Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency (44 page)

In
addition to the safety of the crew, one of the chief concerns at NSA through
the early-morning hours was whether the North Koreans had been able to capture
the
Pueblo's
cipher material, especially old NSA keylists, which would
enable easy deciphering of U.S. material already intercepted. These lists—one
per month—explained the daily settings for the cipher machines. Across the top
of the eight-by-ten sheets of paper were the words in bold red ink: "TOP
SECRET—SPECAT": "Special Category." The keylists consisted of
instructions on which numbers to set the dozen rotors in the machine on, and
other technical details. With these lists and the right equipment, the North
Koreans would be able to break the code of every naval unit using the same
ciphers.

From
Kamiseya the question went out to the
Pueblo.
"What keylists do you
have left? . . . Please advise what keylists you have left and if it appears
that your communications space will be entered."

At about
two o'clock, Bucher suddenly ordered another "All stop" in order to
check on the progress of the destruction and to give more time for its
completion. But almost immediately SC-35 closed to a range of about 2,000 yards
and fired. Upward of 2,000 rounds pounded the ship's thin quarter-inch steel
skin. Rapid-fire bursts sent shells into the laundry room, the small-arms
locker, the wardroom, and a number of passageways. Near the captain's cabin,
Fireman Duane Hodges was picking up some papers to destroy when he was thrown
to the deck, his leg nearly severed and his intestines torn from his lower
abdomen. As he lay dying, blood from his severed arteries washed from one side
of the passageway to the other as the ship rolled with the waves. Nearby,
Fireman Steven Woelk suddenly felt a burning in his chest and groin from
razor-sharp shrapnel. Blood also poured profusely from the thigh of Marine
Sergeant Robert Chicca, a linguist. Sprawled across another passageway was
Radioman Charles Crandal, jagged shards of hot metal spiking from his leg.

In order
to stop the firing, Bucher ordered full ahead at one-third speed. He then
turned the conn over to Lacy and raced down to check on the destruction. Along
the way he saw the broken, twisted form of Duane Hodges in the crimson
passageway. He pushed open the door to the Sigint spaces and saw some of the
men hugging the deck. "Get up and get going!" Bucher shouted.
"There's a man with his leg blown off out there." He then saw three large
mattress covers overflowing with secret documents. Turning to Stephen Harris,
he shouted, "Get this stuff out of here."

Rushing
into the cipher spaces, at 2:05 P.M. Bucher dictated a message:

HAVE 0 KEYLISTS AND THIS ONLY ONE
HAVE. HAVE BEEN REQUESTED TO FOLLOW INTO WONSAN. HAVE THREE WOUNDED AND ONE MAN
WITH LEG BLOWN OFF. HAVE NOT USED ANY WEAPONS NOR UNCOVERED FIFTY CALIBER
MACHINE GUNS. DESTROYING ALL KEYLISTS AND AS MUCH ELEC EQUIPMENT AS POSSIBLE.
HOW ABOUT SOME HELP. THESE GUYS MEAN BUSINESS. HAVE SUSTAINED SMALL WOUND IN
RECTUM. DO NOT INTEND TO OFFER ANY RESISTANCE. DO NOT KNOW HOW LONG WILL BE
ABLE TO HOLD UP CIRCUIT AND DO NOT KNOW IF COMMUNICATIONS SPACES WILL BE
ENTERED.

Two
minutes later, Kamiseya replied:

ROGER WE ARE DOING ALL WE CAN
CAPTAIN HERE AND HAVE COMNAVFORJAPAN ON HOT LINE. LAST I GOT WAS AIR FORCE
GONNA HELP YOU WITH SOME AIRCRAFT BUT CAN'T REALLY SAY AS COMNAVFORJAPAN
COORDINATING WITH I PRESUME KOREA FOR SOME F-105. THIS UNOFFICIAL BUT I THINK
THAT WILL HAPPEN, BACK TO YOU.

Back in
the pilothouse, Bucher again asked about the possibility of scuttling the ship
but once again he was told it could not be done quickly. Down in the Sigint
spaces, Don Bailey was at last hearing some encouraging words. Kamiseya was
reporting that everyone was turning to, doing everything they could, and
"figure by now Air Force got some birds winging your way." "Sure
hope so," replied Bailey. "We are pretty busy with this destruction
right now. Can't see for the smoke. . . . Sure hope someone does something. We
are helpless."

