View non-flash version
April 2011www.sname.org/sname/mt (in review )REVIEWED BY RONALD K. KISS With a front-page story on February 7, 1975, the Los Angeles Times revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency had salvaged a sunken Soviet missile submarine. ereafter came the reverbera- tions of this revelation in many areas including diplomatic rela- tions, espionage, engineering, literature, and education. Why education? The second para- graph of this book states: The following Monday morning (after the LA Times arti- cle) some two dozen students in the Ocean Engineering 101 class at California State University at Long Beach entered their class- room on Seventh Street. ey displayed frustration, confusion, and even anger. e instructor was mad as hell, one student recalled. Frustrated, the instructor almost screamed that they had been taken for a ride. e reason for this outrage was the fact that, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many programs had been initiated across the United States to teach the principles of ocean engineering and seaoor mining. Some were encouraged and drawn by the ballyhoo raised when Howard Hughes revealed that he was building a giant ocean-mining ship to reap a harvest of seaoor nodules containing manganese, cobalt, copper, and nickel. e Los Angeles Times story revealed the Hughes eort was a cover story for what was actually an even more challeng- ing ocean engineering feat: building a covert system to attempt to recover a large part of a 2,000 ton submarine from the bottom of the Pacic Ocean, more than three miles below the surface. In the years since 1975, much has been written about this project, often erroneously referred to as Project Jennifer, which was a compartmented code name for work within the real Project Azorian. One of the great values of this book is its treatment of many of the pre- vious publications. e aws, gaps, and errors of these earlier works are laid bare. Still, so many conspiracy theories are extant in the open literature that no deni- tive book will likely put speculation to bed once and for all. e authors own words make it clear that the entire story has still not been completely declassied for schol- ars to study in every detail. e book catalogs the series of events leading up to the lift.? It begins by recounting the activities of the Soviet submarine force based in Petropavlovsk and describing the origin of K-129 and its deployment on February 24, 1968. e last anyone ever heard from the ill-fated missile boat was a burst message on February 26. Another trans- mission was expected on March 7-8, but it never came. It took some time before the United States became aware that K-129 was missing and presumed lost. By May 20, the U.S. had determined an approximate loca- tion, and assets were deployed to pinpoint its exact resting place. How this was done is carefully explained in the book, and contrary to one of the myths, it was not located by means of the Navys SOSUS (sound surveil- lance system) arrays on the oor of the Pacic Ocean. The evolution of the project and the details of the Hughes Glomar Explorer (a huge drillship), the Hughes Mining Barge 1 (a submersible covered barge ), and the capture vehicle are all described in detail. e actual lift took place under the watchful eyes of Soviet ships oblivi- ous to what was actually taking place beneath the surface. Despite the outrage of the Cal State instructor, Project Azorian is undoubtedly one of historys most ambitious ocean engineering efforts to date. According to the Going Beneath the Surface Project Azorian: The CIA and the Raising of K-129 By Norman Polmar and Michael White PUBLISHED BY THE NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS