[4] Project Azorian was one of the most complex, expensive, and covert intelligence operations of the Cold War at a cost of about $800 million, or $4.9 billion today.

They worked with scientists to develop methods for preserving paper that had been underwater for years in hopes of being able to recover and read the submarine's codebooks.

The US identified an acoustic event on March 8 that likely originated from an explosion aboard the submarine, and was able to determine the location to within five nautical miles (5.8 mi; 9.3 km).

[clarify] The submarine USS Halibut located the boat using the Fish, a towed, 12-foot (3.7 m), two-short-ton (1.8 t) collection of cameras, strobe lights, and sonar that was built to withstand extreme depths.

[citation needed] Naval Facility (NAVFAC) Point Sur, south of Monterey, California, isolated a sonic signature on its low-frequency array recordings of an implosion that had occurred on March 8, 1968.

With five SOSUS lines-of-bearing, Naval Intelligence was able to localize the site of the K-129 wreck to the vicinity of 40.1° N latitude and 179.9° E longitude (close to the International Date Line).

[6] In July 1968, the United States Navy began "Operation Sand Dollar" with the deployment of USS Halibut from Pearl Harbor to the wreck site.

Billionaire businessman Howard Hughes – whose companies were already contractors on numerous classified US military weapons, aircraft and satellite contracts[citation needed] – agreed to lend his name to the project to support the cover story that the ship was mining manganese nodules from the ocean floor, but Hughes and his companies had no actual involvement in the project.

[9] Hughes Glomar Explorer employed a large mechanical claw, which Lockheed officially titled the "Capture Vehicle" but affectionately called Clementine.

Hughes Glomar Explorer arrived at the recovery site (40°06′N 179°54′E / 40.1°N 179.9°E / 40.1; 179.9)[10] on July 4, 1974, after departing from Long Beach, California, on June 20, and sailing 3,008 nautical miles (5,571 km).

Soviet military engineering experts reevaluated their positions and claimed that it was indeed possible (though highly unlikely) to recover K-129, and ships in the area were ordered to report any unusual activity, although the lack of knowledge as to where K-129 was located impeded their ability to stop any salvage operation.

[6] US Army Major General Roland Lajoie stated that, according to a briefing he received by the CIA during recovery operations, Clementine suffered a catastrophic failure, causing two-thirds of the already raised portion of K-129 to sink back to the ocean floor.

[6] Video evidence and eyewitness reports have stated that multiple claws of Clementine sheared off, causing a 100-foot (30 m) section of the submarine to fall back to the seafloor.

The bodies of six crewmen were also recovered, and were given a memorial service and with military honors, buried at sea in a metal casket because of radioactivity concerns.

White's documentary also states that the ship's bell from K-129 was recovered, and was subsequently returned to the Soviet Union as part of a diplomatic effort.

A short portion of the film, showing the recovery and subsequent burial at sea of the six bodies recovered in the forward section of K-129, was given to the Russian government in 1992.

"[13] In February 1975, investigative reporter and former New York Times writer Seymour Hersh had planned to publish a story on Project Azorian.

[20] A video showing the 1974 memorial services for the six Soviet seamen whose bodies were recovered by Project Azorian was forwarded by the U.S. to Russia in the early 1990s.

[25][26]The Los Angeles Times published a four-page story the next day by Jack Nelson with the headline "Administration Won't Talk About Sub Raised by CIA.

The account was provided by Joe Houston, the senior engineer who designed leading-edge camera systems used by the Hughes Glomar Explorer team to photograph K-129 on the ocean floor.

The team needed pictures that offered precise measurements to design the grappling arm and other systems used to bring the sunken submarine up from the bottom.

Reed also details how the deep submergence towed sonar array[31] technology was used for subsequent Operation Ivy Bells missions to wiretap underwater Soviet communications cables.

They were the three principals in the design of the Hughes Glomar Explorer heavy lift system and the Lockheed capture vehicle (CV or claw).

[32] Spy Ops: Project Azorian (Season 1, Episode 8) is a short documentary also produced by Michael White which adds some details to his earlier work.