The CIA provided the Tibetan exile movement with $1.7 million a year and paid the Dalai Lama a subsidy of $180,000 annually during the early 1960s, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.
The decade-long covert program to support the Tibetan independence movement was part of the CIA's worldwide effort to undermine Communist governments, par-ticularly in the Soviet Union and China, the newspaper said.Citing declassified historical documents released last month by the State Department, the Times said that the CIA helped support Tibetan guerrillas in Nepal, a military training site in Colorado, Tibetan causes in New York and Geneva, education for Tibetan operatives at Cornell University and supplies for reconnaissance teams.
"The purpose of the program is to keep the political concept of an autonomous Tibet alive within Tibet and among foreign nations, principally India, and to build a capability for resistance against possible political developments inside Communist China," according to a memo written by top U.S. intelligence officials.
Tibetan exiles and the Dalai Lama have claimed for years that the CIA supported their cause.