Excellent book. Liked it so much I bought another for my Dad for Father's Day. Great price and arrived right away.

If only half true it is still the best sub story I have yet read. I read RED STAR ROGUE first and then charged into this. They go together like pie and ice cream. My only service experience is 3 years overseas in the USAF medical corps during the sixties [66 to 68] and did not have access to any secrets but my gut feeling is both stories COULD BE TRUE.

A revealing expose on the cold war. Although it is a long story for cold war veterans, the author provides excellent background. Ed Offley connects the dots between CWO (traitor) John Walker and USS Pueblo. His analysis of how Russian KGB passive use of our hardware and software communications systems begs the further question. Did the Russians actively use our communications technology against the US Fleet as well? There is no doubt in my mind the Russians torpedoed the Scorpion. This book is a deeply researched and an excellent read

I found the book to be great reading, but it somehow didn't quite convince me of the findings. I have always believed that the Soviets had something to do with the loss of the USS Scorpion, since my Sub Schools days. I was hoping this book would confirm my beliefs, but it fell short of convincing me. However I still recommend the reading of this book.

This book should have never been published. It is factually incorrect, filled with unsupported conjecture, and shamelessly tries to make money from a tragedy. The authors and the publishers have no professional or technical clue as to what really happened. They chose to ignore the technical review by Bruce Rule et al, which debunks the thesis of SCORPION DOWN. The authors ought to be keel-hauled and the remaining copies of their book consigned to the trash heap. My recommendation: don't dignify these authors' bizarre assertions by purchasing, or even borrowing, this book.

A good friend, a former Naval submarine officer, was scheduled to sail on the Scorpion on what became its final voyage. He missed the assignment having caught the flu a few days before he was scheduled to board.

I have heard him talk about the ship and his fellow Naval buddies who lost their lives. This is what prompted me to want to read the account.
It is a gripping tale for this reason alone but also because Ed Offley knows how to write contemporary history.

I was in Rota, Spain serving in the Navy at the time Scorpion was lost. The events detailed in the book are the best and most authentic I've ever read. The Naval community held much information back from the public during the 60's concerning the Soviets. This is just one example of many.

An interesting story of submarine warfare but does not follow any fact I am aware of. There is no physical evidence of Scorpion being attacked.

Edit of 11 Feb 08: I am revising this review based on the beneficial commentary from several individuals. I have invited both authors, and Mr. Bruce Rule, whose accoustic authority is without peer, to meet privately. Navy refuses to allow this. Waiting to hear about a private venue.

I stand my by review of both books, both are excellent, and both present us with an opportunity to evaluate several factors:

1) Is it good judgement at the flag level to put submariner's in harm's way "because we can?"

2) Is it good policy to deceive Courts of Inquiry to protect secret sources and methods of questionable value?

3) Is it good judgement to lie to families of lost ones, to hound them out of base housing and out of town, and to fail to honor those who died in virtual combat with the appropriate recognition?

The author is gifted. He inspires tears by page eight.

A few highlights:

1) A handful of top Navy Admirals including the Chief of Naval Operations, authorized missions whose danger was probably not properly briefed to the political "leaders" and their advisors. This is not to say that the US submariners were anything other than honorable, courageous, and unusually intelligent--but rather that there was a failure of strategic moral leadership of epic proportions. The same Admirals privy to the truth knew five days before the USS Scorpion was "executed" by a Soviet torpedo of the relentless tracking of the USS Scorpion, and did nothing to save it.

2) Decades of reckless arrogant misbehavior were concealed from the US public, the US Congress, the US media, and most (98%) of the chain of command from President down to fully-cleared seamen.

3) The US Navy, not the Soviet Navy, refused year after year to include submarines in the bi-lateral Incidents at Sea agreement.

3) In the early 1970's "double reporting" became a US Navy standard for all "special intelligence " (signals and illegal direct access) operations, with all "incidents" being reported twice: first as a lie (we call this a "cover story") and second, as truth for a handful.

4) The handful of Admirals who realized their mistakes lost a sub to enemy action moved immediately to conceal all evidence of their criminal disregard, and sent the Naval Investigative Service all over the world to immediately confiscate for destruction all acoustic and message traffic records of the death of the USS Scorpion. One full copy survived and was played to a SOSUS (undersea acoustic surveillance system,) class in 1982 .

Here are some other tid-bits that really made this book a compelling useful read:

1) President Johnson personally presided over the cover-up at the same time that he presided over the cover-ups on the John F. Kennedy assassination, and the USS Pueblo as well as the USS Liberty

2) The fake search & rescue operations mounted by the US Navy were the largest fleet deployment since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

3) Acoustic data from 1300 miles away *nailed* the truth that was kept from the families, the Navy at large, Congress, and the public.

4) The USS Scorpion represented a "quantum leap" ahead in propulsion and capability, was a known spy ship known to be constantly deployed into Soviet waters and against Soviet ships in international waters.

5) The author first realized the magnitude of the cover-up on 17 December 1984, when a former Navy enlisted man who has served in top secret senior staff positions and was now a newspaper colleague, told him directly that based on his personal past, the USS Scorpion had been killed by a Russian torpedo, not a mishap.

6) Despite massive Top Secret Codeword restraints, the crews had common sense and would brief each other when turning over missions, the incoming crew walking to the end of the pier with the outgoing crew, having a seaman to seaman informal "turnover brief."

7) The author provides an excellent leavening of contextual history together with a solid look at the people, materials, and methods that went with undersea covert espionage operations.

8) JFK and Johnson approved so much funding for so many submarines that the US Navy went from having a submarine service manned by crews with 2-5 tours behind them, to officers and crews with ZERO tours behind them.

