None of the information on these web pages is from any of my past work that involved security clearances. I was a member of the Association of Old Crows (AOC) for about 25 years. That was because much of the microwave electronics work I did was involved in Electronic Warfare. I developed and oversaw the production of a combined limiter-detector that was used in the ALR series of radar warning receivers that protected our aircraft from ground radar guided missiles and guns also variants in Shrike and HARM during the Vietnam era. This is described in a video tape by the AOC called "First in, Last Out". In order to gather data for our electronic warfare systems the U.S. flew over Russian radar installations. See Cold War Reconnaissance and the Shoot down Of Flight 60528. The Shrike missile used microwave detectors that were made using raw chips. This missile has the steering wings located at it's center of mass so that when it steers, it moves sideways. The AN/APR-39 was used with the ALR-xx series Radar Warning Receiver (RWR).
The Code Breakers - The Story of Secret
Writing,
by David Kahn, MacMillan Publishing, (
@Amazon
)First printing 1967, mine
is ninth
printing
1979. Library of congress Catalog Number 63-16109. This is a very
good
overview of the history of cryptography. THE classic reference.
The Puzzle Palace, by James Bamford,
Penguin Books, ISBN 0 14 00.6748 5 (
@Amazon
). First printed 1982, my
copy is
1987. This
is the first book about the NSA.
At
the
time
the
book
came
out
Washington
called
it
"No
Such
Agency"
but
now
we
know
it
as
the
"National
Security
Agency"
the
U.S.
center
for
codes
and
ciphers.
Body of Secrets is the latest book by Bamford about the NSA. http://www.bodyofsecrets.com
is
the Random House page for this book.
No Such Agency Part Four Rigging the Game The Baltimore Sun, About December 4, 1995, pp. 9-11. Truman's 10/24/52 establishment of the NSA.
Body
of
Secrets : Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency :
From
the Cold War Through the Dawn of a New Century by James Bamford,
Hardcover - 400 pages (April 24, 2001) Doubleday; ISBN: 0385499078
(
@Amazon
) -
The
Code
Book by Simon Singh (
@Amazon
)- Very good overview, understandable
explanation of public key and the separate problem of a one way
function. money
challenge
also descriptions of how ancient languages are decrypted even nothing
is
known about the language.
American Black
Chamber
by Herbery O. Yardley (
@Amazon
) has been reprinted by Ballantine Books
(
@Amazon
) as part of
their
Espionage/Intelligence Library ISBN 0-345-29867-5
Wilderness
of
Mirrors by David C. Martim (
@Amazon
), Ballantine Books as part of
their
Espionage/Intelligence Library 1981, ISBN 0-345-29636-2.
Dan Rowen, US mobsters, Marilyn Monroe,
Kennedy, Bay of Pigs, Castro, a
CIA tunnel under
the
East-West
German
border, and of course James Jesus
Angleton, Cuban
missile
crisis - are all covered in this great book.
Handbook of Applied Cryptography, CRC Press (XX), ISBN: 0-8493-8523-7, October 1996, 816 pages - free chapters on line
Information
and
Secrecy by Colin B. Burke - 487 pages (June 1, 1994)
Scarecrow Press; ISBN: 0810827832 (
@Amazon
)- has some information about
the U.S.
Bombe made by
NCR to break the German Sub 4 rotor Engima
The Ties That Bind by Jeffrey T.
Richelson & Desmond Ball, ISBN 0-04-327092 1, first ed. 1985, Allen
& Unwin Ltd.(
@Amazon
) - Intelligence Cooperation between the UKSUA
countries:
United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Austraila and New Zealand.
Chapter 8: on SIGINT with info on RHYOLITE, AN/FLR-9. Chapter 9:
Ocean Surveillance has info
on SOSUS, RDSS & SURTASS, Classic Wizard/White Cloud, P-3
Orion, Holystone. On pg. 225 -227 is an account of the
Glomar Explorer and HMB-1 with 1985 info.
America's Secret Eyes in Space by
Jeffrey T. Richlson, ISBN 0-88730-285-8 Harper & Row (
@Amazon
), 1990
The U.S.
Keyhole Spy
Satellite Program.
The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll,
Doubleday, ISBN 0-385-24946-2, First Edition Oct. 1989. (
@Amazon
) True story of tracking down an
international spy that was using the internet.
