Red Star Rogue Quotes

“At first, the secrecy surrounding the sinking of the Soviet submarine was strictly in response to the practical need for maintaining national security at the height of the Cold War. The Americans did not want the Soviets to know how advanced their satellite and deep-ocean surveillance capabilities had become. And the U.S. Navy did not want to reveal that spy subs such as the Halibut even existed.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“So if there was no military intelligence value to the project that could not have been gained cheaper and faster by picking the wreck apart with existing technology, and the most important foreign affairs official in the Nixon team did not support it for geopolitical reasons, what esoteric purpose would raising the K-129 serve?”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“There is a well-established record that the U.S. Navy did not believe the recovery mission was worth the enormous cost, and certainly not if the Navy’s budgets for underseas intelligence programs were to be raided to pay for the CIA project.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“Drastic, and heretofore unexplained, changes in naval procedures also support the theory that Brezhnev and the Soviet military were alarmed by intelligence that K-129’s sinking might have been the result of a rogue attempt to launch a nuclear missile. A significant new procedure was adopted early in 1970, requiring the launch codes for all ballistic missile submarines to be held by General Staff headquarters. This change in long-standing procedures thereby denied any rogue or mutinous crew the ability to arm and aim its missiles without direct orders, accompanied by arming codes, from a central command. The submarine missile launch codes were also removed from the operational fleet and returned to supreme Soviet navy headquarters. Before this change, the captain kept most of the necessary targeting and launch codes, and awaited only a confirmation code from fleet headquarters to be delivered with the final order to attack. That additional code, when added to the captain’s code, unlocked the fail-safe system. Under the new procedures, submarine commanders were no longer entrusted with the firing codes before they sailed on missions; no codes were kept in the ships’ safe in the captain’s quarters. All instructions necessary to arm the mechanisms and set the target courses would henceforth be radioed to submarine commanders only after a red alert condition was declared. Shortly after the launch procedures were changed, the Soviet military took another step to safeguard deployment of nuclear weapons. The KGB was stripped of its key role as custodian of nuclear warheads. Control of nuclear devices was given to the Soviet army, navy, and air force units that deployed these weapons. Up until the end of 1969, the KGB had physical possession of all nuclear warheads for land, sea, and air delivery. Military commanders had to requisition nuclear weaponry from the KGB.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“Something strange took place in the highest circles of the Kremlin in late 1969. The power struggle within the Politburo and the Secretariat of the Communist Party saw an emboldened Brezhnev openly confront his rivals. The confrontation came to be known by Sovietologists as the “Moscow Mini Crisis,” and remains an unsolved mystery to this day. The hard-liners, led by the shadowy party ideologue Suslov and his protégé KGB Director Andropov, were challenged by Brezhnev and the top generals and admirals. A review of recent reports on the Kremlin power struggle suggests that the timing may very well have coincided with the arrival of the secret K-129 packet from Washington. Certainly, such information would have led to urgent internal investigations into who in the Soviet Union might have had the means and motive to attempt an unauthorized and potentially devastating sneak attack against an American target.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“The plotters had underestimated America’s spy technology. Soviet intelligence was not yet fully aware of just how good the SOSUS hydrophones, radio intercepts, and satellite spy systems had become in tracking Soviet submarines. The DIA and NSA had been accurately tracking all Soviet submarines for more than a year, and had tracked K-129 from the time it sailed from Kamchatka Peninsula to its arrival in the patrol box northwest of Hawaii. The U.S. Navy knew they had a Soviet Golf II, not a Chinese Golf I submarine, in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands on March 7, 1968.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“Brezhnev’s shocked response to the furious American president’s call, and the lack of evidence that the Russians had prepared for a counterattack, would almost certainly convince the Americans that the Soviets were not to blame. They would be sent looking elsewhere for the perpetrators.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“Another piece of evidence the plotters could count on to further implicate the Chinese in the attack was the fissile material in the warhead. Years earlier, China had provided uranium ores that were refined by the Soviets to make the plutonium in some of their warheads. That material was still used in Soviet nuclear weapons. Later testing of samples from the explosion at Pearl Harbor would reveal the Chinese origin of the nuclear material. The Americans would be unable to distinguish a one-megaton Chinese nuclear blast from a Soviet blast.