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Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S. Kindle Edition

by Kenneth Sewell (Author), Clint Richmond (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 674 ratings

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This riveting New York Times bestseller tells of the shocking true story of a rogue Soviet submarine poised for a nuclear strike on the United States, “reveal[ing] the explosive facts about one of the best-kept secrets of the Cold War” (The Flint Journal).

On March 7, 1968, several hundred miles northwest of Hawaii, the nuclear-armed K-129 surfaced and sunk, taking its crewmen and officers with it to perish at sea. Who was commanding the rogue Russian sub? What was its target? How did it infiltrate American waters undetected?

Drawing from recently declassified documents and extensive confidential interviews, Navy veteran Kenneth Sewell exposes the stunning truth behind an operation calculated to provoke war between the United States and China.

With full, authoritative detail and sixteen pages of exclusive photographs, Red Star Rogue illuminates this history-shaping event and rings with chilling relevance in light of today’s terrorist threats.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Reads like the latest Tom Clancy thriller....Fascinating...frightening."
-- The Flint Journal

"Frightening....As exciting as any novel."
-- The Associated Press

"A remarkable account [from] a veteran submariner."
-- Bookspan

About the Author

Kenneth R. Sewell is a nuclear engineer and a US Navy veteran who spent five years aboard the USS Parche, a fast attack submarine that was the Navy’s most decorated ship. The USS Parche conducted a number of special operations. In addition to All Hands Down, he is the author of the New York Times bestseller Red Star Rogue, and Blind Man’s Bluff. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Clint Richmond is a veteran journalist and author based in Austin, Texas. His book Selena!, about the murder of the legendary Tejana singer, was a #1 bestseller.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B001NIT7KC
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition (October 1, 2005)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 1, 2005
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1597 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 482 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #575,395 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #75 in Nuclear Weapons & Warfare History (Kindle Store)
- #227 in Military Science History
- #321 in Nuclear Weapons & Warfare History (Books)

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4.4 674 ratings

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Clint Richmond
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CLINT RICHMOND, a #1 New York Times best-selling author, has more than 30 years' professional writing experience as a nonfiction book author, newspaper reporter, and freelance magazine journalist. He has published books on a wide range of topics, from domestic terrorism and true crime to pop psychology and celebrity biography.
His new historical true-crime/espionage book, FETCH THE DEVIL, reveals for the first time the role of Nazi espionage in the unsolved murders of two California socialites in the Texas desert on the eve of World War II, and how an El Paso sheriff came close to uncovering the truth.
Previously published nonfiction books authored or co-authored by Richmond include: The Good Wife (2007, Avon Books/HarperCollins); Red Star Rogue (2005, Simon & Schuster); Symphony of Spirits (2000, St. Martin's Press); Willie Nelson: Behind the Music (1999, Pocket Books); False Prophets (1996, Dove Books); the #1 New York Times bestseller Selena! (1995, Pocket Books); Living and Working in the Rockies (1984, General Publications, Inc.); and Denver, Mile High City of Enterprise (1981, Windsor Publications).
Prior to becoming a freelancer in 1981, Richmond (writing under the name "Jerry Richmond"), was an award-winning reporter for the Dallas Times Herald (TX), one of the state's leading metropolitan dailies of that time. He covered such national stories as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the trial of Lyndon Johnson crony Billie Sol Estes. He was on the reportorial team assigned to the visit of President John F. Kennedy to Dallas on November 22, 1963. Consequently, he was one of the key reporters to cover the assassination of the president, the capture of Lee Harvey Oswald, and the killing of Oswald. He was that newspaper's lead criminal courts reporter during the Jack Ruby murder trial. Later, as a freelance journalist, he was a Rocky Mountain regional correspondent for People Weekly, and has been a contributing writer to TIME, Newsweek, and numerous other magazines and newspapers.
Richmond served in Korea with the 24th Infantry Division as reconnaissance liaison to an Australian infantry regiment, and with the First Cavalry Division and the 11th Cavalry Regiment. He is a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). He majored in journalism and history at North Texas State University.
Visit Clint or send him a message at his webpage: www.clintrichmond.com
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Kenneth Sewell
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4.4 out of 5

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Phil Seifert

A Thrilling Read on a Huge Event from the Late Sixties - It's Not What Was Revealed

Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2016

Verified Purchase

As an avid reader ad follower of submarine news, I was aware of the sinking of the K-129 in the Pacific as news of the event leaked out - as was allowed or modified. This included the speculation that the sinking might have been caused by an accidental "bumb" by a US sub. Kenneth Sewell does an excellent job in researching those on both sides of the encounter as to what led to the sinking of the k-129, which was probably very difficult in that no one survived the sinking, and very few in the old USSR are probably at liberty to discuss the events and geopolitical situations present at the time between the US, the USSR, and China.

