First-Rate Cover Story Great Human Interest, Service Loyalty, February 6, 2008
Stephen Johnson
EDIT of 9 Feb 09: There is evidently a very strong community of submariners, mostly officers, none of whom were in service at the time the incident happened, most of whom have little intelligence experience and very small libraries, who feel they and only they are qualified to judget between the two books. My two reviews stand. Normal people will find the other book much better in terms of trying to get to a reasonable semblance of the truth. Better yet, skip both books and go right to those I list below.
This a superb individual effort using normally available materials. It fully merits five stars because it can be bought and read simultaneously with Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion, which leverages Freedom of Information demands, direct invesdtigative journalism (HUMINT), and the end of the Cold War which produced a treasure trove of valuable primary materials. If you buy only one book, buy the other one but I find reading books in twos and threes is more interesting.
See for context, other reviews and if attractive, the books also:
The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command
Very Special Intelligence: The Story of the Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre 1939-1945
Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth'
The Age of Missing Information (Plume)
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
The Pathology of Power – A Challenge to Human Freedom and Safety
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
