"Jennifer" was the designation for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project to recover a sunken Soviet submarine K-129 from the Pacific Ocean conducted in the summer of 1974 using the purpose-built ship, the Glomar Explorer.
In February, 1975 the Los Angeles Times reported on this operation, which was denied by the United States government. The operations of the Explorer were explained as being an undersea mining experiment financed by Howard Hughes.
In fact, Jennifer was one of the most complex and secretive known intelligence operations of the Cold War. On April 11, 1968 the American ‘Sea Spider’ hydrophone network detected an accidental explosion aboard a Soviet submarine. After the Soviets were unable to locate their sunken boat, Henry Kissinger, then National Security Advisor, approved the plan to raise the wreckage.
The Glomar Explorer and the submersible barge HMB-1 used a large mechanical claw to grab the submarine and lift it seventeen thousand feet. Published reports indicate the boat broke in half when being raised. The front was recovered; it did not have the missiles and code books that were the main prize, but did include a number of nuclear torpedoes and other valuable intelligence documents along with the bodies of six crewmen.