“I am neither optimistic or pessimistic”: Ibid.
NIS men grilled hostesses: Details of the Naval Investigative Service probe of Bucher are contained in multiple documents located at NA, RG 526, Records of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, US6500, Jan. 26–27, 1968, box 13. In an interview, Bucher conceded that he “may have chased around a couple of those little girls over there in Yokosuka.”
“Too involved with his men”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 4, Day by Day Documents, Part 5, box 28. The author obtained a partially redacted copy of the CIA profile of Bucher through the Freedom of Information Act.
Nine submarines: NA, RG 218, Records of General Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, box 29, tab 4.
Men hastily built bunkers: AMHI, General Charles H. Bonesteel interview, Senior Officers Oral History Program, 1973, Vol. 1, 353.
“A rather serious loss”: LBJ, NSF, Meeting Notes File, Jan. 31, 1968, meeting with congressional leaders, box 2.
“I just don’t see any value at all”: Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Historical Series), Volume XX, Ninetieth Congress, Second Session, 1968 (made public in 2010), 157.
“When you send out a spy”: LBJ, op. cit.
“Tension bouncing off the walls”: Author interview with Joseph A. Yager, former deputy director of the Korean Task Force.
Ten possible courses of action: NA, RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Central Foreign Policy Files, 1967–1969, Political and Defense, Lot File 69D219, Stack 150/69/17/07, box 1.
CHAPTER 7: SUICIDE IN A BUCKET
Profound sense of shame: Author interview with Lloyd M. Bucher.
Drenched and defeated: Author interview with F. Carl Schumacher Jr.
“You must be aware of the tortures”: Lloyd M. Bucher and Mark Rascovich, Bucher: My Story (Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1970), 263.
He’d decided to adhere rigidly: The full text of the Code of Conduct can be found at Inq, 937.
“You’re a weakling”: Author interview with Harry Iredale.
“I was determined”: CA, Vol. III, 1006–86.
“A brief confession”: LBJ, NSF, Memos to the President, Walt Rostow, Vol. 112, Dec. 26–31 (1 of 2), container 44, “Statement of Robert James Hammond.”
Scowling grimly: The Rules of Life are quoted in Bucher, op. cit., 281.
Stepped into a sunken tub: Ibid., 284.
“You will be given a special treat!”: Ibid., 287.
Schumacher sent back a note: Trevor Armbrister, A Matter of Accountability: The True Story of the Pueblo Affair (Coward-McCann Inc., New York, 1970), 282.
“That’s nonsense”: NA, RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Office of the Executive Secretariat, Korean Crisis (“Pueblo Crisis”) Files, 1968, Entry 5192, Lot 69D219, box 5, folder: Miscellaneous—Pueblo, 2/1/68–8/68, Book II of II, transcript: “Officers of the Armed Spy Ship ‘Pueblo’ of U.S. Imperialist Aggression Army Were Interviewed by Newspaper, News Agency, and Radio Reporters.”
They debated the exact meaning: Bucher, op. cit., 304.
Some signed hesitantly: Details of the collective signing are taken from Bucher’s and Schumacher’s memoirs and the author’s interview with Bucher.
CHAPTER 8: AT THE MAD HATTER’S TEA PARTY
People in the capital heard artillery: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 19, Telegrams to Posts Other Than Seoul (1 of 2), container 36.
“Tens of thousands of hand grenades”: NA, RG 526, Records of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Stack 630A/1/2/1, box 12, folder: Pueblo #2.
An East German diplomat: WW, Memorandum on an Information of 1 February 1968, Embassy of the GDR in the DPRK, Pyongyang, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, MfAA C 1023/73. Translated by Karen Riechert. http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/113741.
“Fat revisionist pig”: Obituary of Kim Il Sung, Daily Telegraph, London, July 11, 1994.
Their own request: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 12, CIA Documents [1], box 32.
Bulldozed and defoliated: Daniel P. Bolger, “Scenes from an Unfinished War: Low-Intensity Conflict in Korea, 1966–1969,” Leavenworth Papers No. 19 (Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 1991), 49.
Digging in for war: NA, RG 218, Records of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Records of Chairman (Gen.) Earle G. Wheeler, 1964–1970, box 29, folder: Korea (Pueblo) 091, 21 Feb. 1968, Vol. III.
“Seriously disturbed”: NA, RG 526, Records of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, box 13, tab 15, folder: US6500, USS Pueblo, Jan. 26–27, 1968.
“Sir, this is the break”: LBJ, NSF, Country File, Korea, box 57, folder: Pueblo Incident, Vol. Ia, Part A.
“Results could be explosive”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 15, Telegrams to Seoul, tab 9–17, box 34.
Berger’s retort to Porter: LBJ, NSF, Memos to the President, Walt Rostow, Vol. 58, Jan. 25–31, 1968 (2 of 3), container 28.
Park already had alerted his generals: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 16, Telegrams from Seoul, tab 8, box 34, “Final Vance Meeting with President Park,” Feb. 17, 1968.
“Getting nowhere”: Reminiscences of Vice Admiral J. Victor Smith, U.S. Navy (Retired), (U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland, 1977), 422.
“Putrid corpse”: LBJ, NSF, Country File, Asia and the Pacific (Korea), Korea cables and memos, Vol. V, 9/67–3/68, box 255.
LBJ was disappointed: NA, RG 59, Records of Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Rusk telephone transcripts, telephone call from Walt Rostow, Feb. 2, 1968, 10:13 a.m.
“[Smith] is not psychologically suited”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 16, Telegrams from Seoul, tabs 1–5, box 34.
“I’d sit up watching”: Author interview with Marion Smith.
A bridge leading to Panmunjom: Details of the students’ protest are drawn from wire service accounts printed in the Virginian-Pilot and the News and Courier (Charleston, South Carolina), Feb. 8, 1968.
“Appeasement, indecisive, disappointing”: LBJ, NSF, National Security Council Histories, Pueblo Crisis 1968, Vol. 16, Telegrams from Seoul, tabs 1–5, box 34.
Arrested and paraded: Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (Basic Books, New York, 1997), 10.