Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage By Sherry Sontag and Annette Drew and Christopher Drew

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

By Sherry Sontag and Annette Drew and Christopher Drew

Blind Man's Bluff was the work of 3 people, Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew both are generally credited as the main writers of the book. Both of them are investigative reporters with Mr. Drew currently working for the New York Times, as well as teaching investigative reporting at Colombia's Graduate school of Journalism. He is known for this book and his work with the Navy SEALS where he revealed an increasing lack of oversight, work he was given a George Polk award for. Before then he had written for The Times in DC and New York. Sherry Sontag was a writer for the National Law Review and wrote about the Soviet Union, international affairs, and domestic banking scandals. Before that, she wrote for the New York Times and is a graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Dr. Annette Drew is Christopher Drew's wife and is mainly credited as the book's researcher, she has a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University and currently lives with Mr. Drew and their daughter. Blind Man's Bluff was published in 1998 by HarperCollins books. 

Before we jump into the novel... The Cold War, let me talk about it a little. The Cold War was a combination of a Mexican Stand-Off and a game of Chicken between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America and the respective allies, clients, and pawns of both powers. What happened was after the dust settled in World War II, it was realized that there were now only two powers that mattered, especially as the colonial empires of the European states fell apart due to the exhaustion and ruin that the Europeans had inflicted on themselves. 

Those two powers were the United States and the Soviet Union and while these powers had been allied against the genocidal madness of the Axis powers in Europe, the alliance could not hold. I'm going to state for the record that there are many arguments over this, some people blame the US entirely for the cold war, stating that the capitalist democracy could not accept an alternative system existing and therefore sought to kill the socialist dictatorship that was the USSR. Others blame the USSR, stating that its actions in Eastern Europe and other places in the world provoked the US and Western European governments into the belief that the USSR was an expansionist power out to export its ideology across the globe to the ultimate ruin and domination of the west. Still, others believe it to be nothing more than a continuation of traditional Great Power Politics only made vastly more dangerous with the inclusion of nuclear weapons. 

My own belief is that confrontation was simply inevitable, both the US and the USSR dared to envision global systems that were dramatically opposed to each other. Neither nation would surrender its interests, ideals, or fundamental principles and in such a situation, misunderstandings, confrontation, and competition cannot be avoided. There was also fear, undergirding the entire enterprise. In the US, there was the very real fear that the USSR was committed to the violent and revolutionary expansion of its ideology and someday its vast army would come thundering across the plains of Europe. Meanwhile in the USSR, the leaders of the communist party looked at the alliances and military deployments across the globe and saw a mighty chain being forged to strangle their nation to death. (My own personal view is that yes, it was inevitable, but there was also a complete lack of understanding of intentions on each side. The Soviets, having fought the bloodiest war in history in an alliance of convenience with powers that had tried to murder their nation in the crib, felt that it was just a matter of time before the alliance rearmed Germany and turned on them. So they absorbed Eastern Europe to give themselves more land to trade for time for what had to feel like an inevitable next go-round. The Allies saw the Soviets absorbing the states they’d liberated from the Nazis and installing friendly governments and read this as the natural product of the ambition for global revolution, enforced by what seemed like an endless, inexhaustible army. Everybody assumed the worst, and not without reason.)

It's in this context that Blind Man's Bluff covers the trials, losses, and victories of the US Navy Submarine Service and its mission to counter and contain the Soviet submarine force. It begins in the early days of the diesel navy when submarines were still running on diesel-fueled engines. Despite running on batteries when submerged, diesel fumes would linger and  foul the air inside the sub, forcing it to surface regularly to snorkel in fresh air as well as recharge the batteries. These subs had to spend almost as much time on the surface as they did under the water. (There is also the matter of the fact that diesel boats were much, much faster on the surface than underwater. Battery drives were sloooooooow.) Despite that American submarine captains were wildly fearless in their runs towards the Soviet Coast, and they did so in the search of very specific prey. Soviet submarines, who were louder and often slower than American submarines.

 

At this point many of the American submarine officers were veterans of the Pacific front where American submarines learned painful lessons in their brutal war with the Imperial Japanese Navy, often while being victimized by the Navy Department of Ordinance but that's a whole different review. 

The job of American submarines was to get close to Soviet submarines undetected and record them, both visually and more importantly audibly so that the fledgling defensive listening posts across the Atlantic and Pacific could identify Soviet Submarines and track them. This could lead to collisions between the submarines if these Captains weren't on the ball and staying aware of their prey's position during their recording sprees. (And here we learn the no kidding origin of the Crazy Ivan maneuver, when Soviet subs would make a hard turn to shake pursuit.) Also if detected American subs could face attacks from Soviet destroyers determined to chase American subs away from their home waters and their growing fleets. 

While they had terrible equipment, the Soviet submariners and surface ship sailors were trained professionals determined to their duty to their country and the Soviet navy was constantly improving. This led to a race between the US and the USSR, as the US worked to maintain its technological edge and hone the training needed to ensure its subs could track and stalk Soviet missile subs and Soviets worked to find ways to elude and escape US attack subs. This however also led to the birth of submarines as an instrument of espionage and intelligence gathering as the increasingly sensitive sonar and radar devices used in these intense but usually bloodless underwater duels were found to have other applications. (Well, it led to a lot of innovation in how subs could be used for intelligence gathering, but they had long been part of the picture in terms of monitoring fleet movements, particularly in the Pacific Theater.)

