>>17861537
It's a cover?? The baclava or whatever over his face is more comms that he's undercover?? It's an Op?? I'm dropping the Hughs story to prove these Ops exist. I don't know though.
How the CIA and Howard Hughes dug deep to retrieve sunken Soviet ship
June 20, 2019
In March 1968, Soviet submarine K-129 sank 1,560 miles northwest of Hawaii. The sub carried more than 70 crewman, none of whom survived. It also held several 4-megaton nuclear warheads and a slew of Soviet military intelligence.
The Soviets spent months looking for it, to no avail.
For the United States, it was a treasure too valuable to resist. When American sonar picked up the wreck of K-129, officials launched a secret mission involving the CIA, billionaire Howard Hughes and a mystery ship that cost more than $350 million.
The code name: Project Azorian.
The United States had tracked the sub at 16,500 feet below the surface, more than three miles down. Given its size and the depth involved, a successful recovery operation would have been the first of its kind.
In October 1970, a task force of engineers concluded that the best way to retrieve the sub, which was believed to have weighed 2,000 to 2,200 long tons (a long ton is 2,240 pounds), would be to construct a ship from scratch capable of lifting the sub straight off the ocean floor. (Other options were considered, including using gas to raise the object.)
The mission created two dilemmas: how to build a ship strong enough, and what to tell the public.
The agency found both answers in Hughes.
The government enlisted his shipbuilding operation to construct what would be known to the public as a deep-sea mining ship, the Hughes Glomar Explorer.
The ship was introduced to the public in November 1972 with a press announcement and “the usual champagne christening ceremony,” according to CIA documents declassified decades later.
The whole thing was a ruse. The 600-foot-long ship was really built specifically for one mission, with “ingenious devices straight from a Bond film,” according to the BBC.
“The ship’s hull had enormous doors that could swing apart to create a ‘moon pool,’ an underwater opening large enough to accommodate the Soviet sub and keep it hidden. Tucked away out of sight inside the ship was a ‘capture vehicle,’ which had a giant set of claws to straddle the sub and secure it.”
Popular Mechanics reported, “Camera systems, sonar and hydraulics all had to be designed on spec.
“The government had to turn to the best optics people in the USA to figure out how to image way down deep without creating distortions or shadows that would ruin this delicate work.”
Anticipating the recovery of the deceased Soviet sailors, the ship also had “refrigeration capacity for up to 100 bodies, and copies of the relevant Soviet and American burial manuals,” according to The New York Times.
Once constructed, the Hughes Glomar Explorer took off from Bermuda on Aug. 11, 1973, en route for a 12,700-mile, 50-day voyage to Long Beach, Calif., for intelligence upgrades.
The participation in the mission of two Chilean pilots caused some drama when the ship docked in Valparaiso, Chile, on Sept. 12, the day after the country experienced a coup d’état.
Representatives from Hughes’ company were already there, prepared to meet the ship with supplies and new personnel, when the coup occurred at 6 a.m. that Sept. 11.
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