File 023 · 1968–1975 · Cold War espionage

Project Azorian and the Glomar Explorer

The CIA built a giant ship with a cover story about deep-sea mining to lift a sunken Soviet submarine from the Pacific floor in 1974.

Background

In March 1968 the Soviet submarine K-129 sank in the Pacific with all hands, roughly 1,500 miles northwest of Hawaii. The Soviet navy could not find it, but US sensors had recorded the sound of the loss. The US Navy later located the wreck on the seabed at a depth of about 16,000 feet. The CIA saw a chance to recover codebooks and other intelligence material.

The agency commissioned the Hughes Glomar Explorer, a specially built ship with a huge claw and a hidden docking bay, under the cover of a mining project backed by billionaire Howard Hughes. In summer 1974 the ship raised part of the submarine. The submarine broke apart during the lift, and only a section was brought up.

What the record shows

• The ship, the cover story and the lift are described in the CIA's own declassified history of the project.
• The 1975 Freedom of Information Act case produced the legal term 'Glomar response', now used by US agencies that decline to confirm or deny records exist.
• The recovered section included remains of six Soviet crew members, who were buried at sea with military honors, according to the US government.
• How much valuable intelligence was recovered has not been stated in detail.

Timeline

• Mar 1968 K-129 sinks in the Pacific.
• 1969–72 The Navy finds the wreck; the CIA designs the recovery operation.
• 1974 The Glomar Explorer lifts a section of the submarine.
• Feb 1975 The Los Angeles Times reveals the operation; the CIA refuses to comment.
• 1975 The agency's refusal to 'neither confirm nor deny' becomes known as the 'Glomar response' in a Freedom of Information Act case.
• 1992 The US gives Russia video of the burial at sea of six Soviet sailors found in the wreck.
• 2010 The CIA publishes a partly redacted internal history of the project.

Checking the claims

The claim: the CIA used a fake business as cover for a real military mission. It did, and the agency has said so in its own words. This is one of the few Cold War secrets for which a full cover story, a real purpose and a well-documented legal aftermath all exist.

What remains uncertain is the payoff. Early press reports said the whole submarine had been raised and that nuclear missiles and codebooks were recovered. The declassified history indicates the lift was only partly successful. How much of the targeted material was actually obtained is still not publicly known.

Claimed, but not shown

Claims that the operation recovered the whole submarine, or cryptographic equipment, are not confirmed by the declassified account.

Verdict

Sources

• CIA, 'Project AZORIAN: The Story of the Hughes Glomar Explorer', Studies in Intelligence (declassified 2010)
• Military Audit Project v. Casey (D.C. Cir. 1981)
• National Security Archive, Glomar Explorer documents

Connected files (red threads)

• Area 51 — Cover stories and secrecy around a secret government project
• Operation Paperclip — Cold War technology and intelligence competition

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