K-19: The Widowmaker
Captain Peter Huchthausen, USN (Ret.). Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2002. 244 pp. Photos. Appendix. Bib. Index. $16.00 ($14.40).
Reviewed by Vice Admiral E.A. Burkhalter, Jr.,U.S. Navy (Retired)
Captain Peter Huchthausen, a retired naval intelligence officer and former naval attaché in Moscow from 1987 to 1990, has written a fascinating and comprehensive history of the Soviet Navy's nuclear submarine fleet. Starting in the late 1950s, the author documents the safety problems encountered as it rapidly expanded its program following the commissioning of the USS Nautilus (SSN571) in 1955.
The author features the detailed memoirs of Captain Nikolai Zateyev, commanding officer of the first Soviet nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, the K-19. His boat suffered a major nuclear reactor accident in 1961, resulting in the deaths of eight of her crew and severe radiation sickness among other crewmembers, all of which was covered up by the Soviet government. (This sub proved to be unlucky: in 1972, she suffered a major fire that killed 28 crewmen.) Captain Huchthausen wrote this book while serving as a technical adviser to the movie of the same name based on the K-19's 1961 accident, starring Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson, released in July.
Captain Zateyev's actions saved his boat. His extensive memoir over the rest of his career, with perceptive comments by the author, is a scathing indictment of the Soviet Navy's inadequate attention to the hazards of nuclear power in the design and production of their submarine fleet as they responded to the expansion of the U.S. sub force during the early years of the Cold War.
According to Captain Huchthausen, during the initial phase of its program (1952-1968), the Soviet Navy lost seven nuclear submarines and 200 men, and gravely irradiated more than 400 other crewmen. Many of these men subsequently died of radiation poisoning, but the Soviet government did not acknowledge the cause of their deaths. The author relates numerous other casualties and losses throughout the book.
Captain Huchthausen discusses repeated claims by Soviet senior naval officers that several of their submarine losses occurred in collisions with U.S. submarines, starting with the loss of their K-109 Golf class in the Pacific in 1968; the latest such claim was made after the loss of the Kursk in 2000. None of these claims have proved to be valid. In 2002, after the Russians raised the Kursk, their Navy's official position was that the sub's loss was caused by the explosion of a Shkval experimental torpedo.
The author concludes with a lengthy discussion of the potential hazards from the large number of nuclear reactors that the Russian Navy has dumped in the shallow waters of the Barents Sea and off Vladivostok in the Pacific. He also discusses the radiation hazards from the large number of Russian submarines now rusting at their moorings.
This book is an excellent and thoroughly documented treatment of this aspect of the Cold War. Captain Huchthausen, a Russian linguist, interviewed scores of former Soviet naval officers, government officials, and the designers of their nuclear submarine fleet. While discussing the appalling safety problems associated with the Russian nuclear fleet, he pays tribute to the brave submariners who attempted to save both comrades and their ships involved in hazardous accidents at sea. Captain Huchthausen reminds us that, well known to those who go to sea in submarines, it always will be a risky business.
The Rumsfeld Way: Leadership Wisdom of a Battle-Hardened Maverick
Jeffrey A. Krames. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 244 pp. Bib. Index. $18.95 ($17.05).
Reviewed by Major General Perry M. Smith, U.S. Air Force (Retired)
Anyone who writes a book review of a biography (or a quasi-biography) should state clearly how well he knows the subject of that book. I worked briefly for Donald Rumsfeld in 1975 and 1976. After Secretary of Defense Jim Schlesinger was fired in the autumn of 1975, Rumsfeld replaced him. He arrived at the Pentagon with great self-confidence, the ear of President Ford, and lots of political savvy. He impressed all of us in the front office (I was a military assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense) with his first-rate executive skills.
Jeffrey Krames, in his short analysis of the current Secretary of Defense as a leader, highlights these skills and points out correctly that Rumsfeld has succeeded in all of the many roles he has chosen for himself. Before he reached age 45, he had been a first-class intercollegiate athlete, fine Navy pilot, influential young congressman, ambassador to NATO, Chief of Staff to the President, and Secretary of Defense. Of all the Republican politicians in U.S. history, only Theodore Roosevelt had achieved more successes by such a young age. During the 25 years between the time Rumsfeld left government (in 1977) and returned, he was highly successful as a leader in the corporate world. His strong work ethic, ability to think and act strategically, basic pragmatism, willingness to make tough decisions, and commitment to high ethical standards were hallmarks of his successful career as a corporate CEO.
