WEBVTT - Project Azorian's Sunken Sub

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<v Speaker 1>Hey, I'll use snaffoo fans or snaffo heads, snap snaff snaffoops,

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<v Speaker 1>for it. I'm not gonna judge. Anywhere you read is

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<v Speaker 1>a good place to read. Okay. So just to give

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<v Speaker 1>you a little snapshot or a little glimpse into the book,

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<v Speaker 1>this week, I have pulled an exclusive chapter from the

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<v Speaker 1>Snafu audiobook, narrated in its entirety by yours truly. Project

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<v Speaker 1>Azorian a tale stranger than fiction involving Cold War chaos,

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<v Speaker 1>a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine, a giant claw machine built

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<v Speaker 1>to withstand treacherous ocean depths, and everyone's favorite mid century

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<v Speaker 1>mad cap billionaire, Howard Hughes. Yes, even the legendary Howard

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<v Speaker 1>Hughes is tied up in this one, so don't forget.

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<v Speaker 1>The book is available in bookstores everywhere or online at

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<v Speaker 1>Amazon or of course our own website, Snaffo dashbook dot com.

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<v Speaker 1>That is Snafu dashbook dot com. And now please enjoy

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<v Speaker 1>the riproaring adventure of the CIA's Project Azorian. Project Azorian

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<v Speaker 1>a sub above how the CIA tried to win the

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<v Speaker 1>world's most expensive and difficult claw machine. In the early

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<v Speaker 1>hours of June fifth, nineteen seventy four, security guard Mike

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<v Speaker 1>Davis stood outside the building at seventy twenty Romain Street

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<v Speaker 1>in Hollywood. As he enjoyed the balmy sixty degree weather

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<v Speaker 1>the light of the full moon shining through the cloudy

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<v Speaker 1>Mike suddenly felt something pressing into his back a gun.

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<v Speaker 1>A group of four burglars grabbed poor Mike and forced

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<v Speaker 1>him to unlock the door. Why did these thieves want

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<v Speaker 1>to get inside so badly? Because the building Mike was

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<v Speaker 1>guarding was the corporate headquarters of Howard Hughes, the reclusive

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<v Speaker 1>billionaire aviator, film producer, philanthropist, and all around all American

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<v Speaker 1>weirdo rich guy. Think Jeff Bezos, but with a pencil

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<v Speaker 1>thin mustache and actually, you know, adventurous. After the burglars

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<v Speaker 1>forced Mike to let them in, they wheeled in a

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<v Speaker 1>heavy tank filled with highly flammable acetylene gas. They mazed

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<v Speaker 1>their way through the Art Deco style two story building

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<v Speaker 1>before finally marching into an office that contained a safe

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<v Speaker 1>and a large vault jackpot. Wait a second, you might

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<v Speaker 1>be asking, The burglars just waltzed right in there. Shouldn't

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<v Speaker 1>this famously secretive I have some sort of security or

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<v Speaker 1>alarm system for this building that houses his sensitive, top

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<v Speaker 1>secret shit well reader or listener. There was an alarm system,

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<v Speaker 1>it just wasn't working. Actually, it had been out of

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<v Speaker 1>order for some time, and Mike was the only guard

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<v Speaker 1>on duty. Seriously, this place had worse security than the

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<v Speaker 1>gas station where my friends and I used to steal

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<v Speaker 1>packs of gum as kids. The burglars turned on the

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<v Speaker 1>acetylene tank and grabbed their torches. You know the big

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<v Speaker 1>heist scene and Thief where James Kahn puts on a

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<v Speaker 1>welding suit, lights up a long ass torch and drives

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<v Speaker 1>it straight into a locked metal door as sparks fly everywhere.

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<v Speaker 1>Just imagine that. And after hours of slowly melting the

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<v Speaker 1>door off its hinges, one of the burglars took off

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<v Speaker 1>his suit, wiped his brow, and smirked as he said,

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<v Speaker 1>we're in. The burglars stormed into the vault and grabbed

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<v Speaker 1>everything they could. Four hours after first arriving, the burglars escaped,

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<v Speaker 1>hauling the acetylene tank with them and all their stolen loot.

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<v Speaker 1>They ended up with quite the grab bag. Sixty eight

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<v Speaker 1>thousand dollars in cash, two Wedgewood vases, a ceramic samovar,

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<v Speaker 1>two butterfly collections, three digital watches, and an antique Mongolian

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<v Speaker 1>eating bowl. Again, Hughes was a rich weirdo. Maybe he

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<v Speaker 1>was planning on sitting down to a delicious meal of

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<v Speaker 1>pickled butterflies perfectly arranged in his Mongolian bowl. But even

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<v Speaker 1>more valuable than those preserved critters and antiques were two

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<v Speaker 1>foot lockers full of files, documents that would soon cause

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<v Speaker 1>an international diplomatic scandal. These documents revealed Hughes's participation in

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<v Speaker 1>a secret CIA plot that involved a sunken Soviet submarine,

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<v Speaker 1>underwater nukes, and the most difficult claw game in the

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<v Speaker 1>world the sub It all began six years earlier, on

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<v Speaker 1>March first, nineteen sixty eight, when a Soviet submarine named

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<v Speaker 1>K one twenty nine sailed out from a naval base

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<v Speaker 1>in Petropavlovsk, way out in the Russian Far East and

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<v Speaker 1>over four thousand miles from Moscow. K one twenty nine

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<v Speaker 1>was equipped with three nuclear warheads. Each single warhead was

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<v Speaker 1>nearly seventy times more powerful than the bomb dropped by

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<v Speaker 1>the United States on Hiroshima. In the case of nuclear war,

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<v Speaker 1>the sub would fire off its nukes to targets on

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<v Speaker 1>the west coast of the United States. The sub began

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<v Speaker 1>its standard peacetime patrol in the North Pacific, but at

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<v Speaker 1>some point in the middle of March, the Soviets lost

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<v Speaker 1>communication with K one twenty nine. The sub went radio silent.

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<v Speaker 1>It's still not clear exactly what happened. A declassified, heavily

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<v Speaker 1>redacted CIA report published in nineteen eight five simply says

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<v Speaker 1>that the submarine suffered an accident, cause unknown and sank

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<v Speaker 1>one thousand, five hundred and sixty miles northwest of Hawaii.

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<v Speaker 1>The report is also mom about how the CIA came

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<v Speaker 1>to ascertain the location of the sub sinking. According to

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<v Speaker 1>military historian Matthew Aid, archival documents have suggested that the

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<v Speaker 1>US Navy's underwater sonar the sound surveillance system might have

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<v Speaker 1>discovered the location of the sunken sub. Whatever the case,

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<v Speaker 1>the Soviets had lost a nuke equipped submarine, They fruitlessly

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<v Speaker 1>searched for it for two months, then gave up, and

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<v Speaker 1>that whole time the CIA knew exactly where it was.

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<v Speaker 1>Why was the CIA so interested in the sub because

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<v Speaker 1>inside was potentially valuable intelligence that could reveal the inner

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<v Speaker 1>workings of the Soviet Navy codebooks, decoding machines, and burst transmitters,

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<v Speaker 1>not to mention the nukes themselves, which would still be functional.

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<v Speaker 1>There was just one problem. K one nine lay sixteen

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<v Speaker 1>five hundred feet beneath the surface of the ocean. How

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<v Speaker 1>the hell do you get down there in the first place,

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<v Speaker 1>And once you're three miles deep, how do you then

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<v Speaker 1>bring the sub back up to the surface. These questions

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<v Speaker 1>might have left a recovery effort dead in the water,

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<v Speaker 1>but with such a tantalizing prize on the ocean floor,

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<v Speaker 1>the CIA couldn't resist to consider their options. Longtime CIA

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<v Speaker 1>agent John Perengosky convened a task force in an anonymous

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<v Speaker 1>office near, of all places, Tyson's Corner, the largest shopping

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<v Speaker 1>mall in the DC area Today, if you showed up

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<v Speaker 1>there for a meeting, you could browse the racks at

