60 Years Ago, The CIA Lost A Nuclear Device In The Himalayas. It's Still There

At the height of the Cold War in 1965, China had just tested an atomic bomb. The CIA wanted to spy on Chinese missile tests using a nuclear-powered antenna placed high on Nanda Devi, overlooking the country's border.

American and Indian climbers prepared their cargo: an antenna, cables, and a 13 kg generator called the SNAP-19C. Inside it was plutonium. As the climbers readied for the final push, a blizzard swept in, swallowing the mountain, The NY Times reported.

From the advanced base camp below, Captain MS Kohli, the Indian officer leading the mission, watched in fear. He grabbed the radio and instructed: “Camp Four, this is Advance Base. Can you hear me? ... Come back quickly... don't waste a single minute.”

“Secure the equipment. Don't bring it down.”

The climbers hid the equipment on an icy ledge near Camp Four and fled downhill to save their lives. They left behind a nuclear device containing nearly a third of the plutonium used in the Nagasaki bomb.

Plutonium nuclear device
Photo Credit: ccdc.cam.ac.uk

It has never been seen again.

The United States never acknowledged the mission. Officially, nothing had happened.

The idea for the mission formed at a cocktail party. General Curtis LeMay, head of the US Air Force, was speaking with Barry Bishop, a National Geographic photographer and Everest climber. Bishop described how Himalayan peaks offered clear views deep into Tibet and China.

Soon after, the CIA asked Bishop to organise a covert expedition disguised as scientific research. He would recruit climbers, create a cover story and keep the mission secret.

Bishop agreed. He set up the fake “Sikkim Scientific Expedition” and brought in Jim McCarthy, a young American climber and lawyer, who was paid $1,000 a month for what the agency called a vital national security task.

India joined quietly, driven by fears of China after the 1962 war. Captain M.S. Kohli, the Indian mountaineer leading the effort, was unconvinced.

“It was nonsense,” he said later.

When the agency first suggested placing the device on Kanchenjunga, the world's third-highest peak, Kohli said, “I told them whoever is advising the CIA is a stupid man.”

McCarthy agreed. “I looked at that Kanchenjunga plan and said, ‘Are you out of your mind?'” Eventually, they settled on Nanda Devi.

The climb began in September 1965. The climbers were rushed by helicopter to high altitude without proper acclimatisation. Many fell sick but the plutonium brought warmth. The radioactive fuel gave off heat. Sherpas fought over who got to carry it, Kohli said.

“At the time,” he said, “we had no idea about the danger.”

Then on October 16, near the summit, the blizzard hit. “We were 99 per cent dead,” said Sonam Wangyal, one of the Indian climbers. “We had empty stomachs, no water, no food, and we were totally exhausted.”

When Kohli ordered the equipment abandoned, McCarthy exploded. “You have to bring that generator down, you're making a huge mistake,” he said.

But the decision held. The next year, the team returned to recover the device. It was gone. The entire ledge, ice, rock, equipment, had been ripped away by an avalanche.

“‘Oh my God, this will be very, very serious,'” Kohli remembered the CIA officers saying. “‘These are plutonium capsules!'”

Search missions followed. Radiation detectors. Infrared sensors. Nothing.

“That damn thing was very warm,” McCarthy said. “It would melt the ice around it and keep sinking.”

The mission was a failure. The secret remained buried until 1978.

A young reporter named Howard Kohn uncovered the story and published it in Outside magazine. The scandal exploded. Protesters in India waved signs that read, “CIA is poisoning our waters.”

Behind closed doors, governments moved quickly to quiet the storm. President Jimmy Carter and former Prime Minister Morarji Desai worked together in secret.

In a private letter, Carter praised Desai for how he handled “the Himalayan device problem,” calling it an “unfortunate matter.”

Publicly, both countries said little.

Today, the men who carried it up the mountain are old or gone. Jim McCarthy, now in his 90s, still trembles with anger.

“You can't leave plutonium by a glacier feeding into the Ganges!” he shouted. “Do you know how many people depend on the Ganges?”

Captain Kohli, before his death, looked back with regret.

“I would not have done the mission in the same way,” he said. “The CIA kept us out of the picture,” he said. “Their plan was foolish, their actions were foolish, whoever advised them was foolish. And we were caught in that.” “The whole thing,” he said quietly, “is a sad chapter in my life.”