The CIA finds Soviet sub
This is a neat article about the discovery of a sunken Soviet boomer- with nuclear missiles.
Read the entire article at the link.The real target of the crew on board this giant ship was a lost Soviet submarine. Six years earlier, the K-129 had sunk 1,500 miles north-west of Hawaii while carrying ballistic nuclear missiles.
The Russians failed to find their sub despite a massive search, but an American network of underwater listening posts had detected the noise of an explosion that eventually led US teams to the wreck.
It was lying three miles down, deeper than any previous salvage operation. The weapons and top-secret code books were surely beyond reach.
But in the struggle for military advantage, the sub represented the crown jewels – a chance to explore Moscow’s nuclear missiles and to break into its naval communications.
So the CIA hatched an audacious plan, Project Azorian, to retrieve the submarine. That would have been hard enough. But there was another challenge as well - it had to be done without the Russians knowing.
The spies needed to create a smokescreen so they pretended to be exploring the possibility of deep sea mining.