Act of War

by Jack Cheevers

  With many Americans clamoring for revenge, the president knew he eventually might have to strike back at North Korea. But McNamara believed the moral and political basis for doing so was weakened by uncertainty over the Pueblo’s precise track during its voyage. Its position reports, coupled with intercepted radio calls from the North Korean gunboats, clearly showed it was in international waters when taken. But for 12 days before that Bucher and his men had observed radio silence. Could they have penetrated communist waters—accidentally or deliberately—during that time? Without being able to interview them, the U.S. government couldn’t prove their ship hadn’t entered a forbidden area at some point.

  Under international law, however, the Pueblo’s whereabouts were irrelevant. Leonard Meeker, the State Department’s general counsel, noted in a memo that even if a naval vessel intruded into another nation’s waters, the offended state had the right only to escort the trespasser back to the high seas. Warships had the same status as sovereign territory: No country could legitimately shanghai another’s military vessels under any circumstances short of war.

  But LBJ and his advisers never made use of that powerful legal argument. They seemed more concerned about reactions in the court of public opinion—both at home and abroad—if they hit North Korea without convincing evidence that no intrusion had occurred. McNamara insisted that the White House would “need the fullest justification” to retaliate, including “proof of the exact location of the Pueblo when it was attacked.”

  —

  The president rejoined his counselors in the Cabinet Room at 7:50 p.m. on January 24 for another brainstorming session that ended with him making a series of sweeping decisions.

  Johnson began by reading a summary of TV evening news reports on his administration’s handling of the crisis. The stories emphasized the president’s desire for a peaceful solution. NBC and ABC also used footage of Rusk talking to reporters on Capitol Hill. Asked whether the bloody seizure constituted an act of war against the United States, the secretary of state said it did.

  “I would not object to characterizing it as an act of war,” he said, “in terms of categories in which such acts can be construed.”

  From the White House’s point of view, Rusk’s comment was a dangerously inflammatory misstep. An act of war—one nation bombing or invading another, for example—made the use of reciprocal violence justifiable under international legal doctrine. Shooting up and commandeering an American naval vessel on the high seas in peacetime certainly qualified as an act of war. But for a high-ranking government official to openly describe the incident that way ratcheted up the political pressure on the president to respond in kind. No administration official uttered such sentiments in public again.

  LBJ wanted his advisers to give him a clear set of choices, both diplomatic and military. McNamara outlined plans for a massive movement of American arms and men to reinforce South Korea. He proposed sending a fleet of 250 jet fighters, bombers, and reconnaissance aircraft to the Far East from bases in the United States and elsewhere. To backfill the resulting defense gaps, McNamara urged that nearly 15,000 Air Force and Navy reservists be summoned to active duty—the biggest call-up since the Cuban crisis.

  Like his boss, the defense secretary often saw events in different parts of the world through the dark and sometimes distorting lens of Vietnam. McNamara believed the United States should “respond promptly and in a firm manner” to the Pueblo capture lest Washington appear weak and irresolute not only to the North Koreans but to the North Vietnamese. American underreaction in Korea, he feared, might encourage Hanoi and thus “prolong the Vietnam War substantially.”

  McNamara also wanted to shift 26 B-52 bombers to Okinawa from airfields in California and Scotland. Taking off from the island, the all-weather heavy bombers could be over North Korea in only two and a half hours, decimating communist troops and armor if they crossed into the south. Finally, the defense chief recommended a secret, high-altitude reconnaissance flight over North Korea, both to check whether Kim Il Sung’s forces were massing for an invasion and to pinpoint the stolen spy ship in Wonsan harbor.

  After being assured that no airpower would be diverted from the coming struggle at Khe Sanh, the president approved all of McNamara’s recommendations. In addition, two aircraft carrier battle groups were to join the Enterprise. Counting land- and carrier-based aircraft, a total of 361 U.S. warplanes would be available if fighting broke out.

  But Johnson had no intention of using these forces if he didn’t have to. He turned to Rusk, his top diplomat, who urged that Washington bring its case before the United Nations as soon as possible.

  The world peacekeeping body had had a special interest in Korean affairs ever since the Korean War, in which troops from the United States and 15 other nations fought under the blue-and-white U.N. flag against North Korea and China. The U.N. Charter required member states to attempt to resolve their differences peacefully before resorting to military action, and for LBJ this obligation was a godsend. Bringing the issue before the U.N. Security Council would buy time for the American public to cool off, thereby easing pressure on the White House to uphold national honor with violence.

  “It is one way of putting prestige factors in the refrigerator for a few days,” Rusk had noted at a previous meeting that day.

  Given more time, LBJ could pursue diplomacy even as he positioned combat forces in and around the Sea of Japan. There was a potential downside to the U.N. strategy, however. The Security Council could end its deliberations with a call for further restraint by Washington, thus undercutting the legitimacy of any American use of force, at least under present circumstances.

  Johnson decided to take his chances.

  Rusk also proposed a second appeal to the Soviets. They had a mutual defense treaty with Pyongyang, and any large-scale outbreak of fighting on the Korean peninsula could suck them in as well. It was in Moscow’s interest to help defuse the situation by leaning on its North Korean allies to back off.

  Rostow suggested calling the Soviets on the White House hotline to underscore the urgency of the matter, but Johnson demurred. He wanted to do nothing that might suggest an already dire situation was deteriorating. He instructed Rusk to draft a communiqué and transmit it to the Kremlin through ordinary channels the next day.

  “Make it strong,” the president emphasized.

  —

  At a closely guarded airstrip on Okinawa, CIA pilot Jack Weeks climbed into an extraordinary aircraft to go see whether Kim Il Sung was preparing for war.

  With its needle nose, knife-edged delta wings, and jet-black titanium skin, the top secret A-12 looked like some huge, ethereal bird of prey. Built by Lockheed and flight-tested under tight security over the Nevada desert, the reconnaissance jet shot through the sky at a breathtaking 2,100 miles per hour—three times the speed of sound and more than four times faster than the craft it replaced, the famous U-2.

  A squadron of A-12s at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa had been flying surveillance over North Vietnam in recent months. Now Washington wanted fast answers about what North Korea was up to.

  Weeks’s plane raced down the runway, bright-orange fireballs flaring from its two big engines. It lifted off and headed north. Weeks zoomed over the Yellow Sea and switched on his high-resolution cameras before flying west to east over North Korea’s midsection. He made two more passes, spending just 17 minutes over communist territory. Soaring more than 80,000 feet above Wonsan, the pilot spotted the Pueblo, anchored in a small inlet at the north end of the icy bay, through his view scope. A single torpedo boat guarded the spy ship, although more patrol boats were nearby.

  Upon Weeks’s return to Kadena, his film was rushed into the hands of CIA photo analysts. Besides the Pueblo’s location, the pictures revealed 54 MiG fighters at Wonsan airfield and three Komar-class guided missile patrol boats that had never been photographed before. But, to the relief of those wh
o saw them, the images showed no concentrations of troops and tanks near the demilitarized zone.

  —

  On January 25, at a somber breakfast meeting and then again over lunch, LBJ peppered his advisers with Socratic questions about the wisdom of the impending U.S. buildup. He seemed to be having doubts.

  Wouldn’t a huge infusion of American weaponry antagonize the Soviets, leading them to beef up their own forces in the Sea of Japan? How would the Chinese react? And once all of the U.S. aircraft and warships were in place, what then?

  The president’s guests included Clark Clifford, a veteran Washington lawyer and Democratic Party power broker scheduled to replace McNamara as defense secretary in a few weeks. Clifford believed the military expansion would sharply escalate tensions in the Far East and was too risky; Johnson couldn’t raise such a big sword over Kim Il Sung’s head and then do nothing with it. Rather than send American ships and planes abroad, Clifford said, the president should assemble them at home and wait to see what the communists did next. Public anger over the Pueblo would die down; in the meantime the United States must proceed with great caution.

  “I am deeply sorry about the ship and the eighty-three men,” he said, “but I do not think it is worth a resumption of the Korean War.”

  Other advisers, however, argued that the United States needed much more military muscle in the region. Although the North Koreans weren’t gearing up to invade now, they could decide to do so at any moment. South Korea had a bigger army than the north, but Pyongyang possessed a stronger air force, including many newer MiG fighters. The United States had only a handful of aircraft in South Korea, and the two American army divisions stationed there were significantly understrength. If war came, a lack of readiness could spell disaster.

  An increase in American combat power also would serve as psychic balm for the many South Koreans who were deeply upset by the double shock of the Blue House raid and the Pueblo attack. Some even wanted to invade the north as payback. The Johnson administration had sternly warned against such action, and South Korea’s President Park had pledged not to do so, at least for the time being. But Park believed counterattacks on North Korean “terrorist training camps” were necessary, and it seemed likely that he’d strike back hard if the north engaged in more aggression. Indeed, Washington learned that South Korean military leaders were secretly preparing “retaliatory raids.” Tellingly, they refused to show their plans to General Bonesteel, the U.N. commander who ostensibly controlled South Korea’s armed forces.

  Johnson ultimately concluded that the buildup, though risky, was unavoidable. “We must move up our forces to awaken the people to the danger,” he told his advisers. “We have to get our hands out and our guard up.” But he also kept pressing them for a solution to his most immediate problem: how to get back the Pueblo and its crew. Rusk reiterated his recommendation to buy time at the United Nations. McNamara suggested giving South Korea another $100 million in military aid.

  But no one knew how to save the 82 surviving sailors being held somewhere in North Korea.

  —

  The fog was so dense when Captain John Denham’s destroyer caught up with the Enterprise that even from 50 yards astern he couldn’t see the giant carrier.

  He was close enough to hear loudspeaker announcements and jet engines revving on the flight deck. But it wasn’t until he was just 100 yards away that the Enterprise’s gray enormity finally materialized out of the mist. Denham pulled his vessel, the USS Ozbourn, alongside the carrier’s starboard beam. Admiral Epes, the air commander, waved to him.

