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00:00Submarines, stalking each other in the icy depths of the oceans as the superpowers strive for political supremacy.
00:13After many years of silence, the secrets of the submarines' Cold War are now gradually surfacing.
00:19There's not much place to hide anymore.
00:22Their battleground is the ocean floor and the perpetual ice.
00:26The Cold War was only cold for the diplomats.
00:29They were freezing because they had nothing to do.
00:32But for sailors like us serving on subs, things got so hot that we were literally dripping with sweat.
00:38A confrontation that puts the crews at terrible risk.
00:45The bodies of our comrades were so radioactive that they contaminated us as well.
00:50The entire boat had to be decontaminated.
00:55A confrontation that puts all mankind at risk.
00:59I don't want my children to die as a casualty of war or of human ignorance.
01:06May 1945.
01:18The crews of Nazi Germany's last submarines surrender.
01:23They had been sent out to victory or death.
01:25It had been victory for none of them, but death for seven out of ten.
01:29The victors celebrate, but while many believe that peace will finally reign, tension is mounting behind the scenes.
01:38And with east confronting west, the Cold War begins.
01:42Among the victors' spoils of war, the new Type-21 submarine.
01:47It can remain submerged for days and runs faster underwater than on the surface.
01:53Representing the first genuine submarine, it is feverishly examined by the victors eager to copy its technology.
01:59Soon, both sides are producing submarines able to sneak close to the enemy's coast undetected.
02:07The Americans launch the new Guppy-class, while the Soviets turn the Germans Type-21 into Project 613.
02:14The Whiskey-class, as NATO calls it.
02:211949.
02:23The Soviets detonate their first nuclear bomb.
02:27From now on, there are two superpowers, and the arms race is on.
02:33The United States build their first nuclear reactors to power their submarines.
02:45The peaceful use of nuclear energy comes a far second.
02:50The initial goal is to create a superweapon.
02:53In 1954, the USS 571 Nautilus is launched, the world's first nuclear submarine.
03:00Technically, it's a nuclear-powered Type-21 submarine.
03:04It can remain undetected underwater for months, since its reactor only needs to refuel every 20 years.
03:11It produces a surplus of oxygen as well as electricity in abundance.
03:15Life on board a sub like this is almost luxurious.
03:18For the Soviets, the Nautilus is a nightmare.
03:21When the Nautilus was being built, an expert, who was apparently no expert on nuclear reactors, mockingly claimed in our media that a reactor was as big as a block of houses.
03:36He said a reactor as small as the one installed in the Nautilus could never work.
03:42That the Americans were just bluffing.
03:53In 1959, the Skate, a boat of the Nautilus class, is the first submarine to surface at the North Pole.
04:00Even today, the icy underwater wasteland of the Arctic is still an ideal hideout for submarines.
04:07Below the ice, they are invisible and almost immune to sonar detection.
04:12Since sound waves are refracted by billions of ice crystals, nature creates a near soundproof carpet, stretching all the way to the Soviet Union's northern coast.
04:22At the beginning of the Cold War, both superpowers placed their hopes in guided missiles.
04:31American submarines can now carry ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads all the way to the Soviet coastline.
04:37But weapons like the Regulus, developed directly from the German V-1, have one decisive disadvantage.
04:44The subs have to surface near the enemy coast in order to launch the missile.
04:50And that makes them vulnerable.
04:52Ignition.
04:54American scientists are looking for a remedy to that problem.
05:11When both nations were just spending all their time and coming up with a deterrent, no one thought about ballistic missiles in submarines.
05:26Tests are made to launch nuclear missiles from ships.
05:32When you have a surface ship, the habitat of the surface ship at that time was a pitching, rolling, heaving ship.
05:38No matter how big or whatever it was.
05:41And the habitat in which you launched liquid-fueled missiles has to be an absolutely stable habitat.
05:48John Craven is in charge of the Polaris missile project.
05:52When Craven proposes to install the Polaris on nuclear submarines, the Navy is thrilled.
05:57Until now, the capacity for nuclear strikes has been a privilege of the Air Force.
06:02And then things got hairier and hairier as it looked like the Russians were going to do more.
06:09And so they came to us and they said, can you get more than one submarine in 20 years?
06:15And we said, well, we can take four submarines that we have now and cut them in half and put in a missile section.
06:24And we can have those four submarines at sea in less than four years.
06:28And so, indeed, four submarines are cut in half and rebuilt with missile sections.
06:36A segment with 16 missile shafts is simply welded in place behind the tower and thus series production begins.
06:47By the time we finished, which only took maybe 10 or 12 years, we had built 41 submarines and we had what we called the boat of the month club.
06:57We commissioned a full nuclear submarine with 16 missiles once a month for 18 months.
07:03The strategy of deterrence comes into its own.
07:04The concept owes much to Craven, since his ballistic submarines guarantee the capability for a second time.
07:06The strategy of deterrence comes into its own.
07:24The concept owes much to Craven, since his ballistic submarines guarantee the capability for a second strike.
07:33But a decisive part of deterrence is being vulnerable yourself, keeping both superpowers from playing with the idea of an all-out nuclear attack.
07:42I mean, America's ballistic missile submarines are really formidable.
07:47I mean, one boomer can cause 50 million casualties.
07:52Deterrence works.
07:53But there are some who believe in absolute superiority and want to dispense with the concept of mutual vulnerability.
08:00Especially Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb.
08:03Every time I would meet with Edward Teller, he would tell me we're going to have a nuclear war with the Soviet Union within five years.
08:09And I met with him over a period of almost 30 years.
08:12And every time I would meet with him, I would say to Edward, Edward, you told me we'll be having a nuclear war with the Soviets by this time.
08:18And he would look at me and darkly and he'd say, we will have one within the next five years.
08:24Okay.
08:25And it was always five years.
08:27And it was repeated all of the time.
08:29Well, it's because he wanted it.
08:32He wanted it because his family was destroyed by the Soviets.
08:39Okay.
08:40And so he just had this tremendous desire to get even.
08:46The Soviets also have a strong desire to get even.
08:50But not until 1958 do they succeed in completing their first nuclear submarine, four years after the Nautilus was built.
08:58K3 and its sister ships have no missiles on board, though.
09:02They are built in haste and not properly tested before being put into service.
09:06I wouldn't say we struggled with our nuclear technology, but it's true that we had to experiment with the technology and with our own bodies as well.
09:24Technically, the boats are far from perfect.
09:30The crew's safety is a low priority for the Soviet Navy.
09:34The mission is far more important than the lives of the sailors.
09:38An approach which is accepted by the crew of nuclear submarine K-19 with a typically Russian fatalism.
09:45The crews of that first generation of submarines were made up of very simple peasants and workers.
09:57The second and third generations of our submarines were technically better equipped and made use of previous experience.
10:04Some of them even equaled the standard of American submarines in terms of sound absorption and conditions of life on board.
10:19And those submarines were manned by the offspring of the higher echelons, if you know what I mean.
10:29The K-19 is supposed to catch up with the Americans' nuclear and operative lead.
10:35It is operating south of Iceland when a chain of fateful events begins.
10:40I bend forward and I'm taking some notes when I suddenly look up as if something had bitten me.
10:52The instrument in the bottom row, the indicator for the primary cooling system, shows that there is zero pressure.
11:02An instant ago, it had shown 200 atmospheres.
11:10There is a malfunction in the reactor's cooling system, threatening to destroy the boat and everyone aboard.
11:20Eight men volunteer to enter the reactor compartment for emergency repairs.
11:25They just said, everything's okay, everything's okay.
11:40They were so busy that they had no time to think of the consequences.
11:44But of course, they knew they were exposed to a deadly dose.
11:48Everyone knows, the men who save their comrades' lives by repairing the system will not outlive their heroic deed.
12:01Their necks were so swollen that their shoulders began at their ears.
12:13But that wasn't all.
12:15Their vocal cords were damaged.
12:18Their voices had totally changed.
12:21They sounded strange, like dwarves with a falsetto.
12:25Due to the radiation, their faces were unrecognizable.
12:38Swollen so badly, they looked as if they'd been attacked by wasps.
12:42The skin on their faces was dark red.
12:47The colour of old bricks.
12:57But following the makeshift repair, the cooling system breaks down again.
13:02Another volunteer has to enter the reactor room, a man who saw what had happened to his comrades.
13:07Another crew member sacrifices himself.
13:14We didn't know how bad the radiation was because the men who measured the radioactivity were not allowed to tell the rest of the crew what they knew.
13:24We didn't know how contaminated their bodies were, what dose they had received.
13:29We only knew that the indicators on all the boats' measuring instruments couldn't go any higher.
13:34All men with radiation sickness are taken off the boat and sent to a hospital.
13:42The most severely contaminated only last a few days.
13:45Suddenly, Koptev began to bleed.
13:58Blood poured from every orifice of his body.
