I was curious where the statement “Neither Confirm Nor Deny” originated and why they call it the Glomar Response. To answer the first part people have been using the phrase you many years, one of the earliest known was in 1916, Ford representatives said they would “neither confirm nor deny” that price cuts were in the offing for its popular Model-T automobile.
In 1968 a Soviet Submarine, K-129, sunk in 16,500 feet of water, carrying three SS-N-4 nuclear-armed missiles. The submarine was located 1,500 miles northwest of Hawaii and no known vessel in the world had the ability to raise this massive vessel.
The CIA commissioned Howard Hughes to build such a ship for them. He would construct 618 foot long Glomar Explorer to perform this near impossible task. The project was called Azorian, and two Soviet ships watched the (cover story) mining operation of the Glomar trying to raise the Soviet Submarine. Some of the ship fell back to the bottom during retrieval and the CIA classified the mission as a failure. We do know the bodies were retrieved, buried at sea, filmed and shown to the Soviets 25 years later.
In 1975, a Freedom of Information Request was made to the CIA requesting information to what was going on with the supposed retrieval of a Soviet Submarine. This was the response:
“we can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of records responsive to your request”
CIA (now known as the Glomar Response)
