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david-d-levine · 5 months ago

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Biggest, Best Toy EVAR: A Feindfahrt LARP Report

When I was a kid, there was an ad that ran in virtually every comic book for a "Polaris Nuclear Sub" that was "Big Enough for 2 Kids" and "Sturdily constructed of 200 ib. test fibreboard." Of course I begged my parents to buy it for me, but my dad pointed out that "fibreboard" was just cardboard and we had plenty of that. So together we built a submarine our of cardboard boxes, and it was better than anything we could have mail-ordered for $6.98 plus 75¢ for shipping and handling.

Fast-forward to 2024, when I learned of the existence of a Live Action Role Playing event called Feindfahrt (), an anti-war LARP held in the submarine set originally built for Das Boot (1981), which also happens to be one of my favorite films ever. Of course I had to sign up for it, and as I write this I'm on a plane home from Munich where I just finished playing it.

Massive SPOILERS for the game follow. Proceed at your own risk.

The fictional premise of Feindfahrt is that after the capture of the German submarine U-505 (this really happened, and the sub is currently on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago), the Allies decided to staff the captured sub with a mix of US and UK sailors and send it deep into enemy territory on a secret mission. The intent of the game was to give players a sense of how oppressive and cruel the life of submariners during WWII was, with a good dose of interpersonal drama as well. It wasn't intended to be a realistic submarine simulation or a strategic military game, but a game of communication and psychology in a tense and claustrophobic setting. There were 35 players of all genders (playing characters of all genders, in one of several departures from historical accuracy) drawn from countries including Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the UK. I was the only person who came all the way from the USA for the game, though several other players were Americans who lived in Europe.

The Das Boot set is a life-sized recreation of the full interior of a Type VII-C German U-boat, 60 meters long and about 6 meters wide. During filming the set was mounted on a hydraulic platform that could tilt through 45 degrees in 5 seconds in both the pitch (fore-and-aft) and roll (side-to-side) dimensions to create dramatic scenes of diving, rolling in high seas, and being shaken by depth charges. Today the set sits on solid ground under a tent at the Bavaria Filmstadt studio. Which, given that the high temperatures in Munich this week were 39-45 degrees Fahrenheit, meant that it was as cold as the North Atlantic in there. However, we were forewarned about this, so I packed two sets of long undies, lots of wool socks, and a heavy sweater and I was reasonably comfortable the whole time.

As you can see from the above diagram, the boat was equipped with a Heckin' Torpedo Room, an E-Machine, and a Bug Room. (Not really.) From left to right they were Aft Torpedo Room; Electric Engine Room; Diesel Engine Room; Galley; Non-Commissioned Officers' Quarters; Control Room and Conning Tower; Officers' Quarters, Radio Room, and Sonar/Hydrophone Room, Head, and Forward Torpedo Room. When I say "quarters" I mean "tightly packed bunks with a narrow passageway in between;" the enlisted men slept in shifts in hammocks slung between the torpedoes. Note the size of the little red person at the forward end of the top diagram; we're talking cramped here.

We spent 12-13 hours per day in the sub, but we didn't sleep there. The set did not actually have enough bunks to sleep 35 players even in shifts, and also it was terribly cold and the head wasn't functional. So we all had to find our own accommodations in a nearby(ish) hotel (I chose the Bio-Hotel Alter Wirt, https://www.alterwirt.de, five stars would stay again) and commute to the submarine each day. We could easily leave the set whenever we wanted to, for bathroom breaks or just to decompress, and took our meals in a heated building nearby. I personally never felt particularly claustrophobic.

The set was not and had never been a real submarine. For one thing, the interior walls were painted black to create a claustrophobic feeling, whereas in a real sub they are painted in light colors for exactly the opposite effect. The controls and indicators were almost all nonfunctional and in many cases not technically accurate. Many parts that would have been metal in a real sub were made of wood or drywall, and were also over 40 years old, so we were repeatedly reminded to be careful not to break the sub. Despite these limitations the whole thing was incredibly detailed and immersive and I would definitely describe it as the Biggest, Best Toy EVAR. Also, the LARP organizers had repaired the diesel engine prop so that it moved realistically (after being broken for 18 years) and added some functional instruments such as depth gauges, battery meter, and speedometer; Arduino-powered interactive hydrophone and sonar; telephones for communication between the bridge, engine room, and torpedo room; and video screens so that people in other parts of the boat could see what was on the periscope. And there were speakers throughout to provide realistic sound effects such as rushing water, the hull creaking under strain, and depth charges exploding nearby.

In most European LARPs I've played there are a few non-player characters (NPCs) mixed in with the players to provide advice, guidance, and emotional support and keep the game from going off the rails. In this case, given the small cast of 35 players and confined play space, we had just one NPC, the Chief Engineer. But the organizers also did have cameras throughout the sub and were listening in on all phone conversations. This meant that sometimes we had to do things such as, for example, calling the bridge from the engine room to report that the speedometer was showing zero when the engines were running all ahead full, after which the speedometer would quickly correct itself. There was also a "red phone" (actually black) which we could use to contact the organizers directly. The organizers, in turn, could communicate to us in the form of radio transmissions from HQ, at least when we were surfaced.

Our characters were pre-written and assigned to us based on a fairly brief questionnaire about our preferences. The character descriptions were well-written and quite detailed, giving a full rundown of the character's background, personality, motivations, and relationships with other characters. I played CPO Robert Johnson, the Chief of the engine room, a highly experienced and trustworthy engineer who was generally on good terms with everyone -- though he could be stubborn and persnickety on technical matters. The one person on the boat he didn't like was the Executive Officer, under whom Johnson had previously served on the submarine Seahorse. The Seahorse had sailed into a minefield in a storm, killing most of the crew, and Johnson blamed her captain (now U-505's XO) for the disaster. However, other player characters who had also been there considered him a hero for saving anyone at all. Johnson also disliked the boat itself, as his father had been the engineer on a civilian ship that was torpedoed by a German U-boat early in the war, but saw it as his duty to keep this cold-blooded German war machine running smoothly for the sake of the mission and the crew.

Creative costuming is a big part of many LARPs, but in this case we were all in uniform, so all we had to provide was dark pants, dark waterproof shoes, and whatever long undies we wanted. US Navy sailors were issued khaki shirts, cardigans of various colors, and white sailor caps; Royal Navy sailors got dark blue cardigans and hats with ribbons; and officers got pea coats and big fancy officer hats. (Amusingly, I was Royal Navy, the only non-American in my watch; my watch mates were all American, but all played by non-Americans.) We also got embroidered name tags and drinking cups with our character names on them. I was rather alarmed that my name tag was bloodstained, and I was informed that my character in the previous run had lost an arm!

Having been handed our characters and issued our orders by headquarters, everything else in the game was improvised. It was up to each player to decide what to do and say minute by minute, and we each reacted to developing situations and other characters' actions according to our characters. But we were given some guidance to keep the game moving and fun: to choose drama and action over passivity and inaction, and to treat each other as experts in our fields and accept any improvised technobabble as gospel. Thus, if a player said that the frammistat needed to be reflanged, then by God that frammistat did need reflanging. This created a potential problem when I wanted to send a junior ensign on a wild goose chase: I had to make sure that the other members of the crew, most of whom did not have English as a first language, understood that a request for a "left-handed monkey wrench" or "sixty feet of waterline" was NOT to be treated as gospel but as a nonexistent item, a deliberate prank.

