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"Azorian" (erroneously called "Jennifer" by the press after its Top Secret Security Compartment) was the code name for a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project to recover the sunken Soviet submarine K-129 from the Pacific Ocean floor in the summer of 1974, using the purpose-built ship ''Hughes Glomar Explorer''.〔Wiegley, Roger D., LT (JAG) USN "The Recovered Sunken Warship: Raising a Legal Question" ''United States Naval Institute Proceedings'' January 1979 p.30〕 The 1968 sinking of the K-129 occurred approximately northwest of Hawaii.〔 Project Azorian was one of the most complex, expensive, and secretive intelligence operations of the Cold War at a cost of about $800 million ($ in dollars). In addition to designing the high tech recovery ship and its unique lifting cradle, the U.S. used concepts developed with Global Marine (see Project Mohole) that utilized their precision stability equipment to keep the ship nearly stationary above the target (and do this while lowering nearly three miles of pipe). 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 exact reasons why this project was undertaken are unknown, but likely reasons included the recovery of an intact nuclear missile (R-21, also known as NATO SS-N-5-SERB), and cryptological documents and equipment. After the Soviet Union performed their unsuccessful search for the K-129, the U.S. undertook a search, and by the use of acoustic data from four AFTAC sites and the Adak SOSUS array located the wreck of the submarine to within . The submarine used the Fish, a towed, , collection of cameras, strobe lights, and sonar that was built to withstand extreme depths to detect seafloor objects. The recovery operation commenced covertly (in international waters) about six years later with the supposed commercial purpose of mining the sea floor for manganese nodules under the cover of Howard Hughes and the ''Hughes Glomar Explorer''. While the ship did recover a portion of ''K-129'', a mechanical failure in the grapple caused two-thirds of the recovered section to break off during recovery. ==Target: the wreck of the K-129== In April 1968, Soviet Pacific Fleet surface and air assets were observed conducting a surge deployment to the North Pacific Ocean that involved some unusual search operations. The activity was evaluated by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) as a possible reaction to the loss of a Soviet submarine. Soviet surface ship searches were centered on a location known to be associated with Soviet Golf II Class SSB strategic ballistic missile diesel submarine patrol routes. These submarines carried three nuclear missiles in an extended sail/conning tower and routinely deployed to within missile range of the U.S. west coast. The American SOSUS (Sea Spider) hydrophone network in the northern Pacific was tasked with reviewing its recordings in the hopes of detecting an implosion (or explosion) related to such a loss. Naval Facility (NAVFAC) Point Sur, south of Monterey, California, was able to isolate a sonic signature on its low frequency array (LOFAR) recordings of an implosion event that had occurred on March 8, 1968 (for which they received a Meritorious Unit Commendation in 1969). Using NavFac Point Sur's date and time of the event, NavFac Adak and the U.S. West Coast NAVFAC were also able to isolate the acoustic event. With five SOSUS lines-of-bearing, Naval Intelligence was able to localize the site of the K-129 wreck to the vicinity of 40° N latitude and 180° longitude (International Date Line). After weeks of search, the Soviets were unable to locate their sunken boat, and Soviet Pacific Fleet operations gradually returned to a normal level. In July 1968, the U.S. Navy initiated "Operation Sand Dollar" with the deployment of from Pearl Harbor to the wreck site. Sand Dollar's objective was to find and photograph the K-129. In 1965, ''Halibut'' had been configured to use deep submergence search equipment, the only such specially-equipped submarine then in U.S. inventory. The search locus provided by SOCUS was , and the wreck sat at a depth of over . Nonetheless, ''Halibut'' located the wreck after only three weeks of at-depth visual search utilizing robotic remote-controlled cameras. (Compare this to almost 5 months of open and unrestricted search required to locate the wreck of the U.S. nuclear-powered submarine in the Atlantic, also in 1968). ''Halibut'' is reported to have spent the next several weeks taking over 20,000 closeup photos of every aspect of the K-129 wreck, a feat for which ''Halibut'' received a special classified Presidential Unit Citation signed by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. In 1970, based upon this photography, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and Henry Kissinger, then National Security Advisor, proposed a clandestine plan to recover the wreckage so that the U.S. could study Soviet nuclear missile technology, as well as possibly recover cryptographic materials. The proposal was accepted by President Richard Nixon and the CIA was tasked to attempt the recovery. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Project Azorian」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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