2 June 2007

Little Lies


USS Pueblo at Pyongyang, DPRK

Well, you ask, what does the strafing of the American intelligence collection ship by Israelis have to do with the opening of Korea to trade by the West? Is this anything that matters on a Saturday morning with the summer before us, ripe and filled with promise?

We know that promise contains little lies, but we allow ourselves to be seduced anyway.

The Korean problem was not exactly the first thing on my mind this morning, either. There is too much on the plate as it is. There is wreckage everywhere as I try to pack for a month-long deployment overseas, and it is exactly like an office blocked by half-filled cruise boxes. Somehow I have to draft a will, too, which is something I recall all too vividly as a requirement for overseas travel.

Maybe that is why the circle seems so vivid to me, and the deaths of sailors more than a century apart, and old battle flags, and presidential politics. I will not get to the end of the tale today, but by tomorrow, I assure you, the circle will be complete.

This morning, I raise the morning coffee to the memory of Petty Officer Duane Hodges, killed in 1968 by machine gun fire as his shipmates on the USS Pueblo shredded papers and bashed equipment with sledgehammers as the awful realization came to them that they were about to be boarded and taken prisoner by six heavily-armed commandoes.

That seems curious, but that it the way the tale is told on People's Museum #5. Perhaps there were more, and it is part of a series of little lies to make themselves appear more heroic.

The North Koreans took the ship under tow and brought it into the port at Wonsan, the same that had been used for the great evacuation of the Hungnam pocket. The UN forces closed the port in 1950, blowing up all facilities in the process that cold Christmas Eve. 105,000 troops, 91,000 civilians, 17,500 vehicles, and 350,000 tons of supplies were pulled out. Left behind were the Korean civilians, facing the bone-chilling winter and the arriving Chinese in the rubble.

But that was three major conflicts ago, and ancient history. The Pueblo Crisis very nearly caused a nuclear response, since the Americans were pinned down in Vietnam, just like the shoot-down of the EC-121 a year later in 1969. The Tree Chopping Incident in 1976 came close, even as the North Vietnamese celebrated their unification of their former foes.

While on a bonus-workday long ago, we were cleaning out the computer-decking in the intelligence center in Hawaii, which had been filled with cardboard boxes of classified messages deemed too important to throw away and not important enough to keep accessible.

Looking through one of them, I found the file on the capture of the Pueblo. The last message was one of the old Teletype messages, hand-poked into one of the terminals with the long piston keys. “They are kicking in the door, Mate, Gotta go, Pueblo Out.”

I kept the message as long as I could- it was still classified and could not be removed from the vault, and I have not idea where it is now.

I do know where Pueblo is, though it is not where it was for thirty years after its capture. There was a time when I used to get periodic updates.

The Indications and Warnings targets for the old satellite systems had the pier marked where the North Koreans had established their People's Museum of the American Imperialist Threat. There was an explicit understanding regarding the museum. It remained a commissioned ship of the United States Navy, and though the sovereignty of North Korean waters would be recognized, the very instant the opportunity arose; the Navy would have its property back.

Hence the periodic photos of the Museum.

I don't know what changed to alter that understanding, but clearly something did. Perhaps we were busy looking at something else, or perhaps someone lied.

The North is infused with the Chuche Idea, first articulated by the Great Leader, Kim Il Song. I have a thin volume on my shelf that was presented to our delegation in 1995. It explains the doctrine of militant self-sufficiency. That, in turn, accounts for the stubborn refusal of the North to engage in trade with the rest of the world in everything except luxury cognac and first-run movies for the right people.

The Dear Leader decided that the propaganda value of the floating symbol of American humiliation would best be used in the North Korean capital, where the bulk of the controlled tourist market is strictly contained. The means by which he did so is still a matter of controversy, though I think consistent.

Some bewildered accounts published immediately after the movement was discovered claimed the Pueblo was moved overland, by night, since the Americans would never permit their ship to sail through international waters without taking decisive action.

In fact, the North Korean Navy disguised the Pueblo as a freighter, constructing false superstructure components to change the “rig” signature. They ran up the North Korean flag and then sailed Pueblo for nine days around South Korea, through the Straits of Tsushima and up the west coast of North Korea to Nampo, the port at the mouth of the Taedong River.

Apparently the Japanese monitored the ship as it crossed the Military Demarcation Line- Extended (MDL-X) heading south, and counted it only as a small tramp steamer. It boggles the mind that the Maritime Self-Defense Forces did not recognize it for what it was. The recriminations began almost immediately, since it was accomplished in October 1999, just before the visit of US presidential envoy James Kelly to the capital.

The Clinton administration viewed the long, painful process of constructive engagement with the North was worthwhile, and one that had forestalled the emergence of a Korean nuclear arsenal. It is my personal conviction that the North informed the US exactly what they intended to do, and that it was in preparation for returning the ship as a gesture of good will to the Honorable Kelly.

Action against the Pueblo while it was still in North Korean hands would de-rail the process, and provoke something unpleasant. I think the decision was made to allow the ship to travel in peace.

Of course it was a lie, but how could one distinguish that from all the other little lies that make up the dialogue with Kim Chong Il? The Northerners never intended to give it back. They wanted safe passage. What else would any reasonable person expect?

In 1999, People's Museum # 5 opened triumphantly to crowds in Pyongyang. Its mission statement is to teach anti-Americanism, and the glory of the North Korean state and its wise leadership. The berth in the Taedong river is extremely significant, if the Honorable Kelly had known about it.

I'll have to tell you about that tomorrow.

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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