History

Prior to Communist Chinese invasion, Tibet had been a sovereign Country for centuries. In 1949 when the Communist Chinese government ordered its so-called People's Liberation Army (PLA) to march into Tibet, the people of Tibet's north eastern and eastern region (KHAM and AMDO) were the first to experience the threat of Chinese invasion. The people of Kham and Amdo rose up and confronted the Chinese army at the onset of the invasion of our Fatherland. Pitched battles were fought under the command and banner of local chieftains. by 1950, more than 5000 Tibetan soldiers had been killed.

In 1956 the Chinese introduced the so-called "Democratic Reforms" in Kham starting with the eastern region of Tibet. They began to impose communist ideology and destroyed Tibetan religion and culture. They conducted mass arrests and executions of Tibetan religious leaders and other prominent leaders. People of these areas could not tolerate the brutal Chinese atrocities and rose up in arms against them. Disorganized and ill-equipped volunteer fighters could not withstand the mighty Chinese army that overwhelmed them, grasped their territory and spread like oil drops on paper. Volunteer defenders gradually retreated toward Central and Western Tibet.

By 1957 a large number of volunteer defenders from various parts of the eastern region of Tibet had gathered around Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. The Khampas felt the need to form a united organization to confront the Communist Chinese aggression. But by that time, the Chinese had started to exert pressure and our government's position was rather helpless. So, in order to evade Chinese suspicion and surveillance on our activities and also to enable the different groups of the defenders to come in close contact with each other, the late Andruk Gonpo Tashi from Lithang and other leaders from the eastern regions made a camouflage plan to make extensive religious offerings at Lhasa. Accordingly, with the consent of the Tibetan government, the preparations for making the now famous golden throne of Chushi Gangdruk for His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama were underway. Then the leaders made a request to His Holiness the Dalai Lama to bestow the Kalachakra Initiation and His Holiness kindly accepted the request. However, since a similar request had been made earlier by one Amdo Jimpa Gyatso, the two parties co-sponsored the Second Kalachakra Initiation in 1957. In appreciation of the Initiation and for the long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a grand Tenshuk (Longevity) Offering Ceremony was performed by the Khampas. The offering of Tenshuk to His Holiness on the new golden throne was meant to symbolize the enthronement of His Holiness as ruler of the entire Tibetan territory and also for reaffirmation of faith in His Holiness as Supreme Being

Meanwhile the Khampa volunteer leaders were having secret meetings, busy in laying out future plans and strategies. As a result of their common efforts it was finally and unanimously decided to form a united resistance organization against the common enemy, the Communist Chinese aggression. The leaders then signed a statement pledging their commitment to risk everything to resist the Communist Chinese. Upon the completion of religious ceremonies, the Khampa leaders and volunteer members gradually moved out of Lhasa in different routes towards the Lhokha area, south of Lhasa, and eventually assembled at Chaktsa Dri-Guthang (Chosen Rendezvous). The formal announcement of the formation of the Chushi Gangdruk (Land of Four Rivers and Six Ranges) Defend Tibet Volunteer Force was made on the 16th of June 1958 and since then it is commemorated every year to mark the anniversary of Chushi Gangdruk. It was the first time that all the regions of Kham and the Khampas of all regions came together under one organization and fought under one banner since the splitting up of Tibet during the reign of the last and evil King, Lang Tharma. Chushi Gangdruk included people from both Kham and Amdo regions, but since the number of Amdos were small, they served as one of the 37 allied forces in the organization. Later in exile, Amdo withdrew from the allied organization to form an Amdo party.

The leaders then turned their attention to the choice of formation insignia of the organization and the color of the banner or the flag. After long debate they finally agreed upon and designed the organization's insignia as a crossed sword on a yellow background. The significance of the background being such is that the Buddhist color is yellow and the organization's main intention was to defend Buddhism from Chinese Communism. The symbolic reasons for crossed swords were that the flaming sword representing the wisdom sword of Manjushree severs the roots of ignorance which was the root cause of communism. The other sword was the symbol of bravery and it was the only weapon that the Khampas or the Tibetans themselves could make. A great deal of importance was attached to it because in 1944, when a Tibetan delegation to the Afro-Asian Conference in Delhi made a point to meet Mahatma Gandhi, founder of the non-violence movement, as a traditional way of greeting the delegation it offered him white scarves, but Ghandhiji wanted to know if the scarves were made by the Tibetans. When told that they were from China, he refused to take them, saying that he would like only something that the Tibetans themselves made with their own hands and methods.

Soon after the formation of the allied organization, detailed plans were made to confront the Chinese at various fronts. 40 different leaders of various levels were appointed and assigned various responsibilities. 18 commanders were appointed to control the military movements. Assignments had been directed, locations to be scouted had been assigned, and monasteries, estates and provincial Dzongs to contact for assistance had been identified. A 27-point military law governing the conduct of the volunteers had been made.

While still in Dri-Guthang, the Tibetan government under pressure from the Chinese sent a four-member delegation including the governor of Lhokha with a large number of escorts to the South. Their repeated demand was the presence of General Gonpo Tashi at the provincial Dzong. Suspecting their repeated demand, General Gonpo Tashi and other top leaders refused to come to the Dzong but, instead, sent some sub-leaders to invite the representatives to the military headquarters. When they refused to come to the camp, the general sent more volunteers with sub-leaders to get whatever orders they had from the government or else to tell them to leave the place. So, finally, the delegation made their mission known through the sub-leaders. They demanded explicit answers as to why Gonpo Tashi, Jago Namgyal Dorjee and the people of Kham had left their homes and taken up arms. They wanted specific reasons for their actions and movements. The leaders gave their answers in writing and the delegation returned to Lhasa.

As soon as the government delegation returned to Lhasa, in accordance with the strategic plans, the headquarters was moved to Tsona with Jago Namgyal Dorjee in charge. Knowing that an official request required by the CIA for assistance to the resistance had been ignored by the Tibetan authorities and also knowing that it would take a long time, even if one would ever be forthcoming, General Andruk Gonpo Tashi, with a rather large division of selected men and horses under his command, started moving towards Shang Gaden Chokhor to get weapons and ammunition from the Tibetan government depot there. The rest of the volunteer troops were detailed in small groups of 50-100 to various places to scout and to ambush the Chinese movements. After quite a few encounters with the Chinese troops and several ambushes of Chinese convoys by the volunteers, the Lhokha area, south of Tsangpo (Brama Putra river) was free of Chinese presence except for Tsethang, where a Chinese garrison with underground tunnels was occupied by a Chinese army force of about 2,000 which could not be driven out despite repeated attacks by the volunteers.

The arms that the resistance volunteers took up against the Communist Chinese at this initial stage were purchased by the volunteers themselves with their own funds. They consisted of mainly British-made 303 rifles, German-made 7.62 rifles and Russian-made 6.72 rifles. There were also rifles of other makes but they were in small quantities. These arms had been originally imported from India, Russia and China after the Second World War. Later the volunteers obtained arms from Tibetan government depots, from airdrop by the CIA and from the Chinese army.

Meanwhile, General Gonpo Tashi's troops took all the arms and ammunition from Shang Gaden Chokhor and headed back south but, as a result of many serious encounters with Chinese soldiers who blocked all the routes, they could not penetrate through the Chinese army to cross Takdru Ka and return to the South, but had to move towards the North and further northeast from Nemo Shang. Hence the division became known as the Northern Regiment. They passed through Jang Yangpachen and Jang Namtso towards Jang Lharigo, and then proceeded through Gyasho Bengal to Sarteng and Chakra Pelber in the area of Shota Lhosum. On their way the volunteers had to fight numerous battles and suffered heavy casualties. In a serious encounter with the Chinese army in Dre-Gung Mashung, General Gonpo Tashi was wounded by shrapnel and bullets and later in exile, despite months of medical treatment in England; he died of these old wounds in Darjeeling in September 1964. As the number of recruits increased, a few more commanders were named in Chakra Pelber, which then served as temporary headquarters of the Northern Regiment, and a number of scouting forces were sent from Pelber to Powo Tamo, Naksho Tsogu, Lho Dzong area and to Tsawa Pesho to recruit new volunteers, to scout and to obtain as many arms and as much ammunition as possible from government depots.

In order to get necessary approval from the U.S. administration for assistance to the Tibetan resistance, the State Department required an official request from the Tibetan government. In 1957, before the return of the team of trainees from the U.S., General Andruk Gonpo Tashi asked Phala for a formal request so the Tibetan resistance would not be left short of arms and ammunition. Again in 1958, through a radio message to Mr. Athar and Mr. Lotse, the CIA asked to obtain a request from the Tibetan Authority. This was relayed to the concerned authority accordingly, but the Tibetan authorities, for reasons better known to them, did not bother to send one. However, because of the urgency of the situation of the freedom fighters in Tibet, the Eisenhower administration approved the CIA providing the support requested by the guerillas, including re-supply drops as well as additional training of Tibetans by the CIA. So the log-awaited and the first re-supply drop were made in August 1958 without formal request from the Tibetan government.

To combat the Communist threat, Chushi Gangdruk asked the CIA through radio message for more supply and training of more Tibetans in addition to a pilot group of six Khampas, including Mr. Athar, who were already trained and had been parachuted into Samye Lhokha and Lithang, Kham. A large number of volunteers were sent to Colorado for guerilla training and about 40 of them later airdropped into the Domshung area of Amdo Toma, Markham and Chakra Pelber in Kham between 1952 and 1962; the rest of them came back to India and were detailed to positions along the Indo-Tibetan frontier lines for various intelligence works. According to the book Tears of Lotus by Roger E. McCarthy, who had a long career and was in charge of the Tibetan Program for the CIA until late 1961, an estimated 35-40 airdrops were made, which calculates into a minimum of 550,000 to 800,000 pounds of weapons and ammunition. Weapons consisted of British 303 rifles, U.S. M-1 and M-2 rifles, 50 and 80 mm. motors, 57 and 75 mm. recoilless rifles, 30-calibre light machine guns, and 3.5 mm. Bazookas. Other materials included sub-machine guns, hand grenades, short guns, TNT, and C-3 and C-4. The valiant acts of those volunteers to save Tibet are narrated in detail in the pages of the book Four Rivers and Six Ranges by martyr Andruk Gonpo Tashi, the Commander in Chief.

In the beginning of autumn 1958, just before the first re-supply drop was made, the headquarters of the resistance organization were shifted from Tsona to Lhagyari, from which all the resistance troops were detailed to carry out raids on the Chinese until 1959 when the headquarters was in the process of moving.

In September 1958 the Tibetan government in Lhasa sent a second delegation to Lhagyari. This delegation consisted of two fourth-ranking government officials, namely Tekhang Khenchung Thupten Samchok and Tsepon Namseling. Their mission was to dissuade the Khampas from their activities. They had the Kashag's letter in their hands saying that the Khampas were reactionaries and their activities were against the law of the land and therefore they should surrender their arms peacefully to the authorities. After discussion with the volunteer leaders, the representatives agreed with our cause and chose to join the volunteer force rather than return to Lhasa.

In the beginning of 1959 the resistance headquarters at Lhagyari called a meeting of top leaders to discuss various important matters of the organization. It was resulted then in the meeting that a team of three delegates would go to India to make contacts with the world outside for assistance and also to raise funds from the Khampa traders in India who could not join the resistance force. Subsequently Jago Namgyal Dorjee of Derge, Sadhu Lobsang Nyandak of Tehor and Jangza Chozak of Lithang were chose in the meeting to form the delegation. Not knowing what was to happen in Lhasa in a month or so, the delegation left Lhagyari secretly for India via Bhutan. Not very long after they reached India, the news of the Dalai Lama's escape was in the headlines of all the newspapers in India.

In the capitol, there was already a rumour spread in the city about a Chinese plan to kidnap His Holiness the Dalai Lama and take him to China, and now the news of an unusual invitation of the Chinese general to His Holiness the Dalai Lama to attend a theatrical show in the Chinese camp without any escort aroused the suspicion of the Tibetan people. On the morning of March 10th, 1959, the day His Holiness was to proceed to the Chinese camp later in the evening, thousands of people, including many Khampas who for various personal reasons could not leave Lhasa to join the armed organization, rose up with arms and surrounded Norbulingkha to prevent His Holiness from going to the Chinese military camp. Although there were many Lhasan people and only several hundred Tibetan army troops as bodyguards to His Holiness, it was the Khampas who took the main responsibility of taking security measures and guarding the palace gates. Some Khampa leaders found themselves sitting with Tibetan government officers in the Army headquarters to discuss security measures and strategies. Inside the palace, His Holiness and the members of the Cabinet were put into a delicate position as the Chinese authorities had given repeated threats to bomb the palace to disperse the people unless they would leave the palace. However, the people guarding the palace refused to leave at any cost, as their devotion to His Holiness far exceeded the Chinese threats. As the situation became very tense and explosive, the only logical course of action for His Holiness was to escape. The decision to escape was made known only to the inner circle of the palace and a few of the Khampa leaders around the palace. Chushi Gangdruk was duly informed by the Cabinet and was asked to make necessary preparations for a safe passage. Accordingly, to make the escape route safe, the organization made every possible preparation to guard His Holiness' entourage from any possible threat from the Chinese Army.

