Airborne Leaflet Propaganda Campaign 1960-1961
March 7, 2011As mentioned in the last post, propaganda played an important role in the CIA's Tibetan operation. To continue with that theme, I'm showing a bit of my interview with Ken Knaus from March 2008, when we headed up to his office to take a look at the propaganda booklets that were dropped into Tibet in 1960-1961. Knaus, author of "Orphans of the Cold War", began working on the Tibetan Task Force in 1958, was an instructor at Camp Hale, and the operation's project manager from 1961 to 1965. He oversaw the making and distribution of these booklets.
Psychological tactics of this kind have often been used in historical military operations. According to Wikipedia (quoting from "Cassell's History of the Wars Between France and Germany, 1870-1871"): “Airborne leaflets have been used for military propaganda purposes at least since the 19th century. One early example is from the Franco-Prussian War when in October 1870 during the Siege of Paris a French balloon coming from the city dropped government proclamations over Prussian troops that stated the following (in German): ‘Paris defies the enemy. The whole of France rallies. Death to the invaders. Foolish people, shall we always throttle one another for the pleasure and proudness of Kings? Glory and conquest are crimes; defeat brings hate and desire for vengeance. Only one war is just and holy; that of independence.’ ”
In recent news, reports say that the South Korean military has been dropping leaflets, DVDs and flash drives into North Korea, where communication is tightly controlled and leaves many citizens unaware of world affairs. The propaganda, dropped by balloons, apparently describes the pro-democracy movements in the Middle East and North Africa in a call for North Koreans to also rise up against their oppressors.
The objectives for the booklets dropped into Tibet -- in many ways like South Korea's reported campaign -- were primarily to spread anti-communist sentiment, counter PRC propaganda, promote reasons to fight for freedom against oppression, show how to conduct political and guerrilla warfare operations, and persuade more Tibetans to join the resistance against China. Here's the brief explanation written on the first page of Knaus’ copies shown in the video: "A collaborative effort by the Camp Hale trainees on a booklet which spells out the reasons why the Tibetans are rebelling against the Chinese efforts to destroy Tibet as a nation and a culture with examples of how other nations obtained their independence and of friendly countries which are supporting the Tibetan cause. It was dropped into Tibet at the authors' request when they returned there on their missions."
CLICK HERE to download some of the pictures that have been translated (in chronological order from one of the booklets). Many thanks to Ken Knaus for sharing the booklets for scanning and to Doma Norbu for helping with the translation. Click the picture below to watch Ken Knaus showing and discussing his copies.
Wei Jingsheng: Interview Excerpts
December 15, 2010With all the news recently about Liu Xiaobo, an advocate for freedom in China which just won him the Nobel Peace Prize, and also condemned him to an 11-year sentence in Chinese prison last December, I put together some excerpts from an interview with another famous Chinese dissident: Wei Jingsheng. Arguably the most well known activist for Chinese Democracy outside of China, Wei was arrested in 1979 on charges of counterrevolution and spent 18 years in jail. Since his release in 1997 through a US-China exchange, he's lived in Washington DC and has continued to fight in exile for democracy, freedom and human rights in China, as well as throughout Asia. The author of "Courage to Stand Alone: Letters from Prison and Other Writings" and numerous articles, Wei has won many awards for his activism, including seven nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.
On August 7, 2008, I interviewed Wei Jingsheng outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC where he was part of a protest against the Olympics being held in Beijing. Attended predominantly by Tibetans, they were accompanied by Chinese, Taiwanese, Uyghur, Inner Mongolian, North Korean, and Vietnamese groups who support human rights and freedom in China.
(Note that this is a loose translation taken from the interview's interpreter Huang Ciping, Director of the Wei Jingsheng Foundation.)
