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.Wiegley, Roger D., LT (JAG) USN "The Recovered Sunken Warship: Raising a Legal Question" United States Naval Institute Proceedings January 1979 p. 30.The secret on the ocean floor . David Shukman, BBC News. February 19, 2018. The 1968 sinking of K-129 occurred about northwest of Hawaii. Project Azorian was one of the most complex, expensive, and covert intelligence operations of the Cold War at a cost of about million (equivalent to $billion in ).
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 of pipe. They worked with scientists to develop methods for preserving paper that had been underwater for years in hopes of being able to recover and read the submarine's codebooks. 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 submarine located the boat using the Fish, a towed, , 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 mining company and ship were nominally owned by reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, but secretly backed by the CIA, who paid for the construction of the Hughes Glomar Explorer. 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.
Wreck of K-129
On February 24, 1968, K-129, a Soviet Project 629A ballistic missile submarine attached to the 15th Submarine Squadron of the Soviet Pacific Fleet, left Rybachiy Naval Base in Kamchatka on a routine missile patrol, the boat's third since completing a major modernization the previous year. On the first day, the sub cruised out to deep water, conducted a test dive, surfaced to radio in, and embarked for its patrol station. The sub was to make standard radio contact with its commanders in Kamchatka when crossing the 180th meridian and when arriving on station. But K-129 missed its designated check-ins and did not respond to communication attempts. By the third week of March, the submarine was declared missing.
In April 1968 many Soviet Pacific Fleet surface and air assets deployed to the North Pacific Ocean were observed performing unusual search operations. The activity was evaluated by the United States Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) as a possible reaction to the loss of a Soviet submarine. Soviet surface ship searches were centered on a location known to be associated with Soviet Golf II-class strategic ballistic missile (SSB) diesel submarine patrol routes. These submarines carried three nuclear missiles in an extended sail/conning tower and were routinely deployed within missile range of the US west coast. After weeks of searching, the Soviets were unable to locate the sunken boat, and Soviet Pacific Fleet operations gradually returned to normal.
The US Navy analyzed acoustic data recorded by the SOSUS hydrophone network in the northern Pacific—four AFTAC sites and the Adak, Alaska SOSUS array—and found evidence of the implosion that had sunk the Russian sub. Naval Facility (NAVFAC) Point Sur, south of Monterey, California, isolated a sonic signature on its low-frequency array recordings of an implosion that had occurred on March 8, 1968. Using NavFac Point Sur's date and time of the event, NavFac Adak and the US West Coast NAVFAC were also able to isolate the acoustic event. With five SOSUS lines-of-bearing, Naval Intelligence was able to localize the site of the K-129 wreck to the vicinity of 40.1° N latitude and 179.9° E longitude (close to the International Date Line).
In July 1968, the United States Navy began "Operation Sand Dollar" with the deployment of from Pearl Harbor to the wreck site. Sand Dollar's objective was to find and photograph K-129. In 1968 Halibut, which had been configured to use deep submergence search equipment, was the US Navy's only such specially-equipped submarine. Halibut located the wreck after three weeks of visual search using robotic remote-controlled cameras. (It took almost five months of search to find the wreck of the US nuclear-powered submarine in the Atlantic, also in 1968). Halibut is reported to have spent the next several weeks taking more than 20,000 closeup photos of every aspect of the K-129 wreck, a feat for which Halibut received a special classified Presidential Unit Citation signed by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968.
The photos were sent to the National Photographic Interpretation Center at the CIA to determine what, if anything, could be determined about the status of the wreck. CIA analysts wrote a report indicating that there was a good probability that the nuclear missile in the #3 missile tube was still intact.
In 1970, based upon this photography, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and Henry Kissinger, then National Security Advisor, proposed a clandestine plan to recover the wreckage so that the US could study Soviet nuclear missile technology, as well as possibly recover cryptographic materials. The proposal was accepted by President Richard Nixon, and the CIA was tasked to attempt the recovery.
