Act of War

by Jack Cheevers

  So instead, the chiefs’ operating deputies approved the recon schedule on December 29—the same day they received it. Members of the civilian 303 Committee—who had the final say on all intelligence-collection missions—also received and endorsed the book on December 29.

  Under questioning by Pike’s subcommittee, Wheeler characterized the JCS review as “comprehensive and deliberate.” Moorer seconded that, saying military and civilian experts put in “literally hundreds of man-hours” preparing and evaluating reconnaissance schedules before they ever reached the JCS level. But Pike didn’t buy the brass’s assessment, saying their review of the big January book appeared “necessarily cursory and perfunctory.” And Moorer conceded that he didn’t recall “having delved into” the Pueblo mission specifically.

  On the day the Washington agencies gave the go-ahead, the National Security Agency transmitted an unusual piece of advice to the Joint Chiefs. In deliberately bland language, the NSA challenged the lackadaisical assumption that the Pueblo’s first mission would be nearly risk-free.

  “The North Korean Air Force has been extremely sensitive to peripheral reconnaissance flights in this area since early 1965,” the message said. It continued:

  The North Korean Navy reacts to any Republic of Korea [South Korean] Navy vessel or Republic of Korea fishing vessel near the North Korean coast line. (This was emphasized on January 19, 1967, when a Republic of Korea Navy vessel was sunk by coast artillery.)

  Internationally recognized boundaries as they relate to airborne activities are generally not honored by North Korea on the East Coast of Korea. But there is no . . . evidence of provocative harassment activities by North Korean vessels beyond 12 nautical miles from the coast.

  The above is provided to aid in evaluating the requirement for ship protective measures and is not intended to reflect adversely on CINCPACFLT deployment proposal.

  In other words, while the North Koreans hadn’t yet molested any foreign ships outside their territorial waters, the Joint Chiefs might want to rethink not protecting the Pueblo in light of the recent attacks on the RB-47 plane and the South Korean patrol boat PCE 56. An earlier draft of the message was much less diplomatic, according to former NSA officer Eugene Sheck, who helped plan AGER missions. He didn’t testify before the Pike subcommittee but made his remarks years later in an oral history. According to Sheck, a junior NSA staffer who regarded the Pueblo mission as too dangerous wrote the original warning:

  “This young fellow had a message drafted that said, ‘Boy, you people have got to be complete blithering idiots to put that ship off North Korea, because all kinds of bad things are going to happen. Therefore, cancel [the mission].’”

  Since the Pueblo’s first outing was a Navy operation, NSA officials didn’t want to appear to be interfering. So higher-ups rewrote the young analyst’s warning, watering it down considerably, Sheck said. Following the spy ship’s capture, he added, the NSA’s director, General Marshall Carter, admonished subordinates not to mention the message to anyone outside their agency.

  “He said, ‘I don’t want anybody in this room to call or to bring to anybody’s attention the existence of this message,’” recalled Sheck. “‘That they will find out themselves. And when they do, they will be sufficiently embarrassed about the whole situation that I don’t have to worry about that and you don’t have to worry about that. But I consider that message as kind of saving our ass.’”

  As tepid as the warning was, most of its intended recipients never laid eyes on it, according to testimony before Pike’s subcommittee. None of the Joint Chiefs even received the message. Instead, their staff rerouted it to Admiral Sharp’s headquarters in Honolulu. Sharp’s staff didn’t bring it to his attention, either. A copy was sent to Admiral Moorer’s office in Washington, but never delivered to him. Admiral Johnson in Japan didn’t see the warning until two or three weeks after the Pueblo was captured.

  Sharp insisted to the subcommittee that his staff and other military planners already had considered all of the information the NSA cited before classifying the mission as minimal risk. But Pike and his colleagues condemned the Pentagon’s slipshod handling of the warning.

  “At best, it suggests an unfortunate coincidence of omission,” said the subcommittee’s final report. “At worst, it suggests the highest order of incompetence.” The congressmen noted that despite the throng of high-ranking government executives that testified before them, no one mentioned the existence of the NSA message. The subcommittee characterized the collective silence as “a deliberate effort to bury” the warning.