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<v Speaker 1>Urban Outfitters and grab a pretzel from Anti Ann's. But

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<v Speaker 1>there isn't a secret meeting room anymore. At least Perengosky

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<v Speaker 1>got in ahead of Anti Anne, though, according to the

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<v Speaker 1>book The Taking of K I nine, he was a

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<v Speaker 1>fair boss, occasionally even friendly, but no one was immune

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<v Speaker 1>from his temper. I assume Perngosky wasn't very forgiving if

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<v Speaker 1>you came back late from lunch at the food court. Anyway,

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<v Speaker 1>Parngosky assembled a team of scientists, engineers, and submarine experts

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<v Speaker 1>to brainstorm ideas for the sub rescue mission. Imagine a

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<v Speaker 1>bunch of suits scribbling ideas on a whiteboard. Maybe they

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<v Speaker 1>could place buoyant material kind of like a really sophisticated

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<v Speaker 1>pool noodle under the sub and then hope the material

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<v Speaker 1>was floaty enough to carry the sub all the way up.

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<v Speaker 1>Maybe instead of a pool noodle, they could simply generate

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<v Speaker 1>a buoyant gas like hydrogen or nitrogen through electrolysis, causing

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<v Speaker 1>the sub to float back up without even touching it.

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<v Speaker 1>All of these ideas were one hundred percent real and

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<v Speaker 1>actually considered by the CIA, And yeah, if they sounded

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<v Speaker 1>hair brained and doomed to fail, you'd be right. But

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<v Speaker 1>believe it or not, the loution Parngoski and company finally

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<v Speaker 1>landed on was even more hair brain the doomedest to

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<v Speaker 1>fail of them all. That's right, folks, Parngoski and company

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<v Speaker 1>decided to use a literal claw to pick up K

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<v Speaker 1>one twenty nine from the bottom of the ocean and

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<v Speaker 1>lift it back up through brute force the claw. The

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<v Speaker 1>claw would consist of five separate grasping claws connected to

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<v Speaker 1>heavy duty winches that would be mounted onto a specially

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<v Speaker 1>built ship. The ship had to be able to withstand

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<v Speaker 1>the weight of the one thousand, seven hundred and fifty

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<v Speaker 1>ton Soviet sub. The plan was for the claw to

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<v Speaker 1>descend to the seafloor, slip a sort of metal hammock

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<v Speaker 1>beneath the sub, and then gingerly lift it back up.

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<v Speaker 1>You're probably picturing one of those arcade claw games at

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<v Speaker 1>Chuck E Cheese right now, And yeah, that's exactly what

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<v Speaker 1>I want you to imagine, because think about how hard

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<v Speaker 1>it is to even pick up a stuffed animal from

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<v Speaker 1>the bottom of the machine. Those things are impossible to win. Now,

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<v Speaker 1>think about trying to pick up a submarine that's more

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<v Speaker 1>than three miles underwater and has the weight of about

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<v Speaker 1>eight hundred and seventy five passenger cars. What could possibly

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<v Speaker 1>go wrong? As it turns out, just about everything, and

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<v Speaker 1>they knew it too. Senior intelligence officers gave the project

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<v Speaker 1>a ten percent success rate. If you were a civil

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<v Speaker 1>engineer and designed a bridge that had a ninety percent

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<v Speaker 1>chance of collapsing, what do you think your boss would say.

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<v Speaker 1>Would they be like, great, idea, here's an ungodly amount

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<v Speaker 1>of money to build this bridge that nine times out

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<v Speaker 1>of ten will catastrophically fail. Well, that's exactly what the

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<v Speaker 1>CIA decided to do. On October thirtieth, nineteen seventy, two

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<v Speaker 1>years after K one twenty nine SANC, the agency authorized

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<v Speaker 1>Project Azorian, the official name for the mission to recover

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<v Speaker 1>the Soviet sub There were definitely concerns about the mission,

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<v Speaker 1>especially the constantly ballooning cost. Suspiciously, the declassified CIA report

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<v Speaker 1>redacts any and all specific dollar figures. What it does

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<v Speaker 1>mention is how like the making of Apocalypse Now, the

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<v Speaker 1>project kept getting delayed and going over budget. For example,

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<v Speaker 1>Project to Zorian was first costed at redacted number in

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen seventy. In less than a year, it had jumped

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<v Speaker 1>more than fifty percent to some redacted number. We'll probably

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<v Speaker 1>never know the exact cost, but Matthew Aid estimates it

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<v Speaker 1>at half a billion with a B dollars at the time.

