About this item
WINNER OF THE 2014 SAMUEL ELIOT MORISON AWARD FOR NAVAL LITERATUREIn 1968, a small, dilapidated American spy ship set out on a dangerous mission to pinpoint military radar stations along the coast of North Korea. Packed with advanced electronic-surveillance equipment and classified intelligence documents, the USS Pueblo was poorly armed and lacked backup by air or sea. Its crew, led by a charismatic, hard-drinking exsubmarine officer named Pete Bucher, was made up mostly of untested sailors in their teens and twenties.On a frigid January morning while eavesdropping near the port of Wonsan, the Pueblo was challenged by a North Korean gunboat. When Bucher tried to escape, his ship was quickly surrounded by more patrol boats, shelled and machine-gunned, and forced to surrender.
About the Author
Jack Cheevers is a former Los Angeles Times reporter. He grew up in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a political science degree. For 27 years he was a newspaper reporter and editor in California. He began researching "Act of War" in 2000 by interviewing the Pueblo's charismatic ex-captain, Lloyd M. (Pete) Bucher. He subsequently interviewed other crewmen and former members of President Lyndon Johnson's administration who were involved with the Pueblo drama. Using the Freedom of Information Act, he obtained thousands of pages of previously secret documents from the State Department, Navy, Central Intelligence Agency, and National Security Agency. He also relied on archival material from South Korea, the Soviet Union, and Eastern bloc nations. "Act of War" won the 2014 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature. Jack and his wife, Kathleen Matz, live in Oakland, California.