The Falcon and the Snowman by Robert
Lindsey, Simon and Schuster (
@Amazon
), ISBN 0-671-24560-0 First edition
1979. The true story of how a couple of spys in the mid 1970's
sold the Russians secret codes
for the TSEC/KW7 that was in a communications vault at TRW in Redondo
Beach,
CA. I was working at TRW Microwave at the time and understand
that
a truck load of these books were sold to TRW. 28ASR 5 level
Teletype machines used with KW-7 data encryption
boxes mounted in racks.
Breaking The Ring by Johm Barron,
Houghton Miffin Co. (
@Amazon
) ISBN 0-395-42110-1 First edition
1987. In
June of 1979 the
Russians were breaking the KL-47, KL-11, KW-26, Adonis, KW7 (see Falcon
&
Snowman above), KY-8, KG-14, KY-36 systems "with no problems" only the
KWR-37
was giving them trouble.
The Man Who Broke Purple by Ronald
Clark, Little, Brown and Company (
@Amazon
), ISBN 0-316-14595-5, First
American
Edition, 09/77.
The life of Col. William
F.
Friedman who deciphered the Japanese code used in WWII. Paper
on
Purple. Friedman coined the term "cryptanalysis" (Kahn pg
371).
The Sigint Secrets by Nigel West,
William Morrow and Company (
@Amazon
), ISBN 0-688-07652-1, First U.S.
Edition,
1988. Nigel
makes a case that the Enigma was not broken using a cryptographic
attack
but rather based on poor operating practices that comprised the key
setting.
He says that much can be learned about an enemy by listening to
encrypted
messages without decoding the messages. This relates to traffic
analysis,
i.e. who talks to who, how many messages, how long are the messages,
how
strong is the signal, what bearing, etc..
Dark
Waters: An Insider's Account of the NR-1, the Cold War's
Undercover
Nuclear Sub (
@Amazon
), a small sub with tires it can "drive" on
the botom.
Elementary
Cryptanalysis
a
Mathematical
Approach by Abraham Sinkov (
@Amazon
), The
Mathimatical Association of America, LOC # 72-89953, copyright 1966 -
This is an excellent book for understanding numerical methods and the
application of computers. The appendix has a number of basic
programs.
If you are using a computer to decrypt messages, you need a way for
the
computer to know that it has succeeded. I used the shape of the
single
letter frequency distribution. By computing the square root of
the
sum of the squares of the distances and normalizing the result it's
easy
for the computer to solve Caesar shifts in <=26 tries.
This could be extended to general monoalphabetic cyphers by using a
diagraphic
frequency distribution. For polygraphic cyphers you would need to
also
look at the diagonals (both 26 up and 26 down).
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (
@Amazon
)-
Novel
incorporating
descriptions
of
some
crypto
systems
and
actual
events.
917
pages.
Counterpane
Systems -
Solitare - pontifex
(Pearl-CGI)
AEGEAN PARK PRESS is a publisher of declassified and interesting publications related to cryptography.
Cloak and Dagger
Books a very large collection of out of print books.
'The Silent War by John Piña Craven ( @Amazon), A Touchstone Boook 2002, ISBN 0-684-87213-7 (25 years after the book "A Matter of Risk")
John wrote this book based on his own knowledge and involvement in the events described. He says that our first knowledge of the missing Russian sub was the open search by the Russians. We later discovered the SOSUS indications that the sub had gone down at 180.0 Lon x 40.0 Lat (about 2,000 miles NW of Hawaii) a point more than 300 miles off the course the Russians were searching. Doing underwater explosions as part of the research related to the Scorpion sinking led John to speculate that the explosion recorded at 180x40 had to be very loud, not something caused by an air tank imploding. Also the sub sank without the normal sounds of locked compartments imploding, meaning that the hatches were all open. This and other evidence indicated the sub was a rogue and the crew had attempted to launch a nuke missile at Hawaii, but to do this they attempted to over ride control systems that probably caused the missile to destroy itself and in the process ignited the liquid fuel carried on board the sub, causing a fire and explosion.
At that time the U.S. had the capability to do an underwater recovery to confirm the rouge nature of the sub, but instead the Glomar Explorer was constructed and deployed. One explanation for this is that the U.S. wanted the Russians to be aware that we might make make the evidence public that they had a rouge sub, and hence that they had lost control of their forces. President Nixon presented the crew of the Halibut, in Hawaii, the Presidential Unit Citation. He flew there in a secret way and not on Air Force One and there is speculation that he had some other meeting, probably with a Russian, to let them know about their rouge sub.
