by Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story Of American Submarine Espionage
Watkins also said he believed very strongly that the Soviets weren't going to launch a first strike. "We briefed the joint Chiefs, we briefed the president on what we thought we could do, why we thought we could do it, and I think we felt very comfortable, and I believe that that self-confidence was transmitted to the Russians in a variety of ways-by the strength of our resolve at our incidents-at-sea agreements, our discussions, by the maritime strategy publication itself, by their intelligence-gathering network on the sophistication and ability and capability of our submarine force, by a variety of publications and unclassified speculation and so forth, over a long time.
"Their intelligence sources were good, and we wanted them to know how self-confident we were. That's the role it plays. It's not a matter of charging up there and shooting up a lot of ballistic missile submarines as being the goal to prevent them from even launching first strike. No. That's not the way they would deploy their submarine force, and not the way that we would deploy ours.
"It was far deeper than that. These were the backup forces necessary to-you might say-undergird a nuclear exchange, and our job, of course, was to set up a deterrent that would make it unwise to do that, and we did it. And I believe it was one of the reasons that we were able to bring the Russians to their knees in the cold war. Because they could not win that battle, and therefore, why continue?"
Bob Woodward first described Admiral Butts's proposal to lay cables in the Barents and relay information from taps on Soviet lines in real time in Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987). Veil also gives the best previously published description of how the Soviets found the taps in the Sea of Okhotsk and how the White House and the intelligence community sought to keep the Washington Post from publishing what it knew about the tap operations in 1986. But even though Veil outlines Butts's costly proposal, neither Woodward's stories in the Post nor his book say that the Navy already was tapping Soviet cables in the Barents.
The only public indications that the Navy was involved in tapping cables in the Barents have come in brief statements in three other books that also mention Butts's proposal: Angelo Codevilla, a former Senate staff member who reviewed intelligence budgets from 1977 to 1985, notes in Informing Statecraft: Intelligence for a New Century (New York: Free Press, 1992) that the Sea of Okhotsk taps had been so valuable that "by the early 1980s the U.S. government had begun a multibillion-dollar project to make the flow simple and instantaneous. It involved tapping a Soviet undersea cable near the northwestern city of Murmansk with an American cable, buried under the sands of the Arctic Ocean's floor, and reaching all the way to Greenland. This intrusion into Soviet communications would have provided foolproof, timely warning of any Soviet decision to go to war." Still, Codevilla added that this idea eventually fell victim to "a classic bureaucratic coup de grace. Powerful factions within both CIA and NSA had opposed the directcable tap because it would have been expensive and would have taken money from current programs" (pp. 163-164). In Fall from Glory, Greg Vistica cites an unnamed defense source who said that the Navy had experimented with, and then abandoned, plans for an undersea plow that could "lay a cable from Greenland directly to the pods on the north coast of the Soviet Union, thus eliminating the submarine's work" (p. 72). And in The Universe Below, Bill Broad states that in addition to the Sea of Okhotsk, the cable tapping "feats were repeated" in the Barents. He cites an interview with Codevilla where he added that the cables to Greenland would have been made of fiber optics and would have been so long that they would have needed special devices to boost the signals. He also stated that the project-"a massive industrial undertaking on the seafloor, the likes of which had never before been attempted"-became the most expensive item in the intelligence budget before "the plug was pulled" (pp. 82-83). Before Blind Man's Bluff, nobody has ever written any more about how the Navy was tapping cables in the Barents, and nobody has identified Parche as the sub that laid the taps, or described how extensive and hazardous these operations were.
