num_pages: 384
description: An incredible true tale of espionage and engineering set at the height of the Cold Wara mix between The Hunt for Red October and Argoabout how the CIA the U.S. Navy and a crazy billionaire spent six years and nearly a billion dollars to steal the nuclear-armed Soviet submarine K-129 after it had sunk to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean; all while the Russians were watching.In the early hours of February 25 1968 a Russian submarine armed with three nuclear ballistic missiles set sail from its base in Siberia on a routine combat patrol to Hawaii. It never arrived. As the Soviet Navy searched in vain for the lost vessel a top-secret American operation using sophisticated deep-sea spy equipment found itwrecked on the sea floor at a depth of 16800 feet far beyond the capabilities of any salvage that existed. But the potential intelligence assets onboard the shipthe nuclear warheads battle orders and cryptological machinesjustified going to extreme lengths to find a way to raise the submarine.So began Project Azorian a top-secret mission that took six years cost an estimated $800 million and would become the largest and most daring covert operation in CIA history. After the U.S. Navy declared retrieving the sub impossible the mission fell to the CIA's burgeoning Directorate of Science and Technology the little-known division responsible for the legendary U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes. Working with Global Marine Systems the country's foremost maker of exotic deep-sea drill ships the CIA commissioned the most expensive ship ever built and told the world that it belonged to the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes who would use the mammoth vessel to mine rare minerals from the ocean floor. In reality a complex network of spies scientists and politicians attempted a project even crazier than Hughess reputation: raising the sub directly under the watchful eyes of the Russians. The Taking of K-129 is a riveting almost unbelievable true-life tale of military history engineering genius and high-stakes spy-craft set during the height of the Cold War when nuclear annihilation was a constant fear and the opportunity to gain even the slightest advantage over your enemy was worth massive risk.
language: English
title: The Taking of K-129: How the CIA Used Howard Hughes to Steal a Russian Sub in the Most Daring Covert Operation in History
publisher: Dutton