Interview Excerpts: Carole McGranahan
November 11, 2010Carole McGranahan is a professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. As an anthropologist and historian, she's lived off and on with Tibetan families in Nepal and India since 1989, focusing her study in 1994 on the Tibetan resistance to China. Her depth of experience with many veterans of the Chushi Gangdruk (the CIA-backed Tibetan resistance army) brings fresh insight into Tibet's history of armed resistance and how it's remembered (and not remembered) in Tibetan exile society today. In her recently published book "Arrested Histories: Tibet, the CIA, and Memories of a Forgotten War", she argues that the telling of this history has largely been put on hold, and while it's begun to be told over the past decade or so (through books and Tenzing Sonam's BBC documentary "Shadow Circus"), there are particular reasons why the story of Tibet's armed resistance to China is still little-known today, even within the Tibetan community.
For more on the subject, here's some of her interview from September (just after the Camp Hale ceremony that honored the Tibetan freedom fighters, the video of which also touches on this topic).
Interview Excerpts: Jamyang Norbu
October 13, 2010Jamyang Norbu is a noted author, blogger and activist in the forefront of the Tibetan struggle for independence from China. While he has many supporters, he is also controversial within the Tibetan community for criticizing the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration for eventually taking a "middle way" position of accepting Chinese rule, seeking only autonomy within it.
Norbu began working in the Tibetan Government-in-Exile in 1968, and was part of the Tibetan resistance in Mustang, Nepal from '71 to '72, just when the CIA was beginning to pull their aid. Mainly charged with getting intelligence on China, he also helped raise funds to keep the resistance alive until the Dalai Lama finally put an end to the Mustang base in 1974. Among other involvements in Tibetan activism, culture and academia, he was a president of the Tibetan Youth Congress, director of Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts, and co-founder of the Amnye Machen Institute for advanced studies on Tibet.
He currently lives in the US, blogging on jamyangnorbu.com and rangzen.net (rangzen is Tibetan for independence), and writing his latest book, a literary history of Tibet's fight for freedom. Here are some excerpts from my interview with him on August 29.
CIA Impact on Tibet? Part 10: Roger McCarthy
August 24, 2010In the final video of this series, I'd like to introduce Roger McCarthy ("Mac" to the Tibetan trainees), considered by many in the CIA's operation, both Tibetan and American, to be the godfather of the Tibetan Task Force. He co-created the operation, code-named STCIRCUS, with Frank Holober early in 1957, and began training the first team in Saipan by March, later taking the reins as Project Manager in '58. McCarthy left the Tibetan operation in 1961, but his personal passion for the Tibetan fight for freedom kept him active in their cause until his death in October 2007. His book, "Tears of the Lotus", was published in 1997, after a trip to Tibet that year to see what had become of Lhasa. That was followed by a trip to India and Nepal in 1999 to finally meet the Dalai Lama, and reunite with the former Tibetan resistance fighters he counted as friends.
In the video, I'm taking excerpts from his 1998 presentation at Toronto University, and a panel discussion for Stanford University in 2006 called "CIA and the Secret War in Tibet", where he was among other panelists Bruce Walker, Ken Knaus, Mikel Dunham and Tenzin Tethong. Many thanks to his son Kevin McCarthy, and his friend Mikel Dunham, for sharing the photos used here.
4/4/11 I recently found out some background on the photo used in this video of Roger posing with Kalsang Gyatotsang. It was shot by photographer Pete Patterson, in conjunction with a Canadian documentary, "The Golden Throne" (not yet released). Many thanks to Diane Cartwright, the film's producer, for providing info as well as setting up the talk Roger gave at Toronto University, also used in this video. --LC
CIA Impact on Tibet? Part 9: Tsering Shakya
August 18, 2010Born in Lhasa, Tsering Shakya is a noted scholar and author of many articles and books on Tibet, including "The Dragon in the Land of Snows", and the recently published "The Struggle for Tibet", co-authored by Wang Lixiong. Currently a Professor of Tibetan history and literature at University of British Columbia, he organized the 2010 International Association for Tibetan Studies conference, underway this week at UBC's Institute for Asian Research, with 400 scholars from 21 countries attending.
From his interview last May, he talks about the CIA's impact on the Tibetan resistance to China.
