Special Frontier Force is known by the study of its military mission
Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: This badge represents a military alliance/pact between India, Tibet, and the United States of America. Its first combat mission was in the Chittagong Hill Tracts which unfolded on 03 November 1971. It was named Operation Eagle. It accomplished its mission of securing peace in the region that is now known as Republic of Bangladesh.The History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: “AHIMSA PARAMO DHARMAH; DHARMA HIMSA TATHIVA CHA.” Both India and Tibet recognize Non-Violence or Ahimsa as the highest principle. The military organization, Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment represents the second part of the statement; Violence or Himsa is equally the highest principle when it is necessary to defend the righteous.
The military organization which is known as Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment came into its existence during the presidency of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the second President of the Republic of India, 13 May 1962 to 13 May 1967. While Special Frontier Force is a product of Cold War Era secret diplomacy, I share my personal story, the events from early childhood, that shaped the rest of my life and has formulated my bonding with this Organization and my desire to accomplish its military mission.
The military organization which is known as Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment came into its existence during the presidency of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the second President of the Republic of India, 13 May 1962 to 13 May 1967
Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan belonged to Mylapore, Madras City (Chennai) and his daughter, Rukmini was married to the younger brother of my maternal grandfather, Dr. Kasturi. Narayana Murthy, M.D., who lived at 2/37 Kutchery Road in Mylapore. I was born in my grandfather’s residence. While I lived in Mylapore and later during my regular summer vacations spent in Madras City, I used to visit Dr. Radhakrishnan’s daughter’s residence daily. At that time, Dr. Radhakrishnan served as the first Vice President of India (1952-1962). I clearly remember the celebration of 2500th Birth Anniversary of Gautama Buddha on May 24, 1956, while I was in Mylapore, Madras City (Chennai). In India’s capital City of New Delhi, the celebration was attended by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and the 10th Panchen Lama Rinpoche. The Institution of Dalai Lama is the central focus of Tibetan Cultural Identity and Tibetan national character.
Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and the history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: In India, school children celebrate Dr. Radhakrishnan’s birthday (05 September) as Teacher’s Day and every year that I spent as a student, I had a special reason to remember my family connection with his daughter and the Indian President. He correctly predicted the need for military action to fight injustice and during his Presidency, India bravely resisted the Chinese aggression and thousands of Indian Army soldiers gave their precious lives to defend India. It inspired me to serve in the Indian Armed Forces to continue the task of opposing, and resisting the threat posed by Communist China.
India – Tibet Relations From 1950 to 1962:
The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: The Celebration of 2500th Anniversary of the birth of Gautama Buddha (Buddha Jayanti) in New Delhi on May 24, 1956 displays the historical connection between India, and Tibet. Prime Minister Nehru, President Rajendra Prasad, the 14th Dalai Lama, and the 10th Panchen Lama, Rinpoche are seen in this photo image. Because of Gautama Buddha, India, and Tibet are natural allies. But, the complex, political, and military relationship developed as a reaction to the People’s Republic of China’s invasion of Tibet in 1950.The History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: The President of India Babu Rajendra Prasad with the visiting His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, and Panchen Lama Rinpoche. India, and Tibet, during 1956 tried to resolve the crisis imposed by China using peaceful, diplomatic negotiations.The History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: The military occupation of Tibet by Communist China shaped the historical, cultural, religious relationship between India, and Tibet. It commenced an entirely new era in which both India and Tibet are driven by the same kind of security concerns. Prime Minister Chou En-Lai represents the face of that danger that forced Prime Minister Nehru to know and appreciate the nature of Tibetan Nation as represented by the 14th Dalai Lama and the 10th Panchen Lama Rinpoche.
India achieved its full independence from the British rule on August 15, 1947. India became the Republic of India on January 26, 1950. Dr. Babu Rajendra Prasad became the first President of the Republic of India. The first general elections were held in 1952, and Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who was at that time-serving as India’s ambassador to the Soviet Union, was elected as the first Vice President and he served a second term as the Vice President from 1957 to 1962. India witnessed a major military threat to its Himalayan frontier when the People’s Republic of China sent its army during October 1950 to occupy Tibet while Tibetans had no ability to resist such a massive, military invasion of their territory. Tibet tried to resolve the issue using diplomacy. Tibet requested India to bring the issue to the attention of the United Nations to adopt a resolution against the Communist invasion. At that time Tibet was still following the policy of political isolationism, and neutralism and was not recognized by the United Nations as a member nation. The United States was fighting the Korean War and was fully interested in preventing the spread of Communism in Asia. However, Tibet did not request for direct, US military intervention. India did not have the necessary military force of its own to intervene inside Tibet. At the same time, India also actively pursued its own policy of political neutralism that is known as the Nonaligned Movement to reduce the political tensions caused by the Cold War. India thought that the crisis in Tibet could be resolved by directly negotiating with China without involving the United Nations and without antagonizing its security interests in defending Kashmir from military aggression by Pakistan and its allies in the West. During 1951 Communist China had imposed a 17-Point Agreement on Tibet while Tibetans had no capacity to defend their rights; the Agreement of the Central People’s Government and the Local Government of Tibet on 23rd May 1951 to take measures for the “Peaceful Liberation of Tibet.” China started quoting this agreement to justify its illegal and unjust military occupation of Tibet. It must be clearly understood that the Great Fifth Dalai Lama founded the “Ganden Phodrang” Government of Tibet in 1642. The successive Dalai Lamas have headed the Tibetan State for nearly four centuries. Towards the end of the Qing Dynasty or Ching Dynasty, the Great 13th Dalai Lama declared Tibet’s Independence from Manchu China. From 1911 to 1950 – 39-Years, Tibet was an independent Nation before the creation of this political entity called The People’s Republic of China.
Tibet tried its very best to appease the Communist Party Chairman Mao Tse-Tung until 1954-1955. China took full political, and military advantage of Tibet’s isolationism and took every possible measure to deny the freedom that Tibetans had enjoyed for several centuries in spite of sporadic foreign invasions by the Mongols, and later by the Manchus. In the past, the foreign rulers of Tibet did not intervene in Tibet’s internal affairs and their traditional style of governance through the institution of the Dalai Lama or the “Ganden Phodrang” Government continued for four centuries.
The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: The photo image of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in Peking. Tibet tried its very best to appease the Communist Party Chairman Mao Tse-Tung until 1954-1955. China took full political, and military advantage of Tibet’s isolationism and took every possible measure to deny the freedom that Tibetans had enjoyed for several centuries in spite of sporadic foreign invasions by the Mongols, and later by the Manchus. In the past, the foreign rulers of Tibet did not intervene in Tibet’s internal affairs and their traditional style of governance through the institution of the Dalai Lama or the “Ganden Phodrang” Government continued for four centuries.The History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama with India’s President and Vice President. Both India and Tibet had strongly desired to resolve the conflict with communist China using diplomacy. The existence of an autonomous Tibetan nation serves the best interests of Indian national security.
Both India and Tibet had strongly desired to resolve the conflict with communist China using diplomacy. The existence of an autonomous Tibetan nation serves the best interests of Indian national security.India and Tibet had no intentions to formulate a military alliance/pact in response to China’s military occupation. They had expected that China would consent to release its military grip and allow full autonomy.
The History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: India and Tibet had no intentions to formulate a military alliance/pact in response to China’s military occupation. They had expected that China would consent to release its military grip and allow full autonomy. A banquet held in Ashoka Hotel, New Delhi in 1956 to honor the visiting Head of State, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet who is seen seated between Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Ms. Indira Gandhi.
India desired to promote international peace and tried to avoid armed conflicts. The burden imposed by China’s military occupation of Tibet was viewed with concern, but India tried the use of diplomacy and avoid war.India and Tibet tried to cultivate a friendly relationship with China and its failure was caused by China’s policy of Expansionism.
The photo images of Prime Minister Chou En-Lai, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and the 14th Dalai Lama demonstrate the desire of India to promote peaceful co-existence. These efforts towards peaceful co-existence with Communist China had utterly failed during 1957-58. Establishment No. 22 represents the failure of India’s peace initiative. The military occupation of Tibet is not a friendly posture and China could not be trusted as a friend.
The History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: Both India and Tibet desired friendly and peaceful relations with China. Prime Minister Chou En-Lai is seen here with the 14th Dalai Lama, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and his daughter Ms. Indira Gandhi during his visit to New Delhi in 1956. These efforts towards peaceful co-existence with Communist China had utterly failed during 1957-58.The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: India and Tibet tried to cultivate a friendly relationship with China and its failure was caused by China’s policy of Expansionism. Prime Minister Chou En-Lai’s visit to New Delhi in 1956.The History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: India desired to promote international peace and tried to avoid armed conflicts. The burden imposed by China’s military occupation of Tibet was viewed with concern, but India tried the use of diplomacy and avoid war. A ceremony to honor Prime Minister Chou En-Lai, and the 14th Dalai Lama during their visit to New Delhi in 1956.The History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: The photo images of Prime Minister Chou En-Lai, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and the 14th Dalai Lama demonstrate the desire of India to promote peaceful co-existence. Establishment No. 22 represents the failure of India’s peace initiative. The military occupation of Tibet is not a friendly posture and China could not be trusted as a friend.
