Secrets Haunt the Still-Classified Operation Ivy Bells

Nice documentary. I never thought SALT was actually true. I thought it was hollywood made up. This is interesting, thanks for sharing.

You didn't think SALT was true???? Not sure how old you are but I remember hearing about it as a kid in the '70's. Read this.

I heard about SALT when I was a, " kid " , in the 1970's too. Was it actually real and not Hollywood made-up ?

I was a kid, I had no way to actually verify if SALT really was true.

The media told us kids it was, and they never lie.

Not to many kids get invited to sit in a high level government meeting to decide how many​ nukes each side gets.

Today it looks like nothing was ever reduced, only redistributed.

in the 1990's, I was a contractor doing IT work for the US Secretary of Defense. One of the building complexes in which I led the system install team was the US On-Site-Inspection-Agency (US OSIA), which is the body tasked with going on-site in the USSR to eyeball verify the destruction of missiles and warheads. Highly classified workspaces and processes, high-tension among the crews on-site. It was real, I can absolutely state.

It sounds like a branch of INSCOM, (INtelligence, Security and COMmunications) actually, thinking about it, I believe it's COMmand and not communications...

in the more secure area, you had a palm print to enter the more secure rooms. and this was over 25 years ago.

In the mean time,... Howard Hughes is developing a undersea mining operation as a cover to covertly retrieve a sunken USSR Nuclear Submarine the K-129 for the CIA (This operation was Code Name: Project Azorian) ...

Investors are lining up to invest into this non-existent mining operations.

This is pretty much old news. This whole operation, (Operation Ivy Bells) was blown wide open in 1985 when Ronald Pelton was arrested for espionage and made headlines arcoss the world. I remember this well and he wasn't the only spy/ tratior to be uncovered that year.

1985 is known as the year of the spy and it's going on today, just ask ask Edward Snowden or Wikileaks

I had a friend who was on Halibut at the time. Interesting times. The Russians found the first tap and have it on display in a museum, so Halibut went back and did it again. There have been a couple of books written about it, so not new news.

Here we go again. The Halibut gets all the credit but no mention of the other boats involved.

I agree with Grandpaw's sentiment. The Halibut certainly deserves credit for the work it did, but there were several boats doing specialized dangerous operation.

These 'spook boats' are fascinating, with loads of modifications to be able to sit in the bottom and perform the task. The Parche (ssn683)deserves a lot of credit as well as others like the Seawolf (ssn575), the L Mendel Rivers(ssn686) and the Richard B Russell(ssn687).

Just think of it this way,... there were other boats and personnel that were involved in just as or more intriguing covert operations that the public never heard of.

Just as it should be.

I served aboard the Seawolf during the 70's. I suppose we will get credit after i am dead. Maybe not. It has been hard to never talk about it for over 40 years. People ask , what did you do while serving our country ? Answer is i signed papers that i cannot talk about it. It sucks.

Just know that there are people who might not know the specifics, but have a vague idea of the types of things you were part of. We appreciate what you did without needing to know the details. We also appreciate your integrity in not divulging things, some of which may seem harmless at this point.

I too appreciate your service and integrity!

It only happens when someone "drops a dime" on the ops