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Scooter Radio Program ( Radio Remedies)
Rosetta Kamlowsky Tapes
Lee Hayes, Pueblo Incident
Interview date: March 18, 1971
Announcer: The views expressed on the following program do not necessarily reflect the
views of the management of KBLL radio or of any sponsors on KBLL radio.
( Music)
Rosetta: Good morning you’re listening to Scooter and I’m Rosetta and Ron is over there
glad to see me. We do have, I think, a very interesting program today. Lee Hayes is our
guest. He was in Helena last week to talk about his time served on the Pueblo when it
was captured and that’s what we will hear today. It is a taped interview. This interview
with Lee Hayes.
Rosetta: It is truly my good fortune today to be able to bring to you a gentleman, Mr. Lee
Hayes, who served in the Navy and on the Pueblo and I think I’ll just simply say
welcome to you Lee Hayes for being with us today in Helena.
Hayes: Thanks for bringing me in.
Rosetta: I’m going to have you bring the listeners up to date about the Pueblo. Explain
the Pueblo Incident happened several years ago. It created tremendous news and feelings
of emotions and frustrations and I think you should be the one to tell what was the Pueblo
and the incident.
Hayes: Well the Pueblo is a Navy ship, a reconnaissance type vessel, and our job was to
go up off North Korea and find out their intentions and capabilities toward South Korea.
We monitored radio broadcasts, radars and things like this. We always were outside their
waters, in fact, our orders were to not go any closer than 13 miles from any land. The
closest we ever came was 13.5. Now the Communists attacked our ship off their coasts
and scraped us and shelled us for an hour and a half killing one of us wounding 10 other
men all in the super structure of the ship. At that time they took our ship into port and
held us prisoner for the next 11 months.
Rosetta: Can you tell us about the attack? You were on the ship. You were the radio
man, the Chief Radio man, or what?
Hayes: I was in charge of communications on the ship.
Rosetta: In charge of communications.
Hayes: And we asked for help immediately when they attacked us and it was promised to
us.
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Rosetta: What is an attack? They start shelling the ship?
Hayes: Shelling the ship, yes. They wounded our captain, one of the first men that was
hit.
Rosetta: Oh really?
Hayes: And we asked for help and it was near, about 10- 15 minutes flying time away in
South Korea, 30 minutes from Japan. They’d promised it would be sent if we needed it
and we thought it was coming but we found out later it was not sent for many, many
hours and some of the help that was sent was called back by the State Department before
it got to Wonsan. I think in brief, ‘ cause I haven’t got a great deal of time to go into great
length here, in brief the reason we didn’t get help was due to the tying of the hands in a
military situation by politicians and red tape, just like the hands of many of our police
forces in the anarchy situations here at home, they were not really permitted to do the job
they were there for and trained to do.
Rosetta: You mean you had, you radioed for help, help was available but you feel they
could not, they did not come to your aid because of red tape?
Hayes: Yes, they had orders to wait until they got higher authorizations from the
Pentagon and the State Department and this…
Rosetta: Well, had this been typical in other incidents?
Hayes: It has been, yes. EC 121 was similar in nature, shot down 90 some miles out to
sea. The North Koreans and Viet Nam the same way in many ways, I’ve been there
twice, I’ve served there for a long period in ’ 65 and again for a short period in ’ 67. And
our men are there ordered not to shoot unless the Communists shoot first in many areas
even down to company action when they see the enemy they’re suppose to radio back
and get permission from the Pentagon or higher even before they can move in to attack
them. And this binding of our military is why so many men die and why we’re not
winning the war. Because we could win it. We’re not trying to win. Our leaders are not
letting us. And this is a tragic thing. But I think most Americans feel as I do that we
should stop Communist aggression. The only thing I’m unhappy about is the way the
war’s being conducted, our men are not permitted to do the job they’re there for. If you
send a man to battle he should be allowed to fight to win.
Rosetta: Well then how do you feel, Lee, what’s happening now concerning some of the
killings in Viet Nam of civilians? This right at the present seems to be a very upsetting.
