Behind the Great Submarine Snatch

On June 20, 1974, the Glomar Explorer, a new 36,000-ton ship fitted with a tall derrick amidships and towing a submersible barge the size of a football field, sailed from Long Beach, Calif., toward an area in the Pacific 750 miles northwest of Hawaii. Publicly proclaimed to be a special vessel built by Howard Hughes to mine mineral deposits from the ocean floor, the Glomar was actually on a CIA mission approved by the White House. Its code name: Project Jennifer. Its aim: to salvage a Soviet submarine that had plunged 16,000ft. to the bottom of the Pacific in 1968 after an explosion.

The sub was believed to be armed with three nuclear missiles and several torpedoes. U.S. intelligence officials were determined to examine the weapons and the codes aboard--without the knowledge of the Russians. The Glomar Explorer stationed itself over the sub and extended a length of pipe with giant claws on the end to pick up the wreck on the bottom. The barge was then submerged to a depth of about 100ft., where it was to cradle the salvaged sub. But there was a hitch. When the sub was halfway to the surface its damaged hull cracked in two. The after two-thirds of the craft, including the code room and the coveted weapons, slipped away. Only the forward third was successfully retrieved.

At least that was the story the CIA floated in March 1975, when reports of the submarine caper began leaking to the press. But TIME has learned that Project Jennifer did in fact succeed: the entire wreck, a 320-ft.-long Golf-class II diesel-powered submarine built in 1961, was recovered virtually intact. Confirms a senior U.S. Navy officer: "It was all one hell of a success." Why the partial-recovery story? The CIA remains mum about its motives but the agency evidently had a dual aim. For one thing, it wanted to defend the high cost of Jennifer--about $550 million, all billed to the Navy. At the same time, the agency wanted to avoid unnecessarily embarrassing the Russians, who, U.S. intelligence officials knew, would not fall for the CIA's story anyway.

All equipment aboard the sub worth analyzing was removed--including three SSN5 surface-to-surface ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads, and several torpedoes. Though study of these prizes was begun on board the Glomar Explorer, the detailed examination took place elsewhere, most likely at the U.S. base on Midway Island. There experts were able to carefully go over the sub's equipment. Says a Navy official: "It was dated somewhat, but still a technical mother lode of stuff."

After careful analysis, which included photographing certain parts and taking metallurgical samples for further study, the sub's hull was broken up into sections, some of which were compacted like old cars and jettisoned at various spots in the Pacific.

Although the accommodations for the 80-man crew were spartan by U.S. standards, the sub itself was skillfully designed for silent running, and construction details showed that the Russians "can turn these things out like Mexican fritters," as one Navy expert put it. Before the sub was retrieved, the U.S. knew almost nothing about Soviet torpedo technology. The Navy had also underestimated the sub's firepower. Its short-range (about 700 nautical miles) SSN5 missiles carried hydrogen-bomb warheads packing a much bigger punch than the uranium-fission weapons that were once the staple of Soviet defense. Very possibly one of the warheads was exploded underground before a U.S.-Soviet ban on such testing of bombs of more than 150 kilotons went into effect this year.

How did the Glomar Explorer haul up a 5,500-ton weight from the ocean floor? Taking cues from tiny radio beacons placed near the sub, a computer aboard the ship directed an array of water jets and propellers that kept the Glomar--and its suspended claws--in place against waves and currents.

Despite all the advanced equipment, Jennifer was a nerve-racking job for the Glomar's crew of about 400. The racking began early on, when the crewmen were told what the ship's real mission was and given secrecy pledges to sign. Says one crewman: "They told us that they were the same kind of documents Daniel Ellsberg had signed." During the lift of the sub, the ship heaved and groaned so much that some feared it would tear apart. Others fretted about the Soviet spy trawlers that were frequently spotted. Says Joe Rodriguez, who was recruited for the mission out of a Hollywood hairdressing salon because he had served a Navy stint on an aircraft carrier: "We worried about capture. We used to joke in the engine room about Roosky women and what they do with civilian spies." An oiler on the Glomar, Rodriguez is the first crew member to talk publicly about Project Jennifer.

Deep Throat. The crew worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week, and they were paid generously, averaging about $1,350 a month; Rodriguez managed to save enough during the operation to open his own haircutting shop near Sacramento. There were some perks too: menus featured filet mignon, roasts and lobster tails, while the entertainment included television shows and movies on video cassettes (most popular flick: Deep Throat).

Today the Glomar Explorer sits idle in Suisun Bay, Calif., near San Francisco. Had its cover not been blown, the ship would have been used for recovering other seabed prizes like missile re-entry vehicles and underwater listening devices. Instead, the Government has put the vessel up for sale. Last week the National Science Foundation said it would study the possibility of using the ship for deep-sea research. The General Services Administration has also offered to lease the ship to firms interested in using it to mine minerals in the ocean--precisely what the Glomar Explorer was supposed to be up to when it first sailed off on its CIA mission.

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