Red Star Rogue?

[Pigfish]

Reading the new issue of Military Heritage today I came across an ad for a new book called Red Star Rogue. Anyone heard of this?

http://www.redstarrogue.com/

[UglyMowgli]

No since Bill Nichols talk about in january

http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=27649

[Pigfish]

Thanks. Missed that one. :)

[TLAM Strike]

Hardcover huh?

How long does it take for the Paperback to come out?

[Pigfish]

I think it depends on sales. Sometimes never.

[Red Star Rogue]

There was a fellow who claimed the events in Red Star Rogue were fabricated. Obviously he didn't check the references and has never read Dr. John P. Craven's book "The Silent War."

Dr. Craven was the chief civilian scientist on the Polaris project. He was the manager on NR-1; he was involved in the DSRV project and Sea Lab II. Dr. Craven formed Submarine Development Group One and was the head of the Navy's deep submergence program. Dr. Craven was in charge of the search for the K-129 and discovered the purpose of its last mission. In the chapter titled, “The Story of Two Submarines” he states without reservation, “the submarine was a rogue.” He also provides proof that the sub exploded while launching a ballistic missile at Hawaii.

Dr. Craven book was heavily censored, but if you read the chapter listed above, you will find enough information to make the case for Red Star Rogue. However, I was not under the same restrictions as Dr. Craven. Red Star Rogue proves Dr. Craven’s points. Here’s one example of what you will find in the book:

The University of Hawaii research vessel found the oil slick from the sub. It was laced with radioactive material. Our researchers at the U of Hawaii discovered the R/V was working along the Hawaiian Leeward Islands. Ask any quartermaster to show you the Pilot Chart for this area in the month of March. Based on the currents and winds in this area, we were able to use programs designed to track oil slicks and backtrack the path of the radioactive oil slick to a location, 400 miles SW of where the Soviet Navy had assigned K-129 to patrol. The location was an exact intersection of lines of latitude and longitude, on the surface, just within the 350-mile range of a Chinese missile launch, (K-129 was trying to mimic an attack from a Chinese submarine, thus starting a war between its two enemies, China and the U.S.). This is only one small item among hundreds of points we use to support the book.

I expect people to be critical; many are just looking for attention. But the book has a message, “If a group of radical Stalinists could hijack a nuclear weapon and come within inches of destroying a major American city in 1968. How difficult would it be for a similar group of well funded, radical Islamic terrorists to do the same thing in 2005?”

[UglyMowgli]

I expect people to be critical; many are just looking for attention. But the book has a message, “If a group of radical Stalinists could hijack a nuclear weapon and come within inches of destroying a major American city in 1968. How difficult would it be for a similar group of well funded, radical Islamic terrorists to do the same thing in 2005?”

Very good idea for books (latest Di mercurio novel) or movies (james bond) but for human and technical reason impossible, perhaps with a great conspiracy in the highest level of the governements, oupss good for TV show (24Hours) but unthinkable in real life.

[Bubble head]

Who is this Nichols guy anyway? Does he belong to the USSVI?

The comments made about the book Red Star Rogue are inaccurate. The claim that K-129 was a rogue submarine was not made by the authors of the book but by Dr. John P. Craven (see credentials listed below) in his book The Silent War, Chapter 15, The Hunt for Red September: A Tale of Two Submarines.
During interviews with the authors of Red Star Rogue and the producers of ABC’s Night Line, Dr. Craven reaffirmed that the Soviet Golf submarine K-129 was indeed determined by the US Navy to be a rogue sub.
This important fact, along with many others is in Red Star Rogue, but apparently overlooked by the reviewer. The book goes beyond The Silent War to provide the answers to the questions of “Who and Why.” I’m a veteran submariner; I also belong to the USSVI. Many of our members have read both books and the reviews have been excellent. Check out the facts and make up your own mind.

