The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage - Blind Man's Bluff

The story of the Navy's achievements, both technical and operational, deserved better. Although I found some of the content highly interesting, both the information and the enjoyment were diminished by a number of shortcomings.

The stories of some of the actual intelligence operations and missions are incredibly interesting. They deserved better. Perhaps part of the problem is that the writers came from the NYT where they typically write stories about subjects where they have greater familiarity with the big picture, the facts and the culture.

I do not know how it happened, but the authors time and again displayed a lack of understanding of the sea, physics, navigation, submarines, the culture, consistent writing, national defense and a few other basics. I'm not talking about highly sophisticated stuff but rather the basics. It also suffered from an excess of dramatics and politics.

It reminded me of a student team paper hastily assembled hours before the due date. You could feel where one of the authors stopped and another began.

The authors are highly dismissive of the effort to raise the Soviet Golf sub based on its age and technical obsolescence. They might have paused to remember that had the US not broken long disused Russian codes decades earlier, the NYT would still have been defending the Rosenbergs. It was the painstaking review of thousands of old communications, years after the fact that provided critical evidence of the Soviet penetration of the US nuclear program. Old technology and out of date codes may not be of interest to those working on current intelligence matters but it certainly of interest to those in counterintelligence.

The authors might have noted that once the story that the Glomar Explorer was a Howard Hughes venture to extract minerals was floated the State of CA and local jurisdictions immediately jumped in, wanting to tax the vessel. The authors see Hughes as some sort of a sinister figure with the ability to manipulate politics. Lost is the consistent record of the Hughes organization in undertaking complex tasks , many on behalf of national security. Perhaps they were overly swayed by Seymour Hersch.

The author's note in passing the incredible amount of damage done by the Walker family. A brief note regarding Walker Sr having to surrender his access to the top secret codes because he believed he could not pass another lie detector test would have added considerably to the understanding of why he had to bring other family members into the ring. They do, to their credit, acknowledge that those who believed there were Russian agents with access to the codes were correct. Far too often during the Cold War those who read the tea leaves as indicating high level Soviet penetrations were dismissed as paranoid.

They make the typical mistake in assessing failure as the result of bad decisions. Like most Monday Morning Quarterbacks, they seem isolated from the reality that you can have a bad outcome from a good decision just as you can have a good outcome from a bad decision (5 of 6 Russian Roulette players are winners). Writing from the safety of 10+ years after the fall of the USSR they seem to forget that in the post Vietnam it appeared to many that the USSR would prevail in the Cold War. Most of the journalistic establishment believed that the best outcome we could hope for was a stalemate and on an annual basis the doomsday clock was pushed closer to midnight.

The authors seem to be confused on imp0ortant details such as the difference between the submarine's outer hull and the pressure hull, treating them as if they were redundant and near equal. There are many other material details that should have been corrected during the editing process.

I'm not sure if it was multiple authors or some other factor but highly dramatized sections were annoying and distracting. The culture, in these sections, was not what I have seen as the culture of our Naval warriors.

Overall two or three stars, not for the significance of the topic, incredibly complex technical achievements or the courage and skills of those who were at the tip of the spear. Their achievements were magnificent; perhaps one day the Navy will allow several of the skippers and other senior officers to write the real story.

I have sent copies of this book to several friends as I don't want to part with my copy. The stories are all true. They ae incredable. If you have any interest in submarines, then this is the book!

Better late than never since this Tom Clancy (novel) possible clone was published in the nineties. Anyhow it appears a few insiders (submariners) ) has reviewed and described this book in a most succulent manner but omitted out some important aspects of this deadly game of blind mans bluff in undersea warfare as investigated by these courageous authors. I use the word “courageous” because to go up against the Powers That Be like the NSA as well as other security agencies takes courage, despite the fact I may not agree with their political basis. In this book, they have uncovered and brought to the surface those highly restricted (need to know) operations of some of our sub fleet tactics in regards to spying and perhaps a few “dirty tricks” for future enemy encounters. Lots of documentation as can bee seen by the Appendixes “A” (Submarine Collision) “B” (From the Soviet Side) and “C” (Submarine Awards) that was very through researched—typical academic standards from "professionals". Their chronological sequence of events was dramatic described In Tom Clancy style prose in My opinion while describing the developments of sub technology from the ending of WW11 up until this book went to print was very elucidating and educational. Their descriptive characterizations of the men by who manned these undersea spy subs gives reader a greater depth and understanding---in other words it put a FACE on these men----their fears and ambitions! The astute observations and opinions by these authors enhanced the entertainment and enjoyment of this book. I especially liked the manner they told the story of one of the first spy subs (USS Cochino) and the men who manned it. Its disastrous patrol and the tragedy that be-fail it when a fire broke in the aft battery compartment and the gear (OBA—Oxygen Breathing Apparatus, needed to fight it malfunctioned. This fire destroyed the sub and six crew members and one civilian specialist lives. The Captain had to get all the men out of the noxious fumes all except the XO who was badly burned fighting the fire in the aft battery comportment was left below. Lives were lost but there was heroism and drama when a Chief Morgan jumped into the icy frigid waters to save a man sweep overboard in very turbulent and heavy seas---with sixteen foot waves that make a sub bobble like a cork in rushing water Now imagine a swimmer trying to rescue someone in those conditions---that heroism in the finest traditions of Naval service.. Also, The navy Corpsman who traversed the slippery sub deck and stayed with the XO to render aid was very courageous as well considering he could have been sweep overboard by the slippery sub deck as well as blown up from the HIGHLY explosive hydrogen gases escaping within the sub. There are a vast multitude of sea stories based on the events within the Silent Service over the last three decades these authors that could be told but they (authors0 have only sought to expose but a few. These stories as well as others contained within this book may be based on half-truths and conjecture by the authors but they do portray the men who man our subs as a special breed apart—a courageous lot indeed! I especially like the dedication they made---”To the men who lived these tales and especially to those who shared them with us”,
The military clearances/ratings have always operated on a “NEED TO KNOW”---basis in what ever operation one may be involved in and it was a masterpiece of journalism for them to get theses men to talk about such events and operations knowing the potential for violations of the oaths military men take when engaged in such covert operations as described herein. The stories related in this book showed the trials and tribulations the men had to undergo as well as their loved ones who where left in the dark when these men were deployed and not knowing when or IF ever their love ones will return form their deployment. I liked the research and documentation they presented through out this book ---- it was varied and resourceful enough for a skeptic to accept as factual------ like Naval History, Navy War College to name a few they utilized to add substance to this book and to insure these stories were as unbiased as possible—although one can not write and be unbiased in my opinion!

I would recommend reading of this book to others who enjoy covert sea stories or ex Navy veterans with the exception--”DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ” until verified many times over by reliable sources.

Men who plow the sea know only too well that the sea can be the greatess FOE besides the enemy that they may encounter while out on patrol as well as accidents like fires or undersea collisions with other subs or undersea obstacles like mountains they were not charted, etc.

More than anything this book portrayed the spirit and soul of submarine sailors in my opinion and a little bit about espionage from the sub mariner viewpoint but as one ex sub-mariner expressed in his review titled ---”ONLY THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG" is a vast understatement!!!

I read this book on the advice on someone who works in the field. I found the book very enlightening. There are some very smart people on both sides of the superpowers that are really not out to destroy each other.

America's undersea involvement in the Cold War was an astounding story of ingenuity, persistence and courage. Learning this from Blind Man's Bluff required a tolerance for poor writing that I found difficult to muster.
If not for the importance and intrigue of the subject matter, this book would hold no appeal. The sentence structure is often awkward and ambiguous. In a book that dabbles with technical information, this is unacceptable. Some of the factual errors are simple enough to betray a lack of basic understanding of the subject.
Technical confusion is not the only problem. Subjects change mid-sentence. Adjectives are irrelevant. Punctuation is misleading. Even minimal editing would have improved the book immensely.
I can't imagine why the authors spent years researching this book and then put no effort into relating the story clearly.

This is an excellent book on submarine espionage that is sure to keep you reading longer than you intended. You may find your self holding your breathe at times as the events unfold - the missions, the dangers and the safety issues.

A truly great read.

Not much more to say except I doubt some of the things they propose in the book actually happened or were perhaps aggrandized with poetic license to make it more interesting or perhaps someone just trying to fill in the blanks.

Great book, but the quality of the book delivered was disappointing. The cover had many hard folds as were many of the pages. The book had also had an obvious coffee spill on to it as many of the pages were stained. This was a very worn book. In my mind this was not a book in very good shape.

Interesting book giving us an inside view of the underwater cold war. The most interesting thing was although that the U.S Navy, for a period any way and until they createt new "enemies" was the biggest supporters of the Soviet Union.

I was expecting spine-tingling sea stories. There were about 3 of them in the book. The rest was details on Watergate, congressional approval, Navy politics, Russian politics, etc. Disappointing, although there were a few tidbits that were very interesting.

is a classical between the books of submarines. The histories about spionage are great, all docomented.

it is a book who teach you dive inside the history of the cold ward... a war without battles, but with victims.

Beyond the iteration of a series of very interesting and important events in the Cold War, the authors fail to capture the flavor of personal stories in those events, with some exceptions. In the first 150 pages there are no less than ten examples of the lack of comprehension of the way submariners speak and behave at their duties. Some of the quotes are simply not the way submarine sailors speak, especially those attributed the Navy chiefs.
From a submariner, 1957-77

Blind Man's Bluff...
.The cover is torn in a few places....the .pages are yellowed...a very used copy...I .have not read it as yet. I buy used books frequently....this is the first time that the book that came was very much used

I am amazed, as I reread this book, at how much it teaches me about we owe the military for there unsung service and sacrifice. As the USA move into another very dangerous time in our history, these types of stories help us to refocus on what is necessary and why. It points out that it is the people we need to understand in order to be safe. Thank you for writing this story and most of all thank you to the men and women of the US Navy, CIA and others that help to keep our way of living viable.

is a classical between the books of submarines. The histories about spionage are great, all docomented.

it is a book who teach you dive inside the history of the cold ward... a war without battles, but with victims.

Beyond the iteration of a series of very interesting and important events in the Cold War, the authors fail to capture the flavor of personal stories in those events, with some exceptions. In the first 150 pages there are no less than ten examples of the lack of comprehension of the way submariners speak and behave at their duties. Some of the quotes are simply not the way submarine sailors speak, especially those attributed the Navy chiefs.
From a submariner, 1957-77

Blind Man's Bluff...
.The cover is torn in a few places....the .pages are yellowed...a very used copy...I .have not read it as yet. I buy used books frequently....this is the first time that the book that came was very much used

I am amazed, as I reread this book, at how much it teaches me about we owe the military for there unsung service and sacrifice. As the USA move into another very dangerous time in our history, these types of stories help us to refocus on what is necessary and why. It points out that it is the people we need to understand in order to be safe. Thank you for writing this story and most of all thank you to the men and women of the US Navy, CIA and others that help to keep our way of living viable.

After reading a few pages I went looking for the bibliography to validate some of the information, there was none. No references, no footnotes. How is a reader to know if the book is based on fact rather than fiction. Where any of the crewmen on these subs interviewed? The way the book reads it was like the author was standing on the con as the events played out. How was the information gathered? The Navy had and always will be very secretive about what went on below the surface. If anyone knows of a more factual book about the cable tapping please let me know. What these crews did, given the state of the technology back then is beyond comprehension. My hat is tipped to all who have served and who are now serving under the deep blue ocean. Just my humble opinion.

Might be interesting, but for me it was a waste of time and money. While this book does contain a little interesting information, most of the things it talks about could have easily been gleened from the news at the time they took place. The parts about the Scorpion and the Thresher incidents were the best part of the book for me.

At first blush, this six year research project seems unfathomable regarding the 'silent service', (USN submarine operations). It spans four plus decades, and deals with some harrowing, highly sensitive spying missions, targeting America's most revered nemesis -- the Soviet Union. From the tapping of oceanic telephone cables, the shadowing of Soviet subs, and lurking within "Ivan's" heavily patrolled shipyards. This and much more will undoubtedly leave the average reader gob smacked.

These declassified stories are the byproduct of "hundreds of testimonials" provided by the submariners themselves. Over 2,000 spying missions were purportedly conducted during this time span, (late 1950's - late 1990's). Many of the missions were fraught with anxiety, as the American subs were wired to self-destruct if caught performing these surreptitious, clandestine operations.

Also included is the USN's attempt to covertly salvage a sunken Russian sub; dealing with the aftermath of treasonous American spy's, (Aldrich Ames and the John A. Walker Jr spy ring -- aka "Johnny Walker Red"), and the coup de grâce, getting a front row seat to the luminaries of the day, i.e. Top Admirals and sitting Presidents.

The Russians 'silent service' and their maladies at "keeping up with the Jones's", (USA), are also explored. Talk about being a fly on the wall!

This book details the efforts of the US Navy to use submarines to learn what it could about the Soviet Navy’s capabilities, particularly those of their submarines, as well as their general capabilities and intentions. The book details the successful efforts to tap Soviet undersea cables, follow their submarines and to learn as much as they could about them. Since most of this information is still classified, the authors were forced to focus on events which have become part of the public record, particularly with regards to submarine mishaps and the sinking of several, including the USS Scorpion and the attempt to recover a sunken Soviet submarine. The book clearly shows the dangers that the men who served on submarines (both of the US and USSR) experienced and of their sacrifices. It shows how the US Navy strove to protect the US from the nuclear weapons that soviet submarines carried and how the Walker spy ring undermined this effort. I enjoyed the book and found it very interesting and informative. I recommend the book to anyone interested in US military history, military policy and the Cold War.

In my opinion, this book not only gives one a flavor of what is was like to serve on a submarine during the cold war, but also provides valuable insights into other aspects of the US Navy – political infighting between it and the CIA, and between Naval Intelligence and the Nuclear Navy that controlled the nuclear submarines that it relied upon to gather information. I also feel that the book also gave insights on the relations between the US and the USSR, and on the end of the Cold War. The book contains a appendix listing known collisions between allied (US and British Royal Navy) submarines and those of the USSR. There is also a brief appendix that provides the USSR Navy’s perspective on events and on actions that they were taking. The book also has two very useful maps and over 30 black and white photographs printed on glossy paper, that show some of the people, submarines and equipment mentioned in the book.

The story of the US Navy’s submarine intelligence gathering efforts ends in 1998, the year of publication of the book. As is noted in the book, with the end of the Cold War these US intelligence-gathering efforts have shifted somewhat to the Middle East. It would be interesting to know how the rise of blue water Chinese navy and of Russia under Vladimir Putin has altered this intelligence gathering effort. However, as any information of this sort is surely highly classified I guess we will have to wait many decades more to find out what is going on now.