Hayes: Right. The real liberal news on a national scale has blown this all out of
proportion. Over in Viet Nam you go through a village there, a little kid has dynamite
taped to him and he doesn’t know it and these Viet Cong send him in and blows up him
and some of our people. Children sell pop to us poisoned; they drop grenades in our fox
holes. And when you go to a village and you catch fire, you fire back. Now, I’m not
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exactly sure at all the particulars about this Mai Lai thing because all the facts are not out
on it yet, but just because a few men might have possibly done something wrong you
cannot draw parallel like some people try to do, I know you’re not, but some people try to
draw parallel between a few people who might have done something wrong and what the
Communists Viet Cong do every day. And the Communists have killed thousands upon
thousands of young people and children and women and you don’t hear about it in our
press. We walk into a village over there and we find the babies killed and the women
killed and the men’s heads cut off and hanging from trees, but you don’t hear about it
back here. And the Communists do this as a order of the day. And this is a disturbing
thing to me. The way it is in Viet Nam today our men are afraid to shoot because they
shoot a Communist Viet Cong and the Viet Cong drops his gun and his buddy picks it up
runs back into the bush and then our leaders prosecute the young American for shooting
an unarmed civilian.
Rosetta: Well, this is what I think is bothering more and more people today because this
is happening and it happened with your Commander on the Pueblo, didn’t it, I mean,
wasn’t he called for an investigation after you were released?
Hayes: Yes, there was an investigation. I testified twice at it. They tried to make our
Captain a scapegoat, all the facts were not brought out, and I don’t think they ever will
completely, ‘ cause I don’t know them all either. Some things are still classified, though.
I think the reason it’s not fully investigated was because it would be embarrassing to
some people high in our State Department, such as Walt Whitman Rostow and other
people like this who held up, that one man held up a message we sent out to the President
asking for help and he received it in 25 minutes, but held it for over two hours before he
gave it to President Johnson. Nothing was done to him about it though.
Rosetta: You’re very outspoken.
Hayes: Well, I’m hoping to get people to just start thinking and to get involved,
responsibly supporting our form of government. Now, that doesn’t mean everybody in it
‘ cause we certainly have people there I’m convinced are not on our side that are trying to
change our form of government. But we still have the greatest country on earth. And we
should work to keep our form of government. Now I don’t know all the answers, I don’t
think anyone does, but I know who doesn’t have any of them, and that’s these nihilists
mad bombers, draft card burners, the flag burners, the Communist flag wavers, the
Socialists who are trying to seize all property rights from our people, the people who take
God out of our daily lives and teach atheism in our schools. They haven’t any answer for
a free America. The answer I, most of the answer I think lies in getting back to following
our Constitution. And getting back to the reality of mankind. And this is what I’m trying
to do and other men of the ship, there are six of us traveling the country today doing talks
at colleges and other groups. I spoke here, as you know, for the TACT Committee.
Rosetta: Yes. What is your, now I lost my train of thought. I had something right on the
tip of my tongue, and wanted to ask. But let’s go back to the Pueblo, what happened
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after the capture? You were, the ship was then what? You were taken off the ship, and
put onto the other. The men were then, or was the ship escorted into…?
Hayes: The ship was taken and they boarded us out to sea and then took our ship into
port. It took them, oh, five and a half hours to get us into port, into Wonsan. Also there’s
a major Russian base there, too. And there they paraded us through the streets, 15 of us,
so the civilians could beat us after about an hour.
Rosetta: Beat you? You mean, really.
Hayes: Yes, they did. They beat us in the streets with clubs and things like that and then
they put us all on a train and took us to our first prison. You see, the Communists, they
don’t follow the Geneva Convention.
Rosetta: This is something else.
Hayes: And they beat us there about every third day. They broke my jaw while in prison
and did a greater damage to many other men too. Now they don’t follow conventions
and we showed our cards and all they did was laugh, these convention cards which
supposedly gives you rights under the Geneva Convention. And they don’t follow it in
Viet Nam either, I served there twice. It’s so disturbing to me that some of our news
media, these slick magazines, they portray the Communists are treating our prisoners nice
and they’re not and I know they’re not. And I’ve talked to men from Viet Nam who’ve
luckily made it back from prison camp there, and I know how they treated us. The
American people are not getting the full facts. And this is the sad part, because I think if
Americans knew what was going on we could correct much of what’s going on today.
Rosetta: I had a program with a young lady who attended a convention in California
concerning the treatment of prisoners of war and also the methods that should be used or
could be used to assist in getting back our prisoners of war, or at least for the
Communists to release names because some of these boys, we’re not even sure if they’re
prisoners, if they’re dead or alive or what, and they’re trying a coordinating effort. Are
you familiar with this?
