Chatter: M. Todd Bennett on the Secretive Story of the Glomar Explorer

David Priess, Shane Harris, M. Todd Bennett

Thursday, February 2, 2023, 12:00 PM

Shane Harris spoke with intelligence historian M. Todd Bennett to discuss his new book, "Neither Confirm nor Deny: How the Glomar Mission Shielded the CIA from Tranpsarency," on how the exposure of

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A sunken Soviet submarine. A secret CIA plan to lift it from the bottom of the ocean with a giant claw. And reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. It sounds like the makings of a Netflix series--and it should be. But the story of the Glomar Explorer is the stuff of fact, even if it has long been shrouded in secrecy.

In his new book, intelligence historian M. Todd Bennett pierces the veil surrounding this most improbable of intelligence operations and surfaces a riveting tale of underwater espionage and high-stakes foreign policy. The sub-salvage mission, which the CIA codenamed AZORIAN, was greenlit at a time of remarkable daring and ingenuity by the spy agency, which enjoyed only minimal oversight from Congress. But journalists brought the Glomar operation to light in another era, when scandals and excesses led lawmakers to reign in the intelligence community.

Shane Harris talks with Bennett about his book, Neither Confirm nor Deny: How the Glomar Mission Shielded the CIA from Transparency, which shows how the exposure of the secret program led to a public backlash against disclosures of classified information and helped reenforce the culture of secrecy that envelops the CIA’s work. The phrase “neither confirm nor deny,” which Bennett tells Harris has become a kind of coy cliche, originates from attempts to uncover the facts of the Glomar mission.

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

Works mentioned during this episode:

Bennett’s book, Neither Confirm nor Deny

The Foreign Relations of the United States Series. A volume that Bennett edited includes declassified records documenting the Glomar incident.

Bennett’s bio and other writing

Bennett on Twitter

David Priess

davidpriess

David Priess is Director of Intelligence at Bedrock Learning, Inc. and a Senior Fellow at the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security. He served during the Clinton and Bush 43 administrations as a CIA officer and has written two books: “The President’s Book of Secrets,” about the top-secret President’s Daily Brief, and "How To Get Rid of a President," describing the ways American presidents have left office.

Shane Harris

Shane Harris has written about intelligence, security and foreign policy for more than two decades. He is a staff writer with The Washington Post, covering U.S. intelligence agencies and national security. He was part of the team that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, for stories about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and efforts to overturn the presidential election. In 2019, he was part of the team that was a finalist for the Public Service award for coverage of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Shane has previously been a staff writer for the Wall Street Journal, the Daily Beast, and National Journal. He is the author of two books, "The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State" (Penguin Press, 2010) and "@War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex" (Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014). He frequently appears on national and international television and radio. He is also a co-host of the weekly podcast "Chatter." Shane graduated from Wake Forest University in 1998. He lives in Washington.