Roger E. McCarthy 'The US objective was to destabilise China, and it was for this reason it abandoned diplomatic initiatives in favour of a covert mission' (p 194)
Frank Holober, head of the Tibetan Project
'Politically, there was already CIA support in place for the Dalai Lama - personally and for his government. Nobody at the Agency wanted the Dalai Lama to have such difficulties that he was handicapped in getting his message out. I think the first cost estimate I put in there was $500 000... the distribution of money had already started, really. We were giving out $180 000 a year to Gyalo Thondup' 216
'the agency was hoping that the Dalai Lama would somehow fit into this international void and sort of be acknowledged as the "Pope of the Buddhists" if you will - in effect broaden the anti-communist aspect of Buddhism everywhere' 217
'I do not think that they [the CIA] came to help the Tibetans out of genuine sympathy or genuine concern. There was anti-communism in eastern Tibet at the time, so accordingly, they helped the Tibetan resistance movement' Dalai Lama, p 411
Takster Rinpoche, the Dalai Lama's brother was in the US training camp. (200)
Tibetans were dismayed at the way they were treated by Americans in the training camp. 'We were very angry because we were taken to a hospital and made to take our clothes off'. Also 'we spent the next week being interrogated by the Americans'. They told the Tibetans (famous warriors) that they were going to learn how to fight like Americans'. (200)
Drawupon: 'we were convinced that the Americans were behind us and that somehow over a period of time we would succeed in driving back the PLA' 197
In the 1959 uprising 'a realisation crept over the crowd: they not the Kashag, not the Tsondu, the abbots of the monasteries, not the aristocracy - represented the will of the country' (269) So what did the Dalai Lama think?
'This development distressed me very much. It felt that it was one more step toward disaster. So I decided to speak to the people's leaders myself. I sent for them and all seventy of them came, and in the presence of the Cabinet and other senior officials I did my best to dissuade them from their actions.' (279)
The CIA backed the plan for the Dalai Lama to flee Tibet (289) which confused the movement enough for the PLA to crush the resistance. The CIA bribed officials in India, and sent covert teams to handle any Indian unwillingness to let the Dalai Lama in.
While he was in exile, the CIA stepped up training of Tibetan 'insurgents' at Camp Hale. However, the various attempted incursions all ended in disaster, the exile fighters paid by the CIA like Baba Gen Yeshi descended into corruption and indolence. In 1969 the US rapprochement to China left the Tibetan revolution high and dry, so it fizzled out. In Tibet, the monasteries, dependent on a tax-base in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, made their peace with the Chinese. Chinese exiles fought with the Nepalese, only to be told by the Dalai Lama to stop their insurgency 'rather than go against the Dalai Lama, some of the guys committed suicide' (389)