This ship would be involved in a Cold War era race to recover a sunken submarine.

Some of the best espionage tales contain elements that, in some instances, are far stranger than fiction. And today, we’ll be taking a look at one of these interesting stories. Involving a sunken submarine, the CIA and an eccentric billionaire building a boat worth hundreds of millions of dollars to conduct a recovery operation, today's tale takes us back to the spicier part of the Cold War. Let’s go take a look!

K-129 at sea. Date Unknown. Source: Wikipedia

The K-129

There’s no denying that the 1960s were a tense time globally. Residual tensions from two wars left countries highly strung, while the evolution of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile offered a new way to deliver nuclear deterrence, leaving the threat of nuclear strike ominously on the table.

K-129 was a Soviet Project 629A (Golf 2-class) submarine. Laid down in 1960, she would be a major player in the Soviet ballistic missile program, helping to establish the concept of the ballistic missile patrol.

On these patrols, submarines from both sides of the fence would go out on long-term patrols, taking their missiles into the open ocean where they would attempt to become a “hole in the water”. The Soviets, in particular, were known to use the Arctic icecaps to shelter their ballistic missile submarines while on patrol, providing an extra layer of protection to these valuable boats.

Due to global tensions, at the time, it was not uncommon for Western fast-attack submarines to acquire these missile boats as they left port and shadow them during their patrol.

Despite her relative youth, after an incident in 1968, K-129 would be lost on one of these patrols, triggering a large-scale search by the Soviets. With the Americans noting the presence of this search, a detailed review of acquired SOSUS (SOund SUrveillance System) data would note that an acoustic event believed to be an underwater explosion had occurred on the 11th of March 1968. It’s believed that this event was responsible for the loss of the ship with all hands.

Howard Hughes would be noteworthy for his eccentricity, making him perfect for a CIA cover op. Source: Wikipedia.

Howard Hughes

Around the time that this was occurring, the name “Howard Hughes” was by no means unknown. Part of the wealthy US upper class, Hughes had made a name for himself in previous decades with activities in movies, aviation and other noteworthy pursuits.

In later life, he would suffer badly from obsessive-compulsive disorder, earning him the label of “eccentric” and causing a near reclusive lifestyle to form. He would suffer so heavily from this condition that in 1957, he would spend over 4 months in a darkened theatre without ever leaving.

It’s worth mentioning that this mindset was not solely due to his condition. A strong interest in the cutting edge of aviation meant that Hughes would suffer multiple injuries in his youth, causing additional injuries and complications later in life.

While his death would eventually come in 1976 due to kidney failure, the most interesting parts of the Hughes story would come in the two years prior.

Glomar Explorer lasted a surprisingly long time. Here she is mothballed in Suisan Bay, circa late 1993. Source: Wikipedia.

The Glomar Explorer & Project Arozonian

While it sounds like something you might find in a Hollywood Movie plot, the tale of the Glomar Explorer is, in fact, true. And while the mission was deemed to be only partly successful, considering the technology of the time, it was still a notable achievement.

When K-129 had her incident, she sank in water over 6,000 meters in depth. However, it was not lost on the Central Intelligence Agency that she carried multiple SS-N-5 “Serb” missiles fitted with nuclear warheads. At the time, little was known about this weapon.

Despite the known problems, a decision was made to pursue the recovery of these weapons, as they would provide plenty of information to intelligence agencies regarding the system’s performance. With that, Project Arizonian would be born and with it, a whole cover story that would attempt to explain the operation.


Due to the depth and location (in the open ocean), a successful recovery operation would require some heavy planning along with a little bit of luck. And, a purpose-built ship, naturally.

To assist with the operation, the Glomar Explorer would be born. Operating under the cover story of deep-sea manganese mining, the Explorer would be fitted with a large, extendable arm that could be lowered to the seabed. It also sported a large, internal payload bay that was accessible from underneath the ship, meaning that when the submarine attempted recovery of the K-129, she could bring the submarine into the bay entirely unobserved.

With the ship successfully completed, she would set sail on her recovery mission in July 1974. Hughes, who had a long history of doing odd things, provided cover for this mission, with most people seeing the manganese venture as little more than the latest stunt by the billionaire.

Success? Not Quite

After putting to sea, Glomar Explorer would spend more than a month on site conducting recovery operations. During this period, she was visited by multiple Soviet navy ships, which observed her in operation. While it wasn’t known at the time, the detente period of the 1990s would reveal that the Soviets had been tipped off about the operation, but believed recovery efforts to be impossible, hence the tepid response.

The original intention was to recover the entire boat; however, due to a problem with the extendable arm part of K-129 broke apart as the recovery was attempted. This meant that a large part of the ship returned to the sea floor and broke up, making further efforts impossible.

Despite this, a portion of the ship's front section would be successfully recovered, and in this section would be two of the vitally important SS-N-5 missile systems. Sadly, several soviet sailors would also be recovered. They would be given a full burial at sea with honours.
While she wasn’t able to complete her full mission, Explorer and Project Arozonian would still provide actionable intelligence at a time when it was vitally needed.

Modern Legacy

While Project Arozonian would only meet part of its stated goals, there’s no denying that it left a legacy in the intelligence world that lingers, even today. The size, scope and more importantly, cost of the operation would put it into the history books and set the tone for other intelligence operations as well.

It’s worth considering why it was notable, though. Firstly, the cost of the operation would run at hundreds of millions of dollars, a cost that at the time was considered palatable when compared with the chance of gaining intel on the new Soviet missile systems.

Due to its complexity, the CIA would be unable to complete the operation and would require assistance from the US Navy to pull the whole thing. So, it would set a new standard for collaboration between agencies, working together to achieve a common goal.

But its biggest legacy would be the concept of the whole manganese nodule cover story. With secrecy vital (but unable to be attained), the cover story was still the key pillar for the whole operation. In fact, it would be so successful that multiple deep-sea mining operations would be launched off the back of Arozonian. Except, these would be actual mining operations, not just a cover for a deep-sea recovery operation.

Some of the most interesting espionage tales sound like high-end fiction themselves.

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