THEY TOOK A NUCLEAR SUBMARINE-- And The World Never Ever Observed. Discover the real story of Job Azorian, the CIA secret mission to recover the sunken Soviet submarine K-129 from 16,500 feet below the Pacific. This Cold War military documentary exposes how Howard Hughes and the Hughes Glomar Explorer pulled off the most pricey intelligence heist in history.
⚡ TL; DR: In 1968, the Soviet Golf II-class sub K-129 disappeared. While the Soviet Navy browsed in vain, the CIA utilized SOSUS acoustic data to find the wreck. Under the cover of a deep-sea mining operation for manganese blemishes, they built an enormous ship to take the sub's nuclear rockets and codebooks. The mission birthed the famous "Glomar Response" and altered undersea warfare forever.
⚓ INSIDE THE MISSION: The ocean doesn't keep its tricks when the CIA is involved. Job Azorian wasn't simply an engineering marvel; it was a billion-dollar gamble that pressed the limitations of physics and secrecy. From the "Clementine" capture claw to the "neither verify nor reject" legal doctrine, we break down the metadata of this massive intelligence coup.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: • How SOSUS hydrophones heard the K-129 implosion signature. • The technical failure that caused two-thirds of the sub to snap off. • Why Howard Hughes agreed to be the face of a fake mining company. • The Soviet monitoring by the Gidrograf that nearly blew the cover. • The burial at sea of six Soviet sailors recovered from the abyss.
⏲ TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - The Submarine That Broke the Cold War 03:30 - Vanishing Act: The Loss of K-129 12:45 - SOSUS: The Ocean's Undetectable Ears 21:10 - The Impossible Lift: Engineering vs. Physics 30:55 - The Billion-Dollar Lie: Howard Hughes' Cover 40:20 - Constructing the Glomar Explorer: A Factory for Tricks 52:15 - The Grab: Steel on Steel at 16,500 Feet 01:05:30 - The Snap: When the Ocean Took Half Back 01:15:45 - Secrets and Bones: What Was Actually Recuperated 01:25:10 - The Leak: Jack Anderson and The Glomar Reaction 01:35:00 - Soviet Fallout: The Bastion Doctrine 01:45:20 - The Quiet Journal: Was It Worth It?
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