Book Review: Project Azorian by Norman Polmar and Michael White

Topic & Content

Published in 2010, this book details the likely cause of the sinking of the Soviet submarine K-129 in March 1968, and the later CIA effort to raise it using the lift ship Hughes Glomar Explorer during Project Azorian in the summer of 1974.

Based on the acoustical data detected by the Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC) arrays, the authors deduce that on 11 March 1968, shortly before 1200 Zulu, K-129 was likely in the process of snorkeling when three small acoustic events occurred. It’s believed that the missile technicians were conducting a systems check or training new crewmembers when a rocket engine on one of the missiles ignited inside the missile tube. This burned for about 96.5 seconds until the fuel was exhausted. Six minutes later, a second missile’s engine ignited and burned for about 95.8 seconds. The burn time is consistent with known data about these missiles. The resulting missile exhaust burned through the tube, into the pressure hull, and through the bottom of the fourth compartment. It also blew out the aft portion of the sail. With the crew dead from burn injuries, and the submarine open to the sea, it plunged to the bottom never to be heard from again.¹

The building of Hughes Glomar Explorer and what it was designed to do (lift a submarine from the seabed over three miles down) faced significant engineering challenges. The ship had a massive well (moon pool) in the center which could be opened and closed via sliding doors and had to be capable of being flooded and pumped dry, and it had to be large enough to accommodate the Capture Vehicle and Target Object (submarine). The ship also had to be able to hold a precise position over the wreck despite the dynamic pitch, roll, and heave of the ship in the ocean. The lift equipment had to dynamically compensate for the ship’s motion, and the gimbaled bearings had to be able to support up to 20,000 tons of weight (pipe string, Capture Vehicle, and the submarine). The hydraulic/pneumatic hoisting system had to handle some 8,000 tons of weight and be capable of raising and lowering 18 feet of pipe per minute (although the actual operation was conducted at a slower rate). The docking system, with the two 200-foot docking legs, was capable of tilting seven degrees fore and aft and stabilizing the load in a seaway to lower and hoist the Capture Vehicle into the ship.²

The Capture Vehicle was successfully lowered and the arms clasped around the hull of the submarine, but it was found that the seabed was harder than anticipated. Just after midnight on 1 August 1974, the Capture Vehicle and Target Object were successfully free of the bottom and on the way up. At 0653, the load suddenly changed attitude and the ship’s heave compensators reached their limit, indicating that part of K-129’s hull had broken loose. It turns out that some of the legs of the Capture Vehicle were damaged and fell away, and only the forward 38-foot section of the submarine was recovered. The other 100-foot section with the missile, fire control system, and cryptologic material had broken off and fallen back to the ocean floor.³ What was recovered was carefully documented, and the remains of three identifiable crewmen, along with several other unidentified remains, were buried with honors at sea.⁴

While the CIA did have plans to go back and attempt another recovery (Project Matador), the media broke the story. Given the wildly speculative (and often inaccurate) media reports and the fact that the ship was so specialized and could only be used for a singular purpose, the follow-up recovery plan was scrapped. Still, the government can “neither confirm nor deny” the intelligence activities of the ship.⁵

Thesis

The aim of this book is to provide a detailed account of the sinking and recovery of K-129 based on interviews with key participants, including commentary by Soviet naval officers directly involved with K-129, previously unavailable documents and photographs, and acoustic signals from the U.S. Air Force hydrophone system. Additionally, the implementation of Project Azorian and the raising of K-129 from the ocean floor three miles below was one of the most audacious engineering efforts ever attempted.

Authors’ Background

Norman Polmar

Norman Polmar is an analyst, consultant, and author specializing in naval, aviation, and intelligence fields. He’s worked as a senior consultant for National Security Programs at Gryphon Technologies, as well as a senior policy advisor for the Center for Security Strategies & Operations with General Dynamics. He’s also served as a member of the Secretary of the Navy’s Research Advisory Committee (NRAC) and on the advisory panel examining future warfare requirements for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Additionally, Polmar has worked as an analyst and consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), U.S. Navy, along with various domestic and foreign government and commercial firms for submarine matters. While working at Northrop Corp. he spent four years with the Navy’s Deep Submergence Systems Project (DSSP).

