Art ... Yup . . .

Thanks for the great article and yes, there is manganese down there to mine..

In 1968 when the Soviet submarine K-129 went down I was in the Navy based in San Diego serving with AirAntiSubmarineSquardon-41. We chased subs. We were privy to this Soviet sub and it's final resting place at the time. Here's one of our carrier birds that was loaded with all kinds of cutting edge electronic equipment that could find a 50 gallon steel drum at 5-6000 meters depth on the floor bottom...

Now... This info has been declassified for the past seven years.

From the National Security Archives - George Washington University

Project Azorian: The CIA's Declassified History of the Glomar Explorer

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb305/index.htm

Washington, D.C., February 12, 2010 - For the first time, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has declassified substantive information on one of its most secret and sensitive schemes, "Project Azorian," the Agency codename for its ambitious plan to raise a sunken Soviet submarine from the floor of the Pacific Ocean in order to retrieve its secrets. Today the National Security Archive publishes "Project Azorian: The Story of the Hughes Glomar Explorer," (pdf) a 50-page article from the fall 1985 edition of the Agency's in-house journal Studies in Intelligence. Written by a participant in the operation whose identity remains classified, the article discusses the conception and planning of the retrieval effort and the creation of a special ship, the Glomar Explorer, which raised portions of the submarine in August 1974. The National Security Archive had submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the CIA for the document on December 12, 2007.

Read the Documents

Document 1: [Author excised], "Project Azorian: The Story of the Hughes Glomar Explorer," Studies in Intelligence, Fall 1985, Secret, Excised copy

Document 2: Memorandum of Conversation, February 7, 1975, 5:22-5:55 p.m., Confidential, Excised copy. Archival source: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library; National Security Adviser--Memoranda of Conversation, box 9, February 7, 1975 - Ford, Kissinger, Schlesinger, Colby, General David C. Jones, Rumsfeld

Calling his national security team together, President Ford expressed his worries about leaks to the press, such as reports on recent National Security Council discussions of the SALT [Strategic Arms Limitations Talks]. During the course of the discussion, Director of Central Intelligence (DCI)William Colby interjected that he had been in touch with the Los Angeles Times, whose editors were going to publish an article about the Glomar Explorer. He said that he called Franklin D. Murphy, the chief executive officer of the Times-Mirror Company, which published the Times, but his call was to no avail. The next afternoon, February 8, 1975, it ran a story entitled "U.S. Reported After Russian Submarine/Sunken Ship Deal by CIA."

Document 3: Memorandum of Conversation, "[Jennifer?] Meeting,"March 19, 1975, 11:20 a.m., Secret, Excised copy. Archival source: Ford Library, National Security Adviser--Memoranda of Conversation, box 10, March 19, 1975 - Ford, Schlesinger, Colby, Buchen, Marsh, Rumsfeld

The day that Seymour Hersh's story appeared in The New York Times, Ford also met with top advisers. Secretary of Defense (and former Director of Central Intelligence) Schlesinger recommended acknowledging the "bare facts" because it was implausible to deny the story. DCI Colby, however, thought otherwise and his advice prevailed. Remembering that President Eisenhower's admission of the downed U-2 exacerbated the 1960 crisis, he suggested that confirming the story would put Moscow under "pressure to respond." 

View of the Glomar Explorer (U.S. Government photo)

~OGD~