U.S Got Communication Data Off Sunken Soviet Submarine

GLOMAR, From Al the submerged boats and the naval bases on land. The Washington Post has reported The United States long ago that the Glomar Explorer retrieved at switched to a satellite system, which least two torpedoes with nuclear war- involves submarines .coming up to heads, giving intelligence experts a within 20 feet of the surface and com- rare glimpse of how the Soviets make municating via satellites able to nuclear weapons. pierce the first 20 feet of ocean water The New York Times has said the with a powerful radio beam. The Sovi- Glomar recovered the forward third ets are understood to have moved to of the • submarine, falling to retrieve such a system within the last six any nuclear warheads or the coveted months. code machines that would enable U.S. intelligence experts to unscramble almost 10 years worth of secret Soviet • messages. Last week, The Times repeated this U.S Got Communication Data version of its story, quoting two broth- ers, Wayne FL and Billy C. Collier, who were Involved in the construction Off Sunken Soviet Submarine and operation of the Glomar Explorer ..,„1 7 7t° but were not aboard the ship during / By Thomas O'Toole Union. This might mean that the the recovery operation 750 miles Washinston Post Eltat Writer United States is no longer able to un- northwest of the Hawaiian island of When the Central, Intelligence derstand the chatter between subma- Oahu. Agency recovered a section of a Time magazine said three weeks rines at sea and their home pods. sunken Soviet submarine in 1974, it "It was a real bonanza," one .source ago that the salvage operation suc- retrieved a detailed description of ceeded in recovering the code ina- close to the CIA said. "The whole sal- chines and three nuclear warheads how all Soviet submarines communi- cate with their homeland. vage operation was worth every penny from the surface-to-surface missiles we spent on it." carried by the submarine. Time So much of the communications sys- The salvage operation was con- quoted a crew member named Joe tem of the Soviet submarine was recovered from the floor of the Pacific ducted in July and August of 1974 by Rodriquez, now a hairdresser in the a $250 million ship called the Glomar Sacramento, Calif., area, who ocknowl- Ocean by the CIA that U.S. Navy experts were able to piece together how Explorer, which had been built for the edged after the story was published CIA by a corporation owned by the that he was not aboard the Glomar the system worked and to monitor routinely for the last year communica- late Howard Hughes. The vessel during recovery. raised from a depth of 16,000 feet Time said the Glomar recovered tions between Soviet submarines at sea in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans about one-third of a Soviet submarine most of the sunken sub, a story it ap- that suffered an underwater explosion peared to retract this week when it and their home bases in the Soviet Union. and sank with 88 crew members said that only one-third of the subma- aboard almili:nine years ago. rine may have been lifted from the Sources would not say whether the ocean floor. But Time ended its story Navy is still monitoring ship-to-shore There haVe been conflicting press this week by quoting Pentagon communications to and from Soviet reports about what parts of the Soviet sources as saying that nuclear war- submarines, but they pointed out that submarine were recovered and their heads and code machines both had the Soviets have switched to a new value to Intelligence experts since been in the one-third of the subma- aYstem using satellites to communi- the story first surfaced 21 months ago. rine that was recovered. qe from submarines' to the SoViet See GLOLVIAR, All, Sources have once again told The Washington Post that nuclear warheads were indeed taken by the Glo- mar Explorer from the recovered part of the Soviet submarine. These sources have said the warheads come from the surface-to-surface missiles, not torpedoes. This means that the one-third piece of the submarine the Glomar recovered was the middle section, which Included the "sail" or conning tower that had been built to twice-conven- tional size to hold three missiles fitted with atomic warheads. It also means that the Glomar recovered the submarine's communications gear Intact, because the gear was installed inside the conning tower. Its antennas appear in pictures taken by the U.S. Navy and even in photographs released by the Soviets showing antennas sticking out from the center of the conning tower. Just how Soviet submarines commu- nicated with the homeland is still un- clear, but almost certainly they did it the same way U.S. Polaris submarines did it for years. They stayed submerged and floated an electronics buoy to the surface, which carried radio signals back and forth between .

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