While Tibet tried its very best to please the Communist leaders of China, India had also pursued a similar policy to befriend China to address the problem of the military threat posed by the military occupation of Tibet. The “Panchsheela” Agreement of 1954 between India and People’s Republic of China recognizes Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, and India agreed to withdraw its very small, military presence in Tibet. India believed that China would grant full autonomy to Tibet and preserve the political, and cultural institutions of Tibet.
It must be noted that Tibet did not recognize or endorse the Panchsheela Agreement made by India and China.
The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: Chinese Prime Minister Zhou En-Lai visited New Delhi, India in June 1954 after his initiative called the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (PANCHSHEEL). The first President of India, Rajendra Prasad (first right), Vice President Radhakrishnan third right, and India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru is at the far left.
Indian Vice President Dr. Radhakrishnan made an unsuccessful attempt to resolve the problem of the military occupation of Tibet. He visited Peking during September/October 1957 and met with various Communist Party leaders including Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, and President Liu Shao-Chi (Liu Shaoqi), and Party General Secretary Teng Hsiao-Ping (Deng Xiaoping).Indian Vice President Radhakrishnan could not get any concessions from the Communist leaders. China had determined to pursue a policy of Expansionism and had tripled the size of its country using its superior military power.
The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22- Vikas Regiment: Indian Vice President Dr. Radhakrishnan made an unsuccessful attempt to resolve the problem of the military occupation of Tibet. He visited Peking during September 1957 and met with various Communist Party leaders including Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, and President Liu Shao-Chi (Liu Shaoqi), and Party General Secretary Teng Hsiao-Ping (Deng Xiaoping).The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22- Vikas Regiment: Indian Vice President Radhakrishnan visited Peking during September/October 1957 and could not get any concessions from the Communist leaders. China had determined to pursue a policy of Expansionism and had tripled the size of its country using its superior military power.
The Origin of Special Frontier Force – Establishment No. 22:
The need for the use of military force became inevitable after China made it abundantly clear that it would not negotiate its military occupation of Tibet and would not allow the traditional form of Tibetan Government as represented by the Institution of the Dalai Lama. The Tibetan Resistance Movement began with a very modest attempt to train some Tibetan nationals to fight the Chinese People’s Liberation Army that occupied Tibet.
1957 was a turning point. India had recognized that its foreign policy of political neutralism was of no use and had started depending upon the United States to address the military threat posed by China’s occupation of Tibet. But, the effort was too modest and both India and the United States had grossly underestimated the strength of the People’s Liberation Army. Camp Hale at Colorado represents one aspect of CIA operation and had been called ST CIRCUS.
The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22- Vikas Regiment: 1957 was a turning point. India had recognized that its foreign policy of political neutralism was of no use and had started depending upon the United States to address the military threat posed by China’s occupation of Tibet. But, the effort was too modest and both India and the United States had grossly underestimated the strength of the People’s Liberation Army. Camp Hale at Colorado represents one aspect of CIA operation and had been called ST CIRCUS.The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment can be traced back to 1957-58 when the CIA launched Operation ST CIRCUS. This Commemoration on September 10, 2010, was the first time that the US had officially acknowledge the CIA operation with the Tibetans and it includes the Mustang (Nepal) Operation.
During 1957 it became very clear that Communist China would not relax its military grip over Tibet, and the hopes for limited Tibetan autonomy evaporated. Both India, and Tibet had agreed to seek American military intervention, and it must be believed that India only wanted a covert, military operation to build and establish a Tibetan Resistance Movement to challenge and overthrow the Chinese military regime in Tibet. The climax of this Tibetan Resistance was during March 1959, and China using its vastly superior military power easily crushed this Tibetan Uprising. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama had no choice; he and his close followers fled Tibet to seek political asylum in India.
The arrival of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in India to seek political asylum represents the failure of CIA’s covert operation inside Tibet. CIA had grossly underestimated the intelligence capabilities of Communist China.
The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: The arrival of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in India to seek political asylum represents the failure of CIA’s covert operation inside Tibet. CIA had grossly underestimated the intelligence capabilities of Communist China.
India received His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama with due dignity reflecting India’s belief that the Dalai Lama is the traditional Head of Tibet, an autonomous nation.
The military tyranny imposed by Communist China’s occupation had forced Tibet to break-free from its traditional policy of political isolationism and it is not a big surprise if Tibet finds India as its natural ally.
The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22: The Journey of a political refugee. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama arrived in India on 31 March 1959 and was presented a Guard of Honor by the Assam Rifles in the Tawang Sector of the North East Frontier Agency which is renamed as Arunachal Pradesh.The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: Indian President Babu Rajendra Prasad received His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama with due dignity reflecting India’s belief that the Dalai Lama is the traditional Head of Tibet, an autonomous nation.The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: The military tyranny imposed by Communist China’s occupation had forced Tibet to break-free from its traditional policy of political isolationism and it is not a big surprise to find India as its natural ally. Vice President Radhakrishnan is seen with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.
The 1962 India – China War:
The History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: Prior to the 1962 India-China War, the Tibetan Resistance Movement had no permanent base in India. The War had forced India to strengthen the Tibetan Resistance Movement and provide it a permanent base within Indian territory. Indian Armed Forces played a major role in training the members of Special Frontier Force with financial, and technical assistance provided by the United States.
I must admit that the Chinese brutal attacks across the Himalayan frontier during October 1962 came as a shocking surprise to me and to most people all over India. To some extent, India, Tibet, and the United States had lacked the intelligence capabilities to know the intentions and the capabilities of their enemy. The costs of this 1962 War would be known if China takes courage and openly admits the numbers of its soldiers wounded, and killed in action. China paid a heavy price and had utterly failed to obtain legitimacy for its military occupation of Tibet.
The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: The 1962 War between India and China paved the way towards a better understanding of India’s security concerns and the need for military alliance/pact with a friendly power like the United States to meet the challenge posed by Communist China. I appreciate Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for his idealistic views and aspiration to be known as a peacemaker. He finally recognized the need for a strong, well-equipped Army.
The 1962 War of Aggression launched by Communist China had a decisive influence on my personal life. I was a college student, and I was in the first year of my 3-year Bachelor of Science degree course. I felt a strong urge to join India’s Armed Forces to specifically address the military threat posed by China. The 1962 War was a conflict imposed by China to teach India a lesson. Later, official documents released by China describe that Chairman Mao Tse-Tung took punitive action to teach a lesson to India when it launched a massive war of retribution attacking Indian Army positions across the entire Himalayan frontier in October 1962. Chairman Mao Tse-Tung was angered by the support extended by India to Tibet to counter the military occupation. Chairman Mao resented India’s role in helping the covert operation of the Central Intelligence Agency and had called it an “Imperialist” conspiracy or plot against China. China had utterly failed to achieve its objectives and the War ended when China declared a unilateral ceasefire on November 21, 1962, and withdrew from the captured Himalayan territory. It should be noted that India did not request China to declare this ceasefire. India did not promise that it will withhold the support that it extends to the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. The Secret White House Recordings of the US President John F Kennedy reveal that Kennedy had threatened to nuke China in 1962 and I must say that the threat achieved its purpose and had forced China to stop its military aggression and withdraw unilaterally without demanding any concessions from India, or Tibet.
The Birth of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22:
The History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: The People’s Republic of China could not alter the course of India’s foreign policy. The 1962 War launched by China ended very abruptly when China declared a unilateral ceasefire and withdrew from the captured territory on November 21, 1962. President Kennedy played a decisive role by threatening to “NUKE” China.
President John F. Kennedy immediately responded to the Chinese attack on India. Apart from delivery of arms and ammunition, and other military supplies, American aircraft carried out photo missions over the Indo-Tibetan border. In a meeting held on November 19, 1962 at the White House, President Kennedy, Dean David Rusk (Secretary of State), Averell Harriman (Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs), Robert McNamara (Secretary of Defense), General Paul Adams (Chief of the US Strike Command), John Kenneth Galbraith (US Ambassador to India), John A McCone (Director of Central Intelligence Agency), Desmond Fitzgerald (the Far Eastern CIA Chief), James Critchfield (the Near East CIA Chief), John Kenneth Knaus (CIA’s Tibet Task Force), and David Blee (CIA Station Chief in New Delhi) had decided upon a military aid package in support of the newly created military organization in India which was initially named as Establishment No. 22 and later the name Special Frontier Force was added to describe the location of its headquarters in New Delhi.
The History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: In the Cold War Era of Silence and Secrecy, India was fortunate to find the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, Averell Harriman who played a crucial role in developing the military response to the 1962 War.The History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: John Kenneth Galbraith, the US Ambassador to India played a very helpful role to bring India, and the United States to come together on mutual security concerns and to build a personal relationship between the leaders. This photo image is from 1961 taken during Prime Minister Nehru’s visit to Washington D.C.The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: President Radhakrishnan visiting Indian Army units during the 1962 India-China War. India withstood the attack by Communist China and it soon recovered from its wounds and regained its full confidence to engage China on the battlefield.The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: President Radhakrishnan with Officers of Indian Army during the 1962 India-China War. India understood the need for better preparedness to fight future wars and decided to maintain its support to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, the Head of Tibetan nation who was granted political asylum in India.The History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: President Radhakrishnan is seen speaking to news reporters during the 1962 War. India was not deterred by Chinese aggression and had boldly continued the support it extended to the Tibetan Government-in-Exile.
