When North Korea catch a U.S. Navy electronicsurveillance ship , the USS Pueblo , in outside weewee in 1968 , it wasperhaps the worst protection breach in U.S. history . One of the potentialresponses to North Korean aggression , drafted and sanction by top militaryofficials , was nuclear war .
The USS Pueblo was position in outside waters ( thisis disputed by North Korea , of course ) in January of 1968 , using electronicmeans to intercept North Korean signals and messages . On January 23rd , NorthKorean ships opened fire on the Pueblo , which tried and give way to flee . Thecaptain surrendered , and both the crew and ship were captured .
That the crew were held ( and torture ) for a year was badenough , but the ship hold an tremendous amount of U.S. intelligence data point . Worstof all , it held several gimmick used to decode encrypted U.S. militarymessages . Much later , the Navy would memorize that the loss of the devices wascompounded by the fact that the infamous Walker Spy ring was at the timealready selling codes and other information to the Soviets .
The result of all this was a tense period during which theU.S. tried to envision out what the North Koreans were up to , the extent to whichthe U.S.S.R. and China were involved , and whether North Korea was contrive aninvasion of South Korea . During this same period , North Korean commandos werecrossing the DMZ to attack targets in the south , including an attempted attackon the South Korean Chief Executive ’s sign of the zodiac . It was n’t quite Cuban Missile Crisistense , but there were some white knuckles in the state of war room to be indisputable .
statecraft won out , with the U.S. basically waiting out thecrisis until the Koreans released the prisoners , with some diplomatical help fromthe Soviets . Military help to South Korea was increase , and the drill ofleaving spy ship unarmed and alone while monitor potentially hostiletargets was bring into head . Today the USS Pueblo is a floating museum inPyongyang – they gave back the work party but not the ship .
Recently declassify documents reveal the U.S.’scontingency plans , both for dealing with the capture of the Pueblo and forresponding to a hypothetical North Korean invasion . The armed services ’s view of thesituation was somewhat less diplomatical ( which is their task , after all ) . Theywanted to send a bunch of ship to Wŏnsan to turn their muscles and intimidatethe North Koreans , but U.S. forces were a bit preoccupied in 1968 , what withthe Vietnam War and all . No ship were sent .
The Joint Chiefs of Staff then considered invading NorthKorea , bomb the inhabit hell out of them with B-52s until their atmosphere force wassimply nonexistent . Then the land troops would move in . Analysis showed thatChina and the U.S.S.R. were very likely to intervene in some fashion . The planaccounted for this . However , this plan would have require the U.S. to pull outof Vietnam almost entirely ( it required 12 divisions of troops and 40 tacticalbomber squadrons ) . In all they developed five military plans to lot with thesituation , varying in timing and specific troop disposition . These plans werecalled Fresh Storm .
Then there was the nuclear plan , call FreedomDrop . It was developed by CINCPAC , the commanding officer of the Pacific Fleet , who atthe time was Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp ( Sharp was follow later in 1968by Admiral John S. McCain , Jr. , father of Senator John McCain ) . The Chairman ofthe Joint Chiefs of Staff approved the plan , so the electric potential responsesincluded all - out nuclear warfare against tactical military quarry – the JointChiefs delay informing Sharp of the approval , however .
The warheads in such a position would be delivered byHonest John garden rocket and Sergeant projectile , each with a maximal yield of 70kilotons ( very roughly five times the output of the Hiroshima bomb ) . It would nothave been a happy ending for anyone on the Korean peninsula .
you may see the documents themselves at theNational SecurityArchive , host by George Washington University . Tip of the hat toMark Straussof Smithsonian Magazine , whose tweet thismorning point me to the document . The documents were uncovered by JackCheevers in researching his bookActof War .
On a somewhat related aside , the general of U.S. forces inSouth Korea at the sentence was a Rhodes Scholar who wore a patch over one center . Hisname ? General Charles H. Bonesteel III .
military historyNorth Korea
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