"The capture of the ship and internment of its crew by North Korea was loudly protested by the Johnson administration. The U.S. government vehemently denied that North Korea's territorial waters had been violated and argued the ship was merely performing routine intelligence gathering duties in the Sea of Japan. Some U.S. officials, including Johnson himself, were convinced that the seizure was part of a larger communist-bloc offensive, since exactly one week later, communist forces in South Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive, the largest attack of the Vietnam War. Despite this, however, the Johnson administration took a restrained stance toward the incident. Fully occupied with the Tet Offensive, Johnson resorted to quieter diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis in North Korea.
In December 1968, the commander of the Pueblo, Capt. Lloyd Bucher, grudgingly signed a confession indicating that his ship was spying on North Korea prior to its capture. With this propaganda victory in hand, the North Koreans turned the crew and captain (including one crewman who had died) over to the United States.
The Pueblo incident was a blow to the Johnson administration's credibility, as the president seemed powerless to free the captured crew and ship. Combined with the public's perception--in the wake of the Tet Offensive--that the Vietnam War was being lost, the Pueblo incident resulted in a serious faltering of Johnson's popularity with the American people. The crewmen's reports about their horrific treatment at the hands of the North Koreans during their 11 months in captivity further incensed American citizens, many of whom believed that Johnson should have taken more aggressive action to free the captive Americans."
http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=coldwar
January 23, 1973
1971 Nixon announces peace settlement reached in Paris.
"President Nixon announces that Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the chief North Vietnamese negotiator, have initialled a peace agreement in Paris "to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and Southeast Asia."
Kissinger and Tho had been conducting secret negotiations since 1969. After the South Vietnamese had blunted the massive North Vietnamese invasion launched in the spring of 1972, Kissinger and the North Vietnamese had finally made some progress on reaching a negotiated end to the war. However, a recalcitrant South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu had inserted several demands into to the negotiations that caused the North Vietnamese negotiators to walk out of the talks with Kissinger on December 13.
Under the terms of the agreement, which became known as the Paris Peace Accords, a cease-fire would begin at 8 a.m., January 28, Saigon time (7 p.m., January 27, Eastern Standard Time). In addition, all prisoners of war were to be released within 60 days and in turn, all U.S. and other foreign troops would be withdrawn from Vietnam within 60 days. With respect to the political situation in South Vietnam, the Accords called for a National Council of Reconciliation and Concord, with representatives from both South Vietnamese sides (Saigon and the National Liberation Front) to oversee negotiations and organize elections for a new government."
http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?category=vietnamwar
Unfortunately the terms of the agreement were never honored.
Semper Fi,
Kelly