C.I.A. TRAINED TIBETANS IN COLORADO, NEW BOOK SAYS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500110046-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 5, 2000
• Sequence Number: 46
• Publication Date: April 19, 1973
• Content Type: NSPR

atr..lr 1uLiA '1'1.A1.45
19 APR 19773~~NNTTLL
ppr d For?Release 0 8/ 1: CIA RDOgqTTQ90T
91=0
c.I.A ., ``rained J~ tans in .
Rx,:u t?, Th. Srw Yort Timm
WASHINGTON, April 18--
The Central Intelligence
Agency set up a secret base
in the Colorado Rockies to train
Tibetan guerrillas in mountain
warfare in the late nineteen-
fiftlcs, when there was an up-
rising against Chinese rule in
Tibet, a new hook discloses.
In the book, "The Politics of
Lying," David Wise, the author,
said that the agency began
training Tibetan refugees re-
cruited in India in 1958 in a
deserted World War 11 Army
base near Leadville, Colo. The
operation continued into the
early months of the Kennedy
Administration, he said.
WYOMING
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The New Yok 1Imes/AUII 19, 1973
Camp reportedly was in
Rockies 130 miles from
quarters in Langley, Va.,
be- cause the incident occurred a
week after President Kennedy
announced the appointment of
John A, McCune as the new
Director of Central Intelli-
Bence. Mr, McCone replaced
~Ailen W. Dulles, whose
resignation was accepted after
the Bay of Pigs incident, Mr.
Wise wrote.
The dispute between Tibet
and China began in the 13th
century, Mr. Wise wrote, with
China periodically claiming
Tibet its part of her territory.
Mainland China was taken over
by Communist forces led by
Mao Tse-tung in 1919, and in
1950 Chinese troops marched
into Tibet.
says
that nation and China, the book
said,
The secret training operation
was hardly a success, M,Tr. \Vc e
wrote, because the guerrillas
"infiltrated into Tibet by the
C.I.A. were attempting to har-
ass the Chinese, not t;, free the
country; in tIm long run it is
douhtful that they made very
Hutch difference. Since 1961
Communist China has tight-
ened its grip on Tibet." Tibet,
lil:e other areas largely popu-
lated by ethnic till r.ori:ics, no1.v
has the states of all autonomous
region within china.
In May, 1951, the Chinese; "Would the nation's security;
signed an agreement with the have been endangered if thc?
Dalai Lama government for the story of the Tibetan operation;
occupation of Tibet, pledg ; had been disclosed in 1961?".
ing not to alter the existing; the hook asked. "In the wake
political system in Tibet or the. of the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy;
powers of the Dalai Lama.' ordered two separate investi-',
However, the agreement also' gations of the C.I.A.. and he,
provided for Chinese control! struggled to take Border (on-i
through the appointment of a trot over the agency's opera-i
military and administrative; tions by changing its top lead-
committee. ersllip."
During the mid-nineteen-' - "Publication. of the story
fifties, however, Mr. Wise' might have focused public at-
wrote, Tibetan guerrillas began! tention on a number of im-
A spokesman for the agency city of Colorado Springs.
said that there would be not - _-- -- -
immediate comment on the re- When a reporter for The'
port. New York Times subsequently
Mr. \Vise, the former Wash- began a routine inquiry, based
ington bureau chief of ']'lie on a brief news-agency dis-
New York Herald Tribune and patch about the inci(lent, the'
co-author of "The Invisible hook said, the office of Robert;
Government," a 1964 hook S. McNamara, who was then
about the Central Intelligence Secretary of Defense, tele-'
Agency, wrote that the Tibetan; phoned the Washington Bureau
training prograin apparently', of The Times and asked that'
ended abruptly in ])ccemher,,,the story not be used because
19,61, six nlonthq after the Bay,, of "national security" reasons.
Of Pigs fiasco and a fewH The Times acquiesced, Mr.'
days after its cover was'altlost! Wise wrote, in line with the
blown in an airport near! general newspaper practice in
Colorado Springs. thpse years of not challenging-
Delayed by Bus Accident the Government's definition of,
national security
"Ironically, it was the snow! The two top news officials
and the mountains - the! in Washington for The Times
(very factors that ]ell the C.I.A., in 1.961, the bureau chief,
to select Colorado for the train-1 !James Reston, and the news;
ing base --- that almost caused! !editor, Wallace Carroll, said!
A
1 ; ,- y u e t, - .
? ice V, I 'It C.
