The Gamble Goes On

As the books were officially closed on the Pueblo incident last week, other U.S. spy ships and planes continued to gather intelligence around the world. Still, like Pueblo and the EC-121 surveillance aircraft that was shot down last month off North Korea, they remain highly vulnerable.

The Navy has eight or nine operating AGERS (meaning Auxiliary General Electronics Research ships) similar to Pueblo, but it is unlikely that any are now cruising the hostile waters off North Korea. While these vessels are considered inferior to the EC-121s for electronic surveillance--the planes can pick up high-angle radar beams more easily than the ships--the AGERS are more versatile. They monitor radio broadcasts, collect water samples needed to develop sonar penetration methods, track Soviet submarines, and observe and photograph surface shipping.

Overhead, the big, slow EC-121s still fly the Sea of Japan, listening in on Communist electronic transmissions. Though the four-engine prop planes are now protected by U.S. jets based in South Korea, the North Koreans could shoot down another EC-121 any time they wished. The spy flights come within 4 1/2 minutes' flying time of North Korean air bases, which could scramble more than enough MIGS to down the F-4 and F106 jets that are used to escort the spy planes. Protecting the AGERS seems equally futile. Despite contingency plans designed to rescue the spy ships once they are in trouble, the vessels still operate mostly on their own.

Obviously, as long as the U.S. has its troops stationed in South Korea, the Pentagon regards the intelligence gathered by the EC-121s as worth the considerable risk. The same is true of the information collected by AGERS in other parts of the world. The provocations against them have been going on for a long time. General Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently disclosed that since 1949 U.S. reconnaissance ships and planes have been the targets of 41 attacks by the North Koreans.

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