Search for Titanic turns out to be a top-secret Cold War cover story

The mission in 1985 was straightforward: Scour the depths of the Atlantic Ocean to locate the resting place of the Titanic.

But even some members of the crew had no idea of the top-secret classification of their search or its true aim: to find and inspect the only two U.S. nuclear submarines lost during the Cold War.

“We were able to pull it off under the noses of everybody,” said maritime archaeologist Robert Ballard, a former Navy Reserve officer who is credited with finding the legendary ocean liner that sank in 1912.

“Titanic: The Untold Story,” a new exhibit at the National Geographic Museum, tells how the Navy directed Mr. Ballard to find two nuclear-powered attack submarines that had sunk in the 1960s: the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher.

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