As the day of escape neared, the north banks of the Kyichu River, which His Holiness' entourage was to cross late in the evening of 17 March 1959, were guarded by three commanders and their troops detailed from Gangkar Dzong, while the south banks of the river were safely guarded by the Khampa volunteers dispatched from Norbulingkha. Thus the escape of His Holiness and a small number of his entourage was safe and smooth from the most difficult and dangerous stage of escape. By the time the Chinese started the bombardment intended to destroy the palace along with His Holiness on the morning of the 20th, His Holiness' entourage was safely heading towards Lhuntse Dzong escorted by volunteers. Thousands of people got killed by shelling in Norbulingkha, but many more crossed the Kyichu river and followed His Holiness. Details were narrated and acknowledged in the pages of My Land and My People by His Holiness.

Athar and Lotse, who had parachuted to the Samyi, Lhokha, area in 1957, had maintained contact with the organization since then. They had also contacted Phala, the Lord Chamberlain of H.H., through Gonpo Tashi at an earlier stage. Now they were part of the escorting team and had a much more important role to play as they kept providing Washington with vital progressive reports of His Holiness' journey and also served as a communications link for the Dalai Lama. Through coded message, Washington gave its assurance of any assistance that His Holiness might need; our radio team also received advice for His Holiness to travel in a small group and not delay reaching the border. From Lhuntso Dzong our radio team transmitted a coded message to Washington on their Rs-1 radio relaying the request from His Holiness to Prime Minister Nehru for asylum in India. Washington decoded then re-encoded to the U.S. embassy in New Delhi and there decoded and then delivered the message to the Prime Minister. A positive reply from the Prime Minister granting asylum for His Holiness was sent via reverse route and received by our radio team at Mangmang, a small border town. The coded message also included information about a reception team of Indian officers waiting at the border checkpost for His Holiness' entourage.

In accordance with the instruction given by the CIA via radio with regard to His Holiness' travel, the escort team travelling with His Holiness was made small so that it could not be spotted from the air in case of searches by aircraft. But volunteers troops in small groups were deployed everywhere and every possible route of advance by the enemy was blocked. The possibility of interception by the Chinese troops and of pursuit by cavalry were also taken into consideration and appropriate measures were taken.

Our organization's escorting team escorted His Holiness and the entourage of 37 members safely till 30th March, when they crossed the Indian border at Chu Tangmo, where they were warmly received by the Indian reception team. Our escorting team had at its disposal a sum of Rs. 200,000/- which was contributed to His Holiness to meet the expenses later on the journey through India. His Holiness and the Cabinet embers were very appreciative of the contribution and left behind some Tibetan currencies in exchange. Thus Chushi Gangdruk was able to foil the evil intentions of the Communist Chinese and the escape of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, often described as the most dramatic flight of the century, actually occurred.

After having received blessings and having bid goodbye to His Holiness' entourage, our escorting team returned to their respective posts. But in many front areas, the Chinese troops crossed the Tsongpo river and attacked our posts everywhere and in some places our volunteers had to withdraw from their holds.

Meanwhile having heard through radio the news about the uprising in Lhasa, bombing of the palace by Communists, and escape of His Holiness from Lhasa, General Gonpo Tashi and volunteers of the Northern regiment started from Shota Lhosum, crossing Shargungla, Nubgangla, and forcing their way through Lharigo, Shounang and Kongpo, where the Derge and Amdo divisions were already deployed. The new recruits in the local area formed a Kongpo Division, and the forces of these three divisions later engaged in full-force battles against the Communist Chinese. The regiment kept moving through Kongpo Gyadha towards Lhokha. They crossed the Tsongpo at Lhukhangdu and came to Lhagyari, but our headquarters was already in move then. In the second week of April, General Gonpo Tashi and the regiment made it to Lhuntse Dzong, but by then news was also pouring in about defeat and retreats of our troops from many strategic positions. News about the capture of Tsona by the enemy was heard when the regiment reached Nyan Jhora, a focal point. The regiment considered the recapture of Tsona but odds against it were too great, so they gave up the idea and decided to move northeast, first towards Magola and, after crossing Magola, then back eastward to reach Mon-Tawang. Before leaving from Nyan Jhora, General Gonpo Tashi wanted to have a full-force battle against the enemy as a parting shot, but his military advisers advised him otherwise. By now the mass exodus of Tibetans had already started, and the only and best thing they could do was to keep the escape routes safe for the masses of Tibetans pursued by Chinese troops. So General Gonpo Tashi thought that it was time to become refugees in India. On April 21, 1959, General Gonpo Tashi and volunteers of both the Northern and Southern Regiments began crossing the frontier line at Magola and entered into Indian territory with heavy hearts. The volunteers in other border areas followed suit. As they crossed the border, the volunteers, including General Gonpo Tashi, had mixed feelings of happiness and sadness. Happiness-the Dalai Lama had safely escaped to India and they were also now stepping into a safety zone without the futility of fighting against the Communist Chinese. Sadness-as they were now leaving behind their beloved motherland and walking into an unknown land with an unknown future as refugees.

In spite of enormous Chinese superiority in numbers and in military equipment, the Chushi Gangdrug resistance force inflicted terrible damage to the mighty Chinese army.

The Chinese had finally succeeded in herding and driving General Gonpo Tashi's force from Tibet to India, but resistance activities of the Khampas could not be stopped and continued in Tibet. The CIA later in 1959 parachuted 17 graduates of Camp Hale into Chakra Pelber, area of Shota Lhosum, the temporary headquarters of General Gonpo Tashi, who had left from there only about seven months previously. With the first airdrops of supply, five of the trainees left towards Qinghai escorted by about a hundred guerrillas.

