Coffee beans from the northern latitudes
Edit | Coffee beans from northern latitudes
In January 1968, world public opinion exploded: "North Korea seizes American ships". To the outrage of the United States, the five crew members of the USS Pueblo were killed and four wounded as the North Korean side opened fire first.
Where has the world's number one power suffered such humiliation, claiming that for the first time in a century, the United States has been arrested by another country for its ships on the high seas.
In order to save face, the United States demanded that the DPRK immediately return the American ships. Then-US President Johnson even flew more than 100 sorties of fighter planes from the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier, in a posture of using force against the DPRK. [White-eyed]
Relations between the DPRK and the United States are tense to the extreme, and there is a strong possibility of a conflict. As a result, a month has passed, and the United States has rolled up its sleeves again.
What is surprising is that the United States has taken the initiative to bow its head and ask the DPRK for peace talks. In the end, after 28 rounds of talks, the United States did not reap the slightest benefit, and the DPRK won a resounding victory and made three demands on the United States.
The first is that the United States admits its mistakes, the second is that the United States publicly apologizes, and the third is that the United States guarantees that it will not do it again next time.
So what did North Korea do to make the invincible United States bow its noble head?
01
U.S. imperialism copied Soviet spy ships
In 1952, U.S. President Harry S. Truman established a new secret service agency, the National Security Agency, in order to strengthen the work capacity of his intelligence services.
The United States has spent a huge amount of money to deploy more than 2,000 monitoring stations around the world, but some countries are unwilling to cooperate with the global strategy of the United States, which makes the United States monitoring network have blind spots.
After thinking about it, the Americans decided to copy the Russian method, and they hatched an environmental research ship program, mainly for the refit of decommissioned merchant ships.
They then roam the high seas in the name of trade or scientific expeditions, often armed with light weapons and espionage equipment.
Spy ships are typically sent to other countries to collect local marine hydrographic data and to listen to their communications. However, this plan was carried out in a hurry, and the task of espionage during the Cold War was heavy, and mistakes inevitably occurred.
Some spy ships have not yet received systematic training before they are on duty, but the United States wants intelligence more, and they can't care so much about it.
In the 1960s, North Korea had few opportunities to engage with the United States, and when the Vietnam War broke out, relations between North Korea and the United States, which had turned to the socialist camp, were even worse.
As a result, tensions on the peninsula became high, with 121 skirmishes between North and South Korea breaking out in 1966.
In addition, North Korea sent 50 pilots to fight in order to help socialist Vietnam, and 300 officers trained North Vietnamese soldiers to fight against American GIs.
It can be said that the United States and the DPRK have a deep grudge, and the United States also wants to spy on the DPRK in private.
In 1967, U.S. spy ships received orders to monitor Soviet naval movements in the waters near North Korea and speculate on the extent of Soviet and North Korean involvement in the Vietnam War.
In order to avoid startling the snake, Lao Mei did not send a reconnaissance plane to conduct aerial reconnaissance, but instead brought in a World War II old ship. The 895-ton freighter Pueblo is powered by a diesel engine with a top speed of 12.7 knots and a heavy machine gun.
02
The thief was caught
In January 1968, the U.S. spy ship was ordered to sail out of the Sea of Japan to conduct surveillance activities on the east coast of Korea. This small ship is unusually low-key, and passing merchant ships think it is an ordinary transport ship.
However, the Pueblo is equipped with radio listening equipment, and no one can see through its elaborate camouflage without visiting the ship in person.
Winter in North Korea on January 21 was very cold, and American spy ships felt it was a perfect time. It slowly moved to the vicinity of Mayang Island, where the spy ship saw a North Korean hunting submarine slowly passing by.
However, the submarine did not make any move, and the American spy captain let out a sigh of relief, and they sped away from Mayang Island. The next morning, the American spy ship reappeared about 15 nautical miles from the port of Wonsan in eastern North Korea, and this time they were not so lucky.
At 1 p.m. on the same day, two North Korean military vessels came to a 3-nautical-mile range from the Pueblo. The captain of the U.S. spy ship believes that he is still on the high seas and that North Korea will not directly arrest them.
However, just as the American spies were carrying out espionage work with great fanfare, at noon on January 23, the North Korean submarine hunting submarine suddenly surfaced and asked the Pueblo crew the nationality of the crew in the flag language.
Soon three more North Korean torpedo boats approached the Pueblo, and American Captain Butcher knew that a catastrophe was coming, and immediately responded with a flag that he was a research ship.
It's just a mission on the high seas, and tomorrow the trip will end and return home. When the DPRK Navy heard his words, it immediately took off two MiG fighters, torpedo boats, and submarine hunters surrounded the Pueblo and demanded that the Pueblo stop for inspection.
At this point, the crew of the American spy ship knew that they had been exposed, and Butcher ordered the boat to speed up its escape and make every effort to destroy the materials and equipment on board.
Who knew that when the DPRK Navy saw that the US spy ship was about to run away, it opened fire directly. One of the crew members of the American spy ship was killed and four were wounded, and Captain Butcher was afraid that continuing to run would cause more casualties, so he stopped the ship and surrendered for inspection.
The North Korean navy escorted several men ashore and put them all in prison. Europe, the United States, and the Western world were shocked by the bold behavior of the DPRK Navy, and since World War II, the United States has been rampant and hegemonic, and no hostile country has dared to directly detain the US Navy.
Moreover, as was customary, the United States and the Soviet Union were surprisingly consistent in their approach to spy ships, and spy ships on the high seas were generally expelled rather than seized.