Polmar has authored or coauthored over 50 books on naval, aviation, and intelligence topics, and has been the editor of the United States sections of Jane’s Fighting Ships. He’s also a columnist for the Proceedings and Naval History periodicals.

Michael White

Michael White is a director and producer specializing in technical documentaries. Since 1976, he has worked in feature film, television, and advertising. A native of London, he served in the British merchant marine for five years before entering the media industry.

White began working in visual and special effects for the film Superman: The Movie. In the late 1980s and 1990s, he worked on various international films and directed television commercials. Beginning in 2002, he began directing full-length documentaries.

Critical Observations

Positives

On the surface, this may seem like just another retelling of the K-129 incident and the CIA’s effort to recover the sub. But if we go deeper (see what I did there), this book is probably the most detailed and well-researched account of this particular event. I would expect nothing less from Norman Polmar. The authors were able to make use of declassified acoustical data and interviews with crewmen of Hughes Glomar Explorer to piece together what most likely happened to K-129 and what was salvaged by the CIA.

The general story of Project Azorian is very fantastical; like something out of a James Bond film. Unfortunately, this makes it rife for conspiracy theories, but the authors dedicated an entire chapter of the book (and then some) to debunking a lot of the wild theories about what happened to K-129 and the CIA’s recovery effort. Case in point, I’ve already reviewed and torn apart Red Star Rogue and found that I can’t condone the ridiculous thesis put forward by the author Kenneth Sewell, regardless of his background as a submariner.⁶ Thankfully, Polmar and White don’t use any secretive or anonymous classified sources and back their narrative up with verifiable evidence.⁷ This entire book essentially serves as a new standard and reference work for these events.

Negatives

While I do spend a lot of time gushing over Polmar, he’s not without fault, but thankfully the faults are minor. For example, he incorrectly attributes Kenneth Sewell’s theory that KGB agents attempted a rogue nuclear launch to Craig Reed (author of Red November). Furthermore, it does seem like some details are glossed over in the book and could benefit from more elaboration, especially to help the lay reader understand the topic better.

The only major issue I have with this book is that it feels like more could be added. There’s not much written about the political ramifications of Project Azorian and the raising of K-129, but it seems like the end of the Cold War caused the whole thing to just blow over. The actual narrative of the book (not counting the appendices) is just over 170 pages long, and the book simply ends with a discussion of the engineering feats that Project Azorian achieved, despite the failure to recover the whole Target Object and the expected intelligence windfall. All in all, it seems like more of this story is out there.

Evaluation (Does the content support the thesis?)

Norman Polmar and Michael White use documented evidence to present the most logical conclusions regarding the fate of the submarine K-129 and the CIA’s recovery effort. In the end, Project Azorian is an excellent and well-researched account of these events and serves as a non-sensationalized reference to one of the wackiest naval stories to come out of the Cold War.

This book was also adapted into a documentary titled Azorian: The Raising of K-129 directed by author Michael White. I would be interested in seeing how it compares to the book.

Notes

1. Norman Polmar and Michael White, Project Azorian: The CIA and the Raising of the K-129 (Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press, 2010), 165. ↩︎
2. Polmar and White, 75 – 80. ↩︎
3. Polmar and White, 118 – 121. ↩︎
4. Polmar and White, 130 -132. ↩︎
5. Polmar and White, 136 – 145. ↩︎
6. While some new information about K-129 and Azorian may have come out since Red Star Rogue was published, the fact is that a lot of the evidence that debunks Sewell’s theory was already available. So it’s not an excuse to say that Sewell didn’t know; rather, he chose to ignore evidence and form his own conspiracy theory. ↩︎
7. That said, the authors mention that when a source they used involved an undercover CIA operative, they were careful to avoid linking that person’s real name with their cover name. ↩︎

Bibliography

Polmar, Norman, and Michael White. Project Azorian: The CIA and the Raising of the K-129. Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press, 2010.