Tense year of 1968 By Choe Chong-dae It has been more than half a century since the USS Pueblo, an American Navy ship with 83 crewmen, was seized by North Korea on Jan. 23, 1968. The ship was on an intelligence mission in international waters off the coast of Wonsan, North Korea. My memory of the shocking incident is still very much alive. A Washington federal court has recently ordered North Korea to compensate $2.3 billion to the surviving Pueblo crewmen and families of deceased crewmen who were severely mistreated when captured by the North Korean navy. The Pueblo crewmen were tortured during harsh interrogations, publicly humiliated and forced into confessing while imprisoned for 11 months. After long, tough negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea, the crewmen of the Pueblo were finally released at Panmunjeom, just before Christmas Eve in 1968.