  Pike also wanted to find out why no rescue attempt was mounted from the Enterprise, which had been only about 500 miles south of the Pueblo, putting its fighters closer to the scene than any other readily usable aircraft.

  To get at that issue, Pike summoned Sharp, Johnson, and Epes. And what was most striking about the three admirals’ testimony was their ambivalence and confusion about how to respond to the Pueblo emergency.

  Despite the carrier’s relative nearness, Johnson hadn’t asked for its help. He testified that he didn’t think he had the authority to do so. But Epes told the subcommittee Johnson could have requested carrier jets. It was an unsettling moment: two top commanders disagreeing over such a fundamental point.

  Sharp testified that the Enterprise radioed it was prepared to launch aircraft on the afternoon of the seizure, but never asked for actual permission. (He didn’t mention that neither his command nor any other in the Pacific ever ordered a launch.) The Pike hearings shed light on another critical event that day, too. At 3:06 p.m. Korean time, Admiral William F. Bringle, commander of the Seventh Fleet, told the Enterprise to take “no overt action until further informed.” That order, the subcommittee declared, effectively eliminated “any opportunity or intention” on the part of the Enterprise’s air commander, Epes, to try a rescue.

  Pike wanted his hearings held in public as much as possible, but to his dismay several witnesses insisted on answering some questions—often the most sensitive ones—behind closed doors. Nor would the Navy cough up all the documents he wanted. “I am so tired of Navy classifying everything so I can’t ask them any questions about it,” he groused. The chiefs of the CIA, NSA, and Defense Intelligence Agency not only spoke in executive session, but their entire testimony was deleted from the hearing transcript. But that didn’t prevent Pike from inserting revealing highlights from other witnesses’ closed-door remarks into the public record.

  Admiral Sharp, for instance, said during a lengthy executive session that he’d objected when, early on the day after the hijacking, the Joint Chiefs ordered the Enterprise and other warships racing toward Wonsan to halt and hold their positions. The admiral said he transmitted a “protest sort of message” to Washington, arguing that at least one destroyer should go to Wonsan to demonstrate America’s right to traverse sea lanes in the area. The Joint Chiefs, he said, never replied.

  The subcommittee’s counsel, Frank Slatinshek, asked whether Sharp had ever urged his superiors to let him carry out retaliatory strikes. “Oh yes,” emphasized the admiral; his staff forwarded plans for “a whole series of strikes” to Washington. Pike then asked for clarification.

  “Did you recommend those strikes?” he inquired.

  “Well, I don’t remember whether I did or not, to tell you the truth,” the admiral replied.

  Sharp’s memory lapse perhaps was attributable to his ambivalence about actually tangling with the North Koreans. He questioned whether “two or three . . . or four or five airplanes” from the Enterprise could have run off the Pueblo’s attackers. And once the spy ship had been forced into Wonsan, he said, any major U.S. counterstrike risked setting off a new war in Asia—something he didn’t want to be responsible for.

  “To say the least, I was lukewarm to starting a second war out there,” he told the subcommittee.

  At one point in an open hearing,
U.S. Representative William Bray, an Indiana Republican, got under the admiral’s skin with a loaded question about Pentagon policies on hot pursuit. Could U.S. warplanes have chased the North Korean gunboats into Wonsan harbor, the congressman asked, “if somebody had had the courage and foresight to order them?”

  “Mr. Bray, are you in any way implying that I didn’t have the courage?” Sharp bristled. “Because if you are, I would like to talk to you privately.”

  One of the last witnesses was General Seth McKee, the bulldog Fifth Air Force commander who held the subcommittee in thrall with his gripping tale of scrambling F-105 fighters from distant Okinawa.

  At first McKee scoured the Far East by telephone, looking for any available aircraft. Believing the Enterprise to be closer than any of his land-based warplanes, McKee called his boss in Honolulu, General John Ryan, and “urgently” requested the carrier be contacted. But apparently that never happened.

  McKee also considered using South Korean aircraft, which were closer than even the Enterprise. But when his aides called the headquarters of General Bonesteel, the U.N. commander, they were advised in no uncertain terms “not to contact the South Korean air force.”

