Thread by @DavidZabinsky

You ever win a stuffed animal playing the claw machine game at an arcade?

Well in 1974, the CIA played a claw machine game of their own...except it wasn't at an arcade.

It was in the Pacific Ocean.

And the prize wasn't a stuffed animal.

It was a Soviet submarine.

A story👇:

We start in April of 1968.

The Americans noticed countless Soviet ships circling - almost aimlessly - in the Pacific Ocean, somewhere in the vicinity of Hawaii.

It appeared to be some sort of search mission.

But the Americans wondered, worryingly...

A search mission for WHAT?

That is, what the hell could the Soviets be looking for that would cause them to frantically deploy nearly every resource their Navy had to the Pacific Ocean?

A new whale species?

Undiscovered deep-sea coral?

Treasure?

The Americans had their suspicions.

And after some pretty dubious speculation, followed by some pretty comprehensive espionage, the Americans confirmed that the Soviets, in all of their panic, were searching for something a whole lot more valuable than some buried treasure...

The Soviets?

They were looking for their crown jewel:

The K-129.

As one of the very few nuclear submarines on the planet in the '60s, the K-129 submarine had 3 ballistic missiles, each capable of a strike from nearly 1,000 nautical miles away.

And it was nowhere to be found.

Was it sucked up by an alien spaceship? Or perhaps it sank to the depths of the Pacific?

In any event, once the Soviets gave up all hope and stopped looking for their precious, under-water nuclear war machine, the Americans said with a smirk:

"Let's go find it ourselves."

😏

Imagine, the Americans thought, the type of military intelligence they’d be able collect by capturing a Soviet nuclear submarine!

And so began in July of 1968 "Operation Sand Dollar": a search mission for the Soviets' mysteriously missing K-129.

The USS Halibut, seen here, curiously circled around Hawaii, 1,500 miles to the north and west...and after two weeks of searching using advanced underwater cameras, strobe lights, and hydrophones...

Bingo.

The Americans detected the sunken K-129:

Three miles below sea level.

And so the Americans asked:

Could we somehow PICK UP a 3,000-ton submarine at the deepest depths of the ocean and bring it to shore?

And after careful consideration, the Americans decided they'd...get ready for this:

Pick up the K-129 using a giant CLAW.

Like the arcade game.

And so ensued a top-secret CIA mission called Project Azorian.

But there was one problem:

How would the Americans sail out - to the middle of the ocean - a big-ass claw without spooking the Soviets and avoid turning the Cold War from cold...to blazing hot?

So?

The CIA would need a cover story…to disguise this insane nuclear-submarine-extracting-operation as something a bit more harmless.

And how would the CIA do that, you ask?

With the help of a fake press release, a fake christening, and a willing billionaire, of course!

That billionaire?

Howard Hughes, who’d announce to the press his new 618-feet "deep sea mining vessel":

The Hughes Glomar Explorer.

And so the world thought the Hughes Glomar Explorer was heading to the Pacific to mine...but in reality?

It was going to extract a submarine.

But this kind of extraction…

It had never been done before!

The "deepest salvage of any submarine in history was around 90 meters"...and remember, the K-129 was how deep?

5,000 meters!

But the CIA was dismayed not...

In 1973, the Hughes Glomar Explorer sailed off to the Pacific, taking off from Pennsylvania.

The LA Times described the mysterious "mining" vessel as "shrouded in secrecy".

In fact:

"Newsmen were not permitted to view the launch."

But boy oh boy did the "Explorer" launch...

And even though she was too wide to fit through the Panama Canal, she sailed around South America, arriving in California where she'd be equipped with perhaps the most important instrument of the mission:

The Claw.

And once the Claw (nicknamed "Clementine") was installed, the Hughes Glomar Explorer was ready for Hawaii.

And President Nixon?

Well, in 1974, he gave the go-ahead.

The Americans were heading for the arcade...and they were about to win themselves a Soviet Nuclear Submarine.

But this mission wasn’t just fun and games for the crew.

One historian notes:

"The crew had no idea what would happen if the Soviets were to show up and board — or worse, attack.

The Explorer was basically defenceless."

Remember: this could NOT appear to be a CIA operation.

Precautions or not, the Explorer arrived at the site on July 4th, 1974 (how fitting).

And upon arrival, the crew slowly lowered "Clementine" and brought up - over the course of a week - as much of the K-129 they could salvage, all whilst being observed by nearby Soviet vessels.

What the Americans were able to collect from the K-129 is still - to this day - a bit ambiguous due to the sensitive nature of the operation.

But what DO we know that was extracted?

•Several bodies of the Soviet K-129 crewmen, to whom the CIA gave a military burial at sea

(Continued):

•Two nuclear torpedoes

•Part of a control panel

Anything else?

Well, we're not sure...

And even if the loot wasn't as informative or as helpful as envisioned (as far as we know...), the craziest thing was:

The Americans got away with it.

Think about it:

Even though quite a few substantial pieces of K-129 fell out of Clementine's grip along the way, the CIA yanked out of the ocean - FROM THREE MILES BELOW - parts of a 3,000-ton nuclear submarine using a vessel in disguise and a claw.

And man were they proud:

"This episode has been a major American accomplishment. The operation is a marvel – technically, and with maintaining secrecy," US Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger said.

Marvel or not, it was imperative for the Americans that Azorian stay top-secret, out of the press...

But that wouldn’t last long.

Journalist Jack Anderson, who caught wind of the story, wrote about Project Azorian in 1975 because:

"Navy experts have told us that the sunken sub contains no real secrets and that the project, therefore, is a waste of the taxpayers' money."

Then, NY Times journalist Seymour Hersh, who'd known about Azorian since 1973, came out with the below headline despite pleas from the CIA to suppress the story:

"CIA Salvage Ship Brought Up Part of Soviet Sub Lost in 1968, Failed to Raise Atom Missiles"

Top-secret..no more.

And as the Americans began to be pressed about Azorian and continuously asked about the operation, the CIA gave birth to the famous "Glomar response" -- the side-step we've all heard before:

"We can neither confirm nor deny..."

And so 48 years later, we ask:

Did the CIA pluck up more than what we've been told...or were the results just disappointing?

Or...maybe, was it, as some suggest, a cover story for a far more secretive mission?

Perhaps this is all just too above our pay grade.

For now.

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More reads on Project Azorian:

smithsonianmag.com/history/during…

historyextra.com/period/cold-wa…

Red Star Rogue: amazon.com/Red-Star-Rogue…