National Underwater Reconnaissance Office The National Underwater Reconnaissance Office ( NURO ) is the “ hidden younger brother ” of the National Reconnaissance Office ( NRO ) . NRO was initiated in 1960 and developed as a common office for United States Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) to manage satellite reconnaissance . The first revelation about NRO came in 1973 , but its very existence was not declassified until 1992 . According to Jeffrey T . Richelson , “ [ m ] ost often the Under Secretary of the Air Force served as a Director of the NRO ” . NURO was initiated in 1969 and developed as a common office or liaison office for the United States Navy and the CIA to manage underwater reconnaissance . NURO used “ special project submarines ” like , , and deep inside the waters of the Soviet Union to put out listening devices , tap communication cables , monitor Soviet Navy bases and record sound signatures of Soviet submarines . NURO is a little - known agency ; even its name has been secret and its very existence was first revealed in 1998 . The United States Secretary of the Navy has served as its director . Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew argue that the origin of NURO was the Soviet submarine K - 129 that had sunk outside Hawaii in March 1968 . When USS " Halibut " had returned half a year later with 22 , 000 photos of the Soviet submarine the CIA realized the significance of underwater reconnaissance . NURO was initially formed by CIA Director Richard Helms and dominated by the CIA : “ from the day NURO was formed , the CIA [ with its Deputy Director for Science and Technology Carl Duckett ] took charge . [ Captain James ] Bradley [ from U . S . Naval Intelligence ] could spare only a few people for the new office . His entire staff in the undersea part of Office of Naval Intelligence numbered only about a few dozen . The CIA , however , had no such constraints . It moved in with eight permanent staffers and more consultants loyal to the agency ” . The Navy prepared to go down with a midget submarine to K - 129 . However , the CIA wanted the whole submarine . They built the ship ‘ ’ Glomar Explorer ’ ’ ( now GSF Explorer ) to raise K - 129 , which became very expensive ( up to 500 million dollars ) . From mid - 1970s , the CIA lost its day - to - day control of NURO . Captain James Bradley was able to conduct his own special project operations . Through Bradley it was a direct link to General Alexander Haig and Henry Kissinger . 1972 - 74 , the Secretary of Navy John Warner was the Director of NURO . The Chief Scientist of the U . S . Navy , John Piña Craven , argues that Bradley was a Defense Intelligence Agency ( DIA ) officer at the Office of Naval Intelligence . Craven was a close colleague of Bradley , and Craven seems to indicate that NURO actually was a liaison office not just between the CIA and the Navy but also between the CIA and the DIA using officers from Naval Intelligence . Also others indicate that NURO might have been a CIA - DIA liaison office . NURO operations were conducted primarily in Soviet home waters using specially equipped nuclear - powered attack submarines or “ special project submarines ” , but this intelligence gathering was , according to Ola Tunander , just a part of NURO ’ s activity . He refers to a high - ranking CIA officer saying that NURO in the 1980s also ran operations in the waters of friendly countries , such as those of Scandinavia , penetrating into the archipelagos and naval bases of Sweden . United States Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger stated in 2000 that NURO ' s submarine operations into Swedish waters in the 1980s were run as a “ routine , regular series of defense testing ” after US - Swedish Navy - to - Navy consultations . However , these operations may also have had another purpose . ABC - TV said in 1984 of the U . S . submarine intelligence gathering : “ Most of the top - secret missions are into the waters of the Soviet Union , but according to both active duty and retired military sources , some missions have been run into the territorial waters of those nations considered friendly to the U . S . Even friendly countries , sources say , sometimes do things they don ’ t want the U . S . to know about , things that could inadvertently threaten U . S . security . The missions are conducted by specially equipped nuclear - powered attack submarines and in some cases by a nuclear - powered mini - sub called NR - 1 . ” Tunander also says that during this period ( 1981 – 87 ) , the Secretary of Navy John Lehman was the Director of NURO .