About this item
WINNER OF THE SAMUEL ELIOT MORISON AWARD FOR NAVAL LITERATURE"I devoured Act of War the way I did Flyboys, Flags of Our Fathers and Lost in Shangri-la." - Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author In 1968, the small, dilapidated American spy ship USS Pueblo set out to pinpoint military radar stations along the coast of North Korea. Though packed with advanced electronic-surveillance equipment and classified intelligence documents, its crew, led by ex-submarine officer Pete Bucher, was made up mostly of untested young sailors. On a frigid January morning, the Pueblo was challenged by a North Korean gunboat. When Bucher tried to escape, his ship was quickly surrounded by more boats, shelled and machine-gunned, forced to surrender, and taken prisoner.
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.