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<v Speaker 1>That's over three billion dollars in today's money. How much

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<v Speaker 1>is three billion? It's more than the individual GDP of

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<v Speaker 1>thirty five sovereign nations. In other words, this CIA floating

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<v Speaker 1>claw machine was more expensive than entireier economies, which damn

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<v Speaker 1>that makes paying a quarter to play a claw game

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<v Speaker 1>at chuck e Cheese seem like a bargain. The voyage,

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<v Speaker 1>the CIA had one last problem with Project disorient How

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<v Speaker 1>do we keep this thing a secret? We can't actually

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<v Speaker 1>tell everyone we're building a giant claw ship to retrieve

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<v Speaker 1>a Soviet submarine. By nineteen seventy one, the United States

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<v Speaker 1>and the USSR were in a period of detante. The

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<v Speaker 1>two countries had signed the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen sixty eight, and a mission to essentially steal a

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<v Speaker 1>Soviet sub wouldn't be great for diplomatic relations. So the

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<v Speaker 1>CIA needed a cover story and decided to reach out

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<v Speaker 1>to Howard Hughes. Could Hughes pretend to be constructing a

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<v Speaker 1>research vessel equipped with a giant claw for the purpose

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<v Speaker 1>of mining deep sea metals. Hughes was in many ways

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<v Speaker 1>a perfect choice. He already had a reputation as a

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<v Speaker 1>seat gritive eccentric billionaire who invested in all sorts of

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<v Speaker 1>expensive projects and already had a stated interest in deep

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<v Speaker 1>sea mining. He had also previously collaborated with the government

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<v Speaker 1>to develop satellites for classified intelligence purposes, and sure enough,

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<v Speaker 1>Hughes was more than happy to help construction on the

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<v Speaker 1>Hughes Glomar explorer. Hughes also agreed to let the Claw

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<v Speaker 1>ship be named after him. Began in nineteen seventy one

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<v Speaker 1>in a shipyard in Chester, Pennsylvania, a half hour south

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<v Speaker 1>of Philadelphia. In November nineteen seventy two, the ship was

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<v Speaker 1>christened in the usual way, smashing a bottle of champagne

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<v Speaker 1>on the hull. Not that things exactly went to plan.

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<v Speaker 1>The person who was supposed to smash the bottle missed

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<v Speaker 1>twice and had to throw a third bottle at the

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<v Speaker 1>ship as it cast off. Not everything as an omen,

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<v Speaker 1>but sometimes such occurrences are a little on the nose.

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<v Speaker 1>The CIA was able to maintain this cover for quite

0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:03.520
<v Speaker 1>some time. When the hGe, let's call it the hGe,

0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.480
<v Speaker 1>so I don't have to keep saying Glomar finally set

0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.840
<v Speaker 1>sail in nineteen seventy three. The Los Angeles Times noted

0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:13.600
<v Speaker 1>newsmen were not permitted to view the launch, and details

0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:17.360
<v Speaker 1>of the ship's destination and mission were not released. The

0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:20.240
<v Speaker 1>press chalked up the secrecy surrounding the ship and its

0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:24.840
<v Speaker 1>mission to Hughes his own propensity for privacy. The hGe

0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:28.760
<v Speaker 1>first sailed from Pennsylvania to Bermuda. Because it was too

0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.440
<v Speaker 1>big to pass through the Panama Canal, it had to

0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:34.360
<v Speaker 1>sail all the way around the southern tip of South America.