Tibetan trainees were loaded, call the incident. Mr. Reston Is asserted. Intelligence officials. to a p; bl e exact ~i'.atton of
;aboard a bus at the Army, now a vice president! later concluded, Mr. Wise such ircport~nt qu: 'faun; as
:camp for a mill-nape trip to a! and columnist for The Tinles,I wrote, that some of the goer- whe.ih: l Prc::dent I:. cr.r,o.ver
nearby airfield in Coloradoi rillas who had been trained in .lp,lr lycci the ii'oetan o;,cratron,
Springs where it large Air! and Mr. Carroll is editor and tile. Colorado Rockirs had been app
ublisher of the Journal aria guiding B the avhether ]rest: eat Ke ?.ncdy ,vas
Force jet was waiting to; publisher responsible for g , wedge of it. or Appro%ed it, ar.d
quietly fly them out of the! Sentinel in Winston-Salem, Dalai Lama to safety. whet her the four ' ':atc'ldog'
country before dawn. - N. C. Open tv; rfarc broke out in committees of the Cnn,ress }had
'But, coming down the moun_ Jack Raymond, who was dc- Tibet after the escap Mr. Wise lh:ul any kno;'.'Icl!,eof what was
Tense. correspondent for ]he r r ogled, and t,unn;ands of;
d ,,,.., :going on in Colorado."
taut," A4r, Wise wrote., p
an
t as
h
1
b
at
uu leunem
er at the tuned I)alal 1.a111a S governmen
snow. As a result of the delay; t
knowing about the incident dissolved by the Chinese. In-.
caused by the timel.nt, it was' and I don't recall what pre-; din's decision to ;rant sane-'.
daylight when time Tibetans ar ; vented me from writing about' teary to the Dalai Liulla also'
rived at the field."
Once there, the book went increased the pressure between.
Mr. Raymond, who is now
oft, overzoilous military recur associated with I!,& Aspen In-
po'rt's officials herded the air- atilute for humanistic Studies
port's enlp!oyes around at gun- in New York atidid in a tele-
point, but not until at least shrine in.'k, w. "1?nl inclined
one of them saw the "1'ibctans to think that I didn't bare
hoard the jet. enough infnrnlaliun about it to
Complaints to the local' virile it story. I have no imme-
sheriff were made about the ch ile recollection of being
manhandling of the civilians' thrown off the story by any-
and a fevr newspaper articles 1)ody,
describing the bizarre encoun-
ter wc?republished in Colorado 'Nerve-Racking Moments'
Springs and Denver, But, Mr.' In his hook, Mr. Wise wrote
\\'ise wrote, the full irnplictl- that the issue caused some
portant issues," Mr, ise s q-
insurgent warfare against the
Bested,"including the basic
Chinese and officirtls of the question of whethr_r t,ix gooney
Central Intelligence Agency ?vould he used to finance
"Concluded that the situationl clandestine intelligence oper-
offered an ideal opportunity 11 :
atioos." A s cord issue, he
for covert United Slates aid. added, ;"as t:!.eth^_r tl.c agency
In March, 1959, the Dalai' had a legal basis for operating
lama was forced to flee over' a secret training ba>e in the
)
high mountain passes to India
United States.
of ter a Chinese mortar attack' t irl:9 ',?r Vu i-,e a rote, that
lions of the. Q(,pp b\1fiedif~diokd3 le i2O&t 08/?l1erCIA RDP91-00901 R000500110046-4
become public. the. C r'lik"il Iitlcllirence
 Approved
9 1.P[1 1973
For ReleasliVl9SiL01 : CIA-RDP91-00901R00
Earlier in the year the Shah of Iran was "standing up"
to the bag o1 companies and lnakinil lhaldlilles. With ;1
population of 30 million, Iran produces some 4.5 million
barrels a day, amounting to yearly revenues of about
$4 billion. 'hhe coils ort iii ill which is extracting the oil
includes Shell; Texaco; Mobil; the new little brother,
Exxon; 13ritieli Petroleum; Cie. Fransaise de:; Petroics;
some U.S. independents, etc. Their contract for the con-
cession expired in 1979, but it contained an option for
renewal for another fifteen years, which would have ex-
tended it to 1994. The Shah decided not to honor the
renewal clause. He announced that he was not satisfied
with the present level of production--Ile wanted it
doubled, no less. This would entail a capital investment
on the part of the companies of at least y2 billion,
hardly a safe venture under present conditions, with per-
haps worse to come. The Shah was threatening complete
nationalization by 1979, with the companies in the con-
sortium relegated to the position of customers for the oil
output, in what looks like a sellers' market.
Here, to a superficial view, was another case of the
puppet threatening the puppeteer. The CIA had put the
Shah in power. V/hen Mohammed i',?fossade h opposed
him in the early 1950s, the Shah fled the country, and
c.- found it safe to return only when Allen Dulles deposed
Mossadec,ll with the'aid of $19 million distributed in the
right pl, ces. '[hough that was long ago, on closer inspec-
tion things are not so different now. The CIA, to be
sure, can no longer engage in the rough stuff which vas
the rule in the fifties, and to that extent the puppet is no
longer that much of a puppet, but deals can stall be made
when the right people are on hand to make theta.
Like Richard I-:elms, for instance. Until recently he
was ]lead of the CIA; then it was announced by the
White House that lie would become ambassador to Iran.
ibis secreted like an act of l;iiid:hess; tl?,3u"n shot ii c`f
power, a faithful public servant "vas rC1'idl'C'ecil w,J;h an
t, ullulssadorship. !,-,it there w; s more to it t'lan t!lat.
'1'i": Stich had a (t.,ndetl tilt'. cectusiv(' Le Ros-v school
in Switeerl;i!1d, tad ha ;li:cl 'hal'es }Irilas l:ad i?:en
cli! sal;htce, 0f course the old school tic could avail only
so far, but 1ic11n,s knee; ills'x iv around in lean, and in C-Ii.
If the Sh;.lll's confrontation with the oil e anpaiiicS was
not wholly phony, neither , ash hiun~ tll ilar,d that
had fed !lien--li?e hand of the United States. i ;1t that,
on his record, the. Shah v ou!'l hesitate to bae if sucit
action offered hills a real adveiaie';e, but the thIitcd States
is by far tl,, ieeost pu,',erful Illi!i'.;!rv nmlon is tae ti,,!rl !,
and the chief ar, is supplier. 1 tic' `.,hail has ... erf to buy
ltc:tv,ccn ?.5 billion and S3 billion in area! front t';i~lc.
S.o n, and to i`;t1' ca b on the oil hartel 11" ci - tit. hi ~t
sitiale FI1'ill:r cL.tI eves' ai'ra!t a ! by tit:;
\V. l'I;hn.'S", i'i' i: f' 'w } e;.': `1 I7;U?.1; l"ct,ru:: rv .'... ). .t',.!:; ti
cony:!;i.ili for bc't?,l It s'e'al stet;) the Tares
in its chronic b.I!allc: (I p a?.';1:.; hrc?k'!:I?h. QI?.!, it
vr111 help k!) (''Ci.llil of oar
now 111z "t they face sonic cutbacks in other liirectio;us.
It will doo nothing for the Iranian ? people, v.Thom
Shah will continue to rule ? as a feudal lief. The treat
majority of Iranians are desperately poor. and some of
tlicm, university students in particular, arc in a rebellious
mood. When they are caught by the Shah's police they
tare jailed, tortured and put to death, dep: r.din on the
enormity of the offense.. I-lowever, dissidents abroad are-
a lon:z-terns threat. In February' a Republic of Iran was
proclaimed in VVlisliington by a Committee; for Free Iran,
whose demands include freedom of the press, freedom of
assembly, freedom of speech, the end of the polio. state,
and an end of the monarchy.
It is hardly likely that the Shah needs several billion
dollars worth of arms to cope with his internal enemies,
and the government in exile is not a formidable threat
at present. But it asks awkward questions in its news-
paper, Iran Free Press: "Why must a country like Iran,
with a majority of its citizens impoverished and facing
no real military threat from the outside, spend billions
on armaments?" The paper charges that any country with
an investment in Iran can bleed the Iranian. people and
deprive them of the necessities of life. Moreover, the arras
--fighter bombers, patrol planes, helicopters, etc.-can
be used to establish the Shah as the master of the I'crsiart
Gulf, from which the British withdrew in 1971. With
the arms supplied by the United States (some also by the
British) the Shah can dominate the other oil-rich countries
in the-area, and the United States is apparently satisfied
to see him establish himself in that role.
The Iranian students in the United States have no love
for their ruler, and it is possible that they will try to give
him a lively reception on his forthcoming visit to the
United States. What with the U.S. Army, Navy, Air
Force and the ;'.tarines; the CIA, the FBI, the Washington
police, et al., the Shah has little to worry about. Law
and order will be maintained, we may be sure of'-that.
But in the long run, the outlook for the type of `;over'.-'
went the Shah represents-and the United States sup-
ports--may be no brighter than that of similar tyrannies
that have conic and gone.