9) Additional context for the combat death of the USS Scorpion include that she sailed with low crew morale and many operational discrepancies; B-52 going down in Greenland with four thermo-nuclear bombs caused riots all over Europe which closed liberty towns; and Six Day War opened ports and airfields to the Soviets in Arab and African countries bordering the Mediterranean.

The author has connected three big dots: the irresponsible aggressive operations of the US Navy and the USS Scorpion (following orders) leading to the loss of the K-129 eleven weeks prior to that of the USS Scorpion; the treason of the Walker naval family spy ring that delivered key lists of top US codes to the Soviets; and the Soviet capture of the USS Pueblo in order to obtain the actual cryptography machines needed to leverage the key lists.

I put this extraordinary book down with three thoughts:

1) We need political leadership committed to waging peace and eschewing illegal sources and methods that cost too much, not only financially, but morally.

2) The USS Scorpion was executed covertly, and US naval and political leadership accepted that execution as being within reasonable bounds within the covert war that waged most dangerously and uniquely, in "the silent service," the submarine service.

3) We need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to examine both the "fifty year wound" we ourselves have imposed on the Earth and on Humanity everywhere; and the betrayal of the public trust that this book captures so ably at the tactical secret level.

This is an extraordinary book. It inspires feelings of dread, rage, and helpless dishonor, while confirming that over time public collective intelligence can triumph over top-down idiocy enabled by secrecy.

Based on Mr. Rule's comments, I must now conclude that we cannot chose one book over the other, we must consider both, and because books cannot do this important matter justice, I respectfully hope that the two authors and Mr. Rule will agree to meet professionally. I want to know. The families want to know. Let's serve them.

Longer review at Earth Intelligence Network, 1000+ Reviews. See also:

The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
Web of Deceit: The History of Western complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America
Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions
What We Say Goes: Conversations on U.S. Power in a Changing World
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin
The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past

Ed Offley starts off with a belief and then shops around to find something people will swallow to believe his wishful thinking. From his listing the wrong commanding officer on one of the runs, to trying to describe the inside of the boat in a completely inaccurate manner ( at one point he has Bill Elrod sleeping on top of the battery because he doesn't even know how many levels were in the boat), he starts out as sloppy and unbelievable as he ends. Does he really believe that a boat he says can do over 30 knots couldn't out run an Echo II. Or that a skipper would have to ask what to do because he was being followed. Isn't it strange that none of the people involved in the tape senerio are listed where you can find them to ask what they really said. I didn't expect to agree with what I read, but I did expect better and more prideful writing.
This book wouldn't even make good fiction.
If you are reading this to see whether to buy it or not, I would suggest you spend your money elsewhere. Read through the reviews already written by those who served on the fast attacks and by those such as Paul Boyne and then I won't have to repeat what they said.
Oh, just to validate some of my opinions, I served on the Scorpion from 64-67 which is why I know of the hundreds of errors that the book contains.
Bill

P43 and 44 contain information from the author's interview with Admiral Schade, who was the Commander Submarine Force Atlantic Fleet when the Scorpion was lost.

During the interview Admiral Schade states, I happened to be out at sea in the (USS) (sic) Ray [SSN 653], "he said. recalling the moment when he had learned that the Scorpion was missing..."No," he replied. "I was out at sea off Norfolk in the Ray which was the flagship of the [Atlantic] Submarine Force, and when we got the report and it looked like we needed to do something in the way of a search operation, I got [Atlantic Fleet commander] Admiral [Ephraim P.] Holmes on the radio and said..."

I am a USS Ray (SSN-653) plank-owner and made the first two covert operations during 1967 and 1968. Comments by Admiral Schade regarding his presence on the USS Ray when Scorpion was lost are not factual. Why he gave incorrect information is difficult to say. I'll simply chalk this error up to forgetfulness and age.

Admiral Schade would have had to been with Ray during the entire 68-day deployment for his comments to be true. Our second patrol began on 8 Apr 1968 and we returned to Norfolk on 10 Jun 1968: no port stops. The message concerning the loss of Scorpion was broadcast on May 27, 1968. My memory is quite clear. I read the message onboard the Ray and we were also ordered to increase speed and enter port a day early as a result.

We did not turn back to search and Admiral Schade was certainly not onboard the Ray when the message was received. During those 68-days, there was only one person onboard who was not a regular crew member and it wasn't the Admiral.


Bob Mhoon
ETCS(SS) USN Ret

I enjoyed the book, but not convinced of the theory laid out in it... Silent Steel is a more factual account of the Scorpion's demise.

For anyone who has served in the surface Navy this book is a must read especially if you consider yourself a Cold War Warrior. Little did we know how close knit the submarine surface was and still is. A series of concatenous events form the basis for the plot of what could well be a spy novel. There is evidence of merticulous research over a period of twenty-five years that lead to a conclusion that challenges the thnking mind. Much of the story is incredulous and one is constantly challenged as to the veracity of the events. How could so many navy personnel in high places carry out such a plan as described by the author without leaving an audit trail? Are the conclusions valid based upon the research plausible or do they just fall into place for a gigantic HOAX? See for yourself but don't be guiled by the impeccable detail.

I suppose this is what you get when you stretch a pretty interesting magazine article into a 400 page book. It is slow, repetitive and padded. Examples: (1) Offley spends seven pages describing the start up of a nuclear reactor, details that have nothing to do with the demise of the Scorpion and (2) Offley presents the discovery that Russian commanders had the sole discretion to fire nuclear weapons three separate times in less than a dozen pages (pp. 122, 127 and 133). Most disturbing, however, it's sloppy. There are lots of details that aren't quite right (such as the boat depicted on the cover) but I was particularly disturbed by the fact the quotes from the all important interview with Admiral Schade on page 43 do not match the quotes from the same interview when it is repeated (unnecessarily) on page 259. If you want a fascinating and accurate book about subs, skip this and try "Blind Man's Bluff."

