Blind Man's Bluff

October 19, 1998
In an unusually successful amalgam, veteran journalists Sontag and Christopher Drew combine a gripping story with admirable research to relate previously unknown information. Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. depended heavily on submarines for intelligence gathering, whether tracking Soviet missile subs, monitoring Soviet harbors and missile tests or, in some cases, retrieving lost Soviet equipment. The U.S.S.R. responded with everything from comprehensive espionage operations to depth charge attacks on particularly intrusive snoopers. The broad outlines of this clandestine confrontation are relatively familiar, but the details have largely remained secret. Although the authors have based their book largely on interviews with submariners, intelligence operatives and politicians, they recognize the possibility of distortion and back up personal accounts with an elaborate and convincing system of verification. While necessarily incomplete, the resulting work depicts what was arguably the most successful long-term, large-scale intelligence operation in American history. From captains to seamen, the participants combined technical proficiency, insouciant courage and a cheerful scorn for regulations that often interfered with their missions. That mind-set was hardly calculated to avoid direct confrontations, and accidental collisions were not uncommon. The authors nevertheless make a solid case that the risk of a destabilizing incident was far outweighed by the gains of the campaign--especially given the depth of mutual ignorance during the Cold War.

November 15, 1998
Journalists Sontag and Drew have strung together about a dozen investigative pieces on submarine espionage activities during the Cold War era. The stories are exciting, the personalities border on the eccentric, and the constant turf battles among various U.S. government agencies in these often top-secret submarine activities make for intriguing reading. Have you ever wondered what it must be like to stalk a Soviet sub armed to the teeth with nuclear missles? Or serve on a U.S. sub in Russian waters with Soviet antisubmarine ships using you for target practice? While these true-life stories are exciting, much of the book is actually an account of how the CIA, U.S. Navy, Congress, and other agencies all used the American submarine force to further their own political ends. While not packing the literary punch or style of Edward L. Beach's World War II naval classic Run Silent, Run Deep, this is hard-core investigative reporting at its crispest. Highly recommended for all public and academic libraries.--Stephen W. Green, Auraria Lib., Denver

November 1, 1998
Two investigative reporters and a researcher have joined forces to produce an excellent history of U.S. submarine espionage operations that reads like a Tom Clancy novel. They take the story from the early days of the cold war, when we lost, by accident, the diesel submarine "Cochino" on a spy mission and nearly lost the "Gudgeon" to Soviet antisubmarine forces. They continue through the shift to nuclear submarines, the loss of the "Scorpion" (destroyed by defective torpedoes after completing a spy mission), the role of the "Halibut" in finding the Soviet missile boat later salvaged by the CIA's "Glomar Explorer," and the cable-tapping operations in which the "Parche" won more presidential unit citations than any other submarine in American history. They also cover open-sea efforts to shadow Soviet submarines, which occasionally led to dangerous collisions, and add to our knowledge of the horrendous safety record of the Soviet nuclear navy and the vices and virtues of Hyman G. Rickover, father of its American counterpart. ((Reviewed November 1, 1998))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1998, American Library Association.)