Category Archives: cia

Glomar Explorer headed to the scrap heap

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With global oil prices falling to $40 a barrel in the wake of oil sands fracking and Iran coming back online, TransOcean is scrapping some 20 of their older deepwater oil drilling ships. One of these, the MV Glomar Explorer, is kinda famous.

On March 1, 1968, a Soviet Golf-II ballistic missile sub (basically a Zulu-class diesel attack sub modified to carry three Scud missiles), the K-129 (pennant 722), carrying three advanced SS-N-4 R-21 Sark nukes, sailed from Petropavlovsk to take up its peacetime patrol station 1,600 miles northeast of Hawaii.

Well something went bad fast and K-129 went down with all hands sometime around March 8th or so. The Navy’s SOSUS underwater sonar system got close enough to the wreck for government work and, after the Soviet effort to find their lost boat died down (reported by USS Barb, SSN-596, who was reportedly trailing K-129) , the USN pinpointed the wreck with deep diving research submarines and forwarded the info to Langley.

That’s when the CIA decided they wanted a ship that could lift a 1,750-ton submarine off the seafloor from a depth of 16,500 feet– 3 miles– back to the surface.

So they called Howard Hughes and opened the pocketbook (she cost over $1.6 billion in today’s money) for an immense custom built deepwater salvage ship, the 50,500-ton, 619-foot long GSF Hughes Glomar Explorer. In all, she was a big girl, the size of a WWII aircraft carrier and is today capable of reaching down to 30,000 feet to conduct exploratory oil field drilling and mining.

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But back in 1973 her mission was veiled in secrecy. Operated by the Suma Corporation under the cover of harvesting manganese nodules from the ocean floor, she was semi-secretly added to the Navy as USNS Glomar Explorer (AG-193) in July and soon headed out to literally pick up K-129 and bring it home as part of a secret operation named Project Azorian.

glomar1The story of the salvage was tense (detailed here in this really interesting 50-page redacted intelligence brief) , with two different Soviet naval auxiliaries approaching danger close.

The first the 459-foot missile range instrumentation ship Chazhma, approached and hung around for a couple days, with her helicopter buzzing the ship several times taking pictures while sending a series of signals asking just WTF Glomar Explorer was up to.

The second, SB-10, a 155-foot submarine support ship/salvage tug, remained on station for 13 days and 16 hours, closing to within 75 yards at times and having to be repeatedly warned off.

Unarmed and capable of just 10 knots when wide open, the Hughes ship was a sitting duck.

In the end, Glomar Explorer picked up a 145-foot section of the sub with its giant central claw and brought it back to the states.

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While the intelligence community hasn’t really broke down the contents of the section– which was reportedly radioactive– it was thought to include a couple of nuclear-tipped torpedoes but no missiles or code books in the 24 vans of material removed from the wreckage.

What is known is that it contained the bodies of six lost Soviet Red Banner Fleet sailors, who were buried at sea with full military honors in Sept. 1974 as seen in the CIA video below.

DCI Robert Gates presented a film of the burial ceremony to Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1992.

However, before Glomar Explorer could sail back and pick up the rest of the stricken sub, a Feb. 1975 leak in the LA Times relating the involvement of Hughes, CIA and the operation itself (incorrectly termed Project Jennifer) blew the cover on the whole op, ending it (as far as we know).

Glomar Explorer was soon shuffled over to the National Defense Reserve Fleet, Suisun Bay, Benecia, California where she sat until 5 November 1996, when she was leased out for $1 million per year to a string of oil companies, the last of which is TransOcean, who purchased the ship from the Navy for $15 million in 2010.

Currently under the flag of Vanuatu, she is set to be scrapped in coming months.

Project Whale Tale

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In the 1960s the U-2 spy plane was the most advance manned recon aircraft in the world. However, all planes have a finite range. With that in mind, the CIA wanted to test stretching the U-2’s range to help get those “hard to reach” areas by using strategically placed U.S. Navy aircraft carriers as launching, receiving or refueling points. After all, they figured if a B-25 could take off from a 1942-era carrier, why couldn’t a U-2 take off from a larger one in 1962?

Thus began the saga of Project Whale Tale which ran from 1963-69 and saw CIA pilots get carrier qualed on T-2 Buckeye trainers from USS Lexington and test their actual long-winged spy planes from USS Kitty Hawk and USS America.

