7 ms·

How Did the CIA Lose a Nuclear Device in the Himalayas?

39 points by Anon84 11mo ago

manarth 11mo ago
https://archive.is/eTdkQ https://archive.is/eTdkQ
manarth 11mo ago
For additional context, the "Nuclear Device" in question is a SNAP-19C, an RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator), which generates electricity via radioactivity decay (approx 30W for this model).
- mmooss 11mo ago
  If you have another source, please tell us!
  - ruthie_cohen 11mo ago
    There’s a diagram here, if this helps: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e9/SNAP-19C_Mound_Data_Sheet.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e9/SNAP-19C_Moun...
- IAmBroom 11mo ago
  A "nuclear device" is doing pretty heavy lifting here. Cesium-painted watch hands are also "nuclear devices".
ViktorRay 11mo ago
Interesting to see this level of cooperation between the United States and India in 1965. Especially between the American and Indian intelligence agencies. Historians of this time period usually describe India as having a more frigid relationship with America by the mid 1960’s with India moving closer to the Soviet Union and the United States moving closer to Pakistan. But articles like this demonstrate that the situation may have been more complex than that. Of course geopolitics can sometimes change quickly. The leadership in the US and in India did change between 1965, the early 1970’s and the late 1970’s so that was a factor as well.
- jhbadger 11mo ago
  As the article mentions, this was about their shared worry of Mao's China and their nuclear advances. India then as now has a strong connection to the USSR/Russia -- they flew, and still fly, MiG planes, for example.
- alephnerd 11mo ago
  It was mutual. The US shifted to becoming de facto allied with China in the early 1970s as a bulwark against the Soviet Union, and Pakistan helped with the initial backdoor diplomacy [0][1] that lead to US-Chinese normalization in the 1970s. India, having fought a war against both Pakistan and China in the 1960s, pivoted to the Soviet Union as a result, who were also miffed at China because of the Sino-Soviet split and were looking for a bulwark. > Historians of this time period usually describe India as having a more frigid relationship with America by the mid 1960’s with India moving closer to the Soviet Union and the United States moving closer to Pakistan A major reason was Brzezinski - LBJ and later Carter's foreign policy czar. He was a "realist" whose primary goal was boxing in the USSR (he spent his early childhood in Moscow during the Stalinist purge and Poland before the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). As such, he pivoted the US away from India in favor of Pakistan and China. The is why the US went from building IITs and allowing it's tech companies like Burroughs and IBM building joint ventures in 1960s India to de facto sanctions in the 1970s. Kissinger followed a similar policy as Brzezinski, and IMO a major reason was that both grew up in pre-War Europe and their past experiences colored their views as a result. [0] - https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2015/10/pakistan-and-chinas-almost-alliance.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2015/10/pakistan-and-ch... [1] - https://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/papers/pakistan-china-relations-in-a-changing-geopolitical-environment/ https://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/papers/pakistan-china-relations-...
  - mmooss 11mo ago
    > India ... pivoted to the Soviet Union India may have had a relationship, but they were never a Soviet ally or anything like it. They led the Non-Aligned Movement.
    - 11mo ago
alephnerd 11mo ago
The US also pivoted to de facto allying with China by the 1970s. In the eyes of contemporary NatSec leadership like Kissinger (Nixon, Ford) and Brzezinski (LBJ, Carter), leveraging the Sino-Soviet split to box in the Soviets was the ideal option. As such, from 1972-1992 the US posted soldiers in Xinjiang monitoring the USSR [0], sponsored govenrnent led tech transfers and scientific collaboration [1], provided support for Chinese military modernization [2][3], and expanded economic cooperation [4]. This also played a role as to why US intel in the 2000s assumed Xi Jinping would be pro-American [5], as he started his career working on the US supported modernization of the PLA as a junior secretary to Geng Biao [6] - who was the primary reason the Maoist regime was overthrown in the 1970s. By the 1970s, the primary NatSec goal was blocking the USSR, and as a result realism became the primary foreign policy strategy used by the US. As such, you ended up seeing policies like ditching India and Taiwan in favor of Pakistan and China, supporting communist Somalia over not-really-communist Dergist Ethiopia during the Ogaden War, and swaying then Soviet-aligned Egypt in favor of the US by cultivating Anwar Sadat and culminating in the Camp David Accords. [0] - https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/18/world/us-and-peking-join-in-tracking-missiles-in-soviet.html https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/18/world/us-and-peking-join-... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.%E2%80%93China_Agreement_on_Cooperation_in_Science_and_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.%E2%80%93China_Agreement_o... [2] - https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/17/world/us-decides-to-sell-weapons-to-china-in-policy-reversal.html https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/17/world/us-decides-to-sell-... [3] - https://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/04/archives/study-urges-us-aid-to-chinese-military-staff-paper-sees-peking-as-a.html https://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/04/archives/study-urges-us-a... [4] - https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/26/business/us-china-investment-talks.html https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/26/business/us-china-investm... [5] - https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09BEIJING3128_a.html https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09BEIJING3128_a.html [6] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geng_Biao https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geng_Biao
- mmooss 11mo ago
  Thanks. To pick on one important word ... > ditching ... Taiwan in favor of ... China Is that really an accurate description? The US continued to explicitly support Taiwan's political and military separation from China, and compelled China to agree to it - as long as Taiwan didn't try to leave China and form another country, they could remain as they were (and are). The change was that the US had formerly recognized Taiwan as the government of all China and therefore possesor of China's UN Security Council seat, and in their deal with Mao switched to recognizing China. The following is my understanding: The civil war ended 1949; the Communists won, and the Nationalists fled to Taiwan. That is well-known; the following is a bit of speculation: For awhile, arguably it might have been plausible to deny Communist rule and imagine the Nationalists could govern China, maybe by reinvading and another uprising like those China had experienced since 1911 - the Communists were very weak. But by 1970 the result of the civil war must have been clear and the idea of the Taiwanese Nationalists as government of mainland China was a pointless fiction. But it was very important to the Communists and a valuable chit in a negotiation. Taiwan's hurt feelings were irrelevant - they were dependent on the US and couldn't do anything about it. Recognizing the reality of Communist mainland control had little cost and great gain.
iJohnDoe 11mo ago
I thought we’ve been led to believe that the US has sensitive radiation monitoring capabilities that could be capable of somewhat pinpointing the location of the device or at least detect it’s still there or has spread? Satellite detection?
- wkat4242 11mo ago
  Alpha radiation has very little in the way of penetration. I can be basically shielded by tin foil. As the Pu238 decays it will transform into other materials that will probably emit beta and gamma radiation which could be detected. And also the shielding might get compromised over time (hopefully not!) But at least when it was new this would not have been an option. Heat was the only detectable emission coming off it.
  - IAmBroom 11mo ago
    > I can be basically shielded by tin foil. Comically correct, but I suspect you meant to say "It can..."
    - wkat4242 11mo ago
      Oops yes :) That's what I meant of course. But my point was, even the fuel tubes themselves will have more than adequate shielding against the alpha particles emitted. So it's not even that dangerous that the Sherpas were using them to heat their beds :) By the way I have since looked it up and Plutonium 238 decays to Uranium 234 which is also an alpha emitter but with a huge half-life (235.000 years). So it looks lke it does not actually produce more penetrating radiation as it decays. The uranium will degrade to an unstable thorium isotope eventually too but this will be quite minimal due to the long half-life.
phendrenad2 11mo ago
> After losing it at the top of that mountain 60 years ago, the American government still refuses to acknowledge that anything ever happened So, it's possible that they retrieved it, but can't say that because it would confirm that the mission existed.
- DANmode 11mo ago
  and the reason for the mission. and all of the related metadata of the details and assets of the mission.
mmooss 11mo ago
This sounds like amatuer stuff, a cool idea of a CEO who has nobody to tell them 'no'. Did they really need to plant that on top of a Himalyan mountain? Also, even if successful, how do you service it? The environment is as rough on equipment as it is on climbers. I understand there were no satellites yet, but there were no other options?