Unexpectedly, the DPRK Navy did not play its cards according to common sense, and the Soviet Union learned of the DPRK's move after the US spy ship incident came to an end.
03
U.S. imperialism has made compromises
However, the seizure of American hostages was already a fact, and the American authorities were greatly outraged, and they spoke with representatives of the DPRK in Panmunjom.
The United States strongly demanded that the North Korean Navy release the personnel, and the United States claimed that its spy ship did not sail into North Korean territorial waters. But North Korea is not buying it, and their representatives have the opposite opinion.
In the United States, the government and the opposition are in an uproar, and officials have suggested that President Johnson impose military sanctions on North Korea. The service period of American servicemen has been extended, and the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier and more than 100 fighter planes are also ready for action.
In the face of the menacing US Navy, the DPRK did not show fear, and they actively engaged in pre-war mobilization. The shadow of war has loomed over the entire Korean Peninsula, and South Korean President Park Chung-hee supports armed intervention by the United States.
After the end of the Korean War, sparks erupted on the Korean Peninsula from time to time. Even with the backing of its American masters, South Korea has suffered losses in many skirmishes, losing nearly 300 troops.
There are even North Korean agents who crossed the 38th parallel and assassinated South Korean President Park Chung-hee, and if it wasn't for the timely discovery by the Blue House guards, his head would most likely have moved.
Park Chung-hee was bullied by the DPRK very badly, and he definitely wanted to use the hands of the Americans to teach the enemy a lesson. However, the cunning old United States is still fighting the Vietnam War, and they do not want to provoke North Korea at the moment and provoke a second war.
As a result, the US authorities saw that the intimidation could not succeed, so they adopted a policy of softness, and the two sides engaged in a long 28-round tug-of-war. At first, the United States was arrogant and did not accept the three major conditions put forward by the DPRK.
But as the incident dragged on, the US authorities relented, and they wrote their first confession in the 200-year history of the nation's founding.
Satisfied, North Korea released more than 80 crew members of the U.S. spy ship, and returned the body of a tragically deceased person.
But the equipment used by the United States to eavesdrop was detained, and the converted spy ship was used as an exhibition by North Korea.
The Pueblo spy ship stayed forever on the banks of the Taedong River in Pyongyang City, which was also the site of the destruction of the famous US warship General Sherman, and the humiliation of US imperialism is self-evident.
The United States dared to be angry at North Korea's celebrations, so why did the United States, which has a strong military power, choose to swallow its anger in the end?
In fact, in the final analysis, US imperialism is still a capitalist country where interests are paramount, and if the United States cannot gain benefits from foreign wars, it is not willing to go out of its way to waste resources.
In addition, the Vietnam War restrained the energy of the United States, and the internal pressure in the United States was not ordinarily great, and domestic anti-war waves rose one after another.
The biggest enemy of the United States is still the Soviet Union, and the United States also hopes that the matter of North Korea's detention of the crew members can be resolved peacefully.
The then President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson, had less than a year left in his term of office, and it was a time to start an unnecessary war.
will only let his reputation drop again and again, and compromise is the best way to end his ruling career perfectly. However, the United States still remembered this humiliating moment, and in the future they will inevitably have to regain the face of imperialism in other ways.
04
The United States has nothing to do about North Korea
In April 1969, the United States dispatched an EC-121 reconnaissance plane to the skies over North Korea to conduct reconnaissance, which was the birthday of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung.
The U.S. Air Force expects North Korea to relax its surveillance during the holiday, but U.S. reconnaissance planes recklessly fly over North Korea.
The DPRK Air Force has long been very dissatisfied, and this time the US reconnaissance plane has stumbled. They did not expect that the DPRK MiG-21 fighter would actually use air-to-air missiles to shoot down the reconnaissance plane.
The U.S. imperialists' stealing of chickens and rice has been severely challenged. U.S. think tanks then devised a series of sanctions against North Korea, and the then U.S. president was replaced by Nixon.
The new official took office with three fires, and Nixon's plan was very bold. The first option is to launch a direct nuclear strike on North Korea.
The second method is to send bombers from the Vietnam War to attack North Korea, and the third method is to dispatch aircraft carrier-based aircraft. However, no matter how you look at these plans, a new powder keg will be ignited, and Nixon, who has only been president for a few months, is still unfamiliar with American politics.
Cabinet officials did not agree with his plan, and the two major political parties in the United States never got a unanimous opinion. In the end, the incident of North Korea shooting down a US reconnaissance plane was not resolved, but the relations between US imperialism and North Korea fell to a freezing point.
In October 2006, North Korea quietly began its own nuclear program, and after a successful test, North Korea became an illegal nuclear state. The United States did not dare to provoke North Korea, which originally did not have nuclear weapons.
Now that they have seen it, they are even more arrogant and dare not come out, and the DPRK-US relations have reached a point of no repair. South Korea, which is holding the thigh of the US imperialists, is sweating profusely, and the DPRK also has the ability to stand up to the United States. To this day, the United States has not been able to achieve shame.
Resources:
[1] North Korea has detained a U.S. reconnaissance ship People's Daily Online 2013-10-11
[2] Shi Hai Retrospective: The Inside Story of the 1967 US-North Korea Spy Ship Incident, Sina.com, 2013-11-11
[3] The Pueblo Incident: The U.S.-North Korea on the Brink of War in 1968 Phoenix.com 2010-12-01