I just finished reading [a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743261127/104-6630986-3643923?v=glance&n=283155"]
Red Star Rougue[/a], and it's a fascinating story.
It's NOT fiction."
Early in 1968 a nuclear-armed Soviet submarine sank in the waters off Hawaii, hundreds of miles closer to American shores than it should have been. Compelling evidence, assembled here for the first time, strongly suggests that the sub, K-129, sank while attempting to fire a nuclear missile, most likely at the naval base at Pearl Harbor."
Yep, on May 7th, 1968 a group of clandestine KGB operatives took over a Soviet sub and actually fired a nuclear-tipped missile at Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately for them, they didn't take into account one of the numerous fail-safe devices built into the missile. The fail-safe device blew up, rendering the missile unusable (just like it was supposed to) but it also had the unfortunate side-effect of blowing a huge friggin' hole right through the bottom of the sub, sending it to the bottom with all hands aboard.
The US mounted an enormous secret operation to recover the sub (which they did) and later found that most of the crew had been herded into a forward compartment, probably by force, just before the KGB attempted to launch the missile.
