THE PUEBLO: AN ODYSSEY OF ANGUISH REPLAYED

PALE and emaciated, the witness clenched his fists, blinked his hooded eyes and stumbled over his words as he relived the interminable nightmare. In 4 1/2 days of torturous testimony before a Navy Court of Inquiry last week, Commander Lloyd M. Bucher recounted the details of the capture of his ship U.S.S. Pueblo and the eleven-month ordeal that he and his crew endured while they were prisoners of the North Koreans. The tale he told was one of almost unbelievable hardship and endurance, and it left unanswered many troubling questions about higher-echelon complacency and shortsightedness in the U.S. Navy.

Bucher rehearsed Pueblo's tragic odyssey before a panel of five admirals in the stark auditorium of the Naval Amphibious Base at Coronado, Calif. His wife Rose sat in the front row, and he appeared at times to enjoy the opportunity to tell his story. The Navy made it clear that this was an inquiry, not a trial. However, depending on the testimony, the panel will have to decide whether there is cause to recommend bringing charges against the commander or his crew. And midway through his account last week, Bucher was informed that his testimony rendered him suspect of violating U.S. Navy Regulation 0730 on the grounds that he had allowed foreign representatives to search and seize his ship while still having the means to resist. He had the right to remain silent thereafter, but the skipper decided to complete his story.

Frustrating Task. More scow than ship, the 24-year-old Pueblo seemed singularly unsuited for her mission. Her wheezing boilers could deliver a maximum speed of only 13.1 knots. The ship's steering mechanism was worn out. Bucher's initial duty was to supervise the refitting of Pueblo from an Army freighter into a first-class, electronic spy ship. It was a frustrating task.

The most serious deficiency he discovered was the lack of equipment to destroy classified documents and secret electronic gear. Bucher tried repeatedly to obtain a destruct system for the electronics snooping devices, but his requests were turned down by the Navy. Instead, Pueblo was-issued fire axes and sledgehammers to do the job.

To destroy secret documents, Bucher installed an electric paper shredder and a small incinerator. The burner was totally inadequate for the amount of classified material Pueblo would carry. But Bucher could not know that because he was not even cleared for access to the ship's supersecret "research" compartment. His request for either a twin-mount 20-mm. or single-mount 40-mm. cannons to defend his vessel went unheeded by Navy brass. Instead, he was issued two .50-cal. machine guns that would be useless against another ship. The basic problem, said Bucher, was money. The original $5,500,000 allocation for refitting his ship had been slashed by $1,000,000.

Clogged Channels. Bucher's orders were to eavesdrop on all electronic transmissions coming from the North Korean shore, to chart shoreside radar sites, and to observe and report shipping in the area, particularly the movements of Soviet submarines. On Jan. 16, Pueblo took up a station off Chong-jin and slowly began working her way south. On Jan. 21, a Soviet-built subchaser passed about 1,000 feet away from Pueblo while steaming toward Wonsan harbor. The next afternoon, two small, grey boats, apparently government fishing craft, circled Pueblo. Bucher immediately tried to alert his headquarters in Japan. However, it took between twelve to 14 hours for his message to get through because of difficulties in obtaining a clear frequency in radio channels clogged with air-to-ground traffic.

At 11:55 a.m. the next day, a North Korean subchaser steamed into view and quickly circled Pueblo twice at 500 yards. The Koreans were suspicious. They demanded by signal flag, "What nationality?" Bucher ran up the U.S. ensign, identifying Pueblo as an American naval vessel.

The Capture. Soon the subchaser was joined by three 50-knot torpedo boats and another subchaser. One subchaser hoisted a signal: "Heave to or I will fire." Bucher personally checked his distance from shore by radar and was satisfied that he was 16 miles from the nearest land, four miles beyond the limit claimed by North Korea. The captain then fired off a situation report with CRITIC (critical) priority, which meant that it would go to the White House. Moments later, one of the torpedo boats tried to land a boarding party.

