07/16/2002

BY MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal Arts Writer

History Channel examines K-19 and the Soviet military
Thanks to Hollywood hype, what was once a hush-hush Soviet top secret about a threatened nuclear meltdown aboard one of their submarines in the North Atlantic in 1961 is about to become the stuff of wide-screen entertainment.

Paramount will hold the New England premiere of its $100-million big-screen version of the calamity, K-19: The Widowmaker, on Thursday night at Providence Place. It will be a benefit for the USS Saratoga Museum Foundation, which owns the former Soviet diesel sub that doubled for the K-19 in the film and now resides at Collier Point Park in Providence.

Tonight, The History Channel cable network will present its own version of the tale in The Real Story of the K-19, a documentary airing at 9 p.m.

The documentary is the first in a three-part series called Inside the Soviet Military Machine, which will run at 9 p.m. tonight through Thursday. Remarkably, according to The History Channel, Hollywood got much of the K-19 story right. There are many parallels to real life in the movie, which opens nationally Friday and stars Harrison Ford as the skipper of the ill-fated K-19.

However, there are some major departures from reality, too, as seen in the documentary, which "stars" surviving crew members and the real sub's skipper, who filmed an interview with Russian television shortly before his death in 1998.

Many mishaps

Despite the title of tonight's program, the program goes beyond the K-19 incident to provide a well-rounded look at how the Soviet military's rushed and often botched attempts to catch up to the United States in nuclear submarine capabilities sowed the seeds of disaster.

Over the years, more than 600 Soviet sailors died on various sub mishaps, including 39 in a catastrophic 1967 fire that raked the K-3, the Soviet Union's first nuclear sub.

Following the nuclear near-meltdown of K-19's reactor in 1961, its faulty equipment was dumped into the ocean and the sub, outfitted with a new reactor, was returned to service . . . only to experience its own disastrous fire 11 years later, which took the lives of many more crewmembers.

The K-3, launched in the late 1950s, was the first Soviet sub to reach the North Pole and there are shots of its sailors, playing on the windswept ice, that are reminiscent of moments in the movie K-19: The Widowmaker.

As for the K-19, the Soviet's first ballistic missile submarine was pushed so hurriedly into service to fulfill demands by the Kremlin leadership that a backup cooling system for its nuclear reactor, which the crew had requested, was never installed. This proved a fatal mistake. When the coolant pipes ruptured, the reactor became hotter and hotter, threatening meltdown until nine crewmembers volunteered to face certain death and enter the reactor chamber to jury-rig some water pipes . . . a solution that lasted only a short time before that broke down and more crewmembers had to risk deadly radiation poisoning to fix things.

These events, recounted in interviews with survivors and relatives of the deceased heroes, are very close to the big-screen version of the story, including the way in which the crewmembers were eventually rescued. However, other things are not so close to the truth.

A kinder captain

Capt. Nikolai Zatayev, in earlier filmed interviews with Russian television, seems a much kinder and down-to-earth person than the ramrod-straight, no-nonsense figure cut by Ford in the movie.

Surviving crewmembers dispute the hints of alcoholism among the crew in the screen version as well as their incompetence. Although the subs themselves were of shoddy construction, the crewmembers describe the sailors as knowledgeable and brave.

The survivors view the Paramount film as ideological sabotage by the Americans, designed to slur the reputation of the Soviet military machine, although in truth, this was probably done to bring more tension to the script.

American military experts actually praise the design of Soviet subs, which could move faster and carry more weaponry than their U.S. counterparts. No one, however, disagrees with the assessment of rushed construction that led to mechanical problems.

How close to catastrophe?

Perhaps the biggest difference between the film and real life is that experts on both sides dispute the movie's inference that a nuclear reactor meltdown would have exploded the K-19's nuclear missiles, leading to an atomic explosion that could have sent a radioactive cloud across Norway and much of northern Europe and served as a potential flashpoint for World War III.

Most say that a nuclear explosion, in the unlikely event one occurred, would have been contained underwater in the depths of the sea.

It just sounds scarier and more exciting this way, which is why it has become part of the Hollywood hype.

And not just Hollywood. Publicity for The History Channel's documentary also hints at a risk of World War III had the K-19 blown up. Although it isn't true, it certainly makes for a better story.

Tomorrow night's topic on Inside the Soviet Military Machine is The Anthrax Connection, about the creation of biological weapons. Thursday night's program, Dolphin Soldiers, is about attempts by both the Soviet Union and the United States to train dolphins for warfare. All programs begin at 9 p.m.