The Silent War: The Cold War Battle Beneath the Sea

It's a guy's book that has quite a bit of unknown facts about the cat and mouse during the cold war. Things that are almost unbeleivable come to light and become fact. For me it was great reading and I finished the book in record time. But it, you'll love it if this is in your interests.

"The Silent War" is an excellent expose of what is really going on around us, behind the scenes so to speak. Craven takes us into a world of the global power struggle of the super powers. It seems as if the Cold War isn't over yet and after reading this book we understand even more why the U.S. needs a Missile Defense System. Another book that I've enjoyed on the subject, although it is presented as a novel, in fact it contains lots of real-life facts and information about the secret threats, and it is also a type of expose so to speak, is the powerful megathriller THE CONSULTANT by Alec Donzi.

Having been directly involved in the same world as John Craven, I must say this was an excellent summary of the Special Projects activities in the 50's,60's and 70's. I actually learned some "new" information and found the "rogue" sub portion to be more than a little scarey. I also read Sontag's book and Craven certainly provides a much more FACTUAL picture, being an insider in the greater submarine community. Sontag had to snatch snippets of facts as they were revealed to her and the NYT staff and consequently, much of that work was highly subjective. Craven did a great job.

I met John Craven last night at a book signing in Annapolis. He is clearly a brilliant man with a tremendous amount to say -- too much of which has remained secret for too long. The truth about what was going on during the Cold War is beyond the wildest imagination of the most gifted of fiction writers; the fact that we were able to avoid open conflict with the Soviets is indeed a miracle. Craven's book, while a bit technical in the first few chapters, becomes a real page turner -- I couldn't put it down and finally reached the end around 3AM. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in submarines, the Cold War, military history or global politics.

This is a riveting first-person account of the real story behind the "Hunt for the Red October" as well as other classified U.S. submarine search and rescue and espionage during the Cold War. I found this to be a fascinating and highly entertaining read that provides new details and context to the stories told in "Blind Man's Bluff". This was better than Clancy because the author's truth is stranger, and better, than ficton.