INTO TIBET is the incredible story of a 1949-1950 American undercover expedition led by America’s first atomic agent, Douglas S. Mackiernan – a covert attempt to arm the Tibetans and to recognize Tibet’s independence months before China invaded. It reveals for the first time the life, work, and death of the first CIA intelligence officer ever killed in the line of duty.
Thomas Laird, based in Nepal for 30 years… “ tells a gripping tale of Mackiernan’s mission and helps illuminate what the agency was doing in China at the birth of the Cold War. …So why is the CIA’s operation in Tibet still such a secret? Digging up the Tibet war risks upsetting the increasingly important Sino-U.S. relationship.”
– James Rupert, The Guardian
“Laird has gone to great lengths to penetrate the walls of secrecy the CIA constructed to hide the identity and the activities of Douglas Mackiernan, the first of its agents to be killed on duty.”
– Lucian W. Pye, Foreign Affairs
“A scrupulously documented account of Cold War intrigue. . . . [Provides] a detailed view into the CIA’s shadowy world and the havoc it wreaks on individual lives. . . . A grippingly good narrative.”
– The Village Voice
