The CIA's Greatest Covert Operation: Inside the Daring Mission to Recover a Nuclear-Armed Soviet Sub

by David H. Sharp

Overview

March 1968: three miles below the stormy surface of the North Pacific, a Soviet submarine lay silent as a tomb-its crew dead, its payload of nuclear missiles, once directed toward strategic targets in Hawaii, inoperable. No longer a real threat, the sub still presented an alluring target and it was not long before the CIA answered its siren call—even at the risk of igniting World War III.

Project AZORIAN—the monumentally audacious six-year mission to recover the sub and learn its secrets—has been celebrated within the CIA as its greatest covert operation and hailed by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers as the twentieth century's greatest marine engineering feat. While previous accounts have offered beguiling glimpses, none have had significant access to CIA personnel or documents. Now David Sharp, the mission's Director of Recovery Systems, draws upon his own recollections and personal records, ship's logs, declassified documents, and conversations with team members to shine a bright light on this remarkable but still little understood enterprise.

Sharp reveals how the CIA conceived, organized, and conducted AZORIAN, including recruiting the legendary Howard Hughes to provide the "ocean mining" cover story. He takes readers onto and beneath the high seas to show the problems faced by the crew during the operation, including potential Soviet intervention and tense moments when the recovery ship itself was in danger of breaking up. He also puts a human face on key players like Carl Duckett, the head of the CIA's Science and Technology Directorate; John Parangosky, AZORIAN's program manager; John Graham, designer of the Hughes Glomar Explorer; Curtis Crooke of Global Marine Development, co-creator of the "grunt lift" recovery concept; and Oscar "Ott" Schick, manager of the Lockheed-built capture vehicle and submersible barge.

A mammoth undertaking worthy of the most dramatic and spell-binding espionage fiction, Project AZORIAN harnessed American imagination and ingenuity at their highest levels. Featuring dozens of previously classified photos, Sharp's chronicle of that amazing operation plunges readers deep into the darkest shadows of the Cold War to produce the definitive account of an amazing mission.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780700619412
Publisher:	University Press of Kansas
Publication date:	04/04/2012
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

David H. Sharp's long career in the CIA included communications support for the Bay of Pigs operation; chief communications engineer for the U-2 program; chief electronics engineer for the flight testing of OXCART, a top secret hypersonic reconnaissance aircraft program; and chief of research and development for covert photographic, audio surveillance, and communications devices used by CIA's foreign agents.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Genesis

A Soviet Submarine is Lost—and Found

CIA Gets in the Game

CIA Meets Global Marine

Go-Ahead

2. The Magic Trick

The Magician's Tools

Picking the Best Lie

Who’s the Front Man?

Roles and Responsibilities

Keep a Low Profile

A Security System Named JENNIFER

The Headquarters Proxy

3. Living the Lie

Making Do with the Glomar II

The Glomar II Rides Again

The Seascope—From Minesweeper to Miner

4. Final Design

The Big Picture

The Heavy Lifter—Hughes Gomar Explorer

Three-Mile Gun Barrel—The Lifting Pipe

The Capture Vehicle Clementine

Now You See It, Now You Don't—The HMB-1

5. Getting Ready

Who’s in Charge?

The Voyage to Pier E

Going Black

Trouble Starts Early

Clementine Meets the Explorer

Integrated System Testing

The Battle for Mission Approval

6. The Recovery Mission

En Route to the Target Site

Recovery Operations

Exploitation and Burial at Sea

What Went Right? And Wrong?

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

7. Matador

Still Alive in ‘75?

Redesign for the MATADOR Mission

Under Pressure to Get It Right

AZORIAN Blown

Enter: Brezhnev; Exit: MATADOR

Winding Down

The Failure and the Success of Azorian

Epilogue

AZORIAN Fallout on the CIA

International Relationships

Legal Issues

Maintaining AZORIAN Secrets

Some Mysteries Still Remain

Appendix A: Perceptions Management and Disinformation

Appendix B: The Docking Problem

Glossary

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

An inside account by a participating CIA engineer, who describes in great detail the marvels that were the ship’s recovery systems. The operation—one of the most ambitious intelligence projects ever attempted—is covered end to end in extraordinary detail.”—Seapower Magazine

“Crucial for all those interested in the true nature and capabilities of American intelligence.”—Intelligencer

“An outstanding book.’”—Proceedings, U.S. Naval Academy

“A unique firsthand account of a genuine CIA ‘mission impossible.’ Intelligence buffs around the world should read and learn.”—Tim Weiner, winner of the National Book Award for Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

“A gripping and unforgettable eyewitness account of high Cold War maritime espionage. I was spellbound from beginning to end.”—Richard Rhodes, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Making of the Atomic Bomb

“A terrific story that reads like a Tom Clancy novel. Sharp’s portrayal of this event is colorful, powerful, and riveting.”—Mitchell B. Lerner, author of The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy

“A fascinating tale.”—John Prados, author of William Colby and the CIA

From the Publisher