The USS Pueblo has been held by the North Koreans since they attacked and captured the naval intelligence ship along with 82 sailors on Jan. 23, 1968. For 31 years, Pueblo remained in Wonsan port, until 1999. It was a time when Bill Clinton thought he could make diplomatic headway with the communist state. North Korea’s dictator at the time, Kim Jong Il (father of the current dictator), asked Clinton to give his country safe passage to relocate Pueblo from Wonsan to Pyongyang without the U.S. taking action to reclaim it. Clinton allowed it. (Courtesy of the U.S. Navy)
There is an interesting trait that two-thirds of our U.S. presidents share. Through the end of President Joe Biden’s term in office, we will have had 31 of 46 presidents who honorably served their country in the military.
The U.S. Navy has often honored former presidents by naming ships after them — mostly high-profile vessels such as aircraft carriers. Currently, such massive ships bear the names of eight of our presidents. Two others, Andrew Jackson and Jimmy Carter — the latter of whom served in the sub-surface Navy — were honored with submarines bearing their names.
One other president honored this way was Lyndon B. Johnson when the U.S. Navy launched its third stealth destroyer in 2018. (I would be remiss as a proud son not to share that the Navy’s first stealth destroyer, as well as the entire class itself, was named in 2016 after my father — Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr.)
For the past 80 years, no U.S. president lacking military service has been honored by having a ship named after him. However, as might be expected, this tradition has come to a screeching halt recently as Biden, who did not serve in the military, opting instead to run for political office as the Vietnam War was raging, brought the tradition to an end. He announced this month while still in office that two future carriers will bear the names of President Bill Clinton, who also did not serve, and George W. Bush, who did.
It is important to recognize that failing to name a ship appropriately and assign it a worthy radio call sign can have negative consequences. This was revealed in the 1982 leadership book “In Search of Excellence,” which shared examples on how to motivate workers both in industry and the military.
The book shared the story of a U.S. Navy destroyer commissioned in 1946 named USS Arnold J. Isbell and assigned the call sign “Sapworth.” It repeatedly placed eighth out of eight ships in squadron competition. When a new commanding officer (my dad, then a commander) took over, he made numerous changes to create a more competitive atmosphere onboard, one of which was obtaining a new call sign.
The new CO explained to his superiors that it was somewhat embarrassing for Sapworth to be operating in the presence of other ships having such stalwart call signs as “Viper” and “Fireball.” The point might have seemed minor, but the change contributed to a major performance turnaround by the crew after being assigned the call sign “Hellcat,” reflected by their new logo of a black cat jumping through the flames of Hell.
No longer the butt of jokes of other shipmates, Isbell jumped from last to first place in her squadron. The act of burdening a Navy ship from the outset with a name open to ridicule by others does nothing to nurture the pride of the crew members serving onboard. And, unfortunately with Clinton’s history, such ridicule is fed by his spotted history.
While it is, at a minimum, disconcerting that Clinton did not serve in the military and that he intentionally dodged the draft and that, as president, he was impeached and that he sullied the Oval Office with his sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky, there is something else he did that most Americans have long forgotten. It is something especially painful for veterans as, to this day, it still mars the military’s reputation — and particularly that of the U.S. Navy. It is an act for which rewarding him by memorializing his name on a U.S. Navy ship therefore is inappropriate.
To provide background to this action, we must first go back 57 years and share an incident involving the USS Pueblo (AGER-2). The Navy had built the vessel during World War II, converting it to use as a spy ship in 1967. On Jan. 23, 1968, it was operating in international waters off the coast of North Korea, then ruled by dictator Kim Il Sung — the grandfather of the current ruler.
Pueblo was armed with two .50-caliber machine guns that were wrapped in tarp, unprotected by armor or from the freezing temperatures, probably due to a lack of crew training. As a result, the guns were unable to function properly, putting the vessel at tremendous risk were it to be attacked. That, plus the fact that a quick air and/or surface asset response to assist Pueblo in an emergency were nonexistent, thus left her in a very precarious situation when she was attacked that January day.
Three North Korean gunboats took Pueblo under fire, falsely claiming she had intentionally entered their territorial waters. They eventually killed one Pueblo crewman before forcing the ship’s surrender. She was towed to Wonsan port, on North Korea’s southeastern coast. The 83 surviving Pueblo crew members were imprisoned, undergoing brutal treatment, until their release was achieved 11 months later by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
USS Pueblo today remains on the U.S. Navy’s active ship list. It is our second-oldest active ship, right behind the USS Constitution — one of the first six frigates built by the U.S. as a new nation in 1797. Pueblo remains listed despite being in North Korea because she is still U.S. Navy property.
For 31 years, Pueblo remained in Wonsan port, until 1999. It was a time when Clinton foolishly thought he could make diplomatic headway with the communist state — a nation that knew well how to manipulate such U.S. efforts to its own advantage. North Korea’s dictator at the time, Kim Jong Il (father of the current dictator), asked Clinton to give his country safe passage to relocate Pueblo from Wonsan to Pyongyang without the U.S. taking action to reclaim it.
Clinton agreed to the above, perhaps hopeful it would help spur meaningful discussions. While it led to the first ever visit by a U.S. secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, to North Korea in late 2000, the only success garnered was on Kim’s side as he succeeded in getting Clinton’s nod to relocate the ship, without U.S. interference, to Pyongyang. Today, Pueblo is a museum and tourist attraction in Pyongyang tied to a pier on the Taedong River.
After almost eight decades of rule by the North Korean Kim family dynasty, it has learned that America is easily manipulated when Democratic presidents are in office. That USS Pueblo remains on our active ship list while still under North Korean control is embarrassing enough. But, to think Clinton naively gave its dictators the unfettered right to display her as a war trophy to mock us internationally is disgraceful.
Biden’s act of naming an aircraft carrier after Clinton sets a bad precedent of sanctioning bad presidential actions, creating an atmosphere that is ripe for negatively impacting crew performance on that vessel. We should not be surprised if naming a carrier the USS Clinton one day leads to a ship bearing the Biden name sailing the seven seas alongside her.
James Zumwalt is a retired Marine infantry officer (lieutenant colonel) who served in the Vietnam War, Panama and Operation Desert Storm. He is the author of three books and hundreds of opinion pieces in online and print publications.