Hayes: Yes, I attended one of these. We have many people that are working along that
line. A lot of people are saying write the Communist North Vietnamese. I don’t agree,
but anything you do to help the prisoners certainly helps, so I’m not condemning
anybody. I just can’t write the enemy. I think we should write our leaders and put
pressure on Washington, DC, that’s what got the Pueblo back.
Rosetta: That’s right.
Hayes: And it would get these other men home, too, because our leaders can put pressure
on the Communists. The Communists need the West.
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Rosetta: She said, “ Write the President.” And that seems like, as I said, a giant step.
Who thinks to write the President?
Hayes: Well, he’s our President and we ought to write him. And he will listen, because
no matter what side the politician’s on, the main thing he’s dedicated in is staying there.
And so it matters not what party, it’s the nature of the people it seems to me, they’re not
dedicated one side or another, just dedicated to being there. And if you get enough letters
saying “ we want you to do this,” they will listen because they want these votes and the
people are paying for these socialistic schemes and they can stand up and tell the
government they want them stopped and they’ll listen. And this is the point, we have to
write and put pressure on our leaders because there’s only one out of every 20 people in
our country, if that many, ever write a letter to their leader.
Rosetta: Well, you know, when you say the war can be stopped, and I’m getting to a
position where I’m really getting frightened. I have two young teenage boys, and
goodness knows, I don’t want my boys to go to war and I think there are many mothers
like me who have young sons at home and they don’t want them to go to war, but they
think, well that’s so far off. The war will be over by then.
Hayes: Well, the way they’re fighting it’s not going to be over by then because our
leaders won’t let our men do the job they’re there for. I’m for defeating Communism and
I can’t see these hurting all these South Vietnamese people and the people of Asia to the
tyranny and the slaughter that would follow under the Communist domination. These
people have asked us to come in and help them, we have the treaty with them, we should
have went in and won it and got out long ago. I think the best way to end the war is just
to let our men fight to win it, hit the enemy where he’s at and don’t give them safe
sanctuaries, bomb the Ho Chi Minh Trail and bomb North Viet Nam. Mine the harbors
and hit the supplies and the docks. Bomb Rockefeller’s oil refinery, which is out there
and we can’t hit it. It’s been there for years. We can’t bomb their dikes, we can’t bomb
the dams. And this is ridiculous. It’s a poor way to fight the war. And we can get this
changed if enough people will put pressure on the people in Washington, DC.
Rosetta: How do you, pressure by writing, writing your Congressman, writing the
President.
Hayes: Writing. Legal. These demonstrations are no good for that.
Rosetta: We always consider them just a group of non- conformists expressing….
Hayes: Right. Many of them are very misguided people, they mean well, they’re
actually helping people they think they’re fighting. Many, like I spoke to Great Falls,
their college there sometime back, and they passed out things in campus there saying
“ end the war” and “ surrender in Viet Nam” and all this stuff, and then a lot of the
students, they were passing this out. But they didn’t know the address at the bottom said
the Peace Council or something was an address in New York City. It’s right in the
bottom of it. I picked it up and checked the address. It’s called the National Peace
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Council and it said 23 West 26th Street, New York, New York, and that’s the address of
the Communists Party USA. And many of these students I’m sure didn’t know they were
passing out this information.
Rosetta: Oh. You’re kidding?
Hayes: No. I exposed there the college. I hope they’re not doing the same thing here,
but check the addresses on the bottom of some of these hand outs they give and see what
it is. Because some of the students I think are being misled and used and if they knew
I’m sure that they’d stop what they’re doing.
Rosetta: Lee Hayes, you’ve been very informative. Thank you very much. You’re on a
very tight schedule. You are on your way now, you’re late now and I won’t keep you
another minute. I thank you so much. Good luck with your work.
Hayes: Thank you very much.
( Pause in tape)
Rosetta: That was Mr. Lee Hayes who was in Helena last week.
Ron: We have a caller. Radio Remedies.
Caller: …. if it would be possible maybe to put this tape that Rosetta had on sometime
when our men folk are home like in the evening? I think this would be something for
them to hear, too, which they never ever would hear otherwise. I thought this is a real
good program.
Ron: Well, it’s something at least we can think about and I’ll suggest to the program
director.
Caller: Yes, I think they would like to hear about this. I’ve learned a lot of things that I
did not know. I’ve read many an article on this, but not anything like this.
Ron: Okay, well, we thank you for calling.
Caller: Thank you.
