Word: pueblos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...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...
...Navy launched its rescue mission immediately after the capture. Two U.S. Navy destroyers, U.S.S. Truxton and U.S.S. Higbee, were ordered to sail to Wonsan. Under heavy air cover and backed up by a U.S. ultimatum to the North Koreans, Higbee was to dash into Wonsan harbor and escort Pueblo to safety. However, noted Cassell, the plan was vetoed by "higher authority...
...this one," he says, "there were no hawks, there were no doves. It was unanimous. Apart from the danger of starting another war with North Korea, it was obvious to the President and his advisers that the rescue attempt would almost certainly result in the immediate death of Pueblo's crew...
...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...