This story is very personal for me. I have followed all the stories regarding the USS Scorpion. There have been many conspiracy theories. Although I do not think we will ever get the real story, I feel after reading this book amongst many written on the subject that this one comes the closest to what I believe happened to my Uncle Ron as well as the other 98 men aboard this submarine. Whether you are personally interested in what became of this sub or if you simply have an interest in the history of US war this book is a fascinating page turning from beginning to end. I greatly appreciate the author of this book taking the time to do all the research to write this spectacular view of what happened that fateful day out at sea.

Fiery Embrace

There is a lot of submarine history in this tome. Much of it seems to be good, Offley briefly goes back to the Holland (I am surprised he didn't dig up the size of the funnel used to fuel it) and then works up to the sixties.

Any expectation one might have of this being a definitive work will not be met if (1) the reader is the least bit skeptical and (2) the reader was anywhere near involved with the world of cold war submarining.

However, it is not that the theory can be proven wrong, it is just that there are too many loose ends for one thing, and even the public access photographs indicate the events were unlikely to occur as stated.

A lot of bubbleheads **want** this story to be true. I don't care one way or the other. The Navy has a way of covering things up sometimes, and the history of covering up ordinance failures, including torpedoes, goes back a long way. Keeping mum about underwater collisions is also a time honored tradition.

This book was a heroic effort that took a lot of work. However, it is inconclusive and therefore does not live up to its title.

Oh yeah, one nit: The boat on the cover is NOT the Scorpion, or even a sister ship. The photo is a 637 class boat. Could have at least used a picture of one of the sister boats underway.

Fiery Embrace

There is a lot of submarine history in this tome. Much of it seems to be good, Offley briefly goes back to the Holland (I am surprised he didn't dig up the size of the funnel used to fuel it) and then works up to the sixties.

Any expectation one might have of this being a definitive work will not be met if (1) the reader is the least bit skeptical and (2) the reader was anywhere near involved with the world of cold war submarining.

However, it is not that the theory can be proven wrong, it is just that there are too many loose ends for one thing, and even the public access photographs indicate the events were unlikely to occur as stated.

A lot of bubbleheads **want** this story to be true. I don't care one way or the other. The Navy has a way of covering things up sometimes, and the history of covering up ordinance failures, including torpedoes, goes back a long way. Keeping mum about underwater collisions is also a time honored tradition.

This book was a heroic effort that took a lot of work. However, it is inconclusive and therefore does not live up to its title.

Oh yeah, one nit: The boat on the cover is NOT the Scorpion, or even a sister ship. The photo is a 637 class boat. Could have at least used a picture of one of the sister boats underway.

A very interesting and apparantly factual and well referenced book. Too bad there aren't many statements from the Russian navy veterans too. The whole story will probably never be known. It could have been a much more interesting read with some editing out of repitious accounts of the same information, chapter after chapter.

SCORPION DOWN is a sad effort by Ed Ofley to distort what is really
known about the loss of SCORPION.

Fifteen individuals, who have a collective total of 400 years experience
in the SOunder Surveillance System (SOSUS) and/or at SOSUS support
activities have examined Offleys' conspiracy claims that are based on
acoustic data. We are unanimously of the opinion that there was no
conspiracy to confiscate SOSUS data, no acoustic detection of a
hostile encounter between SCORPION and a Soviet submarine, and no
explosive event from a torpedo or any source. All the acoustic signals
detected from SCORPION on 22 May 1968 by the Canary Island sensor were
implosions produced by the collapse of the submarine's pressure hull,
and by small internal systems such a spherical tanks, at great depth.
The crushed condition of the wreckage and the complete absence of any
structural damage consistent with a torpedo explosion were ignored by
Offley. When SCORPION sank, the Soviets were miles away minding their
own business.

Were any of us - including those who actually analyzed the SOSUS data
Ofley claims was confiscated and destroyed - interviewed by Offley?
Of course not!

Offley claims the USS COMPASS ISLAND left port to search for SCORPION
several days before the submarine was lost. In reality, the
COMPASS ISLAND left port very early on the day after SOCRPION failed
to arrive at its home port of Norfolk. When confronted at a Florida
book-signing event by Joe Bonds, who was the commanding officer of
the COMPASS ISLAND in May 1968, Offley's first response is reported to
have been: "I thought you were dead."

Offley claims the COMPASS ISLAND found the SCORPION wreckage
in June 1968 when the identification of features as small as the
wreckage on the bottom in 11,100 feet of water was beyond the capabilities of the
ship's sonar search system. Did Offley research the capabilities of this
sonar system? Of course not!

Bottom line: SCORPION DOWN is pure fiction. The book lacks any factual
support. Offley's use of the quote from George Orwell's 1984 in the
preface is particularly offensive. Purchase of this book should be
discouraged by everyone who believers journalists should be responsible
for accurate research and objective reporting.

Bruce Rule

The book contained a lot of information that was not previously available to the public. Much of the new information is very controversial. However, the author has clearly identified his sources for the information in a very lengthy list of footnotes.

Great theory and execution. I have 22 years of experience in submarines and this is a well researched story. I don't doubt the author's veracity, but why haven't others came to the same conclusion. It is a well documented hypothesis.

We may never truly know what ended the life the the submarine USS Scorpion and her crew of 99, but Ed Offley's book seeks to provide answers, and asks tough new questions about this tragedy at sea nearly 40 years ago.

As Mark Twain said, "Interesting if true, and interesting anyway."

Readers hoping for the proverbial "smoking gun" will be disappointed, and, if the Amazon reviews are any indication, many are.

