The Widowmaker: SIGINT and Submarine K-19

The motion picture, K-19, The Widowmaker, makes some rather interesting claims about the importance of the early summer 1961 cruise by the eponymous Soviet Northern Fleet Hotel-class ballistic missile carrying submarine (SSBN).

For one, the film boasts of a missile launch under or in the polar ice pack. The film also suggests that the nuclear accident that occurred while the sub was at sea might have gone critical and that the resulting explosion could have been interpreted as a nuclear strike. Are the film’s claims true? To answer this we have to ask some questions about the K-19’s voyage: Was there a missile launch by the sub? Did the United States or NATO detect the submarine’s nuclear accident? Finally, was SIGINT able to determine anything about the submarine’s activities through analysis of Soviet naval communications?