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

Drew, Christopher; Sontag, Sherry; Drew, Annette

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1610393589 ISBN 13: 9781610393584

Publisher: PublicAffairs, 2016

Synopsis

Originally published in 1998 and a best seller in its hardcover and paperback publications, Blind Man's Bulff is a dramatic, and riveting history. Over the course of five years, investigative reporters Sherry Sontag and Chris Drew interviewed hundreds of men who had never spoken about their underwater lives,not even to their wives and children. They uncovered a wealth of classified information: the tapping of undersea Soviet telephone cables, the stealing of Soviet weapons, the tragic collisions of enemy submarines. They tell of medals awarded in secret and deaths disguised with disinformation. Blind Man's Bluff is a critical work of history that reads with all the excitement of a Tom Clancy novel and all the tragedy of Das Boot.

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

"Packed with real life adventures that Tom Clancy could only have guessed at. . . . More than a collection of sea stories. It reveals how submarine operations during the cold war had a profound impact on strategic decisions made in the Kremlin and Washington. . . . With Naval agents on their heels . . . Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew have made a successful end run around stacks of secrecy oaths and the locked lips of the Silent Service to make public some of the most astounding military operations of the cold war. . . . Lock the doors and draw the shades, because this book is a well written, highly readable account of man and machine working together to do the impossible for the highest of stakes."--Washington Monthly

"Vividly told, impressively documented, and persuasively argued."--New York Times

"The veterans of the 'Silent Service' are silent no more."--John Lehman, former secretary of the Navy, Wall Street Journal

"The book is filled with specifics . . . but thankfully not presented in the dry techno-speak of many military histories. This one is very human and easy to read."--Washington Post

"A tale that has the Navy refusing to comment and retired submariners rejoicing that their story is finally being told. . . . Espionage missions described in this book are among the most sensitive and secret intelligence operations of the cold war. Most have never been described in detail, if at all, and the Navy to this day refuses to acknowledge them publicly."--Associated Press

"Gripping."--Publishers Weekly

"It's almost impossible to make up stuff this good."--John Weisman, author of the Rogue Warrior Series

"Excellent history . . . that reads like a Tom Clancy novel."--Booklist

"Hard-core investigative reporting at its crispest. . . . The stories are exciting, the personalities border on the eccentric, and the constant turf battles among various U.S. government agencies in those often top-secret submarine activities make for intriguing reading."--Library Journal

"Exciting."--Denver Post

About this edition

• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1610393589
• ISBN 13: 9781610393584
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432