At a bare minimum, Offley's theory that Scorpion's final mission was compromised by intelligence leaks and that she was sunk by a Russian submarine is perhaps at least as plausible as the Navy's wishy-washy "official" theories (torpedo hot run/battery explosion/trash disposal unit leak.) Moreover, Offley's theory, if true, connects a surprising number of seemingly-unconnected dots, including the Walker spy ring, the seizing of the intelligence ship Pueblo, and the earlier sinking (and at least partial recovery) of the Soviet submarine K-129.

Dogged reporter that he is, Offley has researched this story for decades, and his persistence pays off in a book that reads like a thriller -- which it is. Provides a very interesting counterpoint to Stephen Johnson's "Silent Steel", a much more straightforward, but equally readable account of the tragedy.

I learned a great deal about US and Soviet submarine operations. In this regard Offley is an excellent writer.

However, he never connects the dots to even come close to proving that the Scorpion was sunk by the USSR. Other reviewers have done a good job poking holes in his case, so I won't beat a dead horse.

Mr. Offley spins a wild tale about underwater shootouts, retaliation, and coverups. But he presents no evidence except anecdotal, 2nd- and 3rd-party hearsay to support his theories. With some of his conjectures just downright ludicrous.

Supposedly, this entire incident was triggered by the loss of a Soviet missile sub just north of the Hawaiian islands. Around the time of this loss an American fast-attack supposedly limps into a port in Japan with major damage as from an underwater collision. The Soviets think that the US was responsible for sinking their submarine & decide to sink one of ours in turn.

Problem is, no sub skipper in his right mind who had collided with another sub just off the Hawaiian islands would limp halfway across the Pacific Ocean with a badly-damaged boat when he was only a few hundred kilometers away from one of our largest & most secure Naval bases in Hawaii. For that matter, if this fast-attack had collided with the Soviet boat & been damaged, the US west coast was closer to the collision site than was Japan!

Then there is the problem of a slow, relatively clunky missile boat (Echo II) somehow tracking & then putting a torpedo into one of the best fast-attacks in the US fleet. That's like the Wright flyer going up & winning a dog-fight against a P-51 Mustang. Yes, things like this can happen, the probability isn't completely zero, but it's so close to zero as to be unimaginable. The other thought that springs to mind is the PT-109 incident in WW2, I've yet to understand how the driver of a 40-knot boat (J F Kennedy) could let himself be run over by a guy driving a 30-knot boat. Something is wrong with this picture, too. But I digress.....

Anyway, it makes for interesting conjecture. But there is no smoking gun, there is nothing but anecdotal evidence (if you want to call it "evidence"), there are only a couple of inconsistencies in the documentation (You want inconsistencies? Try reading the Warren Commission report, in a segue back to JFK!) & some faded memories & even a few breaches of national security.

Why would the Soviets sink one of our subs & then tell us they had done so? Would that not result in the US deciding to put most of the Soviet submarine fleet on the bottom of the ocean & finish this fight once & for all? After all, the sinking of the missile sub off Hawaii might have been an accident, but it was an ACCIDENT. Deliberately sinking Scorpion would be an ACT OF WAR! They knew we had the capability to take out their entire submarine fleet & if they thought we were being too aggressive in our tactics then they should have figured we had the will to do so, also.

No, it just don't float. Read the book for entertainment if you must but don't put too much stock in the theory.

Excellent book. ead it in two days as i couldn't stop. Easy to read and very informative and well organized as to a time line.

Some people hate hearing the truth. The fact is this is an excellent book, well researched and compellingly told. The author has done a commendable job and I highly recommend this book. Let the truth finally be told!

I picked this book up last week and have thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Mr. Offley however, has not convinced me that his storyline is true. Does he really need to convince you for it to be a worthwhile read? I say no.

One thing, I do detect a slight anti-military tone in his writing.

First off, I am in NO way impugning the service or memories of those lost in USS Scorpion.

However, I believe this book insults the lives and memories of those lost, and those that were involved.

As far as differing timelines for the search, not unusual given the top secret methods and procedures used in the search and by the lost USS Scorpion.

Now, as to specifics. I call this a square peg in a round hole since it appears that Mr. Offley started out with his conclusion and worked backwards from there to try and make it seem "fact". He decided that the Soviets intentionally sank the USS Scorpion. This apart from his earlier descriptions of "hull shot" missions (where a US submarine will close to within a very few feet of a Soviet submarine and take pictures through the periscope) in which collisions occurred.

Mention is made of an alleged multiple day "dogfight" between USS Scorpion and a Soviet submarine, a Soviet MISSILE submarine (that's important, and I'll come back to that later). Now the Scorpion was an attack submarine, described by Mr. Offley as being able to attain underwater speeds in excess of 30+ knots. Equipped with state of the art (for that time) sonar gear.

Then Mr. Offley wants us to believe that this hunter/killer submarine, and make no mistake about it, that is what USS Scorpion was designed and built to do, kill other submarines, got into a fight with a Soviet submarine, and was unable to lose that pursuer.

Now, let's talk about that Soviet submarine, shall we? Mr. Offley states several times that the Soviet submarine was a missile sub. An Echo II submarine. Designed to shoot missiles at surface targets, and, as Mr. Offley explained at one point in his book, more or less expendable after those missiles were fired.

The Echo II had a top speed of around 23 knots, and while armed with torpedo tubes, was not a sub killer, it wasn't designed for that.

To put it another way, to expect an Echo II submarine to fight with the Scorpion is the equivalent of putting a B-52 bomber, armed with only cannon for self defense, up against an F-15 Eagle armed with 40 mile range air to air missiles. That is not the mission the Echo was designed for. It was meant, as Mr. Offley stated, to kill surface ships, most notably US Navy aircraft carriers.

