page_title: Operation Formation Star
section_title: Diplomatic activity
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Formation Star / Operational summary / Soviet reaction / Diplomatic activity
caption_attribution_description: The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) steams in formation with the destroyers USS Nicholas (DD-449) and USS O'Bannon (DD-450) in the Gulf of Tonkin, 6 March 1968. Enterprise, with assigned Attack Carrier Air Wing 9 (CVW-9), was deployed to the Western Pacific and Vietnam from 3 January to July 1968.
context_page_description: Operation Formation Star was the code name for the emergency re-deployment of U.S. Seventh Fleet warships to the Sea of Japan off the eastern coast of North Korea following that country's seizure of the USS Pueblo in international waters on 23 January 1968.
  This surge deployment was the largest build-up of U.S. naval forces around the Korean Peninsula since the end of the Korean War, but Operation Formation Star placed considerable strain on the Seventh Fleet's support for the Vietnam War, particularly its aircraft carrier operations at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Tet Offensive. Operation Formation Star was executed in conjunction with Operation Combat Fox, a surge deployment of additional land-based combat aircraft squadrons to the U.S. Fifth Air Force in the Far East, as well as a limited call-up of U.S.-based units of the Naval Reserve, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard to active duty.
  Although a wide range of military options were considered, the Johnson Administration elected to resolve the Pueblo crisis diplomatically, with Operation Formation Star helping to provide a "measured show of force" during the Pueblo crisis.
context_section_description: Publicly, in addition to deploying Soviet naval forces to the Sea of Japan, on 3 February 1968, the Soviet government sent a letter to the President Lyndon B. Johnson demanding that the United States scale back its naval build-up off North Korea. Likewise, on 4 February 1968, in private negotiations at the Joint Security Area on the Korean Demilitarized Zone, DPRK Major General Pak Chung-kuku specifically demanded that the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise be moved out of the Sea of Japan to his American counterpart, Rear Admiral John Victor Smith, in order to "eliminate the atmosphere of compulsion" being imposed upon North Korea. Likewise, on 4 February 1968, Korean Task Force chairman Samuel D. Berger recommended to President Johnson via Secretary of State Dean Rusk that moving the carrier Enterprise was the "simplest and safest gesture" at the start of negotiations with North Korea for the release of the Pueblo's crew.
  In his response to the Kosygin letter, on 5 February 1968, President Johnson stated that “on the assumption that . . . we (i.e., Washington and Moscow) want peace in that area and that we will both work to that end” and promised to move carrier task group "somewhat southward" as a goodwill gesture.  President Johnson then personally ordered Captain Kent L. Lee to move the Enterprise south of its then-current position, passing through the Tsushima Strait while staying within 12 hours steaming distance from North Korea.  Privately, on 6 February 1968, Premier Alexei Kosygin assured U.S. Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson that the Soviet Union had no intention of going to war over Kim Il Sung's provocation caused by the seizure of the Pueblo in recognized international waters.
  This movement of the Enterprise drew a private rebuke by the President of South Korea Park Chung-hee to U.S. Ambassador William J. Porter on 8 February 1968. However, this Kosygin-Johnson exchange enabled General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev to make a subsequent face-saving statement to the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that the United States had responded to the Soviet letter by withdrawing the Enterprise.
  On 16 February 1968, Rear Admiral Horace H. Epes, Jr., transferred his flag to the attack aircraft carrier Ranger, and the Enterprise departed the Sea of Japan for duty with Task Force 77 at Yankee Station off North Vietnam in response to the unfolding Tet Offensive (pictured).
caption: USS Enterprise at Yankee Station   (March 6, 1968)
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