August 7th 1974 – 50 years ago today.
At the top of the world-
Philippe Petit strung a cable from one of the Twin Towers to the other and walked back and forth 8 times over 45 minutes before surrendering to the Port Authority Police. He was arrested and charged with trespassing although the charges were dropped. He was 24 at the time and had been planning this since 1968.
Meanwhile at the bottom of the world-
The Glomar Explorer, a “drilling ship” operated by the CIA, had lowered a grappler to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and was slowly raising Russian Nuclear Submarine, K-129, that had sank a number of years earlier. The CIA wanted to check out the nuclear weapons as well cryptographic equipment and code books. The submarine broke in two on the way up and it’s unclear what the CIA was able to recover. Planning for this mission began in 1968 as well.