Furthermore, Mr. Offley states that the Echo fired a torpedo at Scorpion. No mention of countermeasures is made. A basic system, involving a canister that emits bubbles and acts as a noisemaker to decoy incoming torpedoes, is one way submarines defend against incoming fire. In addition, no mention of a return shot by Scorpion. In the ROE (rules of engagement), if you are fired upon, you can and should return fire. You aren't there to take hits. Permission from higher authority is not required, it's already there in the ROE.

Next, we have the picture of the Scorpion's sail, damaged, by what Mr. Offley hints and dances at was the Soviet torpedo. In the caption it states that the clearer, un-redacted photo was taken by Robert Ballard using deep diving systems. I kept looking for the next picture, the one that would show the torpedo hit that Mr. Offley kept claiming occurred. Why was that picture not shown? Did Robert Ballard forget to take a photo of that damage? Or is it more likely that the picture would not have supported Offley's contention, and was therefore left out?

Further along we are told that a Canadian aircraft observed an Echo II receiving at-sea repairs, of a serious nature. A large volume of sparks, from welding being done under a covering, was reported.

Let's keep that thought for a moment. When the K-129 (?) was reported as sunk, and then a US submarine arrived in port with heavy damage to its sail and periscopes, that was stated by Mr. Offley as the result of a collision that probably resulted in the loss of the Soviet submarine. There were other accounts, in his book, of collisions between US and Soviet submarines. It is a recurring theme in the book, one that is supposed to set the "mood" as to why the Soviets were acting in such a bloodthirsty manner towards Scorpion.

Yet in the Scorpion/Echo II confrontation, we are asked to believe that suddenly the Soviets decided to risk a shooting war instead of the more obvious conclusion that a collision at sea took place.

Collision at sea. Fatal to Scorpion, damaging to the Echo II. That's just the way that incident played out. Others went the other way. It happens.

Mr. Offley also makes mention of the Mk 37 torpedo and its sometime "hot run" in the ship. He describes what can happen, and how the warhead can then become active. In fact, he states that Scorpion had such a mishap with a training torpedo. His description of the solution, to make a 180 degree turn to activate the torpedo's safety system, is also supported by his own statements that the SOSUS data showed Scorpion making just such a 180 degree turn immediately prior to the loss of the ship.

This torpedo theory, since it conflicts with his desire to make a shoot-out with an Echo II submarine the cause of the sinking, is allowed to slip on by.

Now, as far as the narrative itself, and most importantly, the "evidence". In a court of law, every single bit of "evidence" presented by Mr. Offley would be considered not just circumstantial, but in fact "hearsay" evidence. That is, no facts are presented based on anything other than what Mr. Offley states were told to him by others who heard other people talking. First and second and third hand hearsay evidence. You couldn't even convict a ham sandwich on such "evidence".

The people who give this evidence are sailors who served as storemen on missile subs, crew members on later day missile submarines, and my personal favorite, someone who was wearing a jacket with patches, who just "happened" to have knowledge critical to the narrative. Sort of a human "deus ex machina".

If this book were presented as a novel, it would be laughed off the shelves as having too many plot devices, there just to make the story work. Sadly, it is presented as fact, with zero basis or citation, except for statements supposedly made by people who are no longer able to be interviewed.

This is not an "homage" to USS Scorpion and her crew, rather it is an attempt for Mr. Offley to justify spending 25 or more years trying to make a set of conclusions, already decided, into what he passes off as "fact".

This book is an insult to the crew of Scorpion, and there is no other way to put it. According to the narrative, Scorpion's captain and crew had no idea of the danger they were in. A patently ridiculous idea, given the time frame they were working in, the height of the "cold" war.

Offley should be ashamed of himself. He isn't, but that's to be expected of someone who seems to have spent so much time twisting facts, near-facts, and hearsay and second and third hand hearsay, into what is supposed to be non-fiction, but is nothing more than poorly supported speculation.

The sort of speculation that a first year law student would laugh at. Or even someone who is looking for an answer to what happened based on fact, not a desire to push some agenda.

I can recall the sinking of the USS Scorpion in 1968 and was excited to read this book and see if our government had finally decided to tell the truth about the brave crew of this ship. I never bought the "official" explanation and Ed Offley has done very credible and detailed research into the matter and his theory is certainly solid based upon the totality of the evidence available today. This is the first book I have read in years that I just couldn't wait to get back to every time I had to set it down. After knowing the ending to this story since 1968 I really hunger to know the truth about what truly happened to the USS Scorpion and her crew. I have to say that Offley has tendered a solid case for this theory.

I also enjoyed reading about other secrets, lies, and misdirection that Offley uncovered in the process of investigating the USS Scorpion's sinking, and not all just by our own government. I guess I naively continue to hope that someday our government will stop lying to it's citizens. It's no wonder that now, when the anti-Bush Administration politicians continue to rant about their perception that the Bush Administration has lied about Iraq, that they find so many citizens ready and eager to sign on to that theory.

I don't know what this "author" is smoking but I would recommend he change his tobacco. This is so far out as to be worthy of flying saucer status. A total waste of time and money. Most views are worth reviewing but this is so much dribble it is comical. I won't waste anybodys time with more comments.

As I read through this book with its often overlapping and circular fact telling, I kept expecting that at some point the author would get to a body of evidence that was solid and irrefutable proof to his hypothesis. Although the interviews and recollections show that we may not know all of the facts of the sinking of the Scorpion and that the Navy may in fact know much more then they are telling, we never really see the piece of evidence that proves the hypothesis that the Russians purposely sank the Scorpion beyond a shadow of doubt or, for that matter, provide an argument that would convince me that he has even a preponderance of the evidence leaning his direction.

Although I agree with the author that the inconsistencies in many of the interviews and Navy leader's statements are suspicious; they are hardly conclusive proof of a cover up. The author himself states that the involvement of so many sailors would prevent a story like this from being contained forever, yet we hear from the same individuals over and over without any solid evidence to collaborate what is being said.