14:02All his blood vessels had essentially decayed and burst open.
14:05He was bleeding from the nose, the mouth, his eyes and from every other opening, if you know what I mean.
14:13And then they died, one after the other.
14:16First Yuri Nikolaev Koptev, then Boris Rishkov, one after the other.
14:21The Soviets try to catch up with American technology, but neither their missiles nor their submarines measure up to American standards.
14:35So the Navy stages a trick when demonstrating their prowess to Khrushchev.
14:41The first Soviet underwater missile is launched from a diesel-powered submarine moving parallel to a nuclear sub to make Khrushchev believe the USSR has caught up with the Americans.
14:51The Soviets' first ballistic submarines are usually powered by diesel-electric engines, like the boats of World War II, yet they still represent a threat to the Americans.
15:06We want to make sure that no Russian ballistic missile submarine is going to be on station without our knowing that it's on station.
15:16That's why the Americans cover the ocean floor with microphones programmed to detect submarines.
15:22The bugging system is called SOSUS, Sound Surveillance System.
15:27All you hear about the U.S. not having a good intelligence system is just pure bullshit, okay?
15:34The SOSUS network is expanded, the system refined until no Soviet ship and no Soviet submarine can travel the world's oceans without being detected.
15:49While the Americans know the whereabouts of every Soviet submarine, the Russians have no comparable system.
15:56But when Kraven speaks of a good intelligence system, he doesn't only mean SOSUS.
16:00The Americans are also up-to-date about the Soviet Union's internal political and military matters, sometimes even better than the Soviet government itself.
16:09We continuously educated the rulers of the Kremlin that the paranoid part of their community was going to have a coup sooner or later.
16:24And that we educated them in such a way that they could defuse that coup, and that was a major element of winning the Cold War.
16:33Soviet putschists. In March 1968, the diesel-electric-powered ballistic submarine K-129 heads out to sea on a seemingly routine patrol.
16:46Shortly afterwards, U.S. intelligence realizes that K-129 isn't reporting its bearings any longer, but has broken off all contact to its headquarters.
16:55Then, Soviet forces are monitored as they are sent out on a large-scale yet futile search, and the sub keeps heading towards the USA.
17:05That it was a rogue submarine, that it was up to no good of any kind, and also that if it was a rogue submarine, that the Kremlin would not know that it was a rogue submarine.
17:22Or one with a defective radio transmitter? Only one thing is certain. K-129 goes down on the 8th of March 1968 with the entire crew.
17:33According to a U.S. report, due to a hydrogen explosion while recharging its batteries at the strangely precise position of 180 degrees west, 40 degrees north.
17:43It would be technically possible for that submarine to be launching a missile in the direction of Hawaii.
17:56Craven believes that K-129 was about to launch a nuclear missile from the surface, and that the missile exploded because a secret safety mechanism prevented it from taking off.
18:06But there are arguments that refute this assumption.
18:13A boat of that type used the B-4 missile complex, which enabled a submarine to launch missiles only underwater, from a depth of 45 meters.
18:23So, did K-129 sink while attempting to launch the missile underwater, from a depth of 45 meters?
18:36Start!
18:39There is circumstantial evidence to make this doubtful.
18:43Most important, at the time of the disaster the boat was running at periscope depth, a maximum of 15 meters.
18:50I saw the photos the Americans took of the K-129, lying on the ocean floor with all its periscopes extended.
19:09That's clear-cut evidence that the boat was no deeper than 15 meters.
19:12So, the boat had neither surfaced, nor was it at launching depth.
19:17Even today, the Russians still believe that K-129 was being shadowed by an American submarine, which then rammed it intentionally, in order to sink it.
19:25An American, whose name I'm not allowed to mention, told me, you Russians are right if you believe your boat was rammed by one of ours.
19:39But, of course, it was allegedly unintentional, an accident, as may happen at sea.
19:44One boat accidentally rams another, and that goes down.
19:47Then the CIA attempts to salvage K-129 from a depth of 5,000 meters, the most expensive salvage operation ever.
20:01The project devours $500 million, including the construction of a special ship, the Glomar Explorer.
20:08The cover story, manganese lumps are to be scraped from the ocean floor.
20:13However, the ship's payload area is the size of a submarine.
20:17Sassos only gave the Americans a rough idea of the wreck's position.
20:21That they found the submarine is proof that they knew where it was before it ever sank.
20:26What happened while salvaging took place, and what was really salvaged, is still a secret today.
20:32Neither photographs nor films of the sunken ship were ever published.
