Nation: In Pueblo's Wake

• Share

(8 of 8)

Radio Pyongyang later broadcast what it described as an interview with Bucher conducted by North Korean reporters. In it, Bucher—or a stand-in—was asked whether his ship had intruded into Korean waters and whether his crew should be considered aggressors. A dull voice replied: "Yes, I admit. I have no excuse whatsoever. Our espionage acts are plain acts of aggression and criminal acts that violated the rudimental norms of international law."

There was some suspicion that Pyongyang might be planning to use Bucher's confession and interview as grounds for a trial of Pueblo's crew. "The criminals who encroach upon others' sovereignty and commit provocative acts must receive deserving punishment," said the party newspaper Nodong Sinmun. "These criminals must be punished by law." Warned State Department Spokesman Robert McCloskey: "The U.S. Government would consider any such moves by North Korea to be a deliberate aggravation of an already serious situation."

Exterminatory Blow. Just how serious the Administration considers the situation is obvious from Lyndon Johnson's worried, wary handling of it. The North Korean regime at week's end pronounced itself "fully combat ready" and determined to deliver "an exterminatory blow" at the U.S. if attacked. And it has amply proved its volatility and hornet sting. North of the 38th parallel it has an army of 367,000, an air force of 35,000 equipped with 650 planes, and a navy of 10,500. Arrayed against this force is a South Korean army of 600,000 men, plus the 2nd and 7th U.S. Infantry Divisions, totaling another 50,000 men. The South cannot match the North's airpower, though the U.S. is moving in 200 to 300 late-model planes to end the imbalance.

Through nearly 15 years of an uneasy armistice—peace has yet to return formally to the ravaged peninsula—the two forces have glared at one another across the 2½-mile-deep DMZ, constantly exchanging insults, often bullets. It would take a small spark to ignite such tinder, and the Pueblo incident came very close to providing such a spark.

That it did not was no tribute to Washington's wisdom. What the piracy of Pueblo did rehearse for the nation —and its adversaries—was a dismaying litany of military procedures and political assumptions that proved in the crunch to be inadequate, unimaginative and unbelievably overconfident. It will probably take years to dissect and document all the slippages and oversights that have led the U.S. to the brink of a second front in Asia. It is already apparent that this was a casus belli that need never have arisen.