[SteveMcKing]

I believe it was speculated that the sub's captain had decided to wage W.W. 3 on his own...(?)

[Calvin Locke]

I thought that sub was found from triangulating the noise from the implosion?

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...

[gridlock]

bfl

[metmom]

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.

[LibertarianInExile]

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?

[wildcatf4f3]

bump

[1066AD]

Spring 1968.

"Prague spring".
Paris riots.
Tet.

Soviets might have thought something daring was worth a try.

[cynicom]

Not buying that scenario at all.

[lightman]

But if the Russians were planning a nuclear war, why would they attack Pearl Harbor? From a strategic standpoint, it made no sense.

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.

[BluH2o]

Finding it could have been easy. The K-129 had been photographed from space by American spy satellites ...

American spy satellites in March 1968? The technology was in its infancy at that point ... not likely.

[Chode]

read Blind Mans Bluff...

[VOA]

More grist for the mill...the link to the amazon.com website for the book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743261127/qid=1134969449/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-6019060-5440133?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Heck, even has Chapter 1 on the website...

[GeronL]

I remember that there science books that used the Glomar Explorer as an example of mining the sea floor. I had one of those books in school!!!

[Jeff Gordon]

The Russians were paranoid about loosing control of their nucs as they almost did during the Cuban Missile Crises. They rigged their boomer missiles to blow up if launched without the proper permissive action codes. The people manning the subs did not know this.

The K129 was a case where their paranoia was correct and their safeguards worked.

This is verified fact.

[quietolong]

But as John Craven said in his book...

The secret within the secret. Is the one that should be told. And that remains intact.

So I don’t think ?? it was going to send a nuke to Pearl.


John P. Craven
http://www.aloha.com/~craven/spook.html

[RinaseaofDs]

I read this years ago. Fantastic book. Excellent.

[Popman]

Read the book...highly recommend it...

We were this > < close to nuclear war...

[Thrownatbirth]

K-129 probably wasn’t equipped any kind of Sub Emergency Comms Transmitter (SECT) buoys, which are EIRP-like devices located outside the pressure hull in two or more locations. Needs to be a hell of an explosion to disable them. The Soviets likely didn’t want the world to know they had a SUBSUNK.

[Redcitizen]

that's just silly. We all know what really sunk K-129.