Shota Lhosum, having long been the resistance base, drew large numbers of resistance fighters from all over. Within a short period of time, the number swelled to over ten thousand comprised of the local resistance troops and Khampas from other regions. The troops were well equipped with resupply air-dropped almost ever month, and were becoming the largest resistance organization in Tibet. Resistance activities and raids were carried out extensively and for a while the Chinese seemed to have retreated. But that situation didn't last long. The Chinese had taken time to prepare for a big operation and, when the time came, four army divisions moved into Shota Lhosum from four directions to surround and attack the guerrillas. Air raids were carried out simultaneously. Despite the best efforts of the resistance fighters to combat the Chinese, they were clearly outnumbered and outmanoeuvred by the re-enforced Chinese troops. The whole area of forests was put on fire to comb out the last traces of resistance. It took less than a month to wipe out the area of Shota Lhosum.

In this particular operation, 40,000 Chinese troops of infantry and cavalry were engaged from the three provinces of TAR, Sichuan and Qinghai. The five trainees managed to escape to India later.

The five trainees that had left Chakra Pelber earlier with troops, assigned to go to Qinghai, could not reach their destination. On their way, at Domshung in the area of Amdo Toma, they met local resistance troops as well as resistance troops from other regions of Kham. Joining them in the fight, they could not proceed further. The organization grew in number and resupply air drops were made regularly. A group of 11 trainees was also later parachuted into Domshung. Of these 11 trainees, six had already air-dropped once into Namtso Kha earlier and, failing to get into contact with any guerrillas in the area, they had returned to India and finally to the training camp for re-drop.

Around the same time that the Chinese carried out their combing operation in Shota Lhosum, the guerrilla base in Domshung was also attacked and destroyed by the Chinese with aircrafts and tanks, thus meeting with a similar fate. There was but one survivor, who was captured and imprisoned for 17 years.

A group of six trainees was air-dropped into Markham about the same time that the 11 were air-dropped into Domshung. This group also failed to contact any guerrillas and was forced to make contact with a local family for food and possible guerrilla recruits. The Chinese were tipped off to their location and they were surrounded by Chinese troops, which killed five and captured a sixth, who was imprisoned for a number of years, later released and finally went to India.  

Soon after the flight to India, in 1960 H.H. the Dalai Lama, holding a broad vision for a future Tibet, expressed his desire to introduce a democratic form of Government in Exile. The people of the three provinces greeted this with excitement and whole-heartedly. It also provided an opportunity for the peoples of three provinces to work and unite together for the first time under the leadership of H.H. the Dalai Lama. The people were enthusiastic and overjoyed at the prospect.

Under the instruction of H.H. to people of the three provinces, our organization elected Sandhu Lobsang Nyandak of Tehor, Taopon Rinchen Tsering of Gapa and Jangza Chozak of Lithang as the first Dhotoe representatives in the First Assembly of the Tibetan people's Deputies, 1960-1963. In keeping with H.H.'s wish for a woman representative from each province, Yabtsang Dechen Dolma of Chamdo was elected as the first Khampa woman representative in the Second Assembly. Jangza Chozak became the first Khampa Kalon (Minister) in the second cabinet in 1963, holding the portfolio of the Education Department.  

In order to continue guerrilla warfare activities and also to keep the spirit of the Tibetan struggle for freedom and independence alive in and outside of Tibet, soon after arriving in India the leaders of our organization held discussions with General Gonpo Tashi about setting up a guerrilla base and its possible location. In addition to our old friend the CIA, which was willing to continue to help us out with guerrilla warfare facilities, we also had a new and similar offer from the Kuomintang Government of Taiwan. Mr. Tsepak Dorjee, an ex-army pilot who represented the Republic of China at that time, contributed to our organization a sum of Rs. 40,000/- and made an offer of guerrilla warfare facilities on his government's behalf is so desired by the organization.

The leaders of our organization discussed these two possibilities and finally decided to continue with the CIA due mainly to past association with it. Out of four possibilities in India and Nepal, Mustang, on the northern Nepalese frontier, was chosen as the location of the guerrilla base because its multiple passes and routes into Tibet made it a natural choice as a base for resistance operations. Then in 1960, a solemn agreement was made and signed in Darjeeling by the top leaders of Chushi Gangdrug. The signatories to this solemn agreement were: (1) General Andruk Gonpo Tashi of Lithang, (2) Jago Namgyal Dorjee of Derge, (3) Taopan Rinchen Tsering of Gapa, (4) General Yeshi of Baba, (5) Khachen Chazo of Gyaltham, and (6) Kalsang Chozing of Chatting. In addition to these original six signatories, Sadhu Lobsang Hyandak and Chamdo Dortse were later invited to endorse the agreement. Baba Gen Yeshi was then appointed as General in the Mustang guerrilla organization.

Without losing any time, a small team of scouts was sent to Mustang first, and then later the volunteers were dispatched in small groups from Darjeeling, W.B., where a recruiting office was also set up. A group of 24 men was selected and sent to Colorado in the United States for instructor's training. A guerrilla enclave was established in Mustang, on the northern frontier of Nepal, under the leadership of Baba Gen Yeshi as its general in 1960. The guerrilla base had an initial strength of over 3,000 selected strong men and the guerrilla activities were carried out behind the frontier lines from 1960 to 1974.

Much to the dismay of our organization, the Foreigner's Registration Office in Darjeeling served a notice to each of three of our top leaders ordering them to leave Darjeeling for Delhi on the charge of "indulging in activities which were against the interests of India." Consequently, within a fixed date given by the FRO, the three of them, General Gonpo Tashi, Jago Namgyal Dorjee and Sadhu Lobsang Nyandak, left Darjeeling for Delhi as directed. In Delhi they were confined to the capital and were not allowed to leave the city for six months, from the end of 1960 to mid-1961.

In the wake of improved Sino-U.S. relations, in 1972 the CIA aid to the guerrilla base was gradually terminated.

