The Long Riders' Guild

Across the Takla Makan Desert and into Tibet

In 1950, CIA agent Douglas MacKiernan and his young friend, former student turned espionage agent, Frank Bessec, found themselves being hunted across the Takla Makan desert by armed Chinese communists.  Their daring horseback escape across Western China and into Tibet, which they thought had led them to safety, ended in tragedy.

After fifty years, the Top Secret diary which Bessec kept during this amazing equestrian journey was declassified by the American State Department and is offered to the public for the first time by The Long Riders' Guild. This map shows the route taken by the Long Riders.

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