On 4 July 1974, the giant deep-sea mining vessel Hughes Glomar Explorer arrived at a location a few nautical miles from the intersection of 40ºN and 180ºE in the Pacific Ocean to spend the next few weeks ostentatiously engaged in “deep-ocean mining tests.” What was actually taking place 16,400 feet below the surface was the final stage of a six-year top-secret operation by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to recover the sunken nuclear-armed Soviet Golf-class submarine K-129. Code-named “Project Azorian,” the operation required expenditures roughly equal to the cost of the moon landing (around $500 million, the precise cost still undisclosed by the CIA). This carefully researched and well-documented account by Norman Polmar and Michael White in Project Azorian: The CIA and the Raising of K-129 reconstructs the remarkable technical and political aspects of the Azorian operation, as well as the Cold War ambiance surrounding it.
The book...