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Book
Description: In the towering mountains of northern
India, a chilling chapter was written in the history
of international espionage. After the Chinese
detonated their first nuclear test in 1964, America
and India, which had just fought a border war with its
northern neighbor, were both justifiably concerned.
The CIA knew it needed more information on China's
growing nuclear capability but had few ways of peeking
behind the Bamboo Curtain. Because of the extreme
remoteness of Chinese testing grounds, conventional
surveillance in this pre-satellite era was next to
impossible.
The
solution to this intelligence dilemma was a joint
American-Indian effort to plant a nuclear-powered
sensing device on a high Himalayan peak in order to
listen into China and monitor its missile launches. It
was not a job that could be carried out by career
spies, requiring instead the special skills possessed
only by accomplished mountaineers. For this mission,
cloaks and daggers were to be replaced by crampons and
ice axes.
Spies
in the Himalayas chronicles for the first time the
details of these death-defying expeditions sanctioned
by U.S. and Indian intelligence, telling the story of
clandestine climbs and hair-raising exploits. Led by
legendary Indian mountaineer Mohan S. Kohli, conqueror
of Everest, the mission was beset by hazardous climbs,
weather delays, aborted attempts, and even missing
radioactive materials that may or may not still pose a
contamination threat to Indian rivers.
Kept
under wraps for over a decade, these operations came
to light in 1978 and have been long rumored among
mountaineers, but here are finally given book-length
treatment. Spies in the Himalayas provides an inside
look at a CIA mission from participants who weren't
agency employees, drawing on diaries from several of
the climbers to offer impressions not usually recorded
in covert operations. A host of photos and maps puts
readers on the slopes as the team attempts repeatedly
to plant the sensor on a Himalayan summit.
An
adventure story as well as a new chapter in the
history of espionage, this book should appeal to
readers who enjoyed Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air and
to anyone who enjoys a great spy story.
This
book is part of the Modern War Studies series.
From the
Back Cover: A riveting first-hand account of one of
the darker moments of Cold War espionage, with plenty
of James Bondian flourishes: a CIA-backed spy mission
to the roof of the world . . . snowstorms and deadly
frostbite . . . and a missing nuclear-powered
eavesdropping device that threatens to leak lethal
contamination into the Ganges. What a ride!--Frank
Snepp, former CIA agent and author of Decent Interval
and Irreparable Harm
A
marvelously detailed account of one of the most exotic
and hazardous intelligence operations of the Cold War.
. . . A rare treat for anyone interested in
mountaineering, secret intelligence, or tales of high
adventure.--William M. Leary, author of Project
Coldfeet: Secret Mission to a Soviet Ice Station
About
the Author
M. S. Kohli, India's most eminent mountaineer, led the
successful Everest Expedition of 1965 that put nine
men on the summit---a world record that stood for
seventeen years. His books include Mountaineering in
India and The Himalayas.
Kenneth Conboy is a former policy analyst and deputy
director at the Heritage Foundation whose other books
include The CIA's Secret War in Tibet and Spies and
Commandos.
Order
today!
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