It all began with an accident. Some time in 1968, somewhere in the northwest Pacific, the Soviet submarine surfaced to recharge its batteries. There was an explosion, perhaps caused by a spark that ignited trapped gases in the hull Before a single member of the crew could escape, the craft plummeted to the ocean floor about three miles below. But not to an unknown grave. U.S. Navy devices picked up the stricken submarine's last throes and were able to place the wreckage within a ten-mile-square area. The Soviet navy was not so fortunate. A Soviet task force searched for traces of its missing vessel far from the actual site. When the Soviets finally gave up looking, U.S. authorities realized that only they knew the lost submarine's resting place—and Project Jennifer was born.
Part I: The Salvage Operation
Project Jennifer, whose existence was disclosed last week, grew into an enterprise that eventually cost $350 million, employed more than 4,000 people, and brought into partnership America's most secret institution, the CIA, and its most secret citizen, Howard Hughes. It also, in its way, pushed the limits of engineering and technology almost as far as Project Apollo, which took man to the moon, and may well have been the largest and most expensive espionage effort in the long history of man's spying on man. The aim was simple: to raise the submarine from its grave without the Soviets' knowledge, in order to learn some of the secrets of their nuclear weaponry, targeting and codes. The submarine was believed to be armed with three nuclear missiles and perhaps some nuclear-tipped torpedoes; like all Soviet warships, it had an array of sophisticated coding and decoding devices for secret communication.
The first step was to locate the submarine precisely. The Navy dispatched to the waters north of Hawaii its ultrasecret research ship Mizar, a floating electronics laboratory. Like a fishing boat seeking to snare an exotic fish, Mizar put overboard an array of devices: sonar, electronic scanners, cameras equipped with powerful strobe lights, and a magnetic sensor that reacts to the presence of metal on the seabed. For two months Mizar patiently towed its paraphernalia across every inch of the ten-mile-square area until it had detected, scanned and thoroughly photographed the Soviet submarine.
The 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 me."
Later, Helms began to see the beauty of the plan. Soon his other top aides, who knew nothing about the proposal, became curious about the brisk parade of Pentagon officials and high-ranking Navy officers that passed through Helms' office.