You may have heard a brief overview of this story: How the CIA used the cover of an eccentric billionaire to pull off one of the most massive covert operations in the Cold War. Its been recounted and featured a few times in various mediums. But you will not find a more detailed, thorough, and riveting account of this spy-saga. This book is not a bland chronology of events, but a lively and engaging, tale of real-life spies, brilliant engineers, government subterfuge, and audacious (but true) schemes that result in pushing the boundaries of known technology and the delicate international balance between rival superpowers.
The book's narrative style guides the reader through the knotted history starting with the origins of Cold War intelligence gathering through to this brazen retrieval of a Soviet sub some three miles under the ocean surface. While it reads like a nearly hard-to-believe spy novel, the book sacrifices no detail or apparent embellishment in its framing of all the characters and main players in the story. From covert operations and political maneuvering, to the extraordinary science and engineering needed to complete this enterprise, the book glides from one real life character to the next and their parts in a series of passed notes, secret offices, and encoded messages in a world before cyber attacks or cell phone hacking.
The wealth of detail--on both the technical and conspiratorial sides--will engage readers interested in the science of pushing the limits of human know-how to those who love a great tale of espionage and risk taking. This is a must read for anyone who delights in a true story that is almost too much to believe . . . but really occured.
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I got to shake his hand as he walked the rope line back to his helicopter and just like that, he was gone
This is a well written account of the effort to salvage K-29 that emphasizes the rather astounding and nearly successful efforts to maintain secrecy. HMB-1 was of particular interest to me in that I was in charge of the piping and machinery design when it was built at National Steel and Shipbuilding Company in San Diego. The enormous complexities of the design and engineering efforts for Glomar Explorer were well covered without getting mired into minute design details. The mechanics of how the actual, on site recovery was accomplished is also very well described except for HMB-1. Neither it's exact purpose nor the manner in which this strange looking vessel was employed are entirely clear.Shortly before the launching of HMB-1, President Nixon came to the shipyard In San Diego. His visit was unannounced untilthe day before. The library in the engineering office was suddenly stuffed with wires and all sorts of equipment and the next day two helicopters landed in the middle of the shipyard. The president got out, climbed up to a recently built scaffold, and spoke for about twenty minutes with no mention what-so-ever about HMB-1 which was sitting on the ways right next to him. I got to shake his hand as he walked the rope line back to his helicopter and just like that, he was gone. We all went back towork. We couldn't figure out what it was that we were building or what it was for. The gossip included manganese module mining--not much else. It looked like a dry-dock or a barge of some sort but with several odd features -- a telescoping roof for one. Another odd feature not mentioned in the book was a watertight compartment in one of the wing-walls that was accessible to divers while submerged. It had a submarine type entry from the sea. In it were numerous valve manifolds for flooding and blowing out the ballast tanks, tank level indicators and a substantial control console with a variety of gauges and switches. What was it all for? Nobody knows. See photo.According to the book and many other reports, only a portion of the sub was recovered. This is substantiated by the significant effort that got under way to go back and get the rest of it. This effort was cancelled as impracticable. For one thing, there was no more secrecy. Might it be that this effort was a ploy? Why would we go back if we had gotten it all?There is a great deal of internet info about K-29 but much of the project is still secret. The book gives an excellent account of the entire project --start to finish, or almost finish. We really don't know what we got. have a lingering suspicion that we got the whole darn thing. In any event, whatever technology we did get is obsolete today. Was it worth it all??Photos are courtesy National Steel and Shipbuilding Company
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The Documentary on TV, Helped to Make the Book "The Taking of K-129" More Enjoyable
