CIA Tibetan program
It consisted of "political action, propaganda, paramilitary and intelligence operations" facilitated by arrangements made with brothers of the 14th Dalai Lama, who himself was allegedly not initially aware of them.
[2] Previous operations had aimed to strengthen various isolated Tibetan resistance groups, which eventually led to the creation of a paramilitary force on the Nepalese border consisting of approximately 2,000 men.
[16] Following the month-long Sino-Indian War of 1962, the CIA developed a close relationship with Indian foreign intelligence services in both training and supplying agents in Tibet.
"[17] These close contacts with the KMT are confirmed in a 1959 Central Intelligence Agency bulletin which reveals that Thondup met with Kuomintang representatives "to sign an agreement which might be the basis for eventual Nationalist recognition of Tibetan 'independence' and a free Tibet government.
"[18] However, the report later noted that "the Chinese Nationalists regard Tibet as an integral part of the China mainland,' making it "unlikely that Chiang would be willing to court the disfavor of his followers by offering an outright grant of independence.
"[18] Despite Taiwan's reluctance to support outright calls for Tibetan independence, CIA front corporation Civil Air Transport, which had close links to the KMT, flew "more than 200 overflights of Mainland China and Tibet.
[21] The Chinese army launched an invasion on the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, codenamed Operation Chamdo, in October 1950, thus solidifying the origin of the tension between China and Tibet.
[44] In September 1952, a CIA intelligence report noted the difficulty in continuing to support the Tibetan resistance when the Chinese Communist government and the massive People's Liberation Army (PLA) fully occupied the country.
The document then proceeded to provide intelligence on various undesired actions taken by the Chinese including forcing the Dalai Lama to give a speech that threatened the death and kidnapping of over 200 children with the purpose of retraining them (one was even beheaded as a warning to the others not to cry and complain), and the installation of a puppet governor at Kham.
The report notes that earlier that year Chinese soldiers "attempted to build airfields at Lhasa," the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, and Gartok, now called Gharyarsa.
In 1955, a group of local Tibetan leaders secretly plotted an armed uprising, and a revolt broke out in 1956 after some Chinese soldiers bombed an ancient monastery in February 1956, killing thousands of monks and ordinary citizens.
[39] The Tibetans knew that they could not fight off the Chinese on their own so they called in help from an outside source through The connections with the United States that Gyalo Thondup, the Dalai Lama's brother, had made in the early 1950's.
A briefing for the DCI from 1959 mentions that "as far back as 1956, we began to receive reports indicating the spread of Tibetan revolt against Chinese communists through areas inhabited by Khamba tribes in eastern Tibet.
The Tibetan rebels received training for the next five months in the use of modernized weapons and armaments, the art of guerilla tactics, espionage, and codes, and the operation of simple, hand-cranked radio equipment.
During this revolt, supporters were reported to have "knocked out a Chinese outpost manned by 80 soldiers, interrupted communications with Peiping, and plastered walls of Lhasa with posters declaring 'independent kingdom of Tibet.
[56] Prior to his flight to India (due to shots being fired outside the palace), the Dalai Lama and the Tibet representative were sending letters back and forth to each other in hopes of avoiding an attack.
The evidence seemed to imply that popular Indian sentiment and reactions to this policy caused Nehru to become more sympathetic toward Tibet, yet unfortunately the rest of this section was redacted from the public record.
After the Chinese government continued to place pressure on him, Nehru spoke out against China and stated that Peiping's "charges against India are so fantastic that I find it difficult to deal with them.
[63] The CIA also considered how a build-up of Chinese troops would affect the railroads and determined that, although congestion could impose some burden on the supply chain, there would be no significant effect on the lines.
The CIA believed that the Chinese aggression in Tibet had severely damaged China's standing within Afro-Asian countries, due to the ferocity of the invasion and the ensuing occupation.
By invading a sovereign nation and forcing the Dalai Lama into exile, China had gone against the image as a neutral peacemaker in the region that they had been cultivating since the Bandung Conference in 1955 and shown themselves to be ruthless and willing to uproot an entire religion.
[66] In the briefing note, the CIA stated that the governments of neutral Asian countries, notably India and Burma, had encouraged press and popular opposition to Chinese aggression in Tibet.
[55] The background paper specified that one of the strongest reactions to China's aggression was from Malaya, with their Foreign Minister actively condemning the action, likening it to the Soviet Union's harsh responses in Hungary.
There were protests on China's repression in Tibet as shown in the section of the press in some countries such as Burma, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Japan, and the United Arab Republic.
[74] The CIA's involvement in the Tibetan resistance was part of a broader geopolitical strategy aimed at countering Communist expansionism and influence in Asia during the Cold War.
Many at Nira Tsogeng who survived the initial bombings would later succumb to dehydration due to being saddled with their dependents and some 30,000 animals as they attempted to cross the arid Ladakh plain.
Tibet contains protruding mountains, massive plateaus, deep river valleys, and gaping gorges that make communication and military operations extremely arduous.
This nomadic propensity consequently effects how they maintain their independent spirit[74] The Chinese focused substantial resources on keeping roads and supply lines functioning, a difficult task in Tibet's challenging landscape.
"[86] During the Tibetan program's period of activity, some of its largest contributions to the CIA's interests in the region came in the form of keeping the Chinese occupied with resistance, never actually producing a mass uprising establishing independence for Tibet from Beijing.
The program also produced a trove of army documents that Tibetan insurgents seized from the Chinese and turned over to the CIA in 1961 in what has been referred to as "one of the greatest intelligence successes of the Cold War".
