PUEBLO CREW BACK WITH FAMILIES

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31871, 26 December 1968, Page 9

PUEBLO CREW BACK WITH FAMILIES

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) SAN DIEGO (California), December 25. The 82 crew members of the captured United States intelligence ship Pueblo celebrated Christmas with their families today before going into seclusion for two weeks of extensive physical and mental tests.

They also face an in- i tensive intelligence in- I terrogation about their , 11 months captivity in North Korea. But today they were allowed to stay in a private world of wives, children and parents, having been given a rousing Christmas Eve reception from the citizens of San Diego on their return home yesterday. North Korea released the men on Monday after the United States had made a tongue-in-cheek apology for the Pueblo’s alleged intrusion into North Korean territorial waters last January. Rear-Admiral Edwin Rosenberg, a special United States Navy liaison officer, said the

and defence officials of reports of ill-treatment of the crew during their confinement. One member of the crew I died after capture, and when I his body was brought off the I plane yesterday, Commander Bucher described him as “a hero in every sense of the word.” Admiral Rosenberg said that all hands would have to answer questions before an official naval board of inquiry, and that in the meantime they should not be “put on trial” by questioning in public. Commander Bucher was interrupted and cautioned by the admiral during his brief address on arrival. He had said of the North Korean takeover of the ship: “Several | men were wounded, some at i point-blank range, and were unable to return fire. . . .” The captain was interrupted at this point and hasI tily changed the subject. At a news conference later, the main speaker was the | Pueblo’s executive officer j (Lieutenant Eiward Murphy), who was twice interrupted by ithe admiral and told not to Igo into detail. The cable photograph shows Commander Bucher being greeted by his wife on his arrival at the Miramar naval air station.

intelligence examinations would begin tomorrow. , “We have a very great need i to find out precisely what happened at the time of the capture of the Pueblo, and i t what happened during their captivity,” the admiral told a press conference, at which the ship’s captain (Commander | Lloyd Bucher) denounced the ■ North Koreans as being “completely devoid of humanity and devoted to the enslavement of man’s mind.” , A Pueblo officer said the soup diet supplied during the crew’s captivity was “nourishing, and perhaps equal to what North Koreans gave themselves.” But he added, i he lost 451 b. President Johnson has ordered an urgent investiga- ; tion by American diplomatic