Todd Bennett - How the Glomar Explorer's Covert Espionage Mission Shielded the CIA from Transparency

Interview of Wednesday, 1 February 2023 of M. Todd Bennett, Federal Historian/Professor/Author. Interviewer - Host: James Hughes, AFIO President, a former CIA Operations Officer.
TOPIC: Todd Bennett and Jim Hughes discuss Bennett's latest book, "Neither Confirm nor Deny: How the Glomar Mission Shielded the CIA from Transparency" which covers billionaire Howard Hughes's 1974 Glomar Explorer, a risky deep-sea mining vessel used to retrieve a sunken Soviet sub.
The secret operation featured underwater espionage, impossible gadgetry, and high-stakes international drama, and employed public deniability -- what became known as "the Glomar response": “We can neither confirm nor deny. . . . ”
The interview explores the logistics, media fallout, and geopolitical significance of this deep-sea operation. It helped the CIA ward off oversight during a decade infatuated with expansive openness and disdain for secrecy. And closes with advice for students seeking careers in intelligence.
The interview runs 25 minutes and includes several Q&As.
Purchase a copy of "Neither Confirm nor Deny" here: cup.columbia.edu/book/neither-...
The AFIO Now video series in 2023 is sponsored by Northwest Financial Advisors at www.nwfllc.com.
BIOS:
M. TODD BENNETT is associate professor of history at East Carolina University. He is the author of "Neither Confirm nor Deny: How the Glomar Mission Shielded the CIA from Transparency" (2023) and "One World, Big Screen: Hollywood, the Allies, and World War II" (2012). Bennett was formerly a historian at the U.S. Department of State; there, he edited the Foreign Relations of the United States volume that includes declassified records documenting the Glomar incident.
JAMES R. HUGHES currently serves as the 17th President of AFIO. His service began January 2015. He had a career of US Government service spanning 37 years in numerous foreign countries with a particular focus in the Middle East. He started in U.S. Military Intelligence in the late 1960s and then joined the CIA’s Clandestine Service. He served overseas as a Chief of Station several times, and at CIA Headquarters in a number of senior management positions, including as Chief of the Near East and South Asia Division, in the Directorate of Operations [today’s National Clandestine Service]. He was also named the Associate Deputy Director of Operations (ADDO) at the National Security Agency, 1998-99. Following his retirement from the government in 2005, he joined EDS in Herndon, VA, as the Client Industry Executive for the U.S. Intelligence Community. After the HP acquisition of EDS, he continued to serve in a similar capacity until his retirement in 2012. His parents were missionaries in Turkey in the 1950s, where Jim spent his formative years. He is fluent in Arabic.
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I remember the news of this event. Enjoyed the interview!