CIA Gave Aid to Tibetan Exiles in '60s, Files Show
WASHINGTON — For much of the 1960s, the CIA provided the Tibetan exile movement with $1.7 million a year for operations against China, including an annual subsidy of $180,000 for the Dalai Lama, according to newly released U.S. intelligence documents.
The money for the Tibetans and the Dalai Lama was part of the CIA's worldwide effort during the height of the Cold War to undermine Communist governments, particularly in the Soviet Union and China. In fact, the U.S. government committee that approved the Tibetan operations also authorized the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
The documents, published last month by the State Department, illustrate the historical background of the situation in Tibet today, in which China continues to accuse the Dalai Lama of being an agent of foreign forces seeking to separate Tibet from China.
The CIA's program encompassed support of Tibetan guerrillas in Nepal, a covert military training site in Colorado, "Tibet Houses" established to promote Tibetan causes in New York and Geneva, education for Tibetan operatives at Cornell University and supplies for reconnaissance teams.
"The purpose of the program . . . is to keep the political concept of an autonomous Tibet alive within Tibet and among foreign nations, principally India, and to build a capability for resistance against possible political developments inside Communist China," explains one memo written by top U.S. intelligence officials.
Relationship Was Mutually Beneficial
The declassified historical documents provide the first inside details of the CIA's decade-long covert program to support the Tibetan independence movement. At the time of the intelligence operation, the CIA was seeking to weaken Mao Tse-tung's hold over China. And the Tibetan exiles were looking for help to keep their movement alive after the Dalai Lama and his supporters fled Tibet following an unsuccessful 1959 revolt against Chinese rule.
Tibetan exiles and the Dalai Lama have acknowledged for many years that they once received support from U.S. intelligence. But until now, Washington has refused to release any information about the CIA's Tibetan operations.
The U.S. intelligence support for the Tibetans ended in the early 1970s after the Nixon administration's diplomatic opening to China, according to the Dalai Lama's writings, former CIA officials and independent scholars.