Building Glomar Explorer and its cover story
Global Marine Development Inc., the research and development arm of Global Marine Inc., a pioneer in deepwater offshore drilling operations, was contracted to design, build and operate Hughes Glomar Explorer to secretly salvage the sunken Soviet submarine. The ship was built at the Sun Shipbuilding yard near Philadelphia. 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. K-129 was photographed at a depth of over , and thus the salvage operation would be well beyond the depth of any ship salvage operation ever attempted. On November 1, 1972, work began on the , Hughes Glomar Explorer (HGE).
At least two preparatory missions were carried out in the general area of the recovery site using other ships. From September 1970 to January 1971, the drilling ship GLOMAR II collected site data as part of Project AXMINSTER. From January to July 1972, the R.V. SEASCOPE surveyed the general area to within 45 nautical miles of the recovery site. Both missions also probed the Soviet reactions to research ships in the region.
The primary objective was to recover a major portion of the submarine. In particular, the United States Intelligence Board (USIB) expected to recover cryptographic equipment, a nuclear warhead, a SS-N-5 missile, the navigation system, fire control system, sonar system, ASW countermeasures, and related documentation.
Recovery Hughes Glomar Explorer employed a large mechanical claw, which Lockheed officially titled the "Capture Vehicle" but affectionately called Clementine. The capture vehicle was designed to be lowered to the ocean floor, grasp the targeted submarine section, and then lift that section into the ship's moon pool for processing. One requirement of this technology was to keep the floating base stable and in position over a fixed point below the ocean surface.
The capture vehicle was lowered and raised on a pipe string similar to those used on oil drilling rigs. Section by section, pairs of steel pipes were strung together to lower the claw through a hole in the middle of the ship. This configuration was designed by Western Gear Corp. of Everett, Washington. Upon a successful capture by the claw, the lift reversed the process: pairs drawn up and removed one at a time. The salvaged "Target Object" was thus to be drawn into the moon pool in the center of the vessel, the doors of which could then be closed to form a floor for the salvaged section. This allowed for the entire salvage process to take place underwater, away from the view of other ships, aircraft, or spy satellites.
Hughes Glomar Explorer arrived at the recovery site () on July 4, 1974, after departing from Long Beach, California, on June 20, and sailing . The ship conducted salvage operations for over a month. During this period, at least two Soviet Navy ships visited Hughes Glomar Explorers work site, the oceangoing tugboat SB-10, and the Soviet missile range instrumentation ship Chazma. It was found out after 1991 that the Soviets were tipped off about the operation and were aware that the CIA was planning some kind of salvage operation, but the military command believed it impossible that they could perform such a task and disregarded further intelligence warnings. Later, Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin started sending urgent messages back to the Soviet Navy warning that an operation was imminent. Soviet military engineering experts reevaluated their positions and claimed that it was indeed possible (though highly unlikely) to recover K-129, and ships in the area were ordered to report any unusual activity, although the lack of knowledge as to where K-129 was located impeded their ability to stop any salvage operation.
US Army Major General Roland Lajoie stated that, according to a briefing he received by the CIA during recovery operations, Clementine suffered a catastrophic failure, causing two-thirds of the already raised portion of K-129 to sink back to the ocean floor. Former Lockheed and Hughes Global Marine employees who worked on the operation have stated that several of the "claws" intended to grab the submarine fractured, possibly because they were manufactured from maraging steel, which is very strong, but not very ductile compared with other kinds of steel. Video evidence and eyewitness reports have stated that multiple claws of Clementine sheared off, causing a section of the submarine to fall back to the seafloor. Eyewitnesses have stated that only the bow section was raised, while the sail portion containing the nuclear missiles was lost during the raising operation.
The recovered section included two nuclear torpedoes, and thus Project Azorian was not a complete failure. The bodies of six crewmen were also recovered, and were given a memorial service and with military honors, buried at sea in a metal casket because of radioactivity concerns. Other crew members have reported that code books and other materials of apparent interest to CIA employees aboard the vessel were recovered, White's documentary also states that the ship's bell from K-129 was recovered, and was subsequently returned to the Soviet Union as part of a diplomatic effort. The CIA considered the project one of the greatest intelligence coups of the Cold War.
The entire salvage operation was recorded by a CIA documentary film crew, but this film remains classified. A short portion of the film, showing the recovery and subsequent burial at sea of the six bodies recovered in the forward section of K-129, was given to the Russian government in 1992.
Public disclosure
The New York Times story