U-2 on deck of USS America CV-66

U-2 on deck of USS America CV-66

According to The Aviationist, the operational ability to take off from and land on a carrier was used only once, in May 1964, when a U-2G operating off the USS Ranger was used to monitor the French nuclear test range, at Mururoa Atoll, in the South Pacific Ocean, well out of range of any land-based U-2 aircraft.

Still, it was done and who knows what happened that has yet to be declassified. So if an old salt tells you a tale of a visit when he was in the service of a blacked out powered glider with a 103 ft wingspan, don’t write it off as so much fluff.

The shit couldhave happened.  Keep in mind that the U-2 is still in active service.

Here is a neat video (without sound) of some U-2 carrier ops

Combat Gallery Sunday : The (Secret) Martial art of Edward L. Cooper

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Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.

Combat Gallery Sunday : The (Secret) Martial art of Edward L. Cooper

During the darkest days of the Cold War, from about the Cuban Missile Crisis until the Berlin Wall came down, the Defense Intelligence Agency was the go-to analytical group of the U.S. Intelligence Community that specialized in the nuts and bolts of a coming war. They came up with the specs and databases on foreign weapons and deployments. For instance, how many Backfire bombers the Soviet 22nd Air Regiment had and what was the range of the cruise missiles they likely carried.

The thing was, most available imagery of these systems was rather like pictures of bigfoot and UFOs as they were either captured by operatives with very small pocket cameras or at great distances from the deck of a moving ship or submarine. To really capture the imagination of the admirals, generals and privy lawmakers/cabinet members who needed to know, the DIA commissioned extremely well vetted in-house artists to take what was known about these weapons and turn them into a depiction of what (they believed at the time) looked like.

In these thirty years, highly skilled but shadowy artists such as Ronald C. Wittmann, Richard J. Terry and Brian W. McMullin, produced amazing art of things most westerners had very little if any idea of. Over 1,000 paintings all told. These would be used in both classified and unclassified (annual editions of Soviet Military Power and later the Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China) produced by the Pentagon and distributed to those in Congress and elsewhere.

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One of the more prolific and multi-talented of these was Edward L. Cooper.

Soviet Mobile Laser in Afghanistan by Edward L Cooper

Soviet Mobile Laser in Afghanistan by Edward L Cooper. Click to big up

Soviet Kiev class aircraft carrier in a floating drydowck

Soviet Kiev class aircraft carrier in a floating drydock. Cick to big up

SOVIET BLACKJACK LOADING AS-16 MISSILES - Edward L. Cooper, 1987.

SOVIET BLACKJACK LOADING AS-16 MISSILES – Edward L. Cooper, 1987. Click to big up

Soviet Mike class attack submarine. Courtesy of Soviet Military Power, 1984. Photo 64, page 61.

Soviet Mike class attack submarine. Courtesy of Soviet Military Power, 1984. Photo 64, page 61. big up

SOVIET 203-MM 2S7 SELF-PROPELLED GUN - Edward L. Cooper, 1987

SOVIET 203-MM 2S7 SELF-PROPELLED GUN – Edward L. Cooper, 1987 big up

SOVIET MI-24 HIND DELIVERING CHEMICAL SPRAY - Edward L. Cooper, 1986

SOVIET MI-24 HIND DELIVERING CHEMICAL SPRAY – Edward L. Cooper, 1986 big up

TYPHOON Replenishing in the Arctic cooper

TYPHOON Replenishing in the Arctic cooper. big up

SOVIET 280-MM MULTIPLE ROCKET LAUNCHER - Edward L. Cooper, 1988

SOVIET 280-MM MULTIPLE ROCKET LAUNCHER – Edward L. Cooper, 1988. big up

SOVIET GROUND-BASED LASER - Edward L. Cooper, 1986

SOVIET GROUND-BASED LASER – Edward L. Cooper, 1986. big up

DELTA Class SSBN Firing ballistic missile from the safety of the Arctic bastion, Edward L Cooper DIA 1985

DELTA Class SSBN Firing ballistic missile from the safety of the Arctic bastion, Edward L Cooper DIA 1985 big up

