from a U.S. correspondent A very clear statement about what the Pueblo was doing off the coast of North Vietnam was given in an article in the January 24 issue of the Washington Post by George C, Wilson: "The Pueblo is one of a big fleet of 'Ferret' ships that the United States uses as part of its worldwide intellirence gathering operations, The 179foot—long ship carries a wide array of secret equipment that enables the crew to listen to communications - on shore, between ships and from planes. The Pueblo was patrolling the North Korean coast when captured. Chances are the ship w’s trying to keep track of the traffic going into North Korea and also supplying information on ships headed towards North Vietnam and Communist China, "Standard ferret practice is for the intercepted communications to be recorded on tapes in the ship. The tapes are then flown to shore intellig-— ence centres for translation and evaluation. This procedure is designed to get pkeces of a puzzle that is fitted to gether in Washington. No one ship, therefore, can be called the key one in the fleet. But the Pueblo was operating in an area that was heating up, possibly as part of Soviet strategy to confront the United States with a second front besides Vietnam” (note by correspondent: this does not seem likely, judging from. the way the Soviet Union has reacted to the crisis) " seeethe Pueblo undoubtedly carried millions of dollars worth of secret electronic equipment. Even the photograph the Pentagon rel . sed - which is too old to show the latest equipment -— shows highly secr™t Ferret gear. A close study of the photograph indicates this equipment aboard: - Twin antennae, called yagis, They show where signals are coming from, so other equipment on the ship can focus on them. - The long poles appear to be for supporting a long wire for sending messages to submerged submarines, Although the wire strung between the poles is not visible, Ferret ships usually have such apparatus. The long wire communicates with submarines with very low frequency radio waves, which can penetrate the sea's surface to about 50 feet. - Radar equipment apparently for corminicating by bouncing signals off the troposphere, This gives the ship still another way to listen or send. This troposcatier communication technique has special advattages for listening in on communications between airplanes and their ground controllers, for example. - A dome-shaped antenna pointing skyuwrrds, barely visible in the photograph, This probably is the main way of communicating with airplanes and eavesdr-~ opping on their conversations," It is absolutely certain thaf the Pueblo was acting in a manner that no country could be expected to tolerate. My Government seems to think it has the right to spy all over the world, and pets very angry when a small country like North Vietnam puts a stOp to its activities, I wonder how Johnson would react if there were a North Korean spy ship a few miles off the Californian coast? Your Government's attitude - as exemplified by Brown's talk of piracy on the high seas - is utterly servile. Even some of the most liberal opponents of the American Government's foreign policy have been able to see through this affair, realising that Johnson is seeking to get more resources on the basis of a scare. I hope you give your leaders hell for their crawling!
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