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Running Head: Global Explorer Global Explorer (Authors Name) (Institution Name) Global Explorer MAD was the very apt abbreviation for the words mutual assured destruction doctrine during the cold war in which the opposing sides of the United States and Russia would effectively annihilate each other. This doctrine was based on the theory and military strategy through which the full range of nuclear weapons of both sides would be used against each other and this worked as a deterrence for the prevention of any direct confrontation between the two super-powers during the more than half a century of the cold war prior to its ending with finality in 1991. Therefore, the period of the cold war between 1945 and 1991 was of competition where both these countries were in the continuous process of developing the deadliest arsenals and the most effective types of firepower, aircrafts, naval ships and other destructive weapons laced with technology that would give them an edge in case of war breaking out between them. The race for building technologically highly advanced and sophisticated submarines between them was also at full pace so that they could spy on each other without getting detected and also have the option of being armed with nuclear missiles as close to each others shores as possible. By the late 1950 s, the United States had produced its first nuclear submarine and with great determination the Soviet Union leveled up by building their nuclear powered ballistic missile carrying submarine. However to some extent, technology wise the Soviet built submarines were inferior and accident prone.
In the background of this underwater competition to have superiority, one of the most interesting stories of the cold war is that of Harold Fuse, the eccentric multi-billionaire and recluse industrialist who was the richest persons in the world during the 1970 s. In his lifetime, Harold had involved himself with almost every type of big business, including independent movie-making, building commercial and military aircrafts, owning factories that produced high-tech engineering equipment as well as other factories that built and supplied sophisticated arms, ammunition and attack projectiles to the navy and army of the United States. However, in his old age because of his eccentric character, Harold had developed a fear of germs and had locked himself in sterile room walled up on three sides with reinforced concrete with the fourth side being a curtained bullet-proof glass wall through which he ran his successful business empire. He strictly avoided direct contact with other human beings and all his basic needs like food, water, medicines etc. were first sterilized and passed on him through a sophisticated system so that there was no possibility of it being contaminated.
Due to his administrative, planning brilliance and capabilities to undertake the most difficult projects and complete them with great secrecy, he was called upon to serve his country with a project that was considered so important and to be undertaken with such secrecy that perhaps no government or corporation in the world would be able to complete it without information of the work required being done leaking out. The recommendation for acquiring Harold's services were made by the Head of the CIA, who had the immediate approval of the United States President for the recovery of a Nuclear Submarine equipped with latest nuclear missiles that the Soviet Union had lost in deep water and had no knowledge of its exact whereabouts. Soviet ships and submarines in vain had been combing the oceans depths everywhere but unknown to them at the time of the submarine accident, the United States with the new advances made in eavesdropping technology had pin-point knowledge of where exactly the sunk Soviet submarine lay. It was only after the Soviets had exhausted themselves with their search and given up on ever finding the submarine that the United States decided that the time was right to salvage the sunken nuclear submarine and its armed nuclear missiles and learn about the technological and submarine warfare advances that the Soviets had made in this field.
This project was brought to the attention of Harold and discussed in privacy with the Head of the CIA with the ever present glass partitioning wall between them. A new sense of invigoration lit up in Harold and he agreed to undertake this challenging project on four conditions. The first condition being that the project be ended officially so that there would be no chance of information about it being leaked out. Harold's second condition was that he would not be reporting to anyone including even the paymasters who would foot the bill for his enterprise through payments made towards the accounts of other businesses that were ongoing between the government and his companies.
His third condition was that only when he was ready to report success he would revert back to the government of the United States and in the meantime he would conduct his business as he saw right for which he would be given unquestioned support in all his dealings by the government. His most challenging and interesting fourth condition to the United States Government and himself was that in the case of his successful salvage recovery of the submarine, he would as a reward be made the owner the Global Explorer and in case of the project failing because of his overall responsibility he would bear the billions of dollars of expenses that would be required to be spent on this massively impossible project to undertake. As from past experiences the CIA and the government of the United States knew of the ingenuity that Harold Fuse could conjure up, they agreed to all his conditions and with abated breath waited for the miracle that he would produce. A few months later the representative of Harold Fuse announced that his company would build the worlds first dual-purpose deep ocean mining vessel built like a stalking horse that could harvest the ocean depths beyond 18, 000 feet for copper and nickel manganese as well as drill for oil in deep ocean. This giant vessel would be 618 feet in length and weigh a massive 51, 000 tons and named the Global Explorer.
