Cold war thinking may have been crazy, but it did show a remarkable amount of ambition and follow through. From what I can tell, the Soviets never really had a clue what this was all about, which is amazing when you consider how many people (at a public company!) were involved and how big the project was in general. It’s not like there was a lack of spies on either side.
Of course the extreme paranoia that kept the Soviets in the dark also kind of doomed the project. First when they were scared off before finishing the site survey by a curious Soviet vessel (and who wouldn’t be curious, the Glomar Explorer is a freaking cool ship), and then again when they rushed the actual retrieval operation for the same reason.