On shore,
concern over the NSA material was growing. At 2:18, Bailey was again asked
about the status of the classified material and cipher machines. In the choking
darkness, Bailey said that the KW-7 and some of the printed circuit boards for
the KW-37 and the KG-14 remained. Time was quickly running out and there was no
way everything would be destroyed. The major problem was Lieutenant Harris's
decision to attempt to burn the documents rather than jettison them overboard.
This was because the regulations said that jettisoning was not permitted in
water less than 600 feet deep, and the
Pueblo
was then in water little
more than 200 feet deep. Bucher authorized a message sent saying that
destruction would not be complete.

In the
passageways, technicians built small bonfires of dense cryptographic manuals.
Into the inferno went stacks of raw intercept forms covered with row after row
of intercepted five-number code groups; keylists classified "Top
Secret/Trine"; and NSA "Techins"—technical instructions on how
to conduct signals intelligence. Supersecret manual after supersecret manual,
file drawer after file drawer. But the space was too small, the fires too weak,
and the smoke too thick. Ninety percent of the documents would survive.

Destruction
was also on the minds of the North Koreans. About 2:20 one patrol craft
instructed another to watch for attempts by U.S. personnel to throw things into
the water. SC-55 reported that the U.S. crew was ditching some items and
burning others. The Koreans then ordered Bucher to come to all stop. Without
consulting any of the other officers, Bucher agreed to surrender and allow the
boarding party to come aboard. The twin screws spun to a halt, sending large
bubbles to the surface. A few minutes later Bailey, hunched over his cipher
machine, notified Kamiseya. "Destruction of publications has been
ineffective," he wrote. "Suspect several will be compromised."
Kamiseya then requested a list of what had not been destroyed.

Back on
deck, Bucher passed the word to lay aft and assist the boarding party. The
carbine normally kept on the bridge was thrown overboard. At someone's
suggestion, he then notified everyone that the only information they were
required to give was name, rank, and serial number.

Realizing
that he did not have on his officer's cap, Bucher then left the bridge, went to
his cabin, where he wrapped his wounded ankle with a sock, put on his cap, and
returned to the bridge. It would be a dignified surrender. No small arms would
be broken out, no machine guns manned, no attempt made to scuttle the ship or
destroy the engines. The tarps would never even be removed from the 50mm
machine guns, a process that would have taken about three minutes.

At 2:32,
officers from the North Korean People's Army (KPA), in charge of the attack
boats, boarded the
Pueblo.
"We have been directed to come to all
stop," Bailey notified Kamiseya, "and are being boarded at this
time." A minute later, he transmitted his last message. "Got four men
injured and one critically and going off the air now and destroy this gear.
Over." Kamiseya answered, "Go ahead," and then asked the ship to
transmit in the clear. But there would be no more messages from the
Pueblo.

Met by
Bucher, the boarding party came aboard without resistance. It consisted of two
officers and eight to ten enlisted men. All were armed and none spoke English.
Accompanied by Bucher, they went to the pilothouse and the bridge, where
crewmembers were ordered to the fantail. All hands below decks, said Bucher,
were to immediately lay up to the forward well area. The helmsman was then
brought back to the wheelhouse to take the helm. "Each time the mike was
keyed there was a very audible click which preceded whatever was being
said," recalled Stu Russell. "Each time that thing was clicked, I was
sure that they were giving the order to fire into us. It was possible that no
one in the free world, no one in the U.S. military knew we had been captured
and that the Koreans might as well kill us then and there and cover the whole
thing up."

For the
first time since 1807, when Commodore James Barron gave up the USS
Chesapeake
after it was bombarded and boarded by the crew of the HMS
Leopard
off
Cape Henry, Virginia, an American naval commander had surrendered his ship in
peacetime.

Back at
Kamiseya, intercept operators kept close track of the
Pueblo
by
eavesdropping on the SC-35 and the other escorts as they radioed their
positions, about every five minutes, to their shore command in North Korea.

About 4:00
P.M., a second boarding party arrived with a senior North Korean colonel and a
civilian pilot. The pilot relieved the
Pueblo's
helmsman, who was taken
to the forward berthing compartment. Together with Bucher, the colonel
inspected the ship. White canvas ditching bags, bursting at the seams with
highly classified documents and equipment, still lined the passageway; only one
had ever been thrown overboard.