26 Dec 2004 - some research on the sub and what weapons it was carrying. The K-129 Diesel-electric was first called B-103 and later renamed K-129 (probably when converted to a Golf II). A 629 Golf class boat carrying liquid-propellant R-11FM with the 0.5 megaton RDS-4 nuclear explosives and/or R-13 missiles. 14 of the project 629 subs were converted to 629A Golf II class carring the D-4 launch system and R-21 missles with a 1400 km range. IOC was 1963.
"On 15 May 1963 deployment of the D-4 launch system on Golf and Hotel submarines began. The R-21 remained in operational service from 1963 to 1989, during which time 193 out of a total of 228 launches were successful. Over this period the service life of the fueled missile was increased from six months to two years."
The K-129 was upgraded to 629A class, see: Steel in the Deep
Note the Hawaiian islands span a distance of 1,970 to 3, 010 km from 180 Lon x 40 N Lat. (according to my globe) so if the K-129 was a Golf class then it's missile range would have been only 150 km. But a Golf II class sub carries R-21 (SS-N-5) missiles that have a range of 875 NM (1,400 km) and a payload somewhere in the 0.8 to 3.5 MT area. A 1 MT warhead has a 50% kill radius less than 20 km so it's hard to see how a Golf II sub at 180x40 could attack any of the Hawaiian islands, but is in range of Midway. 165x35 or 175x25 would get in range of Necker which is West and North of Hawaii. But in the book A Matter of Risk, the sinking subs location is given as 750 miles NW of Hawaii which would be about 165 x 30 N. Being the first book on the subject it may be wrong.
The Amazing Story of the K129 -
April 2000 Update
A couple of years ago, the Navy leased the Glomar Explorer to Global Marine, (the original contractors) for 30-years. After 20-years in mothballs, the GE was converted to a drill ship, and is currently drilling off of the coast of Nigeria. It is scheduled to return home in 3- to 4-weeks, to resume drilling in the GOM.
State-of-the-Art Drill Ship Conversion by Cascade General
Glomar Explorer (AG 193) (ex-Hugh Glomar Explorer) at the Naval Vessel Register -November 6, 2000 Russian merchant ships used in spying (this has been going on for as long as I can remember) - laser zapped eyes of 2 in helicopter. Blackbird.pdf a novel by Craig J. Coley about a similar situation.
Blind Man's Bluff : The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage, by Sherry Sontag ( @Amazon) 1998 PublicAffairs; ISBN: 1891620088 "Most of the stories in Blind Man's Bluff have never been told publicly," they write, "and none have ever been told in this level of detail." Among their revelations is the most complete accounting to date of the 1968 disappearance of the U.S.S. Scorpion; the story of how the Navy located a live hydrogen bomb lost by the Air Force; and a plot by the CIA and Howard Hughes to steal a Soviet sub. The most interesting chapter reveals how an American sub secretly tapped Soviet communications cables beneath the waves. Blind Man's Bluff is a compelling book about the courage, ingenuity, and patriotism of America's underwater spies.
Spy Sub by Roger C. Dunham ( @Amazon) An Onyx Book, 1997, ISBN 0-451-40797-0
This book is mostly about what it's like to serve on a sub, the Halibut, written by one of those in control if it's nuclear reactor. But it does talk about them finding and photographing the Russian sub that later was picked up by the Glomar Explorer. The photos taken by the Halibut provided much of the evidence that the sub was a rouge.
Spy Sub is the tale of a top-secret submarine named Halibut that lowered miles and miles of special cable along the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in order to investigate a sunken Soviet sub. The mission was such a success that the Halibut itself received a Presidential medal in a secret ceremony. It's a true story, even the part about the sub getting a medal. Roger C. Dunham, a nuclear reactor operator on board the Halibut during the mission, provides a firsthand account of an aspect of Cold War espionage that has only recently begun to surface. To this day, the Pentagon refuses to acknowledge such missions, in all likelihood because they are still going.
The Jennifer Project by Clyde W. Burleson ( @Amazon
), 1997 Texas A&M University Press; ISBN: 0890967644 The Jeniffer Project tells, documentary style, of the most difficult deep-sea salvage mission of all time, the CIA's effort to raise a Russian missile submarine that sank 750 miles northwest of Hawaii in 1968. Political infighting between the White House, the Pentagon, and a few select members of Congress changed a mission that was to be accomplished by small remote submarines (ala Bob Ballard/Titanic) to one which spent in excess of $200 million dollars to research, design, and built the Glomar Explorer, a one-of-a-kind salvage ship under the cover story that it was to be used by Howard Hughes to mine the world's oceans.
