The Taking of K-129

by Josh Dean

  The next morning, Cotton Collier, with Howard Imamura as the security liaison, met the men in the hotel lobby and took the group in a caravan across the 101 freeway and into the barren marshlands along San Francisco Bay, where they proceeded along a series of unmarked dirt roads until they reached a green metal warehouse ringed by a security fence topped with barbed wire and bordered on one side by a dredged canal. Behind it, the enormous HMB-1, anchored in an inlet, dwarfed every other building on the Lockheed lot.

  Once inside, the men were led into a large classroom, where a tall, thin man with wisps of graying hair who called himself Stan explained that they would be spending the next few days inside this metal-walled warehouse, preparing for the mission.

  Stan was the school’s nuclear materials expert, who would teach them all proper handling and decontamination procedures, but not before they learned first about the submarine itself. For that, Stan turned the room over to a man in his mid-thirties with a barrel chest, a bit of a belly, and a thick dark beard. He called himself Blackjack.

  Blackjack—whose true name and work history were never revealed to the crew—was Azorian’s submarine specialist, having served seventeen years in the Navy’s Silent Service before the Agency recruited him to train the Azorian crew for the exploitation process. Rumor had it he’d come from the Navy’s ultrasecret underwater espionage program, perhaps even from the legendary NR-1 nuclear spy sub. He was stern but friendly, and he sweated profusely, making frequent use of a rag in his back pocket to wipe away moisture from his forehead.

  On the way into the building, Blackjack said, the men may have noticed a walled section to their right. That area was sealed off from the rest of the warehouse by army-green plastic that stretched from the top of the wall all the way to the corrugated metal ceiling, twenty-five feet above, and inside was a replica of the submarine wreck that they would all be dissecting over the course of the week. The point, he said, was to get familiar with what they would be seeing once the actual sub was raised, and to be prepared for anything. Everyone on the mission was cleared and should feel free to ask any questions that came up. If Blackjack could answer it, he would.

  Instruction would be provided in the use of cutting tools, such as arc gougers and acetylene torches, as well as ultrasonic baths, which would be used on board to clean up and preserve, for instance, the sub’s sensitive electronics, so that they could be reverse engineered later in some government laboratory.

  In addition to studying the submarine’s structure and working on the mock wreck itself, the crew would be given two hours per day of Russian-language instruction, lessons on the nuclear weapons the K-129 carried, and instruction on the risks and proper handling of radioactive materials. They were taught the risks of radiation exposure and drilled on the protocols of the Geneva Convention, which mandated the proper treatment of prisoners.

  No one knew what condition the sub’s warheads might be in, nor the types or levels of radiation that the wreck might give off, so the Agency’s nuclear experts—from Livermore—were proceeding as if the entire wreck would be “hot.” And that’s the way the training was set up, with rope and red tape setting a cordon around the mock sub, a tangled mass of rusted steel twenty feet long and eight feet wide, complete with a damaged conning tower.

  To maximize every minute, including the down period when the Explorer was sailing from the target site to whatever port was chosen for its return, workers from across the crew, no matter their job or rank, would be assigned to the exploitation team (on a voluntary basis only) and put to work searching the wreck immediately after Livermore’s experts had scanned the sub and declared it safe enough for work.

  Before any one of the men got close to the mock wreck, he had to suit up according to precise and methodical procedures designed by Livermore. First on was a base layer of normal working gear—underwear, pants, shirt, and boots, plus surgical gloves and rubber rain galoshes over the boots. From there, each man stepped into a cotton full-body suit similar to long johns, and then into the final, shiny outer layer, disposable and made of Tyvek, which felt and crinkled like paper. Work gloves went over the surgical gloves and assistants taped both wrists and ankles with duct tape to prevent air leaks where layers of clothing overlapped. Next, each man was given a hard hat and an oxygen mask hooked up to a tank on his back and controlled via a switch on his chest, and then, finally, a hood—with a built-in mic and earphones—went over all of that, and it, too, was duct-taped to make the entire inside of the suit airtight.

  Once they were suited up, students were led into the mock contamination zone. And when finished, they exited through a cleanup zone, where trainers used handheld black lights to scan for signs of green powder that is invisible in natural light but which had been sprinkled throughout the tangled mess of metal to simulate the presence of radioactive particles, which are invisible to the naked eye.

  • • •

  The job, Blackjack explained, was fairly simple: Identify, record, cut, remove, save, and discard. Every shift would be staffed by a team of analysts from the Agency and Livermore, who could provide a second opinion on any object, but the general rule was going to be that if it looked even slightly interesting, it should be removed and handed over to a specialist.

  Russian linguists would be aboard the Explorer to translate documents, assist in identification of signs, and communicate with the exploitation crew via two-way radios in the hoods, but the CIA wanted every man to receive cursory instruction in Russian in order, at least, to be able to identify warnings. Priority was given to a crash course in the Cyrillic alphabet, and especially in memorization of keywords such as “nuclear,” “radioactive,” “caution,” and “danger.”