The first half-day of the game was spent in orientation and workshops, as is typical for European LARPs. We spent time in groups getting to know the other members of our duty station (bridge, engine room, or radio/torpedo room), our watch (we were divided into two watches), our navy (US or UK; there was some tension between the two), and in some cases sailors we'd served with previously on the Seahorse or other vessels. We then got a tour of the set and some instruction in "how to U-boat." In the afternoon we got into costume and into character for a shakedown cruise near Bermuda (where the sub had been taken after being captured). We took the sub and crew through their paces and uncovered some issues, notably in communication. (Bridge: "Engine room, take her down to 15 meters." Engine room: "Not our department, you've got the controls for the ballast tanks and dive planes right there. We make ship go fast and slow, you make ship go up and down.")

My Engine Room crew's jobs were to run the diesel and electric engines as commanded; use the rudder control wheel to direct the sub's heading, again as commanded; keep all mechanical systems running smoothly; and fix anything that went wrong. Given that most of the controls on the sub were nonfunctional props, this involved a lot of "stare meaningfully at a gauge while tweaking a knob" and "pretend something broke and pretend to fix it." As the game went on, though, there was less making-up of problems and more problems appearing from sources external to our team, which made for more satisfying play. And everything is more fun when you work with other people, so I made sure to send people out to fix things in pairs.

We really did start to work together as a team and I felt a great camaraderie with my people. One superstition we decided on as a team was that it was bad luck to point at anyone or anything with one finger -- you should instead use two or more fingers, a thumb, or your whole hand. (This is, apparently, a real superstition in the Swedish Navy). If you violated this rule you had to knock three times on the overhead to regain your luck. Like saying "Macbeth" in a theatre, this was our superstition but anyone around us could get dinged for running afoul of it.

Then we skipped forward in time a few months for a scene set at a drunken party in a Scottish coastal town right before launch. But the party was interrupted by an air raid siren, and we all staggered out into the street heading for the nearest shelter... and then the bombs started falling, with real explosions and fire all around. It was a spectacular and dramatic opening to the game! Once we arrived at the bomb shelter we flashed back three days to a meeting with an Admiral in which we were all requested to write a letter to our next of kin, to be delivered in case we did not come back. On that sobering note the first day of play ended.

Before the second day of play began we were offered a chance to "calibrate" with other players about what we might want from them or offer to them. I said my character sheet indicated I was not bearing up well under the strain, and that I intended to have some kind of break late in day 2 or early in day 3, though I couldn't say when or what kind of break it would be.

The second day of the game opened with us already out at sea, where we received our orders: join a German U-boat wolf pack and accompany them back to their base, where we would use our torpedoes to destroy an important fuel depot which was protected from aerial attack. To many of us this seemed like a likely suicide mission, and my pointed questions about how exactly we were going to get away from the exploding sub pen were waved off.

We successfully located the wolf pack and made contact with them using stolen German codes, but then the pack moved to attack a civilan convoy. After one of the German subs torpedoed an Allied ship, we fired a second torpedo into it to demonstrate our bona fides. This was, for many of us, a morally indefensible choice. The captain pointed out that the ship was already sinking when we torpedoed it, but others protested that we'd almost certainly killed people who might otherwise have made it to lifeboats. As we submerged and ran from the scene, I collapsed in tears, saying "I feel like I just killed my own father!" As my crew helped me move through the bridge to my bunk one of the bridge officers asked if I was okay. "I'm a fucking war criminal!" I replied. Eventually, with the help of my crewmates, I calmed myself down, but I wasn't the only one who had severe qualms about our actions.

As we made our way through the minefield surrounding the base I was called to the bridge to offer my technical expertise on getting the sub out of the harbor after launching our torpedoes. With the help of my second in command, my best friend on the boat, I advised that we would need at least two sub lengths ahead of us, or one length behind us, clear of any obstacles in order to reverse course. I was ordered to work with the sonar operator to make that decision -- as soon as the fuel depot blew he would send out a ping and I would have five seconds to choose a course for our escape based on what came back. The ping showed clear both fore and aft, so I recommended a forward path as the quicker of the two options. That got us out of the immediate vicinity, but as we were beginning to run away another sub fired a torpedo at us. Thinking quickly, the XO -- the man I believed had killed the Seahorse -- ordered us to fire one of our own torpedoes at it, with the fuse set to just five seconds. The two torpedoes detonated right in front of us, damaging our bow but allowing us to slip away in the chaos. Thinking us destroyed, the Germans did not pursue and we made it through the minefield and into the open ocean without further incident. Thus ended the second day.

Calibrating at the beginning of day 3 I said that I'd been happy to be the supportive officer, directing my crew and doing my best to make sure everyone got as much game play as they desired, but I would like to do more fixing of problems as an individual contributor. (Cue ominous foreshadowy music.)

The third day's play opened with us steaming away from our successful raid on the fuel depot, when we were ordered to pick up a "high value target" off the coast of The Netherlands. On the way there we had a strange noise on the hydrophone which my second-in-command speculated might be something caught in our propellors. I suggested reversing the engines briefly to clear the possible problem, and damn if it didn't work! Later on there was a distressing hiss coming from something on the bridge; I tracked it to an air leak and patched it with period-appropriate chewing gum.

Evading both German and British ships as we approached the German-occupied Netherlands, we rendezvoused with a German speedboat, which handed us a defecting German scientist who specialized in the behavior of gases under pressure. But as we headed back out to sea the speedboat was intercepted and sunk by a British destroyer. The destroyer then pursued us, pounding us with depth charges. (I don't think there was ever an in-game reason given why we didn't just surface and surrender.) We took heavy damage and began to sink uncontrollably. Water shot from the walls (thankfully it was warm water) and I and the other engineers worked feverishly to patch the leaks. Once we got that problem solved the air compressor, which was needed to start the engine as well as to blow the ballast tanks, began to hiss and spew high-pressure air and we had to fix that. But though we stopped the air leak, the compressor itself was shot. Eventually we settled on the bottom, well below our maximum rated depth, with the hull creaking alarmingly and batteries and air running out fast.

With no air compressor to blow the ballast tanks or start the engines, and no forward motion to make use of the dive planes, we were well and truly stuck on the bottom. I had the idea of attempting to start the diesel engines (usually a Very Bad Idea while submerged) in hopes of pushing compressed air from the engine to the ballast tanks, but that didn't work. I tried asking the German scientist who specialized in pressurized gases, but she didn't have any ideas we hadn't already tried. We did have hand bilge pumps but pumping them with all our might didn't help. Finally the NPC Chief Engineer presented an unexpected solution involving sending volunteers diving into the pitch-black bilge (actually they went outside the sub, with hats pulled down over their eyes, and could only work as long as they could hold their breath) to find some strangely-shaped knobs, fit them to the corresponding attachments, and thus open the necessary valves to permit the bilge pumps to pump water out of the ballast tanks. This felt to me like an arbitrary escape-room-ish puzzle, and it left most of the players just shivering in the dark with nothing to do but hope it would work, but we did manage to find all the necessary valves before running out of volunteers and it did indeed work, allowing us to pull ourselves off the bottom and limp to the surface.

