Customer Reviews

Into Tibet : The CIA's First Atomic Spy and His Secret Expedition to Lhasa

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
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2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is an intelligent adventure story about an American agent, Douglas Mackiernan, who was stationed by the CIA at a remote diplomatic outpost in north China in the late 1940s. Nominally he was a State Department employee. In fact he was setting up seismic instruments intended to monitor and pinpoint the sites of Russian atomic bomb tests, which were evidently expected to occur a few hundred miles to the north in Russia. And did.

When Mao-Tse Tung took over China, Mackiernan was essentially cut off from an easy exit path. He had to trek out, and headed south toward Tibet, which was then still free -- the avenue to India and escape. To give you an idea of the difficulty of this journey, he began by purchasing from a nomad chieftain a train of camels and horses that were willing to eat meat. The little caravan was headed into lands so high, cold and barren that there would be no possibility for the animals to graze on grass. The men shot game daily to keep themselves and their pack animals fed.

The pack animals were carrying a radio for encoded communications with the CIA, gold and machine guns -- which begins to hint at some of the layers of complexity in this story. Suffice it to say this was an intelligence mission, not a boy scout trip, and it ended terribly for Mackiernan, who was shot to death near the Tibetan border, apparently by mistake.

The author is a photographer as well as a writer, with long experience in Asia. His ability to present richly visual, graphic pictures of this wildly beautiful and dangerous country, in words, makes the book a real pleasure to read.

He has probably researched the story as well as it can be researched. He found a good deal of material salted around in the National Archives, and he made use of the Freedom of Information Act insofar as possible. He has also extensively interviewed survivors of the trip, and Mackiernan's family. The story was first told in a Life Magazine article in the 1950s, but the author's re-telling is far more careful and better informed. All that said, it is a story about spies. Mackiernan was a deeply complicated man, as were his companions, and you have to make your own judgements, reading along, about who was who and what really happened. It is a hall of mirrors, really - but the author manages to convey this: Without directly contradicting his interviewees, he signals you when skepticism is in order.

One thing that comes through unambiguously is how GOOD these guys were. Scientifically and technically skillful, multilingual in many difficult languages and dialects, good with guns, good with horses, good at haggling - street smart and scholarly at the same time. Amazing, exotic Americans.

The book now and then turns into a polemic. The author seems eager to be outraged about this and that - the course of diplomatic history, American blunders, the China Lobby, McCarthyism, corruption, whatever. The heated exposition interrupts an otherwise clear narrative line, but not often, and you can kind of see it coming a skip a paragraph or two if necessary.

This is a splendid book, and I read it straight through over the Christmas holiday.

Since publication of this book some readers have wondered if I had gotten the story about Mackiernan right. Obviously I had to piece the facts together, from many sources, since when I reported this story CIA was still keeping all facts about Mackiernan classified.

Concerned readers should note that Central Intelligence Agency Director Michael Hayden admitted on September 16, 2008, that Douglas Mackiernan was a CIA agent, and was assigned to Sinkiang to spy on the Soviet's atomic program in Kazakhstan. Into Tibet was the first book to report those facts-- though many doubted it when the book was first published.

That debate is now over.CIA now admits I got this story right. See here: https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/directors-remarks-at-lawac.html

