Office of the Historian

298. Memorandum From the Director of the Korean Task Force (Brown) to the Under Secretary of State (Katzenbach)1

Washington, March 15, 1968.

SUBJECT

  • Possible Actions in the Event the North Koreans Announce that They Intend to Try the Pueblo Crew
1.
At your request, we have considered what we might do if we were confronted by an announcement from Pyongyang that the Pueblo’s crew (or possibly only the officers) will be tried for alleged crimes under North Korean law.
2.
The context in which such an announcement might be made would of course have a material bearing on how we should react. Thus, if the announcement came after the closed Panmunjom talks had been broken off and in a period of intensified North Korean raids on the South, there would be little reason for us not to take a very hard line. On the other hand, the announcement could conceivably be accompanied by indications that the North Koreans viewed the trial as a preliminary to releasing the crew. In this case, a softer reaction would be appropriate.
3.
Under almost any circumstances, we believe that two actions should form part of our response to word that the crew was to be tried.
A.
We should issue a public statement which would at a minimum brand the seizure, detention and trial of the Pueblo crew as illegal and [Page 669] totally indefensible. A draft of one possible version of a public statement is attached.2
B.
We should seek to get Communist and neutralist governments and individuals to advise Pyongyang that trying the Pueblo’s crew would seriously damage North Korea’s international standing. Among the channels which we might use for this purpose are the Russians, Indonesians, the NNSC, and the North Korean editor in Tokyo.
4.
Unless we were quite confident that trial of the crew would be merely a prelude to their early release, we should probably follow our initial public statement almost immediately with publication of a White Paper giving a full account of the Pueblo case in the broad setting of heightened North Korean aggression against the Republic of Korea. As you know, such a paper is being prepared.
5.
We have also considered a number of other possible reactions to the contingency in question, but doubt that these reactions would be found appropriate or useful. Thus, we do not see how trial of the Pueblo crew would alter our judgment concerning the undesirability of various military actions, such as aerial strikes, aerial feints, sailing the USS Banner along the North Korean coast, blockading the North Korean Navy, etc. We also doubt that a threatening deployment of additional U.S. forces to the Korean area would serve any useful purpose. Calling up additional reserve units might improve our general posture, but could not be expected to have any significant impact on the North Korean decision to try the crew.
6.
Our experience with prisoner problems in Viet-Nam may have some relevance to the question at hand. A summary of this experience, prepared in L, is attached.3
  1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1967–69, POL 33–6 KOR N–US. Secret; Nodis.↩
  2. Not printed.↩
  3. Not printed.↩