Has anyone read this book? (Red Star Rogue by Sewell)

[Admiral John Byng]

It sounds intriguing, but I wonder how much real information it contains and how much History Channel-like "information". Has anyone read it and if so do you recommend it?


http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1476 ... AXBOL4G9OC

[Tom Dougherty]

Yes. It is totally WRONG!!!! The book came out and claimed that the K-129 was attempting a missile launch against Hawaii when it sank it 1968. This was based on Sewell's conjecture and vague knowledge of a 1972 Trieste II dive 350 miles off of Hawaii. He postulated that the K-129 was actually within missile range of Hawaii and was attempting to start a nuclear war- between the US and China! He claimed a special Spetsnaz unit hijacked the submarine under orders from the Kremlin leadership, and by emulating a Chinese Golf I class sub (which carried the 350 mile range R-13 missile), would sucker the US into thinking that Pearl Harbor was attacked by China. An accident occurred during the missile launch and the K-129 sank. And yes, this sounds like the plot to a B-movie. In order for this to all work, the sunken K-129 had to be located just 350 miles from Pearl Harbor, so he "moved" the site of the sinking roughly 1400 miles from the previously reported site of roughly 40N latitude, 180 longitude. He felt justified based on the slender evidence of the Trieste II dive, which he was sure was to examine the K-129 wreck. See below for the real story of that dive.

To make a very long story short, when we were researching for the documentary film and book (Michael White & Norman Polmar) on Project Azorian, the CIA's attempt to recover the K-129, we had to convince the actual participants who were on board the Glomar Explorer for the attempted recovery that we were NOT trying to make a "Red Star Rogue" film. It took several months and meetings before they trusted us, and then drawings, maps, lots of documents and film from the recovery operation started to come out of attics and desk drawers from the Global Marine contractors who were on the Glomar Explorer. We also got independent confirmation from the logs of the ship Bel Hudson as to the location of the Glomar Explorer during the recovery operation. The Bel Hudson had a very ill crewman who was treated on board the Glomar Explorer.

The upshot of this is that the wreck of the K-129 is located at 40.06N and 179.57E, which is not 350 miles from Hawaii but rather almost 1800 miles. The range of the K-129's R-21 missiles was 750 miles, so the K-129 was NOT attempting an unauthorized missile launch when it was lost as Sewell's book maintained. Our film came out in 2009 (and was shown in an edited form on the Military Channel) and the book, written with Norman Polmar in 2010. There were five of us and we sat out in Norman's porch going over the draft. Subsequently (since we kinda uncorked the story), one of the expedition leaders, Dr. David Sharp, was cleared to publish his excellent manuscript (http://www.amazon.com/CIAs-Greatest-Cov ... avid+sharp). This has a more accurate account than we could assemble in 2010. Our documentary film & book are also available at Amazon.

And as a final note to the above, one of our other Azorian researchers, Lee Mathers, working with David Waltrop was able to determine that the dive off of Hawaii that Sewell conflated into a wild story about the K-129 was actually a dive to recover a lost photo capsule from the then new KH-9 reconnaissance satellite. You can read the whole thing for yourself at this CIA link. https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... tion-zebra.

Sewell subsequently wrote another BS book about the loss of the USS Scorpion by supposedly being attacked and sunk by a Russian ASW helicopter. This is another one of his totally unsupported stories, and it gets a lot of press and becomes part of "reality" in the echo chamber that is the internet. Another very long story behind that, and it is totally untrue, based on hard evidence.
I was fortunate to know Bruce Rule through our work on Project Azorian, and he was one of the US Navy's leading acoustic analysis experts. Here's some links to Bruce Rule's superb analysis of the loss of the Scorpion.
http://coloradosubvets.org/bruce-rules- ... on-theory/
http://www.iusscaa.org/articles/bruceru ... ecture.htm http://www.iusscaa.org/articles/bruceru ... fficer.htm

I also wrote an article based on Bruce's findings, summarizing the entire Scorpion loss and the available information: It is here: http://www.bonefishbase.org/wp-content/ ... orpion.pdf

Bottom line: in my opinion Ken Sewell writes sensationalist stories to sell books. If he would just advertise them as the fiction that they are, I wouldn't care. But both books are presented as "facts" despite the multiple lines of credible evidence to the contrary in both instances. If you go to the US Amazon site, you can read my scathing review of "Red Star Rogue". You can also read the review by Ray Feldman. Ray wrote some of the software that controlled the Capture Vehicle that engaged the K-129 wreck-he was along for the trip on the Glomar Explorer.

[f14dtomcat]

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." Sir Winston Churchill

Thank you for the heads up, Mr. Dougherty.

[Admiral John Byng]

Yes, thank you very much Mr. Dougherty! I was suspicious of the "plot" of Red Rogue but strange things do happen so I was prepared to be open-minded. However, I did catch a few minutes of your excellent documentary a few months ago.

I have just finished watching Deutschland 83 and it seems that Red Rogue has more in common with that fictionalized version of the Cold War than reality. I won't be buying the book, but I will buy your documentary instead.

Thank you for your very clear and thorough reply!

[Tom Dougherty]

Happy to have added some clarity. The documentary film was Michael White's brainchild. I was along for the ride with the research end, because I had written an earlier article on the recovery operation. It was an incredible time, as we learned far more in those three years than I thought we would ever find out.

Many years ago when I was an undergraduate, I lived within a few miles of Sun Shipyard, where the Glomar Explorer was built. It was the strangest looking ship I had ever seen (and that remains pretty much the case).

And I go by "Tom" in this forum; Mr Dougherty is just way too formal!

Best regards,
Tom