The Silent War: The Cold War Battle Beneath the Sea [Hardcover]

John Pina Craven (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2001

The Cold War was the first major conflict between superpowers in which victory and defeat were unambiguously determined without the firing of a shot. Without the shield of a strong, silent deterrent or the intellectual sword of espionage beneath the sea, that war could not have been won.

John P. Craven was a key figure in the Cold War beneath the sea. As chief scientist of the Navy's Special Projects Office, which supervised the Polaris missile system, then later as head of the Deep Submergence Systems Project (DSSP) and the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle program (DSRV), both of which engaged in a variety of clandestine undersea projects, he was intimately involved with planning and executing America's submarine-based nuclear deterrence and submarine-based espionage activities during the height of the Cold War. Craven was considered so important by the Soviets that they assigned a full-time KGB agent to spy on him.

Some of Craven's highly classified activities have been mentioned in such books as "Blind Man's Bluff," but now he gives us his own insights into the deadly cat-and-mouse game that U.S. and Soviet forces played deep in the world's oceans. Craven tells riveting stories about the most treacherous years of the Cold War. In 1956 "Nautilus," the world's first nuclear-powered submarine and the backbone of the Polaris ballistic missile system, was only days or even hours from sinking due to structural damage of unknown origin. Craven led a team of experts to diagnose the structural flaw that could have sent the sub to the bottom of the ocean, taking the Navy's missile program with it.

Craven offers insight into the rivalry between the advocates of deterrence (withwhom he sided) and those military men and scientists, such as Edward Teller, who believed that the United States had to prepare to fight and win a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union. He describes the argument that raged in the Navy over the reasons for the tragic loss of the submarine "Thresher," and tells the astonishing story of the hunt for the rogue Soviet sub that became the model for "The Hunt for Red October" -- including the amazing discovery the Navy made when it eventually found the sunken sub.

Craven takes readers inside the highly secret DSSP and DSRV programs, both of which offered crucial cover for sophisticated intelligence operations. Both programs performed important salvage operations in addition to their secret espionage activities, notably the recovery of a nuclear bomb off Palomares, Spain. He describes how the Navy's success at deep-sea recovery operations led to the takeover of the entire program by the CIA during the Nixon administration.

A compelling tale of intrigue, both within our own government and between the U.S. and Soviet navies, "The Silent War" is an enthralling insider's account of how the submarine service kept the peace during the dangerous days of the Cold War.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In October 1962, the United States government demanded that the Soviet Union remove long-range tactical missiles that it had positioned in Cuba, a short flight from targets like Washington and New York. After nearly a week's wait, during which the world braced for nuclear war, the Soviet government finally relented. It did so, in part, because its capitalist foe had one weapon that it then did not: 10 dozen submarine-mounted nuclear missiles that could be fired from beneath the waves and reach targets inside the Soviet Union within a matter of minutes.

In The Silent War, John Craven, an architect of the Polaris missile program, writes that the episode offered unambiguous proof of the value of "a strong silent deterrent" and of the importance of a superb submarine force in preserving the balance of power. In this memoir, he recounts the evolution of the Polaris weapons system during the cold war. Along the way, he reveals little-known incidents of espionage and saber rattling that will give readers pause to wonder how war was avoided for all those years. A bonus for Tom Clancy fans (who are likely to enjoy his book in any event) is Craven's sketchy but fascinating tale of a real hunt for a lost Soviet submarine that took place during his tenure as well as his accessible but nonetheless detailed account of the advanced military technology he helped bring into being. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

In May 1968, submarine specialist John Craven, then chief scientist of the navy's special projects office, had just crossed into Virginia from Washington, D.C., on his way home from work when he heard an alarming news report on the radio. The USS Scorpion, a submarine, was missing in the ocean with 99 men on board. On hearing the news, Craven writes, "I immediately turned my car around and headed for the war room of the Pentagon." Amazingly, the loss of the Scorpion coincided with the disappearance of a Soviet submarine. How Craven spearheaded the search for the two ships a search that inspired The Hunt for Red October is the centerpiece of this fascinating series of set pieces that delve into the life-and-death mechanics of Cold War-era submarine service. Craven, who had previously been known as the head of the Polaris sub-based missile program, has surfaced mysteriously in the press over the years, most recently in the critically acclaimed Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage; here, he is forthright about much of his background and activities. Anecdote-based chapters include descriptions of repairs to a newly launched USS Nautilus, rough briefings to the press and to the chain of command on Polaris, diving into the transoceanic cable-tapping Man-in-the-Sea program and much more. Craven quotes Byron, Verne and others with feeling throughout, and his explanations of the complicated physics related to his various projects are clear if sometimes still classified making this is a distinctively well-crafted intelligence-community memoir. (Apr. 4) Forecast: As Russo-American relations over espionage heat up, this book should find a general audience primed for a re-examination of the intricacies of the Cold War. While not quite Red October, it should reach beyond the buff market.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1ST edition (March 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684872137
• ISBN-13: 978-0684872131
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #836,660 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Silent War, October 5, 2001

By 

Gene Brockington (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Silent War: The Cold War Battle Beneath the Sea (Hardcover)

Just finished John Craven's book, "The Silent War".

