Inside The CIA’s (Largely) Secret Role In The Tibetan Resistance – Analysis

Tenzin Pema, Dorjee Damdul, Passang Dhonden, and Lobsang Gelek

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High up in the Southern Rocky Mountains of Colorado, at 9,200 feet, lies Camp Hale – widely known as the birthplace of backcountry skiing and the training grounds of the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division soldiers who fought the Nazis in World War II.

Lesser known, however, is the camp’s storied past as the CIA-operated secret training facility for Tibetan resistance fighters in the early 1960’s.

The Tibetan fighters who trained there – from 1958 to 1964 – were a part of a nationwide armed resistance movement in Tibet against Communist China.

Sixty years after the end of the operation, Camp Hale has yielded a new secret. Called “The Ranch” by the CIA and fondly referred to as “Dumra,” or garden, by the Tibetans, it was the training ground for at least 259 Tibetan fighters who were then parachuted back into Tibet and what is today Nepal to aid the Tibetan resistance against China.

Yet, until recently the exact location of the CIA’s training facility for Tibetans was lost to history. Quite like the story of Tibet’s armed resistance against China and the CIA’s role in it, it had remained shrouded in secrecy for many decades.