Two books give the full history of John Walker and his spy ring: John Barron, Breaking the Ring: The Bizarre Case of the Walker Family Spy Ring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987); and Pete Earley, Family of Spies: Inside the John Walker Spy Ring (New York: Bantam Books, 1988). John Lehman offers his ghoulish advice on what kind of punishment Walker should have received in Command of the Seas (pp. 133-34). Studeman's assessment of the damage that Walker did was included in an affidavit he wrote as part of the criminal case against Jerry Whitworth. It is on file in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and a copy is included in Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, "Meeting the Espionage Challenge: A Review of United States Counterintelligence and Security Programs," September 23, 1986. The tale of Toshiba's treachery in selling the advanced propeller-milling equipment to the Soviets is well summarized in Ralph Kinney Bennett, "The Toshiba Scandal: Anatomy of a Betrayal," Reader's Digest (December 1987). In the case of Ronald Pelton, we drew mainly on the coverage of his trial by Woodward, Patrick Tyler, Susan Schmidt, and Paul W. Valentine in the Washington Post and Stephen Engelberg and Philip Shenon in the New York Times. Rich Haver's appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee and a summary of the contents of his report about the Soviets' discovery of the taps in Okhotsk were described to us by former government officials familiar with them.
Our quotations from what Reagan and Gorbachev said to each other in Reykjavik all come from Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, ch. 36 ("What Really Happened at Reykjavik"). Shultz notes in that book that he usually kept careful notes of his meetings with key leaders and/or contemporaneous notes taken by others.
Interestingly enough, Shultz told us in an interview that while he supported risky, "military-oriented" intelligence missions like the cable tapping, he also thought much clandestine intelligence was overrated. "The most important information-people have to keep reminding themselves-is what you get by just common observation," he said. "I always felt-I don't want to distinguish among newspapers-but I always felt that the dispatches of Bill Keller, who wrote for the Neu.' York Times, were about as rewarding reading about anything that was going on as anything I read. And he didn't have any clandestine sources or what not. He was just a smart guy who got around.
"And I think that as a general proposition, the basic State Department reporting, using open sources, and observation, and talking to people, give you the basic picture. Sometimes you can be even misled by what you pick up in some clandestine way. Because there is a feeling that if you got it by some secret means, it must be very important." Laughing, he added: "And it may he that it's not anywhere near as important as things that are just obviously there."
Chapter 12: Trust but Verify
Main interviews: Admiral Carl Trost and other current and former top Navy officials.
Government documents, books, articles, and other sources: Admiral Crowe describes Marshal Akhromeyev's visits in detail in chapter 16 of The Line of Fire. Admiral Trost, in an interview, described the meeting with Akhromeyev in the Joint Chiefs' "Tank" as well as his own travels to Russia and conclusions about the Soviet Navy. Akhromeyev committed suicide after the failed coup against Gorbachev in 1991.
The activity of the submarines in Squadron 1 I was included in its official command history for 1988.
Bush wrote to Gorbachev to offer the Soviets help after their prototype for an advanced "Mike"-class nuclear attack submarine sank in 8,400 feet of water 270 miles north of Norway. It sank after a fire broke out on board, and 42 crew members were killed.
Transcripts of speeches from the Naval Submarine League's convention in 1990 were reprinted in the organization's quarterly magazine, the Submarine Review, later that year. The role of U.S. attack submarines in the Persian Gulf War and details of the Navy's new "From the Sea" maritime strategy have been described in numerous news articles and in brochures prepared by the Navy. The Navy publicly released a report of an investigation into the collision involving the US
S Baton Rouge, and we also drew from news articles about both that and the Grayling collision in the New York Times and the Washington Post, which published the quote from the unnamed senior administration official wondering whether top Navy officials "read the newspapers" before undertaking such missions.
There also have been numerous articles in the major daily newspapers, the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, and the Submarine Review on the plans for, and capabilities of, both the new Seawolf and the proposed NSSN attack submarines, as well as extensive coverage on how much the submarine force is being cut back from cold war levels. The Submarine Review's practice of reprinting Sub League convention speeches from top Navy officials has made it easy to keep track of all the changes in the sub force, from new technology to the new roles and missions. One recent article in the general pressRichard J. Newman, "Breaking the Surface," U.S. News & World Report, April 6, 1998, pp. 28-42-also provides a comprehensive look at what the sub force is focusing on now.
