Report to DCI (encrypted) from Dolphu Village border station (Nepal—29.507. 82.82)
Date: 1 January 1979
Author: [redacted] Head of Station, CIA, N Nepal district
Re: Subject XX [ unconfirmed (or redacted?); no known individual US passport or other government-issued documentation]
Subject appeared at Agency front operation (Ganesh’s Kozmik Tea-House and Herbal Emporium), Shey Phoksundo national park, approx 0530 hours on 1.7.78. At that hour, Ganesh’s is typically only occupied by Sherpas not currently on trekking contract; the few Westerners who visit Dolphu (many seeking “a sight at the border”) are not typically about in the streets at that hour.
Subject entered Ganesh’s at opening time; as Head of Station, I was manning the samovar, since the Tea-House staff had inexplicably failed to appear for morning shift. Subject was tall, slender, Anglo appearance, long hair and thin beard. Wearing Nepali cap, very worn but high-quality climber’s boots, carrying trekker’s pack. Despite cold temps for the season (approx 12C at 0530), he appeared completely comfortable in thin desert fatigues. No obviously visible weapons, though subsequently was established that he carried and was adept with the Pesh-kabz or Khyber knife. He spoke Nepali with a Tibetan accent in our opening conversation. His specific nationality was not readily discernable, though his Western origins were obvious and unconcealed.
Initiating conversation while the samovar heated, I asked in English (under my Australian cover) “So, mate, where’ve you come from?” The Subject, who introduced himself as “just XX,” smiled, pointed northeast, and said “Up yonder.” Over the course of several cups of milk tea and a subsequent meal of soup and roti, Subject chatted—in a mixture of American English, Nepali, and Hindi—about Himalayan folkways, religion, food, and especially music, but largely deflected questions about the route that had brought him to Dolphu.
Later in the day, the Subject, having departed Ganesh’s, was observed in the village square speaking animatedly with a mixed group of Sherpas and exiled Tibetan caravan drovers, gesturing, laughing together, and scanning a map which the Subject took from his pack. It was observed that there were several individuals amongst this mixed group of riders who were, to outward appearances and despite their language and clothing, westerners.
At one point, the Subject was observed to clasp hands with and then embrace the leader of the drovers, an old Khampa called Aten—subsequently they mounted ponies and rode north out of the village. While HOS had recruited heavily among these Khampas for informants or cross-border spies, the past experience in the period 51-71 of the Chushi Gandrug (Four Rivers, Six Mountains) resistance fighters appears to have eroded Agency credibility in these regions; the day before Subject “XX” appeared in Dolphu, Aten had responded to HOS conversation with the Nepali reply सफेद आंख, भाड़ में जाओ तुम (unprintable). Despite this very dismissive and insulting response to a well-funded Agency representative, the unmistakably American Subject “XX” was seemingly able to establish an immediate bond. Subsequently, other Agency informants among the Sherpa and Khampa-expat community declined to respond to subtle queries regarding the westerners’ identity, and in fact a marked fall-off in Ganesh Tea-House business appears to date from this same period. The Sherpas tended instead to patronize a local Khukuri rum shop across the square; the Khampas visited Ganesh’s only long enough for their yaks to dung on the Tea House’s veranda.
Subsequent inquires by HOS and Station staff amongst the (small) English, German, and American hippie population in the Province also brought little quality intel. Most claimed never to have met “XX”, though he circulated freely amongst the ex-pats for several weeks in July and August, between mounted journeys, apparently north and east, alone or in company with the Khampas.
