Red Star Rogue (21 page)

What occurred aboard K-129 in its final days, beginning around the time the submarine first failed to report when it crossed the 180th meridian, will not likely ever be known. But an explanation based on new information coming out of Russia in the last decade can be used to fashion a reasonable hypothesis.

I
N
1967–68,
WHEN THE
C
OLD
W
AR
had reached its most dangerous phase, a number of drastic changes were occurring in the leadership hierarchy in Moscow. A behind-the-scenes power struggle, pitting progressive elements of the Kremlin against reactionary neo-Stalinists, was in full sway. A shadowy group with its power base in the KGB was silently scheming for control of the Politburo. The state security apparatus, employing more than a half-million people, had, for all practical purposes, become a parallel government. The KGB was engineering a plot to end the so-called Prague Spring, which led to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. The secretive organization was conducting an undeclared war against the People’s Republic of China and was sponsoring terrorist assaults on Western interests around the globe.

A new and cynical leadership in the KGB was ruthless enough to devise any scheme, no matter how horrific, to further its ambitions of world dominance and had the hard-core, handpicked specialists with the training and skills to carry out its assignments.

Kremlinologists have recently begun to gain access to old Soviet archives and eyewitnesses that paint a far darker picture of what was occurring in Moscow than had previously been known in the West.

An example is a study by Anssi Kullberg, head of the editorial board of the
Eurasian Politician,
the Web-based journal of a European think tank that studies political and security issues in Eastern Europe.

Kullberg noted, “The beginning of modern terrorism could be traced back to a single date: On 18th May 1967, an exceptionally unscrupulous man, Yuri Andropov, became the head of the Soviet secret service KGB, and among his first actions was to return ‘special’ operations to KGB policy, in order to bring about a global wave of subversion against Western democracies.”

Andropov, who earlier in his career had been the architect for the Kremlin’s murderous suppression of the Hungarian Revolt, used GRU special operations troops known as
spetsnaz,
disguised as visitors arriving at airports, to seize government facilities before Soviet troops poured into the satellite country. The GRU was the intelligence agency of the Soviet military high command, and the army and navy each had special operations units.

The original Soviet special operations units,
spetsnaz,
were created by military intelligence, the GRU, in the late 1950s, in direct response to America’s deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. One of the primary missions of special operations was to penetrate behind enemy lines and disable missiles before they could be used on the battlefield. The
spetsnaz
units were specifically trained to handle all types of nuclear warheads and missiles. The brightest, most aggressive and fit young men in the Soviet army and navy were originally recruited for the
spetsnaz.
All recruits were athletic, and reports abound that many of the Soviet sports teams traveling abroad were made up of
spetsnaz
squads.

In addition to training in nuclear weaponry, the special operations units were also trained in operating all types of military equipment, including submarines. Some units of the GRU’s naval
spetsnaz
actually were assigned their own minisubmarines. All
spetsnaz
units assigned to the navy wore regular submariner or naval infantry uniforms, with no special markings identifying them as covert warriors. There was one other requirement for membership in these special operations teams. The trainee was chosen for his political reliability, with each conscript taking an oath to die before divulging secrets about a mission.

The KGB, which had its own sizable force of uniformed units, recognized the value of the special operations troops deployed so effectively by the Red Army, and created a black ops capability for its purposes in the early 1960s. The KGB’s version of the GRU
spetsnaz
had far more sinister and grizzly assignments than simply fighting enemy soldiers behind front lines. The special operations units from the state security organization were tasked with annihilating the civilian leadership of opponents.

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.

These special operations troops were drawn from the ranks of the army and navy
spetsnaz.
The units were slotted in the Third Chief Directorate, the large bureau with responsibility for ensuring the political reliability of the armed forces. But the KGB
osnaz
answered directly to a special arm of the KGB called the Executive Action Department, which handled what were known as “wet” operations—missions often involving kidnappings and murders.

In addition to having political officers and spies in every military unit, the KGB’s Third Directorate, which carried out military counterintelligence and criminal investigation in the armed forces, had complete access to the files of every officer in the Soviet army, navy, and air force. Thus, it was an easy matter for the KGB to exert considerable control over military operations, even though the Soviet generals and admirals were open rivals for political power in the USSR structure.

The KGB recruited the toughest men whose files indicated, after special training in the
spetsnaz,
that they would be most likely to carry out any order, without question, no matter how ruthless or hazardous. Since the state security apparatus had the files, it was not hard for them to pick the men with the technical expertise and killer instinct for any mission the KGB leader needed to accomplish.