  Two Russian émigrés, both short and stout and clad in double-breasted, wide-lapel suits, pointy-toed shoes, and unfashionable eyeglasses, taught the sessions and were alternately entertained and frustrated by the process of teaching an unfamiliar language, with an entirely foreign alphabet, to men who didn’t care much for English grammar and who in many cases hadn’t finished high school. The Russians cringed, and often laughed, at the many ways in which their native language was butchered.

  Stan and Blackjack alternated instruction on nuclear weapons, and submarine construction and mechanics, and then shadowed the men as they suited up and began to pick apart the mock wreck, which appeared to have been made of actual submarine parts. To enhance the realism, instructors stashed rotten meat inside to simulate the pungent, overpowering odor of rotting human flesh that would likely permeate the moon pool as soon as the submarine was exposed to surface air conditions after four years in the extreme cold and low oxygen of the deep ocean. Sherm Wetmore gagged and nearly puked the first time he entered the room.

  The welding crew was taught to X-ray the hull before cutting any portion to avoid destroying valuable material on the inside—or worse, detonating explosives or damaging a nuclear warhead. Blackjack devoted entire sessions to teaching every possible component that could be valuable and worth saving, even when that wasn’t obvious.

  At day’s end, it was time to decontaminate, a process even more laborious than suiting up. Clothing was removed one piece at a time, checked under the black light for particles, and then thrown into waste barrels. On the ship, checks would be done with dosimeters, and any man who tested positive would have to scrub himself in the shower, then be retested—repeating the process however many times it took to get clean.

  Follow the procedures, the school’s instructors said, and all would be fine. But make no mistake, either. “You’re going to be working in an environment that is contaminated with multiple types of radiation, including plutonium,” one of them said. “If, by any chance, you should suffer a puncture wound and what punctures you is contaminated with plutonium, you will die. You will be buried at sea and it will be recorded as an industrial accident.”

  44

  Standing by for Green Light


  MAY 1974

  On May 12, the HGE completed its final scheduled systems tests and headed back to port, where the crew would await next steps. Mission Director Dale Nielsen sent word to Washington that he and the Explorer crew were finally ready to go to sea and get the submarine.

  “In spite of the fact that we have had to work through many problems, all systems have worked satisfactorily,” Nielsen wrote in a report to Parangosky. “The crew has performed extremely well. I am convinced that they are qualified to begin the mission. . . . It is my recommendation that following the upcoming refit and crew rest period we begin the mission on or about 15 June.”

  Parangosky briefed Carl Duckett and presented the deputy director with a memo to deliver to Kissinger and the all-important 40 Committee, which would give its advice to the president. Those men would now have to decide if five years of work—and at least 250 million dollars in spending—would finally be put to the test out on the Pacific, or if the rising stakes of nuclear disarmament talks and the possibility of Soviet interference would cause the president and his team to cancel the entire operation, choosing caution over risk.

  On May 28, Kissinger received the memo, a highly classified document titled “Project AZORIAN Mission Proposal.” The memo summarized the situation at hand. “If approval to depart in mid-June is received, the ship would depart Long Beach, and at normal cruising speed arrive in the vicinity of the target in fourteen days, following which the recovery operation could commence. It is mandatory that recovery operation be initiated as early as possible in the ‘annual weather window’—the period between 15 June and 13 August—when there is the highest probability for sea conditions in that area within which the recovery system can be successfully operated.”

  The recovery should take about three weeks, Parangosky suggested, but the unpredictability of weather and “other contingencies”—a catch-all euphemism for a host of unpleasant possibilities that could probably fill another entire memo—meant that the ship should plan for six weeks on station. The mission had to either go now, or wait a full year.

  Of course, the CIA’s urgency was in part self-inflicted. The failure of the moon-pool gates had caused an unplanned delay for repairs that forced the team to skip several important steps, including additional deep-water testing, as well as “simulated mining legs” that were supposed to be staged off the coast of Hawaii to, in Parangosky’s words, “further condition the Soviets to the operation of the HUGHES GLOMAR EXPLORER.” These fake mining stints were planned by Walt Lloyd to generate additional publicity and “provide the Soviets with further opportunities to observe the vessel,” Parangosky admitted, but there was no assurance that this would actually have happened. “Deletion of these legs will not unravel the cover nor reduce the import of the considerable publicity in the media and trade journals developed over the past four years.

  “It is reasonably certain that the Soviets are cognizant of the existance [sic] of the HUGHES GLOMAR EXPLORER and its purported deep ocean mining role by virtue of the extensive publicity, Soviet overhead reconnaissance, and the observational opportunities Soviet vessels have had at Long Beach.” In other words, Parangosky was saying, there was no reason to worry.

  Aware that some members of the committee were new and had not been privy to the operation throughout its life, Parangosky emphasized certain key points, in particular the risk of Soviet interference. The HGE had “reliable and secure communications” between the ship and the control center, and “in the remote possibility” that the Soviets interfered, plans were in place to shift command to the Navy’s Pacific Fleet, at Pearl Harbor. If that situation were to escalate, he noted, dialogue with the Soviet Union at the highest levels could be enacted to “defuse the situation thus reducing the possibility of military confrontation at sea.”

