Blind Mans Bluff - Softcover

Drew, Christopher; Sontag, Sherry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099409984 ISBN 13: 9780099409984

Publisher: Arrow, 2000

Synopsis

Veteran investigative journalist Sherry Sontag and award-winning New York Times reporter Christopher Drew finally reveal the exciting, epic story of adventure, ingenuity, courage and disaster beneath the sea. Blind Man's Bluff shows for the first time how the American Navy sent submarines wired with self-destruct charges into the heart of Soviet seas to tap crucial underwater telephone cables. Sontag and Drew unveil new evidence that the Navy's own negligence might have been responsible for the loss of the USS Scorpion, a submarine that disappeared, all hands lost, thirty years ago. They disclose for the first time details of the bitter war between the CIA and the Navy and how it threatened to sabotage one of America's most important undersea missions. They tell the complete story of the audacious attempt to steal a Soviet submarine with the help of eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, and how it was doomed from the start. And Sontag and Drew reveal how the Navy used the comforting notion of deep-sea rescue vehicles to hide operations that were more James Bond than Jacques Cousteau. Stretching from the years immediately after World War II to the present-day spy operations of the Clinton Administration, Blind Man's Bluff reads like a spy thriller, but with one important difference - everything in it is true.

About this title

Review:

Little is known--and less has been published--about American submarine espionage during the Cold War. These submerged sentinels silently monitored the Soviet Union's harbours, shadowed its subs, watched its missile tests, eavesdropped on its conversations and even retrieved top-secret debris from the bottom of the sea. In an engaging mix of first-rate journalism and historical narrative, Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drew and Annette Lawrence Drew describe what went on.

"Most of the stories in Blind Man's Bluff have never been told publicly," they write, "and none have ever been told in this level of detail." Among their revelations is the most complete accounting to date of the 1968 disappearance of the U.S.S. Scorpion; the story of how the Navy located a live hydrogen bomb lost by the Air Force; and a plot by the CIA and Howard Hughes to steal a Soviet sub. The most interesting chapter reveals how an American sub secretly tapped Soviet communications cables beneath the waves. Blind Man's Bluff is a compelling book about the courage, ingenuity and patriotism of America's underwater spies. --John J. Miller, Amazon.com

Review:

"Brilliant . . . Full of hair-raising stories of men in peril under the sea" (Wall Street Journal)

"With materials combed from newspaper reports, American and Soviet archives, and the testimonies of officers and servicemen that could come forward only with the end of the Cold War, Blind Man's Bluff looks at one of the hottest theaters of that era--the ocean depths, and how submarines have been used by both the navy and the CIA to gather intelligence and launch covert operations" (Kirkus Reviews)

"A compelling study of magnificent men and spying machines" (New York Times Book Review)

"A long overdue, well deserved tribute to those unsung heroes of the U.S. Navy's 'silent service' with whom I was privileged to serve" (Lt. Cmdr. Roy H. Boehm, USN (ret.), creator of the U.S. Navy Seal Teams and author of First Seal)

"A real-life Hunt For Red October" (New York Times)

About this edition

• Publisher: Arrow
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0099409984
• ISBN 13: 9780099409984
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384