So we cheated death... barely. But as we were triumphantly steaming home we received a third assignment: to torpedo a ship carrying a German super-weapon. Upon receiving this order I lost my temper and repeatedly insisted that the sub was too badly damaged to survive anything resembling combat. This turned into a heated exchange with the Chief Engineer. He and I stood practically nose-to-nose, me with my arms crossed on my chest, saying with cold fury "In my professional opinion, SIR, any attempt to engage the enemy will inevitably result in the loss of this vessel and all hands, SIR." He ordered me to conduct a full inspection and repair all problems found. "I can tell you without doing an inspection that this vessel is beyond our capabilities to repair, SIR. We need to return to port and careen her, SIR." He repeated that this was an order. "Then I am insubordinate, SIR."

He relieved me of command and had me hauled to the brig. But we didn't have a brig, so he said to put me in the head. But there was only one head and we couldn't afford to be without it. Another officer, more sympathetic to me, offered to take me off my superior's hands, and he was happy to be rid of me. By this point I realized that my choices had been reduced to: die handcuffed to my bunk, or do what I could to save my crewmates (and most likely die trying). I chose option 2. I told my new commanding officer that I'd do what I could, but it would take as long as it took and I would be honest in my assessment of the situation. He set me to work beginning with the forward torpedo tubes, which had been damaged by our own torpedo as we escaped from the fuel depot the previous day.

We broke for dinner at that point, and several players inquired anxiously as to whether I was okay. "My blood is fizzing," I said, "but I'm having a blast." In the LARP community we call this "type 2 fun," meaning that "my character is miserable but I'm enjoying myself."

After dinner I kept trying to fix what I could in the time remaining, but I was really pessimistic. Basically, as I'd thought, the ship was absolutely beat to shit. "If we fire even one torpedo," I said, "I estimate the chance of it getting stuck in the tube and detonating right there is over 25%. And I don't recommend taking the boat below 50 meters." The XO gave a big angry speech about how our duty was to the Navy and to Britain, that we were to follow orders, that this was not a democracy, but that we would do as we were told, without question, in order to save democracy from the fascist threat. But I realized that my loyalty was, and always had been, not to the Navy or to Britain but to my fellow crew members, and that saving their lives was more important to me than duty or honor. I had sacrificed my reputation, my position, and finally my career in attempt to save them, and spending all those chips hadn't worked. But I had one chip left -- I could work as an individual to try to fix the ship -- and so I resolved to spend that one as best I could.

I was continuing to try to fix the spavined engine when we intercepted the target and, somewhat to my surprise, did manage to successfully fire a torpedo and sink it. But the target vessel was not alone -- the area was swarming with German destroyers -- and in fairly short order they began depth-charging the hell out of us. Explosions pounded our ears, I flung myself around the engine room like a member of the Star Trek bridge crew, the depth gauge fell and fell, and the lights went out. Then we heard the music indicating the end of play. Game over, man.

We all silently filed out of the sub and walked back to the air raid shelter, where we saw the same Admiral we'd seen before instructing a lieutenant to send the usual condolences to the families of those lost on the Allied ship we'd helped to sink, and also those lost on the U-505. Then we heard a voice reading a letter. It was, I soon realized, one of the letters we'd written to our next of kin in that same room at the beginning of the game. More and more voices joined in then, all the letters overlapping in a Greek chorus of farewell. I certainly recognized my own words in there, and I imagine most everyone else did as well. And then the game was over. Roll credits.

There was an afterparty, but between jet lag and emotional exhaustion I faded out after less than an hour. As I walked past the sub on my way back to my hotel, I noticed that the sound system had not been turned off and there were still gurgling noises coming from the tent. Bubbles coming up from the bottom, I guess.

-=-

That ending felt so right and seemed so inevitable that I figured it had been on rails, but afterwards we learned that runs 1 and 2 of the game (we were run 4) had made it home alive, so our fate really was open, at least to some extent. I can't point to any specific decision that sealed our doom or could have saved us, but I think that out-of-game timing was a big part of it. We succeeded in our first two missions quite quickly so there wound up being time for a third at the end, which is the one that killed us. If we had finished our second mission closer to the end of the day Saturday, the game might have ended there with us still afloat or even home safe.

The pivotal moment of the game for me was when my character stood up on his hind legs and defied authority, even though it didn't change the outcome (or perhaps made it worse, as he might have succeeded in repairing the ship if he hadn't wasted time in rebellion -- though I strongly doubt it). It reminds me of my favorite scene in the Westworld game, where I resigned from my job and threw in my lot with the robots -- though in that case I did manage to save some lives, including my own. Perhaps I'm just a rebel at heart? But I can tell you that, unlike my breakdown on the previous day or my Westworld resignation, I did not plan that scene, or even anticipate that it would happen. It just emerged naturally from my character in the moment, especially from his experiences on the Seahorse (it said in my character sheet "He has sworn never to blindly trust an officer again when it comes to life and death").

I don't regret my actions, and indeed my conscience is at peace knowing that I did everything I could to save my crewmates. But in retrospect I've come to the conclusion that my character was actually in the wrong. In the end we achieved our goal -- we achieved a major strategic victory -- albeit at the cost of our lives and the ship, which is most likely the outcome the Admiralty expected when they gave the order. My attempt to disobey orders salved my conscience in the moment but in the larger context of the war was counterproductive and morally wrong.

On the other hand, if you take a bigger step backwards, was the war itself morally justified? But better people than I have been arguing this point for centuries, so I know I'm not going to be able to answer it. But considering these questions from the perspective of a realistic, immersive experience is, I think, the main point of this LARP.

Feindfahrt cost me a lot more than $6.98 plus 75¢ for shipping and handling. But in the end, the fun you make yourself is always the best.

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jazznoisehere · 6 years ago

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#mail order #polaris nuclear sub #honor house #toys #pop culture

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justdealingwithsomeissues · 4 years ago

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My dad got those army men when he was , and yeah, they were a huge rip off... also the sub Alfie is pointing at was the “Polaris Nuclear Submarine” which was almost entirely made out of cardboard.

#Marvel #Nth Man The Ultimate Ninja #Nth Man ~ John Doe #Alfie O'Meagan

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neocurio · 5 years ago

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pOLARIS NUCLEAR SUB

#submarine #nuclear sub #toy #shoots rockets & torpedos #i want one #vintage ad #neocurio

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frankgrau · 7 years ago

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Miscellaneous Ramblings About Comic-Book Stuff, Part 1

I came across some old and new comics in the last six months or so and decided to ramble a bit and share some pointless thoughts. So here goes…

I saw these two older issues of Marvel’s Amazing Adventures, both from 1973, and I would have ignored them entirely had I not noticed that the stories took place 45 years into the future, i.e., right now in 2018. Well, actually, I noticed the future date…

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#comic art #comic book art #comic books #comics #polaris nuclear sub #sea-monkeys

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ghostcultmagazine · 3 years ago

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agusafitri · 3 years ago

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$30.86 Only! ~ VTG Renwal Thomas Jefferson Nuclear Sub Polaris 1:200 Scale SEE THRU Model # 618, D001, Army Sea Vehicle Models, Army Ships Models Check This Out!

#D001 #ArmySeaVehicleModels #ArmyShipsModels

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waterflea · 5 years ago

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(M 16.03.2020): Found this Article Online. The POLARIS NUCLEAR SUB (Comicbook Ad) is a Mystery from my Childhood. Finally, I have some information to help fill-in that blank spot in my past. I found this Article very satisfying. That's why I'm sharing it. 🙂

Nite nite 😴💤🎴

& Sweet dreams 🦄🌴🏰💋

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gameraboy2 · 9 months ago

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1967 Polaris Nuclear Sub ad

#polaris #submarine #1967 #1960s #vintage #ad #ads #advertising #advertisement #vintage ad #vintage ads #vintage advertising #vintage advertisement

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jnglcat21 · 8 years ago

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There is no denying submarines evoke a sense of danger, stealth, and adventure, and they all have nail-biting stories to tell. But even amongst these silent stalkers, few are as legend-worthy as the USS Halibut (SSGN 587). Her keel was laid in April 1957 and just 2 years later she hit the water. After her official Naval commission in early 1960, she was deployed on her first cruise on March 11 of that year. Halibut was already a history-maker by being the first nuclear-powered submarine designed to deploy guided missiles, but she cemented her place in the history books by becoming the first nuclear sub to successfully launch said missile while at sea. Over the next five years, Halibut would participate in seven patrols throughout the Pacific, but missile technology was moving fast, and by 1965, she was replaced by the George Washington class of Polaris submarines. It was a short patrol life, but not to fear: her true adventures were about to begin. After a brief stint testing the capabilities of the Permit class submarines, Halibut was taken to Pearl Harbor in February 1965 for a massive overhaul. You see, the somewhat-clunky-looking Halibut had caught the eye of John Craven, an ocean engineer working for Naval Intelligence, who was tasked with locating and recovering launched Soviet missiles from the seabed. He took one look at the Halibut and he knew he had the potential for a deep sea recovery vessel. By late 1967, after two years of massive renovations, and countless failed tests, Halibut was ready for her first research mission. She was sent out to recover the cone of a Soviet ballistic missile, but problems with the cables attached to her recovery equipment thwarted that attempt. She tried again in January 1968, but she couldn't locate a missile to recover (and she nearly lost a man who was washed overboard while the ship was surfaced one night). Halibut headed back to Pearl Harbor from her second failed recovery attempt, and there she learned the Soviets had lost a Golf II class submarine of their own somewhere in the Pacific. It took a fair bit of decoding but Naval Intelligence learned K-129 had left port on February 24, 1968 and sometime in April, when she was out in the mid-Pacific, her transmissions stopped. The Soviets had tried to locate their lost sub, but failed to find it. So now, the Americans would try. What a boon to Naval Intelligence during these hot Cold War years to recover a Soviet sub with ballistic missiles, codebooks, and other military technology on board. And what better vessel to locate the missing K-129 than the USS Halibut? This type of mission is what Craven had designed her for, and though she had failed in her attempts to locate missile pieces, a full submarine was a different treasure altogether. After using underwater acoustics to pinpoint a possible location of the Golf II wreck, Naval Intelligence dispatched Halibut on July 15, 1968. And after days of searching the sea floor using "fish" - mini subs with attached cameras and lights - the crew hit the jackpot. There she was, intact, with a 10-foot hole in the hull just aft of the conning tower. Halibut had done it. She had successfully located a target on the ocean floor. Halibut pulled out all the stops by capturing over 22,000 images of the sunken K-129 before returning to port in September 1968. Her successful discovery led directly to the 1974 Project Azorian - the United States' attempt to raise K-129 from her seabed grave using a specially-built recovery vessel called the Glomar Explorer. Finding K-129 was an incredible success, but Naval Intelligence wasn't finished with Halibut just yet. In 1970, they concocted a new mission for the research sub: locate and tap a Soviet telephone cable in the Sea of Okhotsk. It was the riskiest and most questionably legal operation yet of the Cold War, but the potential return in intelligence was too much to pass up. Therefore, Halibut headed back to the port at Mare Island for yet another refit, but this time, some of the new additions would include decompression and lockout chambers for deep sea divers. By October 1971, she was ready to go, and Halibut set out for what her sailors called the "Sea of Oshkosh." It took several days of searching (trimmed significantly from the potential search time thanks to an intelligence officer's idea to look for "Do Not Anchor, Cable Here" signs like ones he remembered seeing along the Mississippi River as a kid), but the Halibut located, and tapped, the desired cable. It was a boon even greater than the location of the sunken K-129. The US could now eavesdrop on Soviet military conversations, something none of their other spy technology (such as satelittes) were capable of doing at the time. Furthermore, Operation Ivy Bells - the official name for the cable tap mission - yielded invaluable data, and remained undiscovered by the Soviets, for over 10 years. Halibut would make return trips to the cable tap in the Sea of Okhotsk (on her second trip, she had a close call when she crashed "belly first" into the seabed to avoid surfacing during a violent storm), but her glory days were over. Clunky, loud, and oddly shaped - her crew started calling her the "Bat Boat" because she resembled the Batmobile in their eyes - she had nevertheless proven indispensable to the United States' Cold War efforts. USS Halibut was decommissioned in June 1976 and fully scrapped by September 1994. An ignoble end, but she retains a glorious legacy...

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ericfruits · 7 years ago

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Mutually assured detection

ON JULY 20th 1960, a missile popped out of an apparently empty Atlantic ocean. Its solid-fuel rocket fired just as it cleared the surface and it tore off into the sky. Hours later, a second missile followed. An officer on the ballistic-missile submarine USS George Washington sent a message to President Dwight Eisenhower: “POLARIS—FROM OUT OF THE DEEP TO TARGET. PERFECT.” America had just completed its first successful missile launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from beneath the ocean. Less than two months later, Russia conducted a similar test in the White Sea, north of Archangel.

Those tests began a new phase in the cold war. Having ICBMs on effectively invisible launchers meant that neither side could destroy the other’s nuclear arsenal in a single attack. So by keeping safe the capacity for retaliatory second strikes, the introduction of ballistic-missile submarines helped develop the concept of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD), thereby deterring any form of nuclear first strike. America, Britain, China, France and Russia all have nuclear-powered submarines on permanent or near permanent patrol, capable of launching nuclear missiles; India has one such submarine, too, and Israel is believed to have nuclear missiles on conventionally powered submarines.

As well as menacing the world at large, submarines pose a much more specific threat to other countries’ navies; most military subs are attack boats rather than missile platforms. This makes anti-submarine warfare (ASW) a high priority for anyone who wants to keep their surface ships on the surface. Because such warfare depends on interpreting lots of data from different sources—sonar arrays on ships, sonar buoys dropped from aircraft, passive listening systems on the sea-floor—technology which allows new types of sensor and new ways of communicating could greatly increase its possibilities. “There’s an unmanned-systems explosion,” says Jim Galambos of DARPA, the Pentagon’s future-technology arm. Up until now, he says, submariners could be fairly sure of their hiding place, operating “alone and unafraid”. That is changing.

Hello, buoys

Aircraft play a big role in today’s ASW, flying from ships or shore to drop “sonobuoys” in patterns calculated to have the best chance of spotting something. This is expensive. An aeroplane with 8-10 people in it throws buoys out and waits around to listen to them and process their data on board. “In future you can envision a pair of AUVs [autonomous underwater vehicles], one deploying and one loitering and listening,” says Fred Cotaras of Ultra Electronics, a sonobuoy maker. Cheaper deployment means more buoys.

But more data is not that helpful if you do not have ways of moving it around, or of knowing where exactly it comes from. That is why DARPA is working on a Positioning System for Deep Ocean Navigation (POSYDON) which aims to provide “omnipresent, robust positioning across ocean basins” just as GPS satellites do above water, says Lisa Zurk, who heads up the programme. The system will use a natural feature of the ocean known as the “deep sound channel”. The speed of sound in water depends on temperature, pressure and, to some extent, salinity. The deep sound channel is found at the depth where these factors provide the lowest speed of sound. Below it, higher pressure makes the sound faster; above it, warmer water has the same effect.

