8 ms·

The CIA's most famous ship headed for the scrapyard

146 points by cryoshon 11y ago

pavel_lishin 11y ago
Project Azorian was also featured in Charles Stross's "The Jennifer Morgue", which takes this particular CIA mission and its cover, and wraps it in something supernatural. A+ read.
- mindcrime 11y ago
  I enjoyed the heck out of The Jennifer Morgue (like all the other Laundry Files books) but - until now - had no idea any part of it was based on something real. This is rather mind-blowing. Nice job by Mr. Stross, weaving in some interesting real-world stuff into his quite fantastical world. Now I'm going to feel the need to go back and re-read the rest of the Laundry books and see if I can find any similar tie-ins.
aembleton 11y ago
I found this video of the burial of the soviet sailors incredibly respectful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFWMo7aHDRo&noredirect=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFWMo7aHDRo&noredirect=1
- pavel_lishin 11y ago
  I wonder how much of it was done as a hedge against the time when this would eventually come out. "Sure, we tried to steal your sunken sub. But look, we played nice."
  - Loic 11y ago
    No, this is part of the marine culture. It comes from the fact that the see is the strongest, keeping everybody humble in face of nature.
    - samstave 11y ago
      Sea
  - InclinedPlane 11y ago
    Had that been the case they would have taken higher quality video. There's nothing to indicate the sentiment wasn't genuine.
  - trhway 11y ago
    yea, man, in any case it beats waiting for several days while your own sailors on Kursk were banging at the walls. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_submarine_Kursk_%28K-141%29#Rescue_attempts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_submarine_Kursk_%28K-1...) It was just 100m depth - a normal dive for professional divers - and i just remember how it was surprising that nothing was done during the next couple days. I mean such paralysis is typical for Russian bureaucratic machine, be it civilian or military (remember Rust?), yet these bangs were obviously easily heard by the listening anti-submarine posts of the Russian Navy ships idling right on top of it and nobody did nothing while waiting for the orders from "the top" and working around the clock trying to cover their a&&es.
    - cmdkeen 11y ago
      While NATO offered to activate the submarine rescue system to assist. Most militaries respect their opponents, and all sailors respect the sea. It's when that is lacking that you start to see abuses more likely to occur - WW2 Japan in general, Germany against the Russians, the US against Iraqis since 2003.
      - Pinatubo 11y ago
        You really need to read more military history.
  - runjake 11y ago
    There was a book that covered this -- maybe one of the James Bamford books, and it was related by the sources as an act of respect and marine tradition and nothing indicating it had to do with the eventual declassification of the event. This sort of mutual respect and tradition between enemy aircrews is not uncommon.
  - dimlyaware 11y ago
    My grandfather was an engineer on this project - it was done as a hedge against it coming out.
  - eonw 11y ago
    kind a cynical outlook. sailors have respect for each other, just as all warriors do.
  - tsotha 11y ago
    I worked with the US navy for years, and while I suspect this was taped so they could prove the Soviet sailors were treated with respect, I have no doubt they would have treated the dead honorably in any case. That's the way sailors (particularly military) think, because they know they themselves could be under a flag tomorrow. They don't operate under the same day-to-day assumptions the rest of us do.
- _sword 11y ago
  I entirely agree, it's really amazing to me, especially the eulogy's reflection on the Cold War, how the conflict was personalized, and how mutual respect for service people is rendered. I can totally see how this could have been constructed in case news of the burial leaked to calm international outcry, but nevertheless I feel a profound respect for the ceremony. "And so as we return their mortal remains to the deep, we do so in a way that we hope would have had meaning to them and clothed with a representative portion of the ship on which they served and perished."
- hansjorg 11y ago
  Certainly an attempt at a respectful ceremony, but also an incredibly creepy look into the minds of people who have gone off the deep end regarding 'patriotism'.
vcarl 11y ago
> From about 1970-74, the CIA managed to convince the world that billionaire inventor Howard Hughes had decided to invest millions to mine “manganese nodules,” balls of heavy metals that lie on the ocean floor. Via fake press releases, events, technical specs and front companies, the CIA convinced the world that Hughes was leading a new ocean-mining rush. This sounds exactly like James Cameron's astroid mining. I wonder if we'll find out in 50 years that the CIA was recovering a Russian spaceship.
