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The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy (Modern War...
by Mitchell B. Lerner
Available from Amazon
$13.22
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Features
Paperback: 334 pages
Publisher: University Press of Kansas October 2003
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0700612963
ISBN-13: 978-0700612963
Product Dimensions:
9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
The January 1968 North Korean seizure of the intelligence-collecting ship USS Pueblo came close to sparking a second Korean War. Lerner, an assistant professor of history, synthesizes newly available documents and a large number of participant interviews to attribute the crisis to the Johnson administration's unsophisticated interpretation of contemporary international relations as bipolar global rivalry between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Sending the Pueblo to monitor electronic communications and naval activity off North Korea's coast was regarded as a routine mission in the general context of the Cold War. The ship, its crew and captain were poorly prepared for any unexpected occurrences, able neither to resist nor escape the North Korean gunboats. Johnson and his advisers processed the seizure as having been orchestrated by the Soviet Union. U.S. responses focused on Moscow and on international agencies like the Red Cross and the World Court. Lerner, however, offers extensive documentary evidence that the U.S.S.R. was not involved in the Pueblo's seizure. Instead, he makes a convincing case that North Korea acted on its own and for domestic reasons. Kim II Sung, according to Lerner, was increasingly committed to structuring North Korea around the ideological principle of juche, or "self-identity." Juche required the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea to act in all areas without regard for external influence. Even in its early stages, attempts to apply the concept had generated economic shortages and political dissent sufficient to impel Kim to assert "self-identity" in another way: seizing a ship whose presence, even in international waters, was in any case provocative. American efforts to resolve the crisis, pointed as they were in the wrong direction, only exacerbated it. In the absence of North Korean documents, Lerner's argument cannot be regarded as definitively proven, but expect it to get serious (if quiet) play among historians and policy makers.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Library Journal
The title of this study by Lerner (history, Ohio State Univ.) refers to the capture of the intelligence gathering ship, the U.S.S. Pueblo, by the North Koreans in January 1968. The Pueblo was nothing more than a made-over cargo vessel with the addition of an electronic shack for eavesdropping. It was prone to steering loss and engine failure, and its crew and captain were new and untrained. Unarmed except for two machine guns and some small arms, the ship was in no condition to attempt an intelligence mission off the North Korean coast. Unfortunately for the captain and crew, that is exactly where they were captured. Lerner does an excellent job of detailing the crew's torture and imprisonment for almost a year. He draws on interviews with those involved, as well as recently released documents relating to the Johnson administration, to show how badly the administration handled foreign policy challenges during the 1960s. This excellent read sheds light on the incident, which is still debated in some circles today. Recommended for both public and academic libraries. Mark Ellis, Albany State Univ. Lib., GA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy (Hardcover)
As a former Navy spook who served in the Korean Theater during 1969-71, I hoped this book, published on the eve of the 35th anniversary of the North Korean capture of the USS Pueblo, would provide useful new insights into this infamous incident. Unfortunately it does not. More or less consistent accounts of the details surrounding the ship's capture and the crew's imprisonment, and the policy and operational shortcomings up to the senior levels of the US Navy and the National Security Agency, have been published elsewhere over the years. This account adds little of significance in this area. Instead, Professor Lerner focuses on the "failure of American policy" and the notion that the "Cold War mentality directing (United States) policy decisions" caused the United States to incorrectly focus on the Pueblo seizure as part of the international communist conspiracy. Professor Lerner assets, unconvincingly in my opinion, that North Korea's attack on the Pueblo was motivated solely by an indigenous ideological concept called "juche", an extreme form of "self-reliance" which Lerner says North Korea espoused from 1955 onward. In other words, the attack on the Pueblo was just North Korea's way of asking to be left alone so they could build a peoples' paradise based on "having an attitude of a master toward the revolution and construction of one's own country"(??). Professor Lerner further asserts that despite the Pueblo attack occurring just eight days before the launch of the Tet offensive in Vietnam, any notion that North Korea ever participated in a concerted effort to support North Vietnam's imposition of totalitarian socialism on South Vietnam was just the result of a tendency by the United States' military to see pro-North Vietnamese adversaries behind every tree. "Other evidence (none of which Professor Lerner specifically cites) suggests a lack of cooperation between (North Korea) and Vietnam." Also, Professor Lerner argues that the Russians certainly had no involvement because a former KGB officer told him so in an interview (!) and "Soviet complicity might also have threatened ... superpower rapprochement" that was allegedly occurring. Finally, he says North Koreans would never act in concert with other totalitarian socialist regimes because such an action might backfire and result in "strengthening the position of American 'hawks'". The arguments and theories in The Pueblo Incident - A Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy are unconvincing. First, Korea practiced "juche" for hundreds of years as evidenced by the 19th Century characterization of Korea as the "Hermit Kingdom" for its tendency to attack foreign ships that entered its harbors as well as execute shipwrecked sailors who washed ashore. So what? South Korean society evolved from their isolationist tradition, and even socialist states like Albania and Romania practiced forms of "juche" from the 1950s through 1990s without attacking, everyone who ventured near their borders. "Juche" doesn't explain the North Korean need to attack and murder 31 men on a US Navy plane more than 90 miles off their coast in April 1969, their large-scale commando raid on a South Korean island hundreds of miles south of the DMZ, stepped up North Korean aggression that caused more than a 1,000 U.S. and South Korean casualties along the DMZ from 1967 -69, etc. etc. Second, North Koreans have publicly and proudly announced that they collaborated with the North Vietnamese in the 1960s. Their most significant involvement was sending North Korean pilots to fly MIG jet fighters in opposition to American pilots in Vietnam, just as Russians had flown against American pilots in Korea 15 years earlier. There really is evidence to refute assertions of non-involvement by North Korea in Vietnam. Third, no doubt North Korea was something of a renegade to the Soviets and the Russians probably did not know in advance about the attack on the Pueblo. Nevertheless, supporting North Korea was clearly an element of Soviet policy. When the U.S. Navy assembled carrier battle groups in the Sea of Japan the USSR positioned 16 of its surface warships between the US fleet and the North Korean coast, as well as deployed a number of submarines in the area. Yes, the record shows that in many instances the United States misjudged the intention and capability and motivation of our Cold War adversaries (as they did ours). In the aftermath of the attack on the Pueblo the United States assembled a large naval task force and deployed additional Air Force units in the Korean theater which was a prudent response given our commitment to protecting South Korea and Japan and the fact that a state of war still existed in Korea. Once it was determined the Pueblo attack was not a prelude to greater hostilities, the United States withdrew most of those forces and patiently sought the crew's release through diplomacy and negotiation. Was that a foreign policy failure? This book has a few interesting photographs I hadn't seen before. I recommend it to people interested in the Cold War and the ongoing Korean conflict history as long as they consult other sources to get a more balanced and complete view of the incident.
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The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy (Modern War...
by Mitchell B. Lerner
Available from Amazon
$13.22
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