Gorbachev Nominates 1961 Soviet Sub Crew For Nobel Prize
"Through the courage of the heroic sailors, a reactor explosion and a consequent environmental catastrophe in the ocean were averted," Mr.
Gorbachev wrote.
"An explosion on board the K-19 could have been taken for a military provocation or even an attempt to launch a nuclear strike on the North American coast. An immediate response by the United States could have triggered a Third World War," he wrote.
He noted that all information about the 1961 accident was kept secret in the USSR until 1990.
See "Gorbachev Proposes Soviet Sub Crew for Nobel Peace Prize,"
Interfax News Agency, translated by the DNI Open Source Center, Feburary 1, 2006:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2006/02/gorb020106.html
Mr. Gorbachev's statement (in Russian) is here:
http://www.rg.ru/2006/02/02/gorbachev-k19.html
The K-19 incident was recently the subject of a National Geographic feature film starring Harrison Ford called "K-19: The Widowmaker."