Ron: Bye, now.
Rosetta: I have to agree. He’s very definite. And as I said, in the interview very
outspoken, but I learned, too.
Ron ( to caller): Go ahead.
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Caller: I, too, think it’s a very good program and I think it ought to be made available
and also for our college students to see how they are duped, not just the college students,
but our regular citizens, too. Thank you.
Ron: Thank you. This is Radio Remedies.
Caller: Yes, I also thought it was very informative and if you ever play the tape again it
might be well to take down that address that the fellow mentioned so that if someone
should come to some of us we could scrutinize it a little closer.
Ron: Okay. Thank you for calling.
Rosetta: Let’s take this call.
Ron: Go ahead.
Caller: Say, you know, I got a question, just one. You know, it’s fine, like this man said,
to bomb the Ho, whatever it was, Trail…
Ron: Ho Chi Minh.
Caller: Yeah, and all that stuff, but we better have something to back it up with. ' Cause
they’ve got friends and they’re going to come over and, yeah, and they’re going to come
over and drop some little chaladies on us, you know, so we better have something to back
it up with. This is just something that I was thinking, I mean, it’s fine to do what he said.
I agree with him 100 percent, but the retroactive regression on us could be equally as
devastating. So I think before we go over and, you know, drop everything on them, that
we better have a little power here to combat them if they come back at us.
Ron: Okay, thank you for calling.
Rosetta: I figured this would create some thought. It will be a thought provoking time,
after hearing this. And you can think for awhile and then call, or call now. And think out
loud if you want. We don’t care.
Ron: KBLL Radio in Helena, Montana. The time is 29 minutes past 9 o’clock and we
have another caller. Radio Remedies.
Caller: Yes. Anyone that would like to read more about what he was talking about, the
Pueblo, can check out a very interesting book at the library, called The Pueblo: My Story,
written by the captain of the boat.
Ron: Ah hah.
Caller: Yeah, and it tells a lot about what did happen and I found it a fascinating thing to
read.
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Ron: Okay, we thank you for calling. This is Radio Remedies.
Caller: It looks like somebody else is recommending books to read. And there’s another
book out. It’s called Victory Denied, and it’s by Arch Roberts. And you can get this by
writing to the Committee to Restore the Constitution, Suite 990, Savings Building, Oak
and Howe, Fort Collins, Colorado. This for $ 3.95, now you might be able to get this at
the library. But I kind of doubt it. There was another called The Federal Reserve Bank
and I wonder if many people are aware of the fact that the Federal Reserve System is
really a privately owned central bank, organized for profit and independent of all
branches of government.
Ron: Oh, I see.
Caller: Well, if they’re supposed to be, some of these people are retired servicemen, are
trying to alert the public that there is a connection between our wars and the reserve
system, Federal Reserve System, banking system, and they should become more
informed as to what our Federal Reserve Banking System really is. We assume that it’s
just something that’s under the government, which it is not.
Ron: Well, we thank you for calling.
Caller: All right. Bye.
Ron: Bye now. All right another caller. Radio Remedies.
Caller: Yes sir. I agree with the fellow on the program. I agree they should bomb over
there and what they should do that they’ve been making mistakes, our government has to
tell everybody what they’re going to do before they do it. If they did it and then
announced it, why there wouldn’t be too much the other countries could do. And I
wonder how many people realize that our government, the people in it, including the
President, don’t want to stop the war because they are making lots of money on it by
being tied up with this arms factories and so forth.
Ron: Mm, hmm.
Caller: We should get over there, we should have done it a long time ago, gone in and
bombed it and cleaned it up good and then stepped back and said “ Well, who’s next?”
Ron: Okay.
Caller: Because it’s going to come to that sooner or later.
Ron: Okay. Thank you for calling.
Rosetta: Getting a variety of outlooks here on the Viet Nam situation, aren’t we?
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Ron: We certainly are. Another caller, Radio Remedies.
Caller: Oh, I certainly agree with Mr. Hayes. I thought that was very, very good and do
you know in the 1930s, or even before I don’t know, the problem is decided the only way
to lick the Americans was through infiltration. And they figured that they’ve never been
able to lick us physically because people have been too loyal and so they have been
trying to poison us mentally, morally and physically. And all these riots and drugs and
lack of discipline, that’s all part of it and some of the American people are being duped
into thinking they’re doing something good when they’re not. Those people who are
causing these riots and giving drugs to children and so forth, they ought to be sent over
there to fight these Communists and, or the Reds all over the world. The only way that
the Russians and the Communists and all the Reds, and all that, decide that they could
lick us is to get into all these little countries around us. If they can control the whole
world except the United States, we’re going to be right in the middle, just like a seed in
the middle of a berry. They’re going to have the whole thing and us in the middle. And
they never been able to do it before and I don’t think they can do it now. But if you nip
something in the bud then you’ve got control. I think that Mr. Hayes ought to run for
President.