Changes in the speed of sound (or for that matter light) cause sound (or light) waves to bend, a phenomenon known as refraction. The higher speed of sound above and below the deep sound channel thus bend sound back into it, allowing it to propagate for thousands of kilometres, especially if the sound’s wavelengths are long. It is a natural analogue to the process that keeps light in an optical fibre. Some zoologists believe whales use it as an ocean-wide telephone system.

In the POSYDON system, buoys on the surface would receive a GPS fix from satellites, then retransmit that data into the deep sound channel in acoustic form to submerged submarines and AUVs. Dr Zurk’s team is now determining the optimum frequencies for propagation, and modelling ways to correct for variable conditions. The simplicity of POSYDON would allow AUVs to offload a lot of the expensive equipment that they currently use to decipher positioning, says Dr Galambos. That means the possibility of more room on the drones for other useful stuff, or more money for more drones.

Even in heavily surveilled seas, spotting submarines will remain tricky. They are already quiet, and getting quieter; new “air-independent propulsion” systems mean that conventionally powered submarines can now turn off their diesel engines and run as quietly as nuclear ones, perhaps even more so, for extended periods of time. Greater autonomy, and thus fewer humans—or none at all—could make submarines quieter still. “As we pivot from manned to unmanned, no air cavity, maybe no propulsion motor, that’s a really challenging platform to find,” says Dr Zurk.

A case in point is a Russian weapon called Status-6, also known as Kanyon, about which Vladimir Putin boasted in a speech on March 1st. America’s recent nuclear-posture review describes it as “a new intercontinental, nuclear-armed, nuclear-powered, undersea autonomous torpedo”. A Russian state television broadcast in 2015 appeared to show it as a long, thin AUV that can be launched from a modified submarine and travel thousands of kilometres to explode off the shore of a major city with a great deal more energy than the largest warheads on ICBMs, thus generating a radioactive tsunami. Such a system might be seen as preserving a second-strike capability even if the target had a missile-defence system capable of shooting ICBMs out of the sky.

Despite such disturbing possibilities, many experts think that the balance of advantage is currently with seekers, not hiders. Sebastian Brixey-Williams of the British American Security Information Council thinks that “tracking and trailing” submarines will, within a decade, become significantly easier. Passive systems which simply listen will be a key part of this. Mr Brixey-Williams predicts that a few important choke points, such as the gap between Scotland and Iceland could now be completely surveilled by an array of just 15 acoustic sensors, far more sophisticated than the chain of hydrophones which did that job in the cold war. If a submarine is detected by such a system, it can then be trailed by another submarine, or some new form of drone.

New cold war

One part of the ocean that has become particularly interesting in this regard is the Arctic. Tracking submarines under or near ice is difficult, because ice constantly shifts, crackles and groans loudly enough to mask the subtle sounds of a submarine. With ever less ice in the Arctic this is becoming less of a problem, meaning America should be better able to track Russian submarines. Its Assured Arctic Awareness programme, also run by Dr Zurk, aims to develop new sensing techniques that can provide year-round monitoring without requiring a human presence. It is working on probes that can be deposited on the ice by drone, then melt their way down to the ocean beneath. Dr Zurk also talks of tagging icebergs with sensors, thus getting free rides across the ocean.

Greater numbers of better sensors, better networked, will not soon make submarines useless; but even without breakthroughs, they could erode the strategic norm that has guided nuclear thinking for over half a century—that of an unstoppable second strike. If a country even suspects that the location of its second-strike submarines might be known, their value for nuclear deterrence decreases. As Mr Brixey-Williams wrote in 2016: “The political tensions and threat to strategic stability that [tracking and trailing] would create should not be underestimated...and may be more dangerous than the technology itself.”

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fortheking16 · 5 years ago

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1960s Comic Book Ad Polaris Sub - January 21, 2020

1960s Comic Book Ad Polaris Sub – January 21, 2020

I always wanted to buy it, but by the time I saw the first ad, it was a lot more than $7. As the years went on, the price kept going up on a regular basis; it felt like the price increases far outpaced inflation. Here’s one article, there are a number of other articles you can find – http://secretfunspot.blogspot.com/2007/12/polaris-nuclear-sub-photo.html. Glad I didn’t buy it. Some of the…

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courtneytincher · 6 years ago

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North Korea: A Submarine Superpower or Total Joke?

North Korea’s latest submarine is a step in a different direction, the so-called Sinpo or Gorae (“Whale”) class ballistic-missile submarine (SSB). The SSB appears to blend submarine know-how from previous classes with launch technology from the Soviet Cold War–era Golf-class ballistic-missile submarines; North Korea imported several Golf-class subs in the 1990s, ostensibly for scrapping purposes. Both the Golf and Gorae classes feature missile tubes in the submarine’s sail. The tubes are believed to be meant for the Pukkuksong-1 (“Polaris”) submarine-launched ballistic missiles currently under development. If successful, a small force of Gorae subs could provide a crude but effective second-strike capability, giving the regime the opportunity to retaliate even in the face of a massive preemptive attack.North Korea should by all rights be a naval power. A country sitting on a peninsula, Korea has a long naval tradition, despite being a “shrimp” between the two “whales” of China and Japan. However, the partitioning of Korea into two countries in 1945 and the stated goal of unification —by force if necessary—lent the country to building up a large army, and reserving the navy for interdiction and special operations roles. Now, in the twenty-first century, the country’s navy is set to be the sea arm of a substantial nuclear deterrent.Recommended: America Has Military Options for North Korea (but They're All Bad)

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ghostcultmagazine · 3 years ago

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gyrlversion · 6 years ago

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Labour MP was spy for Czechs: But millionaire issues furious denial

Cold War documents report that Geoffrey Robinson (pictured) divulged highly sensitive information about Britain’s nuclear deterrent with a spymaster from Communist Czechoslovakia

One of Jeremy Corbyn‘s most senior MPs was a spy who passed confidential Government documents to an enemy state, according to intelligence files unearthed by The Mail on Sunday.

The Cold War documents report that Geoffrey Robinson, a Minister under Prime Minister Tony Blair, divulged highly sensitive information about Britain’s nuclear deterrent over the course of 51 meetings with a spymaster from Communist Czechoslovakia.

The files also describe alleged contact between Mr Robinson and Russian KGB agents.

Given the codename Karko by the Czechs, Mr Robinson, who was then an ambitious Labour Party apparatchik, allegedly:

Passed the Czechs 87 pieces of intelligence between 1966 and 1969, including highly sensitive details relating to Britain’s Polaris missile programme and Nato briefing notes;

Accepted gifts worth more than £12,000 in today’s money, including Harrods vouchers, cases of wine and a gallon of whisky;

Declared himself a ‘Leninist’ and was hailed as one of Czechoslovakia’s ‘most productive sources’ in the UK.

The documents held in an official Prague archive claim that Mr Robinson acknowledged at the time that he ‘was involved in espionage’ and would be ‘sent to prison’ if caught.

Last night Mr Robinson, Labour MP for Coventry North West since 1976, strenuously denied the allegations. He issued a statement through lawyers denying any wrongdoing.

‘At no time did he ever pass confidential government documents or information to any foreign agent and he did not have access to such material,’ it said.