  Denham and his crew had been at Okinawa, taking on fuel and water while en route to Vietnam from Japan, when they received orders to join the Enterprise. The Ozbourn dashed out of port just past midnight on January 24, kicking up a six-foot-high rooster tail as it sped north. Denham rendezvoused with the carrier 14 hours later. When he heard of the dangerous plan to lasso the Pueblo and drag it out of Wonsan, he volunteered for the job.

  The scheme might have seemed harebrained to some, but Denham thought it could work. The only question was how many of his sailors would die making that happen.

  Many of them were battle-toughened veterans of Vietnam, where the Ozbourn had operated since the summer of 1966. Recently the destroyer had been active in Operation Sea Dragon, streaking in from the open ocean to shell bridges and highways along North Vietnam’s coast before scooting away in a hail of enemy fire.

  A 43-year-old San Francisco native, Denham believed he and his men were uniquely qualified to go after the Pueblo. After lying his way into the merchant marine at age 16 during World War II, he’d worked on a variety of ships. As a tugboat hand, he learned how to tow other vessels. Later in his career he commanded a military cargo ship almost identical to the original Pueblo. As a destroyer navigator during the Korean War, he participated in naval bombardments of Wonsan, familiarizing himself with local waters. He was a top-notch ship handler and his men knew how to fight at close quarters, having used small arms to battle Vietcong guerrillas on the banks of the Mekong River, sometimes only 100 feet away.

  As the Enterprise battle group steamed around and around, awaiting a green light for action, Denham’s men practiced taking back the Pueblo.

  The Ozbourn was to rush into Wonsan harbor after other warships had laid down a punishing shore barrage. Clad in bulletproof vests, up to ten sailors and Marines would leap aboard the Pueblo as their shipmates raked surrounding areas with machine-gun, rifle, and mortar fire. When the boarding party had secured the ferret to the Ozbourn with polypropylene lines, Denham would reverse his engines, tearing the Pueblo from its moorings. While a second destroyer moved in to provide covering fire, the Ozbourn would hustle the spy vessel back to the high seas. Denham gave command of the boarding party to his executive officer, who, the destroyer skipper said, was “just crazy enough” to think the recovery plan was a good idea.

  The snatch could unravel in a number of ways, however. For one thing, Denham had no information on the harbor’s winds and currents, which could push his destroyer off course as he slowed down and tried to stop next to the Pueblo. No one knew whether North Korean soldiers were aboard the spy boat or if it was booby-trapped. Its anchor chain might be wrapped around a concrete piling, making it harder to yank free than if it were moored only with ropes. And any delays could prove fatal to the boarders.

  “I didn’t know what this would cost us, but I couldn’t see us getting out of there free,” recalled Denham.

  He nevertheless forwarded his final plan to the Enterprise, and Epes approved it. Ozbourn’s sailors rehearsed every day, laying out where their lines would go and how they’d fight off enemy troops.

  From his bridge Denham intently watched the dry runs and waited for the order to go.

  —

  On January 26, the White House received a reassuring message from an unexpected back-channel source: a Soviet KGB agent in India.

  The Russians already had rejected LBJ’s second public entreaty for help in settling the Pueblo mess. In a letter hand-delivered to the Kremlin on January 25, the president warned Soviet premier Aleksey Kosygin that the hijacking had “created a deep sense of outrage among the American people.” But Kosygin replied that the United States was on its own in dealing with Pyongyang. The spy boat, he declared, had violated North Korean waters and thus “responsibility for the incident falls entirely on the American military command.”

  Prudently, the Soviets withdrew their own surveillance ships from American coasts.

  By openly beseeching them, however, Washington had committed a tactical blunder. The Russians had much to lose by helping Johnson, at least overtly. Kim Il Sung was likely to resent any such intercession, and his pique could drive a new wedge between his country and the USSR, allies whose relationship often waxed and waned. China, Moscow’s longtime rival in courting Pyongyang, undoubtedly would try to widen the rift by loudly deno
uncing the Soviets for giving aid and comfort to the imperialists.

  But even as they publicly rebuffed Johnson, the Russians quietly tried to signal that they’d had nothing to do with the capture, declaring their innocence to Westerners at diplomatic receptions and in other settings.

  Some lower-echelon U.S. intelligence officials, despite their superiors’ suspicions, tended to believe the Soviets. Moscow, these analysts noted, had no interest in being drawn into a potentially explosive conflict with the United States over something as insignificant as a spy ship. “The USSR appears to have been caught unawares by the Pueblo incident,” reported the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, adding that there was “no indication that Moscow instigated” the seizure or even knew about it beforehand.

  When Kosygin made a state visit to India, the Soviets saw another opportunity to get across their message. Boris Batrayev, a KGB officer attached to the Russian embassy in New Delhi, approached some American journalists covering Kosygin’s tour. Batrayev told the newsmen that contrary to its rejection of LBJ’s requests for help, Moscow privately was trying to end the Pueblo impasse. The Soviet Union’s public brush-off of the White House, he said, was a piece of political theater necessary to preserve its influence with Pyongyang.

  One of the reporters the KGB man spoke to was Adam Clymer, the Baltimore Sun’s correspondent in New Delhi, who cabled a story home. The Sun’s Washington bureau chief passed a prepublication copy of the article to Walt Rostow, who related its hopeful contents to Johnson.