THE DIVINE SCAPEGOAT
On Jan 28, 1968, the North Korean Navy captured Cmdr. Lloyd M. Bucher’s ship, the U. S. S. Pueblo, an old coastal freighter used by the Navy to gather intelligence. Bucher and 82 officers and crew were held by the North Koreans for 11 months and Bucher was tortured by his captors, finally signing a false confession to spying inside Korean waters. After they were released, a court of inquiry recommended that Bucher be court-martialed for surrendering the ship without firing a shot — the first such surrender in peacetime for the Navy — and for failing to destroy all secret documents and equipment before capture. The Navy vetoed a court-martial, saying Bucher had suffered enough. In 1973, 78 of the Pueblo crew were decorated for heroism, but Bucher wasn’t. His last years in the Navy were spent in out-of-the-way jobs in quiet obscurity, until his retirement in 1974. Bucher believes that the Navy made him a “scapegoat” to hide its…
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