ABSTRACT
Commander. He was captain of the electronic surveillance ship USS Pueblo captured by North Korean naval forces on 23 January 1968. A court of inquiry recommended that Bucher be court-martialled for not fighting his ship and for not preventing the compromise of sensitive military information. Secretary of the Navy Paul Ignatius overruled the recommendation, however, and no court-martial was conducted. Among the findings of the official investigation was that there were too many federal agencies and military commands involved in the operation for effective mission control. It also was revealed that because US naval forces were so thinly spread in the theatre, there was no timely air or surface ship support available to Pueblo when she came under attack.
