In the 1970s, at the height of Cold War espionage and secrecy, the CIA launched Project Azorian, one of the most ambitious covert operations in U.S. history. Its goal: to recover a sunken Soviet submarine (K-129) from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of feet below the surface. To mask the mission, the CIA built a colossal ship — the Hughes Glomar Explorer — under the cover story that eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes was using it for deep-sea mining. In reality, the ship was equipped