The 1962 India-China War, a military conflict that was initiated by China accomplished the exact opposite of what China had planned to accomplish.
1. India became more firmly aligned with the United States discarding its original policy of political neutralism.
2. The level of cooperation between the Central Intelligence Agency and India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW-The Intelligence Bureau of India) became greatly enhanced.
3. India started increasing its own defense-preparedness and strengthened its military capabilities to fight a future war with China.
4. India was not deterred by the Chinese attack and decided to substantially increase its involvement with the Tibetan Resistance Movement. India made the commitment to provide a permanent base to the Tibetan Resistance Movement apart from hosting the Tibetan Government-in-Exile.
5. India, Tibet, and the United States joined together in a military alliance/pact leading to the creation of the military organization called the Establishment No. 22 which is later formally named The Special Frontier Force to describe its official Headquarters in New Delhi.
President Radhakrishnan’s Historic Visit to The United States on June 03/04, 1963:
President John F. Kennedy is known to me for he founded the military organization called the Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment, in 1962 to secure Freedom, Democracy, Peace, and Justice in the occupied Land of Tibet. President Kennedy acted as a ‘True Neighbor’ of Tibet when he acted with compassion after recognizing the plight of helpless Tibetan people. The United States must reflect its true national values in the manner in which it treats its alien residents.
After the conclusion of the 1962 War with China, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s personal health demanded a serious attention and President Radhakrishnan performed the historical journey to the United States on June 03/04 to meet the US President John F. Kennedy to express India’s solidarity with the United States in promoting Peace and Democracy, and the visit displays the trust, and confidence placed by India in the future of their mutual military assistance, and cooperation. I am happy to share several photo images of that visit.
The History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: June 03/04, 1963. The historic visit by President Radhakrishnan to affirm India’s friendly relationship with the United States in their policy towards China.The History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: June 03/04, 1963. President Radhakrishnan’s visit affirms the appreciation for American support during the 1962 India-China War.The History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: June 03, 1963, Indian President Radhakrishnan by his visit acknowledges the India-Tibet-US military alliance/pact to oppose the military threat posed by China.The History of Special Frontier Force – Establishment No. 22-Vikas RegimentThe History of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment is linked to the presidency of John F. Kennedy.
I met President Radhakrishnan at his Mylapore residence after his retirement during 1967. At that time, both of us were not aware that the very first posting of my career in the Indian Armed Forces would be that of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22 that was created during his presidency. In India, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan is recognized as a teacher, philosopher, and a statesman. He is never described as the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces. I was granted Commission to serve in the Indian Army at the pleasure of the President of India, and my posting order to serve as a Medical Officer in Establishment No. 22 – Special Frontier Force was issued under the authority of the Ministry of Defence which functions under the powers sanctioned by the President of India.
The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: This photo image shows Vice President Radhakrishnan at his New Delhi residence during 1960. The events from 1957 to 1962 shaped Indian foreign policy and it paved the way for alignment with the United States to oppose the military threat posed by the People’s Republic of China. I met President Radhakrishnan at his Mylapore, Madras(Chennai) residence after completion of his term of presidency in 1967. He prefers to read while relaxing in his bed. This is the image, I still carry in my memory.The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22-Vikas Regiment: This is a photo image taken at Sarasawa airfield that proudly displays the National Flag of Tibet. Special Frontier Force is a living military organization that is facing its future with hope and encouragement from the United States, India, and Tibet.
Richard Nixon’s flight to Peking on February 21, 1972 changed the World for Worse. The Most Unfortunate Week in the US History
The most unfortunate week in the US history-February 21-27, 1972.
While the US troops fight the biggest battle on February 25, 1972, near Saigon in Vietnam, the US President Richard Nixon spent time in Peking befriending the adversary, giving care and comfort to the Enemy while Americans bled on the battlefield.
Monday, February 21, 1972
At 7 a.m., Guam time, the President and Mrs. Nixon left Guam International Airport for Shanghai, their first stop in the People’s Republic of China. They arrived, after a 4-hour flight, at Hung Chiao (Rainbow Bridge) Airport, Shanghai, at 9 a.m., China time, where they were greeted by officials of the People’s Republic, headed by Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Ch’iao Kuan-hua. After refreshments and a tour of the terminal, the Presidential party again boarded the Spirit of ’76, accompanied by Vice Minister Ch’iao, Chang Wen Chen and Wang Hai-jun of the Foreign Ministry, a Chinese navigator, radio operator, and three interpreters, for the final leg of the flight to Peking.
At about 11:30 a.m., China time, the party arrived at Capital Airport near Peking. Premier Chou En-lai greeted the President and members of his party, stood with the President for the playing of the national anthems of the two countries, and accompanied the President in a review of the troops.
The Premier then accompanied the President in a motorcade to Peking, to Tiao Yu Tai (Angling Terrace), the guest house where the President and Mrs. Nixon would stay during their visit.
In the afternoon, the President met for an hour with Chairman Mao Tse-tung at the Chairman’s residence and for an hour with Premier Chou and other officials in plenary session at the Great Hall of the People.
The President and Mrs. Nixon were guests of Premier Chou at a banquet in the Great Hall of the People in the evening.
Tuesday, February 22, 1972
After a morning of staff meetings and attention to other White House business, the President met for 4 hours with Premier Chou in the Great Hall.
The First Lady visited the kitchen of the Peking Hotel, where she toured food preparation and cooking areas, and talked with cooks and helpers. She was accompanied by Mme. Lin Chia-mei, wife of Vice Premier Li Hsien Nien, Mme. Chi Peng-fei, wife of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Sun Hsin-mang, head of the revolutionary committee of the hotel. During the tour, Mrs. Nixon told reporters of plans for the People’s Republic to present to the people of America two giant pandas, in appreciation for the two musk oxen which were to be given to the Peking Zoo on behalf of the people of the United States.
In the afternoon, Mrs. Nixon visited the Sununer Palace, an imperial residence and garden during the Ching Dynasty. She toured rooms used by the Empress Tzu Hsi and walked in the gardens, viewing the lake Kunming and Longevity Hill. She then went to the Peking Zoo and saw the zoo’s pandas.
In the evening, the President and First Lady attended a cultural program with Premier and Madame Chou and Chiang Ch’ing, the wife of Chairman Mao Tse-tung. They saw a performance of the ballet, “The Red Detachment of Women.”
Wednesday, February 23, 1972
The President and Premier Chou met in the afternoon for four hours of discussions at the guest house where the President was staying.
The First Lady visited the Evergreen People’s Commune on the west edge of Peking. In her hour-long tour, she visited the commune’s clinic, where she observed acupuncture treatments, second- and third-grade classrooms, a commune home, agricultural areas and greenhouses, and a dri goods store.
In the afternoon, Mrs. Nixon visited the Peking Glassware Factory and talked with workers making glass flowers and animals.
In the evening, with Premier Chou En-lai, the President and Mrs. Nixon attended a public exhibition of gymnastics, badminton, and table tennis at the Capital Gymnasium.
Thursday, February 24, 1972
The President and Mrs. Nixon, accompanied by Vice Premier Li Hsien-nien, drove 35 miles north of Peking to visit the Ba Da Ling portion of the Great Wall of China, and then the tombs of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty.
In the afternoon, the President and Premier Chou met again for three hours of discussion. The President and Mrs. Nixon later attended an informal private dinner hosted by Premier Chou in the Great Hall.
Friday, February 25, 1972
In the morning, the President and Mrs. Nixon went to the Forbidden City, the site in Peking of the residence of the emperors for some 8oo years prior to the early 20th century. They were accompanied by Marshal Yeh Chien-ying, Vice Chairman of the Military Affairs Commission.
In the afternoon, the President met again with Premier Chou for an hour.
The First Lady toured the Peking Children’s Hospital.
Marking the final evening of their Peking, stay, the President and the First Lady hosted a banquet honoring Premier Chou and other Chinese officials in the Great Hall.
Saturday, February 26, 1972
At the Peking Airport, the President and Premier Chou and other officials of the United States and the People’s Republic met in plenary session for approximately one hour.
The President and the First Lady, with Premier Chou, then boarded the Premier’s plane for the flight to Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China. From Hangzhou Airport, they drove to a guest house on West Lake, a park and recreational site. where they were to spend the night.
In the afternoon, they joined in a walking tour of Flower Fort Park and a boat tour of West Lake, stopping briefly at the Island of Three Towers Reflecting the Moon. Mrs. Nixon also visited the Temple of the Great Buddha.
They were entertained in the evening at a banquet given by the Chekiang Province Revolutionary Committee.
Sunday, February 27, 1972
With Premier Chou, the President and the First Lady flew in the Premier’s plane from Hangzhou Airport to Shanghai. From Shanghai Airport, they motorcaded to the Shanghai Industrial Exhibition, where, with Premier Chou, they toured exhibits of heavy machinery and electronic equipment, handicrafts, surgical techniques, textiles, light industry, musical instruments, toys, and arts and crafts.