An internal problem arose in the organization and in 1969, General Gen Yeshi was relieved of command and Gyato Wangdu became the commanding general of the Mustang base. By late 1973, the Chinese had started mounting pressure on the Royal Nepalese Government for closure of the guerrilla base, and King Brendra ordered 10,000 Royal Nepalese soldiers to disarm the guerrillas. But the guerrillas did not comply with the royal order and prepared to go to war against the Royal Army. As the situation became tense, Kalsang Kunga, Tashi and Chatting Lobsang Tsultrim from the Delhi office of the Aviation Research Centre (ARC) forged a letter and signed it as the Dalai Lama and sent it to the guerrillas in Mustang. The forged letter purportedly from the Dalai Lama advised the guerrillas to comply with the order of the Royal Government and to surrender their arms to the authorities. But the guerrillas suspected something about the letter and did not pay much heed to it. However, in the beginning of 1974, much to the dismay of the freedom fighters, His Holiness also sent a taped message to the guerrilla forces telling them to lay down their arms and surrender peacefully, which most of the guerrillas did with much anguish. But General Gyato Wandu, suspecting duplicity of Nepalese authorities (which later proved right), chose to escape to India. Carrying with him some vital operational records and some cash, General Wangdu together with a small cadre began zipping through the frontiers of Nepal and Tibet in an attempt to enter into India, but was intercepted by Royal Nepalese paratroopers and, with four guerrillas, killed in an ambush. Six of the guerrilla leaders who surrendered to authorities in Pokra were later arrested and imprisoned for seven years in Kathmandu. Thus the resistance operations in Mustang ended in 1974. Some of the members of the resistance organization have been rehabilitated in agricultural settlements and handicraft centres in Nepal, while others joined Establishment 22 in India.  

Near the end of the Sino-Indian war and towards the end of 1962, the Nehru administration ordered the raising of an elite guerrilla force composed of Tibetan refugees. Chushi Gangdruk leaders were contacted for recruitment of Khampas into this new unit. The leaders were delighted to hear of this new development and promptly agreed to it, for it was seen by them then as a means of maintaining Tibetan volunteers more formally and, moreover, a well-trained force might be of great use to Tibet in the future. A formation agreement was signed in 1962. The parties to this formation agreement were the Indian Intelligence Service (RAW), the CIA (for weaponry till 1972) and Chushi Gangdruk. Ironically, General Gonpo Tashi and Jago Namgyal Dorjee, two of the three top leaders charged and confined to Delhi in previous years for recruiting guerrillas for the Mustang base, were now to sign this three-party joint formation agreement on behalf of Chushi Gangdruk. Our organization took main responsibility for recruiting, and an initial strength of 12,000 men, mostly Khampas, were recruited at Chakrat, Dehra-dun, UP. Chushi Gangdruk sent two of the commanders to this new outfit to be political leaders in the initial stage. Established under the direct supervision of the prime minister, the unit was named the Special Frontier Force. Its forces were trained and commanded by the Indian Army and the unit was meant to be air-dropped into Tibet in the event of another war in the Tibetan frontiers. The SFF became known by the code name "Establishment 22" because of its inspector general, who during World War II commanded the 22nd Mountain Regiment. Our resistance organization's insignia of crossed swords is visible on the formation insignia of SFF or Establishment 22.

The SFF never had a chance of being used in operations against its intended enemy, Red China, but it was used against East Pakistan with the consent of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1971. About one-third of its full strength was developed adjacent to the Chittagong Hill Tracts as Mukti Bahini. They captured many towns and garrisons in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in continuous fighting of about one month. When East Pakistan was liberated and the cease-fire was declared on December 17, 1971, casualties suffered by the SFF were 190 wounded and 56 killed, including political leader Gyato Dhondup, one of the two commanders sent by Chushi Gangdrug, who was shot by snipers. The Indian government gave awards to 580 members of the force for their active involvement and bravery in the battles. The contribution made by Establishment 22 in liberating East Pakistan was great and the price paid by the force was also high, but it would have been of great value had it been used against communist China, the intended enemy.

CIA's Secret War in Tibet

Call it the Shangri-La factor. In the popular imagination, pre-Communist Tibet was a fabled theocracy in which a beatific Dalai Lama smiled over a kingdom where no man raised a hand in violence as he spun his prayer wheel in search of nirvana. Then along came the Communist Chinese, who made short work of these placid people. Fifty years after the Chinese takeover of Tibet, the myth still persists and has even grown, thanks to the media and the increased interest of Westerners in Buddhism.

But contrary to the pop history version, the Tibetans did not simply let the Chinese roll over their country in 1951. For almost 20 years afterward they fought a long, bloody war of resistance that struck serious blows to Chairman Mao Tse-tung's expansionist plans. Invisible to outsiders as it raged, this largely unknown struggle that no novelist could have dreamed up got support from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, which sponsored secret training camps and made arms and equipment drops to aid horse-mounted herdsmen against the bombers and artillery of the largest standing army on the planet.

By way of background, the story begins in the fall of 1951, when the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) marched into the ancient Tibetan capital at Lhasa, after forcing the Dalai Lama's religious government to sign a 'Plan for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet.' This thin fiction of an agreement was somewhat maintained in Lhasa, but in the outlying regions the Chinese occupation involved forced collectivization and the killing of tribal chiefs and lamas.

At that time influential Tibetan traders began to mobilize in a resistance movement that would later become Chushi Gandrug (Four Rivers, Six Mountains). Chushi Gandrug's organizer was a hard-fighting, hard-drinking 51-year-old trader named Gompo Tashi Andrugtsang. Uncoordinated and poorly armed as they were, Tibetans conducted a series of surprisingly successful raids and battles.

A widespread popular revolt finally broke out in February 1956, after the Chinese bombed ancient monasteries at Chatreng and Litang, killing thousands of monks and civilians massed there for protection. Given the growing military might of Tibet's occupiers, Gompo Tashi and the meagerly equipped Chushi Gandrug knew they were going to need outside support. Consequently, the Dalai Lama's elder brother, Gyalo Thondup, who had already been approached by the CIA, contacted the Americans. The Americans, he found, were quite intrigued with the prospect of supporting the Tibetans as part of a global anti-Communist campaign. If nothing else, their resistance would be one more way to create a 'running sore for the reds,' as one CIA man put it, even though at the top levels of the U.S. administration there was no pretense of commitment to Tibetan independence. Gompo Tashi's guerrillas were excited at the prospect of American support. They knew little about the United States, but judging from the Communist propaganda they received, this faraway country was China's greatest enemy.

