Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion

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About Scorpion Down: Sunk By The Soviets, Buried By The

Product description One Navy admiral called it “one of the greatest unsolved sea mysteries of our era.” The U.S. Navy officially describes it an inexplicable accident. For decades, the real story of the disaster eluded journalists, historians, and the family members of the lost crew. But a small handful of Navy and government officials knew the truth: The sinking of the U.S.S. Scorpion on May 22, 1968, was an act of war. In Scorpion Down, military reporter Ed Offley reveals that the true cause of the Scorpion’s sinking was buried by the U.S. government in an attempt to keep the Cold War from turning hot. For five months, the families of the Scorpion crew waited while the Navy searched feverishly for the missing submarine. For the first time, Offley reveals that entire search was cover-up, devised to conceal that fact that the Scorpion had been torpedoed by the Soviets. In this gripping and controversial book, Offley takes the reader inside the shadowy world of the Cold War military, where rival superpowers fought secret battles far below the surface of the sea. From Publishers Weekly The U.S.S. Scorpion SSN 589, a 99-man fast attack submarine, sank 400 miles southwest of the Azores on May 22, 1968, a time during the Cold War when the Soviet Navy was expanding and becoming more aggressive. The Navy's top secret court of inquiry, however, theorized that the Scorpion was sunk by its own hot-running torpedo, not an enemy vessel. In this thorough post-mortem, military beat reporter Offley challenges the Navy's official report-including details like when the wreckage was found and what the sub's mission had been-with a succinct charge: "It was all a lie." Offley believes the Scorpion was sunk by the Soviets, in retaliation for the loss of one of their subs two months prior. Using the U.S.S. Pueblo incident of January, 1968, in which key cryptography gear was lost, Offley connects the dots between the Navy, the John Walker spy ring, and Soviet intelligence to conclude that the Russians had access to all of the Navy's most secret communications, allowing them to ambush the Scorpion. Most of Offley's argument, while compelling, is based solely on interviews with former Navy personnel, and a lack of factual evidence weakens it. Still, this well-told narrative history holds much appeal for naval historians and conspiracy buffs. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist On May 22, 1968, the submarine Scorpion exploded and sank 400 miles southeast of the Azores, killing all 99 men aboard. It had been torpedoed by a Soviet submarine in retaliation for its suspected involvement in the disappearance 11 weeks earlier of the Soviet submarine K-129. Oilley believes that admirals in the U.S and Soviet navies--fearing what could become World War III--agreed to hide the truth of the two sinkings. Only 91 seconds after the torpedo struck, the Scorpion plunged 1,300 feet below the surface. By May 31, a search force had increased to 55 surface ships and submarines and three dozen land-based patrol aircraft. On June 5, the U.S. declared that it was lost at sea, and on October 30, the navy announced the discovery of the vessel. Based on 25 years of research, which included investigating declassified navy documents, Offley reveals details of the events that led to the vessel's sinking and the cover-up that followed. He has written a searing account of this tragedy at sea. George Cohen Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved About the Author Ed Offley has been a military reporting specialist since 1981 for online publications and newspapers, including The Ledger-Star, Norfolk, Va.; The Seattle Post-Intelligencer; Stripes.com; DefenseWatch, and The News Herald, Panama City, Fla. A graduate of the University of Virginia, Offley served in the U.S. Navy in Vietnam. He lives in Panama City Beach, Florida.