TexasCHLforum.com

jimlongley wrote:The big problem with the response to the Pueblo was that too many people sat on their hands waiting for someone else to do something.

When a captain radios back that he is surrounded by enemy craft and outgunned is not the time to start to decide what to do about it. The taking of the Pueblo was foreseeable (like so many other disasters). A plan should have been in place that could be executed immediately when the situation arose.

- Jim

Whether one sees it as a national humiliation or a naval humiliation depends upon where you were at the time, I guess. I was a high-school kid, and I was shocked by the impotence of the U.S. in the Pueblo incident.

My father and all my male relatives in that generation had fought in WW II, and I was raised with the assumption that the U.S. could defend itself and its own in the face of any threat, and that we were the good guys.

Then My Lai went down the same year.

The American people in general did not direct the policies of the military (sending the Pueblo unarmed and without an escort into hostile waters), but they elected the representatives and the President who chose the civilian DoD appointees and officers who did.

(I'm saying "they" only because I was too young to vote.)

- Jim

jimlongley wrote:How does the Pueblo qualify as a presidential embarrassment? Navy, yes, but what did the president have to do with it?

The quick answer is "the buck stops here." ("Here" being the Oval Office.)

Probably Pres. Johnson had little to do directly with the Pueblo incident. He was in some respects a broken man by then. However, 1968 was one of the worst years in U.S. history, and that incident was a national humiliation.

Thinking about it, I can't figure out how the North Koreans have been able to stick it to the U.S. with impunity for 50 years.

- Jim

Actually, everything is related.

Osama bin Laden is thought to have been backing a faction in Somalia. Probably he was emboldened by the U.S. failure there and went on to plan the devastating suicide bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the attack on the Cole, the aborted "Millenium" plot, and, of course, the September 11, 2001, atrocities.

Also, the U.S. had indicted him and imprisoned some of his minions for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which had to make his Cheerios stick in his throat.

- Jim

I don't know if it's that easy. Navy ships are designed to survive being holed, and many have, the USS Cole being a recent example. She took a 2,400 square foot [sic] hole and remained seaworthy.

- Jim

In May 1960 an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down over Russia. Its pilot, Capt. Francis Gary Powers, was taken captive. (The Soviets also shot down one of their own planes in the incident.)

The Eisenhower administration initially claimed that the U-2 was a weather research aircraft. Unfortunately, the Soviets had recovered the plane nearly intact and were able to demonstrate publicly that it was a spy plane.

Capt. Powers was convicted of espionage and spent over a year in prison. He gained his freedom in exchange for a Soviet spy in February 1962.

In April, 1961, less than three months after Pres. John F. Kennedy's inauguration, 1,400 Cuban exiles backed by the CIA invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.

The Cuban military killed about 100 invaders and captured 1,200.

The Kennedy administration negotiated the release of the prisoners for 20 months. In the end, the U.S. delivered $53 million worth of food and pharmaceuticals in exchange for the prisoners' freedom.

Many historians think that the Bay of Pigs fiasco emboldened the USSR, which attempted to place nuclear missiles in Cuba the next year.

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Re ... f+Pigs.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In May, 1964 a photograph of Pres. Lyndon Johnson picking up one of his pet beagles by the ears was widely published, provoking national outrage. Johnson nonetheless was elected later that year.

http://howdyyall.com/Texas/TodaysNews/i ... GetItem=64" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In October 1965, after undergoing surgery to remove his gallbladder, Johnson lifted his shirt during a press conference to display the incision.

http://www.whnpa.org/membergallery/tasn ... n-scar.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In January 1968 North Korean naval forces captured the USS Pueblo, an electronic reconnaissance ship, killing one American. The surviving 82 crew members were captured and abused for 11 months. They were released in December when the U.S. formally admitted to espionage.

The North Koreans kept the ship, which they now operate as a tourist attraction.

http://www.usspueblo.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In September 1968 Richard Nixon, running for President, appeared on Rowan & Martin's Laugh In and pronounced the show's gag phrase "sock it to me."

(You had to have been there to understand the ridiculousness of the 53-year-old former vice president and senator trying to be "hip.")

In November 1973, as his presidency was sliding toward the precipice, he announced at a press conference, "I am not a crook."

In June 1975 Pres. Gerald Ford fell down the stairs of Air Force One upon arriving in Vienna for a conference. The mishap was captured by a newspaper photographer and viciously ridiculed. After that, photographers kept a close eye on him and caught him on film in a number of embarrassing incidents.

http://www.cah.utexas.edu/photojournali ... d&picid=10" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Pres. Ford also beaned numerous bystanders with golf balls before, during, and after his presidency. (Although standing downrange of him was dangerous, he was an accomplished athlete and could compete with pro golfers.)

All this trivia aside, his handling of the Mayaguez incident stands in sharp contrast to other costly, embarrassing presidential blunders.

In November 1979 Iranian revolutionaries took over the American embassy in Tehran and held over 50 staff members hostage for 444 days, ultimately dooming the presidency of James Earl Carter.

Pres. Carter froze Iranian assets in the U.S. and ordered other economic sanctions. When these measures and diplomatic negotiations failed to secure the release of the hostages, he ordered a rescue mission in April 1980. It failed spectacularly, with the deaths of eight service members and the loss of two U.S. aircraft.

In 1983 Pres. Ronald Reagan sent approximately 2,000 U.S. Marines, Army, and Navy personnel to join an international peacekeeping force in Beirut. In October a truck bomber attacked their barracks and killed 241 American servicemen. The perpetrators (aside from the truck driver) were never brought to justice.

In August 1984 Pres. Reagan, speaking into live on-air mike that he thought was turned off, said, "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

Fortunately, WW III did not start on the spot.

In January 1992 Pres. George H.W. Bush was attending a state dinner hosted by the Prime Minister of Japan. He collapsed at the dinner table and threw up in the lap of the Prime Minister (who dealt with the situation calmly).

In October 1993 U.S. forces cooperating with other U.N. member forces attempted to decapitate a militia that refused to cooperate with peacekeeping efforts. Two U.S. Black Hawk helicopter were shot down, and their crews were trapped in hostile territory. Some were rescued, but in all 18 Americans died and 73 were wounded. The number of Somali dead has been estimated between several hundred and two thousand. This incident is documented in the book and movie Black Hawk Down.

The case can be made that Pres. Clinton lost his confidence in the use of military force overseas as a result of this fiasco.

In April 2001, three months after Pres. George W.Bush's inauguration, a U.S. EP-3E Aries II electronic surveillance plane and a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy plane collided over the South China Sea. The Chinese pilot and plane were lost at sea. The damaged U.S. plane landed at a Chinese military base. The 24 crew members were released after 11 days of negotiations and a formal expression of regret by the U.S.

After two more months of negotiation, the Chinese allowed American technicians to disassemble the American plane and ship its parts out on chartered cargo planes.

The Chinese government demanded $1 million in miscellaneous charges. The U.S. offered a payment of about $34,000, which the Chinese rejected.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL30946.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Of course there have been other embarrassments. These are only the ones that I remember.

- Jim