Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency (46 page)

The North
Koreans, said Kalugin, permitted the Soviets to go over what they found.
"The Soviets had been allowed to inspect the captured material because
they were the only ones who knew how to handle this stuff. They knew how to
make use of it. I know the code machines, KW-7, [were] supposedly smashed by
the crew of the
Pueblo.
But," said Kalugin, laughing, "I think
that was probably not quite that."

According
to Kalugin, nothing is more valuable than cryptographic material. "The
ciphers and codes are considered the most important piece of intelligence
because they provide you authentic material on the problems and events which
are of interest. . . . When you pick up a cable and you decipher it, you break
the code, you read the genuine stuff, it's no rumor."

But while
the Russians received a KW-7 cipher machine from the
Pueblo,
it and the
keylists were useless: the minute NSA learned the ship had been captured, they
changed the keylists throughout the Navy and also slightly modified the KW-7.
What NSA didn't know, however, was that among the recipients of the new
keylists and the technical changes for the cipher machine was the Kremlin.

Since that
chilly October day in 1967, when James Harper had walked into the Soviet
Embassy in Washington, the Russians had had a
key piece
of the puzzle: "James Harper" was actually John Walker, a U.S. Navy
communications specialist. From him they would regularly receive top secret NSA
keylists and technical modifications for the cipher equipment.

The Soviet
agent who ran Walker was Major General Boris A. Solomatin, the hard-drinking,
chain-smoking KGB chief of station in Washington from 1965 to 1968. As Oleg
Kalugin's boss, he was considered "perhaps the best operative the KGB ever
produced," according to one high-ranking FBI counterintelligence official.
"Walker showed us monthly keylists for one of your military cipher
machines," said Solomatin, now retired. "This was extraordinary. . .
. Walker was offering us ciphers, which are the most important aspect of
intelligence. . . . For more than seventeen years, Walker enabled your enemies
to read your most sensitive military secrets. We knew everything. There has never
been a security breach of this magnitude and length in the history of
espionage. Seventeen years we were able to read your cables!"

Supplied
with the keylists since October 1967, all the KGB needed was an actual working
machine. The capture of the
Pueblo
answered their wishes. "So John
Walker's information, on top of
Pueblo,"
Kalugin said,
"definitely provided the Soviets with the final solutions to whatever
technical problems they may have had at the time. And I think this combination
of two really brought about, you know, tremendous results for the Soviet side.
. . . We certainly made use of the equipment from the
Pueblo."

In
addition to the KW-7, the North Koreans also salvaged two other valuable cipher
machines from the
Pueblo
—the KW-37 and the KG-14—and turned them over to
the Russians. One member of John Walker's spy ring, Jerry Whitworth, was later
stationed at the U.S. Navy base on the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego
Garcia. There he had access to the KW-37, the KG-14, and other cipher machines
and sold key materials for them to the Russians.

It is hard
to overestimate the value of the Soviet code break. "Using the keylists
provided by John Walker," Kalugin said, "[We] read all cryptographic
traffic between the United States Naval Headquarters and the Navy across the
world. ... So by keeping control of the movement of U.S. nuclear submarines, by
controlling the coded traffic between the Navy and the units in the open seas,
we could really protect our country's security. ... I think this was the
greatest achievement of Soviet intelligence at the time of the Cold War."

In March,
the crew of the
Pueblo
was moved to a newer detention facility outside
Pyongyang, and the physical mistreatment became less frequent and less severe.
Three months later, a number of the Sigint technicians were interrogated about
cipher equipment by officials with obvious knowledge of the subject. In some
instances, classified information was passed on and block diagrams and
explanations of the KW-37 and KG-14 cipher machines were provided.

In the
end, despite the thirst for retaliation back in Washington, diplomacy won out
over military action in the efforts to gain the release of the
Pueblo
crew.
But for nearly a year the cumbersome talks dragged on.

"Americans
were shocked at President Lyndon Johnson's inability to 'free our boys,' "
said William Taylor, Jr., of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"Coming on top of repeated disasters in the Vietnam War, congressional
opposition to Johnson grew rapidly. This was the beginning of the end of a
failed presidency." Two months after the capture, on March 30, 1968,
Johnson stunned the nation when he announced that he would not run for a second
term.

By the
fall of 1968, the
Pueblo
had become a hot political issue. Richard
Nixon, running for the presidency against Vice President Hubert Humphrey,
pounded on a podium and called for revenge. "When a fourth-rate military
power like North Korea will seize an American naval vessel on the high
seas," he said, "it's time for new leadership."

On
December 23, 1968, Major General Gilbert Woodward, the American representative
to the Military Armistice Commission in Panmunjom, signed a North
Korean—prepared apology admitting to the espionage and the intrusion. However,
before it was signed, Woodward denounced the papers as false. "I will sign
the document," he said, "to free the crew and only free the
crew." Nevertheless, the North Koreans accepted the fig leaf, and later
that day all the
Pueblo
crewmen—along with the body of Duane
Hodges—crossed the bridge linking North and South Korea. It had been exactly
eleven months since the ordeal began.

Imprisoned [eleven] months,

A grand collection of lumps

We've gathered since the dawn of
detention.

But do you think we're resentful?

Hell no! We're repentful!

How
repentful it's safer not to
mention.

Following
the crew's release, a Navy court of inquiry was harshly critical of Bucher's
performance during the crisis. He was accused of not recognizing in time the
serious threat to his ship. "A determination to resist seizure was never
developed in
Pueblo
prior to or during the incident," it said.
"Commander Bucher had the responsibility for developing the best defensive
capability possible in his ship utilizing all weapons and personnel available.
This he did not do."

He was
also severely criticized for giving up his ship and its secrets.