‘The allegations made by the Czech authorities 50 years ago are a lie.’

The files were examined by leading Czech intelligence expert Dr Daniela Richterova, of Brunel University, who said: ‘I don’t know whether what he allegedly did at that time was illegal, but it could be looked upon as betrayal. People working for government should not have been passing off intelligence to the Russians or its satellite states.’

One of Parliament’s wealthiest MPs, Robinson was a central New Labour figure, closely allied to both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Well connected: With Gordon Brown, the then Chancellor, and Economic Secretary Helen Liddell at 11 Downing Street on Budget Day 1998) The files also describe alleged contact between Mr Robinson and Russian KGB agents. Last night Mr Robinson strenuously denied the allegations

But he was forced to resign as Paymaster General in 1998 after it was revealed that he gave Peter Mandelson an undeclared £373,000 loan to buy a house in Notting Hill.

During a successful business career which made him millions, he became involved with a number of disgraced tycoon Robert Maxwell’s engineering interests. Maxwell was a Czech national who was himself accused of being a spy.

The extraordinary claims are contained in 390 pages of Cold War files archived by the current Czech government.

Complied by the StB security service, they are now administered by the country’s State Security archive, which allows applicants to ‘trace files… on persons of interest about whom dossiers were maintained’.

The Mail on Sunday has written permission to publish extracts. They detail Mr Robinson’s alleged cultivation as a source and how he was expensively wined and dined at exclusive London restaurants and clubs.

Polaris, the ballistic missiles that could wipe out Moscow

by Mark Hookham

Geoffrey Robinson handed over sensitive information about Britain’s nuclear weapons to the Czech communist regime, the files claim.

It was a critical time in the Cold War. After years of development, Polaris, the UK’s first submarine-based nuclear weapons programme, was just entering service.

HMS Resolution, the first of four submarines armed with nuclear missiles, was commissioned into the Royal Navy in October 1967.

HMS Resolution, the first of four submarines armed with nuclear missiles, was commissioned into the Royal Navy in October 1967. Pictured is a Polaris missile breaking through water from the submarine off Cape Kennedy

Each sub was designed to be able to obliterate up to ten Russian cities, including Moscow. But even as HMS Resolution completed sea trials, a debate raged about the effectiveness of Polaris.

By the late 1960s, the Soviet Union and the US were drawing up plans for how to intercept incoming ballistic missiles with a ‘defensive shield’. The successful introduction of such a system would mean that Polaris warheads would be unable to penetrate Soviet defences unless they were redesigned.

The Czech files claim that in June 1967, Robinson told his handler that US Vice President Hubert Humphrey had tried to persuade the UK to replace Polaris with Poseidon, a costly new US missile system.

The Czechs regarded this as ‘interesting information’ and noted that their informant had learnt it from Defence Secretary Denis Healey and an aide to France’s President de Gaulle.

Robinson informed the Czechs that the British had rejected the US offer both on economic and political grounds. The MoD, he reported, had drawn up an alternative plan to try to extend the working life of Polaris and enhance the warheads.

Two months later, the files claim Robinson told his handler that the ‘Government had decided to purchase the new nuclear warhead for the Polaris missiles from the US’.

This information appears to have been wrong but it came amid uncertainty over the future of Polaris, and talks were held on whether it should be abandoned. However, Polaris was saved at a Cabinet meeting in 1968.

Even after the Czech regime and its Soviet allies brutally suppressed the Prague Spring uprising in 1968, killing 137 civilians, the Labour official allegedly continued to collaborate with the StB.

The revelations follow a series of claims about high-profile Labour politicians’ contact with hostile Cold War spies.

Former leader Michael Foot was accused of acting as an ‘agent of influence’ for Russia’s KGB, and last year it was revealed that Mr Corbyn met a Czech spy on four occasions in the 1980s.

A highly placed senior British intelligence source was shown the Robinson file on Friday.

Stationed in the Eastern Bloc during the same period, the source initially suggested that Robinson was, perhaps, working for the British security services as a double agent.

The documents held in an official Prague archive claim that Mr Robinson (pictured) acknowledged at the time that he ‘was involved in espionage’ and would be ‘sent to prison’ if caught

But several hours later, following discussions with former colleagues, he was less certain of this, adding: ‘I have spoken to people who would have known him and they have no recollection of him.’

In the files, Czech agents told of meetings in which Robinson was plied with drink and given expensive gifts.

His interest to them lay partly in the access they believed he had to Defence Secretary Denis Healey and Foreign Secretary George Brown.

Several sections of the documents give a revealing insight into the way the StB worked closely with Russia’s intelligence services, describing alleged contact between Robinson and KGB agents – called ‘Soviet friends’– and how Robinson was said to be passing them ‘classified’ information.

According to the documents, the two countries apparently vied for control of the Labour official, before the Russians eventually backed down.

The files say that Mr Robinson developed a close relationship with his Czech handler Karel Pravec – codenamed Comrade Pelnar, the head of StB’s bureau in the London embassy. Pravec is now 88 and living in New Jersey.

His reports from the time are included in the files. He wrote that meetings with Robinson were often oiled with copious amounts of alcohol, particularly ‘large quantities’ of the Labour official’s favourite: whisky and ginger ale.

But the documents claim the meetings would always return to ‘business’, with Robinson passing information and bundles of documents – sometimes marked ‘confidential’ – to be copied by Pravec.

The MP was then working in the Labour Party’s Transport House research department during Harold Wilson’s Labour Government, before moving to the newly formed Industrial Reorganisation Corporation (IRC), Wilson’s attempt to restructure British industry.

He first met Pravec at the Labour conference in October 1966 in Brighton, where he is reported to have introduced the spymaster to Healey.

He offered to meet Pravec again and then began passing a steady flow of information to his handler, which he Czech agents described as ‘reliable’.

It included details on the withdrawal of British troops from West Germany and across much of the rest of the globe, ‘confidential’ Nato military briefing files, and details of discussions on replacing Britain’s Polaris nuclear deterrent.

By December 1966, the Czechs were already in possession of a briefing note on Britain’s plans to reduce its troop numbers in West Germany – six months before Healey told the Cabinet of the planned cuts.

At a meeting in June 1967, Robinson is said to have given Pravec information on US-UK discussions over the replacement of Polaris.

Robinson is said to have told how US Vice-President Hubert Humphrey was placing ‘pressure on the UK to purchase the Poseidon rockets’, America’s upgraded nuclear missile. Apparently the information came ‘straight from Healey’.

The report added: ‘The Defence Ministry here has drawn up an alternative plan under which the first step will be to try to extend the working life of the existing Polaris missiles as much as possible.’

Later, in September 1967, Mr Robinson is reported to have also tipped off his handlers that the UK intended to buy its ‘new nuclear warhead for Polaris from the US.’

The files state Robinson implored Pravec to ‘handle this information carefully, as it could have unpleasant consequences [for him] if he were linked to the disclosure.’ Ultimately the UK decided against buying new warheads from the US.

Earlier, in March of the same year, Robinson allegedly informed Pravec about planned British troop withdrawals East of the Suez Canal, including the Middle East.

The report came ten months ahead of the Government’s official announcement by Wilson in January 1968. But the Czech agents were sceptical about this report and said they could not verify its accuracy.

An agent in Prague, writing in September 1967, said: ‘This report is incomplete as it fails to recognise the importance of the simultaneous construction of new military bases in the area. Verification of this report by our Near East and Middle East units was negative.’

