The real hunt for "Red October"

“The Real Hunt for Red October” is a 2021 US documentary about Tom Clancy, his popular novel “The Hunt for Red October”, the film based on the novel, and certain Cold War incidents which may have inspired the author. Much of the content is speculation. Still, it´s an interesting watch!

In 1968, the Soviet submarine K-129 sunk in the Pacific Ocean, at a location northwest of Hawaii. K-129 had nuclear capability, and had strayed a long way from the usual Soviet patrol area. The Soviet navy attempted to locate the sub, but since it searched in the regular patrol area, failed to do so. This suggests (but doesn´t conclusively prove) that K-129 had “gone rogue”, and that not even the Soviet military knew what the submarine was really up to.

Eventually, the United States located the badly damaged submarine at the bottom of the ocean floor and attempted to salvage it. The salvage operation, which was of course a well kept secret, was organized and financed by the CIA. The agency used “Glomar Explorer”, an ostensible drillship owned by billionaire Howard Hughes, as their cover. In 1974, “Glomar Explorer” managed to retrieve parts of K-129, including the bodies of six dead Soviet crewmembers. In 1975, the US media exposed the project, but the proper authorities declined to comment.

While both Soviets and Americans acknowledge the basic story today (the documentary even shows a film of the burial of the dead Soviet crew), much still remain classified, including the exact location where K-129 sunk. Conspiracy theories abound, and “The Real Hunt for Red October” prominently features Kenneth Sewell, author of the book “Red Star Rogue”, who argues for a scenario even scarier than in Tom Clancy´s novel. Sewell speculates that K-129 had been infiltrated by a secret KGB faction which wanted to launch Chinese-type nuclear missiles against the United States (perhaps Pearl Harbor at Hawaii), thereby tricking the US and China into a nuclear war, with the Soviet Union staying out and eventually taking over the world. This sounds extremely farfetched, to be honest! Still, if K-129 really sunk far outside “its” patrol area, it *is* strange that the Soviets didn´t know about it, searching for the vessel in all the wrong places…

“The Real Hunt for Red October” also speculates about Tom Clancy´s sources. Apparently, his novels contain a lot of classified information. The documentary suggests that somebody in the intelligence community was feeding him material, perhaps as part of a propaganda war against the Soviet Union. The Americans *wanted* the Soviets to know how far ahead the United States were in military technology, and putting such info in popular spy novels was a clever way of “hiding in plain sight”. Ronald Reagan´s Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, hints at such a possibility when interviewed by the film crew.

Of course, it´s always possible that “The Real Hunt for Red October” is also brokered by some insider faction…