  Undeterred, McKee decided to try to do the job with Major John Wright’s 18th Tactical Fighter Wing on Okinawa. Knowing Wright’s jets would have dry tanks over Wonsan if they flew there directly, McKee ordered the pilots to land at Osan Air Base in South Korea, refuel, and take off again to “strike in support of the Pueblo”—if they could reach it before dark.

  The first pair of F-105s screamed away from Okinawa at 4:11 p.m., just 83 minutes after McKee gave the order. At 4:45 p.m., Admiral Sharp’s command estimated that the Pueblo had entered Wonsan harbor and McKee “came to the unhappy conclusion” his fighters couldn’t get to the doomed spy boat in time. The first F-105s arrived at Osan at 5:35 p.m.; nightfall came at 5:53 p.m.

  Slatinshek posed a question: If McKee’s aircraft had arrived in time, could they have altered the outcome of the incident?

  “I think one of three things would have happened,” the general answered. “We would have changed it; I would have gotten my aircraft shot down; or we would have started another war. I don’t know which.”

  “Maybe all three,” murmured Republican U.S. Representative Robert Stafford of Vermont.

  Though he wasn’t able to extricate the Pueblo, McKee’s boldness and decisiveness drew the only praise that the subcommittee members bestowed on any of the witnesses.

  “It was kind of nice,” said Pike, “to see that somebody was making some decisions.”

  —

  Back in Coronado, Bowen and his colleagues gathered in private to pass judgment on Bucher.

  The admirals first had to draft their official “findings of fact, opinions, and recommendations,” based on the testimony they’d heard. Written in cool, precise language by Captain Newsome, the 184-page report itemized Bucher’s alleged failures in great detail.

  The admirals acknowledged the Pueblo had been burdened with too much classified material, and that those who planned its maiden mission had been largely blind to danger signs emanating from North Korea. Still, they laid much of the blame for the fiasco at Bucher’s feet.

  The captain, said the admirals’ report, failed to anticipate that he might have to battle the communists and didn’t prepare his crew for that possibility. Although he diligently tried to find some dynamite, he didn’t appreciate the large volume of secret equipment and papers on board; nor did he drill his men in disposing of it quickly. When enemy gunboats began closing in, Bucher should’ve engaged in “radical maneuvering,” changing course and speed rapidly in an effort to shake them, the admirals said. (They didn’t explain how any amount of zigzagging would have allowed him to elude pursuers capable of traveling up to four times faster.)

  Crucially, the court members determined that Bucher still had the power to resist at the time he surrendered. With the North Koreans firing in a sporadic and controlled manner, his ship was generally intact and fully operational. There were no onboard fires and no flooding. Except for Hodges, Woelk, and Chicca, the crew had suffered only a handful of minor injuries. The admirals concluded that the Pueblo could’ve been steered from belowdecks, with its bridge personnel protected from gunfire. When the boarders came over the side, Bucher’s men could have blasted them with small arms. But the captain ordered no such action.

  “He just didn’t try—this was his greatest fault,” the admirals’ report declared.

  The court members also rejected Bucher’s contention that his ship had been seized rather than surrendered. They said he had indeed surrendered when he stopped the Pueblo and then followed sub chaser No. 35 toward Wonsan, as the communists demanded. That happened before the boarding party set foot on the spy boat, the admirals noted.

  Their report had sharp words for Murphy and Steve Harris as well. Harris “completely failed as a leader” in the frantic rush to demolish the SOD hut’s contents. By not piling documents in a compartment, dousing them with diesel fuel, and setting them afire, Harris demonstrated a lack of initiative and imagination, the admirals said. The lieutenant also hadn’t understood the rules on jettisoning secret materials and failed to inform the captain of the Marine translators’ lack of Korean fluency.

  Describing Murphy as “completely overshadowed” by Bucher, the admirals faulted the executive officer for not leading the crew and making “no apparent effort” to ensure that emergency destruction was carried out properly.