CIA Impact on Tibet? Part 8: Ken Knaus and John Greaney
August 11, 2010Ken Knaus and John Greaney were both CIA Officers on the Tibetan Task Force. Greaney, the Deputy Chief from 1957-1961, was in charge of US communications with the Tibetan radio team inside the Dalai Lama's escape party in 1959. Knaus began in 1958 as a Case Officer and Instructor at Camp Hale, Colorado, then became the operation's Project Manager from 1961-1965. Knaus is the author of "Orphans of the Cold War: America and the Tibetan Struggle for Survival". From separate interviews in 2008, here's their take on the CIA's impact.
Also a note on current events: For some time, Knaus has been lobbying the powers that be in Washington DC to have a sign posted at Camp Hale, pronouncing its use as a secret CIA training site for Tibetan resistance fighters from 1959 to 1965. Recently, Colorado Senator Mark Udall has agreed to support this, and a ceremony will take place there soon. More on that in future updates.
CIA Impact on Tibet? Part 7: Mikel Dunham
August 4, 2010Mikel Dunham, author of "Buddha's Warriors: The Story of the CIA-Backed Tibetan Freedom Fighters, the Chinese Communist Invasion, and the Ultimate Fall of Tibet", shares his thoughts on the CIA's impact.
As part of his answer, he brings up a major intelligence find for the US, when approximately 2,000 Chinese government documents were captured by Tibetan guerrillas in 1961. Showing classified information on the PLA's activities inside Tibet and China, the documents were published in 1966 as "The Politics of the Chinese Red Army", by Stanford's Hoover Institution. I'll eventually have a blog video going into more detail on this part of the story.
CIA Impact on Tibet? Part 3: George Patterson
July 7, 2010Scottish author George Patterson has a long history with Tibet. After a year in China as a missionary, he arrived in Tibet in 1947 and lived there until the Chinese invasion in 1950. Following that, he briefly served as a translator for US State Dept and the CIA, and began reporting on the Tibetan resistance throughout the 50s. In 1964, he collaborated on the BBC documentary "Raid Into Tibet", a documentary that nearly ended the CIA's operation after filming a secret raid by Tibetan guerrillas --the only known film ever taken of them actually fighting. Mr. Patterson has written "Gods and Guerillas", his account of the making of that film, among other books on Tibet.
In part 3 of an ongoing summer series, he gives his opinion on the CIA's impact on Tibet's resistance to China.
Tsering Shakya Interview Excerpts
June 6, 2010In mid-May, I had the opportunity to interview the author of "The Dragon in the Land of Snows", Tsering Shakya. For more background on the issue of violence and the Chushi Gangdruk resistance army backed by the CIA, here's a few excerpts from that interview.
Ken Knaus on Meeting the Dalai Lama
May 21, 2010In excerpts from his interview on March 13, 2008, Ken Knaus, former CIA officer on the Tibetan Task Force, recounts his 3 meetings with the Dalai Lama over a period of 42 years. As an extension of his commentary in the last post, "Phala, the Dalai Lama and the CIA", Knaus' continuing story gives a deeper look at the conflict of violence for the Dalai Lama.
While some parts of the video here will probably be shown in the eventual feature documentary, most of what you'll see will only be seen on this blog. Interview excerpts like these, which you'll see more of in future posts, is for me one of the best things about Kefiblog--the ability to share all the good stuff the feature won't have time for.
Mikel Dunham Remembers March 10th
March 10, 2010Mikel Dunham spent 7 years collecting first hand stories from the Tibetan fighters in the resistance against the Chinese, as well as former CIA officers who worked on the Tibetan Task Force. His book "Buddha's Warriors" was the first one I read while researching the CIA's operation in Tibet, and he was one of the first people I interviewed. In acknowledgment of the 51st anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising Day, here's a clip from my interview with Mikel that gives a vivid retrospective of March 10, 1959, and sets the tone of the times leading up to it.
Unfortunately my archival footage is non-existent when it come to photographs and film that depict the actual day. I used film of the Dalai Lama, from the CIA collection at the National Archives. The library's notes don't say who shot the film, but it's most likely Tibetan CIA trainees who were taught to shoot film to gather intelligence for the CIA.
