The Militant (logo) 
   Vol.66/No.19            May 13, 2002 
 
 
Seized U.S. spy ship is emblem
to Korean national sovereignty
(feature article)
 
BY OLYMPIA NEWTON  
PYONGYANG, north Korea--The USS Pueblo spy ship, seized in north Korean waters by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Jan. 23, 1968, is now docked here as a museum and a monument to the resolve of the people of this country in face of Washington’s imperial arrogance.

The Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists leadership delegation of Steve Clark, Jack Willey, and Olympia Newton, who visited north Korea for two weeks in April, toured the ship while here. The delegation was in north Korea to stand in solidarity with the Korean people in the context of the U.S. government’s continuing threats, including president George W. Bush’s slander of north Korea earlier this year as part of an international "axis of evil," and the Pentagon’s "leak" of the Nuclear Posture Review, which includes the DPRK as one of seven potential targets of Washington’s massive nuclear arsenal. The SWP and YS leaders took part in activities surrounding two national celebrations while in north Korea.

The guided tour of the Pueblo tells much of the history of U.S. imperialism’s provocations and the DPRK’s subsequent capture of the ship, events which took place at the same time that Washington was carrying out a brutal war against the people of Vietnam.

After Washington ignored repeated warnings from the DPRK to stop incursions by the spy ship into its waters, north Korean naval forces captured the ship near Wonsan, a city in the southeast of this country on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The ship had violated north Korean sovereign territory some 17 times before it was seized.

Eighty-two crew members, including six officers, were captured in the seizure. One U.S. crew member was killed and four were injured. The captured sailors were held in north Korea for 11 months.  
 
Disguised as marine research ship
When confronted by north Korean forces, the Pueblo’s commanding officer, Lloyd Bucher, initially avoided pursuit. The Koreans then fired on the ship; bullet holes are still visible on the ship’s exterior.

According to the tour guide, the ship was flying no U.S. flag, in line with its thin disguise as a civilian marine research ship. In face of the Korean gunfire, the guide explained, an officer of the Pueblo raised the flag and asked that as a civilian vessel it be allowed to return to port.

The Korean soldiers refused, boarding the ship, lowering the U.S. flag, and raising the flag of the DPRK. When the Koreans captured the vessel, they found crew members burning papers.

U.S. president Lyndon Johnson expressed public outrage at the capture of the ship and its crew, claiming the Pueblo was a research vessel on the open seas. But the ship was equipped with two .50-caliber machine guns in the front and back, seven antennas, and a room full of cryptographic equipment used to send messages directly to U.S. bases in the area.

Handheld weapons were also captured when the ship was seized. Along with the spying equipment, they are on display in the Pueblo itself as well as in the Museum of the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War in Pyongyang.  
 
U.S. threatens retaliation and war
The U.S. government demanded an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to condemn the attack on this "civilian" vessel. The Johnson administration threatened retaliation, including war if necessary, to gain the return of the Pueblo and its crew.

Washington immediately deployed the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Enterprise to waters off Korea. On January 25, Johnson called up almost 15,000 members of Air National Guard, Air Force reserve, and Navy reserve units. In the weeks to come the White House put together a task force from the U.S. Navy’s Seventh (Pacific) Fleet that included several other aircraft carriers, three cruisers, 18 destroyers, a nuclear-powered submarine, and several supply ships. Washington also beefed up U.S. Air Force task forces in Osan, Kusan, and other areas of south Korea.

Today nobody, including the U.S. government, gives credence to Washington’s lie that the Pueblo was a marine research ship. The U.S. Navy web site explains that in November 1967 the ship had "departed to the Far East to undertake electronic intelligence collection and other duties." It had spied on north Korean naval vessels as well as key radio and radar stations.

The north Korean people and government refused to be intimidated by Washington’s threats. The Korean People’s Army and civilian defense guards prepared for wartime mobilizations. On February 8 DPRK president Kim Il Sung responded to the Johnson administration’s threats, saying the Korean government was prepared to "answer any ‘retaliation’ with retaliation" and to "meet all-out war with all-out war."

The DPRK demanded the U.S. government acknowledge the violation of north Korean territorial waters by the spy ship, apologize for the incursion, and issue assurances that no further such provocations would occur. If those conditions were met, the north Korean government said, then it would consider expelling the 82 captured crew members. Otherwise, it would put them on trial for crimes with sentences of up to life imprisonment or execution.

The resolve and preparedness of the Korean people stayed Washington’s hand. After refusing for months to agree to a document submitted by the DPRK placing responsibility for the incursion squarely on Washington and apologizing on behalf of the U.S. government, Maj. Gen. Gilbert Woodward signed the statement on Dec. 23, 1968, and the crew members were released and expelled from north Korea.  
 
U.S. spy plane shot down
Just four months after the release of the Pueblo crew, on April 15 1969, the manned U.S. spy plane EC-121 violated north Korea’s air space. The government of the DPRK responded by firing a guided missile at the plane, shooting it into the sea and killing the crew.

U.S. president Richard Nixon dispatched an aircraft carrier task force to north Korean waters, including the USS Enterprise, the aircraft carriers Ticonderoga, Ranger, and Hornet, and the battleship New Jersey. Several hundred bombers were flown into south Korea and placed on alert.

The U.S. government once again backed down, however. It ended its most provocative aerial spying probes not only against the DPRK but for several decades against the People’s Republic of China as well.  
 
Floating monument
The DPRK refused to return the Pueblo itself in 1968, keeping it as a floating museum documenting the Korean people’s firm stance. In the late 1990s, the ship was moved from north Korea’s eastern coast to its current location in the country’s capital city. It is now docked near the spot on the Tae Dong River where another U.S. warship, the General Sherman, went down in flames at the hands of Korean patriots in September 1866.

Since the Pueblo and EC-121 events more than three decades ago, the U.S. government has largely stayed out of north Korean waters and ceased overflying its air space. As such, the Pueblo stands as a monument to the fact that the only way for peoples anywhere in the world to hold off U.S. imperialism’s war moves and assaults on national sovereignty is to stand their ground in face of Washington’s threats, as the Korean people and government did in 1968–69 and continue to do today.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home