37 years too late- North Korea offers to return USS Pueblo

The North Koreans are giving hints. Of course there is a catch to it. How reliable the offer is is uncertain but there should be no uncertainty about the US response. Give it back without conditions or forget it.

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By WILLIAM C. MANN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Negotiations to eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons remain in limbo, but the North Koreans are giving hints they might be ready to end another lingering problem with the United States by returning the captured spy ship USS Pueblo.

They are setting an unlikely condition, though, considering hostile U.S.-North Korean relations: a visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or another top-level American official.

"It would be a gesture, but somebody needs to make a gesture," said Donald Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea who brought home the offer after a mid-August trip to North Korea.

He told the State Department about his discussions. A department official said there are no plans for a high-level visit to North Korea.

The Pueblo ranks low in the hierarchy of irritants causing bad blood between the two countries. Paramount is the North's admitted nuclear weapons and missile programs. The United States has also criticized North Korea's human rights record, its maintenance of a million-strong army while its people live off donated food, and what it sees as North Korea's support for terrorism.

Still, to those involved with the Pueblo — and to the U.S. Navy — the ship's plight is far more than a footnote to the history of the Cold War.

Sent defenseless on an intelligence-gathering mission off the North Korean coast, and given no help after North Korean torpedo boats mounted an attack, the Pueblo was captured Jan. 23, 1968. It was the first U.S. warship captured since 1807.

Navy records show the ship was in international waters; the North Koreans insist it was inside the Korean coastal zone. In the attack, an explosion killed fireman Duane Hodges, and 10 of the 82 surviving crewmen were wounded. All 82 were held 11 months, often under heavy torture, before being sent to South Korea on Christmas Eve across the "Bridge of No Return" in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the Koreas.

The Pueblo now sits at its moorings on the bank of the Taedong River in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital. Organized tours of North Koreans walk its decks to view evidence of their country's supremacy on the high seas; bullet holes on the bulkheads are circled in red.

Gregg heads the Korea Society in New York, which describes itself as a nonpartisan organization dedicated to promoting "awareness, understanding and cooperation between the people of the United States and Korea."

He did not identify the North Korean official who suggested the high-level visit. But he told The Associated Press that Kim Gye Gwan, North Korea's vice foreign minister and chief negotiator in the recessed nuclear talks, was among officials in the room and heard the discussion. Gregg said he has no doubt the offer was genuine.