This wonderful book finally closed the loop on the story of my father's career and what he did during the Cold War. William F Parrish was an electrical engineer for Westinghouse's Oceanographic Institute in Annapolis in the 60's to the 80's. He earned 5 US patents for his work. The few stories he could tell me about his work there on low light level CCTV for the location of objects underwater fell into place with my reading of this thrilling book. In particular, he described a trip that he took on very short notice where an undersea cable was located by towing instruments that he designed behind a ship to see objects on the sea bottom. I believe that this was the submarine cable used by the Soviet Union's Navy to communicate with its northern fleet. After US divers attached a monitoring/recording capsule to the cable, the US was able to monitor all of this communications traffic. I am so proud of my father and the work that he did. I am thankful to the authors for telling the story so that I could learn about what he did.

This book was recommended to me by a former submariner lending it instant credibility. Additionally, I was interested after my father repaired submarines for a couple of decades until he retired. This book was a one-of-a-kind read and very engaging.
Blind Man's Bluff fulfills the title by describing the espionage conducted by USN submarines throughout the Cold War. The authors tell the story in a well-researched, insightful manner. This book is very interesting; after 3+ decades in the military I had no idea these event were the operations some of our submarines were out to sea doing. Additionally, the writing style is very engaging and kept me turning pages until the end. One of the most interesting parts is Appendix B that discusses former Soviet submarine operations using anecdotes and research from former Soviet submariners. That section could have been a whole book in itself.
The only shortfall is that this book was copyrighted in 1998 leaving me with the unanswered question as to what has happened in the submarine force since the Clinton White House. Otherwise, if you have any interest in submarines, covert underwater operations, or just a good read, I highly recommend this book.

I'n rather surprised I hadn't heard if this book until recently. It's an interesting read for military buffs and pacifists alike.

The Cold War was a lose/lose situation. Both sides spent enormous amounts of money "preventing" the other side from winning a nuclear war nobody could "win" because of the destruction that a few nuclear warheads could cause.

The stories themselves were fascinating. The secrecy that men who suffered had to maintain (more so on the American side than the Soviet side, apparently) for many years. The "thank you's" given by American subnariners to the authors during their book tours for telling the stories they themselves weren't allowed to tell (at the end of the book) can give you a whole different feeling about the stories that were told.

We are submariners,
We solve problems most don't know they have,
In ways they can't understand.

Have owned 4 copies, all loaned out, and never returned. Will purchased 5th in near future.

The accounting is reasonably complete (up to the late 90's) and accurate.

There is a much larger/continuing story out there to be told.

Like all the times boomers were fired upon by the soviets, test launches of SLBM's near the North Pole, boomers grounded in territorial waters, exceeding crush depth to evade whatever. That's the serious stuff, then there's the fun/funny stuff, like locking a 3rd class midshipmen in a torpedo tube cuz' he fired a water slug and is ordered to dive the tube, like trim parties for new dive officers in which the CO leads the party, tricking the navigator into believing a small group is "stealing" the sub and heading for the sub pens in WI while on alert, "paddle fish", dragging fishing trawlers around by their nets, artwork created out of "plastic eggs", Blue Nose ceremonies, the list goes on & on & on.

Great book gals/guys, how about a sequel?

This is a great read. Very well researched and well written. Left me wondering what’s happening out there with our submarine force today. Surely support for the Navy Seal teams would have continued to develop. Advances in computer miniaturization, satellite navigation, drone technology, etc. must have further extended these capabilities. One can only imagine what depths, speeds, and silence today’s subs are capable of. Advances in robotics (remote control of unmanned devices) have doubtless advanced. I had no previous knowledge of the cable taps and found that especially interesting. The ability to sort out and unscramble multiple encrypted conversations going through a single large cable bundle using induction seems a difficult technical challenge that they solved with NSA and Bell Labs wizardry. The ‘fish’ developed by Westinghouse Baltimore were also interesting.

Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew put together a great book telling previously untold stories of the heroes who defended the United States underwater during the Cold War. These sailors didn’t have their story told before for various reasons. First, the Cold War had no battles in the traditional sense there is no Yorktown or Gettysburg for people to make movies about. Their battles were espionage by cable taping and sub shadowing. Second, everything was classified. Their stories could not be told without endangering further operations. This book shows the good with the bad and the tragedy with the glory of the silent service.

The tragedy of course is the loss of life, when ships were lost at sea with all hands aboard. If a surface ship sinks there is a chance you might survive, however, if the submarine goes down you are already underwater and you are doomed. Unless of course you are on the Cochino, then you might survive.

One of the more interesting subjects to read about was the loss of the Scorpion. When the book talks about how Dr. John Craven’s investigation made conclusions about its loss it presents a most dramatic scene. That scene is the part of the investigation that placed Lt. Commander Fountain, the former executive officer of the Scorpion, to act as captain in the simulator.

“Chills shot through Craven when he saw the results. By now, he and several others attending this test were nearly certain they had replicated the Scorpion’s loss. No one told that to Fountain. No one told him he had just possibly enacted the circumstances that led to the deaths of the men he had once helped to command. Maybe nobody had to tell him. He left the simulator without asking any questions, without saying a word.” (p.146)

After a forty-five year Cold War American submarines had developed a whole culture of brinkmanship with the Soviets. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, which was great for the United States because we won the Cold War. However the submarine fleet was short of purpose. Of course this book ends in the 1990s I think in the last decade they probably have found a new purpose and mission.

There is also the tails of their many victories. The book is called Blind Man’s Bluff after a line in a ballad written by a submariner named Tommy Cox in honor of his captain. Captain Whitey Mack reminds me of a real life Captain Kirk, except he operated beneath the waves as oppose to up in space. This daring captain once shadowed a soviet sub for its entire cruise.

“In fact, everything about this thirty-seven-year-old commander was big. His towering, 240-pound frame didn’t quite fit though Lapon’s low hatches and narrow passageways, and he was almost always bent over in the control room, littered overhead with a maze of piping and wire. Submarines were just too small to contain Whitey Mack. He was a larger-than-life renegade, much like the heroes in the novels he devoured by the basketful. He saw himself as the hero in a story he was writing as he went along, a story ruled by his own tactics and sometimes by his own rules.” (p.174)”

After a forty-five year Cold War, American submarines had developed a whole culture of brinkmanship with the Soviets. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, which was great for the United States because we won the Cold War. However the submarine fleet was left short of purpose. Of course this book ends in the 1990s, I think in the last decade they probably have found a new purpose and mission.

The book really deserves 4.5 stars in my book, but unfortunately that is not an option. I really loved reading about all the daring/crazy missions these brave submariners partook dating all the way back to 1957. The only downside for me was that I wish they had spent more time “at sea” and less time talking about the political machinations, but I realize the political side was a necessary evil to put the missions and risks into perspective. If you have even the slightest interest in submarine options or espionage, I would highly recommend this book. And make sure to read the epilogue and afterword!

On a side note, does anyone have any suggestions for a good companion book or follow-up book to this one? If so, please leave a comment. Thanks in advance!

B.M.B. is a very written story with plenty of suspense of the Cold War years. It's evolution of `one-ups-manship' was intriguing. Sontag and Drew spent a LOT of time researching for this book. Especially interviews with the actual crews.
I do have two `complaints' with the book.
1.) BMB spends a lot of chapters devoted to the missions devoted to laying underwater taps on the communications network of the Soviets. Yet there is relatively little said about what the missions captured. Maybe most of it was unavailable at the time of publication 1998. I would have really liked to know what we did learn from the inordinate amount of money and risk of men's lives.
2.) She only mentions the Walker family spy network in one page! The espionage given to the Russian's devastated and severely compromised our submarine fleet. The ring spied for nearly 18 years ... giving the positions all our boats, our capabilities etc. Meantime, they were buying half-million dollar homes, new Jaguars, etc on a $60,000 salary nobody was suspicious. I wished they would have given more attention this saga in the book.
All in all, the book throughly entertained me and glad I got it!

At times I pride myself on knowing a little bit about history and the mechanics that have shaped out world today. I must admit I felt very humbled by this book. Yes, most of us know of the Cuban Missle Crises and how close the countdown clock approached a confrontation between the US and the USSR. It's what we didn't know after the Crisis passed that was so enlightening.

The authors do an excellent job of combing the stories of the submariners who took part in "keeping the peace" with the current political events that the press could pass on was privy to. The decade of the 80's was the most delicate period the Navy and the US endured. In an effort to keep a finger on the pulse of the USSR we went to great extremes to literaly tap into the the communication systems of the "Bear" at great peril to the crews performing the assigned missions. At times, the crews actually question the legality of the missions and one boat came close to full crew mutiny. Never saw that on the 6:00 o'clock news!

If you were captived by the movie K-19, then you will become immersed in this read and will be finished before you know it. It is that good. Imagine being in a steel tube and colliding with an enemy who was not aware of your presence. Imagine tapping into the main communication cable off the coast of the USSR and getting stuck on the bottom? Remember the scene from Das Boat in the Gibraltor Straits?

So, are you ready for true history that reads like an action packed novel? Then this book is for you. You will not be disappointed at all.

Folks, this one of the greatest stories for the men who served in the depths and were never able to tell family, friends or anyone their stories until the fall of the iron curtain and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

As with others I participated in submarine operations in undisclosed locations. It is not my place to say what went on for I, like every other, signed an oath of nondisclosure. I will, however, tell my youngest, "You want to know what your dad and your brother-in-law did in the Navy? Read this."

Reading the book brought back many memories. Not just memories of being on the boat but memories of friends I made along the way. Memories of support from shore sites and memories of The Bear.
Dirsup: On, Over & Under

In 1984, Tom Clancy published his famous book The Hunt for Red October. It was a brilliant work of fiction, and close enough to the truth that CIA and Navy types worried there might be a leak somewhere.

Blind Man's Bluff is the true to life stories of the heros of the "Silent Service" the submariners who travel far, deep, quiet but also have to keep silent about what they do. The exploits of these sailors is exciting, this book reads like a novel. To say these sailors had guts would be an understatement.

There are maps, diagrams of subs, photos that help tell these fascinating tales of underwater bravery. The authors tell of the successes, the failures, the politics, the morality of our spying objectively and factually. We certainly pushed the envelope of our spying and crossed the line on several occasions, but we won. And he who wins gets to write the history.

Now declassified operations that involved tapping Soviet phones, trying to recover Soviet crashed subs, stalking subs, the "Crazy Ivan" moves you find in Clancy's work is true. The Soviets spied on us as well, we just out did them and took more risks.

A very worthwhile read for anyone interested in the Cold War, Spying, US Naval operations from 1945-1998. There is a section on the Soviet perspective of the submarine operations which is very interesting as well.

"Blind Man's Bluff" is a book that in any other country but the USA would have put its author and contributors in jail. For this is the story of many classified missions undertaken during the bad old days of the Cold War by American submarines against the Soviet Union. These missions were utterly classified, and startlingly successful much of the time.

Unknown to almost all American citizens, for several decades the US Navy's submarine force engaged in an aggressive intelligence campaign against the Soviet Union--in fact it is said that many US subs spent more time in Soviet coastal waters than did most Soviet vessels. According to this book, the Glomar Explorer episode, far from being an intelligence coup, was a poorly thought-out venture into the US Navy's turf by the CIA. On the other hand, various other heretofore unknown undersea intelligence operations were hugely successful, perhaps adding to US security in ways that most of us will never understand well enough to appreciate.

Regardless of one's personal attitude about the Cold War, this book makes plain the amazing level of both competence and courage that characterized US Navy submarine crews. It may have been peacetime to most of us, but these sailors went in harm's way often, putting their lives on the line by venturing into Soviet waters where their presence, if detected, would lead to a very likely lethal response.

The book gives some interesting perspectives on the Cold War. Soviet submarines never felt secure, and the Soviet Navy had an accurate perception that any time its submarines put to sea they were being aggressively hunted by a relentless, technically advanced enemy. On the other hand, much of this American technological and industrial prowess was at least in part neutralized by the second oldest profession in the world--human spies, i.e. the Walker spy ring and perhaps others. This book explains how an American intelligence operation that undoubtedly cost billions of dollars was eventually thwarted by a few traitors who were paid, at most, tens of thousands of dollars in bribes by the KGB.

This book is more engaging than any espionage novel and is a must-read for those interested in either espionage or stories of men at sea.

