"I don't blame the Captain or crew. I blame the president of the US who called off the two F4C's that were enroute."
More than a few of us felt the Crew of the Pueblo had been set up to justify the call up of over 14,000 Air Force reservists and guard members by one of the worse presidents in history, LBJ.
http://www.usspueblo.org/v2f/incident/incidentframe.html
I was hoping that Bush would do it better than LBJ.
LBJ was terrible in so many ways.
Second : Was this an American or a British decision ?
After the Cole and all the other attacks, I thought that the local commanders did not have to get permission to defend themselves immediately.