33 
The cover story not only deceived the news media and mining com- 
munity but also had an effect on the Law of the Sea negotiations on 
exploitation of deep seabed resources. It was reported that the activi- 
ties of the Summa Corporation mining ships were a frequent topic 
in the corridors in Caracas.°® Others have been led to speculate, “Hope- 
fully, the first benefit of the Hughes venture will be to catalyze action 
on some settlement of the question of manganese nodules and the 
law.” 2° However, now that the covert activities of Hughes are known 
there is a suspicious reaction to the question of all ocean research. 
Christopher W. Pinto of Sri Lanka observed at the Geneva session of 
the Law of the Sea Conference: “The developing countries have been 
arguing on the basis that espionage is the real reason why the major 
powers seek complete freedom for scientific research. Now that this is 
confirmed, they can be more forceful.” ** 
This all began in 1970 when the Summa Corporation contracted 
with Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. and Global Marine, Inc., who 
have extensive experience in undersea technology and deep sea drilling 
techniques to design a recovery system. The fact that Global Marine 
has a patent for a deep seabed nodule mining system filed as early as 
December 1966, that appears to be compatible with the ship and barge 
system actually constructed, would suggested that the basic technology 
developed for retrieval of the submarine, if not originally intended for 
nodule mining, could readily be transferred to nodule mining. The 
claw arrangement described in the press for grappling the submarine *” 
could be replaced by the mining head described in patent 3,433,531 
issued to Global Marine in March 1969 (Fig. 14). The apparatus 
described in the patent consists of a long rotating boom on a fixed base 
which could sweep out a large area before being repositioned. If crush- 
ing is employed in the base unit, nodules of any size could be collected 
and transported up the pipe string by an air-lift pump. This method 
would cover a mine site relatively efficiently and avoid the difficulty 
of other systems of towing a dredge head over the bottom without 
undue stress on the pipeline. Although a barge is mentioned in the 
patent, the one constructed was probably designed mainly to meet the 
needs of the CIA. 
® Alexander, Tom. Dead Ahead Toward a Bounded Main. Fortune, October 1974, p. 210. 
10 Tinsley. op. cit., p. 87. 
11 Ocean Science News. Mar. 21, 1975, p. 2. 
7? Washington Post. Mar. 19, 1975, p. Al, A10. 
