09-151.pdf

KPA/CPV letter contained insulting remarks. The fourth and sixth
similar letters received on August 12 and December 19 respectively
were both handled in the same way as the second one, the sixth on
December 23. Notably, when the KPA/CPV in March changed its
Senior Member, the KPA repeatedly emphasized the importance of the
NNSC’s work as a peace-keeping body. 161
3.7 The 1968 Blue House Raid and Pueblo Incident
On January 18, 1968, 31 North Korean commando soldiers
from the 124th Army Unit infiltrated across the MDL into the part of
the DMZ controlled by the UNC. They were disguised as members of
the South Korean 26th Army Division. They cut a hole in the newly
erected barrier fence along the southern boundary of the DMZ with
the mission to attack the presidential mansion (Ch’ôngwadae; Blue
House) in Seoul to kill President Park Chung Hee. Around 2.00 p.m.,
the commandos encountered four South Korean woodcutters on a hill
close to Pôpwôn-ni village in P’aju county about 6.5 kilometers south
of the DMZ. They detained the woodcutters, asked them about South
Korea, including the way to Seoul and the location of checkpoints, and
told them they were “members of a group which would unify the
country.” The infiltrators held the woodcutters for five hours before
releasing them with the threat of execution if they informed anyone
about their encounter.
161_ Columbia University, op. cit., Paragraph 13(d); Försvarets Läromedelscentral,
ibid., pp. 32-3; Grönvall, Månadsrapport för december 1969: Bilaga 2 (Panmunjom,
January 6, 1970), p. 2:2; Sergel, op. cit, March 31, 1969, pp. 16-17: op. cit., April
30, 1969, p. 12: op. cit., August 31, 1969), p. 13. Original quotation marks.
Rising Tensions on the Korean Peninsula during the 1960s
197