"Blind Man's Bluff" tells of an aspect of the history of the nuclear submarine navy that was probably accepted by many, but not sufficiently appreciated: the history of nuclear subs as spy ships, silent spies enmeshed in cold-war enigmas. Until I read "Blind", my perception of military subs has been one of deterrence - training for a never green-lighted nuclear mission. Even subs not armed with city-smashing ICBM's were purpose-built for WWIII: whether those armed with crude cruise-missiles that preceded the age of ICBM armed subs, or when newer attack submarines subs took to sea, to hunt down Soviet subs armed to the teeth with missiles. Sontag & Drew tell a tale of a undersea warfare that was anything but stalled by mutual deterrence, detailing the submarine as an active agent of espionage. From the end of WWII until today, subs relied on ever evolving technologies to allow them to silently enter the coastal redoubts of the Soviet Union and gather intelligence. Between the tenacity of their crews and the somewhat trouble-prone technology available, our subs tapped into "secure" Soviet communications lines, located the wreck of a Red Navy missile sub that sank (under mysterious circumstances) in the Pacific in 1968, and generally tailed and catalogued every soviet sub they could find. Tailing Russian subs proves to be the true challenge. Under water, submarines are located and tracked using sound - whether by the sounds they emit, or by being echo-ranged by a hunter. Every "class" of subs (a class refers to a generation of a kind of submarine, like a new class of missile-carrying sub, or hunter-killer sub) proves to have its own distinct "signature" - a sort of sonar fingerprint (sounds contributing to this fingerprint include emissions related to propeller movement and - in the case of nukes - the steam plants and pump machinery of their reactors). Thus, finding a hitherto unknown class of sub, getting close enough to establish its signature, and tailing it long enough to verify the signature are critical if fellow submariners are to be able to intercept the enemy in war situations. Drew and Sontag chillingly tell of both the pressure to locate and classify new soviet subs, and the hazards involved. Far from an exact science, the ambiguities of undersea navigation and the unpredictable affects that the oceans have on sonar equipment combined with the unpredictable behavior of Russian crews enhances the hazards of this cat-and-mouse game, leading to frequent collisions. Because all subs suffer a blind spot behind them, Submarine commanders frequently make abrupt course reversals - swapping stern for bow - never knowing if a pursuer is too close behind to compensate. ("Bluff" details a 1980's collision between a Soviet cruise-missile carrier and the USS Tautog, one that the Americans initially thought fatal to the Russians; the Russians blamed the Americans for the 1968 sinking of their missile sub in the Pacific, likely believing that a collision occurred.)
Unfortunately, this history of an intelligence war that lasted for about half-a-century seems incomplete. "Blind Man's Bluff" actually groups together many stories - some probably deserving their own book - in a sort of "Right Stuff" narrative that lacks a central theme. In "Stuff", it was the race to beat the Russians to the Moon. Though that book stopped short of the lunar landings, Wolfe made his point once his astronauts and scientists matured enough to make the moonshots an inevitable American triumph. Unlike the history of spaceflight, dominate by historical moments that connect America to the moon, the obvious milestones of submarine technology (nuclear power and the torpedo-shaped submarine hull) fall midway, while other historic points (loss and discovery of the attack sub USS Scorpion and the CIA's semi-successful efforts to raise a sunken Russian sub) seem anti-climactic and disconnected. Between these historic points, there are many good stories (some I've never heard of, others I have, but seem better treated here) that remain insufficiently connected by a well-defined theme or by historically recurring characters as Wolfe had in "Stuff". Figures like Sergey Gorshkov (The Soviet Navy's widely acknowledged architect), Hyman Rickover (the so-called "Father of the Nuclear Navy") and John Craven recur throughout the book, but the author's don't account for how these men or others shaped the mission of today's navy. Instead, the details and people of the stories recounted in "Bluff" seem to go little farther than their own stories. We learn the history of the troubled Mk 37 Torpedo only as a possible explanation for the Scorpion disaster. Similarly, the hurried and incomplete planning that sent Scorpion to sea when it needed overhaul - exacerbating unsafe conditions thought endemic only to Russian subs - are unconnected to historic trends showing improved or decreased reliance on equipment, training, morale or logistics. Most glaring of all, the story seems to exclude the Russian side, except to confirm a few facts that Americans didn't know. While "Bluff" seems to tell the story of submarine espionage, it's not clear if the Americans were unique in using subs for spying or if the Soviets, who had the biggest nuclear powered fleet in the world, are still holding their secrets. Sontag and Drew hint at the offensive strategies of the Red Navy but never rule out whether Russian subs tried to match the USN in espionage. We know that the Soviets relied on the Walkers and turncoats like Aldrich Ames, but have not learned how. Also, the illegal technology transfers by Toshiba and Konigsberg get little shrift here. Sontag and Drew make sub-hunting such an impossible chore, that you begin to wonder whether the Russians were bridging the gap in sub-technology as reported in the late 1980's, or whether such advances were historically typical. While America is the acknowledged cold-war victor, if Russian submarine history is as truly opaque as "Bluff" allows, then it is the Russians who merit the accolades. As in WWII, the ultimate measure of success in submarine warfare is silence.

When my friend recommended this book to me, his comments left me with the impression that it was going to delve more into the history side of these operations, but the reality is that the history is presented more as a wrapper for the stories within. The individual stories make up the bulk of the book, but I feel like I came away with a better understanding of the overall progress of the struggle thanks to the author's added notes.

I've been an enthusiast of all things military for most of my life, but I have to admit I didn't know much of anything about the world of submarine esponage. Of course I'd read Clancy, and other sources about attack boats stalking one another and "boomers" sneaking away to a dark, deep spot in the sea for months at a time, but I no idea of all of the different missions the sub force had undertaken. From recovering fragments of missile parts, to physically tapping undersea cables, I was pretty impressed. The author did a fine job of presenting the sailors as flesh and blood people, and not bit parts in the bigger historical picture. Since the book is mainly about the stories themselves, this may seem obvious, but in the past I have not always found this to be the case. Sontag and Drew did a good job of being true to the spirit of the book and letting the story tell itself. I could really feel like what was written down on the page was passed onto them directly from the people who were actually there.

Like others, I was surprised that much of this information was avaliable to the authors at all. Some of these missions seem like the type of thing the get recorded and locked away forever in some vault. I applaude the authors for the groundwork they must have done to gather all of this information and succeed in presenting it in a well thought out format.

I found myself wishing there were a few more stories from the later year, maybe the 80's and 90's, but I'm sure that is probably still locked away somewhere. I would be interested in reading about how the sub espionage business is conducted in today's post 9-11 world, but I guess if someone where to tell me about it, they'd have to kill me. Or maybe I should go hang out at the Horse and Cow.

Confronted with fading memories, secrecy oaths, security clearances and old loyalties, the authors have done an outstanding job writing a fascinating account that rivals the best cold war fiction. This is a true story of American submarine espionage during the cold war and as the authors note "In silence and stealth, but most importantly in secrecy, attack subs carried out as many as two thousand spy missions as they kept track of Soviet submarines".
In chronological order, the book covers US submarine surveillance during the cold war beginning with the loss of the diesel submarine USS Cochino and ends with the post cold war secrecy problems still facing the families of lost submarine sailors on both sides. Narratives are given for several incidents such as the submarine USS Gudgeon being caught in Soviet waters and forced to the surface by the Soviets. A most intriguing chapter covers the 1968 loss of the US nuclear submarine Scorpion as it returned from a mission to the Mediterranean Sea. Using acoustic data, a submarine simulator and advanced mathematics, it took nearly five months for scientists to locate the Scorpion. Although the evidence points to an on board torpedo explosion, to this day the cause of the sub's lost is still in dispute.
Blind man's bluff involved tracking Soviet subs, surveillance of missile launches and communications monitoring. Soviet subs were trailed by US submarines to determine the submarine's characteristics, patrol areas plus Soviet Naval operational philosophy and tactics. The book contains a fascinating account of the USS Lapon tracking a Soviet missile sub for 47 days. However, tracking was dangerous. There were several underwater collisions, with the text describing the one where the USS Tautog collided with the Soviet submarine Black Lila. The book states "Tautog flipped on her right side, rolling nearly 30 degrees as she was forced backward and down. Men went grabbing for a handhold on rails and tables. Coffee mugs, pencils, rulers, charts and erasers went flying through the control room." While both submarines were heavily damaged, neither sub sank, although each submarine's commander thought the other had sunk. In a post cold war interview, the Black Lila's commander stated "I thought for a second, `I have sunk a brother submariner'....It was hard to have realized it."
The book narrates the US attempt to raise a sunken Soviet submarine. After locating the sub, Naval Intelligence proposed to remove missiles and code materials using robots. The CIA disagreed, intervened, and took over. Ignoring international law, the CIA contracted with Howard Hughes to build a special ship to recover the entire submarine under the pretex of searching for manganese. The project failed with only a 38-foot piece recovered. The Naval Intelligence's approach was validated years later when Navy robots were successfully used to explore the Titanic.
The book's high point is the narrative of wire taps on Soviet cables in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Soviet White Sea. Under great danger, taps were place on Soviet military cables by divers working outside a specially equipped surveillance submarine. At considerable risk, taps were periodically serviced to recover data tapes. Servicing a tap, the Seawolf once got mired for nearly two days on the bottom of the Okhotsk Sea. To avoid detection, the secret surveillance submarine Parche traveled 15,000 miles one way on a indirect route to place a tap on a White Sea cable and gain intelligence on Soviet Arctic operations. The Soviet's use of the Arctic ice was a critical strategic move and the authors note that "the Soviets shift to the Arctic was a brilliant move....where it would be hugely difficult for US forces to root out Soviet missile subs and destroy them."
Throughout, the text describes the personalities involved discussing the differences arising between individuals, groups and agencies. The handling and briefing of the President, Congress and/or Congressional oversight committees is most interesting. A key player through much of the book is John Cavens of Naval Intelligence. Cavens and his scientists developed the techniques that successfully located the nuclear bomb dropped into the Mediterranean following an Air Force B-52 mid-air collision, located the sunken Soviet sub and pinpointed the location of the lost USS Scorpion.
In summary, the text notes "While satellites replaced many of the spy planes and made intelligence-gathering safer....submarines continued to confront the Soviets directly" and concludes "There is no question that some skippers went too far in their quest for the big score. But then the Navy and the intelligence agencies weighed the gains against the possibility of a violent response, they relied on one simple fact: the Soviets were sending out their spies as well."
The text ends stating that "Now, with the end of the cold war and a new phase in submarine espionage beginning, it's time to look back, time to assess what has so long been hidden." Whatever may be the readers views regarding the cold war, the book tells how so many US Navy submarine sailors when "in harms way" so that Americans could sleep safely at night.
The book finishes with appendices and notes which alone are worth book's price. Appendix A describes nineteen confirmed or probable submarine collisions during the cold
war while Appendix B gives the Soviet side of this story.
Following the appendices, notes give the sources for each chapter. The principal player's remarks are often revealing. For example, Admiral Watkins, former Chief of Naval Operations, stated that he allowed the U.S.Naval Institute - a private, nonprofit organizations that works closely with the Navy - to publish Tom Clancy's novel The Hunt for Red October as part of the Navy's psychological warfare against the Soviets. Admiral Watkins said "about two-thirds of the technical information in Clancy's novel is on target and the rest is wrong, and that it typically overstates the US abilities...." The Admiral continues that the book "did us a service....The Soviets kind of believed it, and we won the battle...."

"Blind Man's Bluff," is a fast and easy read about the submarine espionage tactics used during the Cold War. Most of the stories are on American subs but in the latest edition, an Appendix contains a few brief Soviet items that the authors recently uncovered.
Among the subjects covered are: submarine disasters, underwater collisions, undersea wire tapping on Soviet cables, the attempt by the Glomar Explorer to lift a sunken Soviet sub off the sea bottom, and many, many introductions to key Naval Intelligence officers and sub captains. Essentially, it's every story the government tried to keep classified during the Cold War. The authors came across the information by searching declassified documents and interviewing former Navy employees.
Anyone interested in covert military operations, the Cold War, naval operations or Tom Clancy fans will immensely enjoy this book. But even for the casual, meandering reader who doesn't concentrate his reading time on a single topic, Blind Man's Bluff will still be quite enjoyable.
It's so reader-friendly that most people will fly right through this book. And that's partly why I give it only four stars. In parts, it gets a little too sensationalized and too-Clancy for my liking. As an avid history reader, I concentrate on facts and information in texts and at times, BMB bogs down in dialogue and excessive melodrama. Instead of being informative it often becomes very narrative which isn't all bad depending on your reading tastes.
Sontag and the other authors did a great service in writing this book to the courageous men of this country who defended our borders by serving in the 'Silent Service.' Many of the vets have never been able to tell their story to relatives because of an oath of secrecy. Finally, their stories are told. Thank you veterans as well as current military personal for keeping American freedom safe!
- If you're lucky, you may be able to catch an hour-long segment of "History Undercover" on the History Channel devoted to this book. They replay it every couple of months so check your TV listings or the web site.

I am a part-time sub-a-holic and when I saw this novel I just could NOT resist it. I have never served in the military so I am far from an authoratative voice on anything to do with the Navy and it's underwater exploits during the Cold War...however I KNOW what I like, and this book has as much intrigue and tension as ANY fiction novel that attempts to run silent and deep.
Ever since Clancy opened my eyes with 'The Hunt for Red October' I have been interested in reading more about nuclear submarines or subs in general...how they work, what it takes to shadow an enemy sub for hundreds if not thousands of miles all without being detected. The drama that oozes from the pages of this book can be cut with a knife. More hair-raising tales are still out there but due to national security, we won't be reading about them anytime soon, so in the meantime, crack open this thriller that has enough chills for any half-dozen fictional thrillers combined.
It absolutely rivited me at some of the REAL life-threatening missions that took place during the cold war. Our underwater military should be given one amazing pat on the back for enduring such a game all in the name of protecting our boarders.
Some of the stories read like tall tales, which is exactly what makes them even more amazing. Evading Russian ships that dropped depth charges on an American sub...attaching sophisticated listening devices on Russian telephone lines right under their NOSES...locating and retrieving an honest-to-goodness thermonuclear bomb that the Air Force 'accidentally' dropped in the Mediterranean...attempting to raise a sunken Russian submarine in the Pacific...the speculation on how America lost the Thresher and the Scorpion...these stories and much more await you within the pages of this historical account of our unsung heros of the deep. If you find Michael DiMercurio or Tom Clancy to be facinating reading, do yourself a HUGE favor and grab this thriller...as they say, Truth IS stranger than fiction, and this novel PROVES it. All I can say is my hat's off to ALL members of the Navy's Sub Force, especially those who were portrayed within the pages of 'Blind Man's Bluff'.

I was there in the 70s, and enjoyed reading this book. The Admiral was indeed ruthless, and he was also pretty eccentric. But the fleet of nuclear reactors his organization built and operated still has the best nuclear safety record on the planet. This is because he required us all to understand what we were dealing with and take Murphy's Law to heart: "If a piece of equipment CAN be operated in a particular way, then someone WILL operate it that way and experience the consequences." He was a dedicated and thorough empiricist: he always demanded to know what evidence you were basing your statements on, and heaven help the guy who tried to bluff him. This insistence on backing up every statement with demonstrable facts--especially in the mandatory EOOW/EWS seminars--is the hallmark of a Navy Nuclear Power education, and it has been the cornerstone of many successful careers. One of my nuc-school classmates went to Harvard Law School after his naval service, graduated at the top of his class, and went on to a high-powered career as a Wall Street lawyer. His nuc training made him prepare every legal brief as relentlessly and thoroughly as if his own life was at stake. Many more of us went on to be top-notch commercial software developers for the same reason: Rickover's program taught us to check every possibility, verify every claim, and NEVER take anything for granted, so that we insist on writing robust, efficient, user-proof code.
I served with Pete Graef, but not on Parche. Pete is the greatest leader of men I have ever known. He was every bit as diligent and capable as the Admiral. But he also had a sense of humor as infectious, irreverent and inspiring as those of the physicist Richard Feynman and the actor Alan Alda (who played MASH's Hawkeye Pierce). I miss Pete a lot, and wish him well wherever he is now.
--DBF pin--

As an avid 'techno-thriller' reader, I was drawn to this book mostly because I thought it was fiction...but nope. It reads as one amazing adventure after another, and all are documented and 100% true, which makes them even more incredible.
One of the more facinating stories in this great book was the story of one sub in particular that made the wrong move at the wrong time north of Japan and was caught by a Russian naval force that dropped depth charges on it endlessly and wouldn't
allow it to surface. Now before the perfection of nuclear subs, the old one's had to surface regularly to 'snorkle' and exchange the bad air which had built up over time with fresh air. At the time this sub was identified, they were due to snorkle, but were kept from doing so for fear the Russians would sink them when they were most vulnerable. These poor sailers were stuck inside a death trap. Either they would be sunk, or they'd die over time due to lack of fresh air. Talk about drama! They say that truth IS stranger than fiction, and in the case of the underwater game of cat & mouse during the cold war, the truth is downright incredible! American sub's sneaking into hostile waters and tapping into underwater communications cables used by Russia, right under their noses! I was totally amazed at what 'really' happened with the use of submarines during the cold war. From having to locate the accidental droping of a 'live' H-Bomb dropped in the Medeterranean before the Russians picked it up to the probable loss of the USS Scorpion and her entire crew, this is a nail-biter of the 1st degree. Truly stunning! It made me wonder about the stories they DIDN'T tell, or COULDN'T. You KNOW that we haven't heard the rest of the story, but I am fervently hoping that one day we will.