Kenneth Sewell does an excellent job in hypothetically tracking the last cruise of the K-129, including the unexpected short time in port and quick sailing. The first part of the book almost reads like a mystery "whodunit" as the players are identified with their motives. I had never known that such an event was planned, let alone almost carried out successfully.

The second part of the book expands on my prior reading of the Glomar Explorer and how the sub was found, but adds facts previously unknown in that I thought the sub had not been recovered.

Members of the press have successfully assured that Richard Nixon will always be strongly linked to Watergate, but the last part of the book describes how Nixon and Kissinger successfully used the information on the K-129 and its findings and what led to its demise in their international dealings with the USSR and China, in order to maintain peace in that part of the world and keep the US as an involved player in that geopolitical theater. All in all; this was an extremely enjoyable and revealing historical read, one I'd strongly recommend to those who only know the information the CIA and Navy allowed out for publication in the late '60s - early '70s. Discover how close we came to WW3.

One person found this helpful

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Wooleye

A Good Yarn

Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2005

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As a maritime lawyer now and, in 1967, a very junior officer on a diesel submarine in a NATO navy, I found Red Star Rogue a fascinating yarn. The way it assembles its facts, inferences and speculation is unsatisfactory but there is a story here that ultimately I find convincing.

There are six objective factual elements that suggest truth:

1. The early departure on 24 February 1968 before completion of scheduled maintenance and R & R. The prior mission had lasted 10 weeks and had ended 6 January 1968. The authors indicate a four month turnaround was standard. This is logical because long term submergence in a diesel submarine is a deeply unhealthy environment for the crew - and its equipment, even on a newish vessel like K129, is pushed to its limit by normal use. It is rare and remarkable in the military to miss scheduled maintenance in peacetime - and this was not a tank, one of thousands, but a precious national strategic asset. It needed, and normally got, TLC.

2. 98 crew on an 84 crew ship for a lengthy mission. This is so extraordinary as to be unique. In World War II U.S. submarines rescued European missionaries and downed flyers, and all anecdotes say it was noticeably cramped even for a 48-hour voyage. In "my" submarine, we took on a platoon of soldiers on a brief exercise, and operating the boat became very difficult due to cramped accommodations. The presence of an extra 14 bodies for weeks would be extraordinary - and I cannot comprehend how they were victualed. There just isn't space for that much extra food for a 70-day mission. The stress here is incomprehensible. The "loss" of the crew manifest is also remarkable, but perhaps SOP.

3. The absence of routine signals, and the lack of response. K129 missed sending the check-in signals on crossing the International Date Line and on entering the mission box. This was a strategic asset: no matter how drunk or inefficient the boys at base, they would have had a message board to record these. If they aren't sent, a "subsunk" routine ensues. Here, they weren't sent and no routine subsunk inquiry ensued for a month - so the logical conclusion is that the messages weren't intended to be sent. This is mysterious. Even more interestingly to me, K129 surfaced without sending a "surfaced" signal. This is unprecedented for a missile boat which does not normally, ever, fully surface in a hostile environment. The absence of any signal suggests to me that, notwithstanding an overcrowded boat in poor maintenance, K129 did not surface for mechanical or medical reasons, but for nefarious reasons.

4. An external crew member in outdoor clothing. Shorts, shoes and singlets are likely to have been worn inside K129 in tropical waters. Noone is likely to wear external clothing unless he was on the fin, surfaced. A suggestion exists he was tethered, which is unusual, since it delays diving time. But it certainly appears K129 was surreptitiously surfaced immediately prior to sinking.

5. An irradiated light oil slick off Western Hawaii in March 1968. It is just possible, in my personal experience, for an oil slick to extend 325 nautical miles, although it becomes the merest sheen. It could move that far in six days. The book is quite unconvincing when it suggests this was Chinese fissile material, and gets its compass directions badly wrong, all on page 113. The time, date and location of Teritu's sampling of the spill are wholly obscure, and it should not have occurred before 12 March, but there is enough innuendo here to suggest strongly this was K129's slick from the Necker Seamount, and could not have come from the official sinking point at 180/40.

