The CIA's Secret War in Tibet

Modern War Studies

by Kenneth J. Conboy, James Morrison

Defiance against Chinese oppression has been a defining characteristic of Tibetan life for more than four decades, symbolized most visibly by the much revered Dalai Lama. But the story of Tibetan resistance weaves a far richer tapestry than anyone might have imagined.

Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison reveal how America's Central Intelligence Agency encouraged Tibet's revolt against China—and eventually came to control its fledgling resistance movement. While the CIA's presence in Tibet has been alluded to in other works, the authors provide the first comprehensive, as well as most compelling account of this little known agency enterprise.

The CIA's Secret War in Tibet takes readers from training camps in the Colorado Rockies to the scene of clandestine operations in the Himalayas, chronicling the agency's help in securing the Dalai Lama's safe passage to India and subsequent initiation of one of the most remote covert campaigns of the Cold War. Establishing a rebel army in the northern Nepali kingdom of Mustang and a para-commando force in India designed to operate behind Chinese lines, Conboy and Morrison provide previously unreported details about secret missions undertaken in extraordinarily harsh conditions. Their book greatly expands on previous memoirs by CIA officials by putting virtually every major agency participant on record with details of clandestine operations. It also calls as witnesses the people who managed and fought in the program—including Tibetan and Nepalese agents, Indian intelligence officers, and even mission aircrews.

Conboy and Morrison take pains to tell the story from all perspectives, particularly that of the former Tibetan guerrillas, many of whom have gone on record here for the first time. The authors also tell how Tibet led America and India to become secret partners over the course of several presidential administrations and cite dozens of Indian and Tibetan intelligence documents directly related to these covert operations. Ultimately, they are persuasive that the Himalayan operations were far more successful as a proving ground for CIA agents who were later reassigned to southeast Asia than as a staging ground for armed rebellion.

As the movement for Tibetan liberation continues to attract international support, Tibet's status remains a contentious issue in both Washington and Beijing. This book takes readers inside a covert war fought with Tibetan blood and U. S. sponsorship and allows us to better understand the true nature of that controversy.

Genres: History, China, Nonfiction, Military Fiction, United States, India, American

320 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2002

About the author

Kenneth J. Conboy is a former policy analyst and deputy director at the Asian Studies Center in Washington, D.C., and author or coauthor of seventeen books, including The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet and Spies and Commandos: How America Lost the Secret War in North Vietnam and, most recently, FANK: A History of the Cambodian Armed Forces.

Reviews

[Jerome Otte · Rating 5 out of 5]

A solid, if dry, account of the CIA’s operations in Tibet. After the fall of the Chinese nationalists, who had been the Agency’s favored surrogates in its secret war against communist China, the CIA looked for new ways to pressure the Chinese communists. When the Dalai Lama appealed for aid, the Agency began a program of support to the Tibetan resistance, which had started in 1956.

One element of this program involved risky supply drops over the Himalayas (ST/Barnum). Tibetan guerrillas were trained on Saipan and then at a Colorado facility, and finally in India as part of the operation’s training phase (ST/Circus). Directed by the CIA station in India, they were supplied by Agency air drops and reinforced by Agency officers. The CIA scored a few successes, such as intelligence on the Sino-Soviet split, but the operation was almost compromised when Tibetans secretly training in the US were confronted by the local sheriff; US troops arrived and held the sheriff at gunpoint, leading to stories in local papers, though not national papers. When India engaged in a war with China, the Indians pressured Washington to shut the operation down. The last airdrop took place in 1965, and the operation was abandoned. The Tibetans trained by the CIA suffered heavy casualties in their insurrection, and only a handful of those taken prisoner survived.

An interesting angle that Conboy explores is how the operation affected US-Indian relations: India had previously alienated the US with its neutralist policies regarding the Cold War, and the US alienated India due to the US alliance with India’s rival Pakistan. Still, Indian hostility to both China and the Soviet Union helped cement US-Indian relations despite of these factors. India played a significant role in collaborating with the CIA’s Tibet operation. Conboy is nothing if not thorough; his treatment of the diplomatic aspects are exhaustive and provide good context.

Like most covert operations, the Tibet program was ultimately a failure; the rebel leadership was divided, the rebels lacked popular support, the revolt was ultimately defeated, and most of the CIA’s Tibetan agent teams were captured or killed. The Tibetans’ most notable successes were not related to the paramilitary effort at all; instead, a Tibetan agent team helped collect intelligence on the split between Mao’s China and the Soviet Union, a development that did much to reduce Cold War tensions and probably the end of the Cold War itself. The other element of the operation, a propaganda campaign dubbed ST/Bailey, was also a failure.

Conboy’s book is exhaustively detailed, a surprise given that the Tibet operation usually gets passing mention in all the studies and histories of the Agency that I’ve read. Sometimes the sheer amount of detail gets a little tiring, but, overall, it makes this book an excellent study of the operation.

