Local author exposes Cold War cover-up

Panama City News Herald ^ | May 7, 2007 | David Angier

[RaceBannon]

In the 80’s, I was working with a former Sailor who told me the opposite: That the Scorpian was sunk first, and a Soviet sub was sunk in retaliation.

[Dumpster Baby]

This kind of stuff really happened. My late father was out with the fleet in the late 1950’s, and many years later he told me of seeing a Russian Bear recon plane buzz the fleet. A few minutes later there was a column of smoke on the horizon when Navy planes shot the Bear down. This was in retaliation for some Soviet shootdown of an American plane somewhere.

[colorado tanker]

The Scorpion’s wreckage was found months later in the Mediterranean Sea

Scorpion was found well into the Atlantic, not the Med. My BS detector is going off.

[outofstyle]

This guy's web site

[Cacique]

bump

[RaceBannon]

In 1978, I was on an LST. It had just completed a cruise n the North Atlantic, going up to the Murmansk Run territory.

They had some NSA equipment on board and were chasing the Soviets around.

One day, the Soviets ordered the LST to stop and prepare to be boarded. It was quite a moment for that ship; outgunned; outnumbered; and alone. The Captain of the ship refused to stop.

The soviets pulled away.

Everybody on the ship got some medal for it.

[pepperdog]

It was called the Cold War for a reason. The general public seems to think it was only MAD and posturing.

[RaceBannon]

It was about 200 miles outside of Gibralter, right? It was close enough I didn’t notice the difference, but you are right: Everything I heard, those waters are atlantic.

[Raycpa]

Can’t be true. Too many people would know. </TWA800 >

[bajabaja]

May 1968. LBJ and DefSec McNamara (?). Hard to believe that the first the Navy learns of the loss of a nuclear sub is when it doesn’t show up in its Virginia berth as scheduled. Given what has happened since, is there any value to the Pentagon denying this now? Of course, that assumes that the author has an accurate understanding of what happened, which might not be the case either.

[outofstyle]

This author says the following on his web site: “What is known is that fifteen hours after sending its final message, the Scorpion exploded at 6:44 p.m. and sank in more than 2 miles of water about 400 miles southwest of the Azores.” He says elsewhere that the sub went down in the Atlantic. I think that it was the Panama City newspaper that got it wrong. Imagine that.

[aculeus]

Scorpion was found well into the Atlantic, not the Med.

Details, details.

;-)

[colorado tanker]

According to Wiki, it went down 400 miles SW of the Azores, in deep waters, 10,000 feet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_(SSN-589)

[hoosierham]

I believe the Russians had shot down an American recon'intel aircraft in the Turkish border area.

People don't realize few wars have a neat beginning and ending.There are incidents and confrontations,even pitched battles before and often after the official dates.Neither the Us nor the USSR wanted a full scale nuclear exchange but that didn't mean lots of intimidation didn't happen.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

This happened a lot in the 1950s. The Cold War was still hot in those days.

[Tallguy]

Ahhh, the loss of the Scorpion is like an entire chapter IIRC of the book "Blind Man's Bluff". That book had unprecidented access to recently declassified material. Not saying it isn't possible, but the people that surveyed the wreckage know where the sub is and somebody would have talked by now. And the wreckage was found in the Atlantic.

[colorado tanker]

Actually, it isn't "known" that Scorpion exploded. A competing theory is that it went below crush depth for some reason and imploded.

Scorpion was located with the help of acoustical data. It would be pretty obvious if there was another sub present and firing on Scorpion. I'm skeptical of this conspiracy theory.

[Tallguy]

I've gotta go grab my copy of "Blind Man's Bluff". IIRC, the searchers went to the acoustical recordings after the sub failed to reach port. They were able to get a bearing on the wreckage which ultimately located the wreck (the initial search area was along the subs anticipated track & the sub was not found there).

The torpedo theory was based on 2 things:

1. there was a known problem with the torpedoes carried by the Scorpion, and
2. the sub was pointed toward the Med, indicating a reversal in course.

THEORY: the sub executed a maneuver to rapidly reverse course in the hopes of preventing a warhead cookoff. Torpedoes that suddenly reverse course are a hazard to the attacking submarine so the warhead is designed to disable as a safety measure.

I don't think this was ever proved, but it's the strongest theory they have that fits the available evidence.