- trhway 11y ago
  >that the CIA was recovering a Russian spaceship not Russian, i mean like not of Earth origin...
- cryoshon 11y ago
  The most difficult task of discovering these charades is openmindedness. Imagine, after all of the press releases and discussion around manganese nodule harvesting, saying Howard Hughes wasn't interested in mining manganese nodules at all, but sunken Russian ships. You'd be labeled as crazy. First off, people would be asking where the heck you got the idea that something along the lines of manganese nodules could actually be a cover story for the CIA. Then, you'd be slammed for saying things counter to the mainstream narrative. Finally, if you were somehow gaining a lot of traction (but how could you! who even cares about recovering sunken Russian ships) you might get a visit asking for your silence.
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    Being openminded isn't much of a start though. How do you narrow down which seemingly-normal things are really facades for something? How do you privilege the hypothesis[1]? If you were, in this case, claiming it was because the CI was looking for Russian ships - what evidence do you have? Given enough conspiracy theories, at least one will be right. But that one right one shouldn't be accorded any point if there was no reason to believe it over other ideas. 1: http://lesswrong.com/lw/19m/privileging_the_hypothesis/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/19m/privileging_the_hypothesis/
samstave 11y ago
Make sure to watch the documentary. It's amazing.
- kelvin0 11y ago
  Which documentary? Do you happen to have a link? Sorry I was not able to infer which one you mentionned
  - samstave 11y ago
    http://m.imdb.com/title/tt2042455/ http://m.imdb.com/title/tt2042455/
baerga 11y ago
I just love the root of the "neither confirm nor deny" terminology.
bubbleHead 11y ago
The K-129 was diesel-powered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(1960) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(1960) The missiles were nuclear-tipped, though. More reading: http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(1960) http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(1960)
whoopdedo 11y ago
A similar thing happened when the USS Scorpion sunk. The Navy wanted to check the wreckage and recover or destroy the nuclear warheads, but without tipping-off the Soviets. So they hired Robert Ballard and had him use the cover story of searching for the Titanic. That he actually found it was a nice bonus. So remember not too long ago when James Cameron made a big deal about exploring the Mariana Trench? Makes you wonder what else was down there that we won't find out about for another 40 years.
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  What? Ballard found the Titanic in 1985. Scorpion was found in 1968, by a Navy ship as part of a public search. edit: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080602-titanic-secret_2.html http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080602-titan... says Ballard was involved in checking the nuclear reactors of Scorpion and Thresher to make sure they were safe, but that was years after their wrecks were found, and not nuclear warheads.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
It would be incredibly cool if someone bought this ship and used it to actually mine manganese nodules. Or alternatively create a vacuum for methane clathrates. Park it next to Shell's new LNG ship, vacuum up a few billion cu ft of natural gas. For reference, the composition of Manganese Nodules: http://crustal.usgs.gov/geochemical_reference_standards/mangana1.html http://crustal.usgs.gov/geochemical_reference_standards/mang...
jonah 11y ago
The secrecy following the attempt led to creation of the now widely known and used Glomar Response: "We can neither confirm nor deny..." http://www.radiolab.org/story/confirm-nor-deny/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/confirm-nor-deny/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response
- MBCook 11y ago
  That was my immediate thought when I saw the headline. I couldn't think of any other ship the CIA could possibly be famous for. And the only reason I know the term Glomar is because of that fantastic Radio Lab episode.
takinola 11y ago
Once when I was offshore on a drill ship, I remember being utterly fascinated when I read about the story of a CIA ship pretending to search for "manganese nodules" but was in actual fact searching for sunken Russian submarines. I almost blew my gasket when I realized the ship in question was the same one I was sitting on at the time.
brc 11y ago
So what part of the submarine did they get? Or is that still classified?

146 points by cryoshon 11y ago

Project Azorian was also featured in Charles Stross's "The Jennifer Morgue", which takes this particular CIA mission and its cover, and wraps it in something supernatural. A+ read.

mindcrime 11y ago
I enjoyed the heck out of The Jennifer Morgue (like all the other Laundry Files books) but - until now - had no idea any part of it was based on something real. This is rather mind-blowing. Nice job by Mr. Stross, weaving in some interesting real-world stuff into his quite fantastical world. Now I'm going to feel the need to go back and re-read the rest of the Laundry books and see if I can find any similar tie-ins.

aembleton 11y ago

I found this video of the burial of the soviet sailors incredibly respectful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFWMo7aHDRo&noredirect=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFWMo7aHDRo&noredirect=1

pavel_lishin 11y ago
I wonder how much of it was done as a hedge against the time when this would eventually come out. "Sure, we tried to steal your sunken sub. But look, we played nice."
- Loic 11y ago
  No, this is part of the marine culture. It comes from the fact that the see is the strongest, keeping everybody humble in face of nature.
  - samstave 11y ago
    Sea
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  Had that been the case they would have taken higher quality video. There's nothing to indicate the sentiment wasn't genuine.
- trhway 11y ago
  yea, man, in any case it beats waiting for several days while your own sailors on Kursk were banging at the walls. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_submarine_Kursk_%28K-141%29#Rescue_attempts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_submarine_Kursk_%28K-1...) It was just 100m depth - a normal dive for professional divers - and i just remember how it was surprising that nothing was done during the next couple days. I mean such paralysis is typical for Russian bureaucratic machine, be it civilian or military (remember Rust?), yet these bangs were obviously easily heard by the listening anti-submarine posts of the Russian Navy ships idling right on top of it and nobody did nothing while waiting for the orders from "the top" and working around the clock trying to cover their a&&es.
  - cmdkeen 11y ago
    While NATO offered to activate the submarine rescue system to assist. Most militaries respect their opponents, and all sailors respect the sea. It's when that is lacking that you start to see abuses more likely to occur - WW2 Japan in general, Germany against the Russians, the US against Iraqis since 2003.
    - Pinatubo 11y ago
      You really need to read more military history.
- runjake 11y ago
  There was a book that covered this -- maybe one of the James Bamford books, and it was related by the sources as an act of respect and marine tradition and nothing indicating it had to do with the eventual declassification of the event. This sort of mutual respect and tradition between enemy aircrews is not uncommon.
- dimlyaware 11y ago
  My grandfather was an engineer on this project - it was done as a hedge against it coming out.
- eonw 11y ago
  kind a cynical outlook. sailors have respect for each other, just as all warriors do.
- tsotha 11y ago
  I worked with the US navy for years, and while I suspect this was taped so they could prove the Soviet sailors were treated with respect, I have no doubt they would have treated the dead honorably in any case. That's the way sailors (particularly military) think, because they know they themselves could be under a flag tomorrow. They don't operate under the same day-to-day assumptions the rest of us do.
_sword 11y ago
I entirely agree, it's really amazing to me, especially the eulogy's reflection on the Cold War, how the conflict was personalized, and how mutual respect for service people is rendered. I can totally see how this could have been constructed in case news of the burial leaked to calm international outcry, but nevertheless I feel a profound respect for the ceremony. "And so as we return their mortal remains to the deep, we do so in a way that we hope would have had meaning to them and clothed with a representative portion of the ship on which they served and perished."
hansjorg 11y ago
Certainly an attempt at a respectful ceremony, but also an incredibly creepy look into the minds of people who have gone off the deep end regarding 'patriotism'.

vcarl 11y ago

> From about 1970-74, the CIA managed to convince the world that billionaire inventor Howard Hughes had decided to invest millions to mine “manganese nodules,” balls of heavy metals that lie on the ocean floor. Via fake press releases, events, technical specs and front companies, the CIA convinced the world that Hughes was leading a new ocean-mining rush. This sounds exactly like James Cameron's astroid mining. I wonder if we'll find out in 50 years that the CIA was recovering a Russian spaceship.