As an example, if the Navy had gone to such great lengths to alter ship's logs, movement reports, action reports, etc. to cover up this incident, why would it allow a tape to be played at the SOSUS schools that would refute the Navy's public statements? Clearly Navy leadership would have become aware of the tape and the fact that it was being used. If the Navy was sophisticated enough to alter every other historical document, then why would they allow students without a "Need to know" to hear evidence to the contrary?

Maybe history will prove this author correct, but for now I think the jury is still out. The one place I think everyone can agree is that the crew of the Scorpion, regardless of the cause of the sinking, died warrior's deaths in a Cold War that many sacrificed in and is relatively unrecognized by the public as a real War with real Heros.

Depending on your point of view and interest, this book contains either a wealth or overabundance of information. The actual story of the Scorpion is buried by a mountain of detail about the Soviet navy, sub warfare in WWI and WWII, letters home from the crew, and almost-endless detail on almost everything related to submarine programs and construction. One reviewer described it as a 'page turner' and to this I agree: I found myself constantly doing that, picking up side details as they caught my eye and looking for the thread of the story of the Scorpion.

For its stated goal of telling the story of the sinking of the Scorpion, this book is much too long though parts are very interesting. It bears the mark of an author who amassed much material over a long time, then couldn't bear to leave anything out. He meanders, digresses, repeats himself--where was his editor?

And I agree with others that the promise on the cover ("... sunk by the Soviets ... ") is not forthcoming in the book.

Depending on your point of view and interest, this book contains either a wealth or overabundance of information. The actual story of the Scorpion is buried by a mountain of detail about the Soviet navy, sub warfare in WWI and WWII, letters home from the crew, and almost-endless detail on almost everything related to submarine programs and construction. One reviewer described it as a 'page turner' and to this I agree: I found myself constantly doing that, picking up side details as they caught my eye and looking for the thread of the story of the Scorpion.

For its stated goal of telling the story of the sinking of the Scorpion, this book is much too long though parts are very interesting. It bears the mark of an author who amassed much material over a long time, then couldn't bear to leave anything out--where was his editor?

And I agree with others that the promise on the cover ("... sunk by the Soviets ... ") is not forthcoming in the book.

After nearly 25 years of researching the loss of the USS Scorpion, Ed Offley offers a detailed theory of what happened to the submarine and why. He theorizes that the Soviets were outraged by the March 1968 loss of their K-129 missle boat, which they believed sank after a collision with an aggressive US attack submarine. Because of the secrets betrayed by the Walker spy ring and the encryption equipment lost in the North Korean seizure of the Pueblo in January 1968, the Soviets were able to determine the mission, course and location of the Scorpion. When the Navy ordered the Scorpion to spy on a group of Soviet surface ships near the Canary Islands, a Soviet submarine began a game of cat and mouse that escalated into a dogfight between the two boats. At some point, for reasons unknown, the Soviet submarine fired a torpedo that sank the Scorpion.

Offley claims that the US Navy knew that the Scorpion had been torpedoed almost immediately after it was lost on May 22, 1968, either because the Russians promptly told the US in an effort to manage an international crisis or because the Navy was able to use its SOSUS network to determine immediately the cause and the location of the sinking. According to Offley, the Navy secretly began to search for the Scorpion even before it was declared overdue in Norfolk and had located the wreckage by early June 1968, not in October 1968 as was officially reported.

The purpose of all this subterfuge was to prevent a major incident from escalating into a full-scale war. The world was a very tense place in May 1968--the Vietnam War was in full swing and the United States and the Soviet Union were confronting each other throughout the world. Both sides agreed to bury the truth rather than to fight over it.

Perhaps. Winston Churchill once said that "in wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." It may be that cool heads in both Russia and the United States decided that lying was better than admitting what had happened.

Still, while Offley's arguments are intriguing, they are not compelling. The logic seems to run like this: a number of people (Russian and American) have said things or seen things indicating that the Scorpion was in fact torpedoed by a Russian sub. Some of those people are anonymous, others are being quoted at one remove, others claim to have seen evidence that is no longer available (for example, a SOSUS recording of the torpedo attack), and others seem to be confirming a traditon in the American submarine service that the Russians sunk the Scorpion. Offley concludes that all these sources must be correct, and that therefore anything in the official reports that is inconsistent with this testimony must be the result of a coverup at the highest levels.

He might be right, but the evidence remains circumstantial. "Scorpion Down" doesn't offer a "smoking gun" report from the US or Soviet Navy saying "a Russian torpedo sank the Scorpion." Likewise, the book doesn't provide testimony from any crew member from the Russian submarine that would have fired the torpedo or from any of the surface vessels that were in the vicinity. And if the Soviets had shown a willingness to use deadly force to get Americans to back off from their activities, why did the US Navy keep pursuing aggressive submarine tactics and specifically refuse to limit those tactics in the 1972 Incidents at Sea Agreement?

It could be that a rogue commander got carried away and fired a torpedo; perhaps there was a collision between two subs engaged in an aggressive game of cat and mouse; perhaps we'll never know--or perhaps the definitive archive will soon be opened to give us the answer.

In the meantime, "Scorpion Down" is a page turner and well worth reading. I am not convinced by the author's conclusions, but he writes a gripping story. I recommend reading this book together with Stephen Johnson's "Silent Steel," which is a little drier and much less sensational than "Scorpion Down" but takes the reader much closer to the challenges of operating a high performance attack sub and the courage of those who do it.

If, indeed, the Scorpion was sunk by a Russian submarine, then surely by now in the post-cold war era, at least one of the Russian submarine's crew members would have come forward with the story,if for no other reason than the fortune he would make from a book and movie deal. This fact is not addressed in the book.

