Blind man's bluff
Discover the secret history of America's submarine warfare in this fast-paced and deeply researched chronicle of adventure and intrigue during the Cold War that reads like a spy thriller. Blind Man's Bluff is an exciting, epic story of adventure, ingenuity, courage, and disaster beneath the sea. This New York Times bestseller reveals previously unknown dramas, such as: The mission to send submarines wired with self-destruct charges into the heart of Soviet seas to tap crucial underwater telephone cables. How the Navy's own negligence may have been responsible for the loss of the USS Scorpion, a submarine that disappeared, all hands lost, in 1968. The bitter war between the CIA and the Navy and how it threatened to sabotage one of America's most important undersea missions. The audacious attempt to steal a Soviet submarine with the help of eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, and how it was doomed from the start. A magnificent achievement in investigative reporting, Blind Man's Bluff reads like a spy thriller, but with one important difference-everything in it is true.
Stats for nerds
31recommend
58mentions
48people
2010–2026years
62% recommend36% neutral2% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- "Blind Man's Bluff" was a really impressive piece of work, I once talked about it with someone who was involved with the program and he was astounded at how much Sontag had managed to find out. There were things in the book that he didn't even know about, because they were compartmentalised and Sontag wasn't.
- The story ahead of the Tirpiz sinking is fascinating [0], right up there with the account in Blind Man's Bluff of Ivy Bells [1].
- > Commercial interests have been waiting for the day when they could start mining the seafloors globally for these nodules.
For all the folks thinking about Project Azorian[0], I recently read "Blind Man's Bluff"[1] and recommend it for the larger context of oceanic subsurface reconnaissance.
0. https://www.cia.gov/legacy/museum/exhibit/project-azorian/
1. https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/...
- "Blind Man's Bluff" is a great book about the work of espionage submarines and includes many anecdotes from other boats that were based at Kitsap.
Tapping cables is definitely something that's been done through history, but more of the stories were about things like recovering the remains of enemy test missiles for physical intelligence. Now that that fiber traffic is routinely encrypted anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if more of USS Jimmy Carter's missions are recovering North Korean rockets.
- If you find this interesting, I highly recommend the book "Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage".
The book discusses "Operation Ivy Bells" whose mission was to tap the underwater Soviet communication lines during the Cold War. The submarine installed a recording pod onto Soviet cables and recorded everything.
How did they find the cables?
A technician told a story about growing up on the Mississippi river, and how you could often find a sign on the bank, telling you that there were underwater cables. He hypothesized that the same thing might exist in the Soviet union.
Sure enough, the submarine secretly crept into Soviet water, popped the periscope, and found a sign in Russian on the bank, saying be careful, underwater cables.
It's rumored that when the Soviets learned of this, they went down and found the pods. During disassembly, they found a stamped plate deep inside which read "Made in the USA."
- I'm about 3/4 of the way through Blind Man's Bluff. Highly recommended if you have any interest in Cold War history; it's a gripping read.
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