For over fifty years the Central Intelligence Agency has closely guarded the identity of the first agent killed in the line of duty�the unnamed First Star on the outfit's Wall of Honor. Douglas Mackiernan's unprecedented atomic intelligence operations helped shape both Inner Asia and the CIA as we know them today. His work remains so sensitive that the Agency, even now, will neither confirm nor deny his existence. In a riveting expose of international intrigue, Into Tibet reveals the extraordinary still-classified missions that sent Mackiernan and his partner Frank Bessac into the heart of the Cold War.

Douglas Mackiernan was America's first atomic spy. He ventured into Russian controlled territory to collect intelligence about uranium mining�an unsettling sign that Russia was developing an atomic bomb. Soon after, he helped create a system to detect Russia's first atomic tests. Into Tibet brings to life Mackiernan's adventures as he installed cutting-edge radiation detectors near Russia's atomic test site. With the help of his four brothers, who never knew they were facilitating atomic intelligence, he also ran a long distance radio receiver station in his Massachusetts home to collect this coded data. Simultaneously he began to organize anti-Chinese nomads into proxy U.S fighting forces in Inner Asia. Only after his role as a U.S. spy was blown did he set off for Tibet.

Although the United States had never recognized Tibet's claim to independence, Into Tibet uncovers evidence that in 1950 the CIA and the State Department worked covertly to do just that by arming Tibet weeks before it was invaded by Communist China. When Mackiernan met Frank Bessac in Inner Asia and spoke the code word that identified himself as a fellow CIA agent, the two set off with� trusty White Russian companions on a harrowing two-thousand-mile trek on foot and camel. To this day Bessac denies that he was working deep under cover, as a CIA contract agent. Bessac had a subtle understanding of the complicated politics of Inner Asia--one that the American government, consumed in McCarthy hysteria, tragically did not. Although Mackiernan met a tragic and gruesome end, Bessac went on to meet the Dalai Lama in Lhasa, and encouraged the Tibetans to request covert U.S. aid. Only with the publication of Into Tibet can we ask the questions the CIA has hidden for so long. Did bungling at the highest levels of U.S. government cause the death of America's first atomic agent, and the Chinese invasion of Tibet?

A gripping narrative of survival, courage, and adventure among the nomads, princes, and warring armies of Inner Asia, Into Tibet is a stunning true story, based on previously undisclosed materials discovered after six years of research including the Dalai Lama's first ever interview about these events.

Into Tibet: The CIA's First Atomic Spy and His Secret Expedition to Lhasa, Thomas Laird, Grove Press, 2003, 384 Pages, $15.00

Author's Note xi
Preface xiii

PART ONE
WHY THEY WENT 1

• Shegar-Hunglung, Tibet, April 29, 1950 3

• An Atomic Monopoly, An Atomic Peace, 1945 to 1949 8

• Strategic Services Unit, HQ, Peking, March 5, 1946 10

• U.S. Embassy, Nanking, March 1946 18

• Alphabet Soup, 1946�1947 22

• The American Consulate, Tihwa, March 25, 1946 23

• Murray Hill, 1943�1950 24

• Koktogai, ETR, May 15, 1946 25

• At the Chingil River Ford, April 10, 1947 27

• The White House and the Potala, March 1947 29

• Osman Bator, Douglas Mackiernan, and Uranium, May and June 1947 30

• Pegge Lyons and Douglas Mackiernan, Tihwa, Sinkiang, July and August 1947 35

• CIA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., July 1947 41

• The AEC and AFSWP, July 1947 43

• Pegge and Doug, Shanghai and Tihwa, September 1947 44

• The U.S. Army Advisory Group HQ, Nanking, China, September 25, 1947 46

• Shanghai to Peking, September 25�29, 1947 47

• USS President Polk, off the China Coast, October 4, 1947 49

• Bessac's Cover, Peking, China, October 15, 1947 51

• The Crag Hotel, Penang, Malaysia, October 21, 1947 53

• Frank Bessac and Prince De, Peking, China, October 1947 55

• The Green Lantern, January to August 1948 57

• Douglas Mackiernan and Atomic Explosions, 1948 to March 10, 1949 69

• Department of State, Washington D.C., April 19, 1949 74

• The Raid on the U-2 Mine, Sinkiang and the ETR, April or May 1949 76

• Hawaii, June 1, 1996 78

• The Russian Atomic Test Site, Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, August 29, 1949 81

