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Spy Plane: Perspective
With Lloyd M. "Pete" Bucher
Cmdr. (Ret.), U.S. Navy
Tuesday, April 3, 2001; 2 p.m. EDT
The collision of a U.S. reconnaissance plane and a Chinese jet fighter over the South China Sea on Sunday continues to raise questions about relations between the two countries. Twenty-four crew members are being held on the Chinese island of Hainan. Chinese president Jiang Zemin demanded Tuesday that the U.S. stop surveillance flights and President Bush sternly called for the "prompt and safe" return of the military personnel and their Navy spy plane.
A similar international incident occurred in January of 1968. The now infamous Pueblo, a small intelligence-gathering ship commanded by Naval officer Lloyd M. "Pete" Bucher, came under fire off the coast of North Korea and was forced to surrender. Bucher and his crew were imprisoned until December 22, 1968 during which time they were forced to sign a letter asking the U.S. to admit the ship had been inside North Korean waters with the clear implication that they had been spying. In 1969 a naval court recommended that Bucher and one other officer be court-martialed, but this was cancelled by the Secretary of the Navy. Bucher retired in 1973. It wasn't until 1990 that he and all the others on the Pueblo were awarded medals given to other POWs.
Lloyd M. "Pete" Bucher was online Tuesday, April 3, to discuss the current crisis and give his perspective on the issues involved today.
A transcript follows.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control
over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Birmingham, Ala.:
For Cmdr. Bucher,
Sir, Why do we continue to place U.S. troops in harm's way without sufficient escort?
Lloyd M. Pete Bucher: I think that the answer to that is clearly that nations in the world are expected to behave in accordance with international rules and international law and if that cannot be expected, then the world is a much sorrier place. Therefore, we would have to construct surveillance operations entirely differently. Also, depending upon what our experience is, we may need to furnish protection on site for these kinds of operations and that is a determination that should be made after a consideration of the environment.
Fairfax, VA:
You never hear of Chinese or Russian reconnaissance planes or ships cruising off the U.S. coast. Do they do it as well? If so, then why don't we ever hear about it?
Lloyd M. Pete Bucher: We do hear about Soviet cruising off of our coast in their surveillance type of ships. They frequently are off San Diego here operating along the periphery of our coast and this type of operation has been going on since the late 1940s. That was part of the reason why the U.S. commenced its program with the U.S.S. Pueblo. There was supposed to be a so-called quid pro quo that I have not heard of nor do I know of the Chinese operating in a similar fashion. I believe that most of these surveillance operations are conducted from space in today's world, however, there must be some additional gain from operating aircraft in international waters that are positioned nearby the potential target.
Chicago, Ill.:
Don't you think that it was unusual for the Navy aircraft commander to land this plane in the PRC? Doesn't that (plus the fact that one F-8 clipped the EP-3) suggest that the plane was forced down?
Lloyd M. Pete Bucher: In effect, the plane was forced down. Its apparent only refuge was the island of Hainan and with 24 people on board, rather than attempt to ditch in the ocean--which is a very hazardous operation--it makes sense to me that he'd land in China. We're not at war with China. We have diplomatic and should expect civilized behavior.
Denver, CO:
Thank you for your service to our Country!
How much destruction of sensitive equipment would the U.S air crew really be able to carry out during an in-flight emergency, and what methods would you expect they would use to accomplish this?
Lloyd M. Pete Bucher: It's difficult for me to estimate what destruction systems would be available to the crew. I think that the possibility that they installed equipment to destroy classified material is unlikely in that no one probably would have expected such an outcome. So if the Chinese, whoI would expect to take complete advantage of that aircraft do so, then they are going to learn a significant amout of our capabilities in surveillance.
Fairfax, Va.:
Mr. Bucher, based on your naval expertise, how much damage is this incident going to cause the U.S. by the Chinese getting a hold of such advanced spy airplane?
Lloyd M. Pete Bucher: I've been retire since 1973 and I don't think I'd be qualified to estimate the damage that our country would sustain.
Houston, Tex.:
Captain Bucher, Why do you think the U.S. Navy fighter planes couldn't repel the Chinese fighters? Do you find any similarity between on-going EP3 and the Pueblo incident?
Lloyd M. Pete Bucher: There are similarities obviously; however, we do have diplomatic relations with China which we did not have with North Korea. Therefore I think that the outcome has a much better chance of being a happy one in this instance and I pray that it does. I do not believe that there were fighter aircraft escorting this type of craft. The operation was taking place over international waters and from a technical point of view, an escort was not required or called for, since to my knowledge this program has been going on for years without incident.
Dr. Harry Merkin, Falls Church, Va.:
This question might be easy for me to pose, since I was not sitting behing the yoke at the time of the incident; but with everything publically known about U.S.-China relations, and the extreme sensitivity of the aircraft's equipment, why didn't the pilot attempt to land the plane either at another country or attempt a crash landing in the water?
Lloyd M. Pete Bucher: The pilot of the aircraft is the only one who can make that decision and it would be inappropriate for me to second guess his response to the problems that he faced.
Farifax, Va.:
Mr. Bucher,
How much training or preparation was provided to you by the Navy for the possibility of capture by a hostile foreign country? Given the nature of the job, do you suppose the air crew of the (P-3) had a procedure to follow in an event as this? Can you speculate on what kind of treatment they're receiving from the Chi-Coms?
