The Pueblo Incident 1969 US Navy; Analysis of the North Korean Evidence

more at http://quickfound.net/

'A motion picture film exhibit from the Korean Military Armistice Commission Meetings (KMAC) Held to Resolve the USS Pueblo Crisis, 1968. Presents an analysis of the North Korean evidence. From the Department of State's Collection on the 'Pueblo Incident.'

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pueblo_(AGER-2)

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

USS Pueblo (AGER-2) is a Banner-class environmental research ship, attached to Navy intelligence as a spy ship, which was attacked and captured by North Korean forces on 23 January 1968, in what is known today as the "Pueblo incident" or alternatively, as the "Pueblo crisis".

The seizure of the U.S. Navy ship and her 83 crew members, one of whom was killed in the attack, came less than a week after President Lyndon B. Johnson's State of the Union address to the United States Congress, a week before the start of the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and three days after 31 men of North Korea's KPA Unit 124 had crossed the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and killed 26 South Koreans in an attempt to attack the South Korean Blue House (executive mansion) in the capital Seoul. The taking of Pueblo and the abuse and torture of her crew during the subsequent 11-month prisoner drama became a major Cold War incident, raising tensions between the western powers, and the Soviet Union and China.

North Korea stated that Pueblo deliberately entered their territorial waters 7.6 nautical miles (14 km) away from Ryo Island, and that the logbook shows that they intruded several times. However, the United States maintains that the vessel was in international waters at the time of the incident and that any purported evidence supplied by North Korea to support its statements was fabricated.

Pueblo, still held by North Korea today... the ship has been moored along the Potong River in Pyongyang, and used there as a museum ship at the Pyongyang Victorious War Museum. Pueblo is the only ship of the U.S. Navy still on the commissioned roster currently being held captive...

On 5 January 1968, Pueblo left U.S. Navy base Yokosuka, Japan, in transit to the U.S. naval base at Sasebo, Japan; from there she left on 11 January 1968, headed northward through the Tsushima Strait into the Sea of Japan. She left with specific orders to intercept and conduct surveillance of Soviet Navy activity in the Tsushima Strait and to gather signal and electronic intelligence from North Korea...

In the afternoon of 22 January 1968... a North Korean unit made an assassination attempt in the "Blue House" executive mansion against the South Korean President Park Chung-hee, but the crew of Pueblo were not informed.

According to the American account, the following day, 23 January, Pueblo was approached by a submarine chaser and her nationality was challenged; Pueblo responded by raising the U.S. flag. The North Korean vessel then ordered Pueblo to stand down or be fired upon...

The attackers were soon joined by two MiG-21 fighters. A fourth torpedo boat and a second submarine chaser appeared on the horizon a short time later...

U.S. Navy authorities and the crew of Pueblo insist that before the capture, Pueblo was miles outside North Korean territorial waters. North Korea says the vessel was well within North Korean territory...

The North Korean vessels attempted to board Pueblo, but she was maneuvered to prevent this for over two hours. A submarine chaser then opened fire with a 57 mm cannon, killing one member of the crew. The smaller vessels fired machine guns into Pueblo, which then signaled compliance and began destroying sensitive material. The volume of material on board was so great that it was impossible to destroy it all...

Pueblo was taken into port at Wonsan and the crew was moved twice to prisoner of war (POW) camps. The crew reported upon release that they were starved and regularly tortured while in North Korean custody...

Following an apology, a written admission by the U.S. that Pueblo had been spying, and an assurance that the U.S. would not spy in the future, the North Korean government decided to release the 82 remaining crew members, although the written apology was preceded by an oral statement that it was done only to secure the release. On 23 December 1968, the crew was taken by buses to the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) border with South Korea and crossing at the "Bridge of No Return"...