Project Jennifer

"Jennifer" was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project to recover a sunken Soviet submarine K-129 from the Pacific Ocean floor in the summer of 1974, using the purpose-built ship Glomar Explorer. It was one of the most complex and secretive intelligence operations of the Cold War.

On April 11, 1968 the American ‘Sea Spider’ hydrophone network detected an accidental explosion aboard a Soviet submarine. The Soviets were unable to locate their sunken boat, but Halibut (SSN-587), modified to use specialized search equipment, succeeded in finding it near Hawaii.

Henry Kissinger, then National Security Advisor, approved the clandestine plan to quietly recover the wreckage so as to allow for US study of the Soviet technology. Billionaire businessman Howard Hughes—whose companies were already contractors of numerous US military weapons and aircraft—was secretly contracted by the CIA to build a massive ship that would be used to extract the sunken Soviet submarine from the ocean floor. Thus, on November 1, 1972, work began on the 63,000 ton, 619-foot long Hughes Glomar Explorer. To hide the true mission the ship, a cover story was concocted, asserting that the Hughes Glomar Explorer was being constructed for the Summa Corporation to mine for underwater manganese nodules.

The Hughes Glomar Explorer employed a large mechanical claw that was designed to extend down to the ocean floor and lift the submerged submarine up through 16,500 feet of water. The ship was accompanied by a large submersible barge that was also built specfically for this mission. Named the Hughes Mining Barge, or HMB-1, this second ship was to hold the submarine once recovered. This allowed for the entire salvage process to happen underwater, away from the view of other ships, aircraft, or spy satellites. On July 4, 1974, the Hughes Glomar Explorer and the HMB-1 arrived at the recovery site and conducted salvage operations for over a month. Published reports indicate that during the operation on August 12, 1974, part of the claw broke off, causing the already damaged submarine to break in half while being raised. Only the front 38 feet of the Soviet submarine was salvaged. The published reports conclude that the recovered section did not have the missiles and code books that would have been of extraordinary value for US military intelligence. However, according to some accounts, the section did include two nuclear torpedoes, cipher/code equipment, and various intelligence documents. The bodies of eight crewmen were also recovered. Writer Clyde W. Burleson, author of the 1997 book The Jennifer Project, speculated that indeed the whole submarine was recovered, with the CIA subsequently producing misinformation.

During a burglary of Howard Hughes' headquarters on June 5, 1974, secret documents about the operation were recovered. This lead to a report on Project Jennifer by the Los Angeles Times on February 7, 1975. The CIA then attempted to convince news media to halt publication of related stories. When a journalist used a Freedom of Information Act request to recover CIA documents related to these discussions, the CIA refused to either confirm or deny the existence of such documents. This type of evasive reply has since come to be known as the "Glomar response" or "Glomarization."

The U.S. government sent a video containing the 1974 memorial services for the Soviet seamen to Russia in the early 1990s. In 2003, portions of this video were shown on television programs concerning this operation, including a Cold War submarine episode of NOVA.

External links

• Project Jennifer and the Hughes Glomar Explorer (http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/jennifer.htm)
• Extensive bibliography (http://intellit.muskingum.edu/cia_folder/cia70s_folder/cia70sglomar.html)de:Jennifer-Projekt