Then one pitch-black night in the spring of 1957 six men from Gompo Tashi's group found themselves spirited away by the CIA, whereupon they encountered with amazement their first airplane — for which the Tibetans had to invent a new word, namdu, or'sky boat' — and saw their first white man. After an unimaginable flight in the unimaginable machine, six very bewildered Tibetans landed in Saipan for training, though most had no idea where on earth Saipan might be. Over the next five months the Tibetans were trained in modern weapons and guerrilla tactics. They were also trained in espionage and codes, and in the operation of the hand-cranked radio transmitter/receiver.

'We only lived to kill Chinese,' recalled one Tibetan veteran. 'Our hopes were high.' One of the trainees, Gyato Wangdu (who would later become the last commander of the Chushi Gandrug), asked CIA operations officer Roger McCarthy for 'a portable nuclear weapon of some kind…that the trainees might employ to destroy Chinese by the hundreds.' The CIA declined, but McCarthy noted that Wangdu 'did take to demolition training with renewed enthusiasm' and became quite taken with bazookas and mortars.

By fall of 1957, Tibetans who had never seen a sky boat were jumping out of one in the cold light of a full moon over Tibet. One of the first jumpers, Athar Norbu, remembered: 'We could see the Tsangpo River below us gleaming in the dark. There were no clouds. It was a clear night. Happiness surged through me…[as] we went rattling out of the plane.' In Lhasa, Athar Norbu and a fellow guerrilla made contact with Gompo Tashi. This ultrasecret project was code-named 'ST Circus.' The CIA was now in the fight.

In the summer of 1958, Gompo Tashi established new headquarters at Triguthang in southern Tibet, where thousands of men had gathered in a pan-Tibetan resistance force. In an effort to be more inclusive, they renamed their movement Tensung Dhanglang Magar (Voluntary Force for the Defense of Buddhism). Two CIA-trained Tibetans watched it all, radioing back to the United States. In July the CIA made its first arms drop into Tibet — mostly of untraceable old Lee-Enfield rifles. Agency veterans of ST Circus recalled the excitement and romance at receiving messages from their protégés 15,000 miles away in a near-mythical place few Americans could locate on a globe. Even CIA Director Allen Dulles, searching for Tibet on a world map, poked around near Hungary before one of his officers politely enlightened him. Quoting a fellow CIA officer, John Kenneth Knaus, a former CIA operations officer who worked with Tibetan resistance from 1959 to 1965, admitted, 'There was something so special' about Tibet — including the 'Shangri-La factor.' Beyond that, the CIA officers involved — self-dubbed 'the Old Guys Tibetan Club' — admit today with a chuckle that they felt fortunate to be involved in a 'good operation' rather than the 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle in Cuba.

Thrilled by the success of the two radio operators in central Tibet, the CIA built a top-secret facility at Camp Hale, Colo., former home of the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division. The Tibetans loved Camp Hale's 10,000-foot Rocky Mountain peaks, alpine air and dense forests — reminiscent of home — and called the camp Dhumra, or 'the Garden.' Life at Camp Hale was Spartan, the training rigid and thorough. When the Tibetans got on the plane for their return flight homeward, each team carried the same things — its personal weapons, wireless sets and a cyanide capsule strapped onto each man's left wrist.

The Camp Hale Tibetans believed they were being trained to regain Tibetan independence. Interpreter Thinley Paljor recalled: 'In our games room we had a picture of [Dwight D.] Eisenhower, signed by him, 'To my fellow Tibetan friends, from Eisenhower.' So we thought the president himself was giving us support.' Some of their trainers came to feel that way as well, with unusually strong bonds formed between many CIA men and the Tibetans.

Back in Tibet the resistance's furious campaign was paying off. Freedom fighters were effectively in control of significant chunks of the mountain kingdom. Encouraged, the agency made a second arms drop to Gompo Tashi's men, then two more resupply drops in 1958.

In Lhasa, however, the delicate veneer of coexistence between Tibet's young god king, His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, and the Communist occupiers was stripping away. Certain incidents had made obvious, even to the public, the Chinese plans for the Dalai Lama's elimination, and a multitude of Lhasa's populace surrounded his residence to protect him. How the Dalai Lama ever escaped through this throng is a mystery, but on March 17, 1959, resistance fighters smuggled him out of his residence, the Potala, and through guerrilla-held territory. They were joined by two CIA-trained Tibetans in escorting him to the Indian border.

Two days later, still unaware of the Dalai Lama's escape, the Chinese lobbed shells toward his vacated palace, and at 2 a.m. on March 20 they began shelling the city. Enraged when they learned of the Dalai Lama's escape, the Chinese executed Lhasa civilians in reprisal. Exact numbers are unknown, but the bodies were reportedly stacked like cordwood in the streets. The Chushi Gandrug forces in eastern Tibet were quickly outgunned, outnumbered and, thanks to aircraft and improved Chinese radio communications, relentlessly pursued by beefed-up PLA forces. In the face of such an onslaught, Gompo Tashi and what was left of his force joined the exodus of Tibetans streaming across the Himalayas, following their exiled leader. After the Dalai Lama's flight to India, the number of Tibetan teams secretly flown into Camp Hale grew. Eventually, 259 Tibetans would be trained there.

Still, there were successes. Gompo Tashi later related to Roger McCarthy, CIA operations officer in charge of the Tibetan program at the time, details of a December 25 attack by 200 of his men: 'The men attacked on the date set and fought the Chinese for 15 days, destroying more than 500 Chinese quarters and many vehicles….The Chinese Communist newspaper…reported that more than 550 Chinese soldiers had been killed 'heroically' in this battle. We lost 20 men and nine others wounded.' Tashi added that 29 Tibetan volunteers leading 400 locals attacked another Chinese camp in the area. 'That battle lasted 10 days,' he recalled. 'They inflicted heavy casualties on the Chinese….' Then on January 24, 1959, 'Another of our volunteer forces of 130 men attacked the Chinese in Tengchen and seized the fortress in Teng Dzong…. More than 4,000 people from the local area volunteered to join us….The destruction of the Chinese was systematic and about completed when unfortunately the skies cleared and the Chinese began bombing and machine-gunning us from their airplanes….We had not killed all of the Chinese but would have if we had better communications between our forces and if the weather had not cleared.'

Eighteen more guerrillas were dropped in September 1959 near Chagra Pembar, 200-plus miles northeast of Lhasa, to train a native force gathered in a tent city with their families and the livestock on which they depended. Eventually the force reached 35,000 Tibetans. This was a feudal culture whose tribes gathered in the same way they had for 1,000 years. Amid the bleating animals and the sea of blue smoke from cooking fires, at least two of the Tibetan teams radioed for more support.