Blind Man's Bluff offers us a series of ten or so submarine spy tales, which being true are all the more exciting.

We read of the first diesel submarines that could stay hidden under water for only short periods because they needed to surface to replenish their air supply. These were soon replaced by nuclear submarines that didn't need air to produce the energy to run their engines and recycle the crew's air. We read of a lost Soviet submarine lost at sea, found by Naval Intelligence through clever reasoning, but then lost by the CIA when they took the project over attempted an overambitious and unnecessary salvage of the whole boat.

Most fascinating of all is the story of the recording taps American subs placed on Soviet undersea cables, enabling the Americans to listen to thousands of hours of Soviet military conversations. An intelligence treasure trove unfortunately rendered useless by a spy who alerted the Soviets to one of the tapping operations.

The stories are a little disjointed from one another and so fail to form a completely coherent narrative. On the other hand, they are presented in chronological order, starting with submarine operations under the Eisenhower administration and ending under Clinton, so we get a good sense of how these operations have evolved. Recommended.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo

In this thrilling book, the evolution of American submarine espionage is explored, starting with the diesel submarines of the post World War II era through the present use of nuclear-powered submarines. Presented in a way to evoke suspense, the book contains enough excitement to rank with the best of spy fiction. The authors present true stories collected through pesonal interviews with naval personnel who actually served aboard various espionage submarines as well as from sifting through documents of previously classified information. Not everyone who was approached for an interview was willing to share information, though some naval personnel were glad to finally be able to talk about the stressful situations they encountered in their tense and secret missions. What is revealed about submarine espionage teaches a citizen to be skeptical when learning about it. It seems that the truth is not always what the government or press reveal!
A reader need not have any previous knowledge of submarines to enjoy this book. Although there is humor in some of the stories, none of them lose sight of the potential and actual occurences of death by fire, explosion or drowning. Many of the stories are truly astounding, such as the one about an American submarine tapping a communications cable in Soviet waters so close to shore that beachgoers' faces could be clearly seen through a periscope! Reading such stories elicits compassion for the brave naval personnel who spend months submerged deep in salty waters, often in perilous situations, to serve their country. The book shares the feeling that American submarine personnel developed great compassion for their "enemy" because they, too, were fellow submariners.

I haven't (yet) read the book, but I know that my father was part of the crew on one US Navy submarine that patrolled along the coast of Kamchatka in the late 1950's. Documents of some of the submarine missions have been declassified, and are available online. I found his name on a list of crewmen on his submarine, with a detailed description of its "spy" missions along Kamchatka.

Of course, my father never talked about what he was doing on his 6-month cruises. However, he had a couple of books on the Russian language, which I found to be fascinating as a youngster. Now I know why he had those books.

This book is a series of long vignettes about submarine spying and operations during the Cold War.
That these collections of stories are able to be told are a testament to the author's research and abilities to remove submariner's from their oaths of silence. The fact that they are writing about still classified events means Blind Man's Bluff lacks a central story line or continuous chronology. The authors could only relate those events that participants chose to disclose and describe. Thus, the book is very episodic as oppossed to being a neat history of the subject.
That being said, the stories are fascinating and moving. Thank a submariner the next time you run into one. These men risked (and still risk) a cold and silent demise in pursuit of their missions -- missions that contributed greatly to ensuring that the Soviets would not be tempted to go nuclear during the cold war due to our constant ability to keep ahead of their technology, strategy and tactics and general war fighting ability.
The stories are thrill rides of missions in Soviet waters, collissions between U.S. and Soviet subs, the loss of both Russian and American boats (with all hands), and close to shore cable tapping by our navy that is as breathtaking as anything Tom Clancy could dream up.
The authors do sometimes go overboard in their "breathless" writing as some of the other viewers write, but I found this only a minor annoyance. The stories of the men and machines themselves are the focus and the authors write them well.
(The only thing that nagged me through the book was the realization that so many of our naval personnel were willing to talk about events that they swore never to reveal. The authors do not spend much time on this issue. My hope is that the Navy has given the quiet ok to these veterans as a way of acknowledging their historic service. The alternative is that a large number of sworn men broke their commitment and may be making it more difficult for current submariners to perform their necessary missions.)
This is fast paced, exciting and will stir your pride in our country's armed forces.

I'm ambivalent about this book. On one hand, it tells much about submarine SpecOps at the height of the Cold War, on the other hand, it tells much about submarine SpecOps at the height of the Cold War.
Confused? Don't be: My ego loves that the story of what we did, how difficult it was, and how well we did it, is being told, but on the other hand, secrets and long-held confidences granted to members of the submarine fleet by our country have been opened up public scrutiny. I'm certain this book was read avidly in the fleet headquarters of the former Sov-block nations. Thus, my ambivalence.
Why, then, do I rate this as five stars?
Having been a member of SUBDEVGRU ONE, and crewman of the USS Richard B. Russell (SSN-687), there is much in this book on which I cannot comment, and there lies the strength of this book: It tells stories that would never otherwise have seen the light of day, outside of the standard "Usta-Fish" brags quietly told between those of us who actually lived the events told in Blind Man's Bluff. Sure, some stories are free to tell, like the wildness at the Horse and Cow, or the antics of Animal Andrews, but many others would have been lost to time. Stories of not just the boats of DEVGRU ONE, but also those of boats tasked ad-hoc, both diesel and nuclear, with intelligence gathering are related, as are confrontations and challenges with the fleet of our one-time foe. Of great interest to me were the chapters dealing with the boats that had engaged in 'research' early in the Cold War, and the unique and harrowing tasks they carried out. While I served with and under crewmen from some of these other boats, much of what they experienced could not be told (for obvious reasons); Blind Man's Bluff cast some of my former shipmates in a new light, and I understand better some of the more cryptic comments they made during our marathon bull sessions. Many, many, more stories are out there, deserving to be told, but will never see the light of day. Let the content Blind Man's Bluff stand in proxy for all the risky gambits, amusing sea stories, and daring exploits that took place in the shadows of the Cold War; it tells of the courage, inventiveness, and dedication of the sailors who went into the deep in our country's name at a time when our eventual victory in the Cold War was still far from certain. Fittingly, what you read in this book is only the tip of the iceberg, and the rest will remain forever submerged.
While I will not, cannot, comment on the absolute accuracy of events and timelines of the stories in this book, I will happily admit to having been a shipmate of men like Animal Andrews, to have gotten stupid with my fellows at the Horse and Cow, and to having sailed on some of the most amazing missions any sailor could hope to sail.
READ this book: you won't be sorry.

I first heard about this book from my uncle, a retired admiral and submariner. He told me about hinding out the book was being written, and then he supplied it to my cousins so that he could give them some idea of what he had been up to during the Cold War. He didn't actually tell them a lot himself, but what little told me also was EXTREMELY intriguing.
People really have so little idea of the amazing things that were going on in different areas during the Cold War. Blind Mans Bluff goes back to the very early days and relates some early adventures, and moves us forward to the end of the Cold War with mind-blowing examples throughout.
Through interviews with American and Soviet submariners and their families, this book was hard to believe, and harder still to put down. The History Channel used the book as a basis for a prime-time documentary, and although it didn't relate all of the examples used in the book, it still left us shaking our heads and what was actually going on while we were blissfully unaware.
For an exciting and unusual reading selection about the Cold War, and some people who have been very good at remaining silent about their extraordinary service, this book would do the trick.

My father in law lent his copy of this fine book to me. He is an avid consumer of navel history, being a retired Captain. My own father recently retired from a long career designing submarines for the Navy. His father worked at Electric Boat, before him, on the Nautilas and first Seawolf. This book really reveals the other side of what they were working on and how it shaped our world. The fall of the Berlin wall has more to do with the designers of those incredible craft and the daring crews who manned them than any late century diplomacy. Sontag and company expose the facts about these programs which my dad could only hint at. Growing up close to where these boats were built and based, I knew many commanders and crewmen. We only had a vague idea of weeks at sea doing "routine patrols". Now the pressure and responsibility they served under is apparent. I understand now why they alternated two full crews and returned so exhausted. In an age where "Top Gun" is more popular than "...Red October" we need to be aware of the contributions of all of our service men, especially those in the "Silent Service". If you are a spy novel fan, this is great background material. If you thought that the Cold War was a fabrication of paranoid politicians, this shows that someone took it very seriously. I think that we all can learn much from the dedication of everyone involved in our post-war submarine programs, and pray that those who protect us now are just as strong. Well researched, well written, and honestly told, a missing piece of modern American history.

This book snatched history from the jaws of oblivion. The authors deserve a lot of credit for their tenacity and dedication (read the Acknowledgements!). --- Among other things this book answers why the Russians, just last year, so strongly suspected that the August 2000 loss of the submarine Kursk with all 118 aboard involved collision with "another vessel': for decades, U.S. submarines had closely observed their opponent's naval activities, and there had been collisions before! --- This work is not only fascinating, but it is both detailed and well written. No one can finish this work without learning A LOT! It integrates events within the Naval espionage establishment with the international diplomatic, and the domestic political, contexts. It shows how internal politicking within the Dept. of Defense affected programs, and even safety issues. It even shows the large role that spies (notably the Walkers) played in the Cold War. ---- But this book is, above all, an enlightening page-turner. When, in the middle of the night, I woke up, my first thought was "I think I'll just get up and read a few more pages!" And I did! It's that kind of book.

Starting with the nascent Cold War in the late 1940s and closing with recently declassified post-Cold War releases, the book traces American submarine espionage episodes with energy and humor. American submarines were literally on the front lines of the Cold War, where more than a few were lost at sea. The authors follow the first disastrous exploits of American diesel submariners in 1949 as they eavesdrop just off the Soviet coasts for signs of Soviet nuclear testing. Though this first publicly-known incident ended in miserable and tragic failure, American submarine espionage would become a huge endeavor by the Cold War's end.

Starting where the Germans left off with snorkeling diesel subs, the American navy began rapidly rebuilding its submarine fleet using nuclear power under the highly controversial Admiral Rickover. Nuclear power largely relieved submarine crews of having to surface in hostile Soviet waters, which allowed them to avoid detection and 'push the envelope' ever further. The authors present most important personalities (such as John Craven, John Bradley, Bobby Inman, Waldo Lyon, and many of the top sub commanders) and their contributions during this critical time.

Among the most exciting episodes are the first ever multi-week trailing by Cdr Whitey Mack of the Yankee-class Soviet sub, tapping of undersea Soviet military phone cables, extended depth charging of the USS Gudgeon, and the CIA's misguided epic attempt of lifting an entire sunken Soviet attack sub to the surface from miles beneath the ocean. This book also explains how quickly disaster can strike at sea either between rival subs 'playing chicken' under the sea or how fishing trawlers can be instantly sucked under by subs roaming the deep. An excellent read that will opens our eyes to all we DIDN'T see during the Cold War.

I've read the book twice. After the first read, I reviewed it at B&N, gave it 4 stars, and asserted that it wanted for a bubblehead. Takes one to know one, afterall. I was delighted to receive the recognition we all deserved, and knew would/could not be forthcoming. Twenty years later, look at them and look at us . . . Wow! We won!
After the second read, though . . . The geo-political plot, and the psuedo-technical score still make this book worth getting through. It does achieve occasional hits, although with shotgun accuracy. This book is a work of fair research and writing.
But, it begs for a witness. It lacks intamacy. I poked holes in the Barents Sea, saw people on the beach, heard "torpedo in the water", and know well the accoustic profile of a quartermaster fainting, and crashing to the deck! The authors should have spent more time with the witnesses. They were off by a mile on angles and dangles! They likened a ride on the space shuttle to a spin on a tilt-a-whirl! Longer and more lifelike would have made this a better book.
If you've never been on a submarine, this book may fascinate you!
ps: Special thanks for Scorpion research, Golf tribute, and page 211 . . . it was a blast!

If, as Carl Builder wrote in "The Masks of War" (Rand/John Hopkins University Press, 1989), the Navy is happiest when left alone, then submariners must be the happiest sailors in the Navy.
"Blind Man's Bluff" was brought to my attention by a three-star Army general, stationed at the time in the Pacific. Pointing to the book on his desk, he muttered about sacrificing our security for the sake of profit. I picked up my copy at the very next bookstore. I wasn't disappointed.
Sherry Sontag and her colleagues did a lot of spade work to uncover the stories about Cold War submarine espionage that they did. Not all submariners and former submariners were forthcoming, but enough were to provide ample detail for the many exciting and dramatic stories in the book. I particularly enjoyed accounts of Adm. Hyman G. Rickover's nuclear kingdom within the secret recesses of the Navy. It's fascinating that a man could hold such power and longevity simultaneously.
When Sontag and company take the reader deep underwater, as they often do, the suspense is palpable and the pressure of the deep becomes real. Tapping into underwater communications cables in enemy waters while Soviet warships circle above is no mean feat.
Those former members of "the silent service" who did grant interviews for the book may have had an occasional axe to grind, but overall I found "Blind Man's Bluff" more history than compromise of national security. It may be as close as we come to transparency when it comes to the world's second oldest profession coupled with the most modern technology. Enjoy.

I'm just finishing BM'sB, and I gotta tell ya, I'm yawnin, babe, yawnin. The book is another installment of Clancy-esque wardroom "stern-snufflin" and yeesh, enough is enough, you know what I'm sayin'? And the goofy singin' Chief? GIMME A BREAK! I spent four years in A-Gang on SSN-679 (USS SILVERSIDES - rhymes with "always underway"), and I can tell you that this book gives a patently unreal look at yer average bubblehead's life "in trail" and anywhere else. All you draft evaders out there should know that Cold War boat-sailing was more like "Little Buddy" than John Paul Jones -- the boat ran aground 100 yards off Pier November, the (CENSORED) got wrapped around the sail, the scrubber died, the O2 generator won't stop leakin', the XO just joined the "700 pound club," diesel operators are port and starboard and there's no shore power in Bergen, the torpedomen stole all our tools, the beer in LaMadd is 50% formaldahyde, the crybaby nukes are field-daying with LP air, the drain pump strainer's clogged, the AGI crew mooned us at buoy 2-Charlie, the QM keeps "wooping" my ear on the 2JV, the Chief of the Boat hates A-Gang, the movies are all bad and let's not forget the ever-popular Engineering Department rule that "if it ain't broke, we can't fix it." Hey, this BM'sB book is yer basic unguent khaki worship in the Clancy tradition. The authors know diddly about submarine life for paygrades E-4 and below (where the Cold War was really won -- just ask a grunt or a dogface), so like Clancy, they can't write about it. Want the real story? Read "Sub Duty" by Grover MacLeod -- if you can find it. FLOOD THE TDU! Steinke Hood Richie

As a long time crew member of the Halibut (almost 6 years) I must commend the authors on a "Job Well Done". I was stationed on board Halibut during all the years written about in this fine book. Without question the most exciting years of her history. My fondest memories of 21 years of Submarine Service, are those that I spent on Halibut. My ship mates and the experiences we shared will never fade from memory. Also when I think things are going tough at the job I just have to think back to the shipyard period when the DSRV simulator was installed on Halibut and all things seem to pale in comparison.
This well researhed book, brings all those memories back to life. For instance, the clutch that blew the operating hydralic lines off is something that I had forgotten. Suddenly I was there...all over again. (Covered with oil, I should add.) I am quite impressed with the depth of detail that this book is able to display.
Another good read concerning the Halibut and her exploits is the "Spy Sub" written by Roger C. Dunham, also a former ship mate on the Halibut.

