U.S. Presentation Will Discuss Recently Declassified CIA “Ice Station Zebra” Mission

April 23, 2013. David Pugliese - Defence Watch

News release from the U.S. Navy:

The National Museum of the United States Navy will host a special presentation by the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Historical Collections Division (HCD) April 25 at 3:00 p.m. in its Museum Education Center. CIA historian Mr. David Waltrop will talk about the recently declassified 1972 secret operation to recover a spy satellite film capsule that fell 16,400 feet into the Pacific Ocean. The talk will also include accounts of the mission by key participants in the 1972 operation, including retired Navy Cmdr. Richard Taylor, and retired Navy Lt. Cmdr Beauford Myers,, as well as Mr. Lee Mathers, a former U.S. naval intelligence officer.   Retired Navy Capt. Don Walsh, PhD , the officer in charge of USS Trieste I’s mission called “Project Nekton” to Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench in 1960, will also be in attendance to give a historical perspective of previous underwater operations.  A reception will be held in the Museum’s USS Trieste I exhibit following the event.

The photo capsule — publicly identified as a nondescript “data package” — contained valuable photos taken by the first KH-9 HEXAGON photoreconnaissance satellite. After the capsule was lost during reentry in July 1971, the CIA partnered with the Navy to plan and execute its recovery. The Navy possessed the only vessel capable of operating at the necessary recovery depth: deep submergence vehicle USS Trieste II (DSV-1). Over a period of eight months, USS Trieste II painstakingly searched for the missing capsule with assistance from its support ship USS White Sands (ARD-20) and support ship tug USS Apache (ATF-67).   Cmdr. Taylor was one of three Trieste II pilots during this operation and Lt. Cmdr Myers served as the White Sands executive officer. Trieste II successfully recovered the capsule April 26, 1972, earning a Meritorious Unit Citation for performing the deepest ocean recovery then attempted. Today, Trieste II is on permanent display outside the Naval Undersea Museum in Washington state, while Trieste I is on permanent display at the National Museum of the United States Navy.

The CIA recently declassified documents and photographs relating to this top secret mission. These materials, entitled “An Underwater Ice Station Zebra: Recovering a Secret Spy Satellite Capsule from 16,400 Feet below the Pacific Ocean,” are available on the Historical Collections Publications page of the CIA website: