Real-Life Red October

A Soviet naval officer and a band of co-conspirators lock the captain of their ship in his cabin, tie up the other officers and head for asylum in the West. Military authorities learn of the mutiny and set out in pursuit. Sound similar to The Hunt for Red October? No wonder. The incident, revealed last week in the Soviet newspaper Izvestia, turns out to have been the real-life basis for Tom Clancy's blockbuster, the film version of which, starring Sean Connery, is now playing across the U.S.

The mutineer was Valery Sablin, deputy commander of the destroyer Storozhevoi. In Izvestia's account, Sablin made his bold move in November 1975, after most of the ship's 250-man crew had gone on shore leave in Riga, the capital of Latvia. The alarm was sounded by a sailor who jumped overboard as the ship was leaving harbor and by an officer who untied himself and radioed, "Mutiny aboard: We are off to the high seas." The apparent destination was Sweden, although another press report last week suggested that Sablin was actually heading for Leningrad to demand reforms of the Soviet system over nationwide TV. The ship was halted by aircraft fire near Sweden, and the conspirators were put on trial. Sablin was sentenced to death by firing squad.

Clancy first read of the incident in 1976, when the Washington Post carried an unconfirmed report. He got more details in 1982 from a master's thesis written by a student at the U.S. Naval Academy. Clancy acknowledges taking considerable dramatic license: his defecting submarine commander makes it safely to the U.S. after much cold war derring-do. "My book has a historical foundation," says the author. "But it is a work of fiction."