PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea's greatest propaganda trophy, a captured U.S. Navy spy ship, floats along the banks of the Taedong River, beckoning visitors aboard to see how this country once humiliated the United States. It's the USS Pueblo, whose captain surrendered without firing a shot to North Korea in 1968.
Now a major tourist attraction, the vessel has become a floating symbol of anti-Americanism and the Cold War era. It draws some 1,000 people a day in organized tours designed to drum up patriotism.
“It was a great victory for the Korean people to capture this ship,” said Li Gyong-il, a tour guide dressed in a crisp taupe military uniform.
Even as tourists clamber aboard, inspecting bullet and shrapnel holes circled in bright red paint, poking into the captain's quarters and taking the wheel on the bridge, the fate of the Pueblo is again in play. Several U.S. legislators have demanded its return, and North Korea hinted as recently as April of such a possibility as part of six-nation talks to dismantle the nation's nuclear weapons program.
If the 177-foot vessel generates intense pride in North Korea, feelings also run strong in the United States, especially among survivors of the 82 crew members who were captured 39 years ago. During 11 months in captivity, they endured beatings and deprivation before a deal was struck to let them cross to freedom in South Korea.
“There's just a tremendous amount of bitterness on the part of the crew,” said Stu Russell, a former reservist aboard the vessel who now lives in Eureka, Calif. “We've had a couple of suicides and a higher-than-normal divorce rate. We go through it every night. It doesn't go away.”
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