At six o’clock the next morning he was taken from his cell at the Barn to another room on the same floor. There he was told to strip and put on a prisoner’s uniform consisting of a jacket and pants of blue padded material, a white cotton shirt, coarse underpants lacking a fly, and socks. He was not given shoes, perhaps to discourage any thought of trying to escape through the snow-covered countryside. The new clothes hung on his undernourished frame like a potato sack on a scarecrow. At least they were clean. Being forced to wear his grungy Navy togs for so long had been a low-grade form of torture.
On the evening of February 7, Super C summoned the captain for another round of theatrics. He opened with his usual greeting—“How is your life these days?”—and then began a shrill denunciation of alleged U.S. atrocities during the Korean War.
With Wheezy coughing and sputtering his translation, the colonel argued that he was shielding Bucher and his men from the righteous wrath of the Korean people, who would instantly dismember the Americans if they ever got their hands on them. Bucher believed him. He’d already begun thinking of ways to escape, but it seemed impossible that his mostly Caucasian crew, even if they succeeded in breaking out of the Barn, could make their way on foot through an Asian police state whose inhabitants were universally hostile to them. One or two of his Filipino or Mexican-American sailors might be able to pass for Korean and reach the demilitarized zone or the coast, where they could perhaps steal a boat and sail south. But an escape by a large number of white sailors almost certainly would fail.
Bucher was imagining various breakout scenarios when Super C suddenly ended his philippic and proclaimed, “Tomorrow you will be given a special treat! Tomorrow is the great Korean holiday—the anniversary of the beginning of the Korean People’s Army!” The celebration, Super C promised, would include apples, candies, cakes, and other “special food” for the captives. Bucher’s mouth watered at the thought of such delicacies, but he merely shrugged and was dismissed.
The next day a pair of women in drab army dresses came into his room, spread a cloth over the little table, and positioned a bowl of apples as a centerpiece. Then they brought in platters of boiled fish, steamed rice, and bread and butter. An officer told Bucher not to touch anything yet, and the captain steeled himself for the possibility that the feast would be snatched away the moment the requisite propaganda pictures were taken.
The same gang of cameramen who filmed his late-night bath rushed into his cell. An anxious major accompanied them, fussily rearranging Bucher’s sparse furnishings. The skipper nicknamed him Jack Warner and his subordinates the Warner Brothers. The two army “maids” reappeared, wearing colorful native costumes and bearing still more food: rich pork and potato soup and sparkling beer. As Bucher gaped in disbelief at the feast, Jack Warner signaled for filming to begin.
The captain knew the North Koreans wanted to convey the image of a well-fed and cared-for “guest” of their government. Warner’s footage probably would be broadcast throughout North Korea and in other countries as well. But Bucher couldn’t resist the bait. He decided to eat his fill while sabotaging the propaganda by acting as if he hadn’t had a meal in days. Picking up the bowl of soup in both hands, he slurped it with piggish abandon. He drained the beer like a construction worker after a day in 100-degree heat. If nothing else, the skipper wanted to wolf down as much food and drink as possible before it was taken away. To his surprise it wasn’t, even after the filming stopped. Bucher ate until he was stuffed. When he was finished, a communist officer arrived with a small glass and a bottle of ginseng liquor. The officer filled the glass again and again—five times in all—until the captain felt the room spin. He was gloriously, sumptuously drunk. He staggered to his bed for a nap. And no one woke him up.
In spite of the unexpected rest and nourishment, Bucher’s psychological state remained fragile. The day after the army anniversary, an alert young seaman, Stu Russell, was assigned to scrub the captain’s floor. When a guard caught them whispering, both Americans were beaten. Nevertheless, Russell showed up for the same duty the next day. A new guard looked away for a moment and Russell murmured, “What are our chances, Captain?” Embittered by the previous day’s clobbering, Bucher replied, “They’ll get what they can, then get rid of us.”
A few days later, the captain passed a note to Schumacher saying he didn’t think he’d survive prison and that he felt responsible for Duane Hodges’s death. He asked the lieutenant to visit Rose if he ever got out. Suspecting the skipper was contemplating suicide, Schumacher sent back a note urging him to stay alive.
As Bucher struggled to keep his mental balance, the North Koreans stepped up their efforts to exploit him and his men for propaganda.
One day in early February, the captain was escorted to the big interrogation room for another press conference. Through the blinding TV lights he saw a crowd of people that included, to his amazement, the Pueblo’s five other officers. They were all alive and together for the first time since they’d been threatened with a firing squad. Bucher was so elated that he had to stifle the impulse to shout happily and throw himself into his men’s arms.
The other Americans had lost weight and looked haggard; their eyes were bloodshot and they seemed jumpy. Bucher noticed a bad cut on one of Ed Murphy’s ears. The captain knew he, too, looked like hell, but he felt a surge of confidence at finding his wardroom intact.
About 20 North Koreans in civilian clothes were jammed into the room, which had the look of a U.S. Senate committee chamber at the start of an important hearing: curls of cigarette smoke, TV cables everywhere, cameramen rushing back and forth, heat, anticipation. Schumacher recognized most of the North Koreans as army officers in mufti. But several others were representatives of the Korean Central News Agency and other communist media outlets.
The journalists laughed boisterously and called out to one another. They sat at a large, U-shaped table facing the Americans, who were at a rectangular table laden with apples, cigarettes, candies, and cookies. After the chill of his cell, the hot lights made Murphy a little sleepy.
Earlier, the Americans had been ordered to memorize answers to a series of questions they’d be asked at this conference. They also were told to always refer to North Korea as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Colonel Scar opened the proceedings, and Bucher fielded the first couple of questions, describing the health of his men as good and the North Koreans as “gentlemanly and understanding.”
As the communists had instructed him, Murphy falsely stated that the Pueblo penetrated North Korean waters at six different points. Steve Harris explained the CTs’ jobs, revealing so many accurate details that Schumacher winced.
The charade lasted five nerve-racking hours, as the Americans regurgitated predetermined answers to prearranged questions. Toward the middle of the conference, a glimmer of Bucher’s old impishness broke through. He’d been groping for ways to subvert the show, and an opportunity eventually presented itself. A North Korean correspondent mentioned that two top Japanese government officials had publicly asserted that the spy ship was boarded on the high seas, not in North Korean waters. What did the captain think of their statement?