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“The plotters had to know that if Pearl Harbor were attacked, the Soviet Union would be the first to be suspected, and that the Americans would certainly retaliate with overwhelming nuclear force. The solution was to devise a plan that shielded the Soviet Union from blame for the attack. The only other country with the motive and capability to accomplish such a horrible deed was Red China. By tricking the United States into a massive retaliatory attack on China, the USSR could simultaneously weaken the Americans and eliminate Mao, without spending a dime from its depleted treasury.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“Based on information recently revealed about the clandestine osnaz, a strong case can be made that the extra men inserted on the K-129 fit the description of a KGB osnaz unit. A special operations unit would have had the skills needed to position and launch a missile, after coercing or incapacitating the K-129 officers and senior crew. One other skill attributed to the special troops that would have been a factor in such an attempt is their training in defeating sophisticated locks and security systems. This training might have led the leaders of the takeover to overestimate their ability to bypass K-129’s missile fail-safe system.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“Both GRU spetsnaz and KBG osnaz teams disguised themselves as enlisted men and mingled on special assignments with regular military units, including submariners. The special operations units were broken into teams of eight to ten men with an officer, warrant officer, or senior petty officer in charge. This unit description corresponds to the odd group of sailors who boarded K-129 at the last minute. That group numbered ten men and a leader wearing the insignia of a senior petty officer. It was later reported that, while a number of crew replacements came from other submarines in the Kamchatka Flotilla, the origin of this last group of eleven men has never been determined—or at least never been reported by Russians authorities writing about the K-129 incident.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“The KGB “had its own terrorist apparatus, which includes an organization very similar to spetsnaz, known as osnaz,” according to Viktor Suvorov, a former Soviet military intelligence officer. Their ruthlessness was later attested to by a particular mission in the early 1980s. KGB osnaz agents opened the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by storming the presidential palace in Kabul and assassinating all government officers, their families, and the civilian staff. In 1968, as the new chairman of the KGB, Andropov was directly in charge of the osnaz units, which were reserved for only the highest-priority, most secret operations of the organization.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“On a combat patrol, it would be inconceivable for more than a dozen men to have been in these two sections, if the submarine had been operating normally at the time of its destruction.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“Diplomats, spies, and even U.S. intelligence agents involved in the K-129 investigation also appear to have, at some point, informed Soviet intelligence or the Soviet navy that a large number of bodies—estimates range from fifty to seventy—was discovered crowded into the forward two sections of the doomed submarine.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“The highly unusual makeup of the crew, with fifteen more men aboard than were needed for normal operations, has never been addressed by former Soviet admirals in their published accounts of the K-129 incident. At least eleven of those extra crew members had no apparent reason for going on the mission. These men had no known operational assignments, and there is no record that they came from elsewhere in the fleet. Some of the other replacements assigned to the K-129 have been identified as submariners from boats in the Kamchatka Flotilla.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“More startling was the fact that the search area was centered hundreds of miles from where the American intelligence placed the explosion. This suggested the Soviets had no idea where their lost submarine was or had been.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“First, a review of the SOSUS network printouts showed that the Navy had tracked and periodically lost contact with a Soviet ballistic missile submarine that had left Kamchatka late in February. The last SOSUS recordings placed the boat outside its normal mission box and much closer to Hawaii than the usual patrol of this type. Second, the NORAD satellites’ late-night recordings on March 7 revealed flashes of radiant light that could have been caused only by burning missile fuel. Third, around the fifteenth or sixteenth of March, the University of Hawaii research ship Teritu reported finding an irradiated oil slick drifting off the Hawaiian Leewards. Tests showed the oil slick was composed of diesel fuel of a type used by Chinese and Soviet submarines and fissile material of a type used in Soviet, and possibly Chinese, nuclear warheads.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“startling and unthinkable conclusion of Defense Intelligence Agency analysts was suppressed in 1968, and has been kept from the public ever since.