In August 1967, for example, infiltrators machine-gunned U.S. army engineers standing in a chow line, killing three and wounding 25. Raiders that year also blew up a 2nd Division barracks, leaving two soldiers dead, and derailed two South Korean trains, one carrying U.S. military supplies.
Meanwhile, South Korean intelligence reported that Kim Il Sung was digging in for war—literally. Communist airfield facilities, factories, ammunition dumps, and fuel depots were moved underground. High-ranking government officials underwent combat training several days a week, and many civilian industries were converted to production of artillery, machine guns, and other arms. Fifteen thousand soldiers were trained in unconventional warfare in preparation for attacks on southern targets, including storage facilities for U.S. nuclear munitions.
Kim’s audacious capture of the Pueblo gave him a propaganda bonanza at home and abroad. The spy ship’s presence off the North Korean coast was all he needed to validate his thesis that the hated Americans were planning a new war against the north. The dictator could therefore exhort his subjects to work harder and sacrifice more to build up the country’s defenses. And on a purely personal level, the supremely egotistical North Korean leader must have rejoiced at his startling success in humbling the capitalist devils.
For several days after the seizure, North Korean state media mixed shrill demands for an apology with dire predictions of how badly the United States would suffer if it were foolish enough to retaliate. But behind the scenes, a delicate diplomatic minuet began at Panmunjom, a village in the DMZ where the Korean War armistice had been signed. Ever since the war ended, the allies and communists had been meeting at Panmunjom to haggle over alleged breaches of the cease-fire agreement.
American officials had secretly contacted members of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission, a multinational body that investigated charges of armistice violations. The NNSC was composed of representatives of four nations that hadn’t taken part in the war: communist Poland and Czechoslovakia, and noncommunist Sweden and Switzerland. The U.S. government wanted the Swiss and Swedish commissioners to help with the Pueblo, but they were unwilling to intercede directly with the North Koreans.
However, the Swiss and Swedish members were “seriously disturbed” by Pyongyang’s growing belligerence, and voiced their concerns to their communist counterparts. The Czech commissioner in turn approached Major General Pak Chung Kuk, an acerbic, chain-smoking veteran propagandist and negotiator for North Korea.
Shortly after midnight on January 28, the Swiss representative telephoned American officials with the gratifying news that Pak had put out an apparent feeler.
Pak had given the communist commissioners a confidential message for the United States. It began with a harsh warning: If President Johnson used force in an effort to retrieve the Pueblo or its crew, he’d “get only bodies.” But the North Korean general also said he was willing to discuss possible repatriation of the seamen if the negotiations were conducted “in a normal way”—an apparent reference to U.S.–North Korean talks at Panmunjom that had led to the release of two captured U.S. Army helicopter pilots in 1964.
At the White House, Pak’s overture produced a swell of guarded optimism. “Sir, this is the break,” national security adviser Walt Rostow wrote in a memo to the president. “The problem is how to do it with maximum dignity.”
However, the American ambassador to South Korea, William Porter, a clear-thinking career diplomat with a reputation for tackling tough assignments, wasn’t as sanguine. Porter had been in Korea for less than a year following a tour as deputy ambassador in South Vietnam. He was intimately familiar with communist-style guerrilla warfare and once spent a week traveling, by bus and on foot, through remote parts of South Korea to check on the inhabitants’ readiness to fight off North Korean commandos.
Porter warned his State Department superiors in a secret cable that the “results could be explosive” if South Korea learned of Washington’s covert contact with the communists. President Park Chung Hee and his top aides already believed, the ambassador wrote, that the United States was more concerned about getting back its sailors than stopping North Korean terrorism against the south. Alarmed by the Blue House raid, South Korean military leaders were quietly discussing the possibility of pulling their crack troops out of Vietnam to reinforce the home front. They also were talking about withdrawing from General Bonesteel’s U.N. command in order to have a freer hand to retaliate against communist incursions. Porter didn’t think they were serious, but who knew what might happen if they found out Washington was reaching out to North Korea without their knowledge or consent?
And sooner or later, he believed, the South Koreans would find out.
Porter’s concerns drew a dry response from Sam Berger, head of the Korean Task Force. Washington fully understood the political situation in Seoul, he cabled back, but wanted to make it as “easy as possible for [the North Koreans] to get off the hook.” Raising the infiltration issue with the recalcitrant communists, he wrote, would only “complicate and delay” a solution to the Pueblo imbroglio.
Berger predicted that just one private parley between Washington and Pyongyang would be needed to get back the sailors, if President Park could be persuaded not to interfere. Berger noted that Park was “wise and a realist,” and instructed Porter to promise him a wealth of new military assistance if he agreed to go along with the American game plan.
Porter did as he was told. He assured Park the multitude of American warplanes and ships that had arrived would be kept in the region for the time being. Washington also planned to provide millions of dollars in extra military aid, including two aging Navy destroyers whose delivery previously had been contingent on Park’s sending more soldiers to Vietnam. The United States further pledged to give South Korea more counterguerrilla equipment, airlifting it with the same priority as supplies earmarked for American troops in Vietnam.
Porter’s visit came not a moment too soon. Enraged by the Blue House plot, Park already had alerted his generals to be prepared to slash back at the north. But with all the additional military aid dangled before him, he agreed to stand down his forces and acquiesce in the U.S. negotiating strategy—at least for now. American officials then swiftly transmitted a letter to General Pak, saying they’d received his message via the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission and wanted a closed-door meeting at Panmunjom.
But, in an early display of how mulish they could be in negotiations, the North Koreans promptly backpedaled.
Pak insisted he’d sent no prior communication and couldn’t meet with the Americans if they continued to utter such “fabrications.” If Washington wanted a get-together, he said, it must submit a new letter deleting all references to Pak’s initial feeler.
Porter figured the communists were up to their usual Orwellian trick of trying to rewrite history for their own purposes. They wanted to establish a paper trail indicating that the United States came groveling to them first, and to erase the NNSC’s role in brokering what Pyongyang evidently regarded as prestigious face-to-face negotiations with Washington.
Porter wanted the record kept straight. He decided to give Pak a letter that dropped the offending facts, but to supplement it with a cover letter accurately recounting the genesis of the talks. Of course, the North Koreans could simply throw away the cover letter and use the underlying document as propaganda grist. But Porter’s approach ensured that the truth didn’t get completely buried.