Dr. John P. Craven:
Chief Scientist for the Polaris Program
Director of the Navy’s Deep Submergence Systems Project
Director of Sealab III - “Man in the Sea Program”
Project Director, NR-1 Nuclear Research Submarine
Project Manager, Deep Sea Rescue Vehicle
Director of Submarine Development Group One

[Kapitan]

bill nichols is a well respected guy here his nickname says it all SUBGURU

bill was posted to the USS nautilus SSN 571 and is generaly regarded as the father of subsim.

john cravenyes made the claims this was backed up by the CIA when they attempted the recovering of the submarine back in the late 60's now they declassified scorpion files why didnt they declassify the project jennifer finds? hmmm because the submarine had to have been rouge no need to scare the nation right.

Admiral Victor Dygalo a man who had launched the first russian SLBM belived a US submarine seawolf was to blame ramming and sink K129 after all seawolf did go to yokasuka for "repairs to her bow"

as for the K129 the soviets reaction to it when the world found out was thus "we dont know about it" infact the soviet president said to the americans if they would drop the story so would the USSR.

K129 herself was an elderly golf class SSB (diesel powerd missil submarine) she was obsolete by this time the russians are well on the way to developing yankee SSBN

K129 had three nuclear missiles but when craven survayed the wreck he noted only two thus giving him the rouge theroy

we should all know that if a nuclear missile is attempted to be armed by a third party without launch autherisation then it is boobey trapped ie the missile explodes stopping any further attempt to launch

[Bill Nichols]

I've read Craven's The Silent War. Craven doesn't claim absolutely that K129 was a 'rogue' sub. What he says is, "There existed a possibility, small though it might be, that the skipper of this rogue submarine was attempting to launch...a ballistic missile with a live warhead in the direction of Hawaii....There is also a small probability that this launch attempt doomed the sub."

I think it's much more likely that K129 was lost after an explosion in one of the missile tubes, much like what happened to the Yankee-class sub K219 in October 1986 off of Bermuda. (Unless, of course, you believe the 'Hostile Waters' conspiracy theory that K219 sank after colliding with an American sub -- If you believe that, then you must also believe that a U.S. sub torpedoed Kursk. :roll: )

Unlike Craven, Sewell and Richmond, in Red Star Rogue, assert that K129 DID try to launch a missile at Hawaii, and that a 'failsafe' boobytrap DID destroy the sub. The subtitle of their book, "The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S." says it all.

Craven devotes just two pages on the 'rogue submarine' theory. K129 isn't even listed in the index. What Sewell and Richmond has done is to take a hypothetical theory and spin it into a yarn of 'fact', using unsubstantiated claims and suppositions to try and hold their story together.

Bubble Head asked, "Who is this Nichols guy anyway? Does he belong to the USSVI?"

As to my qualifications, I am a former U.S. Navy submarine officer. After leaving the Navy, I was responsible for testing the Trident II missile launcher equipment during its development; prepared and gave briefings to the CNO's Nuclear Safety Study Group on SSBN nuclear weapon safety-related operational incidents; worked for nearly 10 years on highly-classified DARPA programs; and am now a engineer/scientist helping to build America's ballistic missile defense system, to shoot down 'rogue' missiles such as the ones Red Star Rogue claims K129 tried to launch at the U.S. in 1968.

Perhaps the fact that the USSVI is making money by selling Red Star Rogue directly through the authors' website has something to do with Mr. Bubblehead's opinion about the book. :-?

'Nuff said.

[Kapitan]

yup thanks bill didnt realise you were in that deep

[Bill Nichols]

Review below:


Cold War thriller is for real, author writes
By JULES WAGMAN
SPECIAL TO THE TOLEDO BLADE


RED STAR ROGUE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF A SOVIET SUBMARINE'S NUCLEAR STRIKE ATTEMPT ON THE U.S. By Kenneth Sewell, with Clint Richmond. Simon & Schuster. 306 pages, $25.


Red Star Rogue reads like a spy thriller, except that nuclear engineer and submarine veteran Kenneth R. Sewell says it's true. A rogue Soviet Golf-type submarine blew up in the Pacific March 7, 1968, while attempting to launch a nuclear missile at Pearl Harbor, 350 miles away.

Starting with known facts, adding interviews with Russian and American military and civilian officials, and topping off with his own conjectures and deductions, Sewell develops a story of how we escaped nuclear war by a countdown that exploded.