SOVIET BM-27 MULTIPLE ROCKET LAUNCHER - Edward L. Cooper, 1986

SOVIET BM-27 MULTIPLE ROCKET LAUNCHER – Edward L. Cooper, 1986. big up

Tu-22M_Backfire_loads_AS-16_Kickback

Tu-22M_Backfire_loads_AS-16_Kickback

YANKEE Class SSGN firing SS-NX-24 Cruise Missiles while submerged, Edward L Cooper DIA 1986

YANKEE Class SSGN firing SS-NX-24 Cruise Missiles while submerged, Edward L Cooper DIA 1986. Big up

ZSU anti-aircraft guns Edward L. Cooper, 1987

ZSU anti-aircraft guns Edward L. Cooper, 1987. Big up

SOVIET RAIL-MOBILE SS-24 MOD 1 INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILE - Edward L. Cooper, 1988

SOVIET RAIL-MOBILE SS-24 MOD 1 INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILE – Edward L. Cooper, 1988. big up

DELTA-III Class SSBN firing SS-N-18 missiles while submerged, Edward L Cooper DIA 1987

DELTA-III Class SSBN firing SS-N-18 missiles while submerged, Edward L Cooper DIA 1987

In 1996 the agency released a bunch of the artwork publicly and even sold a number as prints, but since then has taken down the galleries. But hey, the art is still out there in a number of places including Global Security, Wiki  the Federation of American Scientists and elsewhere.

According to FAS, “Edward Cooper is the only one of the original visual information specialists still employed at the Agency. He’s still working at the graphics office. He switched his drawing table with a computer. Cooper and some of his colleagues still keep on working in their free time even after retirement.”

Thank you for your work, sir.

SR-71 Pilot’s Survival Kit

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Flying over Soviet-controlled airspace in the coldest part of the Cold War, U.S. recon aircraft (spy plane) pilots carried some interesting gear if needed.

U-2 Pilot Survival Kit including Machete, hunting knife w scabbard, sharpening stone, pliers, file, monocular, insect repellent, compass, whistle, etc (plus other goodies)

U-2 Pilot Survival Kit including Machete, hunting knife w scabbard, sharpening stone, pliers, file, monocular, insect repellent, compass, whistle, etc (plus other goodies)

The kit above, it should be noted, is not complete.

In 1960, sheep-dipped US Air Force Lt. Gary Powers was somewhere that never existed in a plane that wasn’t on the official record.

Francis Gary Powers and a U2. Now that's one tight suit.

Francis Gary Powers and a U2. Now that’s one tight suit.

His plane, the U-2 recon aircraft was shot down over the Ural mountain city of Sverdlovsk in the Soviet Union.  Placed on public trial in Moscow, Powers admitted that his craft was in fact a CIA operated top-secret spy plane. In the trial, the Soviets produced a silenced Hi-Standard model USA-HD caliber .22LR, serial number 120046. The serial number is not listed in High Standard’s books and it has commonly been surmised that it was sold on spec to the CIA for operatives in the 1950s. Others were reportedly made without any markings whatsoever to be ‘sterile’ and thus deniable.

Francis Gary Power's gun, still in a Moscow museum since 1960.

Francis Gary Power’s gun, still in a Moscow museum since 1960.

Then came the SR-71, which, as far as is known, was never shot down on a mission.

One long-standing joke/urban legend was that the SR-71’s survival kit contained: “One forty-five caliber automatic; two boxes of ammunition; four days’ concentrated emergency rations; one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible; one hundred dollars in rubles; one hundred dollars in gold; nine packs of chewing gum; one issue of prophylactics; three lipsticks; three pair of nylon stockings.”

Life Hacker did a decent write-up on what one of these kits contained.

SR-71 pilots survival kit

SR-71 pilots survival kit in a museum, as told by Lifehacker

 

Well now TSC Machine Shop is billing their new HKG3K-B Title II (Class III) NFA-registered Heckler and Koch light machine gun build, tongue-in-cheek, as part of the SR-71 kit.

HK G3K-B

If you were lucky enough to land in one piece, one of these would be a heck of an interesting survival guns if lost ‘somewhere over Siberia’.

Now that's what I'm talking about

Now that’s what I’m talking about

Stay classy, CIA, stay classy

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Apparently the Central Intelligence Agency is now tweeting.
tweet

You have to admit, the first tweet is (or isn’t?) an instant hit. Old Allen Dulles is rolling around as we speak.

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