The Taking of K-129

How the CIA Used Howard Hughes to Steal a Russian Sub in the Most Daring Covert Operation in History

By: Josh Dean

Narrated by: Neil Hellegers

Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

An incredible true tale of espionage and engineering set at the height of the Cold War - a mix between The Hunt for Red October and Argo - about how the CIA, the US Navy, and America's most eccentric mogul spent six years and nearly a billion dollars to steal the nuclear-armed Soviet submarine K-129 after it had sunk to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, all while the Russians were watching.

In the early hours of February 25, 1968, a Russian submarine armed with three nuclear ballistic missiles set sail from its base in Siberia on a routine combat patrol to Hawaii. Then it vanished.

As the Soviet navy searched in vain for the lost vessel, a small, highly classified American operation using sophisticated deep-sea spy equipment found it - wrecked on the sea floor at a depth of 16,800 feet, far beyond the capabilities of any salvage that existed. But the potential intelligence assets onboard the ship - the nuclear warheads, battle orders, and cryptological machines - justified going to extreme lengths to find a way to raise the submarine.

So began Project Azorian, a top-secret mission that took six years, cost an estimated $800 million, and would become the largest and most daring covert operation in CIA history.

After the US Navy declared retrieving the sub "impossible", the mission fell to the CIA's burgeoning Directorate of Science and Technology, the little-known division responsible for the legendary U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes. Working with Global Marine Systems, the country's foremost maker of exotic, deep-sea drilling vessels, the CIA commissioned the most expensive ship ever built and told the world that it belonged to the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, who would use the mammoth ship to mine rare minerals from the ocean floor. In reality, a complex network of spies, scientists, and politicians attempted a project even crazier than Hughes' reputation: raising the sub directly under the watchful eyes of the Russians.

The Taking of K-129 is a riveting, almost unbelievable true-life tale of military history, engineering genius, and high-stakes spy craft set during the height of the Cold War, when nuclear annihilation was a constant fear and the opportunity to gain even the slightest advantage over your enemy was worth massive risk.

©2017 Josh Dean (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“It’s a complicated affair, but Dean relates it simply and completely. From undersea searches to maritime architecture to spy agency intrigue, the author excels at making complex operations understandable to the layman… The Taking of K-129 is a worthwhile addition to the shelves of military history buffs, nautical enthusiasts and anyone who enjoys a well-told story.” (USA Today)

“The stellar research Dean uses to tell this captivating tale includes declassified primary documents, personal journals, and autobiographies...Recommended for fans of naval history, marine engineering, ocean mining, and spy stories.” (Library Journal)

“Josh Dean has a gift for unearthing remarkable stories lost to history, and in The Taking of K-129 he has uncovered perhaps the most remarkable one of all - a story replete with spies and engineering marvels and a secret drama unfolding thousands of feet beneath the sea. Brilliantly researched and beautifully written, this is a book you can't put down.” (David Grann, New York Times best-selling author of Killers of the Flower Moon)

One of the great stories in history

this is a really good luck at an interesting chapter in American history. the effort to raise the sub was truly massive and this look at it explore parts of the story the history channels special left out.

A Great Read

Fascinating! I remember reading about this project a few years after high school. It actually occurred, unbeknownst to me, while I was in high school, 1971-1975. I felt badly for the Soviet seamen who died, but glad for the eventual admission of their demise years later. Unfortunately, the Russians hadn't learned too much from this submar iner tragedy by the time, three decades or so later, they lost all the seamen on the Kursk.
The author does an excellent job putting the story together, step by step. I also enjoyed the narrator's clear voice and range of emotion, from humor to reverence and everything in between.

History, engineering, and spies.

I could not stop listening to this book. The elements of history, naval engineering, and spies had me intrigued from chapter one.

Incredible

Incredible story and well written. Took me awhile to get past the staccato delivery of the reader, but I grew to like it a lot.

The thing I could not get over was the nuclear / nuculer slips occasionally. The worst was “wutter” instead of water throughout.

All in all, a fascinating topic and and good book. Recommended!

Story A+ ....,. Reader D-

I’m sure Neil Hellegers is a nice man, but he stinks at reading. I’ve never written a review before in my life, but after a few chapters of this book I told myself I would write one when I finished. The story itself is awesome and I don’t want to dissuade someone from buying this book, BUT be prepared to be annoyed. Neil Hellegers’ reading style is like a fart in the room where you’ll eventually get use to it, but it’s still there. He seems to put the wrong emphasis on the wrong part of the sentence or tries to over enunciate words. I can pin it down, but I noticed it. Who knows, I might be way off, but just thought I’d warn others. Beyond that, I enjoyed the actual story very much. The authors attention to detail in explaining a story that took years to come together was done very well. Hope this helps. Enjoy! :)

excellent book, good reading

the book is fantastic.. as an ocean engineer myself, I was thrilled to hear about the cutting edge technologies at the time, and I know how they are used today. the reading is done well. there's nothing outstanding about it, but there aren't any flaws either.

A fascinating covert operation

On a bumper sticker: The Soviet Submarine K-129 sinks in very deep water. The CIA decides to try and recover the sub, enlisting Howard Hughes to provide cover for construction of a huge high tech ship to lower a giant claw down to the sub to grab it and pull it up to the ship.

I'm a student (and former participant) of the Cold War, I enjoyed this book a lot. I knew the outline of the Glomar Explorer story, but few of the details.

This book fills in the details. Over the course of Project Azorian many people were involved, although only a handful had full knowledge of the purpose of the Explorer.

The author goes into detail explaining how the CIA managed to keep this four year program under wraps, despite many security close calls. In retrospect it is amazing that the program was not made public until after the mission was over.

This is a nice long book and one gets to really know the principal players, both human and mechanical.

Neil Hellegers does a good job narrating the book, he does have a kind of cadence of reading a sentence, pausing and the reading another sentence.

I did notice what I think was a production flaw in first few chapters. I think the sound engineer got a little aggressive in his use of compression. When Hellegers pauses, as he often does, the sound level drops to about zero. This gives a kind of stuttering effect. Audio books are supposed to have a 'room tone' during pauses that keep the audio flow nice an smooth. This problem was corrected after the first couple of chapters.

Highly recommended.

Epic!

Best book I've listened to in a long, long time.
Right up my alley, suspenseful, CIA, amazing engineering and technology, military.... this book has it all.

Amazing Story: Reads Like a Novel

This is a really fascinating story of a CIA operation to raise a Soviet sub that was carrying nuclear missiles. The characters are very well-developed. The technology (and the speed with which it was developed) was amazing. I don't want to give too many details for fear of spoiling the story.

If there is one weakness in the book, it is the failure to really nail the question of what the operation accomplished in terms of gathering useful intelligence. There are a lot of rumors floating around. A lot of Navy brass at the time thought the whole exercise was essentially useless because the K-129 was an older boat when it sank. It would be really interesting to know the truth.

wow! what a book

Ever feel sad when a book ends? Yeah, you the kind. This book did it to and for me. Gripping like a spy story and yet informative like a great work of nonfiction. I will be at a loss for a few days while I search for another book to fill the void.