0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.760
<v Speaker 1>After making a brief pitstop in Chile, the hGe sailed

0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:42.680
<v Speaker 1>on and reached its destination of Long Beach, California, at

0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:45.440
<v Speaker 1>the end of September, where it stayed at harbor for

0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:49.240
<v Speaker 1>several months in preparation for the recovery mission. It also

0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:54.360
<v Speaker 1>kept experiencing mechanical failures. Literal cracks started showing in the hall,

0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:58.040
<v Speaker 1>which divers had to seal up. This thing was pretty

0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:01.120
<v Speaker 1>much held together by duct tape and a prayer. The

0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:04.920
<v Speaker 1>crew couldn't fix everything and eventually just gave up. One

0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.440
<v Speaker 1>small but persistent seal leak was never corrected, and the

0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:12.160
<v Speaker 1>seepage of a few gallons per hour was accepted. Thus,

0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:15.400
<v Speaker 1>the hGe lived with a small puddle in the starboard

0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:19.560
<v Speaker 1>wing well kind of embarrassing. Imagine a real estate agent

0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:22.080
<v Speaker 1>trying to sell you a house and explaining that there's

0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.200
<v Speaker 1>a permanent puddle on the top floor because the roof

0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:30.200
<v Speaker 1>isn't fully sealed. But the CIA had already invested too

0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:34.160
<v Speaker 1>much time and too many resources into this over budget,

0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.520
<v Speaker 1>creaky ass claw ship. I guess you could say they'd

0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:43.080
<v Speaker 1>fallen into the sorry sunk cost fallacy. So sorry. On

0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:47.000
<v Speaker 1>June seventh, nineteen seventy four, President Nixon personally gave the

0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:51.680
<v Speaker 1>official and final green light to recover the sub. It

0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:59.840
<v Speaker 1>was showtime the moment of truth on Independence Day, as

0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:04.040
<v Speaker 1>fireworks exploded over cities across the country in celebration of

0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:08.359
<v Speaker 1>America's one hundred ninety eighth birthday. The hGe traveled to

0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.960
<v Speaker 1>a spot one thousand, five hundred and sixty miles northeast

0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.359
<v Speaker 1>of Hawaii, where K one nine lay at the bottom

0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:19.800
<v Speaker 1>of the ocean. John Prengosky, the CIA agent who had

0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:23.520
<v Speaker 1>come up with the whole claw idea, was closely monitoring

0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:28.160
<v Speaker 1>the mission back at headquarters, but when the hGe arrived

0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.840
<v Speaker 1>at the site, the mission was very nearly thwarted. The

0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:37.120
<v Speaker 1>crew noticed Soviet helicopters flying overhead taking photos. Plus Soviet

0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:42.400
<v Speaker 1>Navy ships kept surveilling the hGe. One vessel named Chasma

0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:46.200
<v Speaker 1>came within a mile of the hGe and center radio transmission.

0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.879
<v Speaker 1>What are you doing here, the Americans replied, we are

0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:55.320
<v Speaker 1>conducting ocean mining tests, deep ocean mining tests. After a

0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:58.600
<v Speaker 1>few more tents back and forth, Chasma signed off with

0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:01.720
<v Speaker 1>I wish you all the best and went on its

0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:05.000
<v Speaker 1>merry way to Petropavlovsk, the port city that K one

0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.600
<v Speaker 1>nine originally set out from. The Soviets were none the

0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:12.760
<v Speaker 1>wiser about hge's true purpose, But even with the Soviets

0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.560
<v Speaker 1>off their backs, the crew still had to worry about

0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:20.680
<v Speaker 1>maintenance issues, which just kept getting worse. One mechanical failure

0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:25.520
<v Speaker 1>caused a display of noise, fire, sparks and smoke primarily

0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:30.040
<v Speaker 1>and spastik shaking of the derrick. And as I always say,

0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:35.040
<v Speaker 1>whenever there's spastik shaking of the dereck, things aren't looking good.

0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:39.160
<v Speaker 1>The crew in general weren't confident about the chances for success.

