Word: sub
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...next problem was to bring the sub to the surface. Since the operation would have to be paid for and carried out in deepest secrecy, the Navy turned to the CIA for help. One of the agency's deputy directors presented the proposal to Richard Helms, then CIA director. "He damn near threw me out the window," says the man, recalling Helms' initial reaction. " 'You must be crazy,' he told...
Towing the ungainly barge in her wake, the Glomar Explorer headed for the open sea on June 20, 1974, ready at last to attempt the culmination of Project Jennifer. By about mid-July the odd convoy reached the site of the sunken Soviet sub. The delicate salvage operation got under way. Despite the chop of waves and force of the current, it was necessary for the Glomar Explorer to maintain an almost impossible stationary position, straying no more than 50 ft. in any direction. To do that, the ship dropped a series of bottom-placed transducers, which detected the force...
...delay the story--which included Time, Newsweek, CBS and NBC--took Colby's word that the operation was important. There is no evidence that any organization tried carefully to establish, on its own, exactly why the CIA needed to recover the codes and warheads from a 17-year-old sub that sank seven years ago. Most of them apparently took the Colby briefings on the importance of the whole affair at face value. Jack Anderson found some experienced naval sources who scoffed at the intelligence value of the sub, which is one reason he felt free to break the news...
With that in mind, it's worth noting that the sub story isn't the only CIA news The Times has kept from the public recently. Alexander Cockburn, The Village Voice's excellent press critic, reports that President Ford told The Times's editors about two weeks ago that the CIA might have planned and even carried out assasinations of foreign leaders. The editors did not print a story about the Ford disclosure. Instead, the information leaked from Times man to Times man, and finally, to Daniel Shorr of CBS. He broadcast the story, and the next morning. The Times...
This pack-journalism nonsense--watching what the other guy does before deciding whether to print news you have--permeated the sub salvage story as well. When Colby visited one news organization, he would always brag about the others that he had "locked up"--in other words, that he had convinced not to publish the story. As a result, newspapers and networks watched each other with special care, anxious for a sign that the story was about to break. There was no concern for getting the news out; the concern was with not getting scooped by the opposition. When Anderson broke...