39 points by Anon84 11mo ago

https://archive.is/eTdkQ https://archive.is/eTdkQ

For additional context, the "Nuclear Device" in question is a SNAP-19C, an RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator), which generates electricity via radioactivity decay (approx 30W for this model).

mmooss 11mo ago
If you have another source, please tell us!
- ruthie_cohen 11mo ago
  There’s a diagram here, if this helps: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e9/SNAP-19C_Mound_Data_Sheet.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e9/SNAP-19C_Moun...
IAmBroom 11mo ago
A "nuclear device" is doing pretty heavy lifting here. Cesium-painted watch hands are also "nuclear devices".

ViktorRay 11mo ago

Interesting to see this level of cooperation between the United States and India in 1965. Especially between the American and Indian intelligence agencies. Historians of this time period usually describe India as having a more frigid relationship with America by the mid 1960’s with India moving closer to the Soviet Union and the United States moving closer to Pakistan. But articles like this demonstrate that the situation may have been more complex than that. Of course geopolitics can sometimes change quickly. The leadership in the US and in India did change between 1965, the early 1970’s and the late 1970’s so that was a factor as well.

jhbadger 11mo ago
As the article mentions, this was about their shared worry of Mao's China and their nuclear advances. India then as now has a strong connection to the USSR/Russia -- they flew, and still fly, MiG planes, for example.
alephnerd 11mo ago
It was mutual. The US shifted to becoming de facto allied with China in the early 1970s as a bulwark against the Soviet Union, and Pakistan helped with the initial backdoor diplomacy [0][1] that lead to US-Chinese normalization in the 1970s. India, having fought a war against both Pakistan and China in the 1960s, pivoted to the Soviet Union as a result, who were also miffed at China because of the Sino-Soviet split and were looking for a bulwark. > Historians of this time period usually describe India as having a more frigid relationship with America by the mid 1960’s with India moving closer to the Soviet Union and the United States moving closer to Pakistan A major reason was Brzezinski - LBJ and later Carter's foreign policy czar. He was a "realist" whose primary goal was boxing in the USSR (he spent his early childhood in Moscow during the Stalinist purge and Poland before the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). As such, he pivoted the US away from India in favor of Pakistan and China. The is why the US went from building IITs and allowing it's tech companies like Burroughs and IBM building joint ventures in 1960s India to de facto sanctions in the 1970s. Kissinger followed a similar policy as Brzezinski, and IMO a major reason was that both grew up in pre-War Europe and their past experiences colored their views as a result. [0] - https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2015/10/pakistan-and-chinas-almost-alliance.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2015/10/pakistan-and-ch... [1] - https://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/papers/pakistan-china-relations-in-a-changing-geopolitical-environment/ https://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/papers/pakistan-china-relations-...
- mmooss 11mo ago
  > India ... pivoted to the Soviet Union India may have had a relationship, but they were never a Soviet ally or anything like it. They led the Non-Aligned Movement.
  - 11mo ago

