Project Circus

"In the early 1950s, the CIA began to explore ways to aid the Tibetans as part of its growing campaign to contain Communist China. By the second half of the decade, "Project Circus" had been formally launched, Tibetan resistance fighters were being flown abroad for training, and weapons and ammunition were being airdropped at strategic locations inside Tibet. In 1959, the agency opened a secret facility to train Tibetan recruits at Camp Hale near Leadville, Colorado, partly because the location, more than 10,000 feet above sea level, might approximate the terrain of the Himalayas. According to one account, some 170 "Kamba guerrillas" passed through the Colorado program." "But Gyalo Thondup, one of the Dalai Lama's brothers, was closely involved in the operations, and Knaus, who took part in the operation, writes that "Gyalo Thondup kept his brother the Dalai Lama informed of the general terms of the CIA support." According to Knaus, starting in the late 1950s, the Agency paid the Dalai Lama $15,000 a month."