HOS did observe one interaction in a side alley off the village square, in which hippie ex-pat leader “Big Darrell” (Darrell Hennessey, 542761898 USMC L, see Agency file appended: a deserter from the secret war in Laos who had followed the opium trail to Kathmandu) appeared to confront “XX” and threaten him. Dialog not recorded (the listening post in the rum shop having inexplicably failed) but Big Darrell seemed to attempt to grab the Subject’s lapel. Poor lighting obscured the result, but within less than two minutes Big Darrell was observed to limp from the alley, cradling an obviously broken right arm. Impossible to document subsequent contact between “XX” and the ex-pat hippies, among whom it had previously been relatively straightforward to establish contacts with small bribes of drugs or threats of prosecution, but who thereafter avoided both “XX” and conversation about him.
It seemed that Agency SOP for developing informants in Central Asia—particularly in light of tensions with PRC after the fall of Saigon in 1975—would be atypically unproductive; these techniques have produced quality intel amongst the ex-pat communities, though regrettably failed to yield arrests or insights into PRC inner-border activities. In contrast, “XX” as both subject and topic of conversation appeared to be largely impervious to investigation.
Subsequently, however, on a night in late August 1978, when the cold season was already well-advanced, HOS was returning from a late-night shift at Ganesh’s (the local population having seemingly become quite averse to working at the Tea House), passing the Khukuri rum shop, when “XX” appeared on its veranda, fell into step alongside myself/HOS, and said “So, Wild Bill Donovan, you want to know what I’m really doing down here?” Guardedly responding, I HOS replied “hey, mate, I’m ready to listen if you’re ready to talk.” “XX” chuckled and said “C’mon inside; Madam’ll keep the shop open when she sees it’s me.”
Having seated themselves at a rear table in the dimly-lit shop, over ceramic cups of the firey Khukuri rum (distilled from millet), “XX” unfolded an unbelievable tale, whose credibility would be virtually nil, were it not for the fact that there is extensive confirmation of the events, and that his tale is consistent with public information on related topics.
“I’m telling you this because my friends among the Khampas think it’ll encourage you to leave us alone. They all know you’re Head of Station here, and they don’t mind the Agency being up here—makes ‘em feel like, if the Chinese do come over the border, Langley might know a little earlier and react a little more effectively than they did in Tibet in ’56. So you’re not finding out anything classified from me—I’m just telling you what I’m doing here so you’ll stay out of the way. I think you’re gonna find that your case officer back home—that’s Avventoros, isn’t it?—is gonna be happy with what I tell you to pass along to him.
“You’ve already sussed out I’m from the States—Ohio actually—and, even though I didn’t know it at the time I was growing up, my family’s been in and out of Central Asia for a long time.
“Years ago, in the US, I met a radio orchestra from a place called Bassanda in the late ‘40s—one of my aunties was his concert-mistress, and that’s the family connection with your buddy Leon—and I’ve known the orchestra for quite a few years now.
“Draft Board tried to call up my nephew in ’74—those assholes in Saigon still kept demanding more bodies for the shredder, and I’d lost enough friends in ‘Nam already. That corrupt moron Ford kept thinking that somehow he could pull the thing out of the shit—so I told my nephew we were just gonna leave.
“I figured if I was gonna help people and causes I cared about, it wasn’t gonna be by letting him get blown up by a plastique at the Constellation Bar.
“So I caught a USMC plane out of Dulles in October of ’74, but I jumped ship in Bangkok. Never got on board for the last leg into Tan Son Nhut. And then I just kept following the river traffic north up the Chao Praya: I had enough languages that I could get by, and not too many people were checking IDs anyway. Came overland through Burma—shot a lot of film, and filed a lot of copy, as a stringer—and then north from Arunachai Pradesh.”
I interrupted this tale at this point, because it was simply too implausible; In fact, I wondered if this Subject was simply delusional.
“Well, that’s all very interesting, but it’s also completely impossible—the only thing north of Arunachai is the border. With CHINA. Don’t tell me you crossed the border with your worn out US press credentials, in 1974?”
He just smiled and said: “Do you wanna hear this story or not? There’s friends of Bassanda everywhere. I promise you, your case officer, he’s gonna be pleased with the document I’m gonna show you.” So I controlled my exasperation, confident that at some point this wandering amateur would reveal intel about the border situation that would make the conversation worth my time.