The facts: Soviet missile submarine K-129 sails from its Siberian base Feb. 24, 1968. Just before sailing, 11 men join the 83-man crew. The mission is routine until K-129 fails to report crossing the International Date Line March 1.

Instead of patrolling its assignment, K-129 approaches Pearl Harbor. On March 7, about 350 miles northwest of Pearl, K-129 surfaces and prepares to fire.

At zero, the missile is torn by an explosion which puts a 10-foot hole in the missile compartment. The explosion dooms K-129, which plunges three miles to the bottom.

U.S. spy satellites record the explosions. A few days later, a University of Hawaii oceanographic vessel happens onto a radioactive oil slick. In port, agents, believed to be federal, confiscate its logs and swear everyone to secrecy.

On March 21 the Soviets begin hunting for K-129 1,700 miles northwest of Hawaii. By April Moscow concedes the sub is lost. In mid-July, spy sub USS Halibut leaves Pearl Harbor to find K-129. Halibut locates it, takes 22,000 photographs, and is awarded a presidential citation.

A year later the CIA contracts with a Howard Hughes company to build a ship to raise K-129. The cover story says the ship, the Glomar Explorer, would mine the seabed.

In 1974, the ship sails. Its claw seizes the sub and brings it to the surface, where it is put into the central bay. Six bodies are buried at sea.

When the story broke in 1975, Washington said the sub fell apart as it was brought up and only the bow was saved. Sewell says the entire sub was recovered. He points out that in 1993 K-129's bell from the conning tower was returned to the Russians, refuting the story that only the sub's bow was retrieved.

The U.S. role in all this remains shrouded in official secrecy.

Why did this happen? Sewell conjectures:

Yuri Andropov, head of the KGB, and Mikhail Suslov, Communist Party ideologue, plotted to get China and the U.S. into a war from which Moscow would benefit. Their plan: send a sub to fire a nuclear missile at Pearl Harbor and make it look as though the Chinese did it.

The KGB controlled Soviet nuclear weapons. It also had special military teams similar to our Rangers. Such a team would carry out the scheme.

The plotters have all the codes except the one which controlled the fail-safe system. The 11-man team seizes the sub by March 1, sails to within 350 miles of Hawaii - the Chinese would have had to do that - and surfaces the sub to get at the fail-safe mechanism.

The effort fails and K-129 pays with its life for the failed attempt.

Such is the story in brief but there are many interesting twists. The conjecture seems a bit far-fetched, but makes great reading. Washington is expected to continue stonewalling.

[Bill Nichols]

Another review:



Books to Avoid: Red Star Rogue
This book purports to be non-fiction, but I have my doubts. It recounts the story of the Golf submarine that was raised by Glomar Explorer; according to the authors, this submarine was destroyed as it attempted to launch a nuclear missile at Hawaii.

I'll spoil the suspense. The authors believe, or at least say they believe, that plotters in the Kremlin put a KGB special-action team aboard the submarine; these people attempted to launch the missile; they failed to disable all the packages that would prevent unauthorized launch, and the missile self-destructed and took the sub with it.

The goal of this action was to provoke a nuclear exchange between the US and China.

Once we get past that part, a good section of the end of the book talks about the mission to raise the sub from the ocean floor.

To say the least, the arguments were unpersuasive. The book seems to be based on rumors and allegations and "we know it's true!" from people in the former Soviet Union. The authors pick and choose their rumors. They dismiss the rumors that the Golf was sunk by US forces; they choose the rumors that support the notion of a launch attempt. Gaping logical flaws are papered over; for example, the KGB controlled the warheads of nuclear weapons, but for some reason were unable to explain to their special forces team how to launch the missiles without blowing themselves up. They also fail to present any plausible actions by the KGB plotters that would definitively pin the blame on the launch on China instead of the USSR. Other logical problems abound. When data are lacking the authors don't hesitate to conjecture, and their conjecture is that the launch was authorized at the very top of the KGB chain of command.

The end of the book would be funny if it weren't so irritating. The authors wrap all of cold war history from 1968 onwards around this purported launch attempt; their prose is full of "therefore the answer must be..." that support their thesis when even thin documentation isn't available; any number of more logical conclusions are possible and what's lacking is not proof, but common sense.

