A new book on the life and times of the legendary spy master RN Kao, the founder of India’s external intelligence Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), will hit the stands soon, Bloomsbury publishers announced.
The book, RN Kao: Gentle Spymaster, which is based on memories of Kao’s family, professional colleagues and his personal papers, was written by security expert Nitin A Gokhale.
With many firsts to his credit, Kao was one of the founders of the Directorate-General for Security (DGS) in the aftermath of the catastrophic Sino-Indian conflict in 1962 and the mastermind behind the secret Aviation Research Center, the main technical intelligence agency of India. desk.
Kao, a deputy director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), took over as director of RAW in 1968 after former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi split the former to create an intelligence agency focused on international threats. He was also a close adviser and chief of security to three Indian Prime Ministers: Jawahar Lal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.
Kao’s legendary exploits include conducting the ‘Kashmir Princess’ investigation in the mid-1950s, his contributions to the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, and his role in ensuring Sikkim’s merger with India.
“For an author like me, trying to capture the essence of Kao, the man, the legend had to be a combination of the personal and the professional.
“This is neither a history nor a detective thriller. Nor is it a comprehensive chronicle of the RAW. Read it for what it is: a brief look at how organizations designed to protect India’s national interests came to be,” Gokhale wrote in the statement. preface.
A fiercely private person by nature, the biography of Kao, which at first seemed to the author an “impossible” task, also became possible because a few months before his death, Kao thought about recording his memories in a tape recorder. He even corrected the transcriptions, but with the understanding that these tapes would be gradually opened to the public after his death.
“Unfortunately, only some of those paper transcripts of tape-recorded dictations left by Kao are currently available.
“Three crucial files on Bangladesh, the merger of Sikkim and the murder of Ms Indira Gandhi will not be opened until 2025, according to instructions he left months before he died in January 2002,” writes Gokhale, whose previous books include Securing India . The Modi Way: Pathankot, Surgical Strikes and More, 1965 Turning the Tide: How India Won the War and Sri Lanka: From War to Peace.
The foreword to the book was written by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, who is himself considered a legend in the intelligence world.
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