By A Correspondent

New York: A chilling Cold War secret buried deep in the Himalayas has resurfaced, as a New York Times investigation revives global attention on a vanished nuclear-powered CIA surveillance device lost on India’s Nanda Devi peak in 1965, an incident that continues to raise fears over radiation risks, environmental safety, and geopolitical accountability six decades later.

The covert operation, involving the United States and India, was launched at the height of Cold War tensions after China detonated its first atomic bomb in 1964.

Alarmed by Beijing’s nuclear ambitions and limited intelligence access inside China, the CIA devised an audacious plan to spy on Chinese missile tests by placing surveillance equipment at an extreme altitude in the Indian Himalayas.

Nanda Devi, standing at 25,645 feet and located close to the India-China border, was selected as the ideal location to intercept missile telemetry.

Disguised as a scientific mountaineering expedition, American climbers and Indian intelligence-backed mountaineers were tasked with carrying the equipment up the mountain.

At the heart of the mission was a SNAP-19C nuclear generator powered by plutonium, containing nearly one-third of the plutonium used in the Nagasaki atomic bomb, designed to function unattended for years.

From the outset, the mission faced serious doubts. Indian military’s legendary mountaineer Captain M. S. Kohli warned that installing and securing such equipment at that altitude was dangerously unrealistic.

“If not impossible, extremely difficult,” Kohli later recalled. Despite his concerns, the expedition pressed on in September 1965, racing against the brutal Himalayan winter.

On October 16, 1965, disaster struck. As the team attempted to reach the summit via the southwestern ridge, they were engulfed by a violent blizzard.

With food and water exhausted and visibility near zero, survival became the priority. “We were 99 percent dead,” recalled Sonam Wangyal, one of the Indian intelligence officers on the mission. From base camp, Kohli ordered an immediate retreat.

The climbers secured the nuclear generator to an ice ledge, intending to recover it later, and descended. The device was never seen again.

When a follow-up expedition returned in 1966, the ice shelf where the generator had been tied had vanished, most likely swept away by an avalanche.

Extensive searches using radiation detectors, infrared sensors, and metal scanners failed to locate it.

American climber Jim McCarthy later speculated that heat from the plutonium-powered device may have melted the surrounding ice, causing it to sink deeper into the glacier. “That damn thing was very warm,” he said.

The disappearance has long haunted India. While scientists say radioactive contamination of the Ganges River system would likely be diluted by sheer water volume, concerns persist for local mountain streams and nearby communities.

Plutonium is extremely toxic if inhaled or ingested and is linked to cancer. McCarthy, who later developed testicular cancer, believed radiation exposure during the mission played a role.

Security experts have also warned of the theoretical risk that the plutonium could be recovered and used in a “dirty bomb,” designed to spread radioactive material rather than cause a nuclear explosion.

Fears resurfaced after a devastating landslide near Nanda Devi in 2021 killed more than 200 people.

Though scientists largely blamed climate change and glacial instability, speculation emerged over whether heat from the lost generator could have contributed.

Uttarakhand tourism minister Satpal Maharaj has called for the device to be excavated to put public fears to rest, while Member of Parliament Nishikant Dubey said responsibility lies squarely with the United States.

Both Washington and New Delhi continue to maintain silence, citing intelligence secrecy.

Quiet diplomatic efforts in the late 1970s failed to resolve the issue, and the CIA has never officially acknowledged the operation.

Hidden beneath ice and rock, the lost nuclear device remains one of the most unsettling legacies of Cold War espionage, an unresolved mystery with potential consequences still lurking beneath the roof of the world.

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