Despite incredible political, military, and intelligence risks, and
after six years of secret preparations, the CIA attempted to salvage the
sunken Soviet ballistic missile submarine K-129 from the depths of the
North Pacific Ocean in early August 1974. This audacious effort was
carried out under the cover of an undersea mining operation sponsored by
eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes.
Azorian, incorrectly identified as Project Jennifer by the press, was
the most ambitious ocean engineering endeavor ever attempted and can be
compared to the 1969 moon landing for its level of technological
achievement.
Following the sinking of a Soviet missile submarine in March 1968, U.S.
intelligence agencies were able to determine the precise location and to
develop a means of raising the submarine from a depth of more than
16,000 feet. Previously, the deepest salvage attempt of a submarine had
been accomplished at 245 feet. The remarkable effort to reach the
K-129, which contained nuclear-armed torpedoes and missiles as well as
cryptographic equipment, was conducted with Soviet naval ships a few
hundred yards from the lift ship, the Hughes Glomar Explorer.
While other books have been published about this secret project, none
has provided an accurate and detailed account of this remarkable
undertaking. To fully document the story, the authors conducted
extensive interviews with men who were on board the Glomar Explorer
and the USS Halibut, the submarine that found the wreckage, as well as
with U.S. naval intelligence officers and with Soviet naval officers and
scientists.
The authors had access to the Glomar Explorer's logs and to other
documents from U.S. and Soviet sources. The book is based, in part, on
the research for Michael White's ground-breaking documentary film,
Azorian: The Raising of the K-129, released in late 2009. As a result
of the research for the book and the documentary film, the CIA
reluctantly issued a report on Project Azorian in early 2010, even
though they tried to withhold details that were in that brief document
from the public record by redacting one-third of it. In this book, the
story of the CIA's Project Azorian is finally revealed after decades of
secrecy.