The CIA made several arms drops soon afterward, this time providing M-1 Garand rifles, mortars, grenades, recoilless rifles and machine guns. Nor were they small drops. The first one consisted of 126 pallets of cargo, including 370 M-1 rifles with 192 rounds per rifle, four machine guns with 1,000 rounds each and two radio sets. A second similar drop came the next month, and a third 226-pallet drop during the next full moon provided 800 more rifles, 200 cases of ammo and 20 cases of grenades. On January 6, 1960, some 650 pallets landed with more arms, plus medicine and food. Clearly, after the Dalai Lama escaped, the agency was far less concerned about maintaining 'plausible deniability' regarding the arms support.

By now the massive, tumultuous Tibetan camp at Chagra Pembar was a real problem. Guerrillas cannot operate effectively with such encumbrances, and CIA coordinators tried frantically to convince the fighters to disperse into smaller units in order to operate more flexibly and present less of a target. Within a month, the inevitable happened. A veteran of Chagra Pembar, Dechen (surnames are not always used in Tibet) described the attack: 'A Chinese plane came in the morning and dropped leaflets which told us to surrender and warned us not to listen to the 'imperialist' Americans. After that, every day, some fifteen jets came. They came in groups of five, in the morning, at midday and at 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Each jet carried fifteen to twenty bombs. We were in the high plains so there was nowhere to hide. The five jets made quick rounds and killed animals and men.' Thousands of men, women and children were killed, both at Chagra Pembar and at another gathering site called Nira Tsogeng. Artillery barrages topped off the aerial bombings. Only five of the Chagra Pembar parachutists survived; the rest died in the Chinese attacks or were hunted down later.

This disaster was even worse when the Chinese bombed the large encampment at Nira Tsogeng, where the CIA had dropped 430 pallets of weapons and other supplies to 4,000 Tibetan fighters. Saddled with their dependents and some 30,000 animals, the surviving resistance fled across the desolate plain of Ladakh, where most died for lack of water.

Things got grimmer. In the spring of 1960, a seven-man team parachuted into Markam in eastern Tibet. Led by Yeshe Wangyal, son of a local chieftain, it hooked up with the force of Wangyal's father, who had been killed some months before. The guerrillas landed on a light dusting of snow, considered a good omen by Tibetans. This time, however, the omen proved false. After arming the local resistance, they almost immediately came under attack and fought running battles against a steadily swelling PLA force until they were surrounded. The sole living survivor of that team today is a former medical student turned guerrilla named Bhusang, who remembered: 'The whole mountainside was swarming with Chinese. We fought them nine times. During the battle, the Chinese shouted out to us, 'Surrender! Surrender!' We shouted back, 'Eat sh-t!'…We really fought. It was intense, like a dream. It didn't seem real. And then, at around 10 o'clock, I looked around and saw that two men from our team had taken their cyanide capsules. It was the end. I put the capsule in my mouth because later I might not have had time.' Before he could bite down on the capsule, however, a blow from behind knocked him out cold. Bhusang spent the next 18 years in a Chinese prison, where he was tortured and starved until he revealed his training by the Americans and the identities of those taught with him.

The Tibetans' resistance efforts under CIA auspices, however valiant, now seemed more and more pointless. Forty-nine men had been dropped into Tibet. Twelve survived, two of whom were in Chinese prisons. With the benefit of 40 years of hindsight, it is clear that the area of operations could not even feed its own population, much less an additional guerrilla force. Compounding the situation was the Tibetans' independent spirit, which often valued pure guts over strategic planning. Against the advice of their CIA mentors, the Tibetans often insisted upon hurling full frontal attacks at the massive Chinese forces.

One of the biggest problems for the resistance was that the CIA could not provide tactical radio equipment, which would allow them to coordinate their forces. While the CIA feared the Tibetans would not observe proper communications security, there were other obstacles. The PRC 10 radios ate batteries by the dozen. Given the choice of being dropped batteries or weapons, Tibetans chose the latter.

The effort to sustain a large guerrilla force had been a painful failure. From a purely logistical standpoint, however, the drops into hostile Tibetan territory had been a brilliant success. 'The earlier drops, perhaps the first 10 or 15, were very successful in that the morale of the Tibetan trainees and the Chushi Gandrug went sky high,' McCarthy said in retrospect. 'The next 20 or so gave the resistance much of what they needed to maintain their winning ways over the PLA; the drops to the Pembar area brought false hope, and thus I call them sadly futile.'

Given the nasty beating the resistance was now taking, the time had come to move its base out of reach of the Chinese. In the summer of 1960 the Tibetan operations base was relocated to Mustang province, a moonscapelike scrap of Nepalese real estate jutting into Tibet. From there the resistance planned, with CIA help, to send 2,100 fighters in groups of 300 into occupied Tibet. One of Gompo Tashi's lieutenants, an ex-monk named Bapa Gen Yeshe, ran the operation, and he easily collected the first 300 guerrillas for Mustang. Rightfully nervous about such numbers while it secretly staged operations in Nepal without consent, the CIA demanded the highest level of security.

Security, however, was not the average Tibetan's strong point; articles began to appear in the newspapers about the more than 2,000 Tibetans flocking into the camp — over three times the original number planned — to be fed, housed and kept occupied. Upset by the security breach, and heeding Eisenhower's proscription against conducting provocative airdrops in the wake of the 1960 U-2 spy plane incident, the CIA withdrew support. That made for a horribly bitter winter situation in the Mustang camps. Some Tibetans froze to death. Others ate their shoes and animal hides to survive. Eventually, however, money was provided for food, and Tibetan hopes at Mustang remained high.

Spring of 1961 brought the Americans a new president and an apparent change of heart. John F. Kennedy's administration, at least initially, continued to support Tibetan resistance. The CIA dropped more arms and a seven-man team to the camps in Nepal. It turned out to be one of the most auspicious decisions in CIA history. The Mustang guerrillas proceeded to make a series of smashing raids along the nearby Sinkiang-Tibet Highway running through southwestern Tibet toward Lhasa. Eventually, the Chinese gave up completely on using that important route and built another road farther from the Mustang border.