  Schumacher and Lacy were found to have performed “satisfactorily” on the day of capture. By exposing himself to gunfire while incinerating documents near the smokestack, Tim Harris “performed most creditably” of all the officers.

  The admirals were considerably more complimentary about the crew’s behavior in prison, saying many men “showed real courage” in the face of torture and brutality.

  After “his initial breakdown,” Bucher rebounded and “upheld morale in a superior manner,” inventing all sorts of ways to ridicule and harass his captors. He repeatedly demanded that his men be kept together, given medical attention, and treated according to the Geneva convention, and he never stopped protesting the beatings. Although his advice to his men sometimes didn’t conform strictly to the Code of Conduct, it was always meant to undermine communist propaganda and to get the sailors out of prison in one piece, the admirals said. As a result, morale stayed high, discipline was good, and North Korean efforts to convince the Americans of socialism’s superiority went nowhere.

  Schumacher was singled out for his strong leadership and creative harrying of the North Koreans. Law was praised as instrumental in maintaining the chain of command and for taking punishment on behalf of shipmates; Hammond for his extraordinary resistance to his tormentors.

  The admirals concluded that Murphy, Steve Harris, Lacy, and Tim Harris “were undistinguished during detention and provided no discernible leadership to the enlisted men.”

  The court members’ work didn’t end with the completion of their report. They also had to recommend a punishment that fit Bucher’s alleged transgressions. For two days, sequestered in an office adjacent to the Pueblo courtroom, they argued back and forth, dividing into two factions.

  Bowen, Bergner, and White were adamant that the captain should be court-martialed for not doing more to hold off the enemy gunboats. The three hard-line admirals “had fought ships, they had Purple Hearts and Navy Crosses, they were fighting machines,” recalled Newsome. “They would have hung Bucher with his own rope.”

  The other two admirals—Grimm and Pratt—weren’t so sure. Grimm felt that although Bucher hadn’t prepared his crew to cope with the attack, he proved a superlative leader in prison. Indeed, Grimm thought the skipper deserved a medal for his courage and devotion to his men.

  By the end of the first day of deliberations, the admirals were split three to one in favor of
a court-martial, with Grimm opposed and Pratt undecided. Bowen wanted a unanimous decision and the five men agreed to go home and think it over that night.

  The admirals in the majority continued to work on the holdouts the next day. Bowen’s bloc argued that a public trial was Bucher’s best chance to clear his name. At the same time, a court-martial recommendation would signal the officer corps that the hallowed precept of never giving up without a fight remained unsullied and fully operative.

  Grimm countered that Bucher wasn’t the only person at fault. Many higher-ups, he argued, were also culpable for stacking too many intelligence publications aboard and for not giving Bucher adequate means to destroy them. If the skipper was to be pilloried, Grimm believed, so should a pack of brass hats. But Grimm and Pratt eventually acquiesced to the insistent polemics of the majority.

  Bowen signed the court’s findings on April 10. The admirals unanimously recommended that Bucher be court-martialed for five purported offenses: permitting his ship to be seized while he had the power to resist; failing to take immediate and aggressive measures when his ship was attacked; complying with the North Koreans’ orders to follow them into port; failing to complete destruction of classified materials and allowing them to fall into enemy hands; and failing to properly train his crew for emergency destruction.

  The court members said Steve Harris should stand trial on three counts: not informing Bucher of deficiencies in the support capabilities of the CT detachment; not drilling the CTs properly in emergency destruction; and not destroying all classified materials.

  Murphy, the admirals said, should receive a letter of admonition, a relatively mild nonjudicial punishment, for failing to organize and lead the crew on the day of capture, especially in wrecking classified gear.

  Perhaps in deference to Grimm’s concerns, the court also advised that letters of reprimand be issued to Admiral Johnson and Captain Everett Gladding, head of the Naval Security Group, Pacific. Johnson was cited for not planning “effective emergency support forces” for the Pueblo and not verifying the ship’s ability to rapidly destroy its secret material. Gladding, the admirals charged, hadn’t developed “procedures to ensure the readiness” of the CTs or made sure that other agencies and service branches provided adequate intelligence support to the Pueblo.