One fact that Lederer did not reveal, of course, was Austin's true mission. Lederer described Austin simply as a "communications technician." Austin's background as an electronic-intercept specialist was first disclosed in "USS Cochino," Cryptolog (Fall 1983); Cryptolog is a publication of the Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association, a group that includes some of the spooks who rode submarines. But that article did not discuss what Austin was trying to accomplish on the Cochino, and our account is the first that reveals the Cochino's role in helping to set off a new era of submarine spying.
Lederer's article and book also omitted any mention of the faulty foul-weather gear and boots that dragged some of the Tusk crew members to their deaths. This problem was documented in the Tusk log for August 25, 1949. Retired Rear Admiral Eugene B. Fluckey, who was the Atlantic submarine fleet's legal officer at that time, also confirmed in an interview that the foul-weather gear given to the men on the Tusk was "an experimental suit that nobody had tested. But the only thing is when you're in the water, it turns you upside down. And they got hung with their boots up."
On the Soviet side, we drew our description of the Soviet naval bases near Murmansk from "Kola Inlet and Its Facilities," ONI Review (September 1949). And the Soviets' suspicions that the Cochino was on a spy mission were cited in Associated Press articles that appeared on September 3 and 19, 1949, in the New London Day and on September 21, 1949, in the New York Herald Tribune.
Main interviews: Former crew members of the USS Gudgeon and other diesel submarines and former top officials from the U.S. subma- rive force, the Office of Naval Intelligence, and the Naval Security Group, which employed the Russian linguists and other spooks who rode on the subs.
Government documents, articles, books, and other sources: The dates of the Gudgeon's deployment in the summer of 1957 come from its daily deck logs on file at the National Archives, Suitland Records Center. The logs show how many miles the Gudgeon steamed each day and other basic facts, but they give no hint that it was on an intelligence mission.
A listing of all of the diesel submarines that made surveillance deployments during the Korean War-and descriptions of the difficulties some encountered with icy weather and primitive reconnaissance equipment-are included in the interim evaluation reports that were prepared every six months during the Korean War by the commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. They are in the files of the Operational Archives Branch at the Naval Historical Center.
U.S. intelligence officials have long believed that a U.S. surface ship sank a Soviet sub that came close to an aircraft carrier attack force in 1951, early in the Korean War, according to two former intelligence officers. The United States was so concerned that the Soviet Navy would try to help the North Koreans that surface ships were under orders to protect U.S. warships by depth charging any possible hostile submarines, and in this case, one force depth charged a suspected Soviet sub and then saw no signs that it had survived. Asked about this, current Russian Navy officials said they knew of no sub losses around the time of the Korean War, and then said it would be too difficult to check navy archives or reach a definitive answer.
The U.S. Navy itself used one sub in a direct combat role during the Korean conflict, sending the diesel boat, USS Perch (SS-313), to the shores of North Korea in 1950. On board were U.S. troops and sixtythree British Royal marines. Although Perch was detected, commandos managed to hoard rubber rafts and make their way to shore. A bombing raid staged by the United States that night helped draw fire away, while the men landed, blew up a culvert, mined a tunnel, and destroyed a train. One British marine was killed by enemy troops. This tale is well recounted in Submarines at War: The History of the American Silent Service by Edwin P. Hoyt (New York: Stein and Day Publishers, 1983), pp. 299–303.
The monthly issues of the ON[Review provided an excellent source for tracking the rapid growth of the Soviet submarine fleet throughout the 1950s. The information about the Soviet Whiskey crew that was ravaged by gases on a 30-day test came from retired Soviet Navy Captain First Rank Boris Bagdasaryan, who served on that sub and was interviewed by a Russian military reporter, Alexander Mozgovoy, whom we hired to do research for us. The unconfirmed intelligence reports that the Soviets were modifying some of their Zulu-class subs to carry missiles were mentioned in "Developments and Trends in the Soviet Fleet During 1956," ONI Review (secret supplement] (Spring-Summer 1957): 9-10.
The encouragement of regular Navy officers to receive intelligence training and thus engage in the world's "second-oldest profession," one with "even fewer morals than the first," appeared in the article "Postgraduate Intelligence Training: An Avenue to Rewarding Service," ONI Review (August 1957): 337.
President Eisenhower's hesitancy about approving U-2 flights in the mid-1950s is described in chapter 2 of Graham Yost's Spies in the Skies (New York: Facts on File, 1989), a book about the evolution of U.S. spy satellites.
We drew some background details about the Gudgeon's captain, Norman G. Bessac, from his official biography on file in the Operational Archives Branch at the Naval Historical Center.
The Soviet version of "Hansel and Gretel" was cited in "Trends in Communist Propaganda," ONI Review (May 1955): 226. The Soviet offers to American pen pals to swap pictures were mentioned in "Security Control of Technical Data," ONI Review (April 1951): 127.
The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was commissioned on September 30, 1954, and sent out its historic message, "Underway on nuclear power," at the start of its first training deployment on January 17, 1955. The USS Seatcol f became the second nuclear-powered sub to go into service when it was commissioned on March 30, 1957. The personal background and political savvy of Admiral Hyman Rickover is well covered in two excellent books: Rickover: Controversy and Genius, a full-scale biography by Norman Polmar and Thomas B. Allen (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), and The Rickover Effect: How One Man Made a Difference, a memoir by one of Rickover's former associates, Theodore Rockwell (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1992). The adventures of the Nautilus in becoming the first submarine to reach the North Pole are chronicled in Nautilus 90 North, a book written by its second captain, Commander William R. Anderson, with Clay Blair Jr. (New York: Harper & Row, 1959).