Mrs. Nixon also visited the Shanghai Municipal Children’s Palace, where she watched demonstrations of dancing, gymnastics, a puppet show, theatrics, swordplay, and art by students at the center. Her guide was Chang Hong, a fifth-grade student.
In the late afternoon, the joint communique agreed upon by the President and Premier Chou was released.
In the evening, the President and First Lady were guests at a banquet in the Shanghai Exhibition Hall hosted by the Shanghai Municipal Revolutionary Committee. Premier Chou and Committee Chairman Chang Ch’un-ch’iao then accompanied the President and Mrs. Nixon to a cultural program of acrobatics in the Exhibition Hall.
Monday, February 28, 1972
Premier Chou visited with the President for an hour at the Ching Kiang guest house and then accompanied the Presidential party to the airport for official farewells before the takeoff for the return flight at 10 a.m.
Crossing the International Date Line, the Spirit of ’76 arrived at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Anchorage, Alaska, at midnight on Sunday, February 27, Alaska time. The President and the First Lady spent the night at the residence of the Commanding General and left for the final leg of the flight to Washington at 9:40 a.m. on Monday, February 28, Alaska time.
The official party arrived at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington at 9:15 p.m, E.S.T.
U.S. troops fight the biggest battle in nearly a year
The most unfortunate week in the US history-February 21-27, 1972. Black Day to Freedom. Vietnamese soldiers survey the ruins of An Loc during a lull in the two-month battle for the province town in Vietnam on June 28, 1972. The North Vietnamese used armor in the siege of the major rubber town, but failed to take An Loc.
U.S. troops clash with North Vietnamese forces in a major battle 42 miles east of Saigon, the biggest single U.S. engagement with an enemy force in nearly a year. The five-hour action around a communist bunker line resulted in four dead and 47 wounded, almost half the U.S. weekly casualties.
The most unfortunate week in the US history-February 21-27, 1972. Black Day to FreedomThe most unfortunate week in the US history-February 21-27, 1972. BLACK DAY TO FREEDOMThe most unfortunate week in the US history-February 21-27, 1972. TIBET CONSCIOUSNESS – HOPE FOR FREEDOM. US PRESIDENT NIXON’S VISIT TO COMMUNIST CHINA IS BLACK DAY TO FREEDOM.The most unfortunate week in the US history-February 21-27, 1972. BLACK DAY TO FREEDOM – JULY 15, 1971. US PRESIDENT RICHARD M NIXON ANNOUNCES HIS TRIP TO COMMUNIST CHINA. NIXON-KISSINGER DECISION TO BACKSTAB TIBET TO PLAY A DIRTY SINFUL GAME IN THE NAME OF “REALPOLITIK.” The most unfortunate week in the US history-February 21-27, 1972.
RICHARD NIXON’S FLIGHT TO PEKING. THE WEEK THAT CHANGED THE WORLD FOR WORSE.
Richard Nixon Visits Peking. The Week That Doomed My World. The most unfortunate week in the US history-February 21-27, 1972
My arrival at the US built airfield in Doom Dooma, Tinsukia District, Assam, India during the Week of February 1972 marks an event that Doomed my World.
Richard Nixon Visits Peking. The Week That Doomed My World. The most unfortunate week in the US history-February 21-27, 1972Black Day to Freedom – Whole Villain – Nixon – Mao cartoon. The most unfortunate week in the US history-February 21-27, 1972
I live in the United States, the Leader of the Free World, a Free Nation which gives me no sense of hope for my future Life. I constantly experience the Misery, the Despair, the Frustration, the Disappointment, the Pain, and the Feelings of Hopelessness that describe the lives of Tibetans living in Occupied Tibet.
Richard Nixon visits Peking
The Year 1972
President Richard Nixon visits the People’s Republic of China. After arriving in Peking, the president announced that his breakthrough visitto China is “The week that changed the world.” In meeting with Nixon, Prime Minister Zhou Enlai urged early peace in Vietnam but did not endorse North Vietnam’s political demands. North Vietnamese officials and peace negotiators took a dim view of Nixon’s trip, fearing that China and the United States would make a deal behind their backs. Nixon’s promise to reduce the U.S. military presence on Taiwan seemed to confirm North Vietnam’s fears of a Chinese-American sellout-trading U.S. military reduction in Taiwan for peace in Vietnam.
Despite Hanoi’s fears, China continued to supply North Vietnam levels of aid that had increased significantly in late 1971. This aid permitted the North Vietnamese to launch a major new offensive in March 1972.
1972
Richard Nixon makes the first U.S. presidential visit to Peking
President Richard M. Nixon arrives in Peking, the capital of the People’s Republic of China, on the first presidential visit to the world’s most populous nation. The U.S. federal government had formally opposed China’s communist government since it took power in 1949,
1848
Karl Marx publishes the Communist Manifesto
On February 21, 1848, The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx with the assistance of Friedrich Engels, is published in London by a group of German-born revolutionary socialists known as the Communist League.
Vietnam War
1970
Kissinger begins secret negotiations with North Vietnamese
National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger begins secret peace talks with North Vietnamese representative Le Duc Tho, the fifth-ranking member of the Hanoi Politburo, at a villa outside Paris.
1972
Nixon arrives in Peking for talks
In an amazing turn of events, President Richard Nixon takes a dramatic first step toward normalizing relations with the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) by traveling to Peking for a week of talks.
Richard Nixon Visits Peking. The Week My World Doomed. The most unfortunate week in the US history-February 21-27, 1972The most unfortunate week in the US history-February 21-27, 1972. The Vietnam War Memorial reminds me of the Unfinished Korea-Vietnam War.
Whole Dude – Whole Equilibrium: Nature grants Freedom to Tibetans without the need for raising questions.
Excerpt: In my analysis, Tibet Equilibrium is about balancing physical force applied by Communist regime to overcome Nature’s Agenda of granting freedom without asking questions. Living Tibetan Spirits speak of Nature’s Agenda in Tibet. Freedom and Independence are gifts of Nature quietly operating across Tibetan Plateau long before the arrival of Anatomically Modern Man. Occupying force wielded by Communist China creates imbalance, disharmony, and discord in the lives of Tibetans who view freedom as natural experience.
WHAT IS TIBET EQUILIBRIUM? I CONSIDER NATURAL CAUSES, NATURAL FACTORS, NATURAL CONDITIONS, NATURAL MECHANISMS, AND NATURAL EVENTS THAT CAN RESTORE NATURAL FREEDOM IN OCCUPIED TIBET.
Natural Sciences such as Physics and Geology describe Natural Forces that are at work shaping Natural Events such as Plate Tectonics that involves collision between plates of Earth’s mantle. For Life to exist on planet Earth, the physical conditions and forces interacting must generate Natural Balance, Natural Order, and Natural Equilibrium for sustained periods of time.
WHAT IS TIBET EQUILIBRIUM? WHAT IS THE CONNECTION BETWEEN POPIGAI IMPACT CRATER IN RUSSIA AND SOUTHERN TIBET UPLIFT?
During the time of ‘Rapid Uplift of Southern Tibet’, planet Earth witnessed massive collision by a meteorite that caused very significant impact crater in Siberia, Russia. This Natural Collision Event, Russia’s Popigai Meteor Crash, contributed to extinction of several species of Life.
I investigate Natural Causes, Natural Factors, Natural Conditions, and Natural Mechanisms that shape Natural Events such as Major and Minor Extinction Events.
What is Tibet Equilibrium? Can Bolide Collision Restore Natural Freedom in Occupied Tibet?
Human History is full of events that involve use of Physical Force applied by Man to change Regime, the Political Power that rules or governs lives of people.
TIBET EQUILIBRIUM – BALANCE OF POWER IN OCCUPIED TIBET. THE GREAT TIBET PROBLEM WILL EXIST UNTIL BALANCE OF POWER IS RESTORED IN OCCUPIED TIBET.
In 1950s, People’s Republic of China invaded Tibet using her superior Physical Power. Tibetans living in Occupied Tibet do not experience Natural Freedom due to change in Balance of Power that operates their lives.
Living Tibetan Spirits speak of Nature’s Agenda in Tibet. Freedom and Independence are gifts of Nature quietly operating across Tibetan Plateau long before the arrival of Anatomically Modern Man. Occupying force wielded by Communist China creates imbalance, disharmony, and discord in lives of Tibetans who view freedom as natural experience. There is no reason for Tibetans to raise their voices demanding freedom.
To again experience Natural Freedom, Tibet needs help from a Natural Event of great magnitude that applies Force or Power to cause Downfall of Power Regime that rules Tibet from its Seat of Power in Beijing. In my analysis, Bolide Collision Event described in the Book of Revelation, Chapter 18, can shake up the Seat of Power in Beijing. For that reason, I proclaim, “Beijing Doomed.”
What is Tibet Equilibrium? What are the Natural Forces acting or operating in Tibet? “Beijing Doomed,” expression of hope for restoring Natural Freedom in Occupied Tibet.
