Word: puebloed
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...anguished hours after the seizure of U.S.S. Pueblo, the Navy desperately charted a plan to recapture her. In fact, Pueblo was doomed, both by prior military ineptitude and Washington's well-founded fears of the consequences of any such action...
...bland, beefy hero of World War II who is now waiting out retirement, Johnson testified that while he had responsibility for Pueblo, he had no ships or planes under his command to send to her rescue. Contingency plans were developed calling for the Seventh Fleet and Fifth Air Force to provide help should it be needed...
...plans had an almost surrealistic quality, as if Pueblo were on a paper mission while the military played an elaborate game. Air Force jets were kept "on call" on Okinawa, 900 air miles from Wonsan, North Korea. However, it would have taken 21 hours to scramble the fighters and fly them to Pueblo's aid. Four fighter-bombers were supposed to be ready in South Korea, but they were armed with nuclear warheads and useless for such a mission. Air Force jets stationed in Japan were unavailable because a status-of-forces agreement prevented their use in any combat...
...experienced naval officer allowed this condition to exist? Johnson had been lulled into complacency by many factors. His principal argument was wholly unrelated to strategy or circumstance. No U.S. Navy ship, declared Johnson, had been captured in peacetime in 150 years. Thus, in his view, Pueblo's seizure was "highly improbable"-regardless of the belligerent mood of North Korea. "I would suggest," said Johnson, "that a bookmaker would give you such fantastic odds [against the possibility of capture] that someone as rich as Howard Hughes could not pay it off." Admitting that the spy ships were impotent against attack...
Whatever the outcome of the Pueblo investigation, it will be only a prelude to an even more intensive inquiry. Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird has ordered a top-level Pentagon study "to see that incidents of this kind do not happen again." However, the overriding significance of the Pueblo inquiry so far is not that the seizure occurred, but that a mentality existed in the U.S. Defense Department that allowed it to occur. That may take more than a Pentagon study to correct...