The book "Scorpion Down" by Ed Offley at first glance seems to be another departure from fact for sale type book. I bought the book out of curiosity, mostly, as I have read quite a bit about Scorpion and nuclear Subs in general over the years. To dismiss the book as science fiction is not so easy, if one reads it with an open mind.
The book is mostly a collection of factual events that the author has blended with his own ideas of what really happened to the Scorpion. As you read the book and compare its contents to what has been published in other books, the material closely mirrors past reading. When the context of the times are taken to account, one can see it is possible that the events as depicted in this book, could have occurred. My biggest problem with the book was trying to figure out how an old Echo II could possibly have defeated the Scorpion. Thanks to the traitor Walker, I can see that there is the possiblity that Scorpion could have been tracked and intercepted because communications were compromised. Superior equipment does not neccessarily win battles, as the battle of Midway shows us.
There is no smoking gun truth or revelation in this book. The author and his conclusions could be wrong, but the possibility that he is right, should cause folks to dig deeper to find the truth.
As with most "conspiracy" theory books, it is the actions of those in charge that feed the flames the most. One has to wonder why so much is still classified from the battles of so long ago, with regard to Scorpion. The strongest points made by the book are the testimonies of people who dispute the "official" record, the strange statements made by Russian Officials and the inability to make all the facts of a 40 year old incident known. Maybe the real truth would scare us more than the contents of this book. As an example, Dr. Craven's book "The Silent War" offers a "unique" senario to the truth behind the sinking of a Soviet missle boat off Hawaii. The book "Red Star Rogue" also has its spin on this event. History more than shows the U.S. interest in this event, as depicted in the book "Spy Sub". The book "Blind Mans Bluff" tells some of the tales of the Cold war. Most of the NR-1 submarine history is a blank page or classified. The Glomar Explorer was built. To better understand what the author of "Scorpion Down" is suggesting, one needs to read these other books.The Cold War was hotter than most folks realize.

Sensationalist nonsense best suited for the paranoid fringe. Truth and plausability just don't sell books as well as fiction. The companion book will likely deal with the alien spaceships we have at Area 57. I have to wonder how incompetent a U.S. Navy submarine skipper would have to be to be caught by a very noisy Echo II type boat. This book is written in the style of the best propoganda and lunatic fringe material: lots of inferences, lots of contradictions in the very complex formal record,but no substance to support the author's contentions. The Scorpion clearly imploded at depth after suffering an accident. I believe also there is ample evidence to support the theeory that one of her own torpedoes exploded.

I served twenty years in the United States Navy. I had the honor of working with submariners in the early 1980's. I was told this very same story by them back then. It was widely known by all in the submarine service.

Yes. It has hit a nerve. I expect to see more "slurs" here, disguised as "reviews".

The book is correct. Those with the most to lose will naturally whine the loudest over it.

By reading some of the other reviews, I can see that Ed Offley's well reserached account of the fate of the Scorpion must be hitting a nerve, here and there.

It's important to realize that neither the U.S. Navy or the Soviet Navy, or their respective governments, had any interest or advantage in helping Offley as he pursued the truth. And they still don't. The official account of this tragedy remains deeply classified and will remain so. You can be sure of that.

Absent that record, Ed Offley has put together the most logical, if somewhat dramatic, account of what likely happnened that day. Some of these reviewers, particularly the guy from Michigan, should talk to a submariner. Then he would know that submarine skippers were not on the short leash they find themselves attached to in today's submarine force. That means that anything was possible even the tense days in the middle of the Cold War. Again, anything was possible.

This is a hurculean effort and from one former submarine officer who always wondered what really happened, I want to thank Offley for presenting us with the closest account that has more than just the ring of truth.

Mr. Offley has done a disservice to the men of the submarine force to put forth a fictional account of what he wants to believe happened to the Scorpion. He has no facts to even suspect that the Soviets had a hand in the loss, yet he has managed to get a book published in a historical context.

For the readers who are interested in the demise of the Scorpion, it is a true waste of paper and ink. There is nothing here to even hint of journalistic competence, merely fictional fantasy.

A true disgrace to submariners on both sides of the Cold War. Relegate this prose to the rubbish heap and move on.

Ed Offley in "Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon, The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion" rejects the official US Navy chronology of events surrounding the loss of the US Navy nuclear submarine Scorpion on May 22, 1968, and he reaches a controversial conclusion that the Soviet Navy deliberately torpedoed and sank the vessel, a fact then covered up by the US Government (the Soviets, according to Offley, were taking revenge for the loss of their K-129 submarine two months earlier, which they blamed on aggressive US tactics). His evidence for his theories consists largely of interviews with various US Navy officers and enlisted men who remembered events differently than the official accounts. Offley's conclusions might be reduced to three main items:

(1) The search for the missing Scorpion did not begin after the submarine failed to show up at its homeport in Norfolk, Virginia, on May 27, 1968, but instead it was triggered several days earlier by the failure of the sub to communicate by radio as scheduled. The Navy, at the time and subsequently, covered up the existence of this early search.

(2) The US Navy actually found the lost submarine only a few days after the search began, not several months later according to the official reports, the Soviets having tipped off the Navy as to the lost vessel's location.

(3) The Scorpion was sunk by a Soviet torpedo.

Offley's first conclusion - that the search began in earnest even before the Scorpion failed to show up at Norfolk - appears tenable, based as it is upon by statements from Admiral Schade, commander of the Atlantic submarine force at the time, and from Admiral Moorer, the Chief of Naval Operations. These statements are backed up by anecdotal accounts from personnel involved in the actual search. Although the Navy covered up this search at the time and later, no sinister motive need be invoked. The Scorpion was engaged in a classified operation and submarine activities in general were a matter of secrecy. And, like all cover-ups, once a cover-up begins, it is almost impossible to step away from it: covering up the cover-up becomes a goal in itself. Besides, it would have been embarrassing to admit that the Navy had left the families of the missing submariners in ignorance after the Navy itself had concluded that the ship may well have been lost.