Using seismic data and supercomputers, Rice University geophysicists have conducted a massive seismic CT scan of the upper mantle beneath the Tibetan Plateau.
They concluded that the southern half of the “Roof of the World” formed in less than one-quarter of the time since the beginning of India-Eurasia continental collision.
The research, which appears online this week in the journal Nature Communications, finds that the high-elevation of Southern Tibet was largely achieved within 10 million years. Continental India’s tectonic collision with Asia began about 45 million years ago.
“The features that we see in our tomographic image are very different from what has been seen before using traditional seismic inversion techniques,” said Min Chen, the Rice research scientist who headed the project. “Because we used full waveform inversion to assimilate a large seismic data set, we were able to see more clearly how the upper-mantle lithosphere beneath Southern Tibet differs from that of the surrounding region. Our seismic image suggests that the Tibetan lithosphere thickened and formed a denser root that broke away and sank deeper into the mantle. We conclude that most of the uplift across Southern Tibet likely occurred when this lithospheric root broke away.”
The research could help answer longstanding questions about Tibet’s formation. Known as the “Roof of the World,” the Tibetan Plateau stands more than three miles above sea level. The basic story behind its creation — the tectonic collision between the Indian and Eurasian continents — is well-known to schoolchildren the world over, but the specific details have remained elusive. For example, what causes the plateau to rise and how does its high elevation impact Earth’s climate?
“The leading theory holds that the plateau rose continuously once the India-Eurasia continental collision began, and that the plateau is maintained by the northward motion of the Indian plate, which forces the plateau to shorten horizontally and move upward simultaneously,” said study co-author Fenglin Niu, a professor of Earth science at Rice. “Our findings support a different scenario, a more rapid and pulsed uplift of Southern Tibet.”
It took three years for Chen and colleagues to complete their tomographic model of the crust and upper-mantle structure beneath Tibet. The model is based on readings from thousands of seismic stations in China, Japan and other countries in East Asia. Seismometers record the arrival time and amplitude of seismic waves, pulses of energy that are released by earthquakes and that travel through Earth. The arrival time of a seismic wave at a particular seismometer depends upon what type of rock it has passed through. Working backward from instrument readings to calculate the factors that produced them is something scientists refer to as an inverse problem, and seismological inverse problems with full waveforms incorporating all kinds of usable seismic waves are some of the most complex inverse problems to solve.
Chen and colleagues used a technique called full waveform inversion, “an iterative full waveform-matching technique that uses a complicated numerical code that requires parallel computing on supercomputers,” she said.
“The technique really allows us to use all the wiggles on a large number of seismographs to build up a more realistic 3-D model of Earth’s interior, in much the same way that whales or bats use echo-location,” she said. “The seismic stations are like the ears of the animal, but the echo that they are hearing is a seismic wave that has either been transmitted through or bounced off of subsurface features inside Earth.”
The tomographic model includes features to a depth of about 500 miles below Tibet and the Himalaya Mountains. The model was computed on Rice’s DAVinCI computing cluster and on supercomputers at the University of Texas that are part of the National Science Foundation’s Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE).
“The mechanism that led to the rise of Southern Tibet is called lithospheric thickening and foundering,” Chen said. “This happened because of convergence of two continental plates, which are each buoyant and not easy to subduct underneath the other plate. One of the plates, in this case on the Tibetan side, was more deformable than the other, and it began to deform around 45 million years ago when the collision began. The crust and the rigid lid of upper mantle — the lithosphere — deformed and thickened, and the denser lower part of this thickened lithosphere eventually foundered, or broke off from the rest of the lithosphere. Today, in our model, we can see a T-shaped section of this foundered lithosphere that extends from a depth of about 250 kilometers to at least 660 kilometers.”
Chen said that after the denser lithospheric root broke away, the remaining lithosphere under Southern Tibet experienced rapid uplift in response.
“The T-shaped piece of foundered lithosphere sank deeper into the mantle and also induced hot upwelling of the asthenosphere, which leads to surface magmatism in Southern Tibet,” she said.
Such magmatism is documented in the rock record of the region, beginning around 30 million years ago in an epoch known as the Oligocene.
“The spatial correlation between our tomographic model and Oligocene magmatism suggests that the Southern Tibetan uplift happened in a relatively short geological span that could have been as short as 5 million years,” Chen said.
Additional co-authors include Adrian Lenardic, Cin-Ty Lee, Wenrong Cao and Julia Ribeiro, all of Rice, and Jeroen Tromp of Princeton University.
The research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), by the NSF’s Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) program, and by the China Earthquake Administration’s China Seismic Array Data Management Center. Rice’s DAVinCI supercomputer is administered by Rice’s Center for Research Computing and procured in partnership with the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology. The DOI of the Nature Communications paper is: 10.1038/NCOMMS15659
What is Tibet Equilibrium? How to restore Natural Freedom in Occupied Tibet?What is Tibet Equilibrium? Can Time alone restore Natural Freedom in Occupied Tibet?
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Whole Dude-Whole Fight: Shoulder Badge, Special Frontier Force
Excerpt: Both the US Government and the Central Intelligence Agency maintain their silence about the support given to the Tibetan Resistance Movement and the eventual creation of Establishment -22/Special Frontier Force, a military alliance/pact between the US, Tibet, and India to fight the military threat posed by Communist China when it occupied Tibet in 1950 and forced His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama to lead a life in exile. Indeed, that is the Whole Secret. The US, India and Tibet agreed to keep the US role in Tibet as a Secret and I signed a Declaration in Chakrata, India during September 1971 to keep the Tibet Operation as a Secret under the provisions of the Official Secret Acts of India.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Special Frontier Force remembers the 41st US President George Herbert Walker Bush for he served as the Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency. In President Gerald Ford’s final year in office, Bush was appointed Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, which was in disarray after years of scandalous revelations. Though he was only there a year, he was credited for restoring the agency’s morale, and he was well thought of by longtime hands. The main building at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Va., was renamed in his honor in 1999.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Special Frontier Force deeply mourns the loss of President George H W Bush while acknowledging the role of the US Central Intelligence Agency in fostering friendly relationships between the people of the US, India, and Tibet.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
CIA Remembers Former Director, Former President George H.W. Bush
Statement by Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Gina C. Haspel
“We’ve lost a great champion of the Agency—an accomplished Director, faithful advocate, and dear friend—with the passing of former President George H.W. Bush. As a heroic Navy pilot in the Second World War, a skilled statesman who deftly managed the collapse of the Soviet Union and liberated Kuwait from Saddam Husayn’s aggression, and a committed citizen who remained engaged in public service throughout his later years, President Bush exemplified the virtues of patriotism, duty, and compassion. Officers here at the George Bush Center for Intelligence and deployed around the globe honor the memory of a great American. On behalf of the men and women of CIA, I extend our heartfelt condolences to the Bush family.”
George Herbert Walker Bush, whose lone term as the 41st president of the United States ushered in the final days of the Cold War and perpetuated a family political dynasty that influenced American politics at both the national and state levels for decades, died Friday evening. He was 94.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Bush was the last president to have served in the military during World War II and the last whose worldview had been shaped by the imperative to contain Communist expansionism.
His experience in international diplomacy served him well as he dealt with the unraveling of the Soviet Union as an oppressive superpower, and later the rise of China as a commercial behemoth and potential partner.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
As cautious and restrained as he was in foreign matters, Bush had an inclination for personal risk-taking that showed up early in his life, when he became a carrier pilot in the war — one of the most dangerous jobs in the military — and then stuck out on his own at war’s end, eschewing a comfortable job in New York to become an oilman in Texas.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Likewise, when his interest turned to politics a decade or so later, he was more than willing to give up his executive suite for a chance at public office.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Steeped in noblesse oblige and the importance of public service, Bush always felt the lure of political life. It finally snared him in 1962 when he was chosen to head Houston’s fledgling GOP. He spent the next three decades in the political limelight, enjoying a roller-coaster career that saw more defeats than victories yet improbably landed him in the White House.
Bush was elected president in 1988 as the successor to Ronald Reagan, a conservative icon whom he ran against and then served as vice president. Unlike Reagan, he was a pragmatic leader guided by moderation, consensus building, and a sense for problem-solving shorn of partisan rhetoric. Like his father, who served in the U.S. Senate, he swore no allegiance to orthodox tenets. That put him at odds with a take-no-prisoners attitude of a new breed of Republicans and helped do in his reelection bid, sending him home to Houston in forced retirement.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Most of Bush’s political career was spent in appointed jobs, where he demonstrated loyalty and a quick-study competence, rarely making headlines. Expectations were modest when he became president. Many in his party hoped he would simply follow in Reagan’s footsteps. Instead, he quickly distinguished himself as the postwar order began to undergo dramatic changes.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Bush was put to the test shortly after taking office. Surging movements in Eastern Europe saw opportunity to free themselves from the Soviet yoke, thanks in part to the liberalizing influence of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Bush’s measured response allowed events to unfold, including the destruction of the Berlin Wall, without triggering potentially catastrophic responses from Soviet hard-liners.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Bush again displayed his diplomatic skills in the summer of 1990 when he coordinated a multinational response to the military invasion of tiny Middle East nation Kuwait by neighboring Iraq and its dictator, Saddam Hussein. The victorious Operation Desert Storm brought high approval ratings that appeared to guarantee a second term.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Domestic matters proved a different sort of challenge. Plagued by inherited budget deficits and a Congress under the control of Democrats, Bush was pushed into a tax increase that belied his explicit promise to allow none. He agreed to it because he recognized it was in the country’s best interest, but the political damage was severe. His reelection bid fell short, a failing that haunted him for years. Uncharacteristically, it even caused him to wonder whether history would regard him as a failed president.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
“I think over the years he fares well,” said presidential historian Henry Brands, the author of seven presidential biographies and a professor at the University of Texas. “If voters have a referendum and they vote you down, that automatically puts you down a rung. It’s unfair. Bush always was rated very highly by historians more than he was by the public. I think that is changing.”