“The Tibetans and the Bassandans always got along with each other. Bassandans actually tracked Heinrich Harrer’s nutzo Nazi trekking trip to Tibet in ’38, and so when I used my languages, people recognized them. And they appreciated that I could handle the mountain altitudes and hold my own on a horse. By Spring of ’75 I was in Lhasa, staying with friends—I darken up pretty good in the sun, and I’d let my hair and XXd grow, so the Mongolian troops in the Chinese occupation force just thought I was a tall Tibetan. I was traveling with yak traders, and those guys never really carried any ID, and the troops knew they were never going to be able to track ‘em anyway. So I was able to get into and out of Bassanda, to the west, pretty easy.
“See, I was heading into Bassanda for a reason—matter of fact, that’s why I’d taken on the press junket from DC in late ’73 in the first place. My auntie from the Band was still touring with the Orchestra, but she’d told me the name of a shaman I needed to see in Krzbet, in Bassanda—she said “the Lama holds our families’ inheritance in safe-keeping.” She didn’t tell me what it was, beyond saying it was some documents “that can serve the cause of Bassanda’s and all peoples’ liberation.” I had the skills and the aptitude, and I wanted to get the fuck out of Gerald Ford’s America anyway, so I went.
“On the first of May in ’75, I rode into Krzbet with a caravan of Khampa and Bassanda traders—really, they were more smugglers, and they appreciated my navigation and language skills, when it came to bargaining or fast-talking border guards. I knew the name of the ashram where the Lama lived—uh, no, cowboy, I’m not gonna tell you his name—and when I knocked on the door frame of his hermitage, he looked up from his reading and smiled; he said “हैलो” –means “Hello, son” in Hindi—a lot of the Lamas spoke Hindi as well as Tibetan and Bassandan. He said “Have you come for your family’s inheritance?” I said “yes, Geshe, but first, here is a tsog gift for the monastery. My auntie sends it from Budapest, in the far West”—it was really good plum paninka, and the Lamas aren’t averse to the occasional distillate.
“We drank the paninka, and then about seven cups of milk tea and ate tsampa, and then he smiled at me again and said ‘I am happy to share with your family the inheritance. The Bassandans have always shared in the protection of the dharma, and we know that this information will be used to enhance liberation.’
“He pulled out a folio of loose sheets, bound in yak leather; it was embossed on the cover, in what I think was some weird Tibetan/Bassandan creole dialect, using Sanskrit letters. He motioned me to sit down next to him, and said,
“‘These are the records of the great Bassandan electrical experiments. Before Kroog-sheng ever came from the south with his batteries, lamas in the high mountains had found secret caverns of ancient artifacts; we do not know their origin, and many were plundered, or even destroyed, by misguided ‘protectors’ of the Buddha dharma. But we know that these are diagrams which can be used to create machine of great power—machines that can focus or block energy, that can bend light beams, even quell explosions or turn firearms into dead sticks of melted metal. When the Chinese came to Tibet in the time of Tenzin Gyatso, the Khampas fled with these records from the soldiers and their slaughter, and brought them over the mountains for safe-keeping to Bassanda. The geshes tell us these may only be used to prevent suffering and killing—they must be kept away from governments and generals. You are to take these to the West, and find enlightened individuals who may be trusted to build these machines for the cause of peace. Will you do that?’
“Well, I’m my auntie’s nephew, and folks in our tribe don’t fold—when good people ask us for help, we give it. So I took the sheets (told the Lama I better leave the folio behind, and maybe he could find some other manuscripts to replace the ones I was taking), and wrapped them in a dirty sheepskin, and tucked them away inside a sack of barley on one of the yaks. I made my prostrations to the Lama, and left him all the money that was my share from the trading trip, and me and the Khampas and Sherpas got the hell out of there—didn’t want to draw any more attention as outsiders than we already had. After that, it was back east through Lhasa, to stay with friends—and no, junior, I ain’t gonna tell you who they are, either. I been back and forth a bunch of times since that first journey and I’ve been able to bring out a few more manuscripts, and even some objects, that the Lama says came ‘from the high mountain caverns of the ancient Visitors.’