alephnerd 11mo ago

The US also pivoted to de facto allying with China by the 1970s. In the eyes of contemporary NatSec leadership like Kissinger (Nixon, Ford) and Brzezinski (LBJ, Carter), leveraging the Sino-Soviet split to box in the Soviets was the ideal option. As such, from 1972-1992 the US posted soldiers in Xinjiang monitoring the USSR [0], sponsored govenrnent led tech transfers and scientific collaboration [1], provided support for Chinese military modernization [2][3], and expanded economic cooperation [4]. This also played a role as to why US intel in the 2000s assumed Xi Jinping would be pro-American [5], as he started his career working on the US supported modernization of the PLA as a junior secretary to Geng Biao [6] - who was the primary reason the Maoist regime was overthrown in the 1970s. By the 1970s, the primary NatSec goal was blocking the USSR, and as a result realism became the primary foreign policy strategy used by the US. As such, you ended up seeing policies like ditching India and Taiwan in favor of Pakistan and China, supporting communist Somalia over not-really-communist Dergist Ethiopia during the Ogaden War, and swaying then Soviet-aligned Egypt in favor of the US by cultivating Anwar Sadat and culminating in the Camp David Accords. [0] - https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/18/world/us-and-peking-join-in-tracking-missiles-in-soviet.html https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/18/world/us-and-peking-join-... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.%E2%80%93China_Agreement_on_Cooperation_in_Science_and_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.%E2%80%93China_Agreement_o... [2] - https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/17/world/us-decides-to-sell-weapons-to-china-in-policy-reversal.html https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/17/world/us-decides-to-sell-... [3] - https://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/04/archives/study-urges-us-aid-to-chinese-military-staff-paper-sees-peking-as-a.html https://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/04/archives/study-urges-us-a... [4] - https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/26/business/us-china-investment-talks.html https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/26/business/us-china-investm... [5] - https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09BEIJING3128_a.html https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09BEIJING3128_a.html [6] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geng_Biao https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geng_Biao

mmooss 11mo ago
Thanks. To pick on one important word ... > ditching ... Taiwan in favor of ... China Is that really an accurate description? The US continued to explicitly support Taiwan's political and military separation from China, and compelled China to agree to it - as long as Taiwan didn't try to leave China and form another country, they could remain as they were (and are). The change was that the US had formerly recognized Taiwan as the government of all China and therefore possesor of China's UN Security Council seat, and in their deal with Mao switched to recognizing China. The following is my understanding: The civil war ended 1949; the Communists won, and the Nationalists fled to Taiwan. That is well-known; the following is a bit of speculation: For awhile, arguably it might have been plausible to deny Communist rule and imagine the Nationalists could govern China, maybe by reinvading and another uprising like those China had experienced since 1911 - the Communists were very weak. But by 1970 the result of the civil war must have been clear and the idea of the Taiwanese Nationalists as government of mainland China was a pointless fiction. But it was very important to the Communists and a valuable chit in a negotiation. Taiwan's hurt feelings were irrelevant - they were dependent on the US and couldn't do anything about it. Recognizing the reality of Communist mainland control had little cost and great gain.

iJohnDoe 11mo ago

I thought we’ve been led to believe that the US has sensitive radiation monitoring capabilities that could be capable of somewhat pinpointing the location of the device or at least detect it’s still there or has spread? Satellite detection?

wkat4242 11mo ago
Alpha radiation has very little in the way of penetration. I can be basically shielded by tin foil. As the Pu238 decays it will transform into other materials that will probably emit beta and gamma radiation which could be detected. And also the shielding might get compromised over time (hopefully not!) But at least when it was new this would not have been an option. Heat was the only detectable emission coming off it.
- IAmBroom 11mo ago
  > I can be basically shielded by tin foil. Comically correct, but I suspect you meant to say "It can..."
  - wkat4242 11mo ago
    Oops yes :) That's what I meant of course. But my point was, even the fuel tubes themselves will have more than adequate shielding against the alpha particles emitted. So it's not even that dangerous that the Sherpas were using them to heat their beds :) By the way I have since looked it up and Plutonium 238 decays to Uranium 234 which is also an alpha emitter but with a huge half-life (235.000 years). So it looks lke it does not actually produce more penetrating radiation as it decays. The uranium will degrade to an unstable thorium isotope eventually too but this will be quite minimal due to the long half-life.

phendrenad2 11mo ago

> After losing it at the top of that mountain 60 years ago, the American government still refuses to acknowledge that anything ever happened So, it's possible that they retrieved it, but can't say that because it would confirm that the mission existed.

DANmode 11mo ago
and the reason for the mission. and all of the related metadata of the details and assets of the mission.

mmooss 11mo ago

This sounds like amatuer stuff, a cool idea of a CEO who has nobody to tell them 'no'. Did they really need to plant that on top of a Himalyan mountain? Also, even if successful, how do you service it? The environment is as rough on equipment as it is on climbers. I understand there were no satellites yet, but there were no other options?