March 1968: three miles below the stormy surface of the North Pacific, a Soviet submarine lay silent as a tomb-its crew dead, its payload of nuclear missiles, once directed toward strategic targets in Hawaii, inoperable. No longer a real threat, the sub still presented an alluring target and it was not long before the CIA answered its siren call--even at the risk of igniting World War III.

Project AZORIAN--the monumentally audacious six-year mission to recover the sub and learn its secrets--has been celebrated within the CIA as its greatest covert operation and hailed by the American...