(2 of 3)
Nixon's handling of the crisis won praise from diverse quarters. Hubert Humphrey lauded the President's restraint; Senator Barry Goldwater reluctantly went along, saying he personally favored taking "an eye for an eye," but conceding that the U.S. cannot afford to fight wars simultaneously in Viet Nam and Korea. Senator William Fulbright thought Nixon had no alternative, but repeated his doubts about the usefulness of the kind of spying mission Pueblo and the downed EC-121 were engaged in. In the wake of the Pueblo incident, there was surely a legitimate question as to the prudence shown by the U.S. in sending slow, unprotected planes to spy on a jumpy Communist nation already notorious for pugnacity and unpredictability. President Nixon admitted that 190 such flights had taken place since Jan. 1.
Vengeful Fire. At his press conference, the President explained why he considered the flights necessary: it is his responsibility as Commander in Chief to look after the security of the 56,000 U.S. troops in South Korea, and in view of North Korea's growing belligerence the flights provide some insurance against surprise thrusts. "Going back over 20 years," he said, "we have had a policy of reconnaissance flights in the Sea of Japan similar to this flight." More generally, any President has the duty to provide his military forces with the best information obtainable about potential adversaries. Ignorance of the other side can not only make U.S. forces vulnerable to surprise attack, but also lead to unnecessary military precautions resulting from uncertainty.
The mission of the ill-fated EC-121 seemed routine. So had the last voyage of Pueblo. Piloted by Lieut. Commander James Overstreet, 34, the EC-121 took off from Atsugi Naval Air Station near Tokyo with a full crew of 30 Navymen and one Marine. For nearly seven hours, the aircraft followed a clockwise course around the Sea of Japan.
Then a ground station in South Korea radioed a sudden warning: two North Korean MIG jet fighters had taken off from a base normally used only for training and were headed toward the EC-121. The Navy plane acknowledged that message, and turned seaward from a position well outside the twelve-mile limit claimed by North Korea. It was to end its mission prematurely and return to Atsugi. On monitoring radars in Japan the blips of a North Korean jet and the U.S. aircraft met and passed; then the EC-121 disappeared from the screen altogether. It was not heard from again.
Radio Pyongyang announced: "The Air Force unit of our People's Army instantly spotted the plane of the insolent U.S. imperialist aggressor army, which was reconnoitering after intruding deep into the territorial air of the northern half of the Republic and scored the brilliant battle success of shooting it down with a single shot by showering the fire of revenge upon it." Pyongyang might well crow its triumph. In an important sense, the new loss was graver than that of Pueblo early in 1968: only one of Pueblo's 83-man crew was killed during its capture.