This books tells the story of America's weak, belated, and half-hearted attempt to prevent takeover of Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang by Communist China. At the heart of this book, there is a fascinating and tragic tale of a CIA mission gone awry in the wilderness of central Asia. Intrepid agent Douglas MacKiernan was killed by Tibetan borderguards; the tale is reconstructed through Laird's exhaustive search through CIA and State Department archives, and from interviews with people who knew MacKiernan, and survivors of the journey, which took place on the eve of the Chinese invasion of Tibet. China long excused their invasion by saying it undertaken to foil Western Imperialists who had designs on Tibet. It's significant that Laird has shown in this book that American agents were in Tibet doing pretty much exactly what the Chinese thought they were doing. The pity is that they didn't do a better job of it. Herein lies one of the book's main flaws. Laird is obviously committed to the cause of a free Tibet, and detests China. Too much of the book is spent whining about America's lack of courage in defending Tibet from its invaders - (although he fails to explain why America should have had any interest in defending Tibet at all). An even larger problem Laird's glaringly inaccurate version of Inner Asian history. Reading the book, one comes away with the impression that Inner Mongolia was a country full of Mongolians and no Chinese that was ruled by a fellow named Prince De, and that Xinjiang was a country full of Kazaks and no Chinese ruled by a guy named Osman Bator. In fact, Inner Mongolia was part of Nationalist China, having been conquered by the armies of Qing Dynasty China, the Great Wall notwithstanding. Immigration of ethnic Chinese into Inner Mongolia has been taking place for about 300 years; it is not a Communist-inspired phenomena but was driven by expanding Chinese population and the consequent need for new land, and the inability of the Mongolians to defend their territory. This has been well described by Owen Lattimore, whom Laird lauds but appears not to have read. In Xinjiang, Laird's misrepresentation of history is even more disturbing, because he completely overlooks the Uighurs, an ethnic group living in Xinjiang that outnumbers the Kazaks by more than six to one. The Uighurs built city states in their oasis kingdoms of Kashgar, Khotan, Yarkand, and elsewhere, created a large and flourishing Buddhist, then later Islamic, culture, largely on the riches created by Silk Road trade. They never had a centralized government, but if anyone in Xinjiang should have an independent country, it's the Uighurs, simply because of their huge numbers and the enormous cultural gulf between them and Han Chinese. Besides these rather large misrepresenations of Inner Asian history, Laird's book is littered with many small mistakes that together give the impression that he has not traveled much in the region he writes about. For instance, he sadly comments that former Kazak pastures are now unoccupied, because the Kazaks who used to live there died or fled to exile abroad to escape the Chinese. Anyone who knows western China knows that good pasture is never left unused, and that someone MUST be using this pasture now, even if they're not decendents of the original inhabitants. There are dozens of other examples of small errors, or where Laird has uncritically accepted information provided by various independence movements without considering that such information might be biased. As a result, this book cannot stand as a work of history. Finally, as others have noted, there are many unanswered questions about MacKiernan's activities in Asia, and the truth cannot be known until more documents are declassified. To his credit, Laird does note where he has got evidence, where he is speculating, and where he just plain doesn't know. But given all the other factual problems in this book, I am unsure how much to believe even of the material that Laird says he is sure about. In the end, there is too little in this book that you can really get a hold of. It is only a great spy story that will probably be optioned by Hollywood but has little relation to reality.

This was a spectacularly interesting read. The Cold War begins and the first atomic spy is launched. The juxtaposition between atomic energy espionage and traditional Tibet is extremely charming. Laird spent at least 30 years in Asia based in the Himalayas and knows Tibetan culture well. The characters are well drawn and each exerts a special charm. Laird interviewed many of the principals and was able to translate the spirit of the person and the age into print. The fall of Tibet and the descriptions of the state it was in at the time are---by far---the most accurate and balanced I've ever read. Full marks for this one.

At last the geo-political forces that shaped Tibet being swallowed up by China in 1950 have been revealed. The Cold War, McCarthyism, America's troubling relationship with Chiang Kai-shek, the pressures of the atomic bomb, and the formation of the CIA all begin to make sense thanks to Thomas Lairds meticulously researched book. Those who love modern day China, or feel the CIA can do no wrong, will find fault with this book as it draws the reader into reaching damning conclusions towards both. At the core of the book is the fascinating story of Douglas Mackiernan, a CIA operative and swashbuckling ladies man with a penchance for Asian adventure, and Frank Bessac, an Fulbright scholar who had more connections to the CIA than he wants to admit. Mao is invading Mongolia, the Russians are testing atom bombs, and Doug and Frank set off across Mongolia to Tibet on an ill fated journey taking over a year. The tale brilliantly illuminates American foreign policy at the time and the devastating effect of McCarthy's accusations causing the few Asian scholars who existed in the State Department to leave. Also, the progression of how China was able to claim Tibet is clearly stated. This is a must read for anyone interested in Tibet.

I read this book a week after going to Tibet for the first time in October, 2007. It confirmed everything that I experienced in Tibet with a former monk as the guide for our group of 20 (China Focus Tours), and enriched our experience enormously. I'm glad I read it soon after the trip so the place names, experiences, history and relationship with China were so fresh. We had been warned in China not to ask about or comment on politics or religion while we were in Tibet. I did ask one mild question and got a reply from our guide that clearly told me that he could not respond.

The book will probably tell general readers more than they want to know about the intricacies of the changes of rule over the last fourteen hundred years but it helped me understand the richness of Tibetan Buddhism. I found it well written and fascinating throughout. The author clearly has a pro-Dalai Lama bias (how else could he have arranged the many interviews with the Dalai Lama?). We found China to be virulently anti-Dalai Lama and this book helped me understand that. The personal details of the Dalai Lama's life and the lives of his predecessors gave me a full sense of what it has meant to be Tibetan both recently and in the long history.