Unknown even to his closest confidantes, staff and even the builders of this vessel, Harold had it built in such a way that it could also serve as a recovery vessel that could salvage the sunken Soviet submarine and his orders for including awkward and unnecessary lifting equipment abroad the vessel were viewed as the eccentricities of a reclusive aging man growing madder by the day. However, as he was the responsible for the vessel, he had to be obliged without anyone daring to question his judgment. The mythological status that Harold Fuse earned during his lifetime because of his genius is reflected in the fact that the Global Explorer and its crew carried out mining operations before recovering the submarine in months long salvaging operation without any untoward incident. While the details of the salvage operations was directly supervised through sophisticated communication systems between the crew of the Global Explorer and Harold Fuse from his sterile room remains a secret. However, Harold delivered the intact the salvaged nuclear submarine with its haul of nuclear missiles and bodies of Soviet crew men abroad the unfortunately sunken submarine.
On the instructions of Harold Rush, the bodies of the crew men were secretly laid to their final rest but with full honors at sea and the submarine was delivered with its full array of contents to the CIA and the government of the United States. However, a story was released to the press in which it was reported that only a 38 feet forward portion of the submarine was recovered together with two nuclear torpedoes, cipher and coding equipment and eight dead soviet crew men. While the procedures that were adopted by Harold Fuse will never be revealed to the world as they now lie buried with him after his death in 1976, the government of the United States has also not disclosed what truly was recovered by Harold Fuses multi-purpose vessel and brought to shore. While Harold Fuse he did not during his lifetime get any recognition for the indispensable services he did for his country, on the industrial level his vessel the Global Explorer won many awards for the efficiency and cost saving way in which it was used for deep sea driving activities. Whenever other deep ocean salvage operations similar but less secretive than the purpose for which the Global Explorer was built were required, it performed and achieved the desired results with perfection to prove to the world how much ahead of its time the creation of Harold Fuse was. According to many unconfirmed reports, it has been disclosed that the salvaged submarine and its contents had revealed with startling surprise how far ahead the Soviets were technologically than the United States and much was learnt from the miraculous salvage exercise undertaken by Harold Fuse to once again give an advantage to the United States to develop equipment and ammunition that would counter with better effect the arsenal that the Soviet Union possessed.
In the mid 1990 s, the Global Explorer underwent a hundreds of millions of dollars worth conversion job for drilling in even deeper water and for setting up new world records. In fact, even now years after the cold war and with the United States remaining as the only superpower of the world, the drill ship Global Explore continues to work in deep water drilling and will continue to perform newer and more challenging duties as a legacy to the memory of Harold Fuse. With the cold war ending over fifteen years ago, some of the legendary feats achieved by extraordinary men and extraordinary machines will continue to live on forever including undertakings such as the salvaging of the Nuclear Soviet Submarine that perhaps no government or organization would have been able to do let alone with such secrecy, makes a man like Harold Fuse not only obsessive, reclusive, eccentric but also a most brilliant genius with administration powers beyond compare as nobody is likely to ever again be asked to achieve what Harold Fuse did as a friend of the CIA and as a worthy citizen of the United States of America. References: Darius Snieckus, November 01, 2001, and another thing... An offshore Hughes who (Accessed: May 27, 2007) web SUBMARINES: A HEATED COMPETITION IN A COLD WAR (Accessed: May 27, 2007) web The Global Explorer, Mysteries of the Deep, Raising Sunken Ships (Accessed: May 27, 2007) web
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Research essay sample on Running Head Global Explorer
