CIA Admits It Salvaged Sunken Soviet Sub

The Hughes Glomar Explorer

(U.S. Government photo)

A very interesting story from The Daily Telegraph about a time when Presidents seized national security intelligence opportunities.

The American government has finally revealed details of a secret mission to raise a sunken Soviet submarine.

By Tom Leonard in New York

The admission ends more than 30 years of silence over one of the most elaborate and expensive projects of the Cold War.

The CIA has always refused to confirm even the barest details of Project Azorian, a daring 1974 exercise that was backed by the industrialist Howard Hughes and estimated to have cost £1 billion in today's money.

However, following an application to declassify the information under the US Freedom of Information Act, the CIA has released an internal account of the mission, albeit with some of the biggest mysteries still unanswered.

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