Red Star Rogue, by Sewell and Richmond. Give it a miss.

[Kapitan]

personaly i dont belive the missile theroy after reading some reviews and things i mean if they didtry to launch a missile and it exploded the sub would have sunk in less that 10 mins maybe even less than 5 and when halibut went down and took pictures there was a bloke outside the submarine

my view is that a battery exploded while the golf was re charging on the surface

but that doesnt explain how she could be over 300 miles off course :hmm:

[Bill Nichols]

personaly i dont belive the missile theroy after reading some reviews and things i mean if they didtry to launch a missile and it exploded the sub would have sunk in less that 10 mins maybe even less than 5 and when halibut went down and took pictures there was a bloke outside the submarine

my view is that a battery exploded while the golf was re charging on the surface

but that doesnt explain how she could be over 300 miles off course :hmm:

How do you know she was off course? :hmm:

[Kapitan]

sosus and also blind mans bluff

sosus reported explosion a few hundred miles from hawai which was later found to be K129 after halibut was sent to investigate

secondly just after the sinking a matter of days the russians began an all out search in the area K129 was supposed to be ie over 300 miles away

each boomer was given a set route and patrol box each mission so high admirals knew where the submarines should have been but when they search K129 was not in her box she was over 300 miles away closer to hawai than supposed to have been

[Kapitan]

also craven notes this as well as blind mans bluff

[Bill Nichols]

each boomer was given a set route and patrol box each mission so high admirals knew where the submarines should have been but when they search K129 was not in her box she was over 300 miles away closer to hawai than supposed to have been

Ah, but how do we know what her assigned box was? Her captain had previously been awarded for making one of the first ballistic missile patrols against the U.S.; perhaps his orders were to patrol closer to Hawaii than in the 'usual' box. :|\

[Kapitan]

perhapse but i do think moscow has declassified K129 patrol routes and all about her so it should be easy to pick her up il have a search but i dont know what i shall find if i find anything at all

[Kapitan]

http://mikekemble.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/k129.html

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/aj.cashmore/.features/articles/jennifer-text.html

these two are all i can find so far il keep the look going but cant promise anything

[Captain Nemo]

Lets face it, unless someone in the Kremlin or Washington has some hard evidence as to really what happened to K-129 and is willing to divulge this information, I guess we will never really know what happened. But I must admit it makes for a good discussion.

Nemo

[Kapitan]

from the kremlin we will probly learn about K129 in 2030 and from washington about 2020 but who knows

[Bill Nichols]

Review of Red Star Rogue in today's Moscow Times:


Deep Secrets

Did the Soviets try to launch a nuclear weapon at Pearl Harbor in 1968?

By Gary E. Weir
Published: October 14, 2005

In "Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.," former American submariner Kenneth Sewell, in collaboration with journalist Clint Richmond, reexamines the 1968 loss of K-129, a Soviet Golf II-class missile submarine. Revisiting this well-known story and the CIA's aborted effort to recover the hull under the guise of the highly classified Project Jennifer, the author argues that K-129 actually attempted to launch a nuclear weapon against the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. He portrays this as part of an effort by Politburo hardliners to arrest what they perceived as the beginning of a rapprochement with the United States and a liberalization within Soviet society under Leonid Brezhnev.

Sewell builds a fast-paced, circumstantial case for the existence of this political environment in the Politburo and for the plot it might have inspired under the direction of the conservative communist ideologue Mikhail Suslov. The open literature has long alluded to the activities of such anti-detente reactionaries. According to Sewell, a group of mysterious men joined the boat before sailing and eventually commandeered the vessel, taking the submarine out of its normal patrol area, toward Hawaii, and then dying with the rest of the crew when an explosion sent K-129 to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The author also suggests that Project Jennifer actually recovered the entire vessel for close examination and subsequently spread disinformation to the effect that billionaire Howard Hughes' vessel, the Glomar Explorer, had recovered only the forward third.

While the political context provides interesting reading, the revelations offered in "Red Star Rogue" depart completely from history and present a doubtful scenario based largely on surmise.