Two articles noted the USS Parche's move from Mare Island to a new port in Washington State: Ed Offley, "Secret Nuclear Navy Submarine Finds New Home," Seattle Post-Intelligencer [the article title as it appeared in the Times-Picayune (New Orleans), November 24, 1994]; and Lloyd Pritchett, "Will Top-Secret Sub Be Able to Slip into Area Quietly?" Bremerton Sun, August 8, 1994.
Both Offley's and Newman's stories suggest that Iran and China would be good targets for cable-tapping by the Parche.
Epilogue
Gates's decision to bring the videotape of the funeral held for the men on the Golf was ultimately motivated by the fact that the United States wanted to inspire Russia to offer up information on missing American servicemen in Vietnam. Before that, "We had never confirmed anything to the Russians except in various vague senses," he said in an interview. "Shortly after the USSR collapsed, the Bush administration had told the Russians through an intermediary that we couldn't tell them any more about what had happened on Golf/Glomar. But then when we started asking the Russians about what had happened to U.S. pilots shot down over Vietnam, and if any U.S. POWs had been transferred to Russia and held there, they came back and said, `What about our guys in the submarine?"'
At the time, the administration told the Russians only that there were no survivors and that there were only scattered remains. Later, Gates says, "It seemed to me, as I was getting ready for the trip, that there would be symbolic value in terms of assuring the Russians that, from the CIAs standpoint, the cold war was over." It was then that he decided to give them information about the Glomar. He planned the move as a surprise, he says. "We didn't tell the Russians what I was bringing. We told them I was bringing a gift for Yeltsin of historic and symbolic importance. They were dying to know what it was. For once, we kept a secret. I guess Aldrich Ames was not brought into the picture."
Appendix A: Submarine Collisions
Main sources: U.S. and Russian submariners and navy officials, Joshua Handler, Alexander Mozgovoy, and news articles cited in the text.
Appendix B: From the Soviet Side
Main sources: U.S. and Russian submariners and navy officials, and articles in Russian newspapers and magazines. The most detailed account of the reactor accident on the Hiroshima came from the May 1991 issue of Soviet Soldier, in an article titled "Ivan Kulakov Versus a Nuclear Reactor," pp. 28-31.
Since the end of the cold war, the Russian Navy has been much more open about what went on than the U.S. Navy, and numerous articles have appeared in the Russian press detailing submarine disasters and disclosing other problems. Our researcher, Alexander Moz govoy, wrote some of these articles for various publications. Several articles have described the travails of the K-19 and the drama of the reactor accident that killed eight of its crew members in 1961. (An additional twenty-two men ultimately died from radiation poisoning.) The episode involving the USS Baltimore and the Soviet Zulu 1V sub was first reported in the series in the Chicago Tribune and the Newport News (Va.) Daily Press in 1991.
Acknowledgments
Most of the submariners and intelligence officials who have helped us with this hook have done so only under the condition of anonymity and took great risk in speaking to us. We were surprised at first at just how warm a welcome many gave us, letting us inside their lives and sharing their secrets. Looking back, we have cone to realize that our book gave them their first opportunity to share what had been, for many of them, at once the best and most harrowing days of their lives. They needed to talk as much as we wanted to shine a light on an extraordinary era that had gone largely unexamined and unheralded.
Some people were able to help us openly, and it is with great pride we name them here. We hired a top Russian military reporter, Alexander Mozgovoy, to interview Russian Navy leaders and submariners to help us understand their side of the story. Joshua Handler, who traveled all over Russia investigating Soviet submarine accidents and their environmental damage, made this possible by introducing us to Mozgovoy, and josh's wife, Sada Aksartova, translated his report. Moz- govoy's son, Vasily, also helped. On the American side, John Craven made us smile with his volumes of maxims and elfin wit, then helped us understand the most daunting technical topics, sharing his vision of the deep and of the men who agreed with him and the men who scoffed. We would also like to thank Rafael C. Benitez and Harris M. "Red" Austin of the USS Cochino for bringing us back in time to the days the submarine wars began. Otis G. Pike, Aaron Donner, and Seymour M. Hersh shared with us what they went through when they tried, twenty years ago, to take the first serious look at the hidden realm of cold war submarine operations. Waldo K. Lyon patiently explained the daunting properties of Arctic ice. There were also a number of people who went out of their way to help us who belong to veterans groups such as the Naval Submarine League, United States Submarine Veterans, Naval Intelligence Professionals, U.S. Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association, and the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.
