 (1 of 2), box 34.
“Over 30 miles from shore on dry land”: LBJ, NSF, Papers of Clark Clifford, Pueblo, March 1, 1968–Jan. 20, 1969, box 23.
“Both sides would understand this ambiguity”: LBJ, National Security File, Memos to the President—Walt Rostow, Vol. 78, May 20–24, 1968 (2 of 2), box 34.
“This country cannot indulge in lies”: Virginian-Pilot newspaper, undated. A copy is in the author’s possession.
“Republic of Korea and the United States are inseparably bound”: NA, RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967–1969, Political and Defense, Pol 33-6 Kor N-US, 5/1/68 to 7/1/68, box 2271, folder: 5/20/68.
The more outlandish the rhetoric: Ibid., folder: 7/1/68.
A Japanese newsman: NA, RG 526, Records of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Stack 630A/1/2/1, box 12, folder: “Pueblo No. 1.”
“Is Commander Bucher in good health?”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 18, Telegrams from Seoul, Tab 1 [1 of 2], box 35.
“We will be vulnerable to criticism”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 15, Telegrams to Seoul, box 34, tabs 4–8.
“It [is] not practical for us to remain motionless”: NA, RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967–1969, Political and Defense, Pol 33-6 Kor N.–US, 7/1/68, box 2271, folder: 7/1/68.
Pak didn’t seem to understand: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 18, Telegrams for Seoul, Tab 1 (1 of 2), box 35.
“A bundle of feathers”: Author interview with Charles Law.
“Penetration however slight”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Files, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 8, Day to Day Documents, Part 17, box 30.
“Before this month is out”: Lloyd M. Bucher and Mark Rascovich, Bucher: My Story (Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1970), 348.
“Very beautiful!”: Ibid., 350.
Stuck his head in the animal’s harmless maw: “My Pueblo Nightmare,” Boston Globe series, May 24, 1969, episode 14.
“Get the hell out of my way”: Bucher, op. cit., 352.
A welcome “he would long remember”: Edward R. Murphy Jr. and Curt Gentry, Second in Command (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1971), 282.
“Why we Koreans hate you Americans”: F. Carl Schumacher Jr. and George C. Wilson, Bridge of No Return: The Ordeal of the U.S.S. Pueblo (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., New York, 1971), 170.
“A terrible atrocity had taken place”: Bruce Cumings, The Korean War: A History (Modern Library, New York, 2010), 198.
“How ghastly!”: Bucher, op. cit., 351.
The dark spots looked like mold: Ed Brandt, The Last Voyage of USS Pueblo (W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1969), 193.
Nothing but icy disdain: Murphy, op. cit., 296.
Convinced he didn’t have much time to live: Bucher, op. cit., 357.
“Just couldn’t hold out any longer”: Ibid., 356.
“You CIA man!”: Brandt, op. cit., 215.
“He went to college and uses big words”: Ibid., 216.
A five-foot-long rod: Law interview, op. cit.
“My ribs felt cracked”: Bucher, op. cit., 358.
“Something we can all be proud of!”: Ibid., 359.
“Who made you try to fool us?”: “One Hellish Experience,” online essay by Harry Iredale, http://www.usspueblo.org/Prisoners/One_Hellish_Experience.html.
“I got stubborn”: Author interview with Harry Iredale.
“Damn scared”: CA, Vol. III, 1006–95.
Didn’t touch him again: Ibid., 1006–97.
CHAPTER 14: BRIDGE OF NO RETURN
“Understandable!”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 18, Telegrams from Seoul, Tab 1 (2 of 2), box 35.
“Not sufficiently engaged”: LBJ, NSF, Country File—Asia and the Pacific (Korea), container #256.
50 guerrillas came ashore: LBJ, NSF, Country File—Korea, folder: memos and cables, Vol. VI, 4/68–12/68.
“This might have [a] salutary effect”: NA, RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967–1969, Political and Defense, Pol 33-6, Kor N.–U.S., 7/1/68 to 7/1/68, box 2271, folder: 7/1/68.
A little rumor-mongering: Ibid., 10/15/86 to 12/1/68, box 2274, folder: 12/1/68.
“It was a bluff”: Author interview with Nicholas Katzenbach.
“An average American as I am”: NA, RG 59, op. cit.
“He evidently had no real conception”: LBJ, NSF, Country File—Asia and the Pacific, box 262, folder: Korea Pueblo Incident, Seoul Cables, Vol. II, 2/11/68–3/68.
“No genuine interest”: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 13, 1969.
He blithely offered to pay $50 million: NA, RG 59, op. cit.
Naive, “very high-strung,” and “unstable”: Ibid.
“They respect us for this eccentricity”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 8, Day by Day Documents, Part 17, box 30.
“What sort of people we are privileged to serve”: NA, RG 59, op. cit.
“This may sound nutty to you”: Katzenbach interview, op. cit.
“We are agreeable”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 18, Telegrams from Seoul, Tab 1 (2 of 2), box 35.
“We are . . . perturbed”: NA, Records Group 218, Records of Gen. Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, box 29.
Pump troops into the area: LBJ, NSF, op. cit.
“Not entirely medical in character”: Lloyd M. Bucher and Mark Rascovich, Bucher: My Story (Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1970), 361.
“The warmongering United States on its knees”: Bucher, op. cit., 362.
Bucher stood up, expressed his thanks: F. Carl Schumacher Jr. and George C. Wilson, Bridge of No Return: The Ordeal of the U.S.S. Pueblo (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., New York, 1971), 215.
“You don’t get medals for this”: Ed Brandt, The Last Voyage of USS Pueblo (W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1969), 231.
Americans were sure to be killed: “My Pueblo Nightmare,” Boston Globe series, May 1969, episode 15.
“Shameful aggressive history”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 21, Telegrams from Canada and Europe, Tabs 1-2a, box 37.
Grief and revulsion: Bucher, op. cit., 362.
Tears dampening his cheeks: Author interview with Charles Law.
The soldiers did nothing: “My Pueblo Nightmare,” op. cit.
CHAPTER 15: A CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR THE NATION
“Known to be voluble”: Admiral William J. Crowe Jr., with David Chanoff, The Line of Fire: From Washington to the Gulf, the Politics and Battles of the New Military (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1993), 69.
“I’m relieved to hear it from you”: Lloyd M. Bucher and Mark Rascovich, Bucher: My Story (Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1970), 368.
“A study in agony and suspense”: “Bucher Tells the Story,” Washington Post, Dec. 24, 1968.
“Freedom is worth more than anyone’s life”: Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Mass.), Dec. 24, 1968.
“He is an unusual individual”: LBJ, NSF, Memos to the President—Walt Rostow, Vol. III, Dec. 18–25, 1968, container 43.
“You guys are gonna get a lot of questions”: Author interview with Lloyd M. Bucher.
“This was the nation’s Christmas present”: “Christmas Starts on an Airfield,” San Diego Union, Dec. 25, 1968.
“Captain, I’m so glad you got back”: “Incident Reports,” an online book by Bucher’s friend and former shipmate Allen Hemphill, who tape-recorded portions of the Miramar homecoming. http://www.allenhemphill.com/day_of_return.htm.
His first really good laugh: Bucher, Bucher: My Story, op. cit., 376.
“You should all wave to them!”: Eleanor Van Buskirk Harris, The Ship That Never Returned (Christopher Publishing House, North Quincy, Mass., 1974), 257.
“Crying into thin, gnarled hands”: Ibid.
“Handshakes . . . nearly broke my hand”: Bucher, Bucher: My Story, op. cit., 377.
“An admiral just fetched me a cup of coffee”: Edward R. Murphy Jr. and Curt Gentry, Second in Command (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1971), 36. Emphasis in original.
“When we sang ‘Joy to the World’”: Newsweek, Jan. 6, 1969.
“Never . . . have I been so burstingly proud”: San Diego Union, undated.
“Restraint and patience have paid off”: LBJ, White House Central Files, Judicial, JL3/CO, container 37.
“What can one believe?”: “Pueblo Case Perfidy,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Dec. 24, 1968.
“We sank you!”: San Diego Union, Dec. 26, 1968.
