Posted on 12/18/2005 6:56:53 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
One unforeseen blessing of the collapse of the Soviet Union has been the easing of security restrictions in former Iron Curtain nations. Since the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Western journalists have been able to access to classified documents that would have gotten them shot a few years before.
That's a scary thought - but not nearly as chilling as some of the secrets they've uncovered.
In "Red Star Rogue," author Kenneth Sewell takes us inside the once top-secret Soviet nuclear navy to reveal the explosive facts about one of best-kept secrets of the Cold War, the sinking of Soviet sub K -129. The incident could have ended the world as we know it. And very nearly did.
Sewell is no dilettante. A nuclear engineer and U.S. Navy veteran, Sewell served five years aboard America's most decorated fast attack submarine, the USS Parche. During his time in the Navy, he heard rumors of a disaster at sea during the late '60s that had been hushed up by both sides. But as Sewell probed deeper to ferret out the details, he uncovered a story more shocking than he ever imagined.
Some of the facts are straightforward. In March 1968, the K-129, a Soviet nuclear submarine, exploded and sank with all hands in the Pacific Ocean roughly 300 miles from Pearl Harbor.
From the beginning, the tragedy was shrouded in mystery. Despite the fact that K-129 was carrying atomic missiles, neither the U.S. nor Soviet navies reported an explosion. The Russians simply announced that the sub was missing and launched a massive sea and air search to locate it.
Finding it could have been easy. The K-129 had been photographed from space by American spy satellites, and we knew exactly where it sank. Unfortunately, informing the Soviets of K-129's location would have compromised the capabilities of our satellite surveillance systems, a breach of national security. So we left the Russians to their own.
What happened next was even more surprising. The Russians began looking for K-129 in the wrong place. They were combing the seabed nearly 400 miles from where the sub actually sank.
No military unit on the planet is as closely monitored as a nuclear submarine. Why didn't the Russians know the location of their own sub?
In rechecking its radio-intercept files, U.S. Navy intelligence determined that K-129 hadn't filed a position report for at least four days, a incredible breach of Soviet security procedures. If the Russians were searching for K-129 in the area where it was supposed to be, why had the sub moved so much closer to Pearl Harbor?
From the satellite photos, it was clear that K-129 had surfaced shortly before the blast. There were only two reasons why it would have done so. If it had been in desperate trouble, K -129 might have surfaced. But, if so, the sub would have radioed for help immediately. It didn't.
The second reason was far more chilling. The sub would have had to surface in order to launch its nuclear missiles at Pearl Harbor. And from all appearances, that's exactly what K-129 was trying to do when it blew up. But if the Russians were planning a nuclear war, why would they attack Pearl Harbor? From a strategic standpoint, it made no sense.
The truth of the incident was 3,000 feet below the surface at the bottom of the Pacific. At the time, the US Navy had no means of recovering a wreck from that depth. Only one man might be able to do it: An eccentric billionaire named Howard Hughes who owned a gigantic deep water research vessel called the Glomar Explorer.
"Red Star Rogue" reads like the latest Tom Clancy thriller, with twists and turns that are positively breathtaking. The truth is like that sometimes. But Sewell spent nearly a decade researching the story of K-129, and his scholarship is impeccable.
This tale is as fascinating as it is frightening, and it has a timely message. Are terrorists capable of launching a nuclear attack on an American city? You bet. In 1968, it nearly happened.
I believe it was speculated that the sub's captain had decided to wage W.W. 3 on his own...(?)
Any way Why didn't the Russians know the location of their own sub?
Usually they did. They just looked for P-3s circling overhead...
bfl
Wasn't there a special on the History Channel or the Discovery Channel about this some years ago? I recall watching something that sounds real familiar to this. Wasn't the Glomar Explorer created for this? IIRC, the govt' actually brought up some of the wreckage and it seemed that it all just kind of disappeared or faded into the woodwork. It seems to me that the ending of the whole affair was very vague.
From what I saw in an ad, it appears the sub wanted to bomb Pearl Harbor, but give the credit to the Chinese.
That way the US and China would fight a war (destroying China, which was one goal of Russia) and probably leaving China divded between the the USA and the USSR along east-west lines.
But I doubt the sub capt. could have acted on his own;
a much larger Soviet plot may have been involved.
Three bits of evidence here make me question this WW3 stuff.
1) No radio contact for 4 days
2) No radio contact upon surfacing.
3) The sub exploded.
The facts could be explained by a massive electrical surge as the result of a nuke containment failure...which isn't too absurd a guess given Soviet-era quality control. Not that the doomsday scenario isn't possible--just that it seems a more unlikely reason for those facts. Anyone know if the explosion was radioactive beyond simply reactor leaks after a sub sinking?
If this is the one I am thinking of, the US eventually either turned some bodies over to the Russians, or turned over photos of a burial at sea of the bodies that came up with the wreckage.
bump
Spring 1968.
"Prague spring".
Paris riots.
Tet.
Soviets might have thought something daring was worth a try.
Not buying that scenario at all.
Glomar Explorer was built (by Howard Hughes for the CIA) to recover a lost Russian sub and did recover at least part of it with bodies inside ...........I saw film of a burial at sea(Discovery Channel I think) .........not sure if this is the same sub but it sounds like it...........original cover story for Glomar Explorer was "mining of the ocean floor" ........I remember an article to that effect in the Weekly Reader in high school
Except that it appears to have been a diesel - electric boat (Golf), which would fairly definitively rule out a reactor failure.
" Usually they did. They just looked for P-3s circling overhead..."
I was an aviation machinists mate in an ASW squadron based at NAS Alameda from 69-70. The Russians were off the coast all the time and we were on them like white on rice. The general public didn't have a clue about what was going on just a few miles from them.
But from a psychological standpoint it would have been a devastating, iconoclasmic blow to the "greatest generation" who held the reigns of American government and industry.
Exactly the sort of attacks that AQ plans and executes.
curiosity having gotten the better of me,I found thishttp://w3.the-kgb.com/dante/military/mission.html ..............or just goooooooogle "Glomar Explorer"
Film/photos of the burial at sea of a half dozen bodies that were recovered.
That was a paraphrase of a statement by a Soviet Admiral.
LOL!
American spy satellites in March 1968? The technology was in its infancy at that point ... not likely.
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