trhway 11y ago
>that the CIA was recovering a Russian spaceship not Russian, i mean like not of Earth origin...
cryoshon 11y ago
The most difficult task of discovering these charades is openmindedness. Imagine, after all of the press releases and discussion around manganese nodule harvesting, saying Howard Hughes wasn't interested in mining manganese nodules at all, but sunken Russian ships. You'd be labeled as crazy. First off, people would be asking where the heck you got the idea that something along the lines of manganese nodules could actually be a cover story for the CIA. Then, you'd be slammed for saying things counter to the mainstream narrative. Finally, if you were somehow gaining a lot of traction (but how could you! who even cares about recovering sunken Russian ships) you might get a visit asking for your silence.
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  Being openminded isn't much of a start though. How do you narrow down which seemingly-normal things are really facades for something? How do you privilege the hypothesis[1]? If you were, in this case, claiming it was because the CI was looking for Russian ships - what evidence do you have? Given enough conspiracy theories, at least one will be right. But that one right one shouldn't be accorded any point if there was no reason to believe it over other ideas. 1: http://lesswrong.com/lw/19m/privileging_the_hypothesis/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/19m/privileging_the_hypothesis/

samstave 11y ago

Make sure to watch the documentary. It's amazing.

kelvin0 11y ago
Which documentary? Do you happen to have a link? Sorry I was not able to infer which one you mentionned
- samstave 11y ago
  http://m.imdb.com/title/tt2042455/ http://m.imdb.com/title/tt2042455/

baerga 11y ago

I just love the root of the "neither confirm nor deny" terminology.

bubbleHead 11y ago

The K-129 was diesel-powered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(1960) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(1960) The missiles were nuclear-tipped, though. More reading: http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(1960) http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(1960)

whoopdedo 11y ago

A similar thing happened when the USS Scorpion sunk. The Navy wanted to check the wreckage and recover or destroy the nuclear warheads, but without tipping-off the Soviets. So they hired Robert Ballard and had him use the cover story of searching for the Titanic. That he actually found it was a nice bonus. So remember not too long ago when James Cameron made a big deal about exploring the Mariana Trench? Makes you wonder what else was down there that we won't find out about for another 40 years.

ceejayoz 11y ago
What? Ballard found the Titanic in 1985. Scorpion was found in 1968, by a Navy ship as part of a public search. edit: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080602-titanic-secret_2.html http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080602-titan... says Ballard was involved in checking the nuclear reactors of Scorpion and Thresher to make sure they were safe, but that was years after their wrecks were found, and not nuclear warheads.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

It would be incredibly cool if someone bought this ship and used it to actually mine manganese nodules. Or alternatively create a vacuum for methane clathrates. Park it next to Shell's new LNG ship, vacuum up a few billion cu ft of natural gas. For reference, the composition of Manganese Nodules: http://crustal.usgs.gov/geochemical_reference_standards/mangana1.html http://crustal.usgs.gov/geochemical_reference_standards/mang...

jonah 11y ago

The secrecy following the attempt led to creation of the now widely known and used Glomar Response: "We can neither confirm nor deny..." http://www.radiolab.org/story/confirm-nor-deny/ http://www.radiolab.org/story/confirm-nor-deny/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response

MBCook 11y ago
That was my immediate thought when I saw the headline. I couldn't think of any other ship the CIA could possibly be famous for. And the only reason I know the term Glomar is because of that fantastic Radio Lab episode.

takinola 11y ago

Once when I was offshore on a drill ship, I remember being utterly fascinated when I read about the story of a CIA ship pretending to search for "manganese nodules" but was in actual fact searching for sunken Russian submarines. I almost blew my gasket when I realized the ship in question was the same one I was sitting on at the time.

brc 11y ago

So what part of the submarine did they get? Or is that still classified?