The files say that Mr Robinson (pictured with his wife Marie Elena after his 1976 election victory) developed a close relationship with his Czech handler Karel Pravec – codenamed Comrade Pelnar, the head of StB’s bureau in the London embassy. Pravec is now 88 and living in New Jersey

At this time, the documents allege, Robinson was also passing information about sensitive discussions between the UK Government and foreign heads of state, including negotiations about Britain joining the European Economic Community. In June 1967, the files say Robinson reported that French President Charles de Gaulle was ‘devoting exceptional attention to stopping the UK from joining the EEC’.

Pravec always opened his reports with a matter-of-fact description of his spycraft, in one case stating: ‘No surveillance or other problems were detected.’

One rendezvous, in February 1968, came at a time when Robinson was moving from Transport House to the IRC, which the Czechs feared would make his asset less valuable.

But in an apparent bid to help his handlers, Robinson is reported to have handed over any material he could get his hands on before leaving his old job.

In the files, Pravec wrote that Robinson ‘increased his intelligence service activities to the maximum. He handed over quite a number of reports and materials – virtually everything he could give us from the position he held.’

During one meeting, Robinson is alleged to have handed over bundles of documents to be copied by StB agents, including Foreign Office and Cabinet Office files and a proposed speech by Healey on Britain’s military plans.

A ‘hasty and tense’ pub rendezvous later that month saw Robinson pass four bundles of ‘confidential Nato materials’ including some titled ‘East-West relationships’, ‘Development outside the Nato region’, ‘Ideological basis of Nato’ and ‘Problems with Nato’, said to have had Robinson’s handwritten notes in the margins.

The Czechs reportedly rewarded Robinson with expensive gifts during his collaboration including £200 of Harrods vouchers – worth around £3,500 today – as a gift following his wedding to Marie Elena in 1967.

He also is said to have accepted a gallon of whisky, a briefcase and requested a case of wine worth £50 in the summer of 1969, worth £800 in today’s money.

But he later reportedly turned down another £100 of Harrods vouchers, saying it should be returned as ‘[Czech] labourers worked really hard’ for the money. He also refused explicit financial reward from the agents.

The spy agency described their satisfaction at the low cost of their operation, writing: ‘Karko’s intelligence results were highly profitable from the financial point of view.’

Assessing Robinson’s motives, agents suggested he enjoyed to ‘eat very well’ with Pravec and that this is ‘typically what he asks’ for – while he also appeared to have a ‘personal liking’ for the agent.

In the files, it is reported he also described himself as a ‘Leninist’ to Pravec in one of their early meetings and that he was also active in the Left-wing Fabian Society.

To disguise the true nature of the meetings, the files say Robinson had told his boss he was having regular discussions with diplomats as part of his research role. But he admitted to his handler that knew Pravec was ‘not a straight diplomat’.

And in another report, Robinson is said to have admitted to Pravec that the Czech ‘could send him to jail immediately’ by revealing his actions.

At several meetings, the Labour official is said to have displayed crippling anxiety at the thought of being discovered, particularly with a stream of Soviet spy stories in the British press.

The Czech agents stated that they ‘never detected any surveillance’ of their meetings, but became concerned at Robinson’s few calls to the embassy, which they believe would have been noticed by MI5.

By 1969, the Czech agents were preparing to induct Robinson into full ‘agent’ status from his ranking as ‘DS’ – a confidential informant who knowingly commits espionage.

But Pravec was suddenly removed from the Czech embassy in 1969, causing a break in the relationship and ‘complicating the situation’.

Prior to this episode, it had apparently been Robinson’s transfer to Wilson’s economic project which unsettled the relationship.

Pravec reported that the economic reports he began to hand over in his new role were not of the same use and that his ‘intelligence gathering possibilities’ had ‘declined considerably’.

The files said the StB had offered to make up his salary had he stayed at Transport House, and Pravec is said to have told Robinson ‘that the help from foreign governments to prospective politicians is common and that there are people in the British Cabinet who have moved up in their posts only thanks to the help from abroad.’

Robinson is reported to have declined the offer. It left Pravec to conclude: ‘I think he was drawn by the certainty of higher income, whereas working for me only gave him the hope of a pay rise.’

The ‘Leninist’ accused of sharing secrets over fine wines, fillet steak – and shows at the Pussy Club

Famed for its caviar and oysters, it was the society haunt where Edward VIII wooed Mrs Simpson. But on October 21, 1966, according to intelligence files seen by The Mail on Sunday, the first act in an altogether different courtship was unfolding inside Maison Prunier in St James’s, Central London.

That night, two men, anxious not be overheard, were in the Art Deco dining room discussing politics in muted tones over a lavish seafood meal.

One was Geoffrey Robinson, then an ambitious but unknown 28-year-old Labour Party apparatchik. The other was Czech spymaster Karel Pravec, who was eager to recruit him.

One was Geoffrey Robinson, then an ambitious but unknown 28-year-old Labour Party apparatchik

Guided to their table a few minutes earlier, they might well have passed a Cabinet Minister or two, landed aristocrats down from the shires, captains of industry, or possibly stars of stage and screen. Once a favourite of Winston Churchill, few restaurants were as celebrated as Maison Prunier.

Given the two men’s political beliefs, it certainly made for an incongruous backdrop to their discussions. According to the files, both Russian-speaking Robinson and Pravec, 35, claimed to be Leninists, yet their tastes were anything but proletarian.

They became acquainted two weeks earlier at the Labour Party conference in Brighton and their dinner was the first of 51 assignations. They always ate and drank in style.

And as the cultivation of Robinson intensified, so too did the two men’s friendship. Before his wedding in 1967, the files say that Robinson even suggested they go on a ‘wild’ stag weekend in Paris ‘from where he would go straight to the altar’.

Mostly their playground was the Establishment heartland of St James’s. The irony of grooming an aspiring British politician under the noses of the elite must have tickled Pravec.

For his part, Robinson – who told his handler he broke off contact with his factory-owning father partly because he didn’t want to be labelled a capitalist – is portrayed in the previously secret reports as a man who relished both the high life and Pravec’s largesse.

Their favoured haunts amounted to a Who’s Who of late 1960s fine dining. They included Overton’s – once popular with 007 author Ian Fleming, who said its pate maison was the ‘best in town’ – and San Frediano in Chelsea, whose regulars included Princess Margaret.

Quaglino’s in St James’s was another favourite, as was Veeraswamy on Regent Street, the oldest Indian restaurant in the country, and the Paramount Grill, off Leicester Square, which claimed to serve the best steak in the world.

Once a favourite of Winston Churchill, few restaurants were as celebrated as Maison Prunier

This was the apogee of Swinging London: the Beatles were recording Sgt Pepper’s, the beau monde thronged the catwalks of Carnaby Street and the Kings Road, and, thanks to fashion designer Mary Quant, miniskirt hemlines had never been shorter.

But while neither Robinson nor Pravec could be called groovy, they were determined to have fun.

They visited nightclubs, among them The Georgian Pussy Club, staggering distance from Quaglino’s – it featured ‘gorgeous hostesses’ who waited on tables dressed in cat outfits comprising leotards and knee-high boots.

Another venue was the Pigalle nightclub in Piccadilly Circus, which was often frequented by the Kray twins and known for its racy cabaret shows.

