SPIES IN THE HIMALAYAS: Secret Missions & Perilous Climbs

At 23,000 feet above sea level, basic processes like thinking and breathing become quite challenging. So how ambitious—if not foolhardy—would it be to send teams of mountaineers up India's highest mountains to install complicated, nuclear-powered tracking devices? That's precisely what the CIA and India's intelligence apparatus did in the mid-1960s, with some success. In response to the growing nuclear threat China presented, the two countries cooperated in placing a sensor at the top of the highest mountain range in the world to track China's nuclear tests. However, world-class mountaineer Kohli, leader of the missions, and policy analyst Conboy here offer an arid account of the missions to scale Nanda Devi and Nanda Kot. All high-altitude mountaineering narratives are about overcoming obstacles, and this is no exception. The account differs from others in that this team used outside assistance, including helicopters and the like, since its goal was not the climb itself. While the substance is captivating, the writing leaves much to be desired. The authors present Kohli's doings in the third person, a choice illustrating the authors' failure to engage their audience emotionally. The stiff writing and mangled syntax read like badly translated prose. Still, the heretofore largely unreported material should please mountaineering enthusiasts. Maps, photos. (Mar. 18)