NationalInterest.org, August 18, 2017

Inside the USS Jimmy Carter: America's MostSecret Attack Submarine Ever

Joseph Trevithick

The unit makes no mention of intelligencegathering. But while the name implies a solely experimental function, thesailing branch routinely uses these types of monikers for special or elitegroups. The near legendary terrorist-hunting SEAL Team Six is officially calledthe Naval Special Warfare Development Group. The service describes the spyships it runs together with the U.S. Air Force as “missile rangeinstrumentation ships.” The squadron responsible for flying around thepresident and his staff is now simply called Marine Helicopter Squadron One,but still uses the acronym HMX-1 — a nod to its “experimental” origins.

On Jan. 20, 2013, the Seawolf-class attacksubmarine USS Jimmy Carter left her home port in Bangor, Washington. Less thantwo months later, the submarine appeared at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii for repairs.

It was all quite mysterious. During her time atsea, we don’t know where Jimmy Carter was or what her crew of nearly 150 wereprecisely doing. The Seawolf class is one of the most secretive weapons inAmerica’s arsenal, and information about the Navy’s “Silent Service” isdifficult to discover … by design.

We know Jimmy Carter was on some kind ofmission, which the ship’s official annual history vaguely referred to asMission 7. “Performed under a wide range of adverse and extremely stressfulconditions without external support, this deployment continued USS JimmyCarter‘s tradition of excellence in pursuit of vital national security goals,”the history stated In this vessel’s official chronology, the mission warrantsas much mention as a picnic in July and the crew’s Halloween party three monthslater. But Mission 7 was enough to earn the sailors a Presidential UnitCitation, which rewards “extraordinary heroism in action against an armedenemy,” according to an official Navy description.

As the last of the Seawolf-class attacksubmarines, Jimmy Carter is unique. During her construction, the Pentagon addeda special 100-foot-long, 2,500-ton module called the Multi-Mission Platform. Bythe sailing branch’s own admission this space can accommodate undersea drones,SEALs and much more.

More importantly, the hourglass-shaped sectionmight allow specially trained teams to find and tap undersea communicationslines and plant listening devices on the ocean floor. It’s more than likelythat the submarine is one of the Pentagon’s most stealthy spies.

Another clue is the Presidential Unit Citationfor Mission 7. For the sailing branch, this is akin to giving the boat itself aNavy Cross, the service’s second highest award. The criteria makes it clearthat the mission must have been “extremely difficult and hazardous.” But theSecretary of the Navy’s citation for the sub’s 2013 performance is equallyobtuse.

Along with sailors from the even more obscureDetachment Undersea Research and Development, Jimmy Carter “successfullycompleted extremely demanding and arduous independent submarine operations ofvital importance to the national security of the United States,” is how thememo described the operation. Both units “overcame numerous obstacles to safelyexecute these demanding and complex tasks without incident.”

Two pictures attached to the report show theship’s captain, Cmdr. Brian Elkowitz, and other officers holding the framedcitation and associated pennant. In both cases, Navy censors blacked out oneindividual’s face, ostensibly for privacy reasons.

War Is Boring obtained these documents throughthe Freedom of Information Act. Every year, all ships, subs, squadrons ofaircraft and commands on land are required to turn a historical report over tothe Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington, D.C. But there’s norequirement that the narrative go into any great or specific detail. And JimmyCarter‘s history is more a record of the secrecy surrounding the ship’s thanher actual activities.

While already guarded about submarines ingeneral, the Navy is especially tight-lipped about the Seawolf-class boats.Originally intended to be the most advanced undersea attackers, Washingtonslashed the program after the Cold War and the threat of equally high-techSoviet submarines appeared to evaporate.

Instead of a planned fleet of nearly 30 ships,the Pentagon bought just three for more than $3 billion each. At more than 350feet long and with a submerged displacement of more than 9,100 tons, theSeawolf class is the most expensive attack submarine ever built and the secondmost expensive undersea vessel of any type.

The sailing branch eventually grouped togetherthe USS Seawolf, Connecticut and Jimmy Carter as the core of SubmarineDevelopment Squadron Five. The unit’s spartan website states it is responsiblefor testing new undersea listening gear and remote-controlled submersibles,either tethered to a larger sub or able to operate on their own.

The group is also in charge developing newtactics for fighting in the Arctic, a region where submarines can easily hidefrom their opponents. Despite their current mission, each ship still has eighttorpedo tubes, which can also fire Harpoon anti-ship and Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The unit makes no mention of intelligencegathering. But while the name implies a solely experimental function, thesailing branch routinely uses these types of monikers for special or elitegroups. The near legendary terrorist-hunting SEAL Team Six is officially calledthe Naval Special Warfare Development Group. The service describes the spyships it runs together with the U.S. Air Force as “missile rangeinstrumentation ships.” The squadron responsible for flying around thepresident and his staff is now simply called Marine Helicopter Squadron One,but still uses the acronym HMX-1 — a nod to its “experimental” origins.

Further lending credibility to Jimmy Carter‘sreal spying mission, the Navy retired the equally shadowy USS Parche just fourmonths before putting the new submarine into action. The sailing branch saysParche is the most decorated ship ever, with nine Presidential Unit Citationsamong other awards.

Completed in 1974 as a Sturgeon-class attacksub, the Pentagon specifically upgraded the Parche to break into Sovietcommunications lines. Between 1978 and 1979, the submarine reportedly tappedinto cables in the Sea of Okhotsk north of Japan as part of a mission dubbedOperation Ivy Bells.

“The Navy, with strong input from the NSA, wasfirst sending Parche to Okhotsk to plant a second recording pod … to greatlyincrease capacity at the tap site,” Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew wrote inBlind Man’s Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage. “She wasbeing sent, in part, to prove herself before anyone dared to send her to thatother, far more dangerous sea.“ Success at Okhotsk paved the way for missionsin the far more crowded — and therefore dangerous — Barents Sea. To hide fromMoscow’s sub-hunters, Parche hid under the cover of the Arctic ice as shesneaked into congested shipping lanes.

Nearly a decade later, the Navy sent Parche offfor another overhaul. In 1991, the sailing branch sent the newly refurbishedsub to join Submarine Development Squadron Five.

Though their book was published before thesubmarine was finished, Sontag and Drew explained that Jimmy Carter‘s expandedmid-section was to make room for the same gear Parche had carried into Sovietwaters. No doubt the Navy and its partners at the NSA have made improvementssince then.

While General Dynamics Electric Boat was stillputting the submarine together in 2001, NSA director Lt. Gen. Michael Haydenlaughed off claims about breaking into undersea cables in an interview with theWall Street Journal. “I’m not going to sit here and dissuade you from yourviews,” Hayden said, before refusing to comment on Jimmy Carter‘s mission.

Two years later, the Journal again reportedthat the submarine’s role suggested an undersea spook, citing “peopleknowledgeable about it.” After more than a decade of apparently very activeservice, little else has slipped out about the ship or her operations.

We could easily have to wait another decade ormore for there to be any real confirmation — likely from a book like Sontag andDrew’s rather than the Navy — about Jimmy Carter‘s unique history and detailsabout Mission 7.