Brennock, Daniel J.

Lerner, Mitchell B.

English

U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons

Naval War College ReviewVolume 55Number 4 Autumn Article 192002The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure ofAmerican Foreign PolicyDaniel J. BrennockMitchell B. LernerFollow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-reviewThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contactrepository.inquiries@usnwc.edu.Recommended CitationBrennock, Daniel J. and Lerner, Mitchell B. (2002) "The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy,"Naval War College Review: Vol. 55 : No. 4 , Article 19.Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol55/iss4/19not the U.S. sponsorship of such activi-ties is apparent or later to be acknowl-edged publicly.” More along these lineswould perhaps reveal that policy makershave quite a bit more flexibility in re-sponding to overseas events and thatcovert action is not the only option be-tween inaction and the overt use offorce. But this is a mere quibble.In sum, Lowenthal has written an out-standing primer on intelligence, the in-telligence process, and the intelligencecommunity.W. H. DALTONDepartment of DefenseAssociate Deputy General Counsel, IntelligenceLerner, Mitchell B., The Pueblo Incident: A SpyShip and the Failure of American Foreign Policy.Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas, 2002. 320pp.$34.95Finally, an author has done a hard-hitting analysis of the USS Pueblo inci-dent of January 1968. Mitchell B. Lerner,an assistant professor of history at OhioState University, does not exonerate thecommanding officer of the Pueblo, Com-mander Lloyd M. Bucher, for giving upthe ship and crew, and the intelligence ithad gathered. However, of all those whomay have been culpable, CommanderBucher emerges a hero and is no longerthe scapegoat his superiors made himout to be. Exhaustive research, includingaccess to new information released fromthe Lyndon Johnson White House files,leads Lerner to place blame evenly on theshoulders of the Navy chain of command,the intelligence community, and Johnson’sforeign policy advisors, due to their mis-understanding and underestimation ofthe North Korean–Soviet Unionrelationship.Lerner asserts that the intelligence col-lection effort, code-named OperationCLICKBEETLE, was the idea of the Na-tional Security Agency and that it hadbeen patterned after the efforts of theSoviet Union’s intelligence-collectionships (AGIs) off the coast of the UnitedStates. Deciding that the Navy should bethe operational commander for this stra-tegic tasking, the National SecurityAgency turned the program over to it.Converting tired, old, and slow cargoships into intelligence collection plat-forms with insufficient money, inade-quate self-defense, little more than freshcoats of paint, minimal training, and in-adequate safeguards for the sensitive in-telligence equipment on board, the Navymismanaged the effort from the outset.The maladies that befell the USS Libertyin 1967 off the coast of Israel were re-peated in the preparation and tasking ofPueblo just seven months later off theKorean Peninsula.The USS Pueblo had been tasked to collectsignals intelligence in the Sea of Japan us-ing the “cover” of conducting hydro-graphic research. The operation had beendeemed to be of minimal risk, based onthe analogy of the Soviet AGIs. Lernercontends that whenever an AGI violatedterritorial waters, the U.S. Navy wouldturn it around with an admonishmentand no more. Would not the North Ko-reans do the same? Herein rested theNavy’s greatest miscalculation. The Ko-reans were not the puppets of the SovietUnion or its foreign policy executors.Lerner goes to great lengths to take thereader inside the mind of Kim Il Sungand his vision of communism and thegreater glory of the Democratic People’sRepublic of Korea.B O O K R E V I E W S 1 2 11Brennock and Lerner: The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure of American ForeiPublished by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2002Shortly after the operation got underway, the North Korean navy reactedwith surprise and precision. Com-mander Bucher, armed only with a few.50-caliber machine guns aboard hisslow vessel, surrendered the Pueblo afterstalling his pursuers for only sixty-fiveminutes. Inadequate destruction equip-ment and too much unnecessary classi-fied material on board led to anintelligence coup for North Korea. OneU. S. sailor lost his life during the shortresistance. The defensive cover that wasto have been provided by the Navy andthe Air Force in response to calls fromthe Pueblo never came. The Navy andthe Johnson administration missed allthe indications and warnings that such afate could befall the Pueblo, even afterrecognizing that the Pyongyang regimehad violated the demilitarized zone morethan fifty times, ambushed U.S and al-lied ground forces, attempted to assassi-nate the president of the Republic ofKorea (with a secondary target to be theAmerican embassy), and in the preced-ing nine months seized twenty SouthKorean fishing vessels for “enteringNorth Korean territorial waters.”Lerner then brings the reader briefly intothe brutal interrogation rooms of thecommunist regime and the eleven-month negotiations that finally resultedin the release of the crew in December1968. Kim Il Sung used the captured ves-sel and its crew to further his domesticagenda and drive for greater national-ism. His negotiators remained steadfastin their demands that the United Statesadmit that the Pueblo had violated NorthKorea’s territorial waters—it had not—and that the American governmentapologize to the citizens of North Koreaand assure Kim Il Sung that the viola-tions would never happen again.Meanwhile, President Johnson could notnegotiate the return of the crew withoutconsidering a host of broader interna-tional considerations, most notably thewar in Vietnam. Lerner concisely weavestogether the competing national foreignpolicy objectives to ensure that SouthKorea remained an active ally in SouthVietnam while simultaneously keeping theUnited States out of another conflict onthe Korean Peninsula.While negotiations dragged on, therewas little interest from the Americanpublic: the increasingly unpopular Viet-nam War, the struggle for civil rights,the campaign for the equal rights forwomen, two political assassinations, andthe decision of the incumbent presidentto forgo a second term all diverted theattention of the American public andrelegated the Pueblo negotiations to theback pages of the newspapers and inmost cases erased them altogether.Lerner presents such a thorough expla-nation of the entire incident that it isunnecessary to belabor here the findingsof the Navy’s court of inquiry. This im-portant historical analysis provides thereader with a better understanding of theimpact of seemingly harmless operationson the conduct of foreign policy. Moreimportantly, the book demonstrates thecritical importance of intelligence collec-tion, analysis of indications and warn-ings, and the effects that ignoring suchcrucial information may have on notonly fighting forces but the nation’sinterests.DANIEL J. BRENNOCKCaptain, U.S. Navy1 2 2 N A V A L W A R C O L L E G E R E V I E W2Naval War College Review, Vol. 55 [2002], No. 4, Art. 19https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol55/iss4/19

The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy

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The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy

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