The Pueblo Affair-Three Articles Balancing Reason and Resolve

...Although a number of key questions linger—Where was the Pueblo...

...Why we would give North Korea such a handy excuse to inflame the situation is not readily understood If both the mission and position of the Pueblo invited trouble, it was indicative of a broader pattern of aggressive brinkmanship—or at least it could be interpreted so by anyone less certain ot American righteousness than Dwight Eisenhower The continuing adventure in Vietnam, the U S incursions into Cambodia, the misplacement in Greenland of four more hydrogen bombs, along with the placement of the Pueblo, are evidence to many of a brassy self-assertion and self-assurance which hardly seems warranted in the thermonuclear age If international bravado is an unintentional foreign policy, it should be corrected If it is intentional, it is not working, and should be corrected IN 1961, less than a week after the Kennedy Administration took office, Robert McNamara reported to the new President that the Pentagon's basic strategy for confronting military and political aggression was one of massive nuclear retaliation Together, Kennedy and McNamara set about to establish a more flexible strategy, one which would allow the United States to respond to a variety of situations in a variety of ways Now, seven years later, as Robert McNamara leaves the Defense Department, he perhaps wonders where his strategy of flexibility went wrong For how much choice did President Johnson really have in responding to the Pueblo incident...

...Well, would Gold-water...

...Why was she there, especially when she was?—by the time the President received word of the incident, his job was not to prevent the seizure of the ship but to get it and its crew back without taking disproportionate risks Faced with selecting the lesser of multiple evils, Johnson performed like the star m a Herman Kahn scenario Through the Armistice Commission m Panmunjom and through much too well-publicized contacts with the Soviets, he began seeking a diplomatic solution At the same time, he ordered a small armada, including the nuclear car-ner Enterprise, to stand by off the North Korean coast When his initial diplomatic overtures were rebuffed, the President took his case to the UN and simultaneously called up some 15,000 Air Force and Navy reservists Step by step, it was a measured, textbook performance, balancing reason with resolve Johnson bought time, the time to negotiate in a less strained atmosphere for the return ot the men and the ship This is hardly a perfect solution to such an insulting episode, but it may be the best available under the circumstances If it is, perhaps its unsavory nature will spur planners and policymakers here to re-evaluate existing assumptions about America's role in world affairs, as well as some existing procedures employed in pursuing that role Certainly our entire intelligence modus operandi could use some sort of re-examination, quite possibly an autopsy Spy we must, but why must we spy so clumsily...

...Would John Kennedy have done as much (actually, as little), say, in April of 196V Besides, how many asking the question have been willing in recent years to grant that Lyndon Johnson is a reasonable man...

...Gary Powers' U-2, the RB-47 jet recon-naisance plane shot down off the Arctic coast of the Soviet Union, the two U S destroyers attacked in the Tonkin Gulf, the USS Liberty disabled by the Israelis last summer, and now the Pueblo—all were en-gaged in intelligence work, even David Merrick hasn't produced that many flops Is the information being gathered so aggressively really essential to our national security, or is it leading too often to serious incidents which threaten our security...

...Presumably, it will get us back the crew, and maybe even the ship But there is little about the episode and its aftermath to discourage others from taking pot shots at the U S , until at last the President will have to overreact, and we will find ourselves groping in the very nuclear shadows we are trying so desperately to avoid The basic premise of American military policy in the Kennedy-Johnson era has been to maintain sufficient maneuverability to avoid the choice between all-out war and surrender But the capture of the Pueblo dramatized a failure to secure this maneuverability, and as far as most Americans are concerned, we came humihatingly close to something like surrender There is a feeling here among men like Senator Fulbright that what went wrong with McNamara's strategy of flexible response is that we overextended overselves abroad By trying to do too much in too many places, we have sacrificed too many of our options Thus, North Korea may have felt she could move against the U S with relative impunity, knowing that Johnson had enough problems m Vietnam without starting or even risking another war on another front Any large-scale invasion by the North Koreans could force the withdrawal of the 50,000 South Korean troops now in Vietnam, at a time when the Vietcong is scoring savagely and dramatically It must be a maddening dilemma for President Johnson, who has invested so much in his chosen course in Southeast Asia All of which leads to familiar questions Is our capability equal to our commitments...

...He reacted to the crisis as prudently as possible, but what and where does prudence get us...

...Sometimes it seems hard to believe that whatever information we get is worth the trouble Despite distinct warning from North Korea that U S surveillance ships would be subject to "determined countermeasures," everyone from Pueblo Commander Bucher to President Johnson was astonished when countermeasures were taken, and despite an obvious Vietcong build-up throughout South Vietnam, the attack on the US Embassy m Saigon was neither anticipated nor prepared for In defending the Pueblo's position at the time of her capture, the Pentagon said the ship had been under orders to stay at least 13 miles from North Korean shores Considering that North Korea claims a 12-mile territorial limit, and considering also the warnings just mentioned, wasn't that cutting it a little close, especially at a time when tensions in the Korean area were the highest in years...

...Balancing Reason and Resolve By Robert Sandoz that the Pueblo be renamed the USS Tuna—chicken of the sea To the many members who inserted it in the Congressional Record, a New York Daily News article seemed to strike just the right chord of detached enlightenment "If this outrage by a pipsqueak Communist nation is permitted to stand," said the article, "an angry public will never forgive the President a lot of people are sick and tired of being kicked around if North Korea can get away with this piece of piracy, the U S might as well fold its tent m the Pacific and join the British Empire m oblivion " L Mendell Rivers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and thus a man of considerable clout, said he "would do anything, including declaring war" to get the Pueblo back "I wouldn't fool with them," he said "If they didn't give the ship back, I'd loose whatever we had out there on them " Before dismissing this collective bluster too lightly, it is well to remember that the Daily News has more impact on U S public opinion than the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and the House of Representatives is, if nothing else, representative When Congressman Wilson of California demands "military action at once" and Congressman Wyman of New Hampshire says, "Israel showed us what to do—let's do it," they are not vying for the quote of the day in the New York Times Rather they are telling their constituents (from whom they must soon seek re-employment) what their constituents want to hear, namely that some two-bit Commie nation is not going to push us around Which is, after all, not an unreasonable sentiment And it was so widespread that Lyndon Johnson had (and may still have) an opportunity to whip the country into a war psychology He could have gone on television and recalled an earlier day of infamy and America's response to it He could have said something like, "Shall we permit the passage of time, or fearful counsels of watchful waiting, to tranquilize us into a state of humiliation in the eyes of the world and perhaps imperil our nation further"—which is what Senator Dirksen said Johnson could have noted the increasingly aggressive behavior of Communist forces in both South Vietnam and South Korea and used it as an excuse to escalate our own efforts In any number of ways, he could have given the nation a locker room pep-talk ("Let's win one for the Pueblo"), and much of the nation would have responded enthusiastically The fact that the President did none of these things, that he instead cooled off the country, is a credit to the quality of his leadership in this crisis Some will ask, would not any reasonable man have done as much...

...Nixon...

...The Pueblo incident requires that these questions be studied, and answered anew...

...Are our commitments compatible with our national interest...