TRYING TO SWIPE A RUSSIAN SUB IS JUST PART OF THE CIA SAGA-

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP02-06341R000302420036-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 3, 2011
• Sequence Number: 36
• Publication Date: March 31, 1975
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2011/08/03: CIA-RDP02-06341 R000302420036-8
0
A
RT
3
0 "S WIFE
SUB S JUST
"F 7HE (MAEBAG"
Among U. S. successes: -toe `J-2 spy venture, a tunnel into
East Berlin, a tap on Kremlin phones. Now: the daring effort to
recover a sunken sub, its nuclear missiles, secret codes.
When the Central Intelligence Agen- missiles. It has been considered a re-
cy went fishing in the ocean depths for a markable technological and intelligence
sunken Soviet submarine and its nuclear achievement.
missiles, it was not the first time that ? The Berlin tunnel that the CIA con-
millions of dollars had been spent on structed in the 1950s. It ran from a mock
such a bizarre operation. "experimental radar station" in West
While the whole story has not been Berlin under the border into East Ber-
told, this much of it has come to the lin. There, wiretaps were hooked up to
surface: the communications lines into the Soviet
In 1968, a diesel-powered Russian sub- military headquarters, and military traf-
marine, armed with three nuclear mis- fic was recorded. The Russians discov-
siles, went to the bottom of the Pacific ered the tunnel in April, 1956.
Ocean 750 miles northwest of Hawaii, in ? The secret speech that Soviet leader
about 17,000 feet of water. American Nikita Khrushchev delivered in 1956 to
detection devices were able to pinpoint the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet
the sub's exact location. Communist Party. It was an attack on
In 1970, the CIA-with the backing of Stalinism, marking a critical switch in
President Nixon-began an operation Soviet policy. The CIA mounted a mas-
code-named "Project Jennifer" aimed at sive operation to obtain a copy-report-
raising the pieces of the submarine, its edly succeeding by paying a large sum
missiles, coding machines and other se- tto a hus able Communist ooffipolicy cial. The
hecUfons on
cret equipment.
The operation involved the design knowledge of the unpublicized shift in-
and construction of a special ship, the side the Kremlin.
Gloinar Explorer, with derricks and ? A tap of Kremlin phones. In 1960,
claws to lift objects of great weight and millions
build of dollars were radar spent tower to by the CIA
size from the ocean floor.
Last summer, during a period when drop on Kremlin telephone conversa-
the Pacific was most calm, the operation tions. It was a technical failure. But the
b
y
was successfully carried out-at least in operation was carried out
part. About one third of the submarine a "ferret" satellite that
was raised. What it contained-aside picked up, recorded and re-
from the bodies of an undisclosed num- layed back to U. S. ground
ber of Russian submariners-is still a stations telephone conversa-
secret but there are indications tions between the Kremlin
d
eep
, that the CIA is not displeased with the and Soviet leaders riding in
results of the recovery operation. their llimousines.
the stolen
Past successes. CIA officials say that The s
fewer such secret operations of the urine. The CIA goes to con-
"Project Jennifer" type are now being siderable length to prepare
conducted But what has come to light actuarial studies on key in-
.in the past indicates the scope of under- ternational figures. To get a
cover projects. Among them: reading on the health of one
? The U-2 spy plane especially de- leader, they had a urine sani-
signed for the CIA to fly at very high ple stolen from a Vienna hos-
altitudes and to take detailed photos of pital where he was under
1960- treatment.
1'rom 1956 to May
d
h
,
e groun
t
. when Francis Cary Powers was shot: Another triumph of the
down over Russia-this aircraft photo- CIA, possibly in collabora-
graphed strategic targets across the Sovi- Lion With Britain's MI-6, was
et Union, particularly sites of long-range the recruitment in the 1950s
of Col. Oleg Penkovsky, an important
officer at the very center of the Soviet
military establishment.
For a number of years, until lie was
arrested near the end of 1962, Pen-
kovsky supplied the CIA with thousands
of secret documents dealing with Soviet
missile development and deployment,
and other military matters.
To grasp the full significance of this
coup, says one U. S. official, imagine a
trusted colonel in a key position with the
Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon who
works as an active spy and passes on to
the Russians every significant document
that crosses his desk.