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Bush was born into privilege and reared in the cradle of America’s economic aristocracy, yet from an early age, he refused to ride the coattails of entitlement. Approaching his graduation from Yale University in 1948, he was offered a job at his family’s Wall Street investment firm, close to his native Connecticut. He turned it down. Whatever his destiny, he vowed that it would be fully earned.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
So began a remarkable journey that would lead him from the elegant estates of New England to the dusty plains of West Texas, to the leafy precincts of Houston’s nicest neighborhoods, to foreign capitals and back to America’s own, into political campaigns at the humblest level and one that ultimately netted him the White House.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Bush’s long life encompassed the full arc of the 20th century, beginning in an era of steamships and a new ideology called communism, and ending as American spaceships explored distant planets and the hammer-and-sickle was mostly a fading emblem on old flags. He was to be the last president of his generation, which came of age during the Great Depression, participated in a cataclysmic world war, and ushered in unprecedented American power and prosperity.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Turning away from the preordained comfortable life, Bush struck out for Texas and found success, first as an independent oilman and later as a young Congressman from Houston. The misfortune of bad timing hurt him at times in his pursuit of higher office, yet a string of high-profile appointed positions reflected the faith others had in his ability and kept alive his dream of fulfilling his father’s prediction that someday he would become president.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
“The world was fortunate to have his background and instincts at a turning point,” said Robert Gates, who served as Bush’s CIA director and deputy national security adviser. “The collapse and end of the Cold War look sort of pre-ordained in hindsight, but for those who were there, it was not clear how it would happen.”
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Gates, who served in eight presidential administrations, suggested that Bush never received the credit he deserved for quietly “greasing the skids” that saw communists slide from power in the Soviet Union.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
“There is no precedent in all of history for the collapse of a heavily armed empire without a major war,” Gates said. “He was a figure of enormous historical importance.”
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Though Bush came to be widely respected by foreign leaders and diplomats, his political profile at home was different. He had long been dogged by assertions that he was a bland and hazy character, aloof and dilettantish. The image baffled him and many who knew him. He was chided for a lack of apparent vision, yet it was not his nature to view himself as a visionary.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
“What’s wrong with trying to help people,” he once asked. “What’s wrong with trying to bring peace? What’s wrong with trying to make the world a little better?”
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
To some, Bush paled in comparison to his strong-willed predecessor in the White House, but he was simply a different breed of politician: a traditional Republican whose belief in limited government was in no way at odds with his view that public service was a calling.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Reagan’s famous maxim that government was not the solution to a problem but the problem itself was not Bush’s view, which might explain why his single term arguably resulted in more significant legislative achievements than Reagan’s two, among them the Americans with Disabilities Act, a bolstered Clean Air Act, and an increased minimum wage.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Bush’s career from start to finish, especially as president, was largely free of scandal or great controversy, with one troubling exception — his role as vice president in the Iran-Contra scandal.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
His ethical standards rarely were questioned. His judgment was the product of studied deliberation and ample give-and-take with advisers. He regularly entertained Democratic leaders at the White House and made a great effort to develop personal relationships over drinks and a game of horseshoes, just as he had in the diplomatic world over many years.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
“President Bush was inclined to forgive and forget past slights, defeats, and even outrages,” said longtime aide Chase Untermeyer. “Thus did he offer rides to Maine for Senator George Mitchell, make the daughter of Senator Sam Nunn the head of the Points of Light Foundation, and — to clinch the case — become buddies with Bill Clinton.”
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Bush was by nature a practical manager. He believed his job was to get something done, taking incremental steps when big ones were unobtainable. He had no use for those who would sacrifice progress on the altar of philosophical purity, nor did he regard opponents as enemies.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
He was defeated in an unusual three-way contest with Democrat Clinton and Texas billionaire Ross Perot — a sour coda to a stellar career. Though he had been ambivalent about even running for reelection, the loss would gnaw on him. He believed that he left the job he signed up for unfinished.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Bush was born on June 12, 1924 in Milton, Mass., to Prescott and Dorothy Bush, the second of five children, four of them boys. His was an idyllic childhood spent among the nation’s economically privileged, with numerous trips to family estates in Maine and South Carolina.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Although the hardships of the Great Depression did not severely affect the Bushes, his parents tried to stress that good fortune should not be taken for granted, insisting on modesty at all times, along with concern for those going through hard times. Work mattered. Life, they insisted, was no country club affair.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Bush attended Phillips Academy, a famous boarding school in Andover, Mass., where he excelled academically and athletically. He was a favorite of his classmates, often chosen to captain the teams he was on and known to call out bullies who bedeviled the less popular students.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
As he grew to adulthood, he slowly soaked up the history of generations of Walkers and Bushes and began to understand the expectations for those of his class and background — a demand for service to the public good largely divorced from personal gain. It made a deep impression on him.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
“Bush was a figure of an older, fading order of American power,” wrote Bush biographer Jon Meacham in “Dynasty and Power,” a 2015 authorized biography. “When his family and … friends looked at him, they saw a man who could have spent his life making and spending money, but who had chosen to obey the biblical injunction, drilled into him by his parents, that to whom much is given much is expected.”
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Bush’s first great test came as his days at Andover were ending, graduating in the face of a world succumbing to a widening war. He might have been able to use connections for a service academy appointment or a plum job that did not place him in harm’s way. Like many of his friends and others of his class, including Joseph and John Kennedy, he chose the opposite path.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Bush enlisted in the U.S. Navy upon finishing high school in 1942 and hoped to become a pilot. He earned his wings and was commissioned an ensign before his 19th birthday. His wartime duty was spent in the Pacific flying a three-man Avenger torpedo bomber.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Bush piloted 58 combat missions from the carrier USS San Jacinto, but one stood out. During a Sept. 2, 1944, attack on Japanese positions on Chichi-Jima, one of the Bonin Islands, his Avenger was badly hit by flak. He was able to complete the bombing run but ordered the other two crewmen to “hit the silk” as the plane headed toward the water. He did likewise and was able to haul himself into a life raft after popping up from the sea, dazed and out of breath. His crew mates were never found.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Bush was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, yet never considered himself a war hero despite the efforts of later political advertising. “They wrote it up as heroism,” Bush said late in his life of the paperwork leading to the decoration, “but it wasn’t — it was just doing your job.”
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
In January 1945, while on leave, Bush wed his pre-war fiancee, Barbara Pierce. The two had met at a dance when he was at Phillips and she at a tony boarding school in South Carolina. Her family, like his, came from old money, and among her ancestors were early New England settlers. A distant relative, Franklin Pierce, was the 14th American president.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
After the war, Bush and his new wife moved to New Haven, Conn., where he would begin his college education at Yale, the alma mater of his father and four other relatives.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
He graduated in under three years because of an accelerated program offered to veterans eager to make up for lost time. He again excelled at sports and captained the baseball team, for which he played first base. He was just as adept in the classroom, gaining Phi Beta Kappa distinction and an economics degree. Yet, as he acknowledged, what should have been idyllic college years had been altered by the war. The class of 1948 were serious men intent on getting out and getting going.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
As graduation approached, Bush balked at an offer to join a prominent investment bank started by his maternal grandfather. To a friend he wrote that it bothered him to take advantage of “the benefits of my social position.”
