[peekingfromabox]

"It would have helped if he had ordered the crypto equipment thrown over the side."

They did get rid of the most sensitive stuff, some even recieved citations for destroying secret info while seriously wounded. My feeling is that Bucher probably did everything humanly possible to destroy whatever he could before being boarded. But in any case, the North Koreans don't seem to have gained very much from whatever they found. And at least Bucher tried to escape, until his ship was surrounded and struck by torpedoes.

But the most important thing about the Brit situation for me was the fact that a powerful Brit frigate was sitting nearby and watching, doing nothing. I cannot imagine for the life of me a U.S. Navy destroyer sitting by doing nada while watching the Pueblo being illegally taken by the NK's in international waters.

[thinking]

Yes, I understand that certain destruction materials, that were designed to burn the equipment didn't do the job....again, someone has postulated, that the sinking of the submarine Scorpion, was enabled by the use of the equipment seized, and the codes sold to the Soviets by Walker, which in turn permitted the Soviets to track the movements of the Scorpion...interesting theory....getting back to the recent dust-up...in the age of electronic communications, a incident like this affords the opportunity for both sides to evaluate the C & C of each other....