This is a dramatic overview of highly clandestine covert missions the average citizen never gets a glimpse of. Quite interesting reading and a page turner in many places. The authors could have very well made this an action-adventure-spy movie out of the material. Having spent 30 years working within DoD intelligence activities, I enjoy outsiders viewpoints of historical covert/black programs which take on the aura of conspiracies, which no doubt they are by their very nature. Secrecy of any kind is a conspiracy and it is an art form within certain government agencies. I can only state that this story is told quite well and for the most part accurate. Two other authors who have recently taken unreported covert activities and written quite interesting works are Steiger's fiction thriller Alien Rapture, and Dr. Paul Hill's (NASA scientist) Unconventional Flying Objects. These superb authors have gleamed dark secrets from a well that is normally dry for the average investigator. The result is a dramatic top-notch narrative expose about the deep battleground beneath the ocean. Highly RECOMMENDED!

Blind Man's Bluff shows once again that fact is often far more compelling than fiction. The real life stories of courage and audacity presented here are powerful, gripping, and occasionally even moving. No matter how many times you may have seen The Hunt for Red October you won't be prepared for the reality of life under the sea in enemy territory. The book loses some of its heroic qualities as it enters the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton eras, as it leaves personal stories behind for a "bigger picture" view of struggles between the admninstrations and Congress and summits between Reagan and Gorbachev. However, it never loses its sense of awe and wonder at what Americans accomplished through hard work, quality training, and some of that good old-fashioned "American know-how." (We also get some glimpses of what the Soviet counterparts had to endure; similar dangers from the deep with additonal dangers from their own equipment.) This is easily the most intriguing modern history book I've read since Jim Lovell's Lost Moon. No reader will be disappointed.

A Fast track primer on SIGINT.

Blind Man's Bluff traces submarine operations from the end of World War II through the Clinton administration. This book is obviously going to be of interest to submarine enthusiasts and people interested in Cold War espionage, but I would also heartily recommend it to all security engineers as a way to gain a big picture perspective on the practical aspects of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) including collection, analysis, and operational applications.

In addition to a very compelling account of Cold War submarine warfare, the narrative detailing how these Naval programs are created, along with the politics associated with funding is absolutely fascinating. The book credits certain Naval leaders for the talent of being able to reach beyond the cold hard facts of presentation data to weave a compelling story that sells others on their ideas. This is critical when programs compete for limited resources and funding. Similarly, Blind Man's Bluff brings the concept of SIGINT to life, injecting a full appreciation to the subject that purely technical security books cannot muster.

After being lead through the amazing feats of the Naval submarine fleet outlined in this book, the devastating impacts of the espionage events described seem much more magnified than other accounts that focus almost exclusively on identifying and prosecuting the spies. Additionally, it provides a prime illustration of "cover story" usage in which a major military operation was cloaked under the guise of a purely commercial endeavor.

It's not often that a reader can experience such an exhilarating narrative in a non-fiction book, but the authors have achieved that with this effort.

Do you like book about spies and espionage? Like to read about the Cold War relations between the U.S. And the Russians? Want to find out just how close we came to WWIII? Ever Wonder what the Russians are and were thinking about the US Navy? Want to see life from the submariners point of view?
All this and more, much more is included inthis book. Having seen a Documentary on the whole thing I was eager to read and find out what really happened. I finished the entire book in just under 4 hours and I was truly astonished at what I didn't know.
The book deleves into the areas kept under lock and key for over 30 years. Secrets so amazing that is will amaze you how close to war we came. There is a deep respect for those who patrol in the "Silent" Navy and how much they have and had put on the line in the defense of this nation.
This book was a bestseller and for good reasons. First the book is a true accounting of the actions we and the Soviets took. The book shows that tactics, the attacks, counterattacks and just what it takes to get the edge.

From the days of the USS Holland to the USS Halibut's "special" hatch, to the current USS SeaWolf, there is an abundance of stories for everyone. Overall haveing spent several years in the Navy this book certianly brings back more than a few memories.

Blind Man's Bluff provides a captivating portrait of the most important era in submarine warfare. Stunningly, mission after mission took place in the years after WWII with no public fanfare, no established command and no commendations. The submarine service during this era was one of silence; silence expected from sailors while between missions and silence expected from the boat while at sea.

It is amazing to read of how much activity was actually taking place on both sides during the Cold War period. Not only was the Navy sending out mission after mission to listen for missile landings, scan the ocean for debris and track Soviet subs, but the Navy was also commissioning the preparation of more and more advanced submarines and recovery devices to further our knowledge of Soviet capability. The crown jewel of all of these missions was the tapping of an undersea communications cable that allowed Intelligence officials to listen directly to conversations between Soviet sub commanders. In addition to these great stories, the book also provides a cool summary of nuclear disarmament discussions between Reagan and Gorbachev.

This book is very enjoyable for anyone interested in secret service, intelligence operations and cool warfare engineering. There are some amazing stories here about committed sailors, ingenious engineers and ridiculously brazen sub commanders who combined to fight one of the longest and active wars in history with which almost no one is familiar.

This book reads like a Clancy novel, except it really happened. And with the recent Kursk disaster in the Russian Navy the book becomes all the more topical. It takes us into a world that has been covered by "national security" for so long that the government has forgotten that there is a human side to the whole submarine espionage equation. This book takes us into the subs, and into their crews like nothing before. There have been novels hinting at some of this, and news stories about some of this, but this book is the total look at the whole thing.
A reader can not help but be enthralled by what happens under the ice, or in the Western Pacific during some of the operations described here. The fact that this is still going on, and with good reason I might add, only adds to the value of the book. This book is worth the price, and worth the time to read. Go out and order it, you won't be sorry. But be forewarned, set aside enough time to read it in large doses, because you will NOT want to put it down.

Sure, our government does not conduct secret operations. Never...
Try reading this book.
I would never consider the Navy, but for some reason this book intrigued me. Covert operations, intelligence gathering, the political games played by all sides. The <I>Glomar Explorer</i>, special modified submarines and mini-subs, the Nixon & Clinton Administrations. The true life story's of of heroes, spies, slimy politicians and military leadership.
The show on the Discovery channel covering this book did not come close to everything in the book; only skimming the surface. The show does not do the book justice, IMHO.
A bit novel-like, a bit documentary, but overall a good book. I would recommend to anyone who is interested in Military, intelligence, submarines & navy operations, and the secret actions & operations of our government. It should definitely open your mind.
I happened to come across this book about a year ago, in a book exchange at a neighborhood center we were having a meeting in. I grabbed it, thinking it looked interesting - and I was right on the money! Ironic; because we have it in the collection at the library where I work.

Blind Man's Bluff is unusual in that it gives a sense of what was happening in the submarines and back in the Pentagon, CIA and White House. The idea of men in submarines with self-destruction mechanisms tapping Soviet cables contrasts with the Washington politics of "who got to brief the president" or "who got to run which program." It is also worth mentioning is that the most sensitive intelligence gathered revealed that the Soviets were not planning to use their submarines as some had feared. This is similar to what happened when the U-2s revealed that there was no "missile gap" in the early 60's (i.e, we had a lot more missiles than they did). By risking, and sometimes losing their lives in the pursuit of peace, but prepared for war, the submariners were true heros. Now they have this book to show their wives, children and grandchildren and say - I was one of them. If any of you are reading this, I salute you, and thank you.

As a former Navy Diver stationed on board one of the Navy's catamaran ASRs (Auxiliary Submarine Rescue) during the 70s, I now know why the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle (DSRV) program was such a joke. Submariners have always laughed at the prospect of being rescued from anything but extremely shallow depths, places where they spend very little time. We had very little money with which to operate because it was going to 'black projects' as Sherry and Christopher have described in detail in their incredible documenting of submarine espionage. Many of my shipmates ended up in Vallejo working as divers on some of these operations. There were always rumors. Now I know. You guys have done a great job and I applaud you for it. The naysayers will be out there, but many of us know how things really were. Bravo Zulu

This book is written in a fast-paced style - almost like a well written novel. It is sure to capture those who do not enjoy reading "typically dry historical information," yet it manages to convey the suspense that those of us who lived the cold-war period remember. My only criticism(s) are 1: The Thresher incident and its impact upon nuclear powered submarines was barely mentioned and 2: There are lapses between chapters that - at times - make the book "choppy." Regardless, three friends and myself devoured the book in less than a month. For those who have no understanding of the "Cold War Atmosphere," this will provide a revealing glimpse. I salute all U.S. Submariners everywhere, past & present; and a well-done to the authors!

By no means a work of fine literature, this is still one of the best times I have had reading a book. Since I read it mostly in airplanes and airports, the following formed part of my experience - never in my life have so many people walked up to me and told me how much they loved a book I was reading.

Great stuff, very interesting. Reading this makes me think my own job is barely a step above washing dishes in the hierarchy of manly activities. Hats off, boys!

If you have any interest in the military, history, or military history, this should be an immediate purchase. Then, go check out the Great Game to see how spying on the Russians worked in the 18th and 19th centuries...

My son is a nuke serving with the NR1. I visited him in Groton and got the tour. I could hardly breath in that tiny thing. When I think of the months he spent at sea and him being on the ocean floor I am fascinated and terrified. Also a little jealous because he and his shipmates have a chance to do something important, something that matters to the free world. Their lives make a difference. Trying to read this novel keeps me awake at night; how close we have come to final war. The men on those subs...well it's not like you can jump out a window when trouble comes. Clearly this book describes bravery of the uncommon varity. The writting is both easy to understand and technically brilliant. I enjoy the glimpses of the presidents characters. The pictures are great. All Americans read this book and pray for our military. This should be a standard for every High School History class. Thank you so much for writting it. I wonder what a Russian would think of it? Is there a statute of limitations on international tresspassing?

As a former submariner, I have mixed feelings about this book. I am still not convinced it should be publicly available, but the book is well-researched and written.

I particularly like that there is none of the Tom Clancy hype - no supermen here - just ordinary guys doing their jobs under difficult and dangerous conditions.

The authors portray more 2nd guessing among the crew than I ever personally encountered. "Is it worth it?" is a useless question when you are doing what is necessary. Now that the first Cold War is over, I think it is easy to forget that the outcome (the West winning) was neither obvious or inevitable. I am convinced that it is only because of sacrifices like the ones portrayed in this book that we enjoy the security that we do (yes, we are much safer today, war on terror and all, than we ever were in the 50's - mid 80's)

Parts of the book were illuminating to me. I've had friends who served on all the subs discussed, but submariners don't discuss these things even amongst ourselves. The description of being stuck in the mud on the bottom of a Russian harbor is riveting and perhaps the most frightening thing I have ever read. Submarine disasters usually happen in an instant, but the really nasty ones take hours and days and maybe even weeks...

So, as I mentioned, I don't know that the book should have been written. I personally applaud the men who turned the authors over to the NIS. But, now that it has apparently been cleared for publication, I highly recommend it.

Six years underwater onboard a Sturgeon stretch and the oldest boomer. Blind Mans Bluff makes for great reading. Excellent overview, captivating stories, wrong about the crew attitudes. Most of us still keep our mouths shut, all of us never had any doubts or second thoughts about what we were doing nor why we did. If you did you were in the wrong place. Our crews only regretted the distance from our loved ones, not the pranks we played on the Soviets. Two thumbs up, however, I regretted the book didn't have more sea stories from the crews (glad to know we know some of us still remember what we signed when we got out). Politics is nice but the meat is in the acts. Nice to know what really happened to the Scorpion.

As others note here, this is a well-written and exhaustively researched account of the role of submarines in undercover operations during the Cold War. It contributes major understanding about that era. Inevitably, it asks whether the risks and expense were worth it; but it offers no answer. Here's one: Spying provided incontrovertable information to each side about the other's intentions, thus reducing threat of nuclear war. The effort was worth it, not for what it achieved,but for what it prevented. Everyone involved in these operations (even traitorous spies) helped prevent nuclear war. To those who did so from courage, their nation owes gratitude as surely as to those faced the perils of a shooting war.

Before reading this book, I was initially quite curious as to what could a submarine do as far as espionage was concerned. After all, a submarine normally is deep underwater hiding from everyone else not in an ideal position to gather intelligence unlike a plane that fly over your enemy's area or a spy that actually goes into the area.

So I read what is a collection of stories, without a central theme, as many of these are not dealing with espionage at all. Often irrelevant details of the people involved are thrown into the story. Maybe the writers thought that it added colour to their stories yet to me, it was distracting.

We are presented with some true stories of submarines tailing other Soviet submarines, searching for military equipment from both sides, why did the USS Scorpion sink, tapping into underwater cables etc. Many of these stories are quite interesting.

In some stories, I am not clear why a submarine which is an extremely expensive equipment are used on missions where the rewards seem so minor. Cost/effective in other words. Sometimes I feel that as long as the US have a submarine swimming around doing nothing, maybe they made a mission or possibly some major details of the mission were missed.

Also we are also treated to what the writers states was the strategic purpose behind the attack submarine program, which they go on in a rather long winded way. They claim that the US navy wanted to destroy the Russian second strike ability. I am not sure that this makes a lot of sense partly as the Russian land based missiles would still give the Russians such an ability. Its only very late in the cold war that missiles and planes started to gain the accuracy to destroy reliably missile silos. This was shown not to be an easy task in the recent wars in Iraq to destroy missiles on the ground before launch. There the best solution was to send in ground forces. Surely a simpler explanation is that by sinking Russian submarines, before they fire their nuclear missiles, many US lives could be saved.

In any case, its clear that the Soviets wasted a great deal of money and resources trying to match the US in submarine warfare which they clearly lost. The US also spent a lot of money and resources too but unlike the Soviets, they could afford it.

