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Hide and Seek: The Untold Story of Cold War Naval Espionage
Through dramatic incidents tells for the first time the full story of the development of Cold War naval intelligence from the end of WWII to the breakup the Soviet Union in 1991, from both sides, East and West. Unlike other accounts, which focus on submarine confrontations and accidents, the authors cover all types of naval intelligence, human collection (racing with the Soviets to capture Nazi subs, successful and losing spies and defectors), signal intelligence (surface, air, satellite and navy commando teams in balaclavas launched by speed boats from subs), acoustic (passive underwater arrays and tapping phone lines), and the aerial and space reconnaissance. The authors give details of operations in all these areas, some of which were witnessed first hand. "A new light is shed on the spy ships incidents of the 1960s and on submarine intrusions in Swedish waters. Excerpts of the Soviet Navy instructions on UFOs and accounts of Soviet naval encounters with unexplained objects are also published for the first time outside of Russia; and much more."
432 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
31 people are currently reading
80 people want to read
About the author
Peter A. Huchthausen
11 books10 followersCaptain Peter A. Huchthausen (USN, Ret.) was an American naval officer, naval attaché, author and businessman.
He received his commission upon graduation from the United States Naval Academy in 1962, and served in many different positions during his career, including two combat tours of duty during the Vietnam War, first with the United States Navy's Riverine Force in the Mekong Delta and later as Chief Engineer in the destroyer USS Orleck, which provided naval gunfire support to Army and Marine forces along the coast of Viet Nam. After service as a naval attaché in Yugoslavia and Romania, he served as chief of attaché and human intelligence collection operations in Western Europe for the Defense Intelligence Agency. During the late 1980s he was the senior U.S. Naval Attaché to the U.S.S.R.; he retired from the U.S. Navy in 1990.
He received his commission upon graduation from the United States Naval Academy in 1962, and served in many different positions during his career, including two combat tours of duty during the Vietnam War, first with the United States Navy's Riverine Force in the Mekong Delta and later as Chief Engineer in the destroyer USS Orleck, which provided naval gunfire support to Army and Marine forces along the coast of Viet Nam. After service as a naval attaché in Yugoslavia and Romania, he served as chief of attaché and human intelligence collection operations in Western Europe for the Defense Intelligence Agency. During the late 1980s he was the senior U.S. Naval Attaché to the U.S.S.R.; he retired from the U.S. Navy in 1990.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 31, 2020
An amazing collection of historical (and very colorful) interest to the observer of undersea operations. Well written and very entertaining!
April 14, 2025
Peter A. Huchthausen and Alexandre Sheldon-Duplaix's 2009 Hide and Seek: The Untold Story of Cold War Navy Espionage is an an engaging history of the 3.5- to 4-star region, wide-ranging and approachable, yet not always particularly deep.
On the one hand, the book's authors probably do, as the Tom Clancy front cover blurb asserts, "know more about the Soviet navy than any other American and most Russians." From the suspicion and espionage between the Soviet Union and United States that occurred even during their uneasy alliance in the Second World War, through the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Gulf of Tonkin, USS Liberty and USS Pueblo, Operation Ivy Bells and Project Azorian, Robert Hanssen and the Walkers, to the secret psyops military and reconnaissance pressure under Reagan that primed the Soviets to down KAL Flight 007, and finally into the collapse of the once-mighty Soviet empire, Hide and Seek reveals six decades of Cold War naval tension.
The authors draw from archival research, interviews with former Soviet naval and intelligence officers, and even the firsthand accounts of Huchthausen, who served at sea during the Cuban blockade, did two naval tours in Vietnam, worked in intelligence in NATO, and finally served as naval attache to Yugoslavia, Romania, and the Soviet Union itself. Rather than being a gigantic text delving deeply into its subjects, the book clearly is designed as a more popular work, organized in small, clearly labelled and easily digestible chunks that containing a wealth of fascinating information and vignettes, with details garnered from interviews with former enemies and from Huchthausen's observations being particularly intriguing.
Strangely, though, the work occasionally has something of a sloppy feel, and this is what keeps it from being a solid 5-star piece. Now and then the writing is not always...well, pretty much flawless, which is what I expect from a book published by a major press. There are several instances, for example, where word choice simply is not correct, with a word being not just a bit infelicitous but actually misused. Every now and then there is a lack of crucial footnote, perhaps most noticeably in the assertion that "U.S.-trained dolphins" supposedly "killed fifty Vietcong swimmers and two Soviet spetsnatz" in Cam Rahn Bay during the Vietnam War (page 93). Similarly, the authors' treatments of Cold War investigations into unexplained aerial and naval phenomena often start with something being a report of witnesses but end with language seeming to accept the report as fact. Finally, the index is quite weak: no "dolphin," no "Hanssen," no "KAL Flight 007," "Liberty" and "Pueblo" found only with "USS" but not without, "Cam Rahn Bay" listing page 167 and 168 but not the 92 and 93 that assert dolphin warfare and active-duty Soviet casualties there, etc., etc., etc. Many things essentially are nested--with the KAL shootdown, for example, being found only as a topic under "Reagan, Ronald"--but an index must be laid out much more fully than this.
These occasional unfortunate failings notwithstanding, Huchthausen and Sheldon-Duplaix's Hide and Seek nevertheless provides a good overview and many interesting details of an exciting and dangerous six decades of superpower intelligence-gathering upon and beneath the sea, and in the supposedly secure halls of homeland agencies as well.
On the one hand, the book's authors probably do, as the Tom Clancy front cover blurb asserts, "know more about the Soviet navy than any other American and most Russians." From the suspicion and espionage between the Soviet Union and United States that occurred even during their uneasy alliance in the Second World War, through the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Gulf of Tonkin, USS Liberty and USS Pueblo, Operation Ivy Bells and Project Azorian, Robert Hanssen and the Walkers, to the secret psyops military and reconnaissance pressure under Reagan that primed the Soviets to down KAL Flight 007, and finally into the collapse of the once-mighty Soviet empire, Hide and Seek reveals six decades of Cold War naval tension.
The authors draw from archival research, interviews with former Soviet naval and intelligence officers, and even the firsthand accounts of Huchthausen, who served at sea during the Cuban blockade, did two naval tours in Vietnam, worked in intelligence in NATO, and finally served as naval attache to Yugoslavia, Romania, and the Soviet Union itself. Rather than being a gigantic text delving deeply into its subjects, the book clearly is designed as a more popular work, organized in small, clearly labelled and easily digestible chunks that containing a wealth of fascinating information and vignettes, with details garnered from interviews with former enemies and from Huchthausen's observations being particularly intriguing.
Strangely, though, the work occasionally has something of a sloppy feel, and this is what keeps it from being a solid 5-star piece. Now and then the writing is not always...well, pretty much flawless, which is what I expect from a book published by a major press. There are several instances, for example, where word choice simply is not correct, with a word being not just a bit infelicitous but actually misused. Every now and then there is a lack of crucial footnote, perhaps most noticeably in the assertion that "U.S.-trained dolphins" supposedly "killed fifty Vietcong swimmers and two Soviet spetsnatz" in Cam Rahn Bay during the Vietnam War (page 93). Similarly, the authors' treatments of Cold War investigations into unexplained aerial and naval phenomena often start with something being a report of witnesses but end with language seeming to accept the report as fact. Finally, the index is quite weak: no "dolphin," no "Hanssen," no "KAL Flight 007," "Liberty" and "Pueblo" found only with "USS" but not without, "Cam Rahn Bay" listing page 167 and 168 but not the 92 and 93 that assert dolphin warfare and active-duty Soviet casualties there, etc., etc., etc. Many things essentially are nested--with the KAL shootdown, for example, being found only as a topic under "Reagan, Ronald"--but an index must be laid out much more fully than this.
These occasional unfortunate failings notwithstanding, Huchthausen and Sheldon-Duplaix's Hide and Seek nevertheless provides a good overview and many interesting details of an exciting and dangerous six decades of superpower intelligence-gathering upon and beneath the sea, and in the supposedly secure halls of homeland agencies as well.
July 25, 2015
I can't explain exactly why I can't give 4 ore 5 stars. This book seems to me too superficial; sometoimes really interesting, sometimes quite boring; sometimes with mistakes
Non bad but ... nothing more
Non bad but ... nothing more
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews