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

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

• 
  Matt

  “For more than four decades, under the cover of classifications even higher than top-secret, the United States sent tens of thousands of men in cramped steel cylinders on spy missions off the rugged coasts of the Soviet Union. There, the job was to stay hidden, to gather information about the enemy’s intentions and its abilities to wage war at sea. By their very nature, submarines were perfect for this task, designed to lurk nearly silent and unseen beneath the waves. They quickly became one of America’s most crucial spy vehicles. No other intelligence operation has embraced so many generations of a single military force, no other has consistently placed so many Americans at risk. As many as 140 men on each sub, several subs at a time, nearly every man who ever served on a U.S. attack submarine was sent to watch Soviet harbors and shipyards, monitor Soviet missile tests, or shadow Soviet subs. Several boats…were specially equipped to tap cables or retrieve pieces of Soviet weapons that had been fired in tests and had fallen to the bottom of the sea. No one was involved who didn’t volunteer…”
  - Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Blind Man’s Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage
  
  Imagine that you are wharf-side in the salt-air of New London or King’s Bay when you come across a bar with a weather-beaten sign and a faded Pabst Blue Ribbon ad in its small window. When you open the door, you are met with a seemingly-eternal half-lit gloom, and a dozen pairs of eyes that have trouble adjusting to the sunlight you’ve just let in. The wood-paneled walls are covered in service plaques, naval pennants, and black-and-white photos of diesel submarines from the Second World War. Everyone is drinking shots of rye or Lamb’s rum, backed by Narragansett beer. The men around you in this dark, smokey, hushed establishment are festooned with tattoos of ship names – Alabama, Seawolf – and anchors. Some of them probably have a chicken-and-pig inked on their feet.
  
  The bartender is skeptical of you and your cargo shorts, but eventually serves you the iced chardonnay that you’ve requested. So, you sit at the bar, drink your chilled wine, and listen to the men around you talk. The stories they’re telling – riveting, taut, sometimes incredible, undoubtedly embellished, often unverifiable – would probably sound something like Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew’s Blind Man’s Bluff.
  
  ***
  
  Blind Man’s Bluff tells the story of American submarine espionage from 1949 to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. This is a wide swath of history covered in a brisk, highly engaging 277-pages of text. While the Cold War is a complex period, marked by high-level, often high-risk diplomatic maneuvering, Sontag and Drew stay strictly within the parameters they’ve set for themselves. This is a tale of submariners told by submariners.
  
  Though it proceeds in rough chronological order, Blind Man’s Bluff is arranged episodically. Sontag and Drew are not attempting a comprehensive approach, but an anecdotal one, typically devoting each chapter to a single episode. For example, there are separate chapters on the fire aboard the USS Cochino, the sinking of the USS Scorpion, and the exploits of Commander Chester “Whitey” Mack aboard the USS Lapon. Especially good are the sections on the tapping of Soviet underwater cables, providing a rare trove of intelligence in an espionage war that the United States mostly seemed to lose.
  
  Some chapters cover triumphs, others cover failures, but almost all of them feed off of the nail-biting tension that comes from locking yourself into a steel vessel, descending into the depths of the ocean, and then facing all the nightmares that come from darkness, claustrophobia, drowning, fire, and crushing pressure.
  
  ***
  
  Whatever else can be said about Blind Man’s Bluff, it is entertaining. At the time of its 1998 release – just after the Cold War’s conclusion – it was sold on the basis of its revelations. It was meant to shock and startle people who were otherwise unaware of the undersea spy games being conducted off the coast of the Soviet Union, beneath the ice caps, and at the bottom of the sea.
  
  Even though I am by no means well-read with regard to the Cold War in general or Cold War subs in particular, I was already aware of most of Sontag and Drew’s disclosures before picking this up. Indeed, some of their vignettes – such as Howard Hughes’s Glomar Explorer being used to pluck a Soviet sub from the seabed – have been expanded into their own standalone books.
  
  With that said, it is a testament to the writing of Sontag and Drew that Blind Man’s Bluff remains such fascinating reading. It is crammed with novelistic details that put you right into the action. Submarines make for inherently good drama, and the authors both recognize this, and capitalize on it.
  
  ***
  
  Of course, as with all sea stories worth repeating, there is the issue of credibility.
  
  In the preface, Sontag and Drew explain that they contacted “hundreds of submariners,” talked to many of them, and spent several years researching. They also admit to severe limitations. For one, they did not have access to much by way of documentation. Most of Blind Man’s Bluff comes from interviews. However, the majority of the sources are anonymous. The closing chapter is titled “Trust but Verify,” but the authors are – in a very real way – asking the reader to simply trust.
  
  The sourcing of Blind Man’s Bluff engendered some controversy upon its publication. Having no interest in getting into a 24-year-old fight, I will say only a couple things.
  
  First, the lack of documentary evidence is a bit troubling. Documents themselves are fallible, as they can contain as many lies as any oral report. Still, they are typically generated contemporaneously with an event, and have at least a patina of objectivity.
  
  Second, anonymous or not, any story told by a sailor ten, twenty, or even forty years after an event is bound to be affected by the limits of memory. Things can be forgotten. Things can be misremembered. False memories can be unconsciously created to fill in cognitive gaps. These witness errors – which are both unintentional and unavoidable – can be mitigated by corroboration. But as already noted, Sontag and Drew did not have much by way of a paper trail.
  
  Still, it’s worth noting that while some of the details might be wrong – or in contradiction to other accounts – the big picture stuff seems generally correct.
  
  ***
  
  Blind Man’s Bluff was written at the dusk of the Cold War, making it interesting to read now, at the dawn of a new era of superpower standoffs. Sontag and Drew certainly celebrated the exploits of American submariners, but also questioned the necessity. After all, the Soviet Union had collapsed for reasons other than oceanic hide-and-seek. With hindsight, it all seemed like an unnecessary risk. With the 21st century still a couple years away, Sontag and Drew wrote of a declining submarine force, with limited missions going forward. At the time, they seemed right.
  
  The trouble with prophecy, though, is that the future is always changing, even as we make our best guesses. With China an undisputed superpower, and the Russian Federation doing a zombie-Soviet Union impression, it is highly likely that the current generation of American submariners are quietly – and dangerously – embarked on a whole new iteration of this old game.
• 
  Kevin

  I did time on two submarines during my six year naval enlistment, first in the Atlantic (USS Simon Bolivar) and then the Pacific (USS Ohio). As a nuclear missile technician, MT2/SS, I have a few Cold War stories of my own. Nothing I have though would rival the events Sontag & Drew describe here.
  
  Declassification and the Freedom of Information Act cleared the way for public disclosure of these covert, top secret ops. This is Spy vs Spy played out on a global scale, with dire consequences for anyone who makes an error or miscalculation (ref: USS Scorpion).
  
  I'm obviously biased, but I found this much more interesting than any fictional scenarios dreamed up in the minds of Tom Clancy or Patrick Robinson.
• 
  Fred Shaw

  Excellent book if you want to know more about what subs do. I found it fascinating.
• 
  Tim

  A fun book with lots of Cold War era submarine stories.
  
  I didn’t realize that there were so many US – Soviet collisions, including one incredible story where after a collision the US was sure the Soviet sub would be sunk, killing everyone on board. The US hightailed it out of there and maintained secrecy for decades, only to learn after the Cold War thawed that the Soviet sub actually did make it back to base.
  
  There are lots of great stories involving espionage attempts from the Americans, including finding underwater cables to tap, or positioning themselves dangerously close to Soviet coasts. Some of the cat and mouse games between the Americans and Soviets were incredibly intense. It felt like a wrong move or a misunderstanding could escalate an already tense situation into something far worse.
  
  There is the incredible story of the US beating the Soviets to find a sunken Soviet sub, and the attempt to, unbelievable as this sounded to me when I read it, literally carry it back to the US.
  
  The book focuses on Cold War stories but I also liked the brief discussion towards the end of the book about the transition out of the Cold War and what it means for Submarine usage. The book was published in 1998 so it doesn't discuss more recent events, but I would be curious what the authors think about how Submarine importance and strategy has changed in the last 25 years.
• 
  David Rubenstein

  This book is a fascinating look at the spy missions of American submarines during the Cold War. The authors did a phenomenal amount of research, to ascertain the true nature of the Navy's and the CIA's underwater spy missions. The book briefly describes some of the new technologies that were applied, and goes into depth (is this pun intended?) about the challenges, problems, accidents, and successes encountered during the secret missions. The book delves into problems of conscience, as the officers sometimes knew of the marginal legality--or illegality--of their missions. Often the sailors were unaware of the full nature of their missions ahead of time.
  
  Toward the end of the book, the authors describe the effects of international politics on the spy missions, and vice versa. Secret wire-tapping of underwater cables in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Barents Sea brought greater understanding of the Soviet's defense objectives. It took a while before the United States realized that the Soviet Union was preparing for a defensive war, and not a "first-strike" offensive. This realization had an impact on detente and a cooling of the Cold War.
  
  Much of the book reads like a spy thriller, but it is so well researched; the book springs one surprise after another. An interesting set of appendices and notes describe the sources, and how the authors obtained the information for the book.
• 
  Nooilforpacifists

  When released, this book was a revelation: the first peek into Soviet-American "hide-and-seek" among nucular-armed, nucular-powered "Boomer" submarines. Until Tom Clancy, it was Naval Institute Press's biggest seller. And according to a client, an ex diving officer on an Ohio Class, everything written here was top secret--and true.
  
  And suspenseful as hell.
• 
  Edward

  I find the story interesting having lived through some aspects of it long ago as a submariner. Nice to know what might have been going on in the forward section of the boat while I spent my time in the after section in engineering. However, I'm taking some of these stories with a grain of salt since it appears that some of them have been "peached" up according to some Amazon reviewers.
  As to the fate of the Scorpion, the authors leave us baffled regarding the causes; first they relate a Navy analyst’s elaborate "hot run" theory and then introduce some new information from another analyst’s i.e. "warhead burn off" that takes us down an alternate path without recognizing and resolving the contradiction as to the unexpected location of the wreck.
  The storyline dealt primarily with the intelligence gathering aspect which was a secondary function of the nuclear submarine service's primary goal of active nuclear deterrence. The swashbuckling "can do" one upsmanship attitude of the commanding officer’s involved actually added grist to the adage that military intelligence is an oxymoron. The thoughtful reader might takes this as a cautionary tale of how unchecked brinkmanship at lower levels of command in the intelligence community can lead to disaster and enormous wastefulness of resources with small consideration of the risks involved.
  
• 
  Becky

  An absolutely fascinating book that is a great broad introduction to submariner's and their work for the US. Each one of the stories shared could easily have been its own 400 page book, and a few I'll probably search out.
• 
  Bob Mayer

  From the Glomar Explorer to tapping into undersea cables, the Cold War under the ocean was full of interesting stories. This book covers them in great detail. I can tell you that the "Cold" War was never really Cold. Lives were lost as both superpowers confronted each other in a myriad of ways. The story of how this unfolded underwater is fascinating.
• 
  Jeffrey

  Where to start...
  
  This isn't a history book, this is a New York Times Bestselling Anecdote book. The anecdotes are a collection of amusing, horrifying, blood pumping, low grade jingoist bar room stories. And taken as that, it is a very enjoyable read and why it doesn't get only one star.
  
  I think that without the Prologue and Afterword I could taken the book for what it is. Unfortunately, the Prologue proclaims that after years and years of hard research the authors can finally (and exclusively) tell the true story of these brave men. The cover quotes and Epilogue back this up with their bragging about five hour signing sessions and short statements praising the book from other New York Times Bestselling Anecdote book authors.
  
  Let me concentrate in particular on the story of the Scorpion. This is the one thread that carries throughout the rest of the book as the authors repeatedly congratulate themselves on finally ferreting out the truth of the matter. Except they have nothing. The source they base their thesis on has repeatedly complained about them misstating his thoughts, positions, and ideas on the matter. Documents declassified after the book was published directly contradicts assertions made by the authors. etc, etc, etc.
  
  Much of the book relies on coincidences to provoke a sense of wonder and amazement. Those of you that have read my historical fiction reviews know that that technique is one of my biggest pet peeves in the genre. Much of this is clearly purposeful, as the authors will mention two incidents within a sentence or paragraph but only tell you when one of the incidents happened.
  
  If you enjoy
  Tom Clancy, read this book, these authors clearly know a lot more of that they are talking about than him. If you want a more recent and better sourced perspective (if probably just as biased), I have heard good things from like minded readers about
  John Pina Craven's book
  The Silent War: The Cold War Battle Beneath the Sea
• 
  Anna Saucedo

  Subs are so cool. In another life I was an 19 year old submariner enlisted during the Cold War. Especially enjoyed reading about USS Scorpion and USS halibut.
• 
  Tony Dutton

  Submarine espionage is an unusual topic and this book does it justice and in depth pardon the pun
• 
  Andrew

  I picked this book up as reading material for a Hawaiian cruise. What better place to read a book about drama on the high seas then on board a ship? In regard to ocean going drama, it did deliver to an extent - but The Hunt for Red October or Crimson Tide it was not. To be fair, it turned out to be a very different book, and I learned a lot from it. First an foremost, this is a book about real submarine warfare, not fiction. Also, it is not simply a history or glamorization of submarines, it is equal parts investigation and analysis of the tactics of this era.
  
  The thing that struck me the most throughout the book was the almost ludicrous level of secrecy and subterfuge that the people involved in these programs operated under. It makes the 80's comedy Spies Like Us seem more like fact than fiction. It would appear the authors had to go to great lengths to uncover the material in the book, as much of the information is still not widely discussed. I'm sure hindsight allows for a different perspective, but when you think on the amount of money and resources that were thrown into the Cold War arms race, it looks a bit like collective insanity. The degrees of paranoia and secrecy that existed seemed to create an overly inflated ego in everyone taking part, and without oversight, there was no one to shake them up and question where American's billions of dollars were going. It seems like a lesson worth reviewing again as American military intelligence has now shifted its focus to cyber surveillance. Much like the submarines of the Cold War, it is an enterprise highly shrouded in mystery likely conducted with the same level of bravado as these captains did decades ago. The authors of this book raise plenty of questions in the readers mind as to whether the high cost of submarine warfare was really justified, but stop short of drawing definite conclusions themselves. Its golden age has certainly has passed, and now its fight is in many ways to remain relevant.
  
  I would recommend this book to readers interested in a very insightful analysis of Cold War era naval operations. Those looking for gripping storytelling would probably be better served sticking with Tom Clancy.
• 
  Brooks

  Excellent narrative of submarine warfar with a Tom Clancy touch. An early sub, Cochino, that went down in ’49 from a fire from the batteries. 10 men were lost from Sub Tusk in rescue attempt. The sub world is filled with games of tag and chicken that were incredibly dangerous for the crews and world peace. In 1958, the first US sub Gudgeon was forced to surface from being caught by the soviets in their traditional areas. Much of the book is about the Navies tapping of Soviet communication cables under the sea. The boats sent to do this were equipment with self destruct charges in case they were caught. They had huge tape devices that used induction to tap the cables. At one point a sub was stuck in a violent storm in shallow waters and almost destroyed. In another incident, a sub started to take on sand into the reactor cooling water as it sat on the bottom. At one point, the CIA gave millions to Howard Huges to build a rescue ship, Glomar Explorer, to pull up a sunk Soviet sub. The massive failure led to congressional investigation.
• 
  Will

  The nonfiction rendering of the American Navy's submarine spying program of the Cold War years, 1950--1991. USS Cochino to USS Parche.
  
  Growing up on the east coast I had been around both fast attack and SSBN submarine veterans almost my entire adult life. Of course, my two best subvet friends, an E-9 and a Captain, wouldn't tell me jack shit about any of the missions they had ever been on due to the 1000 year non-disclosure forms the Navy had them sign at the height of the cold war. While they both knew the good shit, the E-9 had been on numerous patrols on the Parche, which will probably go down in the annals of Naval lore as the most daring submarine that ever took on incredibly risky stealth missions in and around Murmansk and Vladivostok. Finally one night at a social event, the E-9 decided to get me off his back by telling me about Blind Man's Bluff. I read it and instantly gained an appreciation for what the crew must have gone through during these clandestine missions, typically staged to intercept communication traffic. This is mandatory reading for a submarine junkie.
• 
  Wayland Smith

  This is a very specifically focused history of American submarines as they are used in espionage. While there's some other history here and there, it's largely focused on the Cold War. Some of these stories I had heard or read parts of before, some were new to me.
  
  What I give the authors huge credit for is that, while it would be easy to just talk about facts and figures and dates, they went the extra step. A lot of what is discussed, especially towards the end, is the toll that both the missions and the required secrecy about them took on the sailors. That impressed me. There was also a good bit about political infighting in DC and the Pentagon, but that's not exactly shocking.
  
  It's fairly detailed and specific, so if the title interests you, go for it, and it not, you might want to skip this one. I thought it was well done.
• 
  Anna Mary Starr

  Ironically and unfortunately, I generally don’t enjoy reading naval books of any sort, but this book is an epic. It reads like a novel and is incredibly well-researched. It’s been interesting to read this book, about the missions of submarines post-WW2 and during the Cold War, while studying current submarine missions and operations at work. The authors do a great job of putting faces and real stories behind events that are either not talked about at all or are talked about with such a wide lens, it’s forgotten there are lives behind each operation, mistake, and success. A great read for all, not just submariners.
• 
  Shane Phillips

  These are some amazing stories. Secretly placing a 6 ton recording device on a Russian underwater cable just off the coast of Russia that can record a years worth of Russian military communications is just crazy. But, it happened.
• 
  Talia

  This book was well written and interesting to read, I apparently just hate submarines.
• 
  Dave Harmon

  boring. DNF
• 
  Jessica Gavin

  I really learned a lot from this book. However- I enjoyed the first 1/2 a lot more than the last 1/2. That was really my only complaint about the book. I can’t imagine the amount of research that went into this. Really interesting look at the Cold War!
• 
  Teri-K

  Wow. I'm not a military history buff by any means. In fact, I only started this book because my son was a Nuclear Power Tech in the Navy and now tests the subs as they are built or refurbished. His friends who know said this book was so accurate they were surprised the authors weren't charged with revealing official secrets. There are things in here no one has ever talked about. So I read it to give me something to talk about with my son. I'm really glad I did.
  
  There are a lot of details and names in here, but the authors managed to never make me feel like I was overwhelmed. (Though I did read one chapter at a time and then take a break.) They managed to make enough of the people seem real - one guy wrote and recorded country western songs, another ate fresh blueberry muffins daily - so I never lost sight of the fact that these were real people. (Of course, my DH was Navy and I've lived many of the places mentioned mentioned and known submariners and those who tracked them.) Also, I remembered many of the incidents mentioned from growing up watching the news in the 60s and 70s. Still, this a book that manages to to present a lot of facts in a very interesting way.
  
  I especially appreciated the Epilogue and Afterward, as they again put a very human face on the Cold War and the many people who were affected by it, including the families on both sides. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is curious about US history. I think it would also be good for those who don't understand the military at all, or the people who serve in it. Clearly these are neither perfect people nor ogres. And they're definitely not stupid folks who couldn't get a job in "the real world", as some seem to believe. Instead you see a nuanced picture of the many types who came together at a pivitol time US and World history. A fascinating book.
• 
  Stephen Phillips

  Many chapters of the Cold War were unseen and unknown to the general public. Among the most secret operations were those conducted undersea by the U.S. Navy’s submarine force. In Blind Man’s Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage, Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew tell tales derived from interviewing submariners that include technological marvels and unparalleled courage.
  
  Before reading this book, most have a perception of the submarine force consisting of two main missions, attack subs to find and destroy the enemy at sea, and ballistic missile boats, or “boomers,” that serve as part of America’s Strategic Nuclear Triad. Others may be aware that submarines have been employed to deliver UDTs and are used to transport SEALs and their Seal Delivery Vehicles (SDVs). Blind Man’s Bluff describes missions that were equally secretive, but that focused on intelligence collection, such as USS Halibut deploying saturation divers to tap into Soviet underwater telephone cables, or the secret mission to raise the downed Soviet submarine, K-129 (The latter is documented in detail in
  Project Azorian: The CIA and the Raising of the K-129 by Norman Polmar and Michael White.). Through each story the reader becomes acutely aware of the dangers, the skill, and the sacrifice and those in the “Silent Service.” Blind Man’s Bluff is an important read for any fan of naval or military history.
  
