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.
)
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.