  The mission team estimated that the Explorer would spend twenty-one to forty-two days doing the target recovery operation, before heading to Hawaii for subsequent analysis and recovery. By October 22, the ship should be safely back in Long Beach—hopefully with the greatest intelligence haul in history in its belly.

  Three years after the keel had been laid in Chester, the cover story seemed to be intact. “The Summa Corporation Deep Ocean Mining Project (DOMP) is recognized and accepted by the media, both news and technical, for that which it purports to be,” Azorian’s director wrote. “The DOMP has been the subject of attention in a variety of technical and trade journals.” The Agency had reams of evidence that the Summa project was accepted in the commercial mining world, and by the Soviets, who tended to observe and tap Western technical media for their own industrial and scientific needs.

  All possibilities had been considered. Photographs clearly showed that the remains of at least one Soviet crewman were at the wreck site, so it was a virtual certainty that others would be found within the submarine itself. Walt Lloyd had been thinking about this for a while, studying both international law and Soviet military burial customs, and an interagency contingency review committee had approved his plans to handle and dispose of any remains in accordance with the 1949 Geneva Convention, and in a way that would not cause any issues with the Soviets should they someday find out.

  Parangosky felt confident that the mission could be conducted in relative peace, since the recovery site was in international waters about twelve hundred nautical miles from the Soviet mainland, removed from commercial shipping lanes, and not in proximity to normal Soviet or American naval operating areas.

  If the Soviets were to decide to surveil the HGE, the CIA thought, it would be because of curiosity about ocean mining from their scientific and economic communities, and not because of concern or caution from the military.

  In summation, Parangosky said, the Agency was ready. “The mission team is technically trained and psychologically ready.” The team was confident, the cover story was solid, and the window was about to open, but only briefly. To wait another year would put the whole thing in jeopardy, allowing more time for leaks. “I believe that we would have the maximum probability of success by initiating the mission as soon as the ship is ready; that is, on or about 15 June.”

  45

  Twiddling Thumbs

  Between the second sea tests and mission launch, NURO’s leadership organized a final inquisition at CIA headquarters in Langley. Top officials from all of the important agencies—Navy, State, Justice—were asked to attend, and recognizing the gravity of the moment, Parangosky ordered every senior member of his team in so that they’d be prepared for any question that might be asked.

  Norm Nelson and Dave Sharp led the technical portion of the meeting, defending against loud and aggressive criticism by the Navy brass, who cited equipment failures to suggest the systems were unready for live operation, and took real issue with the mission’s contingency plans, which Parangosky knew to be flimsy since there was no real way to protect the ship and its crew should Soviets board the Explorer. Captain Walter N. “Buck” Dietzen, from the staff of the chief of naval operations, couldn’t believe what he was reading. The plan, basically, was to try to maintain cover, pretending to be miners and refusing to allow any Soviets to board on the grounds that Howard Hughes wouldn’t allow it. If that failed, the plan stated, the crew would blast the Soviet ship with fire hoses to fend off ladders and boarding parties, and if it all escalated to the point of armed invasion—well, the guys on deck would buy as much time as possible while the spooks dumped the classified documents overboard in the metal-wire baskets.

  To a military lifer like Dietzen, this was outrageous, even shameful. The crew should stand and fight. One problem with that notion, he admitted when pressed, was that the nearest Navy ship or submarine would be at least four hundred miles away. So the Explorer crew would be alone. Any fight against a foreign vessel of war was unlikely to end well.

  Still, the crew—or at least the onboard security—should have weapons, he barked. And Parangosky, aware that this
was a particularly petty and terrible hill for his mission to die on, ceded the point. His security team would work out a plan for resisting Soviet aggression. Or at least that’s what they told the Navy brass.

  • • •

  On June 3, 1974, Rob Roy Ratliff of the National Security Council staff delivered a memo to Kissinger in advance of what would be the final 40 Committee meeting before taking the matter to Nixon for a final decision. “Culminating six years of effort, the AZORIAN Project is ready to attempt to recover a Soviet ballistic missile submarine from 16,500 feet of water in the Pacific,” the memo reported. “The recovery ship would depart the west coast 15 June and arrive at the target site 29 June. Recovery operations will take 21–42 days.” This schedule was essentially inflexible, Ratliff wrote, because the “good weather window” was extremely narrow—a mere crack—and to miss that window would likely foil the entire operation, “since it is doubtful security could be maintained” until the window opened again in 1975.

  Assigning probability to the chance of success felt like a pointless endeavor—there was so much unproven technology, so many variables.Nonetheless, Ratliff admitted that “estimates [of success] seldom go beyond 50%” and in the view of some were as low as 20 percent. He reminded the committee that at a prior review in late 1972, the group decided that “an estimate of 30–40% was considered sufficient to go ahead with the project” and that Parangosky’s team was confident that, with integrated tests completed, the number was at least 40 percent.

  The question, then, was: Is a 40 percent chance to recover “information which can be obtained from no other source, on subjects of great importance to the national defense,” good enough?