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.
In this book Craven gives us his own insights into the deadly cat-and-mouse game that US and Soviet forces played deep in the world's ocean. Craven tells riveting stories about the most treacherous years of the Cold War. He also offers insight into the rivalry between the advocates of deterrence (with whom he sided) and those military men and scientists who believed that the United States had to prepare to fight and win a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union.
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 US and the 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.