20:36According to the official CIA version, the Americans actually found the boat and lifted it from the ocean floor.
20:44But then, allegedly, one of the claws came off, and the boat broke in two.
20:51Only the bow could then be salvaged.
20:54The missiles had been lost and smashed into pieces on the ocean floor.
20:58Even elementary calculations show that when two-thirds of the submarine's mass breaks off,
21:05which means about 1,500 tons, then the change in weight and buoyancy causes such an imbalance that the salvage mechanism would be torn off.
21:16Many salvage experts share this view.
21:19Another strange aspect is the complete lack of debris on the ocean floor.
21:24One member of the salvage crew just said the remains of the wreck had dissolved in the sea like Alka-Seltzer.
21:31Or did the Americans salvage the entire boat after all?
21:35If you want my opinion, the case of the K-129 is so complicated because the truth is hidden behind a mountain of lies.
21:48In terms of disinformation, it's perhaps only comparable to the Korska fear.
21:53According to the US version, six bodies were found in the bow of the boat and ceremonially buried at sea, as seen in this video which the CIA sent to the Soviets back then.
22:03We've been in contact with the Americans for years now, including the captain of the salvage vessel and his crew.
22:11And I keep asking them, you discovered our submarine, you saw how badly it was damaged.
22:16All right, during the salvage operation it allegedly broke in half and the stern dropped, but you got a good look at it beforehand.
22:22There are thousands of photos and video recordings. You know what caused it to sink, what actually happened.
22:30And the American standard answer is, great weather today, Igor, do you think tomorrow will be even nicer?
22:41Salvaging sunken objects from the bottom of the ocean. The Americans seem rather bitten by the idea.
22:47John Craven is charged with a secret project which has only gradually become public.
22:53NR-1 is the smallest nuclear submarine of the US fleet.
22:57It can dive down to 1,000 meters, three times as deep as a normal submarine.
23:03It has a grip arm and wheels which can be lowered, enabling it to drive on the ocean floor like an all-terrain vehicle.
23:09One of the missions that we had early on is simply the mission of identifying all of the nuclear weapons that were lying on the ocean floor as a result of having been lost by airplanes that have gone down or submarines have gone down.
23:30This hydrogen bomb was still salvaged conventionally by divers, but NR-1 is already in service to erect this saucers mast.
23:41When you get close to the bottom, you're close to objects you don't want to run into, and you have to be able to hold position.
23:47And we had a couple of ways to do it. We would lower the wheels and then set the submarine on the bottom, take on a little extra weight, and then the current wouldn't move you around, and we could actually drive right up to what we wanted to look at.
24:03In high spirits, the young crew tumbles down a slope on the ocean floor.
24:07They have weighted down the bow of the submarine with ballast water to keep it on the bottom, but as a side effect, the boat accelerates.
24:17As we rolled along, we approached a side arm of the canyon that was just literally a vertical cliff, and the sonar just looked out past it and didn't see anything.
24:27The NR-1 plunges into the canyon like a nose-diving plane. The crew tries to stop its fall, but with the bow full of water, they are unable to straighten it up.
24:42There was no way to stop the fall because the thrusters would no longer hold it up.
24:46The NR-1 finally comes down in a sort of emergency landing at the bottom of the canyon, but they aren't out of danger yet.
24:53The impact stirs up a cloud of mud. They can't see a thing.
24:59Moving around much would cause an underwater landslide, if you will, or cause a kind of a mud flow to come down the canyon.
25:10And if that happened, or even if some mud fell in, then the ship would be trapped on the bottom.
25:16By moving back and forth and slowly rocking the boat, they are able to free themselves from the mud.
25:21It was a close call, but they are lucky this time.
25:31It was a scary situation. Later we learned there are many ways to get trapped.
25:35The Link submarine got snagged in some cables off of Florida.
25:41And the members of its crew all died because no one could get to them before they ran out of air.
25:48And that was like several hours. They had complete communication.
25:51They could talk to people, but nobody could get down to rescue them.
25:56NR-1 is a boat that was specially built for espionage.
25:59But the regular submarines, whose job is to shadow the other side's missile boats, are used for espionage as well.
26:17They are sent out on photo intelligence and electronic reconnaissance missions.
26:30And they carry divers for special operations.
26:34Craig Reed was one of them.
26:36And what Navy divers were involved with were a number of operations.
26:41They included various espionage operations.
26:45This could be photent or photo intelligence.
26:49It was also mundane in some respects, and that Navy divers did get involved with retrieval of various different expensive objects that were dropped over the side.
