Rating: 
Summary: An Amazing Book
Review: Just recv'd my copy of Blind Man's Bluff. WOW!!!! What a book!!! I couldn't put it down last night. I'm better than half way thru and & gotta meet Boats for breakfast in 45 mins with 3 hrs sleep. I should make a good breakfast companion. Gonna make for a pretty long day taboot. Excellent quality, well made and INTERESTING is an understatement. Anyone else receive their copy yet? Made me feel real strange.-- A former bubblehead.
Rating:
Summary: A MUST READ
Review: Wow! As a 23-year submarine veteran who served on many boats in the cold war era, and as one who knew some of the "players" and events mentioned here, I found that this is a fantastic book. This book brings memories rushing back so clearly that you might think the authors spent many years on the boats themselves. BLIND MAN'S BLUFF is a fitting tribute to the courage, skill and patriotism of submariners. It is a MUST READ for those interested in the Navy, U.S. intelligence operations and cold war history. Although not "endorsed" by the Navy, it appears that many knowledgeable people contributed to this effort. The authors devote 36 pages on source material, chapter by chapter, inlcuding those from the Russian side. This is our story, our history and our legacy. I was so impressed that I bought 10 more copies for gifts.
Rating:
Summary: Exciting and salty with a large dash of suspense!
Review: Usually non-fiction can be dry and impenetrable, but this book reads like a non-fiction adventure novel for all the right reasons. It offers very human views of the VERY unusual lives of the submariners. I found it exciting and enlightening with a wry view of the human condition under odd and stressful conditions.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating missions!
Review: A series of exciting, fast paced missions through the icy waters of the still secret Cold War!
Rating:
Summary: Now I know the stuff I heard was true
Review: As a former Navy Diver stationed on board one of the Navy's catamaran ASRs (Auxiliary Submarine Rescue) during the 70s, I now know why the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle (DSRV) program was such a joke. Submariners have always laughed at the prospect of being rescued from anything but extremely shallow depths, places where they spend very little time. We had very little money with which to operate because it was going to 'black projects' as Sherry and Christopher have described in detail in their incredible documenting of submarine espionage. Many of my shipmates ended up in Vallejo working as divers on some of these operations. There were always rumors. Now I know. You guys have done a great job and I applaud you for it. The naysayers will be out there, but many of us know how things really were. Bravo Zulu
Rating: 
Summary: Good information amongst the chaff
Review: There is no doubt that Blind Man's Bluff can fairly claim to be "the untold story of American submarine espionage."The book certainly contains more information on the U.S. use of submarines in intelligence activities than can be found in any other unclassified publication, but it comes at a price. Given the journalistic backgrounds of the book's authors, the writing is disappointingly like the product of a Creating Writing 101 class. For example, beginning chapters on a biographical note grew old and distracting through its repetition. The authors also couldn't resist including various fascinating, but not always relevant, facts discovered during their research. Most irritating, to me at least, was the authors' frequent use of what I can only call the "heaving-bosom" or "breathless" writing style. For example, in the prologue we find: "The phone rang. MacVean snapped awake and checked the time, 2:00 a.m." And, in chapter one: "Almost anyone else on the busy pier would have thought that he was just a twenty-eight-year-old radioman. He knew better." The book is full of this sort of thing. It is as though somebody thought (incorrectly) that the subject wasn't exciting enough on its own and needed "punching up." There is also a good bit of padding, considering the stated subject of the book. Half of chapter one deals in great detail with the sinking of the USS Cochino in August 1949, although its sinking had nothing to do with Cochino's intelligence activities. Then there is the interesting, but not "submarine espionage" related, thirty-two page chapter on the loss of the USS Scorpion, the inclusion of a history of the submarine and the cold war (nothing not already known to the probable buyers of this book), six pages of acknowledgments, and thirty-six pages of notes written the same chatty style used in the rest of the book. But, given the historical scarcity of information about the "silent service" in general and its participation in intelligence operations in particular, perhaps the padding was needed to get it to book length. Now for the good news. The book does present a good overview of the history of submarines in U.S. intelligence collection operations and offers new information on the cable-tapping operations not only in the Pacific, but in other areas of the world as well. This information alone is probably worth the price of admission. When you have waded through the book, you will know more than you knew before, even if you are a serious submarine or intelligence buff - just be prepared for a lot of wading.
Rating: 
Summary: This is all unofficial
Review: I am a US Navy submariner and am reading this book for my own enjoyment, but the general public should know that everything in this book is unofficial. The US Navy does not discuss or support the discussion or speculation of the operations our ships perform. Please do not accept anything truth because it may not be.
Rating:
Summary: A first-rate thriller! Couldn't put it down!
Review: Although this is a non-fiction book, it read like the best of Tom Clancy to me. There is a lot of top-notch reporting in this book, but none of it interrupts the narrative flow. These accomplished and talented writers made the nervy, tension-packed battleground beneath the waves come very much alive for me. I'm a navy and espionage buff who thought he had read everything there is to read on those subjects, but there is so much new material here that I couldn't stop turning the pages.
Rating: 
Summary: For everyone interested in Submarines, Spying, the Cold War
Review: No where can you find this type of information. Where what when and who from the highly classified missions to safeguard American interests and superiority. I remember the historic stories of my age, the Glomar Explorer, cable tapping off the Soviet coast, a few lost subs. In Blind Man's Bluff I was able to get the details behind the mission, what the squids were thinking, and insights into the possible ramifications of our governments actions. It did not read like a history book although it is a history we have lived through. I enjoyed reading the book and recommend it to anyone with the faintest interest in subs, espionage, or just the working of our government.
Rating: 
Summary: From the Authors of Blind Man's Bluff
Review: "We've spent our careers as investigative reporters, but we realized right away that submarine spying would be a once in a life-time story. Decades of missions have never been disclosed, each one a facinating tale in its own right. It took us over six years to research this book, six years during which we spoke to hundreds of men: submariners, intelligence officers, government officials. The result is a rendering of some of the most daring missions of the Cold War and beyond. This book is the submariners' story, one they have never been able to tell, one they have kept from their friends, their wives, their children. They have been bound by oath to remain silent heroes. But it is time to tell their tale, time to give credit to the men who risked their lives, gave up dry land, the sun, their families, to prevent a repeat of Pearl Harbor in a nuclear age. It is time the public got a look at this on going contest of Blind Man's Bluff, a secret war that has been waged under the seas for more than four decades.
|