Ron: ( laughter) Okay, well thank you for calling. Bye now.
Caller: When they called and said we better have something to back us up, I think the
problems would have left us a long time ago if they thought we could, no matter if we did
or didn’t, and say, is this the day of the book sale?
Ron: ( laughter) Is this the day of the book sale, Rosetta? Do you have that little bit of
information?
Rosetta: No, it’s not the day of the book sale. AAUW’s book sale, annual book sale is
March 19 and 20.
Ron: Tomorrow and… Saturday.
Rosetta: Friday and Saturday.
Ron to caller: Radio Remedies.
Caller: Thank you, Ron.
Ron: Mm, hmm.
Caller: I’d like to thank KBLL and Rosetta for having Mr. Hayes on. If you were
fortunate enough to listen to Mr. Hayes last week, it was just marvelous. It was
something this part of the country needs very badly, they are so isolated in a way, they
aren’t aware of what’s going on with our government. Anyone that’s interested in
learning more about the Pueblo or more about their government, you might contact the
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TACT Committee of Helena, called the Truth About Civil Turmoil, and if they’d like to
read some of the books that are put out on our government, like one’s called From Major
Jordan’s Diary. It’s about 88 million dollars that was given to the Soviet government
during World War II and never paid.
Ron: Ah hah.
Caller: Now, you can write to, they’re called Western, let’s see it’s the Western Island’s
Literary Club in Belmont, Massachusetts. You can just write Belmont, Massachusetts, to
the Western Island’s Book Club. And, let me see, it’s 395 Palm Court, Belmont,
Massachusetts. And they have some very, very interesting books about our government
and about the Communists, and about the Pueblo and Viet Nam. Thank you very much.
Ron: Thank you now. Bye. This is Radio Remedies.
Caller: Yeah. I was going to call in and say I enjoyed your program today and I’ve been
wanting to call in when it’s been kind of dead and ask you, this is kind of indirectly
associated with it, what you felt, I think it was you on duty that one Saturday that thing
came through the air about going off the air.
Ron and Rosetta: Oh yeah.
Ron: It worried me a whole lot.
Caller: Did it? What were your reactions?
Ron: What were my reactions? Well, I listened to network, our network stations that
we’ve got coming into the station, to see if they were doing anything and I checked out
the stations around the country and, well, this is about all I could do except to go outside
and look at the sky.
Caller: Right. Yeah, that’s what I was going to say. Well, thank you very much.
Ron: Thanks for calling. Bye now.
Rosetta: We had a staff meeting concerning that little incident a few days later and Ron
still had his eyes stuck wide open and his hands up in the air.
Ron: Looking in the sky. Yeah, right. That is a startling thing, you know, and then
you’re faced with the decision, should I make everyone in town scared ( laughter). You
know, why should I be alone?
Rosetta: He was running for the bomb shelter, is what he was doing. Deserting KBLL.
Ron: Whew. Nerve wracking. We have another caller, Radio Remedies.
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Caller: Yes. That man there expressed some thoughts that I’ve been thinking for years
only as usual, I’m a little more radical. I think we should have a Constitutional
Amendment that in the event of hostility breaking out anywhere in the world the
President should be stripped of his powers as Commander in Chief and all other civilian
politicians be likewise, and let our military forces conduct the war. I think in that event if
that was true that these people wouldn’t get us into these undeclared wars in the first
place. So if you look back over the last four wars we’ve had, two of them undeclared, the
other two were, the political interference has either damaged the military effort to begin
with or has goofed up the peace. That’s something I’ve been thinking about for years and
that’s what this man said. If you’re going to get into a war, let the military fight it and
keep the politicians’ noses out of it. Okay.
Ron: Okay. Thank you, Herb.
Rosetta: Well, we will have to call our Radio Remedies to a close this morning.
Ron: Screech.
Rosetta: Screech. It’s been very interesting and you did respond as we thought you
would.
End of tape.