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 L MEMrnIS, TENN. 'I
PRESS-SCIMITAR
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E - 133,258
.- ;APR 617^
MEMPHIS PRESS-SCIMITAR, FRIDAY, APRIL b, 1973
Friday Book Report
Startling Chwge Leveled at `S cret Tewn
By 11SENNO DUERKSEN
I Press-Scimitar Surf Writer
Most Americans would re-
coil with horror at the idea
of.a military junta aiming
cannon at the White House
and taking over the U.S.
government, South America
style, but if we may believe
a retired Air Force colonel
named L. Fletcher Prouty, it
h a s already happened in
Washington, without t h e
guns.
The disturbing and fright-
ening factor is that Prouty
has the
credentials,
having
served for
nine years
as contact
tion rather than fact, but on
page after page one is con-
stantly reminded that this is
real history the author is
talking about.
"The conflict in Vietnam
stands as a costly and fright-
ening example of how the
U.S. military force can be
drawn into an operation in
pursuit of the unconvention-
al para-military activities of
theLIA," writes Prouty.
Prouty zeroes in on the
late Allen Dulles, director of
CIA for eight years, as the
man who did the most to
change the CIA from its
original and only legally as-
signed task of coordinating
intelligence into an agency
up to its ears in creating
tween t he revolutions, changing gov-
C e n t r a 1 ernments and changing his-
tory.
Agency acd' Prouty points to Dulles'
- -- "Tl C ft of
k
well documented 400 pages
to back up the sub-title of his
new book, "The CIA and its
evidence more than enough
pressure from any one of
several groups, or their
more radical sub-groups, to }
support the germ of the idea I
that a sinister conspiracy
;pressures. For these groups
perience and political power
and that he had to be re-
moved from office before
winning the inevitable man-
date from the U.S. public
which was certain to be his
in 1964,"
Prouty states that it was
Allen Dulles who had a large
hand in the writing of the
Warren Report.
Then, writes Prouty, "The
Secret Team machine,
always at its most active
and insidious best in adver-
sity, surged forward in the
post-Kennedy void, T h e
record shows that Johnson
(President Johnson) almost
never said no."
Prouty states that the CIA
and the ST played a decisive
role in historic events in Jor-
dan, Guatamala, the Philip-
pines, Indonesia and the Do-.
minican Republic, as well as
its well-known roles in the
I3ay of Pins fiasco and, final-
1v, Vietnam.
Some of these operations,
when uncovered by the coun-
tries involved, re!:ulted in
the U.S. government being
forced to pay blackmail to
the tune of millions, often in
military equipment, all with-
out the U.S. public being in-
formed.
Keeping the U.S. public in
the dark about the-2 opera-
tions, under the r ui~' of "se-
curity," was all re:.lly a big
joke, says Prouty, because
all the worlrl, inch hn~ Rus-
sia find China, alw, s l;nets
what was going on.
J r ou t r ~' ~? 1 t l ] e
that a rcac'd"f" ~ttCtR ppaaSSa(~(~/11/1~~p~~a9'o'~tobb5rt~4
hope it is di wol i 0 C- TIT1.Z7f, Or one-halt t !Cory (I l Ir 11-
t en Commission, there is in
releasing official secrets tn;,
Prouty not only chart, sponsible for the entire fins-
that it was this Secret tears sir;lply because the labels on co, bringing universal world ,
which manuevered the U.S. a Piece of paper said 'labels
condemnation of the U.S., ~
into the Vietnam war but Secret, when the substance Kennedy vowed that ,
hints that the group may of many of the words written "Som.etime Burin, his adnlin-
have played a part in the on those papers was patently ishation the genie of
assassination of President untrue rind no more than a c}anciestine operatics( t ould
John Kennedy after it learn- coyer story. l~.xcept for the 11;.ve to he put back into the
e(1 that Kennedy planned to fact that they were official brittle."
,destroy the ST. lies, these papers had no Then, turning to the assas-
So alarming are the b a s i s in fact," writes `,iniition itself, P r? 0 u t y
rchar, es made by Prouty I'r?outy. ,.;-?
ties, I er those who have
CIA, leaked to the press
many stories taken from
"Top Secret" files w h e n
such leaking served his pur-
pose.
Prouty points o u t that
when the CIA was first form-
ed, under a law signed by
the late President Harry
Truman, it was given by law
only one task, the coordina-
tion of intelligence, and was
never even authorized to col-
lect intelligence.
He then quotes Truman as
saying, a few days after the
assassination of President
Kennedy, in 1963, "For some
time I have been disturbed
by the way the CIA has been
diverted from its original
assignment. It has become
an operational and at times
a policy-making arm of the
Government. I never had
any thought when I set up
the CIA that it be injected
into peace-time cloak-and-
dagger operations."
The former president then
added that the CIA had be-
come" a symbol of sinister
and mysterious intrigue."
"Who knows what
thoughts passed through his
(Truman's) m i n d during
those thirty days from Nov.
