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Project Azorian (also called "Jennifer" by the press after its Top Secret Security Compartment) was a U.S.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project to recover the sunken Soviet submarine K-129 from the Pacific Ocean floor in 1974 using the purpose-built ship Hughes Glomar Explorer. Project Azorian was one of the most complex, expensive, and covert intelligence operations of the Cold War at a cost of about US$800 million (equivalent to $3.9 billion in 2024). The US designed the recovery ship and its lifting cradle using concepts developed with Global Marine (see Project Mohole) that used their precision stability equipment to keep the ship nearly stationary above the target while lowering nearly three miles (4.8 km) of pipe. The reasons that this project was undertaken included the recovery of an intact R-21 nuclear missile and cryptological documents and equipment. The Soviet Union was unable to locate K-129, but the US determined its general location from data recorded by four Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC) sites and the Adak Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) array. The US identified an acoustic event on March 8 that likely originated from an explosion aboard the submarine, and was able to determine the location to within five nautical miles (5.8 mi; 9.3 km). The submarine USS Halibut located the boat using the Fish, a towed, 12-foot (3.7 m), two-short-ton (1.8 t) collection of cameras, strobe lights, and sonar that was built to withstand extreme depths. The recovery operation in international waters about six years later used mining for manganese nodules as its cover story. The ship recovered a portion of K-129, but a mechanical failure in the grapple caused two-thirds of the recovered section to break off during recovery.

Billionaire businessman Howard Hughes – whose companies were already contractors on numerous classified US military weapons, aircraft and satellite contracts – agreed to lend his name to the project to support the cover story that the ship was mining manganese nodules from the ocean floor, but Hughes and his companies had no actual involvement in the project.

The recovered section included two nuclear torpedoes, and thus Project Azorian was not a complete failure.

In February 1975, investigative reporter and former New York Times writer Seymour Hersh had planned to publish a story on Project Azorian.

After stories had been published about the CIA's attempts to stop publication of information about Project Azorian, Harriet Ann Phillippi, a journalist, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the CIA for any records about the CIA's attempts. A video showing the 1974 memorial services for the six Soviet seamen whose bodies were recovered by Project Azorian was forwarded by the U.S. to Russia in the early 1990s. Portions of this video were shown on television documentaries concerning Project Azorian, including a 1998 Discovery Channel special called A Matter of National Security (based on Clyde W.

Halperin on behalf of the Military Audit Project suggest that the alleged project goal of raising a Soviet submarine might itself have been a cover story for another secret mission.

Craig Reed told an inside account of Project Azorian in his book Red November: Inside the Secret U.S. – Soviet Submarine War (2010). The documentary film Azorian: The Raising Of The K-129 features interviews with Sherman Wetmore, Global Marine heavy lift operations manager; Charlie Johnson, Global Marine heavy lift engineer; and Raymond Feldman, Lockheed Ocean Systems senior staff engineer. Norman Polmar and Michael White published Project Azorian: The CIA And The Raising of the K-129 in 2010.

A number of artifacts from Project Azorian and Glomar Explorer are on display at the CIA Museum.

Spy Ops: Project Azorian (Season 1, Episode 8) is a short documentary also produced by Michael White which adds some details to his earlier work. Three Miles Down novel by Harry Turtledove, based on Project Azorian.

Quick Facts

• Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project to recover the sunken Soviet submarine K-129 from the Pacific Ocean floor in 1974 using the purpose-built ship Hughes Glomar Explorer.
• Project Azorian was one of the most complex, expensive, and covert intelligence operations of the Cold War at a cost of about US$800 million (equivalent to $3.9 billion in 2024).
• The Soviet Union was unable to locate K-129, but the US determined its general location from data recorded by four Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC) sites and the Adak Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) array.
• The reasons that this project was undertaken included the recovery of an intact R-21 nuclear missile and cryptological documents and equipment.
• Norman Polmar and Michael White published Project Azorian: The CIA And The Raising of the K-129 in 2010.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Project Azorian". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.