The writers of this book are careful to include a good overview of evolving navy politics introducing the reader to such figures as the legendary Admiral Hyman Rickover(there’s a name that can start arguments to this day), who is the father of the Nuclear Navy. As well as civilians like Dr. John Craven who created the search method that would find two lost subs, a lost hydrogen bomb and played a large role in the Sealab project. We are given a ringside seat to the battles between Admiral Rickover who was determined to hold absolute dominion over nuclear submarines, their deployments, and missions, and the Navy Intelligence department represented by a series of officers all of whom were determined to maintain their independence and freedom of action.(In most things standing in Rickover’s way was a good way to get run over by a bulldozer for most people. Including LBJ’s Secretary of the Navy, as it happens.) There are naval stories of wild action and death-defying stunts by submariners out in the water, but readers should be prepared to see bureaucratic battles and budgetary duels as well, as our authors explore every dimension of struggle here. Not that these bureaucratic feuds were entirely bloodless, as the battle for Congressional dollars led to more than one fistfight in this book. 

The internal battle inside the Navy is only one front, there was also the struggle for control between Naval Intelligence and the CIA. The CIA was bound and determined to control every intelligence operation that didn't take place within the United States and often wanted control of many operations that did take place in the US. Within the book, the pivotal confrontation is between the CIA and Naval Intelligence over the downed Soviet sub the K129. 

The downed sub was discovered by the USS Halibut, a submarine that had been extensively modified for intelligence operations, including using remote-controlled “fish.” The “fish” were also the creation of Dr. John Craven and would be used extensively in a number of operations. The Navy wanted to use Halibut and its “fish” to retrieve from the wreck a nuclear missile, the codebook, and various pieces of intact equipment that would be invaluable. The CIA swooped in however and declared the program lacking in ambition, given that it used existing technologies, had limited but practical goals, and could likely be pulled off in a decade. 

What the CIA proposed was instead building an entirely new kind of ship using Howard Hughes as a cover with entirely new technologies and hoisting the entire Soviet sub from the seafloor which was over 3 miles down. The CIA Project Jennifer was approved of course, and well... You should read the book to see just what a disaster it was. 

It wasn't all disasters however, the book also goes into great detail covering one of the greatest intelligence successes of Naval Intelligence, Operation Ivy Bells which involved finding an underwater telephone cable in the Sea of Okhotsk connecting the main Soviet sub base in the Pacific to Soviet Naval Command and to Moscow itself. Once the cable was found US divers operating from the Halibut and other subs, later on, would attach recording devices to the line and as a result, the US would find itself listening in to phone conversations between Soviet admirals on the most sensitive of subjects. 

This was one of the great intelligence coups of the Cold War and secrecy was maintained for almost 9 years from 1971 to 1980 (when a disgruntled NSA agent revealed it to the USSR for 5000$) and not only did the US tap the cable in the Sea of Okhotsk, it would use the technologies and techniques developed in the operation to tap other underwater cables across the world in cooperation with the CIA and NSA. I find myself thinking of this as a critical moment as even today the US intelligence community is regarded by its friends and enemies as a master of signals intelligence able to reach out and tap into communication networks across the globe to gather intelligence. 

Blind Man's Bluff is a frank and unapologetic view of our efforts to spy on the Soviet Union. Which I don't feel requires an apology because in the confrontation of the cold war, spying by both sides was a tool to pursue their national interest in a battle that both sides believed to have their very survival at stake.(Well, them and the entire rest of the planet, given the whole MAD situation.) Given that the USSR didn't survive the Cold War, both sides might have been right. 

Now that should note this book does not go into the wider context of the Cold War or other historical events but stays focused on the submarines and the Navy, although it does branch out to look at times where secret programs were almost revealed to the public and Congressional budget battles. 

If you're interested in Cold War history, US Naval history, or just enjoy strange stories then this book will work for you. The format of the book is fairly interesting as well as most of the chapters are fairly stand-alone focusing on a single event that influences the next chapters. This allows for a unified narrative but also for easy reading as you can focus on parts you're interested in. The book ends basically with the fall of the USSR and the fact that the Sub force had lost its reason for being and was struggling to reinvent itself. This honestly leaves it feeling a bit incomplete but that may be because I'm looking back at it 23 years later. It's honestly an informative, brisk, and fun read though. 

So I'm giving Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage by Sherry Sontag, Annette and Christopher Drew an A. (I concur with this review, having read the book around fifteen or so years ago. For those who are interested in more history of submarine development and usage, I’d recommend The Submarine: A History by Thomas Parrish, which includes a hearty dose of the antics, shenanigans, and mildly insane career of Admiral Rickover. 

        As a further aside, one of the operations mentioned in Blind Man’s Bluff was actually one that my father was part of, the testing of a torpedo tube deployment system off the coast of Vietnam. That was a pretty cool little tidbit.)

        So I'd like to thank Josh Simpson author of the Warp World series for being our guest editor today. Y'all might remember that I reviewed the entire series and I still recommend it to this day. As for Blind Man's Bluff it was voted on by our ever-wise patrons. If you'd like a vote on what books or other works I review, theme months or other ideas join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for as little as a dollar a month. Hope to see you there. Next week join us Stalag: USA a story of us the US Army ran a covert denazification campaign on German POWs in WWII. Until then, get your shot and Keep Reading.

Get book one of warp world here https://www.amazon.com/Warpworld-Kristene-Perron-ebook/dp/B009QRXHXK