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“When the true location of the sinking is linked to the real cause of the K-129’s destruction, there can be little doubt about what happened. A rogue submarine from the Soviet Union attempted an attack against the United States on March 7, 1968. Instead of succeeding, the submarine blew up in the process.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“The amount of hydrogen gas buildup inside the submarine required to cause an explosion forceful enough to rip the hull open would have been detected long before an explosion of that magnitude could have resulted. That kind of buildup was impossible on this type of boat. Golf submarines were equipped with sensors to monitor just such a gas buildup. The environment in the living compartments was tested every thirty minutes for excess levels of carbon dioxide and hydrogen.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“The second piece of disinformation needed for the cover story was the cause of the sinking. That was extracted from the probability analysis itself. While the intelligence team had ranked an attempted missile launch as the cause with highest probability, the second most likely cause was an internal explosion resulting from a buildup of volatile gases. The explosion might have been caused by equipment failure. After all, everyone knew that Soviet submarine technology was notoriously flawed.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“Initially there would be two lies permanently embedded in the early findings of U.S. military intelligence. First, the location of the wreckage of K-129 had to be obfuscated.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“The best way to keep the awful facts buried was to opt for scenarios from the probability analysis that were less dramatic. Thus was born what was to become a massive disinformation campaign by the major agencies of the U.S. government’s intelligence community.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“submarine surfaced and sank at an exact intersection of longitude and latitude, which would indicate that it was necessary to be at such a precise position for a programmed launch to home in on a target. The U.S. Navy had limited information of Soviet computer technology, but at the time, analysts believed that K-129 would have to travel to an exact, predetermined location to launch its missiles. In all the vast ocean, the likelihood that a submarine would arrive and sink at an exact intersection of longitude and latitude by chance alone was slim to none.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“The location was key to the rogue theory and was supported by the Soviet search area being so far off the mark. The search was concentrated hundreds of miles north of where the Americans knew the boat had sunk, indicating the submarine had been far off its authorized mission course.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“The fact that K-129 sank several hundred miles closer to Hawaii than the regular Soviet patrol area was considered especially significant and bolstered the case that the boat was operating in an aggressive mode. The submarine was approximately 350 miles northwest of Hawaii, much closer than it needed to be for its missiles to reach Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Navy knew the Golf II’s missile range was between 700 and 800 miles.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“The Americans knew they had been tracking a Golf II missile boat that had sailed from Kamchatka to the general vicinity of the sinking. It was known that this type of boat could launch a missile while submerged—it did not need to surface. However, two pieces of evidence indicated it was on the surface at the time of the explosion. First, a spy satellite had recorded fireballs that could only have been seen if the submarine was on the surface. Second, the Halibut’s photography revealed that at least one of the crewmen had been fully clothed in foul-weather gear only worn by someone working outside the submarine. Inside, the submarine would have been uncomfortably hot.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“When all the data came together, the intelligence officers were shocked. The analysis resulted in a finding of “high probability” that the ill-fated Soviet boat was a rogue, and, more stunning, that it was probably intending to launch a nuclear missile against Pearl Harbor at the time of its sinking.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“The absence of regular radio contacts indicated operations on the submarine were not normal; otherwise, the routine radio reports at designated points in the journey would have been sent. Investigators at both Soviet fleet headquarters and Pearl Harbor could therefore determine a starting point of trouble, based on the first missed communication when the submarine crossed the 180th meridian.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.

“During this time of high tension between the Americans and Soviets, any incident in which nuclear weapons were even marginally involved commanded immediate attention at the highest levels of the military. The more intelligence analysts learned from the Halibut’s photographs, the more ominous the picture became, and the more urgent their quest for answers.”
― Kenneth Sewell, Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S.