Anyway the stories are interesting.Overall the writer have spoken to many people and read up a bit.

My oldest brother, who is an avid reader, reviewer, and ex-Navy subber, sent me a copy of this searing book, with a brief note--"for REAL espionage, read more non-fiction!" So, I acquiesced to his well placed gauntlet.
"Blind Man's Bluff" was riveting. Stories of secret missions by brave Naval men in diving tombs held me spellbound. One of my favorites was about "Operation Jennifer"--Billionaire Howard Hughes' involvement with Bradley, the CIA, and the digging beneath the waves for the Halibut. Another was the frightful fight for the sunken Scorpio, all hands lost. To this day Russian and American families ask themselves, was the secret submarine war worth the risks? Worth the costs?
Authors Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew's years of research has paid off. The indexing is superb for quick looks at certain areas or famous people. The note section is an added plus for chapter information. Included black and white photos put faces to this myriad of heroes and villains.
Thank you to my brother, heartfelt salutes to the men and women who protect us. This is an intriguing account of submarine cat and mouse.
I appreciate your interest & comments--CDS

We were there and did those things. How rewarding to now have everyone know the things we lived. Kudos to Sherry and Chris for telling it "Like It Was." And my special thanks to John Craven for locating our "Lost Comrades." Without these 3 and the Book, America may never have known the feats of these ever so young, wild and wonderful Sub Sailors. They were just Youngsters coming out of America's Heartland. But when they were cast together, they accomplished great things under extreme conditions. God Bless the families these men left behind each time they went "Down To The Sea In Their Boats." For without them, there certainly would not have been a book.

Rather than summarizes the book I will tell the reader you can read individual chapters that may interest you. Each chapter is stand alone and describes a different mission. You do not have to read the book page by page and think you are missing something. The two favorite missions of mine were the under water Soviet cable which was bugged, there was a sign on the beach which told the buggers where the cable was (I found that particularily entertaining)and the mission to recover the lost hydrogen bomb. Each chapter shows a different skill level needed but all are dangerous missions and the men involved are all heroes. You can checkout the book first in the bookstore, look at the chapters and see the different missions written about. It is an interesting and well researched book. You will enjoy it.

No where can you find this type of information. Where what when and who from the highly classified missions to safeguard American interests and superiority. I remember the historic stories of my age, the Glomar Explorer, cable tapping off the Soviet coast, a few lost subs. In Blind Man's Bluff I was able to get the details behind the mission, what the squids were thinking, and insights into the possible ramifications of our governments actions. It did not read like a history book although it is a history we have lived through.
I enjoyed reading the book and recommend it to anyone with the faintest interest in subs, espionage, or just the working of our government.

I was a Communications Technician in the navy during the cold war (65-68) and was shore duty stationed in Puerto Rico. Near the end of my active duty I was offered the opportunity to do a "900 trip" which meant I would ship out on a submarine. CT's were also known as "spooks", and I was one of them. I opted not to go ("never volunteer", remember?) but after reading this book, wish to all get-out that I'd gone. I loved every page of this book, and also as a result of reading it, found out about a veterans organization called the "Naval Cryptologic Veterans's Association", to which I now belong. So not only did I love the book, but it opened up a new connection to my "spook" past.

Magnificent book, detailing the harrowing intelligence gathering missions during the Cold War. I was a soldier, not a sailor, but I was able to follow the events portrayed easily. I loaned my copy to a friend, and he too stated that he could not put the book down. An absolute must read for anyone interested in submarines, spy missions or the Cold War.

This book really gave me a completely different view of submarine warfare, espionage and the men who crew those subs. It also gave me the true humanity within some very terrifying situations. What impacted on me, more than anything, was the fact that it was based on very well researched actual events. Having grown up in Spokane, Washington with SAC Headquarters sending Bombers out during various world crisis, I see now that those B-52's and other aircraft were apparently only one part of the Cold War story. How did I know that "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" had become a reality?! Great reading.

This is a marvelous book loaded with exactly the kinds of things some of these whiners are saying is absent from BMB. There is plenty of espionage, plenty of mission detail, and the authors devote ample space to discussing the dicey missions of trailing Soviet subs and tapping communication cables. It would be nice if some of the critics here realized how difficult it is to assemble information when the material is classified and the subjects hesitant to talk. Hats off to these talented writers and to all of the non-Naval gazing readers who enjoy the stunning overall portrait BMB presents.

I highly recommend the book--It is a (roughly) chronological history of submarine espionage, at least on the American side. It starts with the first troubled mission shortly after World War II and runs past the end of the Cold War.
The stories are gripping, and would often be worth reading as fiction. It is amazing that they are fact. Some of the tales told are questionably related to the topic, such as the hunt for the US submarine Scorpion after it was lost, but even those are so interesting I will forgive the author for putting them in.
If the topic interests you at all, I predict you will enjoy the book.

I think that the previous 222 reviews probably cover this well enough, so briefly: this is a great,well researched book which I couldn't put down. It does read like a spy novel but it's made better by being true. One of the other reviewers said that a general mentioned the book to him and said something to the effect of "sacrificing security for profit". You could look at it that way, you could also look at it and think that a well written book on what's been going on would make the public more sympathetic to military spending. I'd absolutely recommend this book. For most of us laypeople it reveals a hidden world.

My favorite novels have involved the Cold War and Submarines. Mark Joseph's To Kill the Potemkin is by far my favorite. But Hendrick, Clancy, and Taylor are close seconds and I have read them all. With this in mind, I was very excited to read this book.
However, I found the book incredibly uneven. Some chapters were great. Especially the chapter about the USS Scorpion, while other chapters were incredibly boring.
So in short, this book is a mixed bag. The subject is very interesting. The information, especially the recently declassified stuff, is also mind blowing at times. But as a whole, the book is pretty boring in certain parts.

As a former crew member of the U.S.S. Halibut, for almost six years, I must commend the author on a "Job Well Done". I was fortunate enough to have served on-board Halibut during this exciting time in her history. Of my 21 years in the Submarine Service those were the years and the shipmates that will never fade from my memory. I would also recommend the "Spy Sub" by Roger C. Dunham (a former shipmate) as a good read on the Halibut's activities during the Cold War era. For all those Halibut sailors out there reading this, "Lets SPIFFY UP THE SHIP"

While not all the "facts" in the book are accurate, this is an excellent read. Having been on one of the boats discussed, I can tell you that the Soviets didn't just throw grenades over the side. They used real depth charges. The boat I was on had to undergo an extensive shipyard overhaul to repair the cracks they caused in our HY-80 hull. I know other boats who were also depth charged. The Cold War was a bit more real then it's yet politically correct to admit.

This book is well-written and authoritative. Information about Cold War submarine incidents was "compartmentalized" -- only those immediately involved in a particular situation were allowed to know what happened. As a result, it's unlikely many former submariners are in a position to verify more than about 10% of the book from their own experience. Most of us weren't told what went on with the other boats. That's true in my case.
Having said all that, what I did already know of in this book from my own Navy tour is accurately depicted in this book and the other stuff seems very credible.

Wow! I was intrigued by this book, becasue although I remember parts and bits on the news, this book brought it altoegther into a comprehnsive story. I thought it was quite revealing how much the USSR spent vs. what the United States spent for intelligence. Who got the biggest bang for their buck? Well you gotta read it. The American technological machine is incredible. It makes me wonder what if they directed all that super talent and brains to develop a means were the world can be more peaceful. My father was a submarine salior so it was particularly interesting for me to get another insight to the submarine force, espically the modern nuclear force.

Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage by Sherry Sontag & Cristopher Drew

The book is basically about submarine espionage undertaken by the United States Navy during the Cold War. I initially thought it had a relatively boring topic, after all, what is so exciting about submarines undertaking espionage missions, which I initially thought just involved listening or gathering signal data?

But I bought it anyway, because I felt it should be well-written since it was a New York Times bestseller. So no matter how boring the topic may be, it should still be good read, because the authors know how to spin a good yarn.

Well, it turned out I was wrong about submarine espionage being boring. Yes, they do gather signal intelligence, basically listening for signals in the USSR, most of time during weapons launch, & following other subs.

The story was written so well you learn a LOT about soviet subs, underwater sea technology, etc.

Aside from signal intelligence, the USN subs also undertook even more daring missions: Tapping Soviet submarine cables (which is probably one of the best intelligence coups ever), & retrieving submarine & missile parts from the depths of the ocean.

If you are interested in military naval topics, then this book is a M-U-S-T read. You learn just SO much about submarine military technology in general just by reading it.

Book Highlights:

- Stories of the first signal intelligence gathering missions into the USSR.

- How American submarine commanders had to develop new tactics & procedures on tailing the then newer, more stealthier & more capable nuclear ballistic missile submarines of the Yankee-class.

- Secret programs to develop unmanned deep sea submersibles to locate Soviet missiles that splashed down to the sea during live-fire testing, & located sunk Soviet missile submarines.

- Additional & more accurate details on the recovery of an Echo-class submarine that sunk in the Pacific by the CIA using the "Glomar Explorer".

- How the program to tap Soviet undersea telephone line cables got underway, & resulted in perhaps one of the best intelligence coups of all time.

- Details on submarine disasters all throughout the Cold War.

There are some things that are probably best that we don't know. All the Cold War stuff about these submarines and their cat and mouse hunts is out right frightening.

We probably could have gone to war over any number of sub incidents.

It s intriguing to see all details coming to light.

The author does a great job writing the tale, which was well researched and a classic page turner.

This book provides a very rudimentary overview of U.S. submarine based espionage activities since the Second World War but the overview, because of its rudimentary nature, really does not provide anything of interest to anyone who is not a novice. The coverage of projects Jennifer and Azorian, for example, illustrate and epitomize this problem well. These projects attempted to raise a Russian nuclear submarine in early 1970s that had sunk in the Pacific with the obvious goal of obtaining a treasure chest of secrets (i.e., code books, detailed specifications on the submarine itself and its weapons, etc.). There is, unfortunately, inadequate discussion as to how the submarine was found (i.e., triangulation using SOSUS, a US Navy system of underwater listening devices), the technological challenges that needed to be met to raise a submarine of thousands of tons from miles underneath the Pacific, the secrecy involved, some speculation on what was gained, risks involved, etc.). This whole operation is far better discussed in the Norman Polmar's "Project Azorian: The CIA and the Raising of K-129" and the documentary, with the same title, based on that book.

The book also, despite having been written in 2000, has no discussion regarding such activities past the early 1980s or anything regarding where, potentially, such activities can be of some benefit. There is also no analysis of how and where these submarines may prove of some benefit in the near future. In addition, it goes on to pour quite a bit of praise on these submarines in the war on terrorism. Much of this, in this reviewers opinion, is not very justifiable especially considering that many of the activities he mentions (i.e., launching cruise missiles) can be done much more cost effectively by surface vessels.

Despite all these problems, however, the book still does a decent job at providing an introduction to the novice. This is the audience for this book, not anyone over and above this.

If you love submarines you will love this book. If submarines don't interest you this book will be about as exciting as PBS special on yarn. This book grabs your attention and drags you into an adventure. It is written in more of an analytical style. If tons of dry detail aren't for you then this book might not be the one for you. However, if knowing the people, subs, equipment and leaders that shaped cold war submarine combat sounds awesome then look no further. This book was a little hard to get into the story. However, with a little determination I got into the story and it grabbed and held my interest page after page. The author makes you fell like you are there. Great book

As an ex-661 bubblehead and having served during some of the published time frame and beyond I am amazed at the amount of accurate info published. I am also amazed at the amount of disclosure of some periods of which I am still sworn to secrecy. However, this much I feel I can say, there is still so much more that may never be acknowledged much less printed. But, I say THANKS to the authors for shedding a sliver of light on the roles of boats and the men who served on board. To my shipmate Scottie, I owe a personal thanks for recommended BMB.

There is no doubt that Blind Man's Bluff can fairly claim to be "the untold story of American submarine espionage."
The book certainly contains more information on the U.S. use of submarines in intelligence activities than can be found in any other unclassified publication, but it comes at a price. Given the journalistic backgrounds of the book's authors, the writing is disappointingly like the product of a Creating Writing 101 class. For example, beginning chapters on a biographical note grew old and distracting through its repetition. The authors also couldn't resist including various fascinating, but not always relevant, facts discovered during their research. Most irritating, to me at least, was the authors' frequent use of what I can only call the "heaving-bosom" or "breathless" writing style. For example, in the prologue we find: "The phone rang. MacVean snapped awake and checked the time, 2:00 a.m." And, in chapter one: "Almost anyone else on the busy pier would have thought that he was just a twenty-eight-year-old radioman. He knew better." The book is full of this sort of thing. It is as though somebody thought (incorrectly) that the subject wasn't exciting enough on its own and needed "punching up."
There is also a good bit of padding, considering the stated subject of the book. Half of chapter one deals in great detail with the sinking of the USS Cochino in August 1949, although its sinking had nothing to do with Cochino's intelligence activities. Then there is the interesting, but not "submarine espionage" related, thirty-two page chapter on the loss of the USS Scorpion, the inclusion of a history of the submarine and the cold war (nothing not already known to the probable buyers of this book), six pages of acknowledgments, and thirty-six pages of notes written the same chatty style used in the rest of the book. But, given the historical scarcity of information about the "silent service" in general and its participation in intelligence operations in particular, perhaps the padding was needed to get it to book length.
Now for the good news. The book does present a good overview of the history of submarines in U.S. intelligence collection operations and offers new information on the cable-tapping operations not only in the Pacific, but in other areas of the world as well. This information alone is probably worth the price of admission.
When you have waded through the book, you will know more than you knew before, even if you are a serious submarine or intelligence buff - just be prepared for a lot of wading.

I felt that this book was an excellant representation of what the old sub force of the U.S. Navy was like. I am in the sub force right now and I am very jealous of what they went through only because that was the real thing. The Navy today is not the same as it was then and it never will be. Once again the book is excellant and should be read by everybody so that way people will know it takes to be a SUBMARINER. Also what the boys went through everyday of their lives onboard each boat and how they left as Boy's and came home as Men.

This was an incredibly interesting book! I grew up in the Cold War years, and remembered bits and pieces of some of the events from that era. But never understood much of it before reading this. Earlier, I had stumbled across The Silent War: The Cold War Battle Beneath the Sea by John P. Craven which is also an absolute for anyone interested in the story of US nuclear submarines. Also, I dug out an Nat'l Geog map of the Arctic Ocean and this helped greatly.

This book is the story of American submarine espionage during the Cold War, a very classified subject in government archives. Starting in the 1940s, the book carries on into the development of submarine technology for the purpose of Cold War espionage programs, all the way into the end of the Cold War. I myself found that one of my own family members took part in the cable tapping of a Soviet Naval base and I never even knew it until I read the book! Read it, and maybe you'll find one of your own relatives was involved in the ultra secret and somteimes tragic story of American submarine espionage.