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
A close family friend encouraged him to think of the oil business, which would take him to Texas. Oil drilling was as foreign to him as tightrope walking or fashion design, but it appealed to his taste for risk and held the promise of great wealth.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
In the summer of 1948, Bush loaded up his new Studebaker, a graduation gift, and pointed it southwest, ending up in Odessa several days later. Barbara and their new baby, George, flew down after he had found lodging in a weathered duplex, their first Texas home. Their new life began. The family friend had provided an entry-level sales position with an oilfield tool company, the bottom rung on the ladder. It should be noted this was no ordinary friend — Neil Mallon was the head of Dresser Industries, a leading oilfield equipment company.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
By 1950, he, Barbara, and their two young children were living in Midland, where he had formed an oil company with a neighbor, John Overbey. Financial backing came from Bush’s father and some of his father’s friends and business contacts.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
With no geologic or engineering background, Bush learned the business from the ground up, “walking fields, talking to people, and trying to make deals,” Overbey later recalled in an interview. Three years later, he and Overbey joined up with two brothers, Hugh and William Liedtke, to form Zapata Petroleum. An offshore subsidiary was formed a year later.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Zapata raised more money and gambled on an interest in a field in Coke County that skeptics claimed was played out. One of the brothers, Bill Liedtke, said years later that the young company drilled 130 wells and never had a dry hole. As for politics, there wasn’t much time for it, though Bush did later mention his modest role as a Republican precinct worker. In one particular primary, he later recalled, perhaps apocryphally, only three GOP voters showed up: him, his wife, and a drunken Democrat who wandered into the wrong polling station.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Bush enjoyed his time in Midland, learning a business, tending to a growing family and making friends who would prove important later. The closeness of the city’s business community was evident when the Bush family’s life was interrupted by tragedy. The second of the children, daughter Robin, was diagnosed with leukemia in 1953, before the disease became largely curable.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
His fledgling business career was all but put on hold for more than six months as he, Barbara and Robin made repeated trips to Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Barbara tried to approach their new circumstances with stoic resolve, to the point of booting visitors out of Robin’s hospital room if they cried. Her husband became increasingly emotional and often was the one who had to leave the room. Robin died later in 1953.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
“I hadn’t cried at all when Robin was alive, but after she died, I felt I could cry forever,” she recalled in a 1988 interview with Texas Monthly. “George had a much harder time when she was sick. He was just killing himself, while I was very strong. That’s the way a good marriage works. Had I cried a lot, he wouldn’t have. But then things reversed after she died. George seemed to accept it better.”
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
The Bushes lived in Midland for almost a decade. It was where he made his first real money — his own money — and where he established his image as a true, if transplanted, Texan, one who could down to a bowl of chili at lunch and a chicken-fried steak at dinner, snacking in between on pork rinds. Everyone in town knew George Bush — “Poppy,” his childhood nickname, had been jettisoned along with the Brooks Brothers suits — but isolated West Texas was not where he needed to be.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
A disagreement over the direction of the company led Bush to buy out the other investors in Zapata Offshore in 1959, and he soon moved the company to Houston.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
During the early 1960s, Bush began to feel the political itch, or to be more precise, respond to an itch that had been there for years, and waded into a successful race for Harris County GOP Chairman to make sure it did not fall into the hands of perceived extremists in the party’s right wing, many of whom were members of the conspiracy-hawking John Birch Society.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Though little known outside of Houston and Midland, Bush campaigned vigorously as a different sort of Republican, less in step with the northeastern wing of his father and closer to the politics of Barry Goldwater and George Wallace. He went full-tilt conservative, opposing, among other socially progressive initiatives, the pending Civil Rights Act.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
After his defeat, Bush struggled to reconcile his moderate views with an election that had seen him embrace, however tentatively, an anti-progressive tone and a segregationist posture.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
“This mean, humorless philosophy which says everybody should agree on absolutely everything is not good for the Republican Party or our state,” Bush wrote to a friend after the loss. “When the word moderate becomes a dirty word, we have some soul-searching to do.”
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
In November 1966, Bush ran for Congress and won, becoming the first Republican from Houston and the star of the growing Texas GOP. He ended up with a plum appointment to the Ways and Means committee — a party nod to the importance of Texas. His voting record was predictably conservative, though not as hard right as his previous rhetoric suggested, and he ended up voting for the Civil Rights Act, as a result receiving stacks of hate mail and some death threats.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
Mike Tolson is a senior Chronicle reporter who specializes in long-term projects. He can be reached by e-mail at Mike.Tolson@chron.com.
Whole Dude – Whole Friend: Special Frontier Force Remembers the 41st US President
“In God We Trust” – Special Frontier Force trusts President Eisenhower
Whole Dude – Whole Trust: The beginning of the Cold War in Asia in 1949 with the Communist takeover of mainland China.
Excerpt: Both the US Government and the Central Intelligence Agency maintain their silence about the support given to the Tibetan Resistance Movement and the eventual creation of Establishment -22/Special Frontier Force, a military alliance/pact between the US, Tibet, and India to fight the military threat posed by Communist China when it occupied Tibet in 1950 and forced His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama to lead a life in exile. Indeed, that is the Whole Secret. The US, India and Tibet agreed to keep the US role in Tibet as a Secret and I signed a Declaration in Chakrata, India during September 1971 to keep the Tibet Operation as a Secret under the provisions of the Official Secret Acts of India.
Whole Dude – Whole Secret: The US military support to Tibet began during Hump Airlift Operation. I served at Dum Duma (Doom Dooma, Assam). Some flights delivered weapons and ammunition to Tibet. Special Frontier Force Reviews Hump Airlift Operation 1942 – 1945.TIBET AWARENESS – PROJECT CIRCUS. The quest for freedom in Tibet. A military training camp known as Camp Hale was established in Colorado under the supervision of CIA officers Roger E. McCarthy and John Reagan.Whole Dude – Whole Trust: “In God We Trust.” The Tibetan Resistance Movement trusts President Eisenhower. Mutual Trust, Respect, and Commitment formulate the US-India-Tibet Relations.
On July 30, 1956, US President Eisenhower signs “In God We Trust” into Law. The same year, President Eisenhower initiated action in support of the Tibetan Resistance Movement which contributed to the creation of Special Frontier Force during the presidency of John F. Kennedy.
Whole Dude – Whole Trust: “In God We Trust.” – Special Frontier Force Trusts President Eisenhower. Trust, Respect, and Commitment formulate Relations between the US, India, and Tibet.
President Eisenhower signs “In God We Trust” into law On this day in 1956, two years after pushing to have the phrase “under God” inserted into the pledge of allegiance, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a law officially declaring “In God We Trust” to be the nation’s official motto. The law, P.L. 84-140, also mandated that the phrase be printed on all American paper currency. The phrase had been placed on U.S. coins since the Civil War when, according to the historical association of the United States Treasury, religious sentiment reached a peak. Eisenhower’s treasury secretary, George Humphrey, had suggested adding the phrase to paper currency as well.
Although some historical accounts claim Eisenhower was raised a Jehovah’s Witness, most presidential scholars now believe his family was Mennonite. Either way, Eisenhower abandoned his family’s religion before entering the Army and took the unusual step of being baptized relatively late in his adult life as a Presbyterian. The baptism took place in 1953, barely a year into his first term as president.
Although Eisenhower embraced religion, biographers insist he never intended to force his beliefs on anyone. In fact, the chapel-like structure near where he and his wife Mamie are buried on the grounds of his presidential library is called the “Place of Meditation” and is intentionally inter-denominational. At a Flag Day speech in 1954, he elaborated on his feelings about the place of religion in public life when he discussed why he had wanted to include “under God” in the pledge of allegiance: “In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource in peace and war.”
The first paper money with the phrase “In God We Trust” was not printed until 1957. Since then, religious and secular groups have argued over the appropriateness and constitutionality of a motto that mentions “God,” considering the founding fathers’ dedication to maintaining the separation of church and state.
Whole Dude – Whole Trust: “In God We Trust” – Special Frontier Force Trusts President Eisenhower. CIA Director Allen Welsh Dulles forged Trust derived relationships.Whole Dude – Whole Trust: “In God We Trust” – Special Frontier Force Trusts President Eisenhower. CIA Director Allen Welsh Dulles, and President John F. Kennedy promoted national interests forging relationships.Whole Dude – Whole Trust: The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22: 1957 was a turning point. India had recognized that its foreign policy of political neutralism was of no use and had started depending upon the United States to address the military threat posed by China’s occupation of Tibet. But, the effort was too modest and both India and the United States had grossly underestimated the strength of the People’s Liberation Army.Whole Dude – Whole Trust: Establishment No. 22 – Operation Eagle: This shoulder badge represents a military alliance/pact between India, Tibet, and the United States of America. Its first combat mission was in the Chittagong Hill Tracts which unfolded on 03 November 1971. It was named Operation Eagle. It accomplished its mission of securing peace in the region that is now known as Republic of Bangladesh.Whole Dude – Whole Trust: On June 03, 1972, His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama visited Headquarters Establishment Number.22, C/O 56 APO to inspect the Tibetan soldiers who serve in the multinational military organization called Special Frontier Force. I served as the Medical Officer at this military Establishment and my duties required the verification of mental, and physical preparedness of all the men.Whole Dude – Whole Trust: “In God We Trust” – Special Frontier Force Trusts President Eisenhower. Trust in God is the Foundational Principle to formulate Foreign Relations.Whole Dude – Whole Trust: “In God We Trust” – Special Frontier Force Trusts President Eisenhower. Trust in God is the Foundational Principle to formulate Foreign Relations.Whole Dude – Whole Trust: “In God We Trust” – Special Frontier Force Trusts President Eisenhower. Trust in God is Foundational Principle to define Foreign Policy.Whole Dude – Whole Trust: “In God We Trust” – Special Frontier Force Trusts President Eisenhower. Trust is the Foundational Principle to define Relations.Whole Dude – Whole Trust: “In God We Trust” – Special Frontier Force Trusts President Eisenhower. Belief in God, and Trust in Leadership.Whole Dude – Whole Trust: “In God We Trust” – Special Frontier Force Trusts President Eisenhower. Trust survived the Test of Times.Whole Dude – Whole Trust: “In God We Trust” – Special Frontier Force Trusts President Eisenhower for his principled Belief in God.Whole Dude – Whole Trust: “In God We Trust” – Special Frontier Force Trusts President Eisenhower, his legacy reflects the value of Trust. Whole Dude – Whole Trust: “In God We Trust” – Special Frontier Force Trusts President Eisenhower who initiated Trusting Partnership between the US, India, and Tibet.Whole Dude – Whole Trust: “In God We Trust” – Special Frontier Force Trusts President Eisenhower. December 16, 1956, witnessed a trusting relationship. Vice President Richard M. Nixon is my Witness.Whole Dude – Whole Trust: “In God We Trust” – Special Frontier Force Trusts President Eisenhower. December 16, 1956. The US-India-Tibet Relations endure reflecting Trust.Whole Dude – Whole Trust: “In God We Trust” – Special Frontier Force Trusts President Eisenhower. Relations derive Spiritual Strength from Belief in God.
