
How the CIA Found a Soviet Sub Without the Soviets Knowing (2017) - spking
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/09/18/549535352/how-the-cia-found-a-soviet-sub-without-the-soviets-knowing
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ncmncm
There is a lot more to the story. The Soviets were convinced enough about
their sub being rammed that they contrived to ram a US vessel in retaliation.

Navy ratings involved in the operation, not bound by secrecy, in interviews
said the part of the sub retrieved was fatally radioactive, and ended up
buried somewhere south of San Francisco.

The ship was more or less useless afterward--too big and expensive to operate,
for anything that anyone could think of to use it for--and was sold at auction
for scrap value.

There was a claim that the sub had been involved in an operation to launch a
nuke at Hawaii, in a way meant to look like the Chinese were responsible, but
that it blew up instead and sank the sub, possibly by triggering an anti-
sabotage mechanism. Most observers think that's nonsense. (AIUI, Soviet naval
missiles just float out of the sub to the surface, and launch from there.) A
sensationalist book, Red Star Rising, claimed to be based on such interviews
and other details about peculiar personnel scheduling aboard.

I don't know what's true, but I was astonished that Soviet naval staff
activity was so transparent.

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genera1
I can highly recommend a book _Blind Man 's Bluff: The Untold Story of
American Submarine Espionage_, which has more information on this specific
incident as well as other spy submarine stories from the Cold War

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GekkePrutser
Azorian is not news though, even in 2017 it wasn't :)

