Recovery site of K-129

Background

“AZORIAN” (erroneously called JENNIFER after its Top Secret Security Compartment by the press) was the code name for a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project to recover the sunken Soviet submarine K-129 from the Pacific Ocean floor in the summer of 1974, using the purpose-built ship Hughes Glomar Explorer. The 1968 sinking of the K-129 occurred approximately 1,560 nautical miles (2,890 km) northwest of Hawaii.

Project Azorian was one of the most complex, expensive and secretive intelligence operations of the Cold War at a cost of about $800 million ($3.6 billion in 2011 dollars).

In addition to designing the high tech recovery ship and its unique lifting cradle, the U.S. had to develop precision stability equipment to keep the ship nearly stationary above the target while lowering nearly three miles of pipe, and scientists also developed methods for preserving paper that had been underwater for years in hopes of being able to recover and read the submarine’s codebooks.

Continue scrolling for more...

Since the Soviet Union had no idea where their submarine was located, the recovery operation took place covertly (in international waters) with a supposed commercial purpose: mining the sea floor for manganese nodules.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Documents

All released CIA Documents Regarding the Incident [133 Pages, 4.29MB]

National Security Agency (NSA) Documents

NSA Documents Remain Classified, as of 21 February 2018 [5 Pages, 1.4MB]

Follow The Black Vault on Social Media:

This post was published on May 4, 2018 12:01 am

John Greenewald

Recent Posts

FBI Files: Civil Rights Era

Background Movements for civil rights were a worldwide series of political movements for equality before…

July 1, 2025

FBI Files: Historical Figures & Groups

Background Welcome to the FBI Files on Historical Figures & Groups archive at The Black…

June 26, 2025

Emails From Pentagon Spokesperson Uncovered on Gimbal, FLIR1, and GoFast UFO Videos

The Department of Defense has released a collection of internal emails in response to a…

June 18, 2025

Agency Cafeterias – Complaints & Menus

Background You can get quite a bit of material under the Freedom of Information Act…

June 18, 2025

DoD Releases Previously Unseen Document Detailing “NIGHT TRAIN 84” Nuclear War Exercise Scenario

The Department of Defense (DoD) has released, through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request…

June 18, 2025

TEMPS (Transportable Electromagnetic Pulse Simulator) Final Reports, 1973

The two volumes of the TEMPS (Transportable Electromagnetic Pulse Simulator) Final Report, dated August 1973…

June 8, 2025