body-of-secrets-anatomy-of-the-ultra-secret-national-security-agency-2002

more like a giant Soviet lake than a sea. The cable ran from theKamchatka Peninsula, home of some of Russia's most sensitivesubmarine and missile testing facilities, to land cables connecting toVladivostok, headquarters of the Soviet Pacific Fleet. An earliersubmarine mission had located the cable by using its periscope to find asign, posted on a small beach area, warning anyone present to be carefulto avoid harming a buried cable. But while the sub, the USS Halibut, hadsucceeded in briefly tapping the cable, the results had beendisappointing."They came back with very, very poor quality material and the NSAand the Navy were very upset," said Arnold. "NSA said, 'Hey, don't teaseus like this. There's great stuff there if you could get some decentrecordings.' " According to Arnold, "They had people who were Sigintqualified but not for cable tapping and they weren't versed in broadbandrecording and they weren't properly equipped either." As a result, Arnoldwas told to put together the best team of cable tappers he could find."They basically said you can go anywhere in the world you want and pickyour team because they didn't want another black eye." Arnold flew downto the Navy's Sabana Seca listening post in Puerto Rico and picked thefirst of four highly experienced chiefs for the job. Those four would joinhalf a dozen other Navy Sigint experts, four divers, and the rest of theHalibut's crew for nearly a year of secret training at NSA and elsewhere.The mission got under way from Mare Island, near San Francisco, inJune 1975. About a month later, the Halibut quietly arrived in the mouthof the bear—the Sea of Okhotsk—and, after several days of searching,located the cable. Like a moon lander, she slowly settled down on themucky bottom, black clouds of silt rising in the total darkness. Speciallydesigned to sit on the floor of the sea for weeks at a time, the Halibut wasequipped with unique sledlike skis to keep the round bottom fromrolling.On board, excitement built as preparations were made to begin thetap. By now, despite the secrecy of the operation, everyone on board hadbeen briefed, from the cooks to the senior officers. "If you know the truthyou respect it and handle it accordingly," said Arnold. "But if you treatthem like dumdums and they aren't supposed to know anything, thatirritates them and a lot of times, the speculation is worse than the truth."Arnold and his team worked out of a tiny converted storeroom,amidships just forward of the reactor compartment. On the other sidewas the radio shack, which was crammed with additional Sigintspecialists, mainly Russian linguists. The four divers were sealed in adiving-bell—like contraption. The device looked like a deep-sea rescuevehicle, but it wasn't going anywhere—it was welded to the top deck.Inside the cramped, uncomfortable decompression chamber the divershad lived for about a week. Special gases in the pressurized, tube-shaped319