A close friend of mine recommended this book to me after describing to me the situation that he came across it. One of his neighbors growing up was in the Navy and was typically unable to answer questions about his career. One day recently he walked over while my friend was visiting his parents. He stated "You wanted to know what I did for the Navy. Read this. It's all in there," and then he walked away.
The book is chronological and covers many important events and programs of the USN's attack submarine force during the Cold War. The command structure and dealings with the Office of the President and US Congress are addressed effectively and interestingly. The authors pay Proper honor to submariners who made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty, and their description of the survivors' fears puts a human face on the assignments, the triumphs, and the trajedies.

After reading "The Jennifer Project", "Spy Sub", and "A Matter of Risk", I found "Blind Man's Bluff" to be both an excellent summary as well as 'correction' factor of the other three books. For example, "Spy Sub" went to great lengths to hide the name of the U.S. Submarine in it's text, but "-Bluff" had the exact same photograph of the submarine in question but WITH the SSN number and name. "Blind Man's Bluff" will become a classic of it's subject matter.

With the ending of the cold war and those who gallantly fought it mostly in retirement or deceased, stories about the role that submarines played in dettering World War 3 can now be told. The book touches on several incidents in which subs were used clandestinly for national security such as the hunt for a missing H-bomb, sunken subs USS Thresher and USS Scorpion and a sunken Soviet missle sub near the Hawaiian Islands. Tapping Soviet communications cables and the development of the first sub-based ballistic missle, the Polaris are also explained in as much detail national security clearances will allow. There are some stories however that may not have been completely truthful, as the people interviewed later made note of, particularly Dr. John Craven who worked on several of the projects mentioned. Overall, the book was an eye-opener. Even folks who don't read books on like subjects should get a kick out of this book.

BLIND MAN'S BLUFF The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage By Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew (with Annette Lawrence Drew) Public Affairs. 352 pp., $25. Reviewed by Lee Gaillard There, on the flickering video screen: intermittent bumps in the sand. They'd found it--the vital telephone cable snaking across the bottom of the Sea of Okhotsk to connect the Russian sub base at Petropavlovsk with Vladivostok and with the Sovietnaval high command in Moscow. Maneuvering carefully across the seabed till it squatted next to the cable, special operatives from U.S. nuclear submarine Halibut planted the futuristic field-induction tap pod. Twenty feet long, it weighed six tons and was powered by a nuclear-isotope generator. It was 1972, the height of the Cold War, and for several years from this pod would flow absolutely priceless streams of information on Soviet naval strategy and deployments. In addition, the authors of Blind Man's Bluff reveal for the first time the subsequent story of SSN-683 Parche, recipient of seven Presidential Unit Citations forsimilar hazardous, top-secret missions to the frigid Barents Sea to creep inside Soviet waters to plant other tap pods next to the communications cable leading into the harbor of Murmansk. Christopher Drew is a special projects editor with The New York Times; co-author Sherry Sontag has written for The National Law Journal as well as The New York Times. In Blind Man's Bluff, their tales of postwar U.S. attack submarine adventures include not only espionage, but also collisions with Soviet subs, interference by Admiral Rickover and the CIA, and everyday dangers that plague submariners--from battery fires to flooding caused by faulty garbage disposal units. Indeed, their superb investigative reporting solves a 30-year mystery. Using strong evidence gathered by deep-submergence researcher John Craven and Charles Thorne (a torpedo quality control engineer), they show how the unexplained 1968 sinking of nuclear attack submarine Scorpion (and the loss of all 99 crew members) was probably caused by a faulty torpedo battery that, bursting into flame, initiated a low-order detonation of the warhead's 330 pounds of HBX explosive. We are then told of subsequent "massive evasion" by the Navy, of missing files, and of Naval Ordnance's "withholding critical information" concerning the flawed battery design. Submarine espionage? There are those who treat it as a game, macho and potentially deadly, in which a case of scotch is offered to the crew of the first American sub to force a Soviet sub to surface--but also one in which special self-destruct explosive charges will be detonated by the captain should a sub be caught and boarded. Some commanders oversee equipment right out of James Bond. Take, for example, the NR-1 and the nuclear-powered SSGN-587 Halibut, whose former guided missile hanger (the "Bat Cave") housed a Univac 1124 computer as well as several two-ton, sensor-laden `fish' that found the sunken Soviet Golf II missile submarine and located those telephone cables at the bottom of the Sea of Okhotsk. Its stern carried a secret decompression chamber for the divers ("spooks") tapping those cables. Much smaller and able to take its crew down 3000 feet, the NR-1 (also nuclear-powered) featured underwater lights, a grappling arm, and (not mentioned by the authors) two center-mounted, alcohol-filled truck tires for traversing the seabed. These and other subs retrieved key Soviet missile parts and photographed the lower hull and propellers of new Soviet subs--though the authors overlook important connections between propeller blade design and silent running. Such silence was crucial for Whitey Mack, who performed an unprecedented 47-day tail of a new Yankee Soviet nuclear ballistic missile sub, obtaining crucial sound signatures for SOSUS (SOund SUrveillance System) computer identification files, recording its evasion patterns, and mapping its patrol routes off the U.S. coast. Despite the strengths of such accounts, Blind Man's Bluff has occasional difficulties with technical detail. The authors' grasp of the function of double-hulled submarine construction is tenuous, and 80,000 lbs./sq.in. is the tensile strength of HY-80 steel, not the water pressure a hull plate can withstand. Given that gravitational acceleration is 32 feet per second, how could a fatally stricken, unpowered Soviet submarine have been "accelerating at 70 feet per second as it fell" toward the ocean floor? Questions also arise concerning scope and context. What about Baltic and Black Sea penetration, or data gathered by submarines during the 1961 Berlin Wall confrontation and 1962 Cuban missile crisis? And shouldn't the unique story of postwar American submarine espionage be set against the broader backdrop of other intelligence operations by undercover agents, reconnaissance aircraft (a number of which were shot down, their crews killed), as well as Corona and KH-series satellites? Blind Man's Bluff provides a valuable and tantalizing first look, but the definitive account is yet to be written. ###

Excellent story ...I was very surprised at the info that was in this book since I was one of the designers of the U.S.S. Parche systems that went into the Ocean Engineering areas of the boat. It caught me totally by surprise that this info that We in the engineering dept was sworn never to reveal was available....But tapping wasn't the only mission of the ocean engineering boats...they did a lot more...excellent reading..it kept me on the edge since I knew most of the systems onboard the parche, seawolf and R.B.Russell..

In order to get the most from this book, the reader must be able to intuit information from "between the lines."

Some of the stunts described don't seem too nail-biting to the average non-bubblehead sitting in a recliner and casually reading. It's a whole different story at (>400 feet) in (classified location) when some rather irritated folks are about to catch you (doing ... something naughty).

I did 6 years in fast boats; both of them were of the redoubtable Sturgeon class. I remember hearing about some of these tasks, while others were a surprise to me ... but with my background, I can read what's available and make a very accurate guess what was really going on.

Unless you're a present-day John Walker family (who should be dragged outside in their skivvies and shot), you're not going to get any better idea of what goes on in the fast-attack submarine community than you see in this book. Yes, it irritates even hard-core submariners that no one not actually present at the time will ever know what they did for national security. My pet peeve is that there is a raft of stuff available on the earlier nuke boats and even some on the newer classes, but info on Sturgeon-class boats is almost nonexistent. C'mon -- we had nearly 50 of them!

And then again, the Sturgeons were perhaps the best all-around, general-purpose attack submarine made. They went everywhere and did almost everything. They were regular guests in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Barents, (the White?), the North Pole, all over the Arctic, etc. BTDT.
I won't hazard a guess about anything that happened in the Pacific; both my boats were East-Coast. Rumor has it that the new Virginia-class boats are modern stand-ins; like the Gato- and Balao-class Fleet submarines of WWII, they don't excel at anything, but they do everything well.

This is a good read for those who want to know what went on, written in a fashion that betrays no secrets. That makes it necessarily vague in some places, but read between the lines.

There are some things that are probably best that we don't know. All the Cold War stuff about these submarines and their cat and mouse hunts is out right frightening.

We probably could have gone to war over any number of sub incidents.

It s intriguing to see all details coming to light.

The author does a great job writing the tale, which was well researched and a classic page turner.

This book provides a very rudimentary overview of U.S. submarine based espionage activities since the Second World War but the overview, because of its rudimentary nature, really does not provide anything of interest to anyone who is not a novice. The coverage of projects Jennifer and Azorian, for example, illustrate and epitomize this problem well. These projects attempted to raise a Russian nuclear submarine in early 1970s that had sunk in the Pacific with the obvious goal of obtaining a treasure chest of secrets (i.e., code books, detailed specifications on the submarine itself and its weapons, etc.). There is, unfortunately, inadequate discussion as to how the submarine was found (i.e., triangulation using SOSUS, a US Navy system of underwater listening devices), the technological challenges that needed to be met to raise a submarine of thousands of tons from miles underneath the Pacific, the secrecy involved, some speculation on what was gained, risks involved, etc.). This whole operation is far better discussed in the Norman Polmar's "Project Azorian: The CIA and the Raising of K-129" and the documentary, with the same title, based on that book.

The book also, despite having been written in 2000, has no discussion regarding such activities past the early 1980s or anything regarding where, potentially, such activities can be of some benefit. There is also no analysis of how and where these submarines may prove of some benefit in the near future. In addition, it goes on to pour quite a bit of praise on these submarines in the war on terrorism. Much of this, in this reviewers opinion, is not very justifiable especially considering that many of the activities he mentions (i.e., launching cruise missiles) can be done much more cost effectively by surface vessels.

Despite all these problems, however, the book still does a decent job at providing an introduction to the novice. This is the audience for this book, not anyone over and above this.

If you love submarines you will love this book. If submarines don't interest you this book will be about as exciting as PBS special on yarn. This book grabs your attention and drags you into an adventure. It is written in more of an analytical style. If tons of dry detail aren't for you then this book might not be the one for you. However, if knowing the people, subs, equipment and leaders that shaped cold war submarine combat sounds awesome then look no further. This book was a little hard to get into the story. However, with a little determination I got into the story and it grabbed and held my interest page after page. The author makes you fell like you are there. Great book

As an ex-661 bubblehead and having served during some of the published time frame and beyond I am amazed at the amount of accurate info published. I am also amazed at the amount of disclosure of some periods of which I am still sworn to secrecy. However, this much I feel I can say, there is still so much more that may never be acknowledged much less printed. But, I say THANKS to the authors for shedding a sliver of light on the roles of boats and the men who served on board. To my shipmate Scottie, I owe a personal thanks for recommended BMB.

There is no doubt that Blind Man's Bluff can fairly claim to be "the untold story of American submarine espionage."
The book certainly contains more information on the U.S. use of submarines in intelligence activities than can be found in any other unclassified publication, but it comes at a price. Given the journalistic backgrounds of the book's authors, the writing is disappointingly like the product of a Creating Writing 101 class. For example, beginning chapters on a biographical note grew old and distracting through its repetition. The authors also couldn't resist including various fascinating, but not always relevant, facts discovered during their research. Most irritating, to me at least, was the authors' frequent use of what I can only call the "heaving-bosom" or "breathless" writing style. For example, in the prologue we find: "The phone rang. MacVean snapped awake and checked the time, 2:00 a.m." And, in chapter one: "Almost anyone else on the busy pier would have thought that he was just a twenty-eight-year-old radioman. He knew better." The book is full of this sort of thing. It is as though somebody thought (incorrectly) that the subject wasn't exciting enough on its own and needed "punching up."
There is also a good bit of padding, considering the stated subject of the book. Half of chapter one deals in great detail with the sinking of the USS Cochino in August 1949, although its sinking had nothing to do with Cochino's intelligence activities. Then there is the interesting, but not "submarine espionage" related, thirty-two page chapter on the loss of the USS Scorpion, the inclusion of a history of the submarine and the cold war (nothing not already known to the probable buyers of this book), six pages of acknowledgments, and thirty-six pages of notes written the same chatty style used in the rest of the book. But, given the historical scarcity of information about the "silent service" in general and its participation in intelligence operations in particular, perhaps the padding was needed to get it to book length.
Now for the good news. The book does present a good overview of the history of submarines in U.S. intelligence collection operations and offers new information on the cable-tapping operations not only in the Pacific, but in other areas of the world as well. This information alone is probably worth the price of admission.
When you have waded through the book, you will know more than you knew before, even if you are a serious submarine or intelligence buff - just be prepared for a lot of wading.

I felt that this book was an excellant representation of what the old sub force of the U.S. Navy was like. I am in the sub force right now and I am very jealous of what they went through only because that was the real thing. The Navy today is not the same as it was then and it never will be. Once again the book is excellant and should be read by everybody so that way people will know it takes to be a SUBMARINER. Also what the boys went through everyday of their lives onboard each boat and how they left as Boy's and came home as Men.

This was an incredibly interesting book! I grew up in the Cold War years, and remembered bits and pieces of some of the events from that era. But never understood much of it before reading this. Earlier, I had stumbled across The Silent War: The Cold War Battle Beneath the Sea by John P. Craven which is also an absolute for anyone interested in the story of US nuclear submarines. Also, I dug out an Nat'l Geog map of the Arctic Ocean and this helped greatly.

This book is the story of American submarine espionage during the Cold War, a very classified subject in government archives. Starting in the 1940s, the book carries on into the development of submarine technology for the purpose of Cold War espionage programs, all the way into the end of the Cold War. I myself found that one of my own family members took part in the cable tapping of a Soviet Naval base and I never even knew it until I read the book! Read it, and maybe you'll find one of your own relatives was involved in the ultra secret and somteimes tragic story of American submarine espionage.

A close friend of mine recommended this book to me after describing to me the situation that he came across it. One of his neighbors growing up was in the Navy and was typically unable to answer questions about his career. One day recently he walked over while my friend was visiting his parents. He stated "You wanted to know what I did for the Navy. Read this. It's all in there," and then he walked away.
The book is chronological and covers many important events and programs of the USN's attack submarine force during the Cold War. The command structure and dealings with the Office of the President and US Congress are addressed effectively and interestingly. The authors pay Proper honor to submariners who made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty, and their description of the survivors' fears puts a human face on the assignments, the triumphs, and the trajedies.

After reading "The Jennifer Project", "Spy Sub", and "A Matter of Risk", I found "Blind Man's Bluff" to be both an excellent summary as well as 'correction' factor of the other three books. For example, "Spy Sub" went to great lengths to hide the name of the U.S. Submarine in it's text, but "-Bluff" had the exact same photograph of the submarine in question but WITH the SSN number and name. "Blind Man's Bluff" will become a classic of it's subject matter.