0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:43.119
<v Speaker 1>In fact, they had nicknamed the claw Clementine since they

0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.919
<v Speaker 1>figured the sub was lost and gone forever. But it

0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:50.040
<v Speaker 1>was too late to back out now. Just after midnight,

0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:53.720
<v Speaker 1>On July twenty first, the world's most expensive and difficult

0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:57.760
<v Speaker 1>claw game began. The ships on board computers flashed with

0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:02.280
<v Speaker 1>real time info and photos. The massive winch slowly unspooled

0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:06.720
<v Speaker 1>miles and miles of piping, with Clementine descending into the

0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:10.600
<v Speaker 1>deepest reaches of the Pacific. According to the book blind

0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:14.040
<v Speaker 1>Man's Bluff, one man who recruited sailors for the crew

0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:17.600
<v Speaker 1>later compared the mission to lifting a twenty five foot

0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:20.840
<v Speaker 1>long steel tube off the ground with a cable lowered

0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:23.359
<v Speaker 1>from the top of the one hundred ten story World

0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:27.720
<v Speaker 1>Trade Center on a pitch black night, haunted by swirling winds.

0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:32.520
<v Speaker 1>So you know, everyone was set up for success. Down

0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:37.720
<v Speaker 1>Clementine went not much lives sixteen thousand, five hundred feet

0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:41.040
<v Speaker 1>beneath the surface of the ocean. That depth is considered

0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:45.159
<v Speaker 1>the abyssle zone, where there's no sunlight and the temperature

0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:48.800
<v Speaker 1>is just above freezing. The water pressure can reach up

0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:52.439
<v Speaker 1>to six hundred times the pressure of the atmosphere. The

0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.879
<v Speaker 1>only things swimming around are freaky looking sea creatures with

0:19:56.040 --> 0:20:02.160
<v Speaker 1>creepy names like faceless fish and fang tooths. It took

0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:06.320
<v Speaker 1>eleven days for Clementine to reach the bottom of the ocean.

0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.720
<v Speaker 1>Using the built in cameras, the crew carefully maneuvered the

0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:14.920
<v Speaker 1>claw to grasp the sub, only for them to miscalculate

0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:20.280
<v Speaker 1>and slam the claw into the seabed. Whoops, But Clementine,

0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:24.240
<v Speaker 1>faithful old Girl, was still intact. They went in for

0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:29.400
<v Speaker 1>another attempt, and this time were right on target. Clementine

0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:32.800
<v Speaker 1>latched onto the sub and gingerly began lifting it up

0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:37.600
<v Speaker 1>at an agonizingly slow rate of six feet per minute.

0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:40.439
<v Speaker 1>It took another eight days for the claw to rise

0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:44.600
<v Speaker 1>from the crash site. Imagine the crew's excitement when, after

0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:48.040
<v Speaker 1>waiting for more than a week, the claw finally returned

0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:54.159
<v Speaker 1>to the surface to quote another American military vessel mission accomplished,

0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:59.679
<v Speaker 1>and then imagine their disappointment when the claw emerged with

0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:03.240
<v Speaker 1>only a thirty eight foot long section of the front hull.

0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:07.119
<v Speaker 1>About two thirds of the sub had broken off on

0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:11.080
<v Speaker 1>Clementine's way up. Three of the five grasping claws had

0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:15.199
<v Speaker 1>cracked and sunk, with only two claws still holding the

0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:19.560
<v Speaker 1>highly fragile sub. The sub then split off and sank

0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:24.240
<v Speaker 1>as well, along with the nuclear missile codebooks, decoding machines,

0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:30.040
<v Speaker 1>and the burst transmitters. Essentially, they lost everything the CIA

0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:34.000
<v Speaker 1>was dying to reclaim. What the Claw did recover were

0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:36.960
<v Speaker 1>the bodies of six of the sub's crew members, who

0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:39.399
<v Speaker 1>were trapped in the front ten percent of the sub.

0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:43.879
<v Speaker 1>Prengosky had ordered that any recovered bodies would be given

0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:47.879
<v Speaker 1>a proper funeral. The Soviet crew members were buried at

0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:52.119
<v Speaker 1>sea with full military honors. The funeral was filmed, and

0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:54.960
<v Speaker 1>the recording was given to the Russian government a year

0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:59.880
<v Speaker 1>after the Soviet Union's collapse. There's honestly something touching about that.