Other books since the original 1977 publication have shed more light on the story ("Spy Sub" & "Blind Man's Bluff" for example) of how involved the salvage mission really was. Most reports say the mission was a failure, and only part of the submarine was recovered. But one question has yet to be answered: If the submarine was to be brought up in one piece, as nearly every story written about it has stated, how then does one pull a 300+ foot long sub up through an opening of 199 feet, which was the length of the "moon pool" in the bottom of the Glomar Explorer. A very good docu-story. (ans: in three separate lifts.) Table of Contents
"S.J. Mercury, 5 Nov. 1982 dateline San Francisco- The world's first fully submersible dry dock, built as part of a CIA plan to raise a sunken Soviet sub, is being claimed by the Navy for a new secret project, it was reported Thursday. Navy officials said they have asked the National Park Service to turn over the Hughes Mining Barge-1 (HMB-1), which is docked at Todd Shipyards in San Francisco. They plan to move it to Redwood City for use in a Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. project "in which the Navy has an interest." said Lt. Commander Tom Jurkowsky, a Navy spokesman. He declined to elaborate."
A Matter of Risk by Roy Varner & Wayne Collier, Ballantine Books 1978 ( @Amazon), ISBN 0-345-28639-1 First Edition May 1980. This is the story of the Glomar Explorer built by Howard Hughes to recover the crypto equipment from a Russian Golf-class sub K-129 that sank 3 miles deep about 750 miles NW Pearl Harbor on 11 April 1968 heard by the SOSUS (see 1968) (SOSUS Museum).
Project Azorian: The Story of the Hughes Glomar Explorer
Fifty page SECRET document declassified and made public on 12 Feb 2010 at the National Security Archive web page. Jennifer was the project name for the cover story. Azorian was the overall recovery project. There was just a single lift and the sub was recovered.
Movie: Azorian: The Raising of the K-129 by Michael White
2010 - it's being shown in Europe, but not in the U.S. Maybe related to too much U.S. editing by PBS. The DVD available is only available in PAL format (not the U.S. NTSC format). I have it on order in the hopes that one of my DVD players will work on the Home Theater system. Ray Feldman worked at LMSD and on the Glomar Explorer and was an adviser on the film. He has written reviews about books on the Glomar Explorer and put me onto the author Roman Polmar and in particular "Cold War Subs" ( @Amazon).
19 Apr 2010 - the PAL DVD arrived and it plays with no problem on my Home Theater Blue-Ray player.
The movie does not address what caused the K-129 to sink or what was learned after examining the recovered front half of it. There are a lot of computer generated graphics of the Glomar Explorer and related vessels. There are also some still and movie clips that were taken at the time.
Project Jennifer was the project for generating cover stories for secret operations. Project Azorian was the project to raise the K-129. I think while the movie was being made the name Azorian was still classified and it's only in early 2010 that the name Azorian became public, hence Michael White's web page is Project Jennifer, but the released DVD is called Project Azorian.
The movie is about the Glomar Explorer and the related vessels used to raise the K-129. Early in the film there's a plot of the K-129's course which looks like a straight line, then a turn at 40 degrees North and continuing along the 40 degree latitude line until it gets to the international date line (180 degrees longitude((it doesn't matter if you call it West or East))). The explosions (there were two of them some minutes apart) happened shortly after midnight).
![]() |
This map showing the path of
K-129 is taken from the movie in Chapter 2 at 2:40 into the film.
I have added the Lon and Lat labels and the735 nm long yellow line between the sub and Midway. It shows the path of the K-129 leaving the Naval Base on 25 Feb 1968 heading South East then making a turn at 40N, going to 180 Lon and sinking on 11 March 1968 at midnight, but the printed explosion report says 12:mm:ss and in military time that would be noon in England and midnight on the international date line. The three 1 mega ton missiles had a range of 755 nm. Note Midway is within range, but the Hawaiian Islands are not in range. |
![]() |
Copy of some document relating
to determining the location of the sub based on the sound of the hull
imploding. The position of these explosions is given as: 40.1N by 179.9E at 2800 fathoms. Also note the sub was 600 nm off the path where the Russians were searching. i.e. the sub was not where it was supposed to be. |
![]() |
Azorian Ch2 5:12 First Explosion
time The times are when the explosion was heard at different stations. The top to bottom order of the stations is the same in both images. For example station 1 at the top heard the first explosion at 12:18:56 and the second explosion at 12:24:55. Since the explosions that were heard on the SOSUS system were caused by the hull imploding it's a good guess that something happened on the surface at exactly midnight and it took about 15 minutes for the sub to sink to a deepth where the hull would implode. |
![]() |
Azorian Ch2 5:21 Second
Explosion time |
SOSUS stations and the two implosions.