6. Plutonium contaminated steelwork. I have never so much as glimpsed a nuclear warhead but assume it is securely protected by an armature or shell, and that this shell is itself specially strengthened against a hydrazine or liquid propellant fire from below. The high explosive surrounding the plutonium core will be designed to be unusually stable and heat resistant to survive re-entry. So a fire in a launch tube will not release plutonium. However, a mechanical failsafe is likely to destroy one or two of the high explosive plates and intentionally to penetrate the plutonium core, rendering it safe against spontaneous explosion and unapproachable by a thief. In my opinion, the existence of radiation on the steel retrieved by the GLOMAR EXPLORER is evidence that a failsafe prevented a launch.

I was in the Far East in 1967 and remember well the feeling that China was ready to burst under the Cultural Revolution and Mao's Red Guards. The idea of a surfaced Golf launching a missile at Honolulu within SSN4 range would have played immediately into all our fears of renegade China.

The whole book stands or falls on the time and place of sinking. This book is either true in its outline, and so very important; or utterly false, and needs to be demolished.

Our government can do so by identifying the date, time and coordinates of the failed missile launch bloom seen by our ?MIDAS? satellite, 37 years ago. Until they do, I think these guys have got it right.

48 people found this helpful

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Ij

GREAT SPY BOOK!

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2023

Verified Purchase

This book goes into explicit detail of events, recounts, and stories surrounding the sinking of Soviet submarine K-129 and just how close the world was to being reshaped forever. How close the US was to another military attack, this one far more devastating than Pearl Harbor, had been avoided and the continuous implications this event still has in clandestine operations is unbelievable!
The book is very well written in its explanations and details that someone who didn’t serve in any military capacity could follow the activities and descriptions within the book.
Highly recommended, and not just because it is well written. It showcases the deceit held within governments both foreign and domestic and the lengths gone to in order to hold these secrets!

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Aileen

Did this really happen(!)

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 5, 2013

Verified Purchase

A fact based narrative of events that took place: 7th March 1968, involving the Soviet Nuclear Submarine K129 one of the most disturbing books I have ever read, It relates to events that could have changed humanity as we know it, and highlights the horror of the Nuclear arms race, along with what might have been. The epilogue following the final chapter reads as a chilling reminder of where we stand today(!) a little drawn out in parts, yet a book you can't put down..."beware, some readers may find this book disturbing reading." well worth the effort though.

4 people found this helpful

Gunnar Krüger

Good lecture...

Reviewed in Germany on November 17, 2013

Verified Purchase

...although there is no proof given for the thesis, that a KGB conspiracy was the cause for the loss of Soviet ballistic missile submarine K-129 about 400 nautical Miles off Hawaii. Reads like a good thriller anyway...

JRF

An amazing (and frightening) story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 29, 2016

Verified Purchase

This book describes an alleged attempt by a rogue Soviet submarine (K-129) to launch a devastating attack on Hawaii in 1968. The perpetrators were KGB special forces, who (in the guise of additional crew) had taken over the boat on the orders of Kremlin hardliners wanting to provoke World War III. Sound far-fetched? Yes. However, the author makes a cogent, soberly-argued case that is worth reading.

One key point the author does not address is that the plotters were well-prepared up to, but not including, the critical point of circumventing the built-in missile mechanism designed specifically to prevent a launch not authorised by fleet HQ. Instead, the narrative simply relates that submarine sank with all hands after a failed launch attempt.

The controversy is best known from the follow-up, where the CIA tried to recover the submarine. Even that is shrouded in mystery, with very differing accounts of how successful the attempt was.

An interesting read for those who follow Cold War submarine operations.

4 people found this helpful

GD

Crew manifest

Reviewed in Australia on July 27, 2019

Verified Purchase

The book provided a greater insight into this event than I had previously understood from Josh Deans recount. Given the lack of hard evidence from either side I’m not sure where the truth really lies. There appears no doubt that the US recovered a lot of knowledge. I don’t understand why an experienced sub captain would leave port (without explanation) with a 10 % increase in “crew”.

BiFi

Red Star Rogue

Reviewed in Germany on November 16, 2013

Verified Purchase

Super - a good history lesson. I Started with "The Silent War" and followed this with "All Hands Down" which completes the story.

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