When I joined the project that eventually emerged, in 2003, as "Rising Tide: The Untold Story of the Russian Submarines That Fought the Cold War," I intended to record the full-career oral histories of Russian officers who expressed a willingness to speak with me. Those supporting my effort felt that these naval officers, formed by the Soviet system, would recoil at the sight of a digital voice recorder and prefer some measure of anonymity. Over many days, as I conducted interviews that lasted hours and exhausted two translators, the dreaded request for anonymity never came.

Given the revelations I received, I knew the story would be somewhat sensational. For a historian, regardless of the circumstances, history must rest on evidence that the writer can attribute to people and institutions -- evidence a reader can confirm. This has been a priority of my work in Cold War history over the last 20 years.

But I also needed to write reliable history because of the access and trust extended to me by the Russian officers and their families. As conversations progressed, I was frequently invited to look through family photo albums while sharing a meal, some vodka and a tour of one modest apartment after another. Wives asked me about my Catherine and what she prepared at mealtime and how. On my next visit to St. Petersburg I have to keep my promise to share Catherine's recipe for Southern fried chicken with Rear Admiral Lev Chernavin's marvelous wife. I owed these people a professional history, not a bit of sensation.

"Red Star Rogue" is plagued by sensation and lack of credibility. The most important historical problem involves the arrival of the mysterious 11 crewmen. The author offers no evidence that this took place. The best he can do is point to the number of medals awarded to the crew years later by President Vladimir Putin -- 11 more than the ship's usual complement. Yet ships of all sizes and types frequently go to sea with additional personnel, and at times these people fall victim to tragedy. In 1941, the German battleship Bismarck sent HMS Hood to the bottom and, with her, workers from a British shipyard. The American submarine USS Thresher also had additional personnel on board when she submerged for the last time.

The author's description of this Golf II coming to the surface near Hawaii to launch its missiles only exacerbates the credibility problem. K-129 experienced an overhaul in 1967 modifying her according to Project 629A to fire R-21, system D-4, submerged launch missiles under an order dated July 2, 1962. The boat also received the Sigma 629A navigation system, and, in early 1968, a towed communications antenna called Paravan. For K-129, the first two modifications concluded on June 22, 1967 -- not in 1966, as the author claims -- and doubtless required repeated technical shakedown tests at sea after installation. This process would be completely normal in any navy and could very easily account for personnel onboard other than assigned crewmembers. It also discounts the assumption that K-129 surfaced to launch her missiles, a key component of the story. Sewell makes note of the technical conversion but never truly factors the upgrades into his story. He just tells us that the boat surfaced to launch in spite of the new capability -- a decision no submariner or conspirator would have made. Why fire in full view of probable American surveillance when one can stay submerged and unseen? This is the very reason for having submerged-launch capability in the first place.

An evaluation of Sewell's use of sources also raises questions. Fourteen interviewees requested anonymity, while the officers with whom I worked -- one of them only semi-retired and still serving on active duty -- never suggested withholding their names. This presents an issue of credibility. In addition, some sources claim less than this story suggests. The author mentions John Pina Craven, chief scientist for the American Polaris Ballistic Missile Project in the 1960s, noting the possibility of a rogue launch. However, an examination of Craven's book "The Silent War" shows that he immediately declared it unlikely and never qualified his conclusion. In addition, Soviet missile submarines were a relatively frequent occurrence off the American East Coast in the mid-1960s; I interviewed a number of their commanding officers. Having Soviet nuclear warheads within striking distance in 1968 could not have seemed new to the CIA or the Navy. At that point in time, the United States sought to keep close track of them, with the proper countermeasures at the ready.

In "Red Star Rogue," Sewell asks for trust but provides very little for the reader to lean on. Too much of the story is thin air. Barring the emergence of new documentation and verifiable oral histories, his book fails as history and offers only modest thrills for the imaginative.

Gary E. Weir heads the contemporary history branch of the U.S. Naval Historical Center.