PART TWO
THE JOURNEY TO TIBET 91

• Tibet, Summer of 1949 93

• Dingyuanying, Inner Mongolia, August 1949 97

• Hami to Tihwa, Sinkiang, September 9, 1949 103

• Tihwa-Urumchi, the People's Republic of China, September 26, 1949 107

• Leaving Tihwa, September 27, 1949 112

• Lake Barkol, with the Kazak Horde of Osman Bator, October 29, 1949 115

• The White House, October 31, 1949 120

• Fairfax, California, November 1949 121

• Around the Taklamakan Desert, October 30�November 29, 1949 124

• Washington, D.C., November and December 1949 127

• The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Dharamsala, India, December 1, 1994 131

• Dean Acheson, January 12, 1950 132

• Shanghai, the People's Republic of China, January 30, 1950 134

• Fairfax, California, January 30 and 31, 1950 135

• Peking and Washington, D.C., January 20, 1950 140

• Senator McCarthy's Speech, Wheeling, West Virginia, February 9, 1950 142

• Acheson Meets Lowell Thomas, February 17, 1950 144

• Winter at Timurlik, November 29, 1949, to March 20, 1950 145

• A Letter to Tibet, State-CIA Relations, March 30, 1950 153

• McCarthy and Lattimore, Washington, D.C., April 1950 156

• Across the Changthang, March and April 1950 158

• Morning, April 29, 1950 169

• Shegar-Hunglung, Tibet, April 29, 1950 171

• When They Heard Mackiernan Was Dead 177

PART THREE
THROUGH TIBET AND HOME AGAIN 181

• Nomads and Grenades, April 30 and May 1, 1950 183

• The Arrow Letter, Tibet, May 1, 1950 185

• The U.S. Embassy, New Delhi, India, May 2, 1950 187

• Shentsa Dzong, Tibet, May 6, 1950 188

• Shentsa Dzong, Tibet, May 11, 1950 191

• Trip to Lhasa, May and June 1950 193

• Tibet, Taiwan, and China, Spring 1950 197

• Lhasa, Tibet, June 11, 1950 199

• Mr. Latrash's Lhasa '/v/vspfiles/Assets,' Calcutta and Lhasa,

• Winter and Spring 1949�1950 206

• The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, 'A U.S. Agent Passing Through Lhasa,' December 1, 1994 209

• Fairfax, California, June 11, 1950 211

• Meeting the Dalai Lama, Lhasa, Tibet, June 1950 212

• Dinner at Tride Lingka, Lhasa, Tibet, June 15, 1950 215

• The Tibetan Foreign Bureau, Lhasa, Tibet, June 16, 1950 219

• Carving Crosses, Lhasa, Tibet, July 30, 1950 227

• The Flogging, Lhasa, Tibet, July 1950 229

• The Potala, Lhasa, Tibet, July 1950 230

• Last Days in Lhasa, Late July 1950 233

• Mackiernan's Death Announced, July 29, 1950 238

• Minister Shakabpa Visits the U.S. Consulate, Calcutta, India, August 4, 1950 241

• The Earthquake, August 15, 1950 242

• Latrash and Bessac, Calcutta, India, August 29, 1950 244

• The U.S. Embassy, New Delhi, India, August 30�September 22, 1950 246

• Calcutta, India, September 15, 1950 247

• Mrs. Douglas Mackiernan Goes to Washington, October 4, 1950 248

• Bessac in Washington, D.C., October 1950 249

• The State Department, Washington, D.C., October 18, 1950 252

• Bethesda, Maryland, and Drukha Monastery, October 19, 1950 255

• Washington, D.C., October 27 and 28, 1950 260

• Pegge and John, First Meeting, Washington, D.C., ovember 8, 1950 261

• Life Magazine, November 13, 1950 262

• Pegge and John, Washington, D.C., November 24, 1950 263

• Tibet, Winter 1950�1951 264

• Winter of the Cold War,Washington, D.C., 1950�1951 270

• Tihwa, Xinjiang, the People's Republic of China, April 29, 1951 273

Epilogue: Zvansov, Bessac, Mackiernan, and Tibet 274
Notes 289
Bibliography 335
Acknowledgments 345
Index 351