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Summary: Blind Man¿s Bluff Provides Fascinating Stories
Review: Blind Man's Bluff Provides Fascinating Stories Marred by the Newspaper Reporter's Standard Telling This book brings together stories of submarine special operations and related history in a readable and understandable form. Authors Sherry Sontag and Christopher and Annette Drew present the material from the layman's (and newspaper reporter's) perspective. This, coupled with inaccuracies which inevitably creep into accounts of technical stories written by non-participants blunted the enjoyment to some small extent. Minor Flaws and Distractions: First, the authors provide extensive discussions of theories, such as the explanation of why the Scorpion was lost, that are not supported by those closest to the real facts. Debate still rages. New information and theories are still coming to light. Second, they make a big deal out of nicknames sailors give to their boats, their shipmates, etc. as if these, too, were universally accepted and agreed to by all. This is not the case and provides an annoying distraction in the narratives. It reflects the limited interviews the authors were able to make and not the whole picture. It's as if sailors name everything with cute and amusing nicknames. Not true. We were not particularly formal on the boats I served on, but at the same time, didn't spend our time naming everything in sight. Third, the use of hyperbole, making almost routine information seem like banner headlines in a tabloid, was very distracting. All interagency conflicts in Washington are not "Bitter", all spy operations are not "Brilliant" and no spying done in the real world was anything like James Bond fiction. It's as if the authors were afraid nobody would read the book if it offered only a straight telling. I believe the stories are fascinating and make compelling reading on their merits alone without the extraneous window dressing. On the Plus Side: It is obvious that the authors really did make a vast effort to gather the facts and get the stories straight. This makes the book well worth reading. As a cold war submarine sailor, I was very intrigued by the accounts in Blind Man's Bluff. I had never heard the stories of some of the operations and incidents they present and was fascinated by them.
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Summary: Excelent overview, if not a little embelished
Review: Six years underwater onboard a Sturgeon stretch and the oldest boomer. Blind Mans Bluff makes for great reading. Excellent overview, captivating stories, wrong about the crew attitudes. Most of us still keep our mouths shut, all of us never had any doubts or second thoughts about what we were doing nor why we did. If you did you were in the wrong place. Our crews only regretted the distance from our loved ones, not the pranks we played on the Soviets. Two thumbs up, however, I regretted the book didn't have more sea stories from the crews (glad to know we know some of us still remember what we signed when we got out). Politics is nice but the meat is in the acts. Nice to know what really happened to the Scorpion.
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Summary: Blind Man's Bluff disappoints
Review: "... the most [dangerous, brash, risky, perilous] operation of the *entire* cold war ..." I stopped counting after five such sentances. The big story here is that US subs attached wiretaps to Soviet telecom cables. And a few collided (mainly denting hulls). Yawn. It reads like disconnected newspaper articles written by different authors, unfiltered interviews with inarticulate submariners. Under the spell of the Silent Service, the authors seemed to have checked their journalistic instincts at the door of the Horse and Cow (a sailor's bar). There's no sense of history here -- numerous absurd, simplistic summaries of major world events. Have the authors ever been on a surface ship? A submarine? Underwater (SCUBA)? None of the descriptions rang true, except maybe of life on a diesel sub. (Did they gun a car engine in a closed garage, to get the feel of it?) In the last two chapters, we are confronted by the authors' political views: the US misunderstood Soviet's "defensive" intentions and was needlessly provocative. This, despite the book's remarkably weak picture of the Russian side of the equation. And after exhaustive, stilted descriptions of US submarine life (did we have to know they used the head as a food pantry?) there isn't a single depiction of conditions on a Russian submarine.
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Summary: Finally the TRUTH
Review: For years there have been so many conspiracy nuts, techno wizards and others spouting fish tales about the Cold War submariners. Blind Man's Bluff finally sets the record straight. Why read a fictional book by Clancy or Koontz when the real thing is faster paced and more interesting. This book is more than the cover jacket hype.
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Summary: All that is missing is the noise of the rocks under the hull
Review: As a long time crew member of the Halibut (almost 6 years) I must commend the authors on a "Job Well Done". I was stationed on board Halibut during all the years written about in this fine book. Without question the most exciting years of her history. My fondest memories of 21 years of Submarine Service, are those that I spent on Halibut. My ship mates and the experiences we shared will never fade from memory. Also when I think things are going tough at the job I just have to think back to the shipyard period when the DSRV simulator was installed on Halibut and all things seem to pale in comparison. This well researhed book, brings all those memories back to life. For instance, the clutch that blew the operating hydralic lines off is something that I had forgotten. Suddenly I was there...all over again. (Covered with oil, I should add.) I am quite impressed with the depth of detail that this book is able to display. Another good read concerning the Halibut and her exploits is the "Spy Sub" written by Roger C. Dunham, also a former ship mate on the Halibut.
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Summary: Interesting but not well-written.
Review: The subject matter is fascinating and well worth reading. I recommend this book in spite of it being not very well-written. The authors seem to have trouble describing busy sequences, and from time to time forget to draw a written line from one event to the next, causing confusion for the reader. They also seem to enjoy using slang and other terms in unusual ways, without explanation for the reader about what it means. Still, it's interesting for the subject matter, if nothing else.
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Summary: Interesting details - Lackluster writing!
Review: I found much of the historical detail interesting, albeit at the price of wading through some pretty mediocre writing. Much of the impact of the book derives from its many revelations of, what the authors identify as, classified information. The authors note: "Most of the submariners and intelligence officials who have helped us with this book have done so only under the condition of anonymity and took great risks in speaking to us." This statement is either an exaggeration or an admission that the authors enticed current and former members of the military to violate their oaths, breach security and break the law. Frankly, the "read" was not worth participating in this exercise - however vicariously.
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Summary: Inspiring Tales of Heros
Review: Blind Man's Bluff is unusual in that it gives a sense of what was happening in the submarines and back in the Pentagon, CIA and White House. The idea of men in submarines with self-destruction mechanisms tapping Soviet cables contrasts with the Washington politics of "who got to brief the president" or "who got to run which program." It is also worth mentioning is that the most sensitive intelligence gathered revealed that the Soviets were not planning to use their submarines as some had feared. This is similar to what happened when the U-2s revealed that there was no "missile gap" in the early 60's (i.e, we had a lot more missiles than they did). By risking, and sometimes losing their lives in the pursuit of peace, but prepared for war, the submariners were true heros. Now they have this book to show their wives, children and grandchildren and say - I was one of them. If any of you are reading this, I salute you, and thank you.
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Summary: They have the most basic facts WRONG!
Review: on page 118 the authors describe a fire on board the USS Sargo SSN582 in the Engine Room. I was the duty electrician that night. The fire was on the USS Sargo SSN 583 in the Stern Room, more specifically the escape hatch. If they got this wrong ????
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Summary: Reads like a science fiction novel - but all true!
Review: Makes me wonder how we avoided nuclear war in view of these confrontations with Soviet submarines, especially when you learn there were many collisions and near misses between these steel wolves of the sea....maybe it is better we did not know.....
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