[Bill Nichols]

Review from The New London Day:

‘Cry From The Deep' Provides A Definitive Account Of The Loss Of Submarine Kursk

By ROBERT A. HAMILTON
Day Staff Writer, Navy/Defense/Electric Boat
Published on 1/23/2005

With seemingly endless newspaper and television coverage of the Kursk catastrophe for months after the Russian submarine sank in the Barents, and at least two major books published in the last couple of years, it seems like there should be nothing left to say on the subject.

But investigative reporter Ramsey Flynn breaks a lot of news in “Cry from the Deep,” which is really the definitive tome on everything leading up to the loss of the Kursk and its 118 crewmen, and so much that happened afterward.

Among the details to break in his book are the fact that the blast was recorded by another Russian vessel, which dismissed it as inconsequential; the fact that senior Russian military officials initially kept Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin in the dark about the disaster; the failure to establish diplomatic contact between the United States and Russia for two days; and a claim that the Pentagon wanted to withhold aid until there was a declaration that the U.S. Navy had no culpability.

“Because the book is not written as breaking news, there are all these firecrackers that don't particularly jump out at people,” Flynn said in an interview from his office in Maryland. The book consumed three years of his life and put him $100,000 in debt to cover the trips to Russia and travel in this country, he said.

The problem with previous works on the Kursk is they tended to fall into one of two categories: focusing almost exclusively on the technology of the torpedo explosion that sent it to the bottom; or focusing entirely on the people involved. Flynn strikes a reasonable balance between the two viewpoints.

“Senior Warrant Officer Erasov dies standing upright, still clutching the Kursk's secret codes box in a third compartment passageway thick with many of his comrades,” Flynn writes at one point. “Other third and fourth compartment sailors — more than 40 young men — die jammed together into the upper passageways, where they'd lined up in the hope of salvation through the top-mounted escape pod. Their air masks and emergency escape suits are shredded by the cartwheeling debris.”

Flynn said it was difficult compiling those simple but telling facts, both from a journalist's standpoint, and as a human being.

“It was draining, from beginning to end, and lonely,” he said. “There is a difficult tradeoff when part of your mission is to clinically document what happened to these people, and at the same time humanize them, forcing yourself to care for them and their families.”

There are times when Flynn takes some journalistic license, presuming at one point to put the reader on the USS Memphis, the Groton-based submarine that was close to the Kursk at the time of the wreck, and recorded its death throes.

“Captain (Mark) Breor and others on the Memphis keep listening, but the Kursk is silent. Breor is not completely sure what all the data mean, and he's reluctant to make any risky moves to find out,” Flynn writes.

The Navy has never officially acknowledged that the Memphis was that close, but Flynn said he badgered enough people on the Memphis for details so he feels comfortable with his narrative.

He also describes a meeting in Washington, D.C., where a seasoned State Department official, Debra Cagan, who heads the office for security affairs with the former Soviet Union, advocates caution in approaching Russia about offering aid.

“If the United States plans to respond, Cagan favors a by-the-book approach — formal, diplomatic, strictly business. And the initiative must come from the Russian side,” Flynn writes.

Within the uniformed ranks, there was no diffidence: from the deckplate sailors to the senior admirals, they wanted to help the Russians out of their mess.

“They instantly wanted to rescue folks,” Flynn said, but the diplomats held sway. “I'm unhappy about that particular aspect of the decision-making process.”

“I think we've got a policy problem,” Flynn said. “I understand the anxiety about compromising surveillance techniques, but is Russia an enemy or not? Even in this sort of twilight zone between the Cold War and not in the Cold War, what should our policy be?”

Had Breor surfaced his submarine, sent an emergency message on an open frequency, and offered his assistance in a recovery mission immediately, turned it into a humanitarian question, it might have helped to thaw the remaining chill of the 40-year Cold War, Flynn contends.

“It would have been very disarming,” Flynn said.

Flynn's work should put to rest any speculation that the Memphis or another Groton-based boat, the USS Toledo, which was also in the area, had anything to do with the accident. But the release this month of a French documentary claiming a connection proves that some people aren't convinced.

“The Kursk disaster, in Russia, has the same cultural resonance as the JFK assassination in the United States,” Flynn said. “As a journalist, I can't stand the idea that really big events like this can happen and for years nobody nails them down in a way to show the truth.”

Flynn also seems to vest a lot in his hope that Putin's decision to release the note found on the body of a Kursk crewman herald a change to a more democratic process in Russia.

“To hopeful observers in the larger world community watching from afar, this man and his note — and the open public outcry they've generated — could herald a possible turning point in the Russian mind-set every bit as sweeping as the Berlin Wall's collapse,” Flynn said.

Although Putin seems to be slamming that door shut again, as evidenced by his handling of two prominent terrorist incidents at a school and a theater, Flynn said he remains hopeful.

“I don't think the game is over yet for democracy in Russia,” Flynn said. “I think you're going to see authoritarianism last the better part of the next 10 years or so, but you're going to see the Internet and other things make it harder to raise the old Iron Curtain ... I think Putin and his successors are going to have a hard time crafting the dictatorship that their nature makes them want to recreate.”

“Cry from the Deep,” HarperCollins, $25.95