The second conclusion - that the Scorpion was found months before official reports indicated - is more poorly supported, and it is not clear to me just what the Navy would stand to gain from such an additional cover-up (which would cost it great amounts of unnecessary time and money). The plain truth is that in any large, complex event there will always be some people who will remember things differenty, who may come to sincerely believe they saw or experienced something quite different from what those around them saw and experienced. In the absense of better evidence, I am inclined to treat the supposed evidence for an early discovery of the Scorpion wreckage as an example of this phenomenon.

The final conclusion - that the Soviets deliberately attacked and sank the Scorpion in apparent revenge for what they considered to be US Navy guilt in the early loss of their K-129 submarine - is supported mainly by reports that a hydrophone tape revealed the presence of a Soviet Echo II submarine and a Soviet torpedo at the scene, the existence of this tape supposedly attested to by a Navy school student and his instructor (one of the earlier Amazon reviewers claims this tape was played during boot camp training, but that reviewer evidently failed to read Offley's account attentively; the incident supposedly occurred during hydrophone training). As unlikely as it seems to me that such a top secret recording would be rather casually revealed during a training class, I suppose it is not wholly impossible (I remember a guest lecturer during my own Army Intelligence training three decades ago mentioning a very sensitive secret operation that prompted our regular instructors to caution against revealing what we had heard). Offley's contention that a torpedo sunk the Scorpion must be compared against the technical evidence revealed by the condition of the Scorpion's wreckage. According to Stephen Johnson in "Silent Steel", that wreckage shows clear evidence of a hull collapse at great depth, a collapse that could not occur if the hull interior had already been flooded as should have happened if a torpedo had struck. Offley, it seems to me, fails to consider alternative scenarios, such as a possible collision between the Scorpion and a Soviet submarine (if he were to insist upon Soviet involvement); conceivably, such a collison might produce the partial flooding and uncontrolled descent to crush depth which would appear to better fit the physical evidence (and also cause damage to the Soviet sub as reported by some of Offley's informants).

I found Offley's book very interesting, but ultimately not wholly convincing (except possibly in the matter of a search launched before the vessels's failure to appear at Norfolk).

This book is amazing in detail and depth of investigation. I was lucky enough to get an advance copy, and I was amazed at how much I learned of a period in American history in which I was a young adult and thought I knew what was going on. Ed Offley's book opens your eyes to the real dangers we faced in our Cold War confrontation with the Russian submarine fleet. He carefully follows the events leading up to the sinking, and details the machinations behind the decision to cover the incident.
He has interviewed exhaustively, and unearthed facts that may have been hidden forever had he not begun to unravel the mystery years ago.

Ed Offley's background as an investigative and military reporter serves him well in this book. He has tracked down sources who were there, and persuaded them to talk.

The stories of the lost men are heartbreaking, and deserve to be told. The men may be lost, but because of this book, their stories are not.

This is a fascinating book, and well worth the read!

Well written book by a military affairs journalist who's followed the Scorpion story for 25 years. Briefly, his theory on the sequence of events leading to the submarine's loss:

- The U.S. Navy Submarine Service, to the major irritation of the Soviets, aggressively played chicken with Soviet subs throughout the 50's-70's (widely acknowledged, there were several collisions)

- The Walker spy ring gave the Soviets the ability to read encrypted Navy communications starting in the mid-60's, fully realized with the siezure of Navy cryptographic equipment on the Pueblo in early 1968

- Soviet submarine K-129 was lost with all hands in the Pacific in early 1968; the U.S. submarine Swordfish sailed into Yokosuka shortly thereafter with major damage, leading the Soviets to believe that it collided with K-129 and was responsible for its sinking (btw, for a truly alternative theory of the K-129's loss, read "Red Star Rogue").

- The Soviets believed the U.S. Submarine Service had blood on its hands and wanted revenge. They knew, from decrypted communications, that the Scorpion had been diverted to spy on a Soviet naval exercise near the Azores on its trip back to Norfolk from the Mediterranean. An Echo II Soviet submarine waited for the Scorpion, and sank her. To avoid starting a war in what was already an ugly year (Pueblo, Tet, MLK and Bobby Kennedy asassinations, riots, etc.), the U.S. Navy covered up the sinking.

The author doesn't present any smoking guns, but he's interviewed dozens of former naval officers and enlisted men who confirm that the real details of what happened weren't in keeping with the official story (both the then current Chief of Naval Operations and the then-Commander of the Atlantic Submarine Force told him in the '80s that there was a frantic search under way days before the Navy officially acknowledged it had cause for concern, and the former U.S. naval attache to Moscow got hints from Soviet naval officers that the two navies agreed never to discuss Scorpion or K-129. It's not ironclad, but it's certainly plausible and well researched, and offers a well-written background narrative of the history of the U.S. and Soviet submarine services and their roles in the Cold War. Well worth reading.

USS Scorpion, a 3500-ton Skipjack class nuclear-powered attack submarine built at Groton, Connecticut, was commissioned in July 1960. Assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, she took part in the development of contemporary submarine warfare tactics and made periodic deployments to the Mediterranean Sea and other areas where the presence of a fast and stealthy submarine would be beneficial.

Scorpion began another Mediterranean cruise in February 1968. The following May, while homeward bound from that tour, she was lost with her entire crew some 400 miles southwest of the Azores. In late October 1968, her remains were found on the sea floor over 10,000 feet below the surface by a towed deep-submergence vehicle deployed from USNS Mizar (T-AGOR-11). Photographs taken then and later showed that her hull had suffered fatal damage while she was running submerged and that even more severe damage occurred as she sank. The cause of the initial damage continues to generate controversy more than three decades later.