Br’er Boz

Thank you for the heads up and information on obtaining “Blind Man’s Bluff”. When Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew first published this book a good friend of mine from Colorado presented me with a copy, he had been in the Navy back in the mid 50’s and knew I would be interested in this work. Wow, is what I said about the contents of “Blind Man”s Bluff” and until the time I read this book I still went under the rules that we had when I was first made aware of nuclear powered Submarine operations “I can neither confirm nor deny”. That was the required response to anyone asking most anything unless they had the “need to know”. This book though accurate in many places was the compilation of many sea stories (interviews the authors called them). Where the Sailors gave classifed information to someone without the need to know. The book pointed out that many Sailors said they had signed papers that would prevent them from divulging classified material for 80 years. Most of the incidents outlined in the book took place in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, that 80 years is still a ways off and the copyright date of the book is 1998.

I enjoyed the book but have some reservations about divulging classified material. The Submarines are still operating and doing very similar jobs to those they have always done, the Russians, Chinese and other countries are building or buying Submarines at a greater rate than the US and they now have more data on the operations we were involved in during past times and how our Submarines performed those operations. I hardly think that this gives the United States any advantage whatsoever.

Respectfully,
E. A. Hughes, FTCM (SS)
USN (Retired)