Posted on 01/07/2006 6:13:10 PM PST by genefromjersey
Red Star Rogue – by Kenneth Sewell and Clint Richmond
Did Russia try a sneak nuclear attack on Pearl Harbor in 1968 ?
On the night of March 7,1968, K-129 : a “Golf class” diesel-electric submarine, armed with three nuclear missiles, and two nuclear torpedos , surfaced quietly in the darkness at Latitude 24 degrees North; 163 degrees West – a mere 350 miles from the US Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
The sub was hundreds of miles away from its assigned patrol area, had not checked in with Soviet naval headquarters for almost a week , but had aroused no official curiosity : a circumstance that would itself be viewed as extremely curious . Russian submarine crews were rigidly disciplined ,almost fanatically loyal , and quite unlikely to go off on a “free lance” mission – especially with a KGB zampolit (Political Officer) aboard.
The location was in “direct line” with the Chinese submarine bases.The procedure of launching from a fixed navigational point was consistent with Chinese launch doctrine; as was surfacing in order to launch missiles. The fissile material in the missiles and torpedos was of Chinese manufacture.
The authors believe a small group of Stalinist holdovers in the Kremlin and the KGB – led by Mikhail Suslov : a shadowy figure who had been Stalin’s blood-stained right hand, and Yuri Andropov: a Suslov protégé, who was head of the KGB, orchestrated this attack in order to bring about a nuclear exchange between the United States and China.
The United States , already bogged down in the Vietnam conflict , would have been substantially weakened. China would have been devastated , and an easy conquest when Russian troops (already poised on the border) rolled in “to restore order.”
What the plotters did not know – according to the authors – was that Russia had seen the wisdom of accepting a top secret offer from President Eisenhower of fail safe devices : little bombs that could be built right into a nuclear warhead , and that would destroy the warhead –and anything else nearby-if an unauthorized launch was attempted.
According to the authors , a rogue crew –probably highly trained KGB spetsnaz troops assigned to KGB’s Executive Action Department - aboard the K-129 attempted to launch one of the 1 megaton missiles at Pearl Harbor ; but perished in the attempt ,when the fail safe blew the warhead apart, and exploded a second missile still in its tube. The combined explosions blew the bottom out of the boat, and sent her to the bottom.
There was a second thing the plotters did not know: US sub tracking capabilities were light years beyond anything envisioned by the Soviets,and K-129 had been under more-or-less continuous remote surveillance since it left its home base in Avachinskaya Bay. It had been tracked and identified by underwater SOSUS arrays, kept under watch by satellites, and pinpointed by its one micro-burst transmission.
There was no way the United States – which even had a photographic record of its exploding missile tubes – would have mistaken K-129 for a Chinese boat.
Had the attack on Pearl Harbor succeeded ,approximately 500,000 Americans would have died. Pacific fleet headquarters would have been vaporized – and – given the information the US had at its disposal, the retaliation against the USSR would have plunged the two nations into no-holds-barred nuclear war.
How the United States gathered evidence about this event, and how it used the evidence make for some very interesting reading : If the authors are correct, our view of Cold War history – and the role some of our political leaders played – are overdue for significant revision .
Whatever your political education and orientation , I think you will be in for some unsettling surprises when you read “Red Star Rogue” !
Sounds like an interesting book.
Link please!
Link please!
Link please!
Bump till the bubble heads show up.
Sorry, misdirected
China had no missiles capable of hitting the US prior to the early '80s.
We are also supposed to believe nobody in the KGB knew of the fail-safe devices? The KGB was, by definition, infiltrated into every part of Soviet society.
"Nuclear exchange" doesn't automatically mean missiles. Although it's hard to imagine the Chinese successfully flying H-bomb laden aircraft all the way to the U.S. with impunity. As the article said, China would have been devastated.
One of the functions of the zampolit was to be a pain in the @$$, I mean enforce the political orthodoxy within the military unit. In this case the submarine. One of the other functions was also launch order authentication. The go order would travel through two channels, the military command and the political directorate. So the submarine commander and the zampolit would receive the SIOP order through separate channels, or at least separate messages with different encryption. Supposedly provided some redundancy. Then again anything could be broken.
As for the KGB on board the boat not knowing about the failsafes on the warheads, it seems likely. The "atomic cities" were pretty much closed and isolated, those working in those facilities rarely permitted to travel or have contact outside.
It would be highly likely the guys on the boat wouldn't know about the failsafes. But I bet the guys who planned the operation, supposedly including the Director of the KGB and his staff, would have known of them.
My recollection of the articles and documentaries about the lost submarine do not include references to damage such as is described here. I do remember that during the recovery effort one of the missiles slipped from the tube and gave the recovery people some very nervous moments as it fell nose first back to the sea. They feared the warhead might go off. This all seems inconsistant.
That being said I think there is a good basis to think the submarine was indeed on an unauthorized attack mission, based largely on the USSR navy's recovery efforts being centered a thousand miles from the loss site. I've always felt it likely the submarine was scuttled by members of her own crew to prevent launch.
Au contraire ! China had missiles more than capable of hitting Pearl Harbor from 350 miles away.They did not (yet) have the capability of firing from underwater that the Soviets had, or of firing accurately on the move : hence, per the authors, the K129 surfaced unneccessarily at a fixed meridian point - as a Chinese boat of that time would have had to do.
The book review I wrote is a "tease". I would strongly suggest you visit your library or bookseller and obtain it,as there is an enormous amount of information I have merely hinted at.
My point was that China could not have engaged the US in anything resembling an all-out "nuclear exchange." Certainly a nuke could have taken out Pearl, which would have meant most or all of Oahu, but that would not have significantly damaged the US.
Odds are that we will sooner or later lose a city, probably DC, to a terrorist nuke. That won't defeat us either, and the resultant "exchange" will be totally one-sided.
Worth the time... ping.
What's a "glomar explorer"?
Interesting -- thanks for the info.
Indeed, this is the kinda stuff you can make movies about.
I’m sure they did know about them and thought they could work around or over them.
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