The
osnaz,
as well as the military intelligence teams of the GRU, were trained in nuclear missile technology and submarine operations, the skills required to run a submarine and launch a missile. All the special operations men were trained in the deadly arts of personal combat and functioned much like America’s Green Berets, Rangers, and SEALS teams.

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.

Why additional crewmen were needed for the mission has never been satisfactorily explained. The reason given by Soviet officials—that they were replacements for a large number of furloughed K-129 crewmen—does not stand up. Soviet submariners who served in the Pacific Fleet were given priority seating on regular flights between the Far East and European Russia whenever they were recalled to duty in emergencies. Regular crewmen probably could have been called back to their boat, had someone not intended to dilute the regular crew with substitutes on some sort of special assignment. There is also a confirmed record that the required replacements had already been assigned from other submarines at Rybachiy base. So the addition of these eleven extra men to the crew confounds all reason.

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.

As far as taking over a Golf-type submarine and running it—while not a task for the untrained—a determined
osnaz
team could easily accomplish such a mission. No contingency plans for defense against a takeover existed for Cold War submarines, because it was highly unlikely that there would ever be an opportunity for a hostile force to gain entry to a ballistic missile submarine on the high seas. With the careful selection of crews and intensive training, the very idea that a fully manned missile submarine could be commandeered while at sea surely never entered the minds of Soviet or American submarine commanders.

Normally, the crew went about its duties without sidearms, except when a submarine was in a foreign port on a visit. In home port, a squad with arms remained on board as a security detail. The submarine was easy to guard because there were so few entrances. At sea, there was little possibility that an enemy could approach close enough to a submarine and board it, even when the boat was on the surface.

But a well-planned internal takeover of a submarine such as K-129—especially such an operation conducted by KGB agents, with all the authority invested in that dreaded state security organization—would be relatively easy.

The intruders would not necessarily have to take their own firearms on board. While regular crewmen were unarmed, there were ample weapons on the boat, kept under lock and key. An automatic pistol was furnished for each officer on board, which in this case would be fourteen pistols. A half-dozen Kalashnikov assault rifles were provided for security when the submarine was in foreign ports. The captain kept the key to the pistol locker and the first officer had the key to the assault rifles.

Nonetheless, it would have been a simple matter for the infiltrators to bring small, automatic weapons on board in their sea bags, if they wanted them. There was no reason to inspect the kits of new crew members, and contraband, such as vodka, was often smuggled aboard Soviet naval vessels.

Some basic assumptions about such a takeover of a submarine can be made.

A KGB unit would probably first attempt to persuade the officers and crewmen that it had the authority to divert the submarine from its regular mission by producing documentation from some high-ranking and recognizable official. That ruse would likely have failed with veteran submarine officers such as Kobzar and Zhuravin, who were too well drilled in adhering closely to the chain of command to allow any change in official orders that could not be verified. The
zampolit,
Captain Third Rank Fedor Lobas, while being more susceptible to KGB pressure, would also insist that any change in orders be confirmed by radio contact with Pacific Fleet headquarters or a higher authority in Moscow.

Failing to accomplish its mission by bluff, an
osnaz
team was fully able and brutal enough to physically take over the boat. A trained team could either break into the weapons lockers or secure the keys by force. Making an example of a senior officer would impress the crew with the deadly serious intentions of the
osnaz
team.

Once the intruding party of eleven was armed and had arrested or otherwise incapacitated the key officers and senior petty officers, it would be a simple matter to keep the remaining crew in line. On a submarine, with strictly confined compartments accessible only through single hatches, any officers or crewmen unwilling to follow the commands of the KGB team could be forced out of the way into compartments one and two in the forward part of the boat. None of the equipment in those forward compartments was essential to the operation of the submarine or the launch of its missiles.

A single armed guard could control the one hatch between these forward compartments and the operations center in compartment three. There was no other means of entrance or exit from these compartments to any other part of the submarine.

Some crew members, particularly the lower-ranking seamen, would cooperate with the KGB out of the fear instilled in the populace by the organization they represented. Others, particularly key personnel such as the navigator, might be made to cooperate by threats to the lives of their fellow officers and crew members. Thus, while there is practically no way a ballistic missile submarine could have been externally seized, it would not have been difficult for a KGB team to accomplish a seizure from within.

No hard proof of what happened aboard K-129 has ever been recounted in official documents. Unless the crewman’s personal journal was actually recovered and restored, as the CIA’s planted rumor contends, the last days of the K-129 can be only partially reconstructed from other known facts that have been revealed. If a legible journal exists, it has never been released. However, the extremely odd deviation from standard Soviet ballistic missile submarine operations, particularly in composition of the crew, points strongly to a takeover of the submarine as early as March 1, when the first mandatory contact with headquarters was missed.