CAUTION FAVOURED

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31586, 25 January 1968, Page 11

CAUTION FAVOURED

(AZ. Press Assn.—Copyright) WASHINGTON, Jan. 24. Angry demands for immediate retaliation mixed with calls for caution marked Congressional reaction to North Korea's seizure of the United States Intelligence ship U.S.S. Pueblo. A major question being asked in the Capital yester day was why the ship had no protection. Senator Strom Thurmond (Republican, South Carolina) called the incident “an insult to our flag. It is a serious setback in our intelligence forces and it is an act that we should not tolerate.” He sent a telegram tc

'■> President Johnson urging that the North Koreans be told the Pueblo would be retaken by force if she were not returned within a specified time. A similar note was sounded by Senator Thomas J. Dodd (Democrat, Connecticut). He said the North Koreans should be told that if they did not release the Pueblo and her crew within 24 hours, United States naval forces would be instructed to seize all vessels of North Korean „ registry wherever they may pi be found on the high seas, d' But the two Senators were f the exception and the general d reaction was that the United i) States should move slowly i- and through diplomatic chants nels before taking any retaliate tory action. it Senator Karl Mundt (Republican, South Dakota), a o member of the Foreign Rela-

tions Committee, put it: “This is a provocative incident but we have war worries enough on our hands without looking for another one.” Senator Richard Russell (Democrat, Georgia), chairman of the Senate Armed Sei-vices Committee, said he asked the Pentagon for details of why the ship did not undertake to defend itself in the two or three hours of the incident or call for air support. Senator Russell said if North Korea was trying to [divert United States forces from Vietnam it would not| ! work.

' “We are rather lightly spread all over the world but we are in a position to fulfil any commitments we have in Korea and maintain our position in North Vietnam,” he said.

Senator J. W. Fulbright (Democrat, Arkansas), of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said intelligence gathering activities of the type in which the Pueblo was engaged certainly exposed the United States to incidents of this kind.

Senator Fulbright called the incident serious if, as reported, the ship was on the high seas. The House Republican leader, Mr Gerald Ford, said there was no justification whatevei for the action taken by the North Koreans, but qualified his statement with the phrase: “if the vessel was cruising in international waters.”

The Pentagon said the ship was captured 25 miles at sea and Republican William Bates, of Massachusetts, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said the reports indicated clearly that this action on the high seas in international waters was nothing but a dastardly act of piracy.