DEFENSE: Behind the Great Submarine Snatch

On June 20, 1974, the Glomar Explorer, a new 36,000-ton ship fitted with a tall derrick amidships and towing a submersible barge the size of a football field, sailed from Long Beach, Calif., toward an area in the Pacific 750 miles northwest of Hawaii. Publicly proclaimed to be a special vessel built by Howard Hughes to mine mineral deposits from the ocean floor, the Glomar was actually on a CIA mission approved by the White House. Its code name: Project Jennifer. Its aim: to salvage a Soviet submarine that had plunged 16,000ft....

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