0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:02.679
<v Speaker 1>The crew of K one twenty nine may have been

0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:06.360
<v Speaker 1>working for America's sworn enemy, but they certainly didn't deserve

0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:09.560
<v Speaker 1>to die in the depths of the Pacific, thousands of

0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:13.440
<v Speaker 1>miles from home. At least after their deaths they were

0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:16.679
<v Speaker 1>treated with a little humanity. And so it was that

0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:19.679
<v Speaker 1>on August eighth, nineteen seventy four, with most of K

0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:22.040
<v Speaker 1>one twenty nine still at the bottom of the ocean,

0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:31.720
<v Speaker 1>the Hughes Glomar Explorer began its voyage home. The blowback. Well,

0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:34.520
<v Speaker 1>the CIA told itself, at least we were able to

0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:37.000
<v Speaker 1>maintain our cover story, and no one's the wiser that

0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:40.440
<v Speaker 1>our mission failed. Some in the government even believed Project

0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:43.640
<v Speaker 1>Azorian to be a success. In a post mission White

0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:48.119
<v Speaker 1>House meeting, Secretary of Defense James Schlessinger declared that the

0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:52.119
<v Speaker 1>operation is a marvel. The CIA figured that even if

0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:55.640
<v Speaker 1>they didn't recover the entire sub they'd proved that it

0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:59.800
<v Speaker 1>was at least possible. John Perengosky pushed for a second

0:22:59.840 --> 0:23:04.160
<v Speaker 1>day attempt, which was scheduled for July nineteen seventy five.

0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:08.080
<v Speaker 1>Hopefully they could keep the nosy press from catching on

0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:12.159
<v Speaker 1>one more time, but alas. Back on June fifth, nineteen

0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:16.080
<v Speaker 1>seventy four, while the hGe was docked thirty three miles

0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:19.359
<v Speaker 1>south in Long Beach waiting to launch out into the Pacific,

0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:23.400
<v Speaker 1>a group of four burglars broke into the Hughes corporate

0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:27.520
<v Speaker 1>headquarters and stole top secret documents that revealed the true

0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:31.960
<v Speaker 1>purpose of the ship. The press discovered these documents, and

0:23:32.080 --> 0:23:36.560
<v Speaker 1>Azorian's cover story was finally blown in February nineteen seventy five,

0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:40.840
<v Speaker 1>when The Los Angeles Times published the first article revealing

0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:45.160
<v Speaker 1>the actual mission of the hGe. The following month, our

0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:50.040
<v Speaker 1>goodpal Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Jack Anderson, you'll remember him,

0:23:50.080 --> 0:23:54.480
<v Speaker 1>from Operation Popeye broke the story of Azorian on National TV,

0:23:55.440 --> 0:24:00.440
<v Speaker 1>and surprise, surprise, our other legendary journalist, Seymour Hirsch, also

0:24:00.600 --> 0:24:02.959
<v Speaker 1>wrote about the failed mission for The New York Times.

0:24:03.640 --> 0:24:06.879
<v Speaker 1>Anyone else missed the glory days of Gumshoe reporters like

0:24:07.000 --> 0:24:11.000
<v Speaker 1>Anderson and Hirsch. Hirsch spoke to an anonymous Navy admiral

0:24:11.000 --> 0:24:13.959
<v Speaker 1>who pointed out that even if the CIA did recover

0:24:14.040 --> 0:24:17.520
<v Speaker 1>the secret Soviet codebooks, which would have been seven years

0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:20.480
<v Speaker 1>out of date by that point, the codes wouldn't mean

0:24:20.560 --> 0:24:24.920
<v Speaker 1>much because they were automatically randomly scrambled every twenty four hours.

0:24:25.680 --> 0:24:29.560
<v Speaker 1>By June nineteen seventy five, all this bad press forced

0:24:29.640 --> 0:24:34.440
<v Speaker 1>the CIA to cancel the planned second recovery attempt. John Parrengoski,

0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:38.720
<v Speaker 1>the agent who had spearheaded Project Dozorian, had retired by then,

0:24:39.520 --> 0:24:42.680
<v Speaker 1>and naturally, the Soviets weren't happy about the news either.

