Worse, it was becoming increasingly clear to Bradley and Craven that the CIA couldn't tell a submarine from an underwater mountain. By now, the two men had come up with a plan for retrieving the best of what was on board the Soviet Golf. Their idea was to eventually send mini-subs to grab a nuclear warhead, the safe containing the Soviets' "crypto-codes," and the submarine's burst transmitters and receivers so that the Navy could finally decode all of the message traffic it had been collecting.
The two men had already proven that the Golf's hull could be opened without destroying everything inside. They had borrowed Army demolition experts to test their theory. With a large steel plate shielding various fragile and flammable objects set up in a pool of water, plastic explosives were affixed to a tiny area and detonated. The blast left a small doorway, barely singeing the articles behind the steel.
That's really all anyone needed to do: open a small doorway and reach in. The rest of the Golf could be left buried at sea. The military had watched these submarines being built in overhead photography for ten years. Naval Intelligence knew the Golf II down to nearly every nut and bolt. The rockets that the Golfs used to launch their nuclear payloads were primitive, with ranges of only 750 miles. Both the United States and the Soviet Union had already engineered rockets with 1,500 mile ranges. There was little to he gained in attempting the impossible job of pulling up thousands of tons of already antiquated gear from the bottom of the ocean. Besides, it would take years to develop the equipment for such a salvage attempt.
Carl Duckett and his CIA loyalists listened politely to the more abbreviated plan. But when they came back with their answer, Craven and Bradley were dumbstruck. The CIA recommended picking up the whole submarine and intended to build a massive crane-laden ship to reach down and grab the Golf.
Craven and Bradley couldn't believe it. The Golf may have hit bottom at 100 knots or more, accelerating 70 feet per second as it fell. It may have looked intact, but it was probably as fragile as a sand castle. Touch it hard enough, and it would disintegrate.
"You can't pick up the goddamn submarine, or it will fall apart," Bradley blurted out. "Oh, no, Jesus Christ almighty. You people are in a tank. That's a pipe dream."
Bradley may have been right, but the CIA held the power in Washington and usually got what it wanted, even when what it wanted was, in Harlfinger's opinion, crazy and impossible. (Former CIA Director Richard M. Helms says now that he never even heard of the alternative that Bradley and Craven had proposed.)
The CIA, however, wasn't alone in its enthusiasm. Chief of Naval Operations Thomas H. Moorer loved big, fascinating technological projects and was captivated by the CIA plan. Here was a chance to snatch a whole submarine and get back at the Soviets for North Korea's capture of Pueblo. Besides, he wasn't convinced that Bradley and Craven's method could recover all of the key gear on the Golf.
In the end, Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird gave the final approval to the CIA plan, acknowledging that he did so despite the fact that "some people thought it was a nutty idea." Laird rationalized the exercise. Creating a ship to lift the Golf from the Pacific might also give the United States the ability to retrieve its own submarines if they were lost.
Laird consulted Howard Hughes, the billionaire recluse whose shipping company was hired by the CIA to build the ship that would try to hoist the Golf from the ocean floor. That ship would be called the Glomar Explorer, and the effort code-named "Project Jennifer."
Craven watched these wranglings, no longer surprised by a national intelligence program run by politics. He may have been cynical, but he was certain that the CIA was looking for a project that would funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to Hughes to pay off Nixon's heavy political debts.
Whatever the reason, Nixon quickly approved the CIA plan. And Bradley and Craven were left to whisper their dissent to themselves and to one another. No one else, it seemed, cared to listen. If anything, Craven was rewarded for his protest by being shut out of the operation. The largest deep-water undertaking ever was going to go forward without the guidance of the men who had made it possible.
It would also go forward without Halibut's Commander Moore. It was time for Rickover to make his move, to crack down on this world that had tried to exclude him. The admiral had stood by when Moore's predecessor claimed higher authority for Halibut than Rickover's Naval Reactors Branch. Rickover had observed tens of millions being poured into Halibut while he himself came under fire when NR-1's $30 million budget ballooned to $90 million. He had bided his time while Nixon awarded Halibut the Presidential Unit Citation (PUC), the highest submarine award possible. And he was unmoved when Moore won the Distinguished Service Medal for finding the Golf.
All the while, Rickover's reactor specialists at the shipyard were focused on Halibut. Her men became so agitated under the constant scrutiny that Moore suspected they were making mistakes just to give Rickover's men something to mark down, just enough so that the men would he satisfied and leave. Crew members weren't admitting as much, but Moore knew the tension was getting to them, just as he knew that it was only a matter of time until Rickover had the ammunition he was looking for. He was going to send a fleet-shaking salvo that no submarine, no matter its mission or its accomplishments, was beyond his reach or the reach of his safety inspectors.
He got his opening early one morning in 1969. Halibut had been moved to the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, just out of San Francisco. Her reactor was being refueled while her officers were distracted by yet another refit designed to enhance Halibut's deep-sea capabilities. Rickover was scheduled to come to the sub that day, only nobody on board knew when. Moore was back at his shore quarters, six blocks away from Halibut's dock, when the admiral arrived at Mare Island, dressed as usual in civilian clothes.
Rickover first encountered a pair of Marine guards who refused to let him past the gate. That wouldn't have been too much of a prob lem-these men might not have recognized Rickover in person, but they would have known his name. All he had to do was show his identification, and that, he refused to do. He was infuriated that anyone at a sub base could fail to recognize him on sight. He crashed the gate. Later, Moore would hear that the admiral raced down the causeway on foot, guards in chase. He was caught and again asked to show his identification. By the time the guards had been satisfied, Rickover stormed straight to the office of Robert Metzger, his reactor-safety chief on Mare Island. Still infuriated, Rickover decided not to go to Halibut himself. Instead, he sent a representative, one of the men who had traveled with him from D.C. In doing so, Rickover set the stage for history to repeat itself.
Just about anyone on the sub would have recognized Rickover immediately and no one would have questioned him. Nobody, however, knew his representative, so the young submariner serving topside watch did what he was supposed to do. He approached the man and asked for identification, then called down to the duty officer who ended up denying Rickover's man access.
When Moore heard about all of this, he immediately sought out Rickover. The admiral didn't give him much chance to smooth things over. Instead, he barked, "Moore, you ought to worry about your career." Then he demanded, "And what are you going to do to the duty officer who denied us access?"
Rickover never did bother to inspect Halibut, but the sub would feel his wrath. The constant review of Halibut reactor operations continued. Halibut's crew knew there was enough to find, if you noted every small move, a wrong wrench used, a failure to exactly follow procedures, and more.