Bucher dismissed the possibility of scuttling Pueblo. The vessel was only in 180 feet of water, a depth from which North Korean divers could easily have recovered the classified material. And it would have taken 21 hours to sink the ship.

The three torpedo boats took up positions on both quarters of Pueblo. Bucher's .50-cal. machine guns were useless, cloaked by frozen tarpaulins that would take an hour to remove. "I did not," he said, "think there was any point of going to war--I was completely outgunned." The subchaser again hoisted a signal flag ordering "Heave to, or I'll fire." Bucher ignored it. The subchaser opened up with 57-mm. cannons. Pueblo's bridge was sprayed with shrapnel, wounding two enlisted men. The skipper suffered seven wounds in his right ankle and leg. Another metal shard ripped into his rectum. At this point, two MIGs screamed overhead. One fired a salvo of rockets that harmlessly hit ten miles ahead of Pueblo.

Fireman Duane Hodges was hit by a shell that penetrated his right leg and exploded. He died shortly thereafter, the only man mortally wounded in the attack. Frantically, the crew responded to Bucher's order to destroy the secret material and electronic gear on board. This task would have taken several hours, and it was far from complete when the ship was boarded at 5:30 p.m. Bucher thus became the first skipper to surrender a U.S. Navy ship without a fight in peacetime.

From the moment that Pueblo tied up at the dock in Wonsan, Bucher and his men entered into an atmosphere of Orwellian terror. North Korean officers came aboard to interrogate Bucher. Over and over, they charged that "the Americans are trying to start another war with North Korea." During the interrogation, Bucher was pistol-whipped around the head, neck and jaw.

Later, Bucher was blindfolded and led off the ship through a mob of spitting, howling spectators. The prisoners were put on a train for an all-night ride to a jail in Pyongyang, the capital.

Super-C. When Pueblo's crew arrived at the prison, the skipper was led to his quarters, an unheated cubicle with a small table, straight-backed chair and a bed. Because of his wounds, he could not lie down. It was zero outside and below freezing inside the hovel. The chief interrogator was an army officer whom the men came to call "Super-C" for super colonel. Large (about 5 ft. 10 in.) for a Korean, Super-C wore a grey, Soviet-style topcoat with red lapels and huge shoulderboards. Bucher thought he looked funny, but he soon discovered that Super-C was intelligent and cruel. The colonel alluded to Shakespeare and classical mythology, but he did not speak English. His interpreter was a man Bucher nicknamed "Wheezy," because he had a habit of coughing between practically every word to disguise his inability to translate rapidly. To Bucher's dismay, his interrogators produced bundles of secret documents that they had found on Pueblo but appeared not to understand. It was evident to Pueblo officers that Super-C --who was later promoted to general--did not want to diminish his glory by consulting North Korean naval or intelligence officers who might have helped decipher the secret documents.

At first the North Koreans demanded confessions that the men were spying for the CIA. Later the captors changed their tactics. In an effort to offset adverse world opinion and justify their piracy, they tried to force Bucher and the other crew members into confessing that Pueblo had not only been spying but war also violating North Korean territorial waters when she was seized.

Almost incessantly, during the first days of his captivity, Bucher was savagely beaten. Most brutal of all were the Korean enlisted men, who came regularly to beat the crew. A guard, said Bucher, would come into the enlisted men's quarters with a note in his hand, which told him "whom to beat up, how hard, how long, and how the man should look afterward." Routinely, the men were beaten about the face with straps, shoes or wooden slats. A bizarre note, according to Bucher, was that he could often hear the Korean officers "beating their own men for overstepping their bounds in beating our men."

Vile Stench. At times, Bucher was so badly beaten that he urinated blood. He did not tell his captors about his wounds for fear that he would be hospitalized and thus separated from his men. During the first few days of captivity, his three wounded men were confined in a room where the stench was so vile that a visitor could not help vomiting. Radioman Charles H. Crandall had 50 pieces of shrapnel in one leg; Marine Sergeant Robert J. Chicca had a bullet wound that penetrated his neck.

