| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Mitchell B. Lerner. The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy. (Modern War Studies.) Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. 2002. Pp. xii, 320. $34.95.

On the afternoon of January 23, 1968, six naval vessels of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea intercepted the USS Pueblo off Wonsan, North Korea, and fired on the American ship, killing Seaman Duane Hodges. Shortly afterward, Commander Lloyd M. Bucher surrendered his vessel and its sailors to the attackers. The men spent the next eleven months imprisoned in North Korea; Pueblo remains there to this day. So began an international confrontation that might have resulted in war between the United States and Kim Il Sung's North Korean nation. 1

Mitchell B. Lerner's book is a comprehensive treatment of one of the most serious crises of the Cold War in Asia. The work is based on prodigious research in previously classified and other materials held in the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, the Navy's Operational Archives, and other repositories. The author also interviewed former U.S. civilian officials, Navy officers, and Pueblo crewmen. Lerner blends the U.S. foreign policy, military operational, and American and North Korean domestic imperatives into his narrative. The writing is clear, engaging, and sometimes inspired. Lerner's moving description of how the men of the Pueblo rebounded from severe and repeated torture to defy their Communist interrogators reminds one of the best writings on the experience of other American POWs held captive in North Vietnam's infamous "Hanoi Hilton." Lerner presents a fair appraisal of Commander Bucher's performance before, during, and after the Pueblo's short-lived spy mission off North Korea. The author rightly criticizes the Navy for overemphasizing Bucher's failings as a leader when other officers higher up the chain of command were derelict in their duties. At the same time, Lerner suggests that Bucher was a mediocre officer and that "the possibility exists that a more experienced captain would have achieved different [more positive?] results" (p. 46). . . .

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