26:59For these kind of operations, the divers are issued with special vehicles, just like James Bond.
27:12One of the most spectacular operations takes place near Petropavlovsk.
27:18The Americans discover a Soviet telephone cable on the ocean floor, connecting the peninsula with the mainland.
27:23The cable runs at a depth of 200 meters deep enough for the Soviets to presume it's safe, an error that is to have severe consequences.
27:33So we tapped it. We basically put an induction coil across it, and we were able to pull the signals out of it, and put those into a recording device.
27:43This operation became very sophisticated to the point where we actually had a device that looked like a 55-gallon drum,
27:49with a plutonium-238 reactor in it.
27:53The Americans record every communication between the Soviet Pacific Fleet and Moscow.
27:59Tubes extending from submarines supply the divers with a helium-oxygen mixture,
28:05until a traitor within the U.S. Secret Service informs the Soviets.
28:12Our submariners were there in the Sea of Okost.
28:15We were retrieving tapes, and the Soviets came out, and it became a very difficult situation.
28:24Yet the charges dropped.
28:26They came very close to making the ultimate sacrifice.
28:30Vladivostok was another vital espionage target.
28:34A particular submarine went into Vladivostok Harbor.
28:37We weren't supposed to be there, of course. No submarine of the U.S. was supposed to be within a mile off the shore.
28:45And this submarine was, of course, trying to take periscope photographs and maneuvering very close, within about 900 yards.
28:51A certain Navy diver was asked by the skipper of this boat to traverse through the escape trunk,
29:00and to go very close to this submarine, within a few feet, with an underwater 35-millimeter camera.
29:06Surface very briefly during the dim light, and take a very close photograph of this odd pod, so that it could be determined what it was.
29:17Reed takes his photos right next to the Soviet boat, and the lookout on the conning tower.
29:26Then, he swims back to his submarine, not noticing that the Soviet boat has started moving.
29:32As Reed is about to enter the diving chamber, there's a jolt.
29:35The submarine actually collided with the submarine that I was on, and caused severe flooding, and caused a very severe incident to happen,
29:50that was actually considered, during the Cold War, to be the worst collision between two opposing foreign vessels, underwater vessels.
29:59The American submarine begins to sink, bow first.
30:06I was shaking, but I no longer felt the cold.
30:09It was just another feeling, deep within, that this was a situation that I might not return from.
30:16Air is running out. Time is running out.
30:18You know the submarine is at a 30-degree angle, that it's running very fast.
30:23You know that there's been a collision, you heard it.
30:26You don't know that even if they can get you out of that escape trunk, that that reprieve might be brief,
30:33before a Soviet torpedo finds you, or a depth charge finds you.
30:38Fellow crew members managed to rescue him from the submarine's diving chamber.
30:43These were the situations that many submariners lived in, almost in every mission that was conducted, during the Cold War.
30:55And this is what most of the world does not know.
30:58The boomers, the US strategic missile submarines, are constantly on patrol.
31:03The delicate balance of mutual deterrence is working, as envisaged by John Craven in the 1950s.
31:11But when the Soviet's power begins to dwindle, the whole concept comes into question.
31:17Craven defends it against its critics, pleading against safeguarding America by an anti-ballistic missile screen.
31:24You have to be vulnerable yourself, and so that's why the anti-ballistic missile treaty was signed,
31:34in which both sides agreed that they would not put up an anti-ballistic missile screen,
31:39which meant that both sides were vulnerable to missiles that would be launched against them.
31:44But the new ideology is gaining more and more supporters, while the Soviet Union grows weaker and weaker.
31:50The hawks in the USA feel it's time to get tough, then Ronald Reagan becomes president.
31:57He fundamentally changes the strategy of the USA.
32:01He no longer relies on the balance of terror, but invests in a protective ABM shield,
32:06and miniature nuclear weapons like this nuclear mine, which can be carried by divers.
32:11The Americans no longer want to survive the Cold War. They want to win it.
32:15As soon as Reagan came in, every single one of us who had fought against the tactical missile, okay,
32:25was dropped from every advisory committee that we ever served on.
32:29We were purged. Just purged.
32:33Richard Sale is the Secret Service correspondent for UPI.
32:37He knows many of those then involved, especially inside the Reagan administration.
32:47The theory that, well, you can only influence what you have very strong diplomatic ties with,
32:55really went out the window.
32:56I think they just suddenly decided we do not have to get along with the Russians.
32:59That's nonsense. And we really shouldn't try to.
