
During Cold War, CIA Plucked Soviet Submarine from Ocean Floor Using Giant Claw - pseudolus
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/during-cold-war-ci-secretly-plucked-soviet-submarine-ocean-floor-using-giant-claw-180972154/
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cameldrv
Possibly the coolest and most spooky Cold War artifact:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJAJUJ41PBI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJAJUJ41PBI)

It's the video on board the Glomar Explorer of a burial at sea ceremony of
Soviet sailors found in the half of the submarine they managed to bring to the
surface. Supposedly this was Top Secret until a copy was given to Yeltsin in
1991 or so.

~~~
Udik
I don't find it very spooky. Moving though, considering it's a solemn burial
of the bodies of enemy soldiers. And if really it was top-secret, it's not
even propaganda. Better times than ours.

And how cool is the Soviet anthem?

~~~
qychtkd
I’d say the Soviet anthem is one of the best there is. They missed it so much
it was brought back as the Russian national anthem after Yeltsin. Red Army
Chorus has some good tracks like it. Very catchy and “patriotic” if you are in
line to fight western imperialism.

~~~
sandworm101
It's is a communist anthem. So it is meant to be sung by a group, ussually
with instruments too. It is therefore always more impressive than others like
the american which are mostly performed as solos.

There was a canadian opera singer who did anthems for hockey games. He would
sing three notes then turn the mic to the crowd. That is how national anthems
should be done.

There is also a great vid of a game where the american soloist had a mic fail.
The canadian crowd finished the american anthem for her.

~~~
chupasaurus
> It's is a communist anthem. So it is meant to be sung by a group, ussually
> with instruments too.

The song was made originally as Bolsheviks' Party anthem with completely
different lyrics (and author of them).

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posnet
If you found this interesting, I can't recommend Blind Man's Bluff[0] enough.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-
Espionage/...](https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-
Espionage/dp/1610393589)

~~~
ghaff
There's apparently some controversy over the Scorpion theory presented in the
book and presumably no one will know the actual answer at this point. But,
yeah, it's a good read.

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aerophilic
One of my favorite points on this story is that it is the origin of “We can
neither confirm, nor deny”:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response)

------
ilamont
_two separate Soviet ships (likely loaded with intelligence operatives)
closely monitored the supposed mining vessel as it worked to retrieve the
submarine._

It sounds like they knew exactly what was going on.

Tangent: My grandfather was part of a U.S. Navy operation during WWII that was
responsible for verifying enemy submarine sinkings ... basically, sending
someone down to pick up an artifact that would prove the sunken submarine was
at a certain location. I don't know how they did it in the deeper parts of the
ocean, though.

~~~
dogma1138
Of course they knew, but there was very little they could do about it.

The Soviets and even Russia today kinda sucks at deep sea recovery, even to
raise the Kursk they had to contract a Dutch company.

Russia never had much offshore oil, and while even for the US navy a sub
sinking is likely a recovery operation rather than a rescue one the US navy
seem have been much more concern with developing the operational capabilities
to at least attempt a rescue.

~~~
fsloth
US also non-surprisingly attempted to block all 'allied' businesses from
contributing to soviet deep sea capabilities.

The story of Mir submarines is an interesting example of cold war era
business:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_(submersible)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_\(submersible\))

------
ordinaryradical
One of my favorite episodes of Radio Lab talks about this, and opens up so
many interesting subjects—truth, silence, grief, secrets, law.

Highly recommend if you’ve never heard before:
[https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/confirm-nor-
deny](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/confirm-nor-deny)

------
cm2187
There is a very interesting documentary on this expedition. One of the guys
mentioned that when the grabber arm broke, they could see on their monitors an
ICBM slipping through one of the tubes, heading down the bottom. Everyone in
the room braced for the impact with the ocean floor...

~~~
ethbro
There's a documentary called Azorian (was Prime streaming for awhile) that's
decent. It had a fair amount of technical detail about the apparatus &
failure.

~~~
bigtex
That is the one. Excellent documentary and interviews several of the involved
parties. The level of engineering that was described was truly astounding.

------
linuxlizard
In 4th grade, I read about the manganese nodule cover story in Weekly Reader.
I was super into geology and was entranced by the story.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekly_Reader](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekly_Reader)

------
ableal
I think this was partly spoofed in a Charles Stross book -
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14150.The_Jennifer_Morgu...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14150.The_Jennifer_Morgue)

~~~
Pamar
Yes, he mentioned this in his "crib sheets" \-
[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/06/crib-
she...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/06/crib-sheet-the-
jennifer-morgue.html) it is an interesting read, but contains spoilers for his
_The Jennifer Morgue_ novel.

------
asmithmd1
There is a well researched book about this whole project:

[https://www.amazon.com/Taking-K-129-Russian-Operation-
Histor...](https://www.amazon.com/Taking-K-129-Russian-Operation-
History/dp/1101984430)

~~~
appwiz
That’s a great book. It has a lot of details provided by the mission
participants and also reveals the politics between the CIA and the Navy.

A bonus for me in this book was the coverage about how the CIA built the U-2
and the A-12 Oxcart in secret.

------
cripblip
This is one of my favourite stories, this documentary is pretty good:
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2042455/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2042455/)

This book goes into a lot more detail: [https://www.amazon.com/Project-
Azorian-CIA-Raising-K-129/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Project-Azorian-CIA-
Raising-K-129/dp/1591146682)

The engineering behind the gimble required to hold the huge length of pipe
required to reach the sub is quite something.

------
foobarbecue
Shame on Smithsonian for publishing those beautiful plans for the ship in such
a low resolution! ([https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/ByKMeWPL7ACAflt-
TkueyIb8ZmI=/...](https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/ByKMeWPL7ACAflt-
TkueyIb8ZmI=/fit-in/1072x0/https://public-media.si-
cdn.com/filer/27/1b/271b49f8-cb55-4ec6-ad87-af83bade8ae6/cropped-color-edited-
rc-214.jpg)) Can anyone find a readable version of these? I tried google image
search to no avail.

------
mirimir
> In this post-Cuban Missile Crisis era, both American and Soviet submarines
> prowled the open seas with nuclear weapons aboard, prepared for potential
> war.

They still do that, no?

~~~
adwww
Not just American and Soviet (or Russian now) - just 10 years ago a French and
British nuclear submarine crashed in the middle of the Atlantic.

Both highly advanced, almost undetectable submarines, failed to detect each
other. The odds of meeting like that in such a big ocean must be miniscule.

~~~
mirimir
Wow. That _is_ amazing. I wonder how many there are overall. Hundreds?
Thousands? And now being armed with hypervelocity reentry warheads.

~~~
credit_guy
37.

US - 14. Russia - 11. UK, France, China - 4 each.

------
janee
Ah! I recall listening to this on a stuff you should know podcast a while ago.
Fun listen [https://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/project-
azorian-...](https://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/project-azorian-the-
cia-s-super-70s-mission-to-steal-a-sunken-soviet-sub.htm)

------
dogma1138
The ship is still operational
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_Explorer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_Explorer)
Currently is used for deep sea oil drilling.

~~~
bhhaskin
It is actually being scrapped. It arrived at a Chinese scrap yard in 2015.

~~~
sizzzzlerz
For years, it was moored in Suisan Bay along with other WW2 vessels. You could
see it driving along the bay on 680. I'm not sure what happened to the barge.
It went back to Lockheed's facilities in Redwood City for awhile but I don't
think it is still there.

~~~
khuey
The barge is in Alameda right next to the ferry terminal.

~~~
bhhaskin
Oh? Which one? I sail by there often!

Edit: oh wow! That makes so much sense why it has the retractable roof on it!
Never knew that before.

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Taniwha
Not mentioned - National Geographic did a whole spread on the wonderful new
Glomar Explorer science vessel and all the wonderful science it was going to
be doing - I wonder how much the CIA paid for that bunch of lies

~~~
snowwrestler
I remember that article too. It certainly would be interesting to know whether
Nat Geo was directly complicit with the CIA, or was just taken in by the cover
story.

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snthd
Where's the salvaged piece now? Did the Glomar just dump most of it?

Is it implausible that it was sunk by the Americans? It certainly would have
helped them know where to look.

~~~
PinballWizard
The is has a mess load of mic under the ocean, that's how they knew it sunk

------
billsmithaustin
Sort of an inverse James Bond story. In this case, a reclusive billionaire was
_helping_ the spies.

------
hakfoo
This is why the defense budget is so high. They had to put in another quarter
every time they almost got the sub and it slipped out of the claw.

------
reaperducer
_" That May, Soviet operatives increased the amount of microwave radiation
trained on the American embassy in Moscow."_

This was the 1970's. Today people eschew the idea of similar treatment of
Western embassies in Cuba.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/world/americas/cuba-
unite...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/world/americas/cuba-united-
states-embassy-diplomats-illness.html)

~~~
jacquesm
That may well have been to provide power to passive listening devices.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_\(listening_device\))

~~~
adolph
It’s amazing to think that it was invented by Theramin. Also:

 _Theremin created the Buran eavesdropping system. A precursor to the modern
laser microphone, it worked by using a low-power infrared beam from a distance
to detect sound vibrations in glass windows._

~~~
jacquesm
Theremin is one of the true geniuses, the list of inventions and fields is
incredible.