With the ending of the cold war and those who gallantly fought it mostly in retirement or deceased, stories about the role that submarines played in dettering World War 3 can now be told. The book touches on several incidents in which subs were used clandestinly for national security such as the hunt for a missing H-bomb, sunken subs USS Thresher and USS Scorpion and a sunken Soviet missle sub near the Hawaiian Islands. Tapping Soviet communications cables and the development of the first sub-based ballistic missle, the Polaris are also explained in as much detail national security clearances will allow. There are some stories however that may not have been completely truthful, as the people interviewed later made note of, particularly Dr. John Craven who worked on several of the projects mentioned. Overall, the book was an eye-opener. Even folks who don't read books on like subjects should get a kick out of this book.

BLIND MAN'S BLUFF The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage By Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew (with Annette Lawrence Drew) Public Affairs. 352 pp., $25. Reviewed by Lee Gaillard There, on the flickering video screen: intermittent bumps in the sand. They'd found it--the vital telephone cable snaking across the bottom of the Sea of Okhotsk to connect the Russian sub base at Petropavlovsk with Vladivostok and with the Sovietnaval high command in Moscow. Maneuvering carefully across the seabed till it squatted next to the cable, special operatives from U.S. nuclear submarine Halibut planted the futuristic field-induction tap pod. Twenty feet long, it weighed six tons and was powered by a nuclear-isotope generator. It was 1972, the height of the Cold War, and for several years from this pod would flow absolutely priceless streams of information on Soviet naval strategy and deployments. In addition, the authors of Blind Man's Bluff reveal for the first time the subsequent story of SSN-683 Parche, recipient of seven Presidential Unit Citations forsimilar hazardous, top-secret missions to the frigid Barents Sea to creep inside Soviet waters to plant other tap pods next to the communications cable leading into the harbor of Murmansk. Christopher Drew is a special projects editor with The New York Times; co-author Sherry Sontag has written for The National Law Journal as well as The New York Times. In Blind Man's Bluff, their tales of postwar U.S. attack submarine adventures include not only espionage, but also collisions with Soviet subs, interference by Admiral Rickover and the CIA, and everyday dangers that plague submariners--from battery fires to flooding caused by faulty garbage disposal units. Indeed, their superb investigative reporting solves a 30-year mystery. Using strong evidence gathered by deep-submergence researcher John Craven and Charles Thorne (a torpedo quality control engineer), they show how the unexplained 1968 sinking of nuclear attack submarine Scorpion (and the loss of all 99 crew members) was probably caused by a faulty torpedo battery that, bursting into flame, initiated a low-order detonation of the warhead's 330 pounds of HBX explosive. We are then told of subsequent "massive evasion" by the Navy, of missing files, and of Naval Ordnance's "withholding critical information" concerning the flawed battery design. Submarine espionage? There are those who treat it as a game, macho and potentially deadly, in which a case of scotch is offered to the crew of the first American sub to force a Soviet sub to surface--but also one in which special self-destruct explosive charges will be detonated by the captain should a sub be caught and boarded. Some commanders oversee equipment right out of James Bond. Take, for example, the NR-1 and the nuclear-powered SSGN-587 Halibut, whose former guided missile hanger (the "Bat Cave") housed a Univac 1124 computer as well as several two-ton, sensor-laden `fish' that found the sunken Soviet Golf II missile submarine and located those telephone cables at the bottom of the Sea of Okhotsk. Its stern carried a secret decompression chamber for the divers ("spooks") tapping those cables. Much smaller and able to take its crew down 3000 feet, the NR-1 (also nuclear-powered) featured underwater lights, a grappling arm, and (not mentioned by the authors) two center-mounted, alcohol-filled truck tires for traversing the seabed. These and other subs retrieved key Soviet missile parts and photographed the lower hull and propellers of new Soviet subs--though the authors overlook important connections between propeller blade design and silent running. Such silence was crucial for Whitey Mack, who performed an unprecedented 47-day tail of a new Yankee Soviet nuclear ballistic missile sub, obtaining crucial sound signatures for SOSUS (SOund SUrveillance System) computer identification files, recording its evasion patterns, and mapping its patrol routes off the U.S. coast. Despite the strengths of such accounts, Blind Man's Bluff has occasional difficulties with technical detail. The authors' grasp of the function of double-hulled submarine construction is tenuous, and 80,000 lbs./sq.in. is the tensile strength of HY-80 steel, not the water pressure a hull plate can withstand. Given that gravitational acceleration is 32 feet per second, how could a fatally stricken, unpowered Soviet submarine have been "accelerating at 70 feet per second as it fell" toward the ocean floor? Questions also arise concerning scope and context. What about Baltic and Black Sea penetration, or data gathered by submarines during the 1961 Berlin Wall confrontation and 1962 Cuban missile crisis? And shouldn't the unique story of postwar American submarine espionage be set against the broader backdrop of other intelligence operations by undercover agents, reconnaissance aircraft (a number of which were shot down, their crews killed), as well as Corona and KH-series satellites? Blind Man's Bluff provides a valuable and tantalizing first look, but the definitive account is yet to be written. ###

Excellent story ...I was very surprised at the info that was in this book since I was one of the designers of the U.S.S. Parche systems that went into the Ocean Engineering areas of the boat. It caught me totally by surprise that this info that We in the engineering dept was sworn never to reveal was available....But tapping wasn't the only mission of the ocean engineering boats...they did a lot more...excellent reading..it kept me on the edge since I knew most of the systems onboard the parche, seawolf and R.B.Russell..

In order to get the most from this book, the reader must be able to intuit information from "between the lines."

Some of the stunts described don't seem too nail-biting to the average non-bubblehead sitting in a recliner and casually reading. It's a whole different story at (>400 feet) in (classified location) when some rather irritated folks are about to catch you (doing ... something naughty).

I did 6 years in fast boats; both of them were of the redoubtable Sturgeon class. I remember hearing about some of these tasks, while others were a surprise to me ... but with my background, I can read what's available and make a very accurate guess what was really going on.

Unless you're a present-day John Walker family (who should be dragged outside in their skivvies and shot), you're not going to get any better idea of what goes on in the fast-attack submarine community than you see in this book. Yes, it irritates even hard-core submariners that no one not actually present at the time will ever know what they did for national security. My pet peeve is that there is a raft of stuff available on the earlier nuke boats and even some on the newer classes, but info on Sturgeon-class boats is almost nonexistent. C'mon -- we had nearly 50 of them!

And then again, the Sturgeons were perhaps the best all-around, general-purpose attack submarine made. They went everywhere and did almost everything. They were regular guests in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Barents, (the White?), the North Pole, all over the Arctic, etc. BTDT.
I won't hazard a guess about anything that happened in the Pacific; both my boats were East-Coast. Rumor has it that the new Virginia-class boats are modern stand-ins; like the Gato- and Balao-class Fleet submarines of WWII, they don't excel at anything, but they do everything well.

This is a good read for those who want to know what went on, written in a fashion that betrays no secrets. That makes it necessarily vague in some places, but read between the lines.

It is hard to overstate the singularity and importance of this book. Blind Man's Bluff, as the subtitle says, truly is The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage. Before the research of writers Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew (with Annette Lawrence Drew) culminated in the publishing of this book, the stories of hundreds of submariners, true heroes one and all, had been shrouded in the secrecy borne of the Cold War. Many men aged and died without ever telling their wives and children what they did during their tours of duty; many family members never knew exactly how and why their loved ones never came home; many survivors have only now learned, thanks to this book, the exact nature of the missions they took part in, having never been privy to that information during their service. According to the authors, many of these men and their families have thanked them in quite emotional terms for finally telling their stories. The submariners of the United States Navy helped win the Cold War, and they deserve the heroic recognition they dutifully earned in service to their country.
This book basically takes the reader through the secret history of submarine intelligence missions over the course of the Cold War years and beyond. Many of these tales prove once again that truth is oftentimes stranger than fiction. Triumph and tragedy abound. The book also serves as a primer of sorts for the history of the Cold War; the interplay between different American administrations, naval chiefs and admirals, larger-than-life sub captains, and brilliant civilian naval administrators immerses you in the full scope of military planning, action, reaction, and sometimes overreaction. The biggest mistakes that were made all seem to fall in the lap of admirals and high-ranking naval officers and administrators, and these mistakes put many lives in danger and caused a number of unnecessary deaths. The dangerous obstinacy of government bureaucracy is a problem we continue to deal with today.
Submarines fulfilled innumerable intelligence-gathering missions during the decades after World War II. Subs infiltrated Russian waters to glean data about Soviet hardware, missile technology, and military behavior patterns; they secretly tailed all manner of Soviet subs across the oceans in order to identify each type of craft by the slightest of sounds and to learn the practices and tendencies of Soviet sub commanders (helping to ensure that the Soviets would be hard pressed to ever launch a massive nuclear first- or second-strike via the sea); they searched for valuable military hardware (both American and Soviet) along the ocean floor; and they brought home some of the most critical intelligence findings imaginable.
Among the more remarkable stories detailed here are the Navy's successful attempts to locate a lost Soviet nuclear sub (which the CIA later attempted - embarrassingly unsuccessfully - to salvage from the bottom of the ocean), the mysterious loss of the US sub Scorpion (along with new information that would seem to finally explain the cause of the tragedy), and the collision of an American sub with one of its Soviet counterparts (just one of a surprising number of such collisions). Perhaps the most fascinating account to be found in Blind Man's Bluff is America's secret tapping of Soviet military cables underneath the sea off Okhotsk and in the Barents Strait. Submarines made a number of undetected trips to the discovered cables, hiding in relatively shallow waters literally just beneath the Soviet navy's very nose for days at a time, to collect and replace recorded tapes that gave Naval Intelligence an unprecedented look at Soviet plans and capabilities as well as crucial insight into the Soviet military psyche itself.
You will meet some incredible heroes and brilliant intellectuals in this book: men such as John Craven, Commander Whitey Mack, Admiral Bobby Inman, and Tommy Cox, a would-be country singer who immortalized the deeds of his fellow submariners (and memorialized those who didn't make it back home) in song. Then there are John A. Walker, Jr. and Ronald W. Pelton, two of the worst traitors in American history. Walker spent eighteen years building a spy ring that turned over an immense number of secrets to the Soviets for less than one million dollars, while Pelton informed the Soviets of the Okhotsk cable tap for a mere $35,000. These men put the lives of hundreds of brave submariners at risk, greatly compromising their nation's security in the process, and will stand forever among the most infamous of American traitors.
If you want to know what peril under the sea can really mean, read the amazing accounts chronicled in Blind Man's Bluff. America's submariners played a crucial role in our nation's defense for decades, but only now are their stories being told. It is a secret history more thrilling than that borne of the imaginations of the best military science fiction writers.

Fantastic book. Seamlessly brings the sailors, boat's skippers, technology, political players and spies all together in a vivid and riviting book. This book tells the story better than most books. The massive scale of the cold war sub program is presented in a well written and easy reading story. I was given this book by a family friend years ago, I still own it and have read it three times. It is a must have in any naval warfare, cold war or submarine library.

I initially saw a report based on this book, on a "NOVA" rebroadcast. I was amazed to see the quality and accuracy of the presentation. After seeing the report, I purchased the book, to get the complete story. This is absolutly, the most accurate presentation of those events as they took place,and a description of those dedicated men ( As well as the families who supported them )who put themselves on the line for our country, and the free world. That I have ever seen. Some have critized the lack of a strong story line, and plot. Some have said the story bogs down in places. Well, so be it, That is only because it is the Real story, Not fiction. It follows life, it has up's and downs, it tells it like it was. Reality isn't always a fast paced plot. The authors have done an exemplary job. they have researched an astounding amount of history. They have opened doors that have been closed for decades. And throughout it all, they have maintained the highest level of honesty, to all of us. The men who faced these challanges first hand, the support facilities and personel, the families who loved them and let them go to off to unknown dangers of which they could not speak, and to those who were never to return, lost forever to the cold and silent sea. This is perhaps, one of the most important books ever put in the hands of the general public, for it opens the doors of history, and valor, and a subject that most would never have known about. But most of all, it has given those of us who were there, who were a part of this silent challange, a voice. ( freedom of information, is a wonderfull point in time ) Most of those who had a place in these events have never spoken out about it. Either due to loyality, or the very nature of the work and lives of others involved. I know, I was there, not as a submarine crewmember, but as a support team member. We also saw the events, we also helped the crews, and repaired the damaged ships, and kept them in the very best condition. How else could they survive and return to home port. We also morn the loss of those who are still on patrol. We also understand. Yes, it's real. Yes, it's worth reading. Yes, it's something to keep in your heart. This book, like life itself, will touch you. While we may not always support the policy makers, the men who served were, and continue to put thier lives on the line, for all of the rest of us. And that is Fact, Not Fiction. There may be More to the story, if those who were there find the strength and path to come forward. This book may give them the chance, and the willingness to try. There must be way. Sign me: ( Mr."T" )

Although this is a non-fiction book, it read like the best of Tom Clancy to me. There is a lot of top-notch reporting in this book, but none of it interrupts the narrative flow. These accomplished and talented writers made the nervy, tension-packed battleground beneath the waves come very much alive for me. I'm a navy and espionage buff who thought he had read everything there is to read on those subjects, but there is so much new material here that I couldn't stop turning the pages.

My son and son in-law are veteran, career submariners...however, until reading this book I had no idea of what the mission(s) of the submarine navy really is. Just reading this book raised the level of respect(which was already high)for what these guys do for us. The risks they take and the sacrifices that they have made and are making for the USA go beyond what the general public can possibly conceive.
No doubt that because of the involvement of my family in the Navy, I'm a bit more biased in how I viewed the importance of the events documented in the book. I found a growing sense of pride the more I read about the unselfishness and devotion to duty that these submariners have exhibited over the years.
Incredibly, the book, in my estimation, remained politically neutral in its presentation of the events that occurred throughout the numerous presidential administrations over which the stories of submarine situations took place.
I highly recommend this book to anyone that has a real interest in what was going on during the Cold War beneath the surface of the oceans. However, I am most hesitant to let my wife read it since I'm not sure I want her to really know what my son is really doing.
My thanks to the authors and contributors of this book for a most informative and extremely well written manuscript.

Half the book is on underwater disasters. While horrible and unfortunate, it has little effect on national security concerns. I felt that the title of the book is a little misleading as I expecting just espionage achievements of the USN.
The espionage that is revealed in the book, you could describe in a few paragraphs. Most of it has been disclosed in other articles/books. I agree with the other reviewer, the PBS TV program was the right format for the information provided (one hour is sufficient). I guess much of this topic is still classified (as some of the other reviewers seem to know).