Word: pueblo
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Dates: during 1970-1970
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...Taos Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, the land is both religion and church. Since the 13th century they have particularly venerated Blue Lake in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. For them, Blue Lake is roughly analogous to Catholicism's Vatican or Judaism's Zion. But the tribe has owned neither land nor lake since 1906, when Teddy Roosevelt took them over as part of Carson National Forest. Although the House of Representatives has passed legislation in the past two years to right the old wrong, the measure has always been killed in the Senate Interior Committee...
Before setting out from Japan, Bucher asked Rear Admiral Frank Johnson, his boss, for TNT charges to scuttle the Pueblo in an emergency. The request went to a supply officer, who offered thermite instead. Bucher realized that carrying thermite, an incendiary substance, was both dangerous and contrary to Navy regulations. He could have made a fuss but decided against doing so. "All I could accomplish by pressing it further," he writes as apologia, "was to upset Admiral Johnson and his staff by giving them the impression they had a skipper on their hands who seemed obsessed with the capability...
...converted Army cargo vessel was ill prepared in other respects. Though assigned to cruise near hostile coasts in poor weather, it had an antiquated steering mechanism that kept breaking down. Pueblo was crammed with highly classified material and devices. Yet it possessed only rudimentary equipment for destroying its secrets in an emergency. The Pentagon had authorized Pueblo to carry a relatively large, 3-in. 50-cal. cannon. But tiny, overloaded Pueblo had neither the deck space for it nor qualified gunners to man it. Bucher settled for two ineffectual .50-cal. machine guns mounted in exposed positions...
Actually, Pueblo was never intended to fight. Its protection lay in international law or, in a crisis, possible help from elsewhere. Brigadier General John W. Harrell Jr., the Air Force commander in South Korea, was informed of Bucher's mission in advance and asked the Navy if planes should be kept on "strip alert" for a possible rescue operation; the Navy was not interested. While Pueblo was at sea, North Korea sent an assassination team to Seoul with President Chung Hee Park as the target. This graphic signal of Pyongyang's mood did not make the Navy...
Consolation Prize. Once the North Koreans started shooting, confusion aboard the Pueblo was matched by lack of coordination in higher echelons. Even the Navy's belated attempt to get Air Force assistance was delayed by difficulties in using a secure telephone line. Then differences between Air Force and Navy procedures led an Air Force major to believe that the message was merely a drill. The carrier Enterprise might have helped, but received no orders. In Hawaii, Admiral John Hyland got word of the seizure. Armbrister asked him later what he did, and Hyland replied: "We just sat there...