'The Hunt For Red October' isn't aging well

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

I don't think any of the events in Red Star Rogue (If they even happened) were public knowledge except what was revealed about Project Azorian in 1975.

Arguably though, the authors of Red Star Rogue do build an impressive circumstantial case for their version of events. The best propaganda is based on truth and secrets are best hidden in plain sight.

With billions wasted in a "botched" recovery (of an obsolete legacy weapons platform) leaked to the public, the general consensus becomes something to the effect that the CIA was functionally incompetant and nobody looks any closer for decades.

Gaining access to corroborating (but again circumstantial) evidence from the Soviet archives lends some legitimacy to the book as well.

The big issue as I see it with using intelligence sources is that these are institutions where all evidence is spun and corrupted as a matter of routine, where fact, fiction, lies and truth are melded together in a pool of bureaucratic paranoia and threat inflation so any such evidence, even if it fits, must be suspect.

I quite enjoyed Red Star Rogue and want to think it an accurate depiction of events dealing with the loss and subsequent search and recovery of K-129 but honestly, that jury is still out.

As for the movie Hunt for Red October, it has aged not too badly for this retired gunner... Better than the book I think.