The speed of sound in sea water varies between 1480 (0.80 nm/sec) and 1560 m/s (0.84 nm/sec) depending on depth.
Table Distance SOUS stations to sub
Based on this table the stations should hear the explosion in the following order:
Station
Lon
Lat
Dist nm to
40N 180
Time mm:ss
@ 0 km depthTime mm:ss
@ 5.5 km depthAdak Wake Kaneohe Midway Adak
176.64 W
51.78 N
720
14:15
15:01
0
-
-
-
Wake
166.63 E
19.3 N
1420
28:06
29:37
13:51
0
-
-
Kaneohe
157.78 W
21.4 N
1591
31:29
33:11
17:14
3:23
0
-
Midway
177.35 W
28.2 N
720
14:15
15:01
0
13:51
17:14
0
?
either Adak or Midway at the same time, then,
Wake, then
Kaneohe, then
the unidentified station (probably because it's measured time between the first and second implosions differed from all the other stations indicating that something was wrong with it's data.)
Table: SOUS stations time of arrival. This data is not consistant with the above order of arrival. If station 2 is Adak or Midway then there should be another time for Explosion 1 very near 12:14:30 for Midway or Adak.
Station
Exp 1
Exp 2
Exp2-Exp1
Station# - Station 2
mm:ss
S#-S2
mm:ss
1
12:18:56
12:24:55
5:59
5:26
04:34
2
12:14:30
12:20:28
5:58
0
0
3
12:33:22
12:39:20
5:58
18:52
15:54
4
12:30:12
12:36:10
5:58
15:41
13:13
5?
12:40:30
12:47:13
6:17
27:00
22:45
The U.S. handling of the secret messages has been thoroughly investigated with the conclusion that there were a number of mistakes. My own theory is based on the fact that England had a well oiled system of intercepting, decrypting, and disseminating the fruit of the intercepted messages. The method of communication at the time was H.F. radio that not only goes to the recipient but also "skips" all over the world. I think that England received the same messages that the U.S. did, but unlike us, both decoded them and understood what they meant. I believe that England communicated to the U.S. that Pearl Harbor would be attacked and about when.In Jan. 1941 Abe Sinkov, Leo Rosen, Robert Weeks and Prescott Currier hand delivered to B.P. a working Purple machine, a kana typewriter, and stacks of documents. Starting Feb. 1941 SIS and OP-20-G the Purple messages were read almost currently. (from a book about Purple.) This may not be too important if JN25 was used for pre attack messages, or they may have gleaned some info from Purple.
1 Meter Resolution
These companies started offering in 1999 high resolution 1 meter photographs made to order.
Prior to this the resolution was 5 meters or greater.Autometric - incorporated in Cayman Islands
Earth Watch Inc. - Quickbird 1 -
Space Imaging, Inc. - Ikonos -
Orbital Imaging Corp. - OrbView-3 and OrbView-4 - in full minute increments with a minimum requirement of a continuous two-minute imaging window. The pricing is $10,000 per minute
FAS - Imint Gallery -
Global Security - Picture of the Week (click on image for new web page)
5 Meter & Greater Resolution
SPOT - French - 5 - 10 meter
Terra Server - my location N39:11:24.692 - W123:09:50.548 -
USGS - National Mapping and Remotely Sensed Data - Earth Resources Observation System (EROS Data Center) - Multispectral Scanner Landsat Data - 50 meter
Earth Observing System Data Gateway -? Resolution
GlobeXplorer - works like Terra Server
Advanced Encryption
Standard (AES) - on the NIST Encryption web page that
also
has some declassified information on KEA and Skipjack
Association of Old Crows - for
people involved in Electronic Warefare
Cryptographic Module
Validation
(CMV)
Program -
Air Force Technical Applications Center
- McClellan Air Force
Base
- responsibility for managing the Atomic Energy Detection
System
[AEDS] discovering foreign atomic tests and other nuclear weapons
related
activities
Alan Turing Home Page
by
the
author
of
a
book
about
the
man
who
thought
of
the
"Turing
Machine"
and
developed
code
breaking
computers
in
England
alt.locksmithing answers to Frequently Asked
Questions
(FAQ)(
@Amazon
)
Brooke's Home, Crypto Machines, Military Information, Electronics, Page
This is the 19935 hits since time
this page has been accessed since 30 Jan. 2000.