Whole Dude – Whole Secret: SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE – THE OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT: INDIA’S NATIONAL EMBLEM PROCLAIMS THE OFFICIAL MOTTO OF INDIA, “SATYA MEVA JAYATE,” TRUTH ALONE TRIUMPHS. I SHALL TRUTHFULLY SUPPORT INDIA’S RELATIONS WITH FOREIGN STATES
Tibet Awareness – Project Circus
Whole Dude – Whole Secret: The beginning of the Cold War in Asia in 1949 with the Communist takeover of mainland China.
Excerpt: Both the US Government and the Central Intelligence Agency maintain their silence about the support given to the Tibetan Resistance Movement and the eventual creation of Establishment -22/Special Frontier Force, a military alliance/pact between the US, Tibet, and India to fight the military threat posed by Communist China when it occupied Tibet in 1950 and forced His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama to lead a life in exile. Indeed, that is the Whole Secret. The US, India and Tibet agreed to keep the US role in Tibet as a Secret and I signed a Declaration in Chakrata, India during September 1971 to keep the Tibet Operation as a Secret under the provisions of the Official Secret Acts of India.
Whole Dude – Whole Secret: The CIA covert operations inside Tibet led to the creation of a military organization called Establishment Number. 22, or Special Frontier Force which was formed in 1962 during the presidency of John F. KennedyTIBET AWARENESS – PROJECT CIRCUS. TRIBUTE TO PRESIDENT DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER.
The New York Review of Books reviewed the book, ‘TIBET: THE CIA’S CANCELLED WAR’ by Jonathan Mirsky. My readers may know that the US Central Intelligence Agency or CIA has no constitutional powers to wage wars or to make treaties. I am glad to inform my readers that the War is not over; Tibetan Resistance Movement is alive and Red China’s military occupation is opposed with patience and perseverance while Tibetans continue to endure pain and suffering.
Whole Dude – Whole Secret: “In God We Trust.”
The New York Review of Books
NYR DAILY
TIBET: THE CIA’S CANCELLED WAR
JONATHAN MIRSKY
Whole Dude – Whole Secret: Lhamo Tsering Collection Resistance fighters on the Tibetan border during the early years of the CIA’s Tibet program
For much of the past century, US relations with Tibet have been characterized by kowtowing to the Chinese and hollow good wishes for the Dalai Lama. As early as 1908, William Rockhill, a US diplomat, advised the Thirteenth Dalai Lama that “close and friendly relations with China are absolutely necessary, for Tibet is and must remain a portion of the Ta Ts’ing [Manchu] Empire for its own good.” Not much has changed with the Fourteenth Dalai Lama one hundred years later. After a meeting in 2011 with President Obama in the White House Map Room—the Oval Office being too official—the Dalai Lama was ushered out the back door, past the garbage cans. All this, of course, is intended to avoid condemnation from Beijing, which regards even the mildest criticism of its Tibet policy as “interference.”
However there was one dramatic departure from the minimalist approach. For nearly two decades after the 1950 Chinese takeover of Tibet, the CIA ran a covert operation designed to train Tibetan insurgents and gather intelligence about the Chinese, as part of its efforts to contain the spread of communism around the world. Though little known today, the program produced at least one spectacular intelligence coup and provided a source of support for the Dalai Lama. On the eve of Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 meeting with Mao, the program was abruptly cancelled, thus returning the US to its traditional arm’s-length policy toward Tibet.
Whole Dude – Whole Secret: I was serving in D-Sector, Establishment No. 22 during February 1972 while US President Richard M. Nixon visited Peking. I confirm that the CIA Tibet Program was not cancelled but got modified. Special Service Award presented by all Officers D Sector, Establishment -22 on 19 January 1973.
But this did not end the long legacy of mistrust that continues to color Chinese-American relations. Not only was the Chinese government aware of the CIA program; in 1992 it published a white paper on the subject. The paper included information drawn from reliable Western sources about the agency’s activities, but laid the primary blame for the insurgency on the “Dalai Lama clique,” a phrase Beijing still uses today.
The insurgency began after the People’s Liberation Army invaded Tibet following its defeat of the Nationalists, and after Beijing forced the Dalai Lama’s government to recognize Chinese administration over the region. In 1955, a group of local Tibetan leaders secretly plotted an armed uprising, and rebellion broke out a year later, with the rebels besieging local government institutions and killing hundreds of government staff as well as Han Chinese people. In May 1957, a rebel organization and a rebel fighting force were founded, and began killing communist officials, disrupting communication lines, and attacking institutions and Chinese army troops stationed in the region.
Whole Dude – Whole Secret: The US military support to Tibet began during Hump Airlift Operation. I served at Dum Duma (Doom Dooma, Assam). Some flights delivered weapons and ammunition to Tibet. Special Frontier Force Reviews Hump Airlift Operation 1942 – 1945.
By that point, the rebellion had gained American backing. 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.
Whole Dude – Whole Secret: TIBETAN RESISTANCE MOVEMENT. A DAY TO REMEMBER, MARCH 10, 1959. TIBETAN NATIONAL UPRISING DAY. IN MY ANALYSIS, THE MASS UPRISING IN TIBET IS THE SYMBOL OF CIA TIBET PROGRAM. IT FAILED FOR WE UNDERESTIMATED THE ENEMY’S MILITARY POWER.
While the CIA effort never produced a mass uprising against the Chinese occupiers (I want to correct this statement; CIA Tibet Program helped the Tibetan National Uprising on March 10, 1959), it did provide one of the greatest intelligence successes of the Cold War, in the form of a vast trove of Chinese army documents captured by Tibetan fighters and turned over to the CIA in 1961. These revealed the loss of morale among Chinese soldiers, who had learned of the vast famine that was wracking China during The Great Leap Forward. Over the next decade, however, there was growing disagreement in Washington over the CIA’s activities in Tibet, and in 1971, as Henry Kissinger prepared for Nixon’s meeting with Mao, the program was wound down (I want to confirm that the Program was not cancelled).
“Although Tibet may not have been on the table in the Beijing talks, the era of official US support for the Tibetan cause was over,” recalled John Kenneth Knaus, a forty-year CIA veteran, in his 1999 book Orphans of the Cold War: America and the Tibetan Struggle for Survival. “There was no role for Tibet in Kissinger’s new equation.” By 1975, President Gerald Ford was able to say to a skeptical Deng Xiaoping, China’s future leader, “Let me assure you, Mr. Vice-Premier, that we oppose and do not support any [United States] governmental action as far as Tibet is concerned.”Indeed, that is the Whole Secret. The US, India and Tibet agreed to keep the US role in Tibet as a Secret and I signed a Declaration in Chakrata, India during September 1971 to keep the Tibet Operation as a Secret under the provisions of the Official Secret Acts of India.
Whole Dude – Whole Secret: SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE – THE OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT: THE ACT MAY PROHIBIT THE SHARING OF CERTAIN KINDS OF INFORMATION AND AT THE SAME TIME IT DEMANDS ME TO REMEMBER THE AFFILIATION WITH GOVERNMENT OF INDIA AND ITS ORGANIZATIONS DURING MY ENTIRE LIFETIME WITHOUT ANY TIME LIMITS.
Many friends of Tibet and admirers of the Dalai Lama, who has always advocated nonviolence, believe he knew nothing about the CIA 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. Those payments came to an end in 1974.
In 1999, I asked the Dalai Lama if the CIA operation had been harmful for Tibet. “Yes, that is true,” he replied. The intervention was harmful, he suggested, because it was primarily aimed at serving American interests rather than helping the Tibetans in any lasting way. “Once the American policy toward China changed, they stopped their help,” he told me. “Otherwise our struggle could have gone on. Many Tibetans had great expectations of CIA [air] drops, but then the Chinese army came and destroyed them. The Americans had a different agenda from the Tibetans.”
This was exactly right, and the different goals of the Agency and the Tibetans are explored fully by the Tibetan-speaking anthropologist Carole McGranahan in her Arrested Histories: Tibet, the CIA, and Memories of a Forgotten War (2010). Although sometimes clouded by anthropological jargon, her account fascinatingly explores how differently from their American counterparts the Tibetan veterans remember the CIA operation. A