When
Bucher and the North Korean colonel entered the cipher-locked Sigint spaces, a
bulging white laundry bag stuffed with documents sat in the middle of the
floor. The WLR-1 intercept receivers were still in their racks; only the faces
had been damaged. Also undamaged was perhaps the most secret Sigint document on
the ship: NSA's Electronic Order of Battle for the Far East. The EOB was a
detailed overlay map showing all known Russian, Chinese, and Korean radar sites
and transmitters as well as their frequencies and other key details. The
information was critical in case of war. Knowing where the radar systems were
located and on what frequencies they operated would allow U.S. bombers and
fighters to evade, jam, or deceive them through electronic countermeasures.
Knowing that the United States possessed that information, the various
countries might now change the frequencies and other technical parameters,
thereby sending the NSA back to square one. Within days the document would be
on a North Korean desk. "That's guys' lives. That's pilots' lives,"
said Ralph McClintock, one of the
Pueblo's
cryptologic technicians,
years later.

Following
the inspection, about 4:30 P.M., Bucher was ordered to sit on the deck outside
his cabin. At that moment, U.S. Air Force officials were notified by Kamiseya
that the
Pueblo
was now within North Korean waters. All help was called
off. The F-4s in South Korea had not finished converting to conventional
weapons, and the F-105s from Okinawa were still an hour away from their
refueling base in South Korea. They were ordered to refuel as scheduled but not
to attack. The United States had given up on Bucher and his crew.

"They
were on their own," said NSA's Gene Sheck. "They were literally one
hundred percent on their own."

At about
8:30 P.M., the
Pueblo
arrived in the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea (DPRK) and was tied up at a pier about ten miles northwest of Wonsan.
Several high-ranking officers from the KPA then came on board to interview
Bucher in his cabin. Afterward the crewmembers were blindfolded, had their
hands bound, and were led off the ship. A crowd of people who had gathered near
the pier shouted and spat at them and then tried to grab them, only to be
restrained by guards using rifle butts. They were then put on a bus for the
start of the long journey to Pyongyang. "We were, it seemed, being guided
to the crowd," said Stu Russell. "I was amazed that only a few
minutes before, I thought I was scared as much as I could possibly be. I was
beyond scared. No, now I was beyond that feeling and entering into emotional
arenas that I didn't know existed. My feet and legs were no longer part of my
body, they were part of a mechanical system over which I had no control."

We sailed quiet free until Jan. 23,

When out of nowhere there came

Six boats from the west,

The KPA's best

Six hunters, and
Pueblo
fair
game.

What a sensation we caused in this
nation,

When caught red-handed that day.

A slight irritation, quite
advanced inflammation,

In the rectum of the DPRK.

As the
North Koreans were tying the spy ship to the pier in Wonsan, Lieutenant General
Marshall Carter was walking to his corner office on the ninth floor of NSA's
Headquarters Building. Eight-thirty P.M. in Korea on January 23 was 6:30 A.M.
in Washington on that same day, fourteen hours earlier. There to greet Carter
was Air Force Major General John Morrison, his operations chief. He had been at
work for hours attempting to make sense of events. Others soon arrived at the
director's office for a briefing. Among those standing in front of his mahogany
desk, near an oversize globe, were Gene Sheck of K Group; Milt Zaslow, chief of
B Group; and Louis Tordella.

Because
the
Pueblo
was a joint NSA-Navy operation, Carter knew he was going to
have a great deal of explaining to do, particularly about why such a risky
mission was launched in the first place. Then Milt Zaslow, who was responsible
for analysis of Sigint from Communist Asia, handed Carter a copy of the earlier
warning message that NSA had sent out for action. By now most, including
Carter, had forgotten about it. "General Carter read it, and then he got
up and [took] what I thought was the greatest political position anybody could
take," recalled Sheck. "He said, 'I don't want anybody in this room
to call or to bring to anybody's attention the existence of this message. They
will find out themselves, and when they do they will be sufficiently
embarrassed about the whole situation that I don't have to worry about that and
you don't have to worry about that, but I consider that message as kind of
saving our ass."