Role of technology. Important as
such operations might be, however, they
are far less vital in the gathering of
intelligence than the coding activities of
the National Security Agency at Fort
Meade, Md., and the photographs and
radio-monitoring reports of the U. S.
"spy". satellites.
In fact, most of the nation's
intelligence-gathering has for some time
been done through technology. Expen-
sive satellites are sent into orbits over
Type of Russian submarine involved in "Project Jenni-
fer" was diesel-driven and armed with three missiles.
U.5. NAW
16 ._____ - - Approved For Release 2011/08/03: CIA-RDP02-06341 R000302420036-8
 _J_ Approved For Release 2011/08/03: CIA-RDP02-06341 R000302420036-8
SUMMA co R RORTATiON
Special barge under tow (above) was de-
signed to carry the Soviet submarine after
the Glomar Explorer (right) had raised the
vessel from the floor of the ocean.
Russia, Communist China and other
countries, to pick up military and other
intelligence information. Among them:
? "Big Bird" has been orbiting since
1971. It scans broad land areas with a
wide-angle camera, and radios what it
sees back to ground stations. A giant
narrow-angle camera is trained on tar-
gets of special interest to take close-up
pictures.
? "Project 647" surveillance satellites
sweep around the earth in 20,000-mile-
high orbits. On board are sensors to
detect nuclear blasts and rocket firings,
and long-range television cameras to
flash instant pictures back to U. S. intelli-
gence centers.
? Another type of satellite monitors
military and other electronic communi-
cations, storing the information in a
memory bank for eventual transmission
to a ground station.
Aircraft, flying drones and ocean-
going ships jammed with electronic
equipment are also used to monitor oth-
er countries' communications.
But the great bulk of technical intelli-
gence is gathered on the ground. On
every continent, "listening posts"
manned by National Security Agency
experts record radio broadcasts, Morse-
code transmissions and even television
broadcasts. All of this information, in
time, finds its way back to CIA head-
quarters in Langley, Va., across the Po-
tomac from the nation's capital.
Cost-and criticism. At the CIA
headquarters, "Project Jennifer" must
rank as one of the most successful "cover
stories" ever conceived.
The operation to bitch on to a Russian
submarine and the secrets it carried is
estimated to have cost more than 250
million dollars.
Much of the money went into the
construction of the Clonaur Explorer by
a firm connected with industrialist
Howard Hughes. A similar vessel, the
Gloinar Challenger, had already estab-
lished itself as the most advanced deep-
sea research vessel in operation.
For two years, while the Explorer was
being constructed and tested, the story
made public was that it was destined for
the deep-sea mining of manganese nod-
ules. The story may, in fact, have
spawned a whole new industry, since at
least two dozen companies have formed
well-financed joint ventures to get into
mining operations on the ocean floor.
There is evidence that the ship, besides
being used for the submarine-lifting op-
eration, has also been deployed on at
least one manganese-nodule expedition.
Trouble for CIA? The publication of
details concerning the "Project Jenni-
fer" operation, coming atop executive
and congressional investigations of past
CIA activities, could spell further trou-
ble for the agency.
Some of the questions that are cur-
rently being raised:
? Was the multimillion-dollar expense
really justified-or was it a blunder that
brought little in return?
? Should the CIA have jumped into
au operation that, if' it became public
knowledge, might dam age the delicate
WIDE WORLD
state of detente being nurtured between
the U. S. and Russia?
? Will it bring even more pressure for
congressional control of the agency's
operations-to the possible detriment of
morale within the organization?
CIA sources assert that the project
closely paralleled the U-2 operation in
technique and success. "Think of what
the U-2 launched in terms of intelli-
gence coverage," said an official. "The
submarine-salvage ship now also opens a
whole new field of technology."
Silence in Kremlin. As for Russian
reaction, there was no word from the
Kremlin in the first days of the story's
unfolding. Officials doubted that de-
tente was in danger.
On the question of morale, recent
criticism of CIA actions has made it a
major concern. But officials are certain
that the CIA will survive, that the var-
ious investigators will come around to
the view that the agency is essential, and
that a compromise will be reached be-
tween the need for controls on the CIA
and the need for secrecy.
1i-,the meantime, as long as powerful
world powers try to maintain closed
societies, there will be more operations
of the "Project Jennifer" type.
Many you may never read about.