The real reward for the CIA, however, was an intelligence coup that occurred when 40 Tibetan horsemen overran a small Chinese convoy in what came to be called the 'blue satchel raid.' A veteran of the raid named Acho described what transpired: 'The driver was shot in the eye, his brains splattered behind him and the truck came to a stop. The engine was still running. Then all of us fired at it. There was one woman, a very high-ranking officer, with a blue sack full of documents.' When the CIA men in Washington opened it, they were stunned. The bloodstained, bullet-riddled cache of 1,500 documents contained the first hard evidence of the failure of Mao's Great Leap Forward, famine, and discontent within the PLA. John Kenneth Knaus said: 'The Tibetan Document Raid was one of the greatest intelligence hauls in the history of the agency….So that was of great help as far as getting or maintaining support for these kinds of operations was concerned.' There were at least three important courier satchels captured, which provided insight into policy decisions, order-of-battle information, and proposals being made by China to India. The Tibetans were happy to know that the Americans were so pleased with the blue satchel's contents, although Acho, in a 2001 interview said, 'We still don't know what was in that bag.'

The satchel was by no means the last of it. In 1962 a Tibetan spy team located deep inside Chinese territory photographed Chinese military sites, made maps and located potential parachute drop zones, at the same time helping to inform the United States about China's missile programs and efforts to develop nuclear weapons. After repeated attempts, Tibetan operatives managed to plant sensors that gave Washington its earliest clues of China's first nuclear test at Lop Nor, north of Tibet, in 1964.

Meanwhile, however, China's collectivization of Tibet was taking a grisly toll. Newly built roads and airfields had allowed the PLA to bury the country in troops and equipment. Ancient monasteries and temples were systematically destroyed; tens of thousands of civilians, including monks and nuns, were killed, raped, scalded and imprisoned. Famine rumbled across the 'roof of the world.' Altogether 1.2 million Tibetans died, either at the hands of the soldiers or from the Chinese starvation strategy. 'We should have committed ourselves earlier,' McCarthy said, 'before the Chinese got those roads and airstrips built, and before they established their lines of communications so thoroughly.'

By the mid-'60s things began to deteriorate for the Tibetans. Now aware of the Mustang camps, of which there were four, India and Nepal were nervous about the incursions. The CIA program also had its American detractors. Kennedy's ambassador to India, John Kenneth Galbraith, was, in his patrician manner, calling it 'a particularly insane enterprise' involving 'dissident and deeply unhygienic tribesmen.' The guerrillas were instructed to cease making armed incursions inside Tibet and to limit their operations to intelligence gathering. The Tibetans nodded and smiled, then continued raiding until the late 1960s. The CIA made its last arms drop in May 1965.

Meanwhile, trouble was brewing within the Tibetan organization, beginning with the death of the 64-year-old Gompo Tashi in September 1964, following surgery to remove 10 pieces of shrapnel acquired from years of fighting. The Dalai Lama's brother, Gyalo Thondup, and camp organizer Lhamo Tsering replaced Gompo Tashi with Bapa Yeshe, a reliable fighter of the old school. More akin to a feudal tribal chief than a contemporary guerrilla commander, however, Yeshe and a like-minded group generally kept things stirred up among the resistance camps. Camp Hale vets said he misappropriated funds and supplies. In Mustang province he terrorized the locals and stole from farmers. The Nepalese protested to India, and of course the Indians protested to the Dalai Lama, while the Chinese happily kept up the political pressure on both Nepal and India for letting the Tibetans stay there at all.

Though he had his own followers, Bapa Yeshe was dismissed in 1968. Camp Hale Tibetans and CIA men say he proceeded to Kathmandu (where he remains today) and gave the Nepalese army minute details as to where the resistance camps were located and the names of their leaders.

There would be one more Mustang resistance leader. Gyato Wangdu, a steel-hard fighter and one of the original Saipan-trained Tibetans, would be the principal actor in the Chushi Gandrug's tragic closing act.

It was President Richard Nixon's rapprochement with China that rang the death knell for the Tibetan resistance. John Kenneth Knaus, now an associate at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University, wrote, 'After their journey to Beijing Dr. [Henry] Kissinger told his chief [Nixon], 'We are now in the extraordinary situation that, with the exception of the United Kingdom, the People's Republic of China might well be closest to us in its global perceptions." These global perceptions did not include the Tibetans.

When the order to close ST Circus came down, not a few CIA field officers were as angry and saddened as the Tibetans. While they still feel it was a great program and are proud of their part in it, they are regretful that they did not or could not do more. 'It was more a case of not being straightforward with the Tibetans,' McCarthy lamented, 'and letting the State Department types have the trump cards, especially at critical junctures. Again, had we been able to go to Tibet's aid in 1952, or even up to 1955, history would have been rewritten. By 1958 and 1959 we were again on the tail end of opportunity.' Rather more bluntly than the other CIA officers involved in ST Circus, McCarthy concluded: 'Generally speaking, I think the Agency looks at Tibet as having been one of the best operations that it has ever run. Well that's fine, that's very complimentary. But if you look at the final results, it's a very sad commentary. If we look at what we did to Tibet as about the best that we could do, then I say that we failed miserably.'

The base in Mustang struggled on until 1974, when the Nepalese government, under tremendous Chinese pressure, sent troops to shut it down. The Mustang leaders refused to surrender. In an effort to prevent a Nepalese slaughter of his people, the Dalai Lama issued a taped message to be played in all the camps, ordering the Tibetans to lay down their arms. 'The tape contained the Dalai Lama's real voice,' recalled Mustang soldier Ugyen Tashi. 'So when we heard his message, I swear, some of the men even cried. Everyone heard the message with their own ears, so we had no choice but to give up. Then we turned in our weapons…all day and all night.' Afterward, some Tibetans threw themselves into a river and were drowned. A CIA-trained senior Tibetan officer slit his own throat on the spot.

Yet one man did not comply — Gyato Wangdu, who with a few select warriors embarked on a hard-fighting run for India. But a month later they were ambushed by Nepalese forces at a place called Tinkers Pass. Seeing the end before him, Wangdu chose to ride straight into his attackers. And with that, it was over. The last fighter of the secret war at the top of the world went down in a deadly cross-fire, as much a casualty of politics half a world away as the guns of Tinkers Pass.

This article was written by Joe Bageant and originally published in the February 2004 issue of Military History. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Military History magazine today!