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North Korea released a photo that showed the ship’s officers and crew<br />

in a forced march with their hands in the air. Although the American<br />

reaction was anguished, few advocated war, not least since the US was<br />

hard pressed in Vietnam, a weakness that North Korea sought to<br />

exploit. The South Korean public was irritated that concern for the<br />

crew overshadowed the assassination attempt on President Park<br />

Chung Hee and the deaths of innocent civilians. 165<br />

According to Hong (2003), most US officials believed that the<br />

Pueblo had been captured on the open sea, but they were not completely<br />

confident that it had been outside North Korea’s territorial<br />

waters during the operational period of January 10-21. 166 Lee (2001a)<br />

records the exact position as 39 degrees 25 minutes North, 127 degrees<br />

54 minutes East, that is on the open sea at least 16 nautical miles from<br />

the coast. Notably, Lerner (2002) records that Commander Bucher<br />

asserted in 1970 that if he had been informed about the Blue House<br />

raid, he would have kept the Pueblo much further out from Wônsan.<br />

But Lerner also writes: “The navy and the Johnson administration<br />

insisted that the Pueblo had been in international waters for the entire<br />

mission.” Hong argues that the seizure was a great insult to the US Navy,<br />

165_ Downs, op. cit., pp. 122-3; Gallery, ibid., p. 116; Hong, ibid., p. 59; Lerner, ibid.,<br />

pp. 2, 68, 76, 81; Mobley, ibid., p. 40. Original quotation marks.<br />

166_ The issue is still debated: on January 23, 2008, the Korean Central News Agency<br />

(KCNA: http://www.kcna. co.jp/index-e.htm) reported in “U.S. Forgets Pueblo<br />

Lesson” that the Pueblo while spying on military and state secrets had intruded<br />

into North Korean territorial waters up to 7.6 miles from Yô Islet near Wônsan.<br />

The U.S. imperialists claimed that the Pueblo was seized in the “open sea” [original<br />

quotation] and did not commit an espionage act. KCNA wrote the same day in<br />

“U.S. Urged to Draw Lesson from “Pueblo” Incident” that at a visit to the ship, the<br />

chief of the P’yôngyang mission of the Anti-Imperialist National Democratic<br />

Front, Jo Il Min, stated that “...“Pueblo” is historical evidence proving before the<br />

whole world the victory of the DPRK in the confrontation with the U.S. to protect<br />

its national sovereignty and dignity.”<br />

Rising Tensions on the Korean Peninsula during the 1960s<br />

203

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