0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:46.480
<v Speaker 1>The USSR ambassador to the United States pressed for more

0:24:46.520 --> 0:24:50.879
<v Speaker 1>details about Project Desorian. Perhaps the Soviets were embarrassed that,

0:24:51.000 --> 0:24:55.320
<v Speaker 1>despite heavily surveilling the hGe, they'd failed to ascertain its

0:24:55.359 --> 0:25:00.879
<v Speaker 1>true purpose. American journalists also kept digging. The journalist named

0:25:00.880 --> 0:25:04.680
<v Speaker 1>Harriet and Philippi filed a Freedom of Information Act request

0:25:04.800 --> 0:25:09.520
<v Speaker 1>for more info. Walking a diplomatic tightrope, the CIA stated

0:25:09.520 --> 0:25:13.280
<v Speaker 1>that they could neither confirm nor deny the agency's connection

0:25:13.440 --> 0:25:17.880
<v Speaker 1>to the Hughes Glomar Explorer's true mission. It's the perfect

0:25:18.080 --> 0:25:22.240
<v Speaker 1>non denial denial. Maybe this thing isn't true, but if

0:25:22.280 --> 0:25:25.040
<v Speaker 1>it is true, we can't tell you about it. A

0:25:25.119 --> 0:25:28.879
<v Speaker 1>court case the following year upheld the CIA's quote refusal

0:25:28.920 --> 0:25:33.240
<v Speaker 1>to confirm or deny existence of records, and Philippe's Foyer

0:25:33.359 --> 0:25:38.080
<v Speaker 1>request was thrown out. You've probably heard this phrase. Of course,

0:25:38.280 --> 0:25:41.680
<v Speaker 1>it became so widespread and infamous that today it's known

0:25:41.760 --> 0:25:45.800
<v Speaker 1>as the Glomar response. In perhaps the worst example of

0:25:45.920 --> 0:25:50.320
<v Speaker 1>branded accounts on Twitter now x at CIA's first ever

0:25:50.359 --> 0:25:54.160
<v Speaker 1>tweet in twenty fourteen was we can neither confirm nor

0:25:54.200 --> 0:25:59.320
<v Speaker 1>deny that this is our first tweet. Hilarious. As for

0:25:59.400 --> 0:26:03.359
<v Speaker 1>the Hughes Glomar Explorer itself, in nineteen seventy six, the

0:26:03.440 --> 0:26:05.960
<v Speaker 1>US government tried to auction it off to the public.

0:26:06.520 --> 0:26:09.679
<v Speaker 1>The maximum offer they received was two million, which was

0:26:09.920 --> 0:26:13.800
<v Speaker 1>nothing compared to the estimated total mission cost of five

0:26:14.119 --> 0:26:20.240
<v Speaker 1>hundred million. Again, the actual mission cost is still classified info.

0:26:20.440 --> 0:26:23.639
<v Speaker 1>The hGe was put into storage, and over the decades

0:26:23.720 --> 0:26:26.879
<v Speaker 1>was leased to various private interests to drill for oil

0:26:27.280 --> 0:26:30.480
<v Speaker 1>and to actually mine for deep sea medals, before finally

0:26:30.520 --> 0:26:34.920
<v Speaker 1>being completely scrapped in twenty fifteen, all fifty one thousand

0:26:34.960 --> 0:26:38.880
<v Speaker 1>tons of it. In an ironic twist, there's probably more

0:26:38.880 --> 0:26:41.800
<v Speaker 1>of K one twenty nine left than the massive claw

0:26:41.880 --> 0:26:45.160
<v Speaker 1>machine that was built to recover it. Maybe James Cameron

0:26:45.160 --> 0:26:48.159
<v Speaker 1>can build another deep sea explorer and try to recover

0:26:48.240 --> 0:26:51.920
<v Speaker 1>the sunken Soviet submarine himself. But on the other hand,

0:26:52.480 --> 0:26:58.959
<v Speaker 1>perhaps it's best to let sleeping subs lie