DARING SPIES’

AT THE HEIGHT of the Cold War, using eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes for cover, the CIA spent $350 million trying to steal a Soviet submarine.

One of the most astonishing covert operations in U.S. is detailed by author Josh Dean in his new book “The Taking of K-129.” The tale, a spy story on steroids, arrives in stores on Sept. 5. The Cold War had grown deadlier by the decade as each side’s nuclear capability turned ever more lethal.

By the late ’60s, the Soviets were patrolling the Pacific Ocean with a small fleet of diesel-powered subs armed with nuclear weapons.

The subs would launch, submerge and stand by, in position to devastate America’s West Coast cities in the event of a nuclear war.

The K-129, equipped with three nuclear missiles, launched from Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula in February 1968. It was destined for a remote section of the Pacific Ocean far northeast of Hawaii.

On March 9, a U.S. Navy surveillance ship reported unprecedented activity off Kamchatka. The Soviets had suddenly unleashed a flotilla of subs racing at full bore, with no attempt to avoid detection.

The K-129 was lost at sea, presumably sinking to the bottom of the ocean floor. Cold War warriors in Washington envisioned a trove of buried intelligence in both missile technology and possible code-breaking materials.

At CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., Project Azarian was born. The mandate of the top-secret mission was the construction of a behemoth ship capable of sucking the sunken Soviet sub into its belly.

But the agency needed a cover story to get the ship built without revealing its role. A publicly traded company couldn’t be used as a front for a $350 million deceit.

Howard Hughes, 64, was holed up on the top floor of one his hotels, the Desert Inn, in Las Vegas. The famously reclusive billionaire was well into his long, bizarre decline.

The increasingly erratic Hughes agreed to front the hoax. When