Nearly six decades ago, as the India-Pakistan war raged on the Western Front, the sleuths of the United States and India turned to elite mountaineers to execute a covert mission against China.
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The usual cloak and daggers were replaced by crampons and ice axes as a nuclear-powered monitoring device was to be planted on a major mountain peak for an unfettered view across Chinese-occupied Tibet.
North of the Tibetan plateau were the salt deserts of China’s Xinjiang province, where the Beijing government had testing ranges for its nuclear weapons program that was still in a nascent stage.
The idea for the mission germinated in a cocktail party in Washington. The then US Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay was responsible for keeping a tab on the nuclear tests being conducted by China. A plan was hatched to plan the monitoring device atop a Himalayan Mountain to enable the two countries to peer into Xinjiang and get information about Beijing’s fledgling nuclear program.
India, which fought a brief but bloody war with China in 1962, did not need much convincing regarding the benefits of the mission.
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Manmohan “Mohan” Singh Kohli, an elite Indian mountaineer, was enlisted for the mission. Kohli was deputized to lend advisory support for high-altitude warfare during the 1962 war. A group of 14 American and four Indian mountaineers was assembled. In totality, they represented the cream of a mountaineering generation.
During his initial training in the US, Kohli realized that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) wanted the device to be placed at an altitude of at least 27,500 feet. The mighty Kanchenjunga, the third-highest mountain in the world, qualified for the same.
It is located in the border region of Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim. The residents of the state consider it sacred. Also, from the perspective of scaling the mountain, it seemed a “ludicrous” preposition, as the device would add to the climbers’ weight and require two hours of assembly time atop—an impossible feat at that height.
Kohli voiced his misgivings to then-Indian spymaster R N Kao. Kao asked for alternatives, and Kohli suggested – Trisul, Nanda Kot, and Kamet. Trisul had the easiest climb. However, it was not high enough for the CIA. The idea of Nanda Kot was also shot down as it was too low, and Kamet did not make the cut as it was almost on the border and vulnerable to Chinese raid. A compromise was reached, and the CIA wanted them to summit Nanda Devi, loosely translated as “Blessed Goddess.”
Nanda Devi has a sacred status in Hindu mythology. Standing 25,645 feet, it forms a natural buffer between the frigid winds whipping down from Tibet and the fertile Gangetic Plain. In that sense, “it is nothing short of a savior to the farmers of the lowlands.”
It is akin to a fortress in the central Himalayas. A 70-mile barrier ring forms the circumference, around which stand a dozen major peaks. Entry to the center of the ring is limited to a single, steep gorge from the west.
The Nuclear-Powered Monitoring Device
The sensor had four major components, all connected by wires and cables. Two of the pieces were metal boxes to keep them off the snow and ice. These had the transceivers—labeled B1 and B2—that would relay the collated missile information to a base station somewhere in India.
The third component was the collection antenna that would receive the telemetry data from the Chinese missiles. The six-foot-tall antenna looked like the standard television aerial found in many homes.
The fourth component was called a SNAP 19C (short for system for nuclear auxiliary power); it was a thermoelectric generator capable of forty watts of continuous output for two years. Fuelled by Plutonium, the SNAP was to provide power for extended periods. The SNAP resembled a metallic mushroom. It was a hexagonal block of graphite, and seven small rods, also called fuel capsules, went into holes around the block.
The seven capsules together contained 1,734 grams of plutonium, mainly the Pu-238 isotope. The block was sheathed in a squat, cylindrical aluminum container. Forty-five aluminum fins were arrayed around it to dissipate heat more effectively. The SNAP was then mounted on a single post, forming the “stem” of the mushroom.
Hitting A Snag
The meticulously planned mission hit a snag after the climbing team encountered inclement weather at Camp-IV of Nanda Devi. The team decided to safely tuck the equipment in a suitable mountain cavity and abandon the expedition, to be reattempted in 1966.
The boxes were wrapped with nylon rope and secured using pitons and carabiners. Special care was taken with the generator, anchored by an extra rope. Nearly a third of the load was inside the cavity.
When the team went the next year, they found only a few wires at the designated place.
The news of the missing nuclear generator was relayed to New Delhi via satellite phone, and it hit the dispensation like a bombshell. An emergency session was held between Indian intelligence and CIA officials.
The device has a longevity of 100 years and is still unlocated. In an interview in 2018, Kohli said: “The life of the device is about 100 years, and there are still about 40 years left. If it goes into the Rishi Ganga, the water can get very contaminated, and more people would get affected, even die. But once it goes to the main Ganga, there would be quite a lot of dilution, and some people might suffer, but it would not lead to fatalities. According to my estimates, the device is very hot, and once it touches the glacier, it will start sinking until it touches the rock. Then it won’t move.”
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After great persistence, the CIA and the Intelligence Bureau renewed the ‘Operation Hat’ and placed a similar listening device on Nanda Kot in 1967. The climbers dug to form a natural platform. The device was activated. However, after a year, the device stopped transmitting to the CIA station. Kohli led another expedition to Nanda Kot and found that the immense heat generated by the SNAP had slowly melted the snow around it. By the time the climbers had arrived, the pit was nearly 8 feet deep.
Not wanting to repeat the snafu at Nanda Devi, the SNAP generator, along with the remaining listening device, was flown out of the mountain.
The CIA-IB’s Himalayan misadventure was shrouded in secrecy until an American magazine ‘Outside’ published a detailed account of the mission in 1977, creating an international uproar about the lost nuclear device on Nanda Devi.
- Ritu Sharma has been a journalist for over a decade, writing on defense, foreign affairs, and nuclear technology.
- The author can be reached at ritu.sharma (at) mail.com
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