As a newly retired 24 year Submarine Veteran, I'm just as excited as the next guy when confronted with anything that speaks to submarining. Plus I knew who Craven was, knew what he'd meant to the Navy and knew he was current, so it was with great anticipation that I picked up his book.

It was interesting enough, but still in the end I felt a little unfulfilled. My submarine career pretty much encompasses the second half and end of The Cold War, and I guess I expected to see a little more of me and my comrades in Craven's work which is subtitled, "The Cold War Battle Beneath The Sea", accompanied by a dashing photo of a 688 class nuclear submarine on it's dustcover.

Craven writes in great, sometimes scientific detail, about the various Navy and marine programs and investigations he was involved in. But there is not a lot discussion of actual operational submarining, in contrast to Sherry Sontag's and Christopher Drew's "Blind Man's Bluff", and this may be where the reader gets mislead. There may be security reasons, or maybe operational submarine discussion of the period isn't interesting to anybody but us submariners who were there, but a reader looking for that will be disappointed.

But there IS room for "Blind Man's Bluff" and "The Silent War" in your submarine library. While Sontag and Drew have taken a lot of flack for their book, it IS much more a story of the submarines, the crews, and the missions than anything else current. Craven writes from a much more "above it all" perspective and his topics and discussions deal more with their strategic impact on submarining, than with the actual submarining itself.

The one REAL negative of Craven's work is his propensity for tooting his own horn and patting himself on the back.
It starts at the very beginning and continues unabated throughout the book. The personality and demeanor that we see of him in all the television pieces on submarines, shines through on every page of the book. He did make an invaluable contribution to submarines, the Navy, and our nation, but he's gotta give us a break.

Maybe if he'd titled his book, "My Story", with a portrait of himself wearing a tiny little set of civilian dolphins, we would have been better prepared for what we were getting into.

Gene Brockington, San Diego, California

44 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Insight into the personalities of the players, April 14, 2001

By 

H. Paul Greenough (Blaine, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Silent War: The Cold War Battle Beneath the Sea (Hardcover)

Two books on submarine operations during the Cold War are on the market. The earlier, Blind Man's Bluff, has a copyright date of 1998, while the more recent, The Silent War, has a copyright date of 2001. The authors of Blind Man's Bluff refer several times to John Craven, auther of The Silent War, while Craven refers to Blind Man's Bluff in several places, sometimes to question its analysis.

The Silent War was written by one of the principles in submarine circles during the Cold War, John Craven. As such, he is in the paradoxical position of knowing more of the details than the authors of Blind Man's Bluff, while being bound by security regulations to say less. As a result, his book presents an interesting picture of the personalities involved, and an occasional interesting technical tidbit [two examples: big waves can be created on demand by driving a large ship at high speed - and turning it abruptly at the last second; materials have a critical temperature, below which they become brittle, rather than flexible.] - but less operational detail.

The book is written in the first person and with a sense of excitement that one would expect from an author having lived through the experiences personally. Despite stumbling over an occasional cliché or misspelled word, the writing is competent to very good.

Which to read? If you want to know what happened, I'd go for Blind Man's Bluff. Its content overcomes the better writing and sense of presence of The Silent Sea. If you want to know something about the people that made it happen, I'd go with The Silent War.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Companion to "Bluff," Is this the Murky Truth?, August 13, 2001

By 

D. Smith "former National Security Analyst" (Durham, NC, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Silent War: The Cold War Battle Beneath the Sea (Hardcover)

Few people knew of John Pina Craven before the publication of "Blind Man's Bluff" in 1998, shedding light upon the life and work of the man who has left a mark nearly equal of Hyman G. Rickover's upon the silent service. "Bluff" wasn't perfect, however, relying upon partially declassified documents and (sometime anonymous) personal accounts of submarine espionage operations during the Cold War.

Now, Craven has written his own account of his service with the U.S. Navy. Though he avoids discussing some of the accounts found within "Bluff," due to classification concerns, he does provide a number of details previously unpublished, as well as his unique insight into Cold War submarine operations.

Some of his accounts are somewhat questionable, given contradictions with previously published accounts, which again, brings up his concerns over revealing sensitive information.

The only thing lacking from the book is illustrations or pictures of any kind, which seems odd given the wealth of published images on the subject. Furthermore, a peek into Craven's personal photo collection would be fascinating.

Overall, a highly-recommended book for those interested in submarine and Cold War history.