But it would not do to broadcast the government’s intelligence capability owing to its links with the CIA.Īs for the press, there were slim pickings for the hundreds of reporters who converged on the remote tea-growing settlement of Tezpur in far northeastern India. Nehru, second only to President Eisenhower, was informed the day before writing to the Indian president that the escape party had arrived safely at the border. Thanks to the presence of the American-trained radio operators among the escapees, Washington-with the help of Geshe Wangyal-was able to monitor the party’s progress almost the entire way along its route. The prime minister replied, saying, “We do not yet know where the Dalai Lama is.” He was being decidedly economical with the truth. Ten days after the Dalai Lama disappeared from Lhasa, the Indian president sent an urgent letter to Nehru asking for a report. Word of the Precious Protector’s escape spread swiftly around the world, but for want of information, the many news agencies taking an interest in the story were compelled to hold their breath. It was nonetheless at this moment that the agency began to take a close interest in Tibet. This the Dalai Lama declined to do-on the grounds that it was not clear that America would give wholehearted support to Tibet if he did. embassy in India and who hatched a plot with the CIA to spirit the Dalai Lama out of Tibet if he would first publicly repudiate the agreement. It was Harrer who subsequently put the Dalai Lama’s brother in touch with officials at the U.S. It is thus a remarkable irony that the Dalai Lama’s introduction to the modern world came from a former member of Hitler’s SS.
#Young dalai lama series#
Up to that point, the only window on the outside world the Dalai Lama had had was a series of roughly weekly meetings over a period of around six months with the Austrian adventurer and alpinist Heinrich Harrer. A further six months on and the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet was signed by a delegation of Tibetan negotiators in Beijing. 17, 1950, the Dalai Lama was proclaimed temporal leader of his country. The first troop incursions occurred at the end of 1949.Ī year later, the Tibetan army was completely routed after a short campaign by China’s People’s Liberation Army.
When Chairman Mao announced the “liberation” of Tibet as a top priority for the newly founded People’s Republic of China, the Dalai Lama was not yet 15 years old (although, counting by Tibet’s lunar calendar, he thought himself that age).
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