Neither Confirm Nor Deny

Key takeaways

The phrase 'neither confirm nor deny' and the Glomar Response are legal and diplomatic tools used by governments to maintain secrecy and avoid confirming sensitive information.
The CIA's Project Azorian was a Cold War covert operation to recover a sunken Soviet submarine, which became the origin story for the Glomar Response.
Legal strategies like the Glomar Response serve to delay disclosure of information, often for decades, complicating oversight and accountability.
The tactic has been widely adopted across U.S. government agencies, often leading to prolonged legal battles and delayed transparency.
Balancing national security needs with the public’s right to know remains a central tension in democratic societies, highlighting the importance of persistent investigative journalism and oversight.

Summary

Introduction to Secrecy and the Phrase 'Neither Confirm Nor Deny'

The episode begins with a personal anecdote about food allergies, emphasizing the futility of vague labels. It then transitions into the broader theme of government secrecy encapsulated in the phrase 'neither confirm nor deny.' This phrase, and specifically the 'Glomar Response,' became prominent in government dealings, especially in the context of clandestine operations like the Cold War-era CIA mission to recover a sunken Soviet submarine. The episode sets the stage for exploring the origins and implications of this secretive language.

The Glomar Response and Its Origins

The core of the episode details the extraordinary CIA operation called Project Azorian, where the U.S. attempted to recover a sunken Soviet submarine using a giant mechanical claw on the ship Hughes Glomar Explorer. This covert operation was shrouded in secrecy, leading to the development of the 'Glomar Response,' a legal and diplomatic tactic that allows government agencies to neither confirm nor deny the existence of information. The episode recounts the operation, its failure to fully recover the submarine, and the subsequent strategic response to manage public and international perception.

Legal and Political Ramifications of the Glomar Response

The episode explains how the Glomar Response originated as a legal tool during the Watergate era when transparency laws like the FOIA law came into effect. It discusses the dilemma faced by government officials, exemplified by lawyer Walt Logan, who had to balance national security with legal obligations. The response became widely used across various agencies, often delaying disclosures for years and creating a de facto wall of secrecy. The segment explores how this tactic complicates oversight, with examples from recent use cases and legal challenges.

Impacts of Secrecy on Public Knowledge and Oversight

The episode examines the broader implications of the Glomar Response on democracy and accountability. It highlights how the strategy prevents the public from truly understanding government actions, citing the emotional pain of families affected by unresolved Cold War incidents. It also presents how journalists and advocacy groups, like the ACLU, contend with this tactic, facing long legal battles and delayed transparency. The discussion underscores the tension between secrecy for national security and the public's right to know.

Reflections on Secrecy and the Future of Transparency

Concluding with reflections, the episode discusses the enduring power of government secrecy and the ongoing use of the Glomar Response. It considers the moral and practical questions raised by such secret-keeping, emphasizing that while secrecy might be necessary for some operations, it often hampers democratic oversight and accountability. The episode ends by highlighting the importance of persistent investigative efforts and transparency in a functioning democracy.

Show notes

In an episode we first ran back in 2014, we explore how a sunken nuclear submarine, a crazy billionaire, and a mechanical claw gave birth to a phrase that has hounded journalists and lawyers for 40 years and embodies the tension between the public’s desire for transparency and the government’s need to keep secrets.

Whether it comes from government spokespeople or celebrity publicists, the phrase “can neither confirm nor deny” is the perfect non-denial denial. It’s such a perfect deflection that it seems like it’s been around forever, but reporter Julia Barton takes us back to the 1970s and the surprising origin story of what’s now known as a “Glomar Response.” With help from David Sharp and Walt Logan, we tell the story of a clandestine CIA operation to lift a sunken Soviet submarine from the ocean floor and the dilemma they faced when the world found out about it. It’s an episode we first released in 2014, but given some things in the news recently, it resonated with us again.

In the 40 years since that operation, the Glomar Response has become boilerplate language from an array of government agencies. With help from ProPublica editor Jeff Larson and NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston, we explore the implications of this ultimate information dodge. ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer explains how it stymies oversight, and we learn that, even 40 years later, governmental secrecy can be emotionally painful.

More information about Glomar:

After 40 years, many of the details of Project Azorian are only now coming to light. The US government’s default position has been to keep as much of it classified as possible. It took three years for retired CIA employee David Sharp to get permission to publish his account of Project Azorian. And FOIA played an indirect role in that, as Cold War historians got the CIA to release, in redacted form, an internal history of the mission. After that and a threat of legal action, Sharp was finally able to publish his manuscript in 2012.

We mentioned conspiracy theories that have swirled around Project Azorian filling the void where official silence has reigned. One of them is promulgated in the 2005 book “Red Star Rogue” by Kenneth Sewell and Clint Richmond. They posit that the K-129 was taken over by rogue Stalinist KGB agents in order to start a nuclear conflict. But the conflict was to be between the US and China, as, according to the authors, the sub had powers to disguise its sonic signature as a Chinese Navy vessel.

This book is the basis of the 2013 drama “Phantom,” which features Ed Harris and David Duchovny as Soviet military officers who sip vodka in a very un-Russian way.

Russian Naval historians, like Nikolai Cherkashin, are not only insulted by this take on the cause of the K-129’s demise, they say the true cause is much easier to pinpoint: They say an American vessel, possibly the USS Swordfish, collided with the Soviet submarine.

Despite the fact that the US government has turned over many documents about Project Azorian and what it found to the Russian government, many in the Russian Navy stand by their theory that it was far too easy for the US to locate the K-129 on the bottom of the Pacific, given the technology of the time. According to these theories, Project Azorian was nothing more than an elaborate cover-up disguised as ... an elaborate cover-up. We can neither confirm nor deny that we exactly understand how that would have worked in practice or execution.

It’s one of the more solemn moments of the Cold War, and one that the Glomar Response helped keep a secret for a very long time.

LATERAL CUTS:
What Lies Beneath (https://radiolab.org/podcast/what-lies-beneath)

EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Julia Barton

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