And sometimes they ventured into Soho to watch the ‘fabulous floorshow’ at Tolaini’s Latin Quarter nightclub in Wardour Street.

According to the files, Robinson handed over confidential documents on numerous occasions. Once, during a restaurant meeting, he wrote down instructions from his handler on a napkin.

Occasionally, the two men played squash at Dolphin Square, the giant ten-storey block of flats looking out over the River Thames at Pimlico, which has long been home to MPs, spies and other notables.

If they needed to request an urgent rendezvous, Robinson’s handler telephoned his home using the cover of arranging a squash match.

On that first night at Prunier, though, beyond the political tenor of their conversation, what the two men discussed is not recorded in the files, only that Karko – Robinson’s Czech codename – ‘provided three items of information’.

Famed for its caviar and oysters, Maison Prunier in St James’s, Central London, was the society haunt where Edward VIII wooed Mrs Simpson

Their meeting began at 7pm and ended at 11.40pm.

If their rendezvous had been the following evening, October 22, Robinson might well have been markedly more nervous.

That day George Blake, the Soviet double agent, escaped over the wall of Wormwood Scrubs and fled to Moscow.

As it was, the first move in a carefully calibrated operation to try to ensnare Robinson, later a Minister under Tony Blair, was a success – at least that’s how it seemed to the StB, the Czech intelligence service.

Robinson, according to the files, was ‘impressed’ by his new friend – ostensibly first secretary at the Czech Embassy – and saw him ‘as an interesting partner from his personal point of view’.

At the time, Robinson worked in the international section of Labour’s research department, apparently affording him access to sensitive material.

A Czech interior ministry memorandum would later state that: ‘[Robinson] regularly provides our unit with information of a political nature, as well as classified materials pertaining to his line of work.’

This appeared true of another meeting three days before Christmas 1966 at the Golden Carp, an upmarket fish restaurant in Mayfair. It was here, the files say, that Robinson claimed to have access to coded communications from British missions abroad.

At first he was reluctant to reveal them, though it is later claimed that he changed his mind.

The two men also discussed the European Economic Community. ‘Karko announced that his arguments [in favour of joining] were backed up by a speech’ made by George Thomson, a Minister in Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s Cabinet, given to the Western European Union, an international organisation and military alliance.

The files, which use the codename Comrade Pelnar for Pravec, state: ‘After the meeting, Comrade Pelnar reminded Karko that he had promised to show him Thomson’s speech.

‘At first Karko hesitated, but then (after he had been given a gallon jar of whisky as a Christmas gift) he took Comrade Pelnar to his car and allowed him to read the speech… marked “confidential”.’

It was at this meeting that the Czechs first noted what they called Robinson’s ‘tendency to boast’.

Explaining why he had to cancel a rendezvous earlier that month, he said he had been delayed in Paris because the French Prime Minister, Georges Pompidou, invited him to dinner. ‘The explanation he gave was that the French PM wanted to talk to him on an unofficial basis about various views on the British joining the EEC,’ said one report.

As they finished their meal, the files say that Robinson expressed concern that his handler was lavishing too much money on him.

‘He was delighted to hear that Comrade Pelnar had a monthly allowance and it made no difference to him whether he spent it with someone all at once or bit by bit.’

At this time, newspapers were full of stories about Cold War traitors and Robinson, according to the files, was prone to jitters. In the spring of 1967, he met his handler in the Georgian nightclub but for once was unable to enjoy the entertainment. He became nervous about the presence of a man sitting at the next table. The files report that he was probably a musician since he was making notes on sheet music, but Robinson was ‘uneasy’ and, believing they could be overheard, insisted on moving elsewhere.

‘You can’t talk freely here,’ he is said to have told his handler.

The files claim that the two men were never followed – the Czechs always carried out counter-surveillance measures.

Yet in July that year, returning from a meeting with Robinson, Pravec ‘was dazzled close to his front door’ by a ‘spotlight fitted on to an unknown vehicle’.

And once inside his London flat, where he lived alone, the spy noticed that the light was on in his bedroom, though it was off when he left for work in the morning.

There had been another unsettling episode some months earlier. Over dinner at Veeraswamy, Robinson noticed a Labour MP, whom he knew well, sitting at the next table with his lover. ‘As he [the MP] clearly felt uncomfortable about being spotted by Karko he left… after a short while.’

There was interest in Robinson from other foreign agents, among them a Russian identified in the files as Mogilevcik.

In one report, Pravec writes: ‘When Mogilevcik finally reached Karko on the phone at work, Karko accepted his lunch invitation in order to prevent further unwelcome phone calls.

According to the files, Robinson handed over confidential documents on numerous occasions. Once, during a restaurant meeting, he wrote down instructions from his handler on a napkin

‘Mogilevcik asked Karko what restaurant he prefers and Karko unfortunately mentioned Paramount, a restaurant that I go to for short lunches when Karko does not have much time and has to go to eat somewhere near his office.

‘Karko accepted my criticism that it was not a very smart thing to do… I think it would be correct to warn Soviet advisers that Karko is being recruited and that the approach of their staff is damaging [and] gravely irresponsible.’

According to the files, Robinson appeared to have had serious qualms about his meetings with Pravec, initially at least.

One report from November 1967 notes that ‘he is most likely aware that he is walking on the edge of a risky adventure that can jeopardise his future career. In order to maintain balance, he appears to have created a notional red line that he strives not to cross.’

But the files suggest he later was in a more useful position to help, although he was far from being in the pay of Communist Czechoslovakia. ‘He made it clear in several interviews that he knew he was involved in espionage and that [Pravec] might “send him to prison any time”. He restricted his co-operation by refusing to share information that might lead to harm to his country in the case of war.’

On one occasion he met his handler at The Red Lion pub in St James’s, tucked away in Crown Passage, a 17th Century alleyway, and perfect for secret assignations. After ‘handing over materials’, the files claim Robinson left to attend a meeting in Parliament before reconvening with Pravec an hour and a half later at a restaurant.

Another venue was the Pigalle nightclub in Piccadilly Circus, which was often frequented by the Kray twins and known for its racy cabaret shows

In early 1968, Robinson was offered an executive job with the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation, set up by Harold Wilson to shake up British industry. Pravec tried to dissuade him from taking it and offered to make up the difference in salary. Robinson declined.

A report from that month says: ‘He [Pravec] indicated that the help from foreign states to prospective politicians is common and that there are people in the British Cabinet who have moved up in their posts only thanks to help from abroad. Karko reacted that he knew something about these cases.’ Robinson ‘made clear that money is not the main thing for him and he has the bonds from his father’s company but that he doesn’t use them because he wants to stay faithful to his political principles and that he wants… a political career.’

The report adds that Robinson believes Pravec has ‘given him a lot’ by sharing ‘his life experience’.

Still, though, the contact continued. From around the same time, another report outlined Robinson’s position: ‘He doesn’t get the codes on his desk as he stated before but he reads them during various contacts at FO!! [Foreign Office] Concerning a confidential material, he has the possibility to make a photocopy or to borrow the material and copy it at his workplace. But he cannot make the photocopy with the secret materials and… take them out of the building.’

What would have taken Robinson to the next level – full recruitment as a spy – was to have taken place during the World Ski Championships in February 1970 in Vysoké Tatry, Czechoslovakia.

‘He was very excited about his planned stay and was fully prepared for a further specification of his existing collaboration,’ claim the files. But they go on to say this never happened because ‘the connection with Karko’ was lost.

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