Since publication of INTO TIBET officials at CIA have begun to speak publicly about Douglas Mackiernan, the first CIA officer ever to die in the line of duty. Prior to its publication they never spoke of him publicly. Until the 1990’s they refused to admit that he was a CIA intelligence officer. In many cases their recent statements confirm key aspects of what was first reported in INTO TIBET in 2002. However, even to this day the CIA is unwilling to publicly address many aspects of Mackiernan’s work. And as of 2023, seventy three years after the death of Mackiernan, the bulk of the records about him remain mysteriously classified. After the 2022 release of classified documents about President Kennedy, today it’s likely that more records about Mackiernan remain classified than about Kennedy. Why? It’s unknown. However since Laird pieced together the bulk of the Mackiernan story in INTO TIBET, some at CIA have begun to speak some of the truth.

Readers may be interested to read a statement from then Central Intelligence Agency Director Gen. Michael V. Hayden, published in 2007, about Mackiernan. Or this more recent article published by the CIA. As you see in these documents CIA is becoming increasingly open about Mackiernan’s work, and its importance, going so far as to specifically say that Mackiernan installed “radiological equipment aimed at detecting a Soviet atomic explosion.” So after decades of denial CIA now admits that indeed Mackiernan did work as an atomic intelligence agent. This was a key fact uncovered by Laird: it had never been previously revealed before publication of INTO TIBET.

Such public facing comments by CIA stand in stark contrast to how INTO TIBET, was reviewed for a heated classified ‘review’ in “Studies in Intelligence”, by CIA employee, Nick Dujmovic, in 2002. That review was declassified in 2014, and as you see, here, it was released only after being heavily redacted. The redactions and the raw animus of Dujmovic towards Laird, speak loudly. It is now a fascinating historic document for anyone trying to understand what CIA is still hiding about Mackiernan. More troubling it reveals a tendency among at least some within CIA to believe it is part of their job to determine how CIA is presented in the press. A “CIA History” of Mackiernan written by CIA would be government propaganda aimed at Americans and that is not part of CIA’s mission. Dujmovic’s “CIA review” of Into Tibet is flawed because it espouses the ideals of the free press, wants to enjoy the liberties of the free press, but then attacks Into Tibet without citing any sources, and does so in a secret format so that no one can point out the many flaws within the article. This review is an example of how accurate reporting, without the oversight of the free press, can die in a classified setting.

Reading the review you see Dujmovic heatedly attacking Laird’s reporting on many fronts. He cites a long list of facts reported by Laird (most footnoted in the book) and then asserts “none of these facts are true, not one”. But he offers no proof of that bald assertion. He exhibits raw animus towards Laird but hides the personal cause of that: in the book Laird revealed Dujmovic sent a letter to a source telling the source not to do interviews with Laird when the book was being reported. Dujmovic pointedly ridicules Laird’s assertion that Mackiernan collected atomic intelligence or that he was involved in installing “equipment aimed at detecting a Soviet atomic explosion”. This even though the reviewer’s superiors, more recently, admit this. It remains a mystery why CIA took actions to obstruct Laird’s reporting about Mackiernan, and why CIA would use tax dollars to publish a one-sided unsubstantiated ‘review’ by an author with known personal animus towards Laird. The full story of Mackiernan has still not been told. That will only happen after the many linear feet of Mackiernan documents, still classified by CIA, are finally released to independent scholars and journalists. Much to the chagrin of CIA, (as Dujmovic himself is forced to admit) INTO TIBET remains, till now, the definitive work about the life, work and death of Douglas Mackiernan.