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Narrated by George Wilson
Sherry SontagUnabridged — 15 hours, 46 minutes
Narrated by George Wilson
Sherry SontagUnabridged — 15 hours, 46 minutes
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No espionage missions have been kept more secret than those involving American submarines. Now, Blind Man's Bluff shows for the first time how the Navy sent submarines wired with self-destruct charges into the heart of Soviet seas to tap crucial underwater telephone cables. It unveils how 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. It tells 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 it reveals how the Navy used the comforting notion of deep sea rescue vehicles to hide operations that were more James Bond than Jacques Cousteau.
Blind Man's Bluff contains an unforgettable array of characters, including the cowboy sub commander who brazenly outraced torpedoes and couldn't resist sneaking up to within feet of unaware enemy subs. It takes us inside clandestine Washington meetings where top submarine captains briefed presidents and where the espionage war was planned one sub and one dangerous encounter at a time. Stretching from the years immediately after World War II to the present-day operations of the Clinton Administration, it is an epic story of daring and deception. A magnificent achievement in investigative reporting, it feels like a spy thriller, but with one important difference--everything in it is true.
Blind Man's Bluff is not a policy tome. What moves readers from page to page is the struggle and pride of those who envisioned these missions and the sailors who carried them out. The stories of their lives, and sometimes deaths, are only enriched by the scholarly underpinnings of the volume. -- USA Today
Portions of this book are as exciting as early Tom Clancy novels: 'There was no way the officers and crew manning the diving planes could keep Halibut level... Outside, the divers watched as Halibut began to drift upward. The men were still linked to the submarine through their air hoses. They knew they would die if Halibut pulled them up before they could decompress. If they cut themselves loose, they would suffocate.'.... This work is highly recommended for everyone with an interest in submarines or intelligence.
--Sea Power
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.
-- Booklist
Brilliant . . . Full of hair-raising stories of men in peril under the sea.
A compelling study of magnificent men and spying machines.
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.
A real-life Hunt For Red October.
From page one, it reads like a novel. How they uncovered all this stuff is remarkable.
The most comprehensive look at the work of these intrepid sailors . . . A celebration of their ingenuity and valor.
Reads like an adventure novel, but it's all to real.
The veterans of the 'Silent Service' are silent no more. —Wall Street Journal
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.
Vividly told, impressively documented, and persuasively argued...Honors must go to the steel-nerved captains and crews whose dangerous and daring exploits are given an unparalleled and sometimes hair-raising rendition in Blind Man's Bluff
-- The New York Times
Chapter after chapter describes nail-biting undersea exploits that are nothing short of heroic. . .It reads like a Tom Clancy novel, but it isn't fiction -- it's all real.
. . .[A]n evocative an important look at the cold war. . .also satisfying to read, at times hurtling forward with the speed of a Polaris submarine. . . .The authors also provide simple stories of individual courage. . .
-- The New York Times Book Review
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.
-- The Washington Monthly
Enthralling real-life stories of American submarine spying that read as if torn from the pages of The Hunt for Red October, full of high-tech highjinks and human drama. 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. Many of the actions described will be familiar to fans of military thrillers, but few readers will have heard these exploits described in such detail before. Included in the book are the stories of American tapping of Soviet communications cables in the Barents Sea, how the navy used a mathematical formula to find a lost warhead, and the tale of the legendary Glomar Explorer, a CIA-built excavation vessel. The authors, veteran investigative journalists (Drew is a reporter for The New York Times), have concentrated equally on the interdepartmental rivalry between the CIA and the Navy. They paint an intriguing portrait of the internal struggles—for funding, materials, manpower, and the President's attention—that dictated how the Cold War was waged. The work does lack a degree of unity. At times, it seems the writers threw in every submarine secret they could possibly scrounge up. But whenever they falter, rest assured that in just a few pages, the next incredible operation stands reliably revealed.
"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 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
"The veterans of the 'Silent Service' are silent no more."—John Lehman, former secretary of the Navy, Wall Street Journal
"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
"Strong stuff! . . . Highly recommended. . . . A compelling testimony to the courage and ingenuity of the submariners and the intelligence wizards and operators who made use of this weapon during the cold war and up to this day."—Roy Jonkers, AFIO Executive Director, AFIO's Weekly Intelligence Notes
"As exciting as early Tom Clancy novels . . . engrossing. . . . Highly recommended for everyone with an interest in submarines or intelligence."—Sea Power
"An immensely readable look at some of the blackest secrets of the cold war, as U.S. and Soviet subs engage in subterfuge as intriguing as a thriller novel."—Providence Journal-Bulletin
"Impressive . . . The authors managed to capture the flavor of submarine life, the innovation and ingenuity of men who have to fix complex equipment when there is no supply line, the command structure that seems casual to an outsider but which works better in an undersea environment than the more rigid arrangements on surface or shore commands."—The Day (New London, CT)
"The most comprehensive look at the work of these intrepid sailors . . . A celebration of their ingenuity and valor."—Baltimore Sun
"The authors write of top-secret operations to tap underwater Soviet cables, recover a live H-bomb mistakenly lost on the ocean floor, and steal a Russian sub. Better yet, all of it is true- and revealed on these pages for the first time."—Investor's Business Daily
With the end of the Cold War, many secrets and some truly amazing stories are coming out. One of these stories concerns the use of submarines by the United States to gather intelligence from the Soviets. These must be heard to be believed, for no one could have created stories such as these. Wilson's reading is, overall, adequate. His baritone reminded this reviewer of Dick Estell's. Wilson's pacing and intonation are good, and he is never monotonous. However, it would have been nice if he had been given training in pronouncing Russian words. His consistent mispronunciations may grate on some. Still, this work is hard to let go. The interview with the author at the conclusion is enlightening. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine
| BN ID: | 2940170037766 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Publication date: | 08/09/2016 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
| Sales rank: | 681,806 |
A Deadly Beginning
"You gotta be nuts," Harris M. Austin grumbled under his breath as he watched the ugliest-looking piece of junk he had ever seen pull into the British naval base in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. This couldn't be his sub. This couldn't be the Cochino.