33:05The United States has this enormous pent-up force.
33:07It's both financial and it's military, and we should just put them in their place.
33:12We should show them who's boss.
33:14It was very, very, you know, eyeball to eyeball.
33:17Others place their hopes in detente, or even negotiate with the Soviets about banning nuclear weapons from Northern Europe,
33:24like Sweden's Prime Minister, Olof Palme, who tries to win international support for this concept.
33:29Olof Palme was acting for some kind of new world order, as it used to be called nowadays,
33:37some kind of dialogue between the West and the Soviet Union to get rid of the Cold War,
33:45and to, in a certain respect, to change the Soviet Union by dialogue.
33:53And this was an idea that the Americans did not believe in, and they thought it was unacceptable.
34:02The United States was really assuming a very, you know, a head-first attitude.
34:06I mean, we were very truculent, we were very bellicose, and we were on the march,
34:11and we were out to humiliate the Soviet Union if we could.
34:15But the Soviet Union seems able to do this without help from the United States.
34:20On the 27th of October, 1981, the Soviet Sub-137 runs aground,
34:2630 kilometers off Sweden's naval headquarters at Karlskrona.
34:30The Soviet Union was caught with its pants down,
34:32and the only reason I think I won on the story was the immediate reaction in the US press was so organized,
34:40so loud, and so well-coordinated, it struck me as orchestrated,
34:45and they were lying in wait for this to happen.
34:47Richard Sayle is convinced that it was no Soviet MISOP.
34:52He suspects a secret operation planned by the Pentagon and the CIA.
34:57I was later told, after doing a lot of digging by people who worked at Hanscom Air Force Base,
35:02and worked for MITRE Corporation, and worked, you know, in the R&D departments of the US Navy,
35:11that we simply had the electronic technology that was able to simulate a clear channel to the captain of that submarine,
35:20so that when he looked at his instruments, he thought he was in clear water.
35:22Could that be true?
35:25We search for, and find, the Soviet submarine commander, Piotr Gostchin.
35:31For the first time in public, he tells what actually happened.
35:34Gostchin was having compass trouble, so he was assigned an additional navigator,
35:39a senior ranking captain, who somehow seems to make one mistake after the other.
35:43Sheer incompetence, or outright intent.
35:46First, he steers the sub right into a group of fishing boats with their trawling nets.
35:55While extracting the boat from the nets, the main navigation system's frame antenna was bent.
36:00The second time we were caught in the nets, the echo sounder's receiver broke down,
36:18so we could no longer determine our location.
36:21Now there's only one intact navigation system left, the so-called PIRS, or Projection Information Resource System.
36:34Otherwise, they depend on the stars, like a hundred years ago.
36:39But the sky is overcast, and the two officers argue about their correct position.
36:44They keep getting different readings, and in the end, the senior navigator gets his way.
36:48And just at that moment, the last intact system for determining our position, PIRS, broke down too.
36:58The stranded sub is a media scoop.
37:04It was clearly a propaganda coup, and clearly designed to be one, and it was very well executed.
37:09It was very well executed.
37:11U-137, das der unglückselige Kapitän Piotr Guszczyn auf eine Klippe vor Karlskrona gesteuert hatte,
37:19beherrscht in diesen Tagen uneingeschränkt die Bildschirme und die Schlagzeilen in Schweden.
37:23Ja, wir haben ja hier in der Redaktion viele Lesestimmen und so weiter gehört und viele aggressive Stimmen.
37:33Und das ist vielleicht natürlich, finde ich persönlich, etwas gefährlich auch.
37:35Kein Wunder also, dass die Frage, wie man seine Neutralität verteidigen kann, das Gesprächsthema dieser Tagebank.
37:47Für die Politiker war die unerwartete Möglichkeit, das Stimmungsbarometer in dieser Frage zu studieren von großem Interesse.
37:54Denn Anfang des Jahres wollte der Reichstag ohnehin die Verteidigungsplanung für den Rest der 80er Jahre debattieren.
38:00The impact upon the Swedish public and the European public, including the Danes, I mean the whole of Scandinavia, was just extraordinary.
38:11Neutral Sweden somehow seems to stand in the way of the interests of a superpower.
38:17But of which one?
38:19The Soviets, whose submarines now literally seem to be popping up everywhere off the Swedish coast?
38:25Two men were closely involved in these events.
38:27Ola Tunander was an advisor on submarine issues to the Swedish government.
38:34Lieutenant Colonel Sven Olof Kvimann was the district commander who chased the foreign subs.