[Captain Nemo]

The author's description of this Golf II coming to the surface near Hawaii to launch its missiles only exacerbates the credibility problem. K-129 experienced an overhaul in 1967 modifying her according to Project 629A to fire R-21, system D-4, submerged launch missiles under an order dated July 2, 1962. The boat also received the Sigma 629A navigation system, and, in early 1968, a towed communications antenna called Paravan. For K-129, the first two modifications concluded on June 22, 1967 -- not in 1966, as the author claims -- and doubtless required repeated technical shakedown tests at sea after installation. This process would be completely normal in any navy and could very easily account for personnel onboard other than assigned crewmembers. It also discounts the assumption that K-129 surfaced to launch her missiles, a key component of the story. Sewell makes note of the technical conversion but never truly factors the upgrades into his story. He just tells us that the boat surfaced to launch in spite of the new capability -- a decision no submariner or conspirator would have made. Why fire in full view of probable American surveillance when one can stay submerged and unseen? This is the very reason for having submerged-launch capability in the first place.

Whilst I take most of what is written in this book with a large pinch of salt, didn't the author explain that the reason the sub surfaced to attempt a launch of a missile was to make it look like the missile was launched from a Golf I type sub which the Chinese had at the time?

Nemo

[Grayback]

One of the simplest yet overlooked questions raised against this book is whether the Chinese even had a true SLBM capability. 1000 Pardons if somebody asked this already, but Rogue presumes that the attack was meant to frame the Chinese for nuking Pearl Harbor, but as near as I can tell, the Chinese hadn't sucessfully tested an SLBM until the 1970's (and not from a submarine until the early '80s), notwithstanding their possession of earlier Golf boats during the period of K-129's loss.

I thought it ironic that the book relies on Craven's idea (minimized by Craven himself) that -129 had indeed gone rogue, given that they also slam his claim that the unrecovered part of the ship disintegrated when dropped by the Clementine recovery robot, and that in "Blind Man's Bluff", Craven criticized the soundness of "Project Jennifer" which Rogue posits as having been entirely successful.

"Rogue" was a horrible book, probably the single most glaring example of forced supposition I've encountered since reading Berlitz's "The Philadelphia Experiment".

[Puster Bill]

One of the simplest yet overlooked questions raised against this book is whether the Chinese even had a true SLBM capability. 1000 Pardons if somebody asked this already, but Rogue presumes that the attack was meant to frame the Chinese for nuking Pearl Harbor, but as near as I can tell, the Chinese hadn't sucessfully tested an SLBM until the 1970's (and not from a submarine until the early '80s), notwithstanding their possession of earlier Golf boats during the period of K-129's loss.

I thought it ironic that the book relies on Craven's idea (minimized by Craven himself) that -129 had indeed gone rogue, given that they also slam his claim that the unrecovered part of the ship disintegrated when dropped by the Clementine recovery robot, and that in "Blind Man's Bluff", Craven criticized the soundness of "Project Jennifer" which Rogue posits as having been entirely successful.

"Rogue" was a horrible book, probably the single most glaring example of forced supposition I've encountered since reading Berlitz's "The Philadelphia Experiment".

It's even worse than that - some of the supposed 'facts' are outright false.

First, it is claimed in the book on several pages that the explosion of the missile on board the K-129 was observed by a US early warning satellite. The problem with that is that the MIDAS program was cancelled in 1966, and the follow up for them, Project 949, wasn't launched until August of 1968, several months after the K-129 sank (March of 1968). In fact, according to the exhaustive history of intelligence satellites, "Guardians", there weren't *ANY* US visual or infrared satellites in operation at the time of the event.

Secondly, the claim is made that sound recordings at the time were processed on Cray supercomputers. Except that Cray Research wasn't founded until 1972, and the first machine came off the assembly line in 1976.

Also, the claim is made that the Russians didn't know we could DF their signals. Absolute crap, they knew.

I couldn't finish reading the thing, because I kept finding egregious errors or misstatements.

[Puster Bill]

I didn't have the book "Guardians" in front of me earlier, so here is the information:

Guardians
Strategic Reconnaissance Satellites
by Curtis Peebles
Presidio Press, 1987
ISBN 0-89141-284-0


Chapter 17, "U.S. Early Warning Satellites", and Appendix B: Military Satellite Launches, 1959-1985 have the relevent data.