Word: bucher
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...return of Pueblo's crew five months ago backed the Pentagon into a cruel corner. Navy regulations and service sentiment seemed heavily in favor of punishing Commander Lloyd M. Bucher, and perhaps others, for allowing the vessel and her secret documents to fall into hostile hands without a serious attempt at resistance or destruction. To most of the public, though, Pueblo's skipper and crew were heroes who had suffered and survived eleven months of North Korean brutality. They were not for hanging. Last week Navy Secretary John Chafee steered between the reefs of opinion and proceeded...
Chafee rejected recommendations by the naval court of inquiry that Bucher and Lieut. Stephen R. Harris, the officer in charge of Pueblo's supersecret "research" spaces, be tried by court-martial. Secretary Chafee also refused to authorize the issuance of letters of admonition and reprimand for other officers. "They have suffered enough and further punishment would not be justified," he said...
...premise that North Korea would not violate the principle of freedom of the high seas, and since the assumption was made at all levels of command, that all had to share the consequences. In fact, the board of inquiry had proposed that the two officers senior to Bucher also be reprimanded...
Thus Chafee neither excused Bucher or Harris nor excluded the upper Navy echelons from their responsibility for the disaster. Arguing that prosecution and punishment would serve no useful purpose for the Navy, Chafee elected to ignore all the recommendations. To a nation more leary than ever before of its military leaders, Chafee's decision must have seemed as satisfactory a settlement of the Pueblo quandary as was possible. Scapegoats had been avoided, but so had exoneration...
...Unlike Bucher, Harris has never been warned that unfavorable testimony before the court of inquiry could lead to a court-martial. If what has been released on Harris' conduct were the full story, it seems impossible that he would not be accused of violating regulations. In fact, however, Harris is up for a promotion, which should come some time in July. Last week Bucher joined the rest of Pueblo's officers for a "wetting down" party in his honor...