Over thirty years ago when I was in college studying naval architecture, a classmate of mine got a summer job working as a naval architect for Sun Shipyard helping to design some part of the new deep sea mining ship, the Hughes Glomar Explorer, being built for Howard Hughes’ Global Marine. Years later my friend was chagrined to learn that the ship he was working on was not intended for deep water mining but was a top secret CIA project to raise the K-129, a sunken Golf Class Soviet submarine. The cover story was that the ship was intended to raise magnesium nodules from the deep ocean floor.
For the first time the CIA has declassified documents which officially describes Project Azorian and the raising of of the K-129.
Project Azorian – The CIA’s Declassified History of the Glomar Explorer
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The 
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