War History Online on Reels

In the 1970s, at the height of Cold War espionage and secrecy, the CIA launched Project Azorian, one of the most ambitious covert operations in U.S. history. Its goal: to recover a sunken Soviet submarine (K-129) from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of feet below the surface. To mask the mission, the CIA built a colossal ship — the Hughes Glomar Explorer — under the cover story that eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes was using it for deep-sea mining. In reality, the ship was equipped