Book
Review: BLIND MAN'S BLUFF by Sontag and Drew (1998)
“The
Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage”
Obviously,
no book available to the public is going to be up to date on this
subject. Never mind; this book is a vivid history of the Cold War
years between USA and Russia, and their strenuous efforts to stay
ahead of each other in submarine warfare capability. It has enough
detail and documentation to enthrall (and alarm?) any history buff.
The
first submarine purchased by the US Navy in 1900, could hold six men.
[That was three years before the Wright brothers flew their plane at
Kitty Hawk.] A sub's purpose, in the century's first half, was to
sink ships carrying supplies to enemy nations. In the latter half,
the purpose was to spy on enemy naval activity and communications. A
diesel-electric powered sub could travel underwater for up to 24
hours, navigating by periscope and sonar, surfacing only to recharge
its batteries. Later, with nuclear power, subs can now stay submerged
for three months or more, limited only by the bulk of food needed to
feed a crew of 100 to 150 men and women. Presumably they extract
enough oxygen and pure water from the surrounding ocean.
Admiral
Hyman Rickover pioneered the first nuclear subs, with a vigor unfazed
by cost or Congress. He recruited young naval engineers (future
president Jimmy Carter among them) by challenging their imagination
and abilities. He ordered one candidate,“Piss me off, if you can.”
Without a word and with a single motion of his arm, the candidate
swept all the contents of the admiral's desk onto the floor, papers,
pens, books and all. (and was accepted into the program.)
Silence
and stealth are the keys to discovering what the other side is up to.
The Sea of Okhotsk, between Russia and Japan [the book includes good
maps] has little shipping activity, and an American nuclear sub
sought and found the undersea cable connecting Russia's easternmost
naval base with the rest of Russia. The sea is shallow; the sub could
settle on the bottom while divers attached a monitor to the cable and
recorded telephone conversations for months.
The
Soviet navy had some “firsts” too. One commander took his sub
under the polar ice to the North Pole, and surfaced by breaking
through the ice there. He confirmed that his nuclear missiles
survived and could still be accurately programmed to reach almost any
part of North America below him to the south. Russians regularly
patrol international waters off American coasts, just as American
subs do off the coast of Russia and other nations.
In
1986, with both nations realizing the increasing danger of nuclear
war and total annihilation, President Ronald Reagan and General
Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev met in a diplomatic conference at
Reykjavik, Iceland. Both nations had, by that time, developed their
espionage to the point where their submarine forces were second lines
of nuclear war defense, able to fire missiles from unpredictable
spots in answer to the other side's land-based missiles and air
force, in the event that either would attempt to start a war. The
expense of maintaining defense readiness was a growing economic
problem. Negotiators agreed that they could cut ballistic missiles to
6,000, and delivery vehicles to 1,600 for each side to start with,
and further reductions to come.
In
1991, The Soviet Union dissolved, into fifteen independent republics,
including Russia. Gorbochev handed over the Union's powers, including
the Soviet nuclear missile codes, to Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
Two years later, American CIA director Robert Gates visited the
Kremlin with, among other matters, a video tape of the recovery of
six Russian sailors' bodies from a sunken Russian submarine and their
burial at sea, years before. “Two weeks later, the tape appeared on
Russian television. The families [of the long-missing Russian crew]
got to see American sailors standing at attention as both national
anthems were played and as the Americans added Russian prayers to the
naval service for the dead. . . . They were astonished and moved that
Americans, their enemies for so long, would treat their men with such
respect.”
In
the years since that time, new leaders have brought new distrust, and
no one except perhaps the spies and the intelligence services, know
how close we are now to a huge World War III, from which relatively
few humans would survive. But Sontag and Drews' well-documented book
will give the reader hope and desire for a diplomatic solution.
“Trust, but verify” seems the best watchword we have for now.
