The Glomar Mystery

When the Glomar Explorer story first broke 21 months ago, the Central Intelligence Agency did a purposeful job of disclosing as little information as possible. In a series of briefings, then CIA Director William Colby confided to reporters that the U.S. had used a large vessel, reportedly built for Howard Hughes, to try to retrieve a 1961-vintage Soviet submarine that had sunk northwest of Hawaii. Unfortunately, the Golf-class sub cracked apart as it was being hoisted. Only the forward third was recovered. Colby did not say what it contained, but any knowledgeable person would expect that it housed torpedoes and perhaps other valuable materials. The mid-and aft sections, containing the far more important nuclear missiles and code room, slipped through the retrieval tongs.

Two weeks ago TIME printed an article about Glomar based partly on a talk with a former Glomar crew member named Joe Rodriguez (TIME, Dec. 6). As the first of Glomar's some 200 crewmen to speak, Rodriguez provided previously unknown touches about shipboard life (filet mignon was standard fare; Deep Throat was the favorite flick). Rodriguez's most significant hint, however, was that Glomar retrieved the entire Soviet sub. TIME checked out Rodriguez's suggestion with a number of Pentagon experts, who appeared to confirm it. They conceded that significant. and so far undisclosed portions of the sub--including nuclear missiles and torpedoes--had been recovered from the seabed. "A technical mother lode." one Navy official called it.

Last week, after TIME raised additional questions about his involvement with Glomar, Rodriguez, now a Sacramento-area hairdresser, admitted that he had not been on the ship during the recovery; he had taken part only in training cruises and had left before the key voyage. ("I'm sorry. I feel bad. I will not sleep well tonight." he said.)

Times Story. Meanwhile, the New York Times published two articles by Reporter Seymour Hersh that directly contradicted the TIME accounts. Hersh named as chief sources two brothers: Wayne Collier, 33, who worked as CIA recruiter for the crew, and his younger brother Bill, hired by Wayne as a cutting-torch handler. Though neither man was aboard the Glomar at the time of the sub lifting, Bill was on the ship when the retrieved portions were being dissected. In a sense, Hersh's account reinforced the original CIA thesis: only the sub's forward third was recovered. But he added that four torpedoes were found as well as a partial description of cryptographic codes and booklets on the state of Soviet nuclear technology.

In fact, much more than that was recovered, say TIME'S Pentagon sources, even though the previous version that the entire sub was raised was apparently wrong. What was recovered was the bulk of the weapons system installed in the vessel, which carried three SSN5 surface-to-surface nuclear missiles. This is according to the Pentagon sources, who stick by their accounts of a far fuller retrieval than previously conceded by the CIA. Thus, after another twist of the Glomar mystery, the successes--or failures--of the mission remain confused.

The Soviets, in any case, are taking no chances. Since 1975, they have stationed an intelligence-gathering ship over the spot in the Pacific where the Glomar found the ill-fated Soviet sub. The vessel apparently is there to make certain that the U.S. does not attempt to pick up any more pieces--if indeed there are any more.

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