Project Azorian: The CIA's Billion-Dollar Gamble to Raise a Soviet Submarine Podcast By cover art

Project Azorian: The CIA's Billion-Dollar Gamble to Raise a Soviet Submarine

Project Azorian: The CIA's Billion-Dollar Gamble to Raise a Soviet Submarine

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In 1974, from the deck of the *Glomar Explorer*, the CIA attempted one of the most audacious covert operations in history: to clandestinely raise a sunken Soviet ballistic missile submarine from the Pacific floor, three miles down. Codenamed Project Azorian, it was a feat of engineering and deception worthy of a spy thriller. But did they succeed? And what deadly secrets did they risk a diplomatic crisis to recover? We break down the incredible engineering, involving a giant claw ship built under the cover of a deep-sea mining operation. Using declassified documents and insider accounts, we piece together the dramatic recovery attempt, which reportedly retrieved only part of the sub—and six Soviet sailors, who were buried at sea with full military honors. The episode focuses on the prize: was it nuclear torpedoes, codebooks, or the encryption machinery that justified such a monumental risk? Listeners will get a front-row seat to Cold War brinkmanship played out in the ocean's deepest trenches. It's a story of human ingenuity deployed in the shadows, where the line between impossible mission and catastrophic failure was as thin as a submarine's hull. The deepest secrets are always kept under the most pressure. #ProjectAzorian #CIA #ColdWar #Submarine #K129 #GlomarExplorer #CovertOps #MilitaryHistory Hosted by Ibnul Jaif Farabi. Produced by Light Knot Studios (lightknotstudios.com).
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