Meanwhile, Navy doctors began examining the crew: Schumacher and Hammond’s medical conditions: NHHC, Records of the Immediate Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Pueblo Incident, Court of Inquiry, box 116, “Medical Annex to a Report of a Court of Inquiry.”
“Consciously and carefully controlled”: LBJ, Papers of Clark Clifford, box 23, folder: Pueblo—March 1, 1968–Jan. 20, 1969.
“‘Brainwashing’ techniques were unsuccessful”: Ford, Charles V., and Raymond C. Spaulding, “The Pueblo Incident: Psychological Reactions to the Stresses of Imprisonment and Repatriation,” American Journal of Psychiatry, July 1972.
“Exceptionally strong and an inspiration”: Spaulding, ibid. Spaulding’s article cites only “a 25-year-old junior officer,” but certain details and the context make it obvious he is discussing Schumacher.
Triumphed . . . by simply surviving: Author interview with C. W. “Bill” Erwin.
A bit tipsy: NSA, Oral History Interview, Eugene Sheck, NSA-OH-26-82.
A written guarantee: Murphy, op. cit., 327.
“Relaxed atmosphere” and a “sympathetic relationship”: NA, RG 526, Records of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, box 13, folder: US6500, USS Pueblo, Feb 1–7, 1968.
“The kids became pretty free”: Sheck oral history, op. cit.
“Several Hollywood starlets”: “Pueblo Men Entertained at Party,” San Diego Evening Tribune, Jan. 13, 1969.
“You don’t just give up the ship”: Los Angeles Times, Jan. 24, 1968.
“I haven’t heard of anyone who is sympathetic”: U.S. News & World Report, Feb. 10, 1969.
CHAPTER 16: BUCHER’S GETHSEMANE
Newsome worried that he wasn’t up to: Author interview with William R. Newsome.
Like they just saw Lindbergh: Ibid.
“Emotions just leaked out of me”: Author interview with Lloyd M. Bucher.
“Horrible chore”: U.S. Naval Institute, Reminiscences of Admiral John J. Hyland Jr., U.S. Navy (Ret.), Volume II, 1989, 460.
Strict limits: Memorandum of Understanding, Subj: Pueblo Matters, Department of the Navy, Sept. 26, 1968, copy provided to the author by William R. Newsome.
“I didn’t know what a court of inquiry was”: Author interview with E. Miles Harvey.
“Come on board with Bucher”: Ibid.
“Don’t make him John the Baptist”: Newsome interview, op. cit.
“No question in my mind”: RP, Vol. 1, 60.
“A complete slaughter”: Ibid., 119.
“No particular action took place”: Ibid., 136.
Completely off guard: Harvey interview, op. cit.
His hands trembled: Bucher’s pauses and gestures are described in The National Observer, Jan. 27, 1969, and Trevor Armbrister, A Matter of Accountability: The True Story of the Pueblo Affair (Coward-McCann Inc., New York, 1970), 366.
“An aura of unreality”: Armbrister, ibid., 367.
“Appalling demonstration”: Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 25, 1969.
Bag after bag of angry mail: The letters are quoted in Armbrister, op. cit., 368, and Edward R. Murphy Jr. and Curt Gentry, Second in Command (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1971), 362.
“Admiral Moorer is a horse’s ass”: NHHC, Records of the Immediate Office of the CNO, Pueblo Incident Files, box 127, folder: “Citizen mail.”
“What do they expect”: Ibid.
“A circus midget trying to slug Cassius Clay”: Miami Herald, Jan. 27, 1969.
“A nuclear Sarajevo”: New York Post, Jan. 30, 1969.
“If those five admirals think”: Boston Sunday Globe, Jan. 26, 1969.
“Don’t let Navy make a fool of itself”: Richard Reeves, President Nixon: Alone in the White House (Simon & Schuster, New York, 2001), 30.
“Harvey was running the court”: Admiral William J. Crowe Jr., with David Chanoff, The Line of Fire: From Washington to the Gulf, the Politics and Battles of the New Military (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1993), 72.
“Standing up against authority”: Author interview with Bernard Weinraub.
“The public thronged”: Murphy, op. cit., 363.
“If you were a betting man”: RP, Vol. 1, 220.
353 southern fishermen aboard 50 boats: Inq, 683.
“Determined countermeasures”: New York Times, Jan. 27, 1968.
An uncontrollable clash: AMHI, Bonesteel interview, Senior Officers Oral History Program, 1973, Vol. 1, 342.
Bonesteel wouldn’t let the South Koreans help their own: CA, Vol. 1, 198-54.
“A diplomatic uproar”: Ibid., 198–99.
“There was no means and no procedures”: Ibid.
Bucher was specifically instructed: Ibid.
“Ill-concealed disgust”: Murphy, op. cit., 376.
Johnson’s cheeks reddened: Johnson’s and Bucher’s facial expressions are described in “Admiral Says He Lacked Forces to Rescue,” New York Times, Jan. 30, 1969, 8.
CHAPTER 17: EVERYONE’S WORST NIGHTMARE
“A dent or some scratched paint”: RP, Vol. 2, 421.
Didn’t even know where the bags were stored: CA, Vol. 2, 626–48.
Prescribed a certain sequence: NA, RG 218, Records of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Records of Chairman (Gen.) Earle G. Wheeler, 1964–1970, box 29, folder: 091 Korea (re: Pueblo Incident, Jan. 68).
“It seemed like no one was”: CA, Vol. 4, 1846–49.
“Pale and skinny”: Time, Feb. 21, 1969.
“An immense amount of junk”: CA, Vol. 1, 114.
“Virtually to powder”: RP, Vol. 2, 354.
“Everyone’s worst nightmare”: Thomas R. Johnson, “American Cryptology During the Cold War, 1945–1989, Book II: Centralization Wins, 1960–1972,” National Security Agency, United States Cryptologic History, 1995, 439.
“I didn’t pay any attention”: Robert E. Newton, “The Capture of the USS Pueblo and Its Effect on SIGINT Operations,” National Security Agency, United States Cryptologic History, Special Series, Crisis Collection, Vol. 7, 1992, 67. This 245-page study was declassified, at the author’s request, under mandatory declassification review in 2007.
“A major intelligence coup”: Johnson, op. cit., 446.
Soviet military intelligence inspected: Newton, op. cit., 173.
Impede U.S. intelligence-collection: “Damage Assessment of the Compromise of Operational Intelligence Broadcast Messages on Board USS Pueblo (AGER-2),” March 17, 1969, III-B-5. This 50-page report was prepared jointly by the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, Navy, Air Force and Army. It was declassified, at the author’s request, under mandatory declassification review in 2007.
“Great danger”: Newton, op. cit., 150.
“Could not be deceived”; “more talkative and cooperative”; and “terrified condition”: Ibid., 129.
“We knew everything!”: “Interview with the Spy Master,” Washington Post Magazine, April 23, 1995, W18.
More than one million: Robert Hunter, Spy Hunter: Inside the FBI Investigation of the Walker Espionage Case (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 1999), 202.
“If there had been a war”: Washington Post, Jan. 22, 1989, D1.
Vehemently denied: Pete Early, Family of Spies (Bantam Books, New York, 1988), 72.
“We innocent peons”: Langenberg’s Feb. 2, 1969, letter to his mother, copy in author’s possession.
Men still enjoyed strong public support: The poll is cited in “Pueblo’s Captain and Crew Given Support,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 10, 1969, 26.
“A 24-hour-a-day job”: Author interview with Edward Grimm.
“Bail her out”: Author interview with E. Miles Harvey.
“Welcome home, Captain”: Washington Post, March 9, 1969.
The only lukewarm assessment: RP, Vol. 3, 714.
“My faith in God and my country”: RP, Vol. 6, 1287.
He spoke evenly: New York Times, March 12, 1969.
“Just didn’t occur to me”: RP, Vol. 8, 1817.
“I never did actually surrender”: Ibid., 1831.
“Abnormally concerned”: Ibid., 1752.
“He still loves the Navy”: New York Times, May 7, 1969.
“His greatest reward”: RP, Vol. 8, 1863.
CHAPTER 18: BALM OF MERCY
“This is my home”: Omaha World-Herald, April 24, 1969.
“The verdict has already been returned”: Congressional Record, Senate, Vol. 115, No. 71, May 1, 1969.
“A single shot”: Time magazine, April 25, 1969.
Near Cape Town: Record of a Telephone Conversation Between President Nixon and the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), April 15, 1969, 10 p.m., http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v19p1/d9.
“Strongly influenced”: CIA Intelligence Memorandum, “Communist Reactions to Certain US Actions,” April 17, 1969, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v19p1/d14.
800 other . . . reconnaissance sorties: Memorandum for Director of Central Intelligence, “JRC Monthly Reconnaissance Schedule for January 1968,” Jan. 2, 1968, http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/89801/DOC_0001458144.pdf.
“Cursory and perfunctory”: Inq, 728.
“North Korean Air Force has been extremely sensitive”: F. Carl Schumacher Jr. and George C. Wilson, Bridge of No Return: The Ordeal of the U.S.S. Pueblo (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., New York, 1971), 64.
“Complete blithering idiots”: NSA, Eugene Sheck, Oral History Interview, NSA-OH-26-82, 5.
“Saving our ass”: Ibid., 7.
“A deliberate effort to bury”: Report of the Special Subcommittee on the U.S.S. Pueblo of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, 91st Congress, First Session, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1969, 1656.
“No overt action”: Ibid., 1672.
“I was lukewarm”: Inq, 860.
“Are you in any way implying”: Report of the Special Subcommittee, op. cit., 805.
“Not to contact the South Korean air force”: Ibid., 877.
“It was kind of nice”: Ibid., 881.
“He just didn’t try”: Findings of Fact, Opinions, and Recommendations of a Court of Inquiry Convened by Order of Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet, to Inquire into the Circumstances Relating to the Seizure of USS Pueblo (AGER 2), 88. The Navy released a copy of the report to the author under the Freedom of Information Act.
“Completely failed”: Ibid., 172.
“They would have hung Bucher”: Author interview with William Newsome.
Hyland was appalled: “The Pueblo Incident,” Naval History, Fall 1988, Vol. 2, No. 4, 55.
“Grumbling and dragging his heels”: Oral History of Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr., U.S. Navy (Retired), Naval Historical Foundation, Washington, D.C., 2009, 631.
“A very poor fourth”: NHHC, “Memorandum for Admiral Thomas H. Moorer,” Records of the Immediate Office of the CNO, Pueblo Incident Files, Correspondence, box 123.
“Must in fairness be borne”: New York Times, May 7, 1969.
“Dashed to pieces”: Lloyd M. Bucher and Mark Rascovich, Bucher: My Story (Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1970), 395.
“With respect to stopping the ship”: RP, Vol. 8, 1814.
“My most experienced officer . . . had robbed me”: Lloyd M. Bucher and Mark Rascovich, Bucher: My Story (Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1970), 192.
The lie-detector test: HI, Papers of Lloyd M. Bucher, box 17.
“I regret having done it”: Author interview with Lloyd M. Bucher.
“I am lost all the time”: HI, Bucher Papers, op. cit.
“A tremendous amount of stupidity”: Washington Post, June 10, 1970.
“In any capacity”: Bucher interview, op. cit.
“It was like I had the plague”: Ibid.
“What ships did I surrender today”: Ibid.
“We could not have it both ways”: “Commander Bucher Replies,” Naval History, Winter 1989, 49.
“One hell of a sight better”: Ibid., 50.
“Just easing the pain”: New York Times, May 29, 1988.
“Rifle butts and boot kickings”: Los Angeles Times, Jan. 17, 1988, 34.
“One hell of a lot of conflict”: Bucher letter to Rep. Montgomery, copy in author’s possession.
“The thing that really gnawed at me”: Author interview with Nicholas J. Mavroules.
“They have earned it”: Statement of Vice Admiral Jeremy M. Boorda before the Subcommittee on Investigations, Armed Services Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, June 23, 1989, copy in author’s possession.
“I apologize for all the citizens of this nation”: United Press International, May 5, 1990.
EPILOGUE
Disguised it as a freighter: The New York Times, July 19, 2005.
“My ankles were raw”: Author interview with William T. Massie.
“We’ve not been successful”: Author interview with Daniel T. Gilbert.