You were an RM, what do you think of theory? I was an AF fixed facility Tech Controller (307) and you Navy guys had a lot more exposure and experience, even scuttlebutt. I guess they may have planted something, but I think the whole let communists capture a Naval Security Group Ship to help verify a mole is a little far fetched.
I personally think it is far fetched. I am not saying it was impossible, and there are things in that book that I might buy into, but in general...no.
When it comes down to a choice between incompetence or conspiracy...incompetence is usually the right choice.
Not incompetence on the part of the Pueblo and her crew...I think they were just guys doing a job with a sub-par piece of equipment, a marginal set of orders, and nobody backing them up.
The money in the Vietnam War wasn’t being expended on equipment and missions like the Pueblo. They had to scrape the bottom of the barrel for whatever they could find. Hell, her and her sister ship, the Banner, had powerplants and steering that were so old and broken down that one wonders how they steamed them across the Pacific.
My ‘formal’ training (pre RM) was in CT school...
As to the US ‘sacrificing’ a ship is sort of in the ‘far fetched’ category, the SAME US President had absolutely NO PROBLEM with Israel slaughtering several crew members on an NSG ship.
Also after WWII ‘we’ had no problem using GIs as ‘guinea pigs’ in LSD and other mind altering ‘projects’.
Caused more than a few people to convince themselves they could fly off of a multi story building. They couldn’t.
Like I say, I was on the ‘outer fringes’ and it happened after I got out BUT, given the past history, I just can’t completely dismiss the theory.