For Bucher, the grillings never let up. Brought before Super-C on his first day of captivity, he was told that he had two minutes to sign a confession or he would be shot. An officer held an automatic pistol to the back of his head. On the verge of total collapse, Bucher would only moan, "I love you, Rose. I love you, Rose." After the two minutes, and two clicks of the pistol, Bucher realized that his inquisitors were bluffing. As part of the softening-up process, he was then driven to a nearby prison to inspect a captured South Korean who had been gruesomely tortured. Bucher fainted at the sight of the mutilated prisoner. But he still refused to sign the false confession.

Ultimate Threat. Finally, in desperation, the Communists used the ultimate threat. Unless he signed their text, they insisted, they would shoot all of Bucher's crew members one by one before his eyes, starting with the youngest. "I was convinced they would do it," Bucher testified. "I was convinced they were animals. I told them I would sign the confession. And I did sign it." Even as he did so, he carefully added false information, such as an incorrect serial number, in a last-gasp effort to show that the document was a lie. After he had signed it, the Koreans rewarded Bucher with a huge plate of eggs. He could not eat them. Crushed, Bucher tried to drown himself in a bucket of water in his room.

When they were not being quizzed or beaten, Pueblo's men were continually subjected to Communist propaganda. They were told early in June, for example, that Robert Kennedy had been killed--by President Johnson. In time, the crew was afforded slightly better treatment. They were occasionally allowed to exercise together, most often by trimming the grass around their prison building with pocket knives. But the beatings and terror never ended until

Dec. 23, when they were finally released.

While last week's court of inquiry focused on Bucher, his testimony cast a dismal light on the entire U.S. military chain of command. Even the White House was fully informed in advance about Pueblo and her mission, and must have been cognizant of the serious risk of provoking retaliation from the belligerent North Koreans. Yet the ship's dangerous, unprecedented mission was approached with extraordinary nonchalance.

Why, for example, was Bucher given as his first command so highly sensitive an assignment? And why, once he had been given command, was he not allowed access to the classified material for which he might ultimately be responsible? Why was an ancient rust bucket like Pueblo chosen for conversion into a spy ship? Why were Bucher's requests for essential gear and weaponry repeatedly turned down? Why, if the Navy lacked the money to equip the ship properly, was Pueblo stationed off North Korea in the first place? Why no air cover? And why did the Navy steadfastly assume that North Korea, which is not a naval power and has no strategic reason for respecting the freedom of the seas, would never attempt to pirate a U.S. spy ship in international waters?

False Security. Even at a lower level of command, where operational difficulties are more apparent, Bucher received little help or guidance. Rear Admiral Frank L. Johnson, commander of U.S. Naval Forces, Japan, was made fully aware of Pueblo's limitations by Bucher. Yet he did nothing to upgrade the ship. Indeed, Bucher testified that Johnson had assured him that his guns would never be needed, and in fact advised the skipper not to show "any aggressive intent" if harassed by North Korean or Soviet vessels. This attitude seemed to lull Bucher into a false sense of security, which may explain his rather slow realization that the North Koreans meant business. But, as a result, he was plainly in no position to resist capture.

Finally, the inquiry also raises questions as to the validity of the Military Code of Conduct (see ESSAY), which requires brave men of conscience like Bucher to endure vicious treatment rather than sign false confessions that are of dubious value anyway. Fiercely loyal to his crew, orphanage-raised Bucher could only be made to sign such a document when he believed his men--his military family--would be shot one by one. Whatever the court of inquiry decides, it is clear that the Navy's investigation will not satisfy Congress. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield predicted that both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee will want to know a great deal more about the whys, whats and hows of a case in which the Navy may be, for good reason, less than eager to settle for a definitive investigation.

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