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Podcast Episode #165 - Secrets of the Subcontinent: Intelligence in India with Dr. Paul McGarr

The first mountain climber to ever appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated later joined a secret CIA mission into the Himalayas to install a nuclear-powered monitoring device.

Following a successful nuclear test by the People’s Republic of China in October 1964, the US and India initiated Operation Hat to detect and measure further developments. Expert mountaineers including Manmohan Singh Kohli from India and James McCarthy from the US trained in Alaska to prepare to summit Nanda Devi, a 25,000 Himalayan peak.

The team packed in a sensor system consisting of two transceiver boxes, a six-foot-tall antenna, and a SNAP 19C thermoelectric generator containing plutonium-238, which would power the system for two years. Each of the four components weighed 60+ lbs and had to be carried up one of the world’s tallest mountains. Once installed, the system would record telemetry data from Chinese missile tests occurring in the Xinjiang region.

However, as they neared the summit, a fierce snowstorm made Kohli call off the remainder of the ascent as too dangerous. The device was stashed in place so the team could return in better conditions to complete the installation. But months later upon their return, the device was nowhere to be found. Further searches never located it, and there was a major concern that the plutonium could potentially irradiate the waters of the Ganges River, which was fed by melting Himalayan snow, and could cause a massive ecological disaster.

Years of monitoring never detected any radiation in the area, and the equipment is believed to have fallen into a crevasse or been buried in an avalanche. But when the mission finally came to light in 1978, it was a huge embarrassment for the Indian government. A second device was successfully installed in 1967.

For episode 165 of the podcast I spoke with Dr. Paul McGarr about his new book Spying in South Asia. We discussed one of the lesser-known fronts of the decades-long conflict between global superpowers.

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