CHAPTER 1: SECRET ARMY IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
In the 1960s, the U.S. secretly transported almost 300 Washington-allied Tibetan Chinese to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to create a clandestine army for an insurrection in China.
The top secret project, codenamed St Circus, was based at a remote center called Camp Hale, high in a mountain range later made famous worldwide by singer John Denver.
The CIA chose the location because they hoped the freezing, high altitude terrain resembled that of China’s Tibet province. To keep the public away, the CIA told residents of the area that it had been chosen for “atomic bomb testing”.
US military trainers at Camp Hale put the men through courses in sabotage, surveillance, communications, weapons handling, explosives, and so on.
By the 1960s, the CIA had refined a strategy to quietly create conflicts in which US competitors such as China and Russia would be fought by residents or neighbors, so that US nationals were never at risk—a clever technique still used today (see Ukraine, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and so on).
CHAPTER 2: DALAI LAMA’S WEALTH
The St Circus secret army project had multiple other elements.
- The CIA spent tens of millions of dollars parachuting tons of weapons to the Indian border with China to arm Washington-allied Tibetan rebels and mercenaries on the spot. The airlift was codenamed St Barnum, and the trained paramilitary group eventually had 1,800 heavily armed troops.
- The CIA paid US$180,000 a year directly to the Dalai Lama for many years. (For context, the average middle-class salary in India at the time was US$360 a year, so the Dalai Lama’s team were obscenely wealthy. The secret payment was listed in US State Department files as “a covert subsidy”.)
- While the US officially recognized Tibet as a province of China, the CIA wanted to fool the world (including US citizens) into thinking otherwise.
- They launched multiple “free Tibet” programs, making them appear to be grassroots campaign groups.
- They paid for “Offices of Tibet” to be set up in New York and Geneva, to be portrayed as unofficial embassies of “independent” Tibet, which they said had been “invaded” by China.
- The CIA also ran a comprehensive and well-funded general program to demonize the Chinese worldwide, codenamed St Bailey. This was an expansive attempt to create a false narrative claiming, falsely, that the Han Chinese were actively engaged in the genocide of the Tibetan Chinese.
But one aspect of the original plan was cancelled. The US wanted to get General Chiang Kai-shek on the Chinese island of Taiwan involved—but backed off when the Nationalist leader pointed out that Tibet was clearly part of China, having been a region or a protectorate of the country for many centuries.
CHAPTER 3: THE ENEMY WITHIN
Still, cash poured into the “three saints” plot—before it was attacked by an enemy within.
In the 1960s, China was as poor as the nations of Africa. But some people in the US, particularly national security adviser Henry Kissinger, felt that the capability of China’s leaders, and the country’s massive size, meant that it would rise steadily, and could turn into a serious player in the world stage: a country better to have as an ally than an enemy.
Furthermore, US operations in Asia, particularly Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, were struggling and desperately needed all Washington’s care (meaning cash) and attention.
So Kissinger decided to rein in the CIA’s efforts to create problems for the Chinese.
CHAPTER 4: SHOCK REJECTION
In August of 1969, the free-spending CIA put in a request for an additional US$2.5 million in cash for US-managed Tibetan insurgents.
Kissinger rejected the application, except for the annual US$180,000 pay packet for the Dalai Lama. He then wound down the other parts of the project except for the cheapest elements.
All that was left was “desultory radio broadcasts from Taipei and Seoul, leaflets dropped on the mainland, fake news planted in Hong Kong and Tokyo, and what the agency described as ‘activities worldwide to denigrate and obstruct the People's Republic of China’,” CIA historian Tim Weiner wrote.
In other words, only deceit-based demonization remained.
The CIA put a brave face on it, telling government committees that the narrative had not died. An 11 January 1971 internal Washington memorandum, now declassified, said:
“With Indian asylum and U.S. support, the idea of Tibet as an ethnic and cultural entity with a widely-acknowledged claim to freedom from Chinese Communist rule has survived.”
But even that didn’t survive for long.
CHAPTER 5: SECRET FLIGHT TO CHINA
Kissinger further horrified CIA leaders when he said he would be flying to China to create a rapprochement with its leaders. He took a secret trip there in 1971 to meet the highly intelligent Prime Minister Zhou Enlai on July 9.
Their conversation was recorded. It showed that Zhou knew full well about CIA-led campaigns to “free” Tibet and Taiwan. It also revealed Kissinger’s attempts to downplay the extraordinary amount of time and money the US intelligence agency had spent trying to create problems in China.
Referring to the “free Taiwan” campaign, Zhou asked: "The CIA had no hand in it?"
Kissinger replied to the translator that Prime Minister Zhou “vastly overestimates the competence of the CIA".
ZHOU: "They have become the topic of discussion throughout the world. Whenever something happens in the world they are always thought of."
KISSINGER: "That is true. And it flatters them. But they don't deserve it."
Zhou was not fooled. He pointed out that the agency clearly ran subversion operations to create trouble in China.
Kissinger responded by saying that most CIA officers "write long, incomprehensible reports and don't make revolution".
Zhou replied: "You use the word revolution. We say subversion."
Kissinger conceded that the Chinese premier was right. "Or subversion," he agreed. "I understand.”
The US national security adviser then promised Zhou he would halt CIA efforts to manufacture problems in China.
“We are conscious of what is at stake in our relationship, and we will not let one organization carry out petty operations that could hinder this course," Kissinger pledged.
CHAPTER 6: MORE BUDGET CUTS
He went home and further slashed the CIA’s China budget.
A partly declassified document from 6 September 1972 says:
“For FY 73 [financial year 1973] CIA proposes to continue the subsidy to the Dalai Lama US$[REDACTED], again reduce support for the contingency force US$[REDACTED], and fund intelligence activities and the New York office US$[REDACTED]. Support would cease for press activities, a political party, administrative training, and the Tibetan office [TEXT REDACTED].
Eventually both fake Tibet “embassies” were closed, and the global campaign of lies was shelved.
CHAPTER 7: RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD
More than a decade later the use of Tibet as a demonization tool was revived.
It was brought back by a CIA-adjacent soft power regime change group, the National Endowment for Democracy (founded in 1983).
Today, "free Tibet" ops are continued by multiple NED-funded projects, such as the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.
(The Tibetan genocide story remains untrue. The number and proportion of Tibetan Chinese in Xizang is growing faster than the number of Han Chinese, and the same is true of the Uyghur Chinese in Xinjiang.)
To this day, western mainstream media prints quotes from IPAC and other “Free Tibet” campaign groups on this topic while hiding their US origins and funding.
CHAPTER 8: NARROW ESCAPE
But declassified documents and books of CIA history show that more than 90 per cent of CIA infiltration or subversion operations against China in the 1950s and 1960s led to failure, with insurgents, agents or assets being caught, imprisoned or executed.
So that secret Tibetan army, trained in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, may wish to thank Henry Kissinger. They had a lucky escape.
[Sources: The Office of the Historian (US State Department), National Security Archive (US), Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner, and our own research.]
