Need to Know - 165

[Captivating episode about the submarine USS Angel Shark going down with 129 men aboard during a "compartmentalized mission (black-ops)" in 1968.] Congresswoman "Lillian," who was the daughter of the Angel Shark's captain, told the new SECNAV, Edward, that "she wasn't asking for favors." She had helped him become "what he wanted" now she "expected" him to help her get the classification lifted to provide "closure" for the families. So he authorized C to hold a second board of inquiry into the incident (the published results of the first one being a lie.) C assigned H & M but also Turner, because of his extensive submarine experience, to be court council. Norman Watts, CIA Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) got in a power struggle with the SECNAV and assigned Catherine Gale, touted to be really "tough," to represent them.

As the CIA was the Original Classifying Agent (OCA) Watts had the upper hand and kept blocking inquiry at every angle by claiming that the new hearings were only "level ONE" security cleared and the operations were "level TWO" so no one could reveal anything. H found that even Gale didn't know why the ops were classified so asked her if she was BLINDLY doing her job "how she knew she was doing the right thing." She told him because "I'm doing my job right and that makes it the right thing." H talked to W, thinking they had at least a working relationship after the Kabir capture, and was told that Watts had given him a direct order to "keep out of it" and not even "see" H. Gayle dogged H, M & Ts every move with secrecy level rhetoric trying to intimidate their witnesses into silence. Gale even dogged W for information about how to "rattle" H, M & T. He told her that with H "what you see is what you get, he never quits" and to leave him alone as well.

B, who was recuperating in Harriet's two story home, found a cross reference on the internet that a CIA agent had "committed suicide" two days after the Angel Shark went down. Surmising that he had been a "double agent" T said that the Russians may have had a Victor-class Hunter-killer sub waiting for them. He also knew that if it had been a "cable tapping" mission they would have been in the Sea of Okhotsk- not where the CIA had lied about. The COMSUBPAC admiral, didn't even know the mission, except that the president approved it! The then CNO admiral did know & did want it released but couldn't say anything- except let it slip that they did search for, and found, the ship due to its having released a radio buoy before it went down. H was masterfully unruffled in the hearing and with every avenue closed by Gale finally called Director Watts. It became much more clear that it really was a "pissing" contest between him and SECNAV so H asked for court order that they produce documents. Watts immediately classified even the recovery as "level TWO" to block Hs inquiry and had to admit that it wasn't the level of clearance but the "need to know" that determined who could see information; and, that with those rules he could even keep secrets from the president! W met H at the "wall of stars" in the CIA building representing those CIA agents who had died "anonymously." He said that he had been told by Watts to prevent H from "going to the press." H apparently effectively shamed him because W sneaked H a video tape of the burial at sea of recovered bodies that had been videotaped by the CIA. H surprised Gale with the tape which showed Watts himself to have supervised recovery! That conflict of interest was enough to get Gale to say she'd "talk to Watts about it. H suggested he could keep some of it secret, tell the surviving families, and show them the tape," which was done." The sub collided w/ a Russian sub which was tipped off by a CIA double agent. Immobilized and waiting for rescue they sent up the buoy and radioed but their pressure hull collapsed. They found the ship, secured the wiretapping devices, recovered bodies and videotaped the burial at sea.

Coates Emailed B that Singer had been "sick" continuously since coming on the ship but wouldn't go to the doctor. B struggled w/ rehab & eventually climbed stairs, in the house that Harriet went behind his back to have her daddy buy for them, to the upstairs bedroom where he then had to deal w/ Harriet's aversion to intimacy by saying "I'm not a freak. I just lost a bit of weight, finally." Watts was really pissed at W & reassigned him to Paramaribo, Surinan as deputy chief of station. He told H "it could have been worse, it could have been Canada." Watching the videotape together Webb told Harm "it's better than stars on a wall."