“So now, good buddy, all you’re gonna have to do is take a look here, and then ask yourself, do you want your case officer back in Langley to know what’s in these documents?”
XX laid a piece of parchment in front of me, beautifully embossed with gold leaf and black-ink designs which looked equally like electronic schematics and astronomical diagrams. He said “This one’s yields a directional circuit which can shut down a TNT or powder explosion to a distance of two miles.” Another sheet, of similar appearance, but with lettering in an unknown orthography and more complex diagrams. “This one’ll shut down an internal-combustion engine at a distance; it’s even got a rheostat so that you can gradually dial-down the explosions in the cylinders. You can make an engine fail & stutter just enough that some Russian or American chopper pilot will abort and run for his home base.” Another sheet, another set of diagrams. “I don’t even know what this one does; the Lama just said ‘the Dharma teaches us that existence is a product of motion and fission. This machine will make atoms whole again when war-mongers seek to split them apart.”
As a career professional intelligence officer and a patriotic American, I HOS was simultaneously deeply skeptical—this was, after all, an exponent of the “hippie” values and lifestyle which had given the Agency such trouble domestically in the ‘60s—but also, almost against my will, impressed and persuaded. XX’s obvious command of the languages and terrains of the region, the high degree of trust which he enjoyed with the Khampa traders, the coincidence of the documented events in his account with the historical record, and the sheer force of this young man were undeniable. So, in awareness of political ramifications, I HOS asked him what would be necessary to “see that these documents get into the right hands.”
He grinned and then chuckled, and then poured me another cup of rum. “I tell you what, cowboy. Let’s you and me go away and think about this, and then we’ll talk again. Drink up, now, and then I’ll walk you back to the Residency.” Thinking strategically, I sought to prolong the contact, asking “Well, where can I get in touch with you tomorrow?” He replied “Oh, I’ll come find you when I’m ready. Drink up, now.”
I am at a loss to explain precisely what happened next: I do not recall finishing the final cup of rum, and I have little memory of the next 4 hours. Awoke at 0530, as first light crossed the window sills of the rum shop, to find the room deserted, and both XX and his dirty sheepskin of manuscripts gone. I stumbled to the door, and observed that Sherpas and Khampa riders were entirely absent from square; in fact, since that time, they have not returned. Looked back into the room, and noticed one piece of parchment on the floor beneath the table where the previous evening’s drinking had occurred.
Scribbled on the parchment was this message:
“Tell you what, cowboy. You go away and think about this, use the pouch to get in touch with Leon back at Langley, find out what he wants you to do, whatever. If those psychotic assholes at the Pentagon and the NSA ever decide they’re ready to get serious about peace, tell ‘em they can get in touch with us through Leon at Langley to Madame in Budapest. Meantime, y’all might advise the Pentagon and those asshole kingmakers in the DCI’s office to start tamping down their dickhead overseas ambitions, or they might find out that the Bassanda machines get shared with the local resistance movements instead.”
“XX” has not returned to Dolphu since that time, and any Sherpas or Khampa drovers who pass through deny either English, Hindi, or knowledge of the Western stranger. Moreover, pursuant to his note, there has been no further communication from him.
I HOS acknowledge that this is not an ideal course of events, and accept possibility of recall from posting. However, Case Officer and Upper Management should probably be aware that XX made an extremely persuasive case for the reality, concreteness, and practical applicability of the “ancient Bassandan technology.” Respectfully urge strongest and most serious consideration of XX’s warning re/ access by local anti-imperialist forces to these machines.
HOS awaits directives.
--ENDIT--