Knaus, John Kenneth. "Official Policies and Covert Programs: The U.S. State Department, the CIA, and the Tibetan Resistance." Journal of Cold War Studies 5, no. 3 (Summer 2003): 54–79. Knaus, John Kenneth. "Official Policies and Covert Programs: The U.S. State Department, the CIA, and the Tibetan Resistance." Journal of Cold War Studies 5, no. 3 (Summer 2003): 54–79.
The author dates active U.S. in Tibetan affairs to March 1951, when the U.S. Ambassador to India advised the young Dalai Lama to leave his country and seek asylum abroad. By 1956, armed resistance against the Chinese occupation was underway. Covert support began modestly, with the training of six Tibetans to engage in intelligence collection. Air drops of arms began in 1958 and grew into "a massive effort." The Dalai Lama finally fled Tibet in 1959. He received subsidies from the U.S. government for the next 15 years. Support to the resistance (training and air drops) continued into the Kennedy administration. From 1962, "the command and control" of the Tibetan forces operating out of Nepal "was a combined U.S.-Indian-Tibetan responsibility." By 1974, "organized Tibetan resistance in the field was over."
Knaus, John Kenneth.
Orphans of the Cold War: America and the Tibetan Struggle for Survival. New York: Public Affairs, 1999.
Mann, Los Angeles Times, 16 Jun. 1999, points out that the author is a former CIA operations officer "who for a time was in charge of the agency's covert operations in Tibet." According to Knaus, "the American officials who supported the Tibetans were motivated by idealism in the spirit of Woodrow Wilson.... And yet Knaus confesses in the end to his sense of 'guilt ... over our participation in these efforts, which cost others their lives, but which were the prime adventure of our own.'"
For Tovar, IJI&C 13.2, Orphans of the Cold War is "a comprehensive. well-researched, very readable -- indeed fascinating -- history that is not likely to be improved upon in the near future." Pye, FA 78.5, notes that Knaus' "story makes it clear ... that the CIA did not attempt to stir up a rebellion but supported an essentially Tibetan initiative.... It also underscores the limited effectiveness of such covert operations."
Mirsky, NYTBR 18 Jul. 1999, calls this work a "depressing" and "fascinating book, all the bleaker because true.... Knaus says regrettably little about his own involvement with the guerrillas, relying instead on publicly available C.I.A. documents and on interviews with senior Government officials, former C.I.A. colleagues and Tibetans who survived the operation." To Mufson, Washington Post, 21 Nov. 1999, the author writes "a compelling account of the CIA efforts in the 1950s and 1960s to support Tibetan guerrillas -- and harass the Communist government in China.... Knaus ... writes well and with feeling for the Tibetans with whom he worked."
A reviewer in CIRA Newsletter 23.2 finds that Knaus "offers vivid portraits of those who fought for -- and against -- Tibetan independence... Orphans of the Cold War shows an American policy and staff motivated by idealism and pragmatism and Tibetans who had both their virtues and their faults."
Laird, Thomas. Into Tibet: The CIA's First Atomic Spy and His Secret Expedition to Lhasa. New York: Grove, 2002.
According to Rupert, Washington Post, 15 Sep. 2002, the author "tells a gripping tale" of CIA officer Douglas MacKiernan's operation in Sinkiang and his death at the hands of Tibetan border guards.
Hayford, Library Journal, 15 May 2002, says that the author "presents his story as a spy novel, complete with reconstructed dialog, bureaucratic infighting, cinematic pacing, and crackling action. Much of the information is reconstructed from interviews and archival research and is hard to authenticate; still, the overall story of this incredible expedition and its political consequences rings true."
For Haas, AFIO WIN 6-03, 11 Feb. 2003, the author's long-term residence in Nepal provides "a significant qualification for his wide-ranging and startling look into the activities of the agent behind the unnamed First Star on the CIA's Wall of Honor." This "[p]rodigiously researched" work provides "a thoroughly fascinating and informative read."
West, IJI&C 16.4, finds that the author's "tenuous evidence" fails "to show that Mackiernan had anything to do with tracking the Soviet bomb." Laird also suggests, "without much evidence, that the CIA had deployed Mackiernan to sabotage the Soviet uranium mines." To Goodman, I&NS 18.4, Laird has reconstructed his story in a "comprehensive and illustrative manner." It is "a very good read."
Liu,
Melinda. "A Secret War on the Roof of the World: Spooks, Monks and
the CIA's Covert Gamble in Tibet." Newsweek, 16 Aug. 1999. [http://newsweek.com]
"How the CIA took the Dalai Lama's disciples under its wing is one of the most exotic episodes in the annals of Western intelligence. The intimate details of Operation STCIRCUS are only just now emerging," but Newsweek has learned that the operations of the Tibetan guerrillas "scored spectacular intelligence coups including ... early hints that China was developing the atomic bomb."
Mann, Jim. "CIA Funded Covert Tibet Exile Campaign in 1960s."
The Age (Melbourne), 16 Sep. 1998. [http://www.theage.com.au]
"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 ... US intelligence documents" published last month by the State Department. The money for the Tibetans and the Dalai Lama was part of the CIA's worldwide effort during the early years of the Cold War to undermine communist governments, particularly in the Soviet Union and China."
McCarthy, Roger E. Tears of the Lotus: Accounts of Tibetan Resistance to the Chinese Invasion, 1950-1962. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1997.
Tovar, IJI&C 13.2, p. 226, fn. 7, calls this a "very good book on CIA support to the Tibetan resistance.... McCarthy ... was a CIA operations officer who worked on the Tibet project. His book focuses primarily on the operational side as viewed from within the Agency."
McGranahan, Carole. "Tibet's Cold War: The CIA and the Chushi Gangdrug Resistance, 1956–1974." Journal of Cold War Studies 8, no. 3 (Summer 2006): 102-130. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/jcws.2006.8.3.102]
From abstract: "Th[is] article recounts the origins of the Tibetan resistance forces, their relationship with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, their eventual laying down of arms in 1974, and their legacy in the present-day exile community.... The war, pitting a voluntary Tibetan guerrilla movement against the Chinese Communist army, had implications well beyond Tibet and China."
Grunfeld, H-Diplo, 27 Jul. 2007 [http://www.h-net.org/~diplo], comments that the author's important contribution is her focus "'on the resistance movement itself and the individuals who constituted it.' [footnote omitted] This she has done -- skillfully -- through extensive interviews and recently published Tibetan language materials." As an anthropologist, McGranahan provides "an important supplement and new dimension to this story."
Shakya, Tsering. The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Mufson, Washington Post, 21 Nov. 1999, comments that the author "has employed thorough research, a balanced view and a dispassionate tone in writing a tremendously informative, definitive history of his native land."
Tovar, B. Hugh. "Tibet's
Long Years of Struggle." International Journal of Intelligence and
Counterintelligence 13, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 215-226.
This is simultaneously an excellent review of Knaus' Orphans of the Cold War (1999) and a useful essay on the CIA operation with the Tibetan resistance.
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