Lloyd M. Pete Bucher: The crew of the Pueblo, including myself, had no specific training for the possibility of capture. I believe though that all air crews receive SERE (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape) training. I believe that this is a requirement service-wide.
I believe that you can be satisfied that there were procedures in place in the event of an emergency which would include the rapid destruction of the most sensitive equipment and publications.
I can speculate that they're likely to be receiving decent treatment at this point in time and hopefully it will never evolve into something different from that before they're released back to American soil.
Vienna :
Why can't the job being done by the EP-3 be done by Satellite? Don't they have the capability to monitor the signals that the spy plane was monitoring, more cheaply and safer?
Lloyd M. Pete Bucher: I'm not an engineer and I can only speculate that as much as is technically possible, is in fact done from satellites and that that is not capable of being done in that fashion, the requirements need to be collect from closer surveillance such as aircraft.
springfield,va:
If the equipment is so secretive on this aircraft; why didn't the command pilot order the crew to bail out of the plane; then send the plane into the ocean? Are there not special orders for this type of mission??
--Paul Dwyer
Lloyd M. Pete Bucher: I would doubt that the crew of this particular type of operation would have any training in parachuting from an aircraft. And further, I would doubt that this mission would qualify to protected in that dramatic fashion, there not being any actual conflict at this time.
Detroit, MI:
A year after the Pueblo incident, the North Koreans shot down an EC-121 Navy reconnaissance plane, killing all aboard. Do you think the Chinese will "up the ante" the next time?
Lloyd M. Pete Bucher: The EC-121 occurred just 4 months after our return from captivity, proving once again that North Korea were qualified barbarians in that they would shoot down an unarmed aircraft well over international waters. I don't believe that our relationship with China even begins to approach the situation that existed and continues to exist with North Korea. And certainly that is my prayer--that it will never get to that point.
Politics is a fickle science and we all hope for civilized behavior but in former president Reagan's words, "Trust, but verify."
Alexandria va:
The American Public was "shocked" that the Russians would spy on the US. If we are so "shocked" about spying then why are we spying on other country. Let get rid of this hypocrisy, and accept the fact that we will have our spying coups and the other side will have theirs also. Let's not "shocked" about this.
Lloyd M. Pete Bucher: I don't know why the American public was shocked. The experience of the last 45 years has been one of continuous efforts to spy both on our side and on the side of our potential adversaries. Spying has probably been one of the mainstays of conflict since the first Punic wars in Carthage in their war with Rome in 300-odd B.C. I don't expect the change in this coming millennium.
Zeeland, Mich.:
Dear Capt. Bucher,
The captain of a naval vessel and the command pilot of a naval aircraft have responsibilities to the country they serve and to the lives and wellbeing of the people under their command. Could you please explain how you came to the conclusion to surrender your ship to save the lives of your crew and and, if you would, give insight on why you think the command pilot landed his plane at a PRC airbase. Do you think that duty to insure the safety of his crew was why he made the decision to land a damaged aircraft filled with top secret equipment at a PRC airbase instead of attempting to return to a more friendly airport?
Thank you,
Bill Spence
Lloyd M. Pete Bucher: The U.S.S. Pueblo was designed to be unprovactive and basically unarmed and required protection from other forces if required. Such protection was promised and did not show up. My crew of more than eighty men were in below freezing waters which made ditching the ship unthinkable. There was no war on. We expected help. Then when none came, the inevitable happened. We were taken into captivity. My view of responsbility as commanding officer and my duty was first and foremost to consider our country, the Navy--and when I consider the Navy I think of it both in terms of its ships and its people--in our case, without the capability to take on the Korean navy by myself and no conflict going on, the ship can be replaced; people cannot. In terms of the aircraft, I don't know what radius of action the plane commander had to determine how far he could fly the aircraft and I don't know if he could've made it into Hong Kong or Taiwan or some other more friendly, neutral site, so I can't speculate why he thought that the place to put the plane down was on Hainan island, but I'm certain that his crew had a lot to do with that. But that's only speculation. I'm certain that his concerns for the safety of his crew had a lot to do with that.
Upper Marlboro MD:
In your opinion, should the US think about a military operation at this time?
Lloyd M. Pete Bucher: I think that we always have to plan for as many contingencies as we can think of and act in accordance with our best interests and in this case, our best interest relates to the crew of that aircraft.
Arlington, Va:
What did you think about Hal Holbrook's portrayal of you in the TV movie years ago?
Lloyd M. Pete Bucher: I was then assigned as Chief Staff Officer for Commander Mine Forces Pacific and received a letter from Rose, my wife, that such a program had been aired and I was surprised. I had not been aware that that was happening, but Navy attorneys told me that ABC, the TV network that made it, had the right to do that and I accepted that. I did see the portrayal about one year later following the sweeping of the mines in Haiphong Harbor, North Vietnam. I retired from the Navy. I saw the production the following year and when Hal Holbrook opened the show by saying, "My name is Commander Lloyd Mark Bucher, I turned and said to Rose," "That's a lotta bull, I'm Lloyd Mark Bucher." However, in years to come, we became acquainted with Hal Holbrook and continue a long friendship to this day.
washingtonpost.com:
That was our last question today. Thanks to Cmdr. Lloyd M. "Pete" Bucher, and to
everyone who joined us.
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