Gompo Tashi’s Letter to Eisenhower, 1959

March 10, 2011

There's no video to show today, but in commemoration of Tibetan National Uprising Day, I wanted to post a particularly interesting document recently found at the Eisenhower Presidential Library. It's a letter from Gompo Tashi Andrugtsang, General of the Chushi Gangdruk (Tibet's CIA-backed resistance army), to US President Eisenhower. Dated December 9, 1959, he chronicles the events suffered by the Tibetans under Chinese occupation throughout the 50s, culminating in the uprising that began on March 10th of '59 and the PLA crackdown that prompted the Dalai Lama's flight on March 17th. He ends with a plea for more assistance from the US, stating "the situation has become very serious, like a patient about to die".

CLICK HERE to download the 9-page letter, a list of gifts also given, and the US memo that acknowledges the delivery to the Embassy.

The term "Do-med" is used often in the letter, so I asked Jamyang Norbu, noted author and activist for Tibetan independence, for clarification. He explained that the term refers to the Eastern Tibetan province of Kham, where many of the fighters in the Chushi Gangdruk were from. Along with the letter --  delivered to the US Embassy in New Delhi, India on December 13, 1959 while Eisenhower was visiting India -- Gompo Tashi also offered a few gifts to the president which included a full traditional Khampa outfit; the exact one he's wearing in the photo above. (Tashi himself was from the Lithang region of Kham.)

According to Norbu -- who had briefly been a member of the resistance forces based in Mustang and knew some of the Chushi Gangdruk leaders close to Gompo Tashi -- the above picture was taken in a photo studio in Kalimpong, India to document the outfit just before he and others left for New Delhi to give it to Eisenhower. Norbu added, "The spectacles were a studio accessory meant to make the subject look more educated or refined". The photograph is printed in Gompo Tashi's memoirs Four Rivers, Six Ranges: Reminiscences of the Resistence Movement in Tibet, published posthumously in 1973 by the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Unfortunately the gifts weren't found at the Eisenhower Library. If anyone out there has any information regarding their whereabouts, please let me know through the "contact me" link in the right column.

Jamyang Norbu recently posted another significant archival letter on his blog, this one from the Dalai Lama to President Kennedy sent the following year.