[Nanda Rajanala · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are several books written on secret wars and espionage conducted around the World. Most of the books, I believe, represent some element of truth but could also be just among several books that provide an alternate perspective on what happened at a certain place at a certain time. I am not sure under what category this book falls into, but this book surely seems honest in its approach and the presentation of facts. The book, as the name suggests, talks about a secret campaign conducted by the CIA during the cold war to preempt a potential growth of Communist China by taking up the cause of the Tibetan nation. Tibet was occupied by Communist China when the PLA under the leadership of Chairman Mao laid claim to the vast expanse of mostly barren land for strategic, economic and possibly cultural purposes. The rest of the book tells the story of how the Tibetan's organized themselves under the Dalai Lama, used India, Nepal and East Pakistan (Bangladesh) as a base and worked with the CIA to launch secret operations of resistance against the Chinese.

Assuming that this book was allowed to be published, it is probably anyone's guess that these operations were probably not a secret for long and they were probably exposed or identified by the Chinese way back in the 60s or 70s. But, there were still some very insightful perspectives or facts offered that I will summarize in points below for those who are interested in knowing what the book is all about. I found these to be personally educative as it helped me realize how far away we are from the happenings around the World unless we try hard to learn more on our own!
The title Dalai Lama was given to a monk in the 16th century by a Mongol chieftain Altan Khan. Subsequent descendants kept that title going forward. The current Dalai Lama is the 14th.
Earlier Dalai Lama's had less of a great legacy and didn't last beyond a few years. The 4th Dalai Lama was Altan Khan's great grandson -a shrewd decision made to gain Mongol patronage. The 5th Dalai Lama self declared himself as the Bodhisatva of Compassion- the highest celestial authority.
Tibet was divided into at least three distinct regions with different topographies and related ethnicity. The central part of Tibet was where the Tibetan leadership existed in the past. There were class based differences between Tibetans from these different regions with people in the central region considering themselves superior to the rest.
Chiang Kai Shek laid claim to Tibet by considering it as part of the Chinese Republic. Following a civil war with the communist party and his subsequent retreat to Taiwan, the PRC pursued the agenda of making Tibet a part of the country.
American leaders like the then US ambassador to India, Loy Henderson, were worried about the advancing PLA troops far south into the Himalayan regions.
The CIA based in India created and executed several covert operations to check the strength of the PLA in Tibet.
President Eisenhower began the first of a series of secret US sponsored activities in foreign soil to push the exiled Tibetans towards causing disruption to the PLA.
Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, did not openly support exiled Tibetans from going on an all out war with China as part of his appeasement policy with that nation. India was called as the "Dregs of Humanity" by Beijing in 1949.
The CIA conducted several covert operations by working with the Dalai Lama's brothers to recruit exiled Tibetans who escaped to Nepal and India. India allowed the exiled Tibetans to settle in the country with the condition that they don't cause any disruption to Indo-China relationships.
Several CIA operations were conducted from East Pakistan (Bangladesh) before India officially lent support to these operations after the Chines invasion of India's NEFA (North East Frontier Agency).
Most of the CIA led operations in Tibet were small teams of Tibetan's air dropped inside Tibet to conduct covert operations. Most of the Tibetan recruits were captured and killed by the PLA before they made any useful impact to their cause.
Biju Patnaik, ex chief minister of Orissa, was instrumental in the liberation of Indonesia from the Dutch. He also supported the CIA in partnering at a strategic level with the support of Nehru.
Brigadier Uban Singh was instrumental in organizing a strong regiment of Tibetan recruits under the name "Establishment 22". Nehru and the Dalai Lama had also inspected the operations of these forces during a secret review of the regiment.
President John Kennedy was a strong supporter of India and was instrumental in providing support to the country in indirectly allowing the CIA help the Tibetan cause. This support and partnership with India was lost after Kennedy's death. Subsequent governments were leaning more towards Pakistan thereby alienating a strong partnership with India. India on the other hand, pursued a pro-USSR policy for obtaining arms and other economic support.
In the 1962 war with China, the Soviet Union sided with China and dumped India. Indo-US cooperation was much stronger and better at that time, although very few in India knew about it. Anti-US sentiment was politically very active right from the start and continued over the next several decades after India chose to move closer to the Soviets.
The US soon adopted a pro-China policy during the Nixon era. US warships arrived dangerously close to India during the Indo-Pak war for Bangladesh's independence. It was claimed by Henry Kissinger that US would have supported China in case the Chinese attacked India to support Pakistan, following which the Soviets attacked China.
Nepal leaned more towards China in fear of being dominated by India. During the closing years of the Tibetan struggle led by the CIA, Nepal, in support of China, was instrumental in destroying the Tibetan operations on the Nepal-Tibet border.
CIA funding slowly depleted for the Tibetan cause after a $180,000 yearly stipend to the Dalai Lama charity was shut down. Following that, most of the CIA led operations were winding down.
RAW director R.N.Kao later blamed the Americans for the lost Tibetan cause, although Indian support was also not strong enough. He said, "The Tibetans were looking for somebody to hold their finger, and the Americans dropped them like a hot potato."

Nanda Kishore Rajanala

[Mark Moxley-Knapp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice overview of CIA operations in Tibet (and related Indian operations involving Tibet.) Covers mainly the recruitment and training of Tibetans; also goes into the politics in-country and around the world, equipment used, etc. Many photos, some color profiles. Well-written and -edited.

[Scott Andrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative and detailed account of a lesser know chapter of history.