Unfortunately, this short, repetitious book is disappointing in many ways. The author's research is strong in only two time periods: the Ford administration (when Rumsfeld served as White House Chief of Staff and as Secretary of Defense); and the time when Rumsfeld was the CEO of the pharmaceutical company Searle. There is no evidence that Krames interviewed Rumsfeld or any of his close colleagues; he apparently did no serious research on the history or workings of the Pentagon or on any former Secretaries of Defense. And the reader is not given any sense of how Rumsfeld spends his day or whose advice he values most.
The author also fails to explain the key relationships that Rumsfeld has with Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and how these three strong personalities have been able to hang together despite the many attempts of the media and some members of Congress to drive wedges between them. The book mentions the Commander-in-Chief of Central Command, General Tommy Franks, only once and the influential Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, only three times. And none of the six members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is highlighted.
In fairness, the book does have some strengths. It serves as a handy guide to leadership of large and complex organizations. Krames picks some powerful quotes from Rumsfeld's speeches, news conferences, and interviews and the summaries at the end of each chapter are succinct and helpful. Is this book worth three or four hours of your time? Probably not. The next time you visit a bookstore, however, you might enjoy the Rumsfeld quotes and the summary points at the start and end of each chapter. Donald Rumsfeld deserves a good biographer. Hopefully, someone such as David McCullough, Martin Blumenson, Carlo D'Este, or Bob Sorley will rise to the challenge.
India's Maritime Security
Rahul Roy Chaudhury. New Delhi, India: Knowledge World/Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, 2000. 203 pp. Annexes. Notes. Maps. Index. $44.00. Can be purchased by contacting South Asia Books, P.O. Box 502, Columbia, MO 65205, (573) 474-0116.
Reviewed by Stanley Weeks
India's Maritime Security is a superbly written comprehensive survey of the maritime dimensions of India's national defense. This book should be of particular interest in view of the recent increasing U.S.-India military and naval cooperation, as well as the continuing tensions in South Asia. The author, Rahul Roy Chaudhury, who did his postgraduate work at Oxford and spent several years as a fellow at India's prestigious government Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, where he authored his first book (Sea Power and Indian Security, 1995), now serves in a key position on the Indian Prime Minister's National Security Council.
The author's theme is that India is a maritime state, with increasing dependence on the sea for trade and resources, and that it should pay greater attention to the maritime dimensions of national security. The book's logical and very readable approach begins with a chapter on the economic dimensions of maritime security, which highlights the increasing dependence of India on offshore oil and gas fields and seaborne energy imports, and associated shipping and port infrastructure needs. The following chapter, on the political dimension of maritime security, lays out India's broadened maritime rights and responsibilities under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, details maritime boundary disputes (especially with Pakistan), and discusses the role of both the Indian Navy and the Indian Coast Guard (a service independent of the Navy) in dealing with maritime issues such as surveillance, safety, search and rescue, and marine law enforcement (including piracy).
Readers likely will find the chapter on the military dimension of maritime security of particular interest, with its analysis of the recent and future prospects for the presence in the Indian Ocean of the navies of Pakistan, China, France, and especially the United States. The discussion of the increasing dependence of China on the Indian Ocean sea routes for energy imports, China's access in Burma (Myanmar), and potential for future increases in China's Indian Ocean naval presence is particularly clear, and might account for the matter-of-fact acknowledgement of the U.S. naval presence at the Indian Ocean base of Diego Garcia-a presence that was strongly resisted by India at the time of its establishment in the 1970s.
The chapter on trends in Indian naval power alone makes this book worth reading, as it highlights the Indian Navy's traditional shortfalls in funding and low share (approximately 15%) of the Indian defense budget, while speculating on the desirability of an Indian ballistic missile submarine for future nuclear deterrence. The chapter on maritime and naval cooperation, in outlining the great expansion in the last decade of bilateral exchanges and exercises of the Indian Navy with other navies (including the U.S. Navy) points out the little-known fact that for a quarter century before 1991, India's Navy conducted almost no exercises with foreign navies (the first exercise even with the Russian Navy, on which India depended for about two-thirds of its naval equipment, took place only in 1993).
The book concludes with a call for the formulation of a comprehensive national maritime security policy for India as the governing directive to harness India's bureaucratic maze in support of a coordinated approach to maritime security worthy of a maritime nation. In view of the author's current position on the Prime Minister's National Security Council, this recommendation and the book's other excellent insights could well be of more than academic interest to readers.