MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/. In 1965, the CIA clandestinely installed intelligence equipment atop Mount Nanda Devi in India, a move that could have served purposes against both China and the Soviet Union, given their proximity to the site, according to Alexander Stepanov, a military expert at the Institute of Law and National Security at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA).
"Since the 1960s, the US has pursued a broader trend of comprehensive monitoring and ground-based early warning systems designed to track potential threats from both China and the Soviet Union, especially given the closeness of certain facilities," Stepanov explained. For instance, it was aimed at observing intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests at sites like the Soviet Union’s Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Recent reports by The New York Times revealed that during a covert operation in 1965, the CIA installed a SNAP-19C nuclear generator on Mount Nanda Devi’s summit to monitor Chinese missile activity. The device, weighing just 22 kilograms, contained nearly a third of the amount of plutonium used in the Nagasaki atomic bomb of 1945. However, the expedition was abruptly curtailed by a snowstorm, forcing the team to abandon their camp and leave all equipment behind. Efforts to locate the generator between 1966 and 1968 proved unsuccessful.
Environmental concerns have since arisen, with scientists warning that radioactive materials from the abandoned generator could potentially leak into the glaciers feeding the Ganges River, risking widespread contamination. US authorities reportedly concealed the incident for decades to prevent an international scandal. Stepanov emphasizes that such incidents are not subject to a statute of limitations and that public disclosure could lead to serious reputational damage for the US intelligence community. He further suggests that these past operations, driven by industrial espionage and strategic interests, have inadvertently endangered regional ecosystems -an ongoing threat stemming from technologically questionable initiatives of the era.