First Prize Is Nothing: The Marion Incident

First Prize Is Nothing: The Marion Incident by Kirker, Jim. paperback edition. ISBN: 9781424179336.

At the height of Cold War tension in 1970, the heyday of détente through mutually assured destruction, a U.S. Fleet Ballistic Submarine undertakes a strategic deterrent patrol in the Mediterranean. As the mission progresses, the executive officer slowly comes to realize that his commanding officer is mentally deteriorating into a dangerous state of paranoid delusion. Given the temper of the times, and realizing that the nuclear trip wire could be so easily breached, the exec, Mike Craig, must somehow get the ship safely back to port without allowing his irrational captain to light the fires of World War III. Narrowly successful in shepherding the ship safely back to port, the exec, and his fellow officers, find themselves battling for their professional survival as they are subjected to a secret "de facto" court martial in Groton, Ct. The overriding concern of the Navys chain of command is to protect the image of the iconic Hyman G. Rickover...rather than determining the reasons for the harrowing brush with Armageddon. While the ship and its characters names are fictional, all major elements of the Marions patrol and its aftermath are authentic and have been drawn from actual events, publicly revealed here for the first time. Born and raised in the shadows of the submarine base in Groton, Connecticut, Jim Kirker, a retired trial attorney, has enjoyed a lifetime association with sub-mariners of all ranks. Those friends and their stories have provided him with a unique insight into the submarine force of the Cold War era.