Finally we would like to thank Harry Disch of the Scientists Institute for Public Information, who helped us get around the Navy's reluctance to give us an outing on a submarine by including us in a tour of the 6th Fleet that he had arranged for military writers. We would also like to thank Diane Wilderman, whose husband Alvin B. Wilderman, captain of the USS Plunger (SSN-59.5), was pulled overhoard by severe waves and killed while passing near the Golden Gate Bridge in 1973. She and many other submariners' wives gave us an invaluable understanding of how the families were affected by the risks their men took every time they went out on a submarine.
Even with such assistance, there were times over the past five years that we were nearly overwhelmed by the task of telling four decades of hidden history while trying to navigate a publishing world undergoing its own confused metamorphosis. We could never have done that without Esther Newberg, our agent at ICM. With her behind us, we knew we could focus on what was most important-getting this hook written. We succeeded in wrestling with the silence and secrecy because we knew we could count on her to take on any and all comers on shore. She grew up outside of New London, Connecticut, watching submarines come and go and wondering what they did, and she came to help us find our way through publishers' row in Manhattan. She is one of the strongest, most caring, and best women we know, and we are awfully glad she is on our side. In her office, first Amanda Beesley and then Jack Horner were always there to cheer us on. John De Laney, ICM's attorney, also has been a remarkable ally and a good friend. Helen Shabason, an IC:M film and documentary agent, has also worked tirelessly on our behalf. We would also like to thank Robert Asahina, who early on saw the potential of this project.
It was Esther who first brought us to Peter Osnos, publisher and chief executive of PublicAffairs. Peter created PublicAffairs because he believed that there could be hooks beyond the topic du jour, that journalists and historians deserved to he heard, that there could he and should he "good books about things that matter." We are very proud to he among the first of his offerings. It was Peter who put us in the hands of Geoff
Shandler, who, as our editor, proved himself to he a throwback in the best sense of the word. He believes that editors and authors can still work together, that there is more to an editor's job than making deals for manuscripts and watching sales charts. It is that conviction, along with his considerable talent, that helped us through the final hurdles of completing this project. We couldn't have been in better hands. He and Robert Kimzey, PublicAffairs' managing editor, helped give this book its design and flair, and Lisa Kaufman, Mary-Claire Flynn, Erica Brown, Kate Darnton, and Gene Taft also helped enormously.
When a book takes over your life, someone, many someones, have to pick up the slack. All three of us also want to thank the people who stood behind us and for us.
From Sherry Sontag:
First I want to thank my parents, Marvin and Sandra Sontag. When I write, I am really speaking to them. I would also like to thank my sisters and their husbands, Lauren Sontag Davitz and Michael Davitz; and Aviva and Yedidiah Ghatan; and my brother and his wife, Avi and Freyda Sontag. They never flagged in their support despite the fact that my work on the book often meant my absence from them and from the offshoots of the Sontag clan: Tova, Josh, Shoshana, Shira, Matt, Ariella, Gabriel and Zachary.
Doreen Weisenhaus of the New York Times encouraged me to find my voice as a writer when I was at the National Law journal and ever since has been my best mentor and a close friend. James Finkelstein, my publisher at the Law journal, never let me forget that there would be life after this book. Along with Deidre Leipziger and Claudia Payne of the New York Times, they have all been unfailing supporters and terrific teachers.