We knew that China had changed Tibet enormously in recent years but we were astounded on our visit to see how they have been moving Han Chinese into Lhasa and changing the face of Tibet. "The Story of Tibet" helped us understand how the incursion of China since the 50's has changed the culture that visitors will see--as long as the Tibetans aren't completely submerged by the Chinese. It seems about 50/50 now. Brief visits to Sera Monastery with our ex-monk guide who had lived there 14 years, to Jokhang Temple when no other tourists were there and to a non-tourist village outside Lhasa during harvest helped me understand the Tibetan culture described well in "The Story of Tibet."

I also recommend Tsering Shakya's "The Dragon in the Land of Sorrow" for a very detailed history of Tibet since 1947. "The Story of Tibet" covers in 65 pages and much less detail what Tsering Shakya describes much more fully in 450 pages.

We learned while we were in Tibet that the Potala Palace will be closed next year before the Olympics in Beijing, probably permanently. A new museum is being built at the base of the Potala that will show visitors what the Chinese government wants them to know about Tibetan Buddhism and this marvelous building. We were there in early October, 2007. Go now.The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947

The careful reader of the book's footnotes will notice that the author admits to concocting pivotal scenes for dramatic effect. Such practices are worthy neither of history nor of journalism. Moreover, early in the book the author spins out a series of speculations that somehow transform themselves into assertions of fact by the end of the book: that the hero of the book radioed the first warning of the first Soviet atomic test, that he was ordered by CIA to remain where he was, that he was sent on a mission to Tibet rather than just tried to escape the Chinese communists. The author also relies far too much on the reminiscences of family members far removed from the scene, who of course have an interest, perhaps subliminal, of sprucing up the story. Finally, the author's animus toward CIA and his disagreement with US policy toward Tibet drives the narrative often in bizarre ways: at one point, the hero, caught on the Tibetan plateau, is transformed and transported in time and space to Vietnam in the 1960s, only to betray that people, too! This is a frustrating book. The subject has yet to receive a fair, balanced, and well-researched treatment.

I found this book thought provoking and entertaining. Laird, with his nose for reporting, puts together the movements of America's first fallen CIA agent, Doug MacKiernan, in his intrepid travels hither and tether throughout the North West of China. Laird discusses MacKiernan's work within, predominantly, Xinjiang, and the characters he met along the way. It is these characters who have given Laird a good insight into the mind of the inwards MacKiernan.

In short, MacKiernan is a CIA information gatherer specialising in the atomic detection and capabilities of Soviet nuclear armament. The period is set just after the Second World War when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist party, beset with incompetent and corrupt officials, is on the brink of defeat by Mao Zedong's Communist Party. Analogous to this is Russia's growing influence within the Northwest, a result of its much sort after resource, Uranium. Thus, MacKiernan is faced with not only detecting Soviet atomic capabilities but also daunted by internecine political rivalries, the Kafkaesque bureaucracy of U.S. regional policy, his own feelings of loyalty to the local ethnic groups and his turbulent private life.

Liard provides the reader with a good general overview of the political happenings at that time. While he has had to improvise in part due to the lack of declassified information from the CIA, which many realise is usually an expedient way of disposing of work that would involve overtime, this does not detract from the reasons I mentioned above about why I enjoyed this book: that it is provoking and entertaining.

Having read some of the comments, I think the more critical readers have either missed, or are out-and-out misinformed, by what Laird was trying to achieve. This is not a heavy-ended scholarly work. It is well written and reasonably well researched. For a reporter it's sound work. It is intriguing stuff and it poses some very interesting questions which, for someone who takes an interest in this region in the world, is wonderful stuff. There are always two sides of the coin.

I have to say that having read several books written by spies or about spies that this one of the hardest I've read. You understand after the first chapter that you are reading a tragedy. By the time you get to the end you will come to understand just how much a tragedy the 1950's was to America. It was supposedly our 'golden years' after WWII. But this book explains why they were not, hints at how McCarthyism warped American politics, why American foreign policy towards China is the way it is now and why Tibet is not a free nation. It's not light-hearted reading but it is educational.

If you are a fan of true spy stories you'll really like this book. The time is just after WWII, and China is about to go "Red", the USSR is building an atomic bomb and the US cold warriors are in country. Why did the state department abandon Tibet? This story gives us a lot of information that up until now has only been hearsay. When the USSR blew up their first bomb where did they get the U235? When did the USA know about it, and what were they doing to know more... read on.