On Mar 15, 6:06=A0pm, rst0wxyz <rst0w...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Mar 15, 5:04=A0pm, tuna <tu...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/03/14/world/20080314-TIBET_inde...
>
> It's a beautiful country. =A0Too bad the CIA has gotten its hand to it.
CIA's Secret War in Tibet
the Dalai Lama's elder brother, Gyalo Thondup, who had already been
approached by the CIA, contacted the Americans. The Americans, he
found, were quite intrigued with the prospect of sup****ting the
Tibetans as part of a global anti-Communist campaign. If nothing else,
their resistance would be one more way to create a "running sore for
the reds," as one CIA man put it, even though at the top levels of the
U.S. administration there was no pretense of commitment to Tibetan
independence. Gompo Ta****'s guerrillas were excited at the prospect of
American sup****t. They knew little about the United States, but
judging from the Communist propaganda they received, this faraway
country was China's greatest enemy.
In the summer of 1958, Gompo Ta**** established new headquarters at
Triguthang in southern Tibet, where thousands of men had gathered in a
pan-Tibetan resistance force. In an effort to be more inclusive, they
renamed their movement Tensung Dhanglang Magar (Voluntary Force for
the Defense of Buddhism). Two CIA-trained Tibetans watched it all,
radioing back to the United States. In July the CIA made its first
arms drop into Tibet -- mostly of untraceable old Lee-Enfield rifles.
Agency veterans of ST Circus recalled the excitement and romance at
receiving messages from their prot=E9g=E9s 15,000 miles away in a near-
mythical place few Americans could locate on a globe. Even CIA
Director Allen Dulles, searching for Tibet on a world map, poked
around near Hungary before one of his officers politely enlightened
him. Quoting a fellow CIA officer, John Kenneth Knaus, a former CIA
operations officer who worked with Tibetan resistance from 1959 to
1965, admitted, "There was something so special" about Tibet --
including the "Shangri-La factor." Beyond that, the CIA officers
involved -- self-dubbed "the Old Guys Tibetan Club" -- admit today
with a chuckle that they felt fortunate to be involved in a "good
operation" rather than the 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle in Cuba.
Thrilled by the success of the two radio operators in central Tibet,
the CIA built a top-secret facility at Camp Hale, Colo., former home
of the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division. The Tibetans loved Camp
Hale's 10,000-foot Rocky Mountain peaks, alpine air and dense forests
-- reminiscent of home -- and called the camp Dhumra, or "the Garden."
Life at Camp Hale was Spartan, the training rigid and thorough. When
the Tibetans got on the plane for their return flight homeward, each
team carried the same things -- its personal weapons, wireless sets
and a cyanide capsule strapped onto each man's left wrist.
The Camp Hale Tibetans believed they were being trained to regain
Tibetan independence. Interpreter Thinley Paljor recalled: "In our
games room we had a picture of [Dwight D.] Eisenhower, signed by him,
'To my fellow Tibetan friends, from Eisenhower.' So we thought the
president himself was giving us sup****t." Some of their trainers came
to feel that way as well, with unusually strong bonds formed between
many CIA men and the Tibetans.
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