Almost anyone else on the busy pier would have thought that he was just a twenty-eight-year-old radioman. He knew better. He was here on direct orders from the U.S. chief of Naval Operations. He had been briefed by admirals who commanded the U.S. naval forces in Europe, his background checked and doublechecked. And today he was about to join the crew of this sub as one of the Navy's newest spies, a "spook," someone who had been trained to snatch Soviet milltary signals and electronic communications out of thin air. It was going to be his job to attempt a daring grab for some of the Soviet Union's deepest secrets.
Austin jumped down onto the pier and began pulling mooring lines along with a handful of other men. Then somebody said it, said that this was Cochino, U.S. submarine SS-345, the boat Austin had been awaiting for three days.
"Goddamn ugly piece of junk," he thought as he hoisted a sea bag stuffed with classified documents over his shoulder and lumbered down the hatch to introduce himself and his orders to Cochino's commanding officer, Commander Rafael C. Benitez.
Austin had leapt to submarines from battle cruisers in a search for excitement, the same reason he had volunteered to make this latest leap, transforming himself from a radioman into a spook. That he was in the armed forces at all had been a nearcertainty from the day he was born. He came from a long line of Scottish warriors, a line he could trace back to the fourteenth century without breaking a sweat. His father had been a cook with an American air squadron in England before shifting to whalers and ocean freighters stateside. His Welsh mother had worked for a British ammunition company. Austin himself had been only nineteen years old when he first went to sea, his auburn hair quickly earning him the nickname "Red."
Benitez, thirty-two years old, was one of those men who had been bred to decorum. His father was a judge in Puerto Rico, and Commander Benitez had just finished law school, a perk that the Navy had awarded to hold on to him. As a submarine officer during World War 11, he had survived several depth-chargings and earned a reputation for calm under fire. Now, in late July 1949, he had been back in the sub force for only three weeks, and he had his own command.
Actually, it was a command Benitez had tried to turn down, embarrassed by his sub's name. Cochino may have been named for an Atlantic trigger fish, but in Spanish, the language of his family and friends back home, he would be commanding the submarine Pig.
He had admitted as much to his mother when he
wrote home, but her reply had yet to reach him as he stood in his cramped wardroom, shoulders back to make the most of his less than imposing frame. He was alone with this hulking enlisted man, this sailor turned spy, the kind of man who would still be declaring that he was "tougher than shit" when he reached his seventies.
Red Austin handed over his orders. The captain scanned them and tensed as he read that Cochino, his sub, was about to become an experimental spy boat.
Benitez was stunned. Cochino's mission was already complex enough. She had been scheduled to embark on a training run designed to change the very nature of submarine warfare. Classic World War 11 fleet submarines could dive beneath the waves only long enough to attack surface ships and avoid counterattack before needing to surface themselves. But since the war ended, Cochino and a few other boats had been dramatically altered. They now sported new, largely untested equipment, including a snorkel pipe that was supposed to let them take in fresh air, run the diesel engines, and shoot out engine exhaust without having to surface. That would allow the boats to spend much of their time underwater, rendering them effectively invisible and making it possible for them to go after other subs as well as surface ships.
Benitez had been expecting to take his submarine out and test her new equipment, train his crew, and learn how to run her as a true underwater vehicle. But Austin's orders were adding another dimension to Benitez's mission, transforming it from one of just war games and sea trials into an operation in an unproven realm of submarine intelligence. Furthermore, all this was to take place in the frigid Barents Sea inside the Arctic Circle, near the waters around Murmansk where the Soviet Union kept its Northern Fleet.
Worse, the cables and antennas for Austin's crude eavesdropping gear had to pass directly through the sub's pressure hull. That meant drilling holes in the very steel that held the ocean back.
Benitez took one look at the plans to drill through the sub's hull, what he considered the sub's "last resort" protective shell, and became clearly upset. What happened next is a story that Austin would tell and retell.
"Drill holes in the pressure hull?" Benitez said loud enough to get the attention of his executive officer and chief of the boat who came running. Drill holes without direct orders from the Navy's Bureau of Ships, which was supposed to oversee all submarine construction and modifications?
"You got anything from BUSHIPS?" he demanded.
"No sir, this is what they gave me," Austin replied. In a hapless gesture at conciliation, he added, "They're going to be small holes."
