Red Star Rogue (43 page)

The Soviets believed that the USS
Swordfish
sank the K-129 while trailing too closely in a deadly cat-and-mouse game common during the Cold War. But the U.S. attack submarine was two thousand miles away, spying on Soviet naval activity.

(U.S. Navy photo)

Three weeks after K-129 sank, President Lyndon Johnson issued National Security Action Memorandum No. 369, declaring a national emergency and establishing the Sentinel missile program as being “in the highest national priority category.”

(U.S. Army photo)

Leonid Brezhnev (left) and Mikhail Suslov (right), who plotted to oust Khrushchev, later became bitter enemies.

(Soviet Archives photo)

Yuri Andropov, disciple of Suslov, was head of the KGB when the K-129 incident occurred. In that capacity, he controlled the special KGB
osnaz
commando units and had access to nuclear weapons.

(Soviet Archives photo)

USS
Halibut
found the wreckage of K-129 three miles deep in the Pacific Ocean.

(U.S. Navy photo)

President Nixon ordered the CIA to retrieve K-129 from the ocean floor. The super-secret
Glomar Explorer
was built especially for this daunting task.

(U.S. Navy photo)

The
Glomar Explorer
was designed to lower a pipe string with a gigantic claw three miles down to the ocean floor to grab sections of the broken K-129 and lift them to the moon pool hidden in the center of the ship.

(Drawing courtesy of
Offshore
magazine)

This ID photo of a Soviet sailor is believed to have belonged to one of the eleven “extra” crewmen placed aboard K-129 shortly before it sailed on its last mission. The photograph was turned over to Soviet navy personnel by Americans in the early 1990s. The sailor remains unidentified.

(Photo recovered from K-129 by CIA)

President Richard Nixon and Chairman Mao jointly proclaimed China’s opening to the West in 1972. The Americans provided military secrets about the Soviets as part of the negotiations leading to this great diplomatic success.

(Courtesy of the Richard M. Nixon Library)

President Gerald Ford had to decide whether the recovery of K-129 should continue in the face of almost certain outrage from Leonid Brezhnev if the mission were exposed.

(Photo courtesy of the Gerald R. Ford Library)

The final number of crewmen lost on K-129 was confirmed when the Russian Federation awarded medals to ninety-eight sailors at this memorial service.

(Photo courtesy of the Zhuravin family)

Captain Kobzar’s widow, Irina Ivanova (center), and first officer Zhuravin’s widow, Irina (right), attended the memorial service to accept their husbands’ medals.

(Courtesy of the Zhuravin family)