22, to Dec. 22, in 1963,
thoughts that led him to write
those powerful and intense
words?" asks Prouty.
.7 )leered b}' the CIA itself, rill Turning to Kennedy and
th Pentagon whic11 ,~he '
an ef;ort to disengage that
that assassination, Prouty
s t a t e s, h a s conspired, agency frcm responsibility
maneuvered and organized for the Vietnam war. writes that the young Presi?
hly
para-military operations to "It is quite fantastic to scoleetrched had been of Ir, ts
tighten. its siran lehold a1 find people like Daniel Ells s by the Bay ay
U.S. government policy. berg being charged with incident and after deto ertnin
that the CIA had been re-
, 1e ra
own boo
Intelligence," published in
1961 after he retired, as, "no
more than a final compila-
tion of all the soothing syrup
and old wives tales Allen
States and the world." ' -Dulles concocted and pour-
'''he book is "The Secret ed over the fevered brows of
^'~~e hall, Inc.; men in high office for 25
__-j years."
x_1:.eu: ~=3 i o t ~ i'OCOIVOl One of the most devastat-
ing charges made by Prouty
"Secret Team," to denote a is that the so-called " ll]e-
tightly knit team of powerful ' i al, t crease of the "Pentagon
men from the CIA, the Na ? Papers" was actually engi-
tionl Se-rit council and
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SALEM, ORE.
STATESMAN
M--34,979
S ~. 5,512
6 19 T,
- Uiice again, the President has
Budget Knife headed an important agency
with'an administrator skilled in
Applied to CIA-, management rather than the
programs of the agency.
The critics.of President Nixon
who comp'niu is univcbo-
ping at social service programs
to bring government spending .
back within budget bounds
should look at what is happening
to the Central Intelligence Agen-
cy.
This is somewhat difficult to
do in light of the secrecy sur-
? rounding the CIA. What is
known, however, is that CIA
budgets have increased over the
,years to about $4.5 billion. Much
of this is attributable to the
sophisticated spy equipment
now being used to ferret out
.what is going on in other coun-
tries. The satellites which can
detect movements at missile
sites do not cone cheap.
Even so, the CIA has been
singled out by President Nixon
as an agency which will receive
the same budget knife treat-
ment which is being given to
Health, Education and Welfare
.by Casper Weinberger. In the
case of the CIA, the knife-
t/ wielder is James Schlesinger,
who established himself as a
skilled administrator as chair-
man of the Atomic Energy
Commission.
the CIA at the abrupt dismissal
of Director Richard Helms, who -
maintained the Allen Dulles tra-
dition.
The public is in no position to
judge whether the CIA has
grown flabby. The public cannot
know to what extent Schlesinger
will "Nixonize" the CIA, al-
though Schlesinger's past record.
of independent judgment mini-
mizes this.
What seems certain, with the
reduction of over 1,000 employes
since Schlesinger's arrival, is
that President Nixon is looking
with concern at the CIA's $4.5
billion annual expenditure
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 COLONEL FLETCHER PROUTY INTERVIEWED
Prouty spent a lot of his military career-as what is called the
focal point officer between the Department of Defense and the
Central Intelli.gonce Agency. He's written a book which is highl
critical of what he calls The Secret. Team, which by the way is
the title of the book. Since tie e are frequent references in
the book to information in the Pentagon Papers, CBS News corres-.
pondent Fred Graham, who's been covering the Daniel Ellsherg
trial, has joined me for the interview.
JOHN HAIZT: Before he retired, Air Force Col. Fletcher,
Col. Prouty, I'd like to ask you first, what is the
secret team?
COL. FLETCHER PROUTY:.. You know, there are quite a few
people who write about the CIA, and Mr. Dulles has written about.
CIA; Lyman Kirkpatrick has written about CIA. The secret team really is the CIA and other parts of the :government. The secret
team includes, for instance, the participation of the Defense
Department, of the White House, offices such as today we have
under Dr. Kissinger. I think it's important to point out that
in the operational aspects of CIA work, the participation of a
major part of the government, not just CIA is an important
consideration.
HART: Well, the secret team's part in such things as
the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diehm, that sort of thing, the ITT-
CIA involvement- alleged involvement--in the election in Chile
are pretty well docunmented. Can you tell us anything about what
you think may be going on right now?
PIZOUTY: You mean current Operations?
IIART: That's right, yes.
PROUTY: Actually, mos. of the things that. I knew in
current operations ended with my ret:i r :1cnt. about ten yeaars ago
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 Approved For Release 2001/ $/ 1 I CIA-F$1~93-00901 R
STATINTL
SP1~CIlA
A
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