• 
  Nadienne Williams

  I have been fascinated with submarines and submarine operations since as far back as I can remember. It all started with a little game called "Red Storm Rising" (yes, based on the book), which I first played on my Tandy 1000 PC back in 1989...in all its glorious 16 colors!!!
  
  Flash forward to my desire to enlist in the US Navy during my senior year of high school, which didn't last - but nearly led to Annapolis and/or Submarine School...
  
  Nevertheless, it was amazing to read about covert submarine operations during the Cold War. Divers emerging from specially designed hatches to tap communication cables 500 feet below the surface of the water is terrifying enough...not to mention what it must be like to be on a submarine, a couple of hundred feet underwater when you collide with another submarine. And, I'm terrified of dark, bodies of water...
  
  I'd highly recommend this if you are interested in submarines, the Cold War, or the like.
• 
  Lori Krause

  I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves true history written in the finest narrative. Several times I found myself lost in the pages, somewhere between paragraphs. I am somewhat biased since I love historical naval warfare. That said, it doesn't mean I can't spot a truly riveting recall of adventure and courage. Blind Man's Bluff is simply one of the best naval recounts I have read. The fact that it is true only adds to it's amazing, intrigue. One of my favorite recounts is during the artic operations. The fact that sonar pings sound like the mating call of a ring-necked seal is quite charming. Overall, an excellent choice of reading.
• 
  Michael

  Dr. John Craven was Visiting Professor of Ocean Engineering at MIT during 1969-1971 between some of his U.S. Navy assignments. He arranged an interview for me after I got my OE Master's degree in 1971. As a result of that interview, my next nine years on active duty were the most thrilling of my life. This book relates only a fraction of the amazing ocean technology feats during those years.
  
• 
  Lisa

  I love this book! This was my 2nd time reading it, 5 years after I read it for the first time. It was just as exhilarating of a journey and it continues to be one of my most quoted and recommended books to others interested in the shrouded history of submarine espionage.
  
  Written like a novel with true tales about real people, this is definitely a book I will revisit periodically in my life.
• 
  Leelan

  Very good! Never knew any of this. Well. I did know about the Glomar Explorer fiasco.
• 
  Taylor Rollo

  This was a decent book if you like the topic of submarines and espionage. It was historical in its presentation of submarines, though it was by no means comprehensive in its account of the development of submarines. That is because it was focused on the use of submarines in espionage during the Cold War. If you like these topics you will enjoy this book.
  
  It is well-written, and some of the stories I know from other sources and most seem to be generally accurate. There is one (that I know of) glaring inaccuracy, and that is in their information about the Glomar Explorer and the raising of the Soviet sub K-129. Their information about the project is outdated and very inaccurate in the details. Their details were based on a discredited investigative reporter. Less than 20 years ago, the details of the project were declassified, and if you want a good book about it, read Norman Polmar's on the topic. (By the way, he is an actual naval historian, not an "investigative reporter.") Just to give you a taste of what they got wrong about that project: it was not "Project Jennifer" but that was just a cover story ploy that duped the Soviets and, apparently, these reporters (the real name was Project Azorian); the Glomar Explorer was not built by Howard Hughes, but, again, he was just part of the cover story; the Glomar did not lose "90%" of the sub in retrieval, as the book claims, but only about 40%; and what it did retrieve was not a "$500 mil sandcastle" but the most valuable intelligence find of the century. Like many journalists, these authors were purposefully duped by the CIA to publish it as a "failure." Apparently, they do not understand that the best cover a spy can hope for is to be thought of as a failure or incompetent, so once the project plan leaked, the CIA intentionally led the journalists of the time to think it was a failure because then they would report it as a failure and (hopefully) the Soviets would believe them.
  
  Outside of that, the stories I did know about already were accurately relayed, as far as I can tell, and, to be fair, the above glaring inaccuracy is understandable since this book was published five or six years before Project Azorian was declassified.
  
  So, all in all, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to someone who likes subs and espionage.