"He
should have persisted—increased speed, zigzagged, and maneuvered radically. No
boarding party could have come aboard had the ship so maneuvered. In view of
the absence of fire or flooding and few minor casualties at the time the
Commanding Officer made the fatal decision to stop and follow the SO-1 into
Wonsan, his ship was fully operational. . . . He should have realized that the
greatest service to his country could have been performed by denying to a
foreign government classified material and personnel with knowledge of
sensitive information on board." Finally, the court said, "He decided
to surrender his ship when it was completely operational without offering any
resistance. He just didn't try—this was his greatest fault. . . . He made no
apparent effort to resist seizure of his ship. He permitted his ship to be
boarded and searched while he still had the power to resist."

On the
other hand, the court gave Bucher high marks for the way he held the crew
together and kept up their morale while in custody "in a superior
manner."

The court
also had harsh words for Lieutenant Stephen Harris, the head of the Sigint
operation on the ship, with regard to his ineffective destruction of the
classified material in the spaces. It was estimated that only about 10 percent
of the material within the Sigint area was actually destroyed. In light of that
record, the court concluded, Harris "failed completely in the execution of
emergency destruction of classified material."

Finally,
the court found the conduct of most of the crew, and the Sigint personnel in
particular, was greatly lacking. "With few exceptions the performance of
the men was unimpressive. Notably the performance of the [Sigint personnel] in
executing emergency destruction was uncoordinated, disappointing and
ineffective. A general description of the crew of the
Pueblo
might be
summarized by noting that in most instances CPOs [chief petty officers] and
petty officers simply did not rise to the occasion and take charge as the
emergency demanded."

The court
recommended that Bucher and Harris be court-martialed.

But the
crusty admirals on the court had been reading too many biographies of John Paul
Jones when they should have been watching
Mission: Impossible,
No one,
especially in peacetime, is required to commit either suicide or murder. The
prosecutable offense should have been ordering anyone out on the open deck as a
fleet of torpedo boats fired 3-inch shells at anything that moved. It would
have taken a sailor between five and ten minutes just to undo the gun's cover,
unlock the ammunition locker, and load the weapon. He would have been dead
before he even reached the gun. And as a spy ship the
Pueblo
was
supposed to maintain its cover as long as possible, not go to general quarters
every time a foreign ship came by for a look.

"You're
surrounded," said NSA's Gene Sheck. "You're literally surrounded.
You've got to make a judgment. Do I lose all eighty-one guys? Those days of
John Paul Jones, as far as I'm concerned, are long gone. While the Navy
shudders and shakes at the thought that somebody surrendered a Navy ship, I
don't think he had any choice. . . . You can imagine that thing being
surrounded by all these gunboats out there and patrol boats and these guys just
pulled right up to them and just literally climbed on board. They had nothing
to fight back with. One .50-caliber machine gun, a couple of small guns, maybe
a rifle or two, I don't know. But nothing that made sense."

Those who
should have been court-martialed instead were the desk-bound Naval Security
Group officers at Pacific Fleet Headquarters in Hawaii who planned the
operation so carelessly. First they paid no attention to either the NSA warning
message or the mounting North Korean threats—in English—against "U.S. spy
ships" sailing off its eastern coast. Then they sent a bathtub-sized boat
on its way lined bulkhead to bulkhead with unnecessary documents and a
destruction system consisting of matches, wastebaskets, and hammers. Finally,
they made no emergency plan should the ship come under attack. Said Sheck:
"Folks out there said, Ain't no NSA bunch of guys going to tell us what
not to do. And besides that, who's going to capture one of our Navy combat
ships?' "

General
Charles Bonesteel, who was in charge of both U.S. and UN forces in Korea at the
time of the incident, said Bucher had no choice but to give up his ship.
"They had total incapacity to do anything except die like heroes, and they
couldn't have even done that. [The North Koreans would] have taken the damned
ship," he said. "I think they probably did about all they could do
under the circumstances."

Those who
were at fault, said Bonesteel, were the Naval Security Group planners in
Washington and Hawaii. "The degree of risk was totally unnecessary,"
he said. "Now, I wanted intelligence. I didn't have any damned
intelligence, real intelligence, that could provide early warnings against a
surprise action from the North. But we didn't need it in superfluous Comint.
This was the intelligence wagging the dog. . . . North Korea wasn't a very
serious threat to the continental U.S. . . . [North Korea] had made it very
plain that this was an area they didn't want bothered. Sitting around there for
several days relying on international law of territorial waters was just asking
for it. I don't think this was very much of a planned action on the part of the
North Koreans. I think our actions were just so blatant and obvious that they
just couldn't resist the temptation. . . . The people who were responsible were
totally out of touch with what the situation was in North Korea."

In the
end, the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral John J. Hyland,
approved letters of reprimand instead of court-martials for Bucher and Harris.
Secretary of the Navy John H. Chafee then declared, "They have suffered
enough," and dropped all charges against Bucher and Harris.

"The
Pueblo
incident, I think, was one of the remarkable episodes of the Cold
War," said the KGB's Kalugin. "It was remarkable not only because it
allowed the North Koreans and the Soviets to get hold of the . . . highly
classified equipment and cryptographic material. It was also important because
it allowed the Soviets and North Koreans and the Chinese to play this
propaganda game. . . . great propaganda value.

"The
Pueblo
is still in the hands of the North Koreans. They keep it as a symbol of
American interference, American arrogance, and a symbol of American defeat of
sorts. For them it's a symbol of North Korean ability to deal with the greatest
power in the world. . . . [Then North Korean President] Kim Il Sung raised his
own stature to a level unthinkable before. He challenged the United States. He
kept Americans in prison. He kept the
Pueblo
in the hands of the North
Koreans and never let it go."