38:40Which now are also launching divers.
38:44There is little doubt that the intruders are Soviets.
38:47We thought we were being visited by divers who were inspecting our defense system.
38:57You call that war preparations.
39:00I was convinced they were Russian special forces on a clandestine mission.
39:05We drew this conclusion from their behavior and from their equipment.
39:09It is now considered a fact that Soviet special units were training in Swedish waters.
39:24But they probably weren't the only intruders.
39:27The British were definitely there as well.
39:30And probably the Americans too.
39:32I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't have marines in from Norway running around as well.
39:40Keeping an eye on the Russians running around, you know, pretending they're Scandinavians.
39:45That's the way it would work.
39:46Then a single periscope is sighted off the naval base at Moscow.
39:52A few hours later, a senior commander gives the order to prepare a press conference for 500 journalists.
39:59They arrive four days later, make films, and report that the Swedes are hunting Soviet submarines.
40:09Submarine sightings increase.
40:10Some move with their periscopes extended. Others even show their conning tower.
40:17You shouldn't show your periscope more than a centimeter above the surface.
40:23And you should not demonstrate your sails in populated areas.
40:30This is, you know, every submarine captain knows that.
40:34And this is what these submarines did.
40:36So rief denn die oberste Flottenführung in ihrer Not zu Beginn des Sommers die Zivilbevölkerung zur Mithilfe auf bei der Fahndung nach Unterwassereindringlingen.
40:46Unsere schwedischen Gewässer werden fortgesetzt von fremden U-Booten gekränkt, hieß es in dem durch Plakate und Broschüren verbreiteten nationalen Appell,
40:55wir brauchen deine Hilfe durch deine Wachsamkeit.
40:56Der Feldstecher wurde zum wichtigsten Urlaubsrequisit, galt es doch die Ehre des Königreichs zu retten, was die Marine allein nicht schaffte.
41:06Suddenly, traces are detected at the bottom of Swedish waters.
41:11According to the military, they are proof of Soviet intruders, since the West had no boats with wheels or tracks.
41:17The country seems at war with an elusive enemy.
41:25The percentage of Swedes who feel acutely threatened by the Soviet Union increases from five to forty percent.
41:32Prime Minister Palmer is in trouble.
41:35The Swedish government was very much on the defensive,
41:43in which the country was in trouble.
41:46The Swedish government was very much on the defensive.
41:48The Swedish government was very much on the defensive.
42:05They tried to put up some kind of nice ideas about how Europe should look like,
42:13and then they couldn't defend their own territory.
42:16So the whole idea became impotent.
42:21On October 11, another submarine is spotted in Swedish waters.
42:26Sonar specialists in Muska locate it heading for a mine barrier.
42:31Lieutenant Colonel Kviman is determined to capture or destroy the intruder.
42:37We heard typical scraping sounds and low-frequency sounds at a very early stage,
42:43typical of a submarine.
42:45So we realized that something was going on.
42:47At noon on the 11th, I remember precisely that it was 12.20,
42:51we received a signal we couldn't turn off.
42:54It meant that there was really something there underwater.
42:57We turned the sensor off and on again three times,
43:00but since the warning was still there, we detonated a 600-kilogram underwater mine.
43:10The explosion causes a 60-meter-high head of water and can be felt at a distance of 10 kilometers.
43:18Apparently, the foreign submarine is in trouble.
43:21It grinds over the ocean floor and stops.
43:24The submarine's hull and the propeller seem to have been damaged.
43:27Divers later find pieces of metal on the ocean floor.
43:30Later that evening, our detecting system told us that something was going on inside the boat.
43:40There was a crackling sound.
43:42Someone was using a tool as if something was being repaired.
43:46Sometime during the night, I can't exactly remember when, we recorded 20-25 minutes of those sounds.
43:54The tapes were checked and analyzed, and the submarine sounds were confirmed.
43:59And these bands were controlled, analyzed, and recognized as a new boat's sound.
44:06A yellow-green spot appears above the submarine.
44:09The Swedes take pictures and samples of the spot.
44:12It's an emergency signal used only by the US Navy at that time.
44:16Later, both the photos and the samples disappear without a trace.
44:21After the 11th, directly after the explosion,
44:24we were told for some reason to hold fire for the rest of the night.
44:28I had this strange suspicion that someone didn't want the coastal defenses to succeed.
44:39But that's just a theory.
44:41Then, as I began arguing that we should keep firing even during darkness,
44:47Chief of Staff Bror Stephenson told me the reason why we'd been ordered to fire only in daylight,
44:53when visibility was good.
44:55We don't want to create a bloodbath among the Soviet sailors, do we?
45:00Two days later, Kviman again hears a submarine.
45:07But he isn't allowed to detonate any more mines.
45:10When he sends up some helicopters and decides to drop depth charges from boats instead,
45:15the situation escalates.
45:22The helicopters take off and make contact.
45:25I'm there with my staff listening, and we hear, we have contact.
45:31300 meters remaining, 200 meters, 100 meters.
45:36The patrol boats are approaching the position.
45:40It was very tense, because the carpet of depth charges was going to be laid.
45:4650 meters.
45:47And we were waiting for the explosion.
45:50And then, suddenly, the naval base radios in and tells the skipper,
45:54you know exactly that you are only cleared to drop one depth charge.
45:59Kviman is again told to hold fire for five hours until the foreign submarine is gone.
46:11the flying quarantine.
46:17Something else really keeps bothering me.
46:19The tapes from October 11th still exist.
46:20But there's nothing on them.
46:22That's quite strange.
46:25And another thing that's strange is the war log at headquarters.
46:30Apparently, the report from that evening is missing.
46:34The two pages from the night of October 13th to the 14th, which, of course, makes me wonder.
46:51For a while, General Hansen suspects that there are Soviet agents at naval headquarters.
46:56The chief of staff politely asked me to come to his office.
47:05Come on.
47:06I want to talk to you about something.
47:08Then he said, as you've surely heard, there are rumors that NATO submarines might be involved in these occurrences.
47:17Of course, these are nothing but rumors, and we must categorically deny them.
47:23In 1985, Sweden's foreign minister, Lennar Bodström, is forced to resign after publicly declaring that the nationality of the intruding submarines was not known.
47:44Afterwards, the defense minister, Anders Thunberg, said that we didn't have enough evidence, but what should we do?
47:51I mean, we couldn't dive ourselves, you know.
47:54We have to trust the military officers responsible for this.
47:58And the military officers who was responsible told them that it was Soviet submarines.
48:06The conflict culminates when high-ranking Swedish officers turn to the media and accuse Prime Minister Palmer of betraying Sweden.
48:14In September 1981, a month after the Whiskey Class submarine incident, Caspar Weinberger visits Sweden, the first U.S. Secretary of Defense to do so.
48:24In the year 2000, he gave a surprising interview confirming that U.S. submarines had often entered Swedish waters after consultations with the Swedish Navy.
48:33There was no direct intrusion or testing of Swedish waters or defenses without consultation with the Swedish waters.
48:45Speaking of an agreement, I don't think there was any agreement, but I think there was a consultation which led to an understanding that for an individual case for a specific situation, a particular maneuver, that there would be agreement that that could be done.
49:03The consultations, the discussions that were had were designed with all countries, not just Sweden, with all countries, were designed to ensure that NATO was able to perform this mission and had ample opportunities to test through maneuvers and through other activities as to whether the defenses were adequate.
49:22The result of all that I think was very satisfactory, because aside from that one intrusion of the Whiskey Class submarine, there were no violations, no capabilities of the Soviets to make an attack which could not be defended against.
49:40When I started to go into these details, you find that almost everything was invented. There were no signal intelligence information. It was just a lie.
49:53What if it was a NATO submarine that Bror Stephenson knew about, one that had received permission to operate in the darkness of that notorious night?
50:09In that case, it all fits together. I can now view the whole thing with a bit of self-irony and self-criticism. In 1987 and the years that followed, I felt like a useful idiot, which I believe was exactly what Bror Stephenson thought I was.
50:30Chief of Staff Bror Stephenson and Vice Admiral Per Rudberg, seen here with Weinberger, were the highest ranking Swedish officers to inform their government about the submarine incidents.
50:43This was an operation that was done very clearly against the Swedish government. The Swedish government was not informed. Even when you go through the secret documents from the government meetings shows that they didn't understand anything of what was going on.
51:04So it was an operation that was run by a few naval officers on the Swedish side and the Americans and the British.
51:23Submarines. Submarines. Secret weapons for psychological warfare against a presumptuous government that feels entitled to choose its own path.
51:31It was an enormous instrument for manipulating a country. You transform the whole mass media in a country by creating incidents.
51:49It's an enormous bundle of incidents.
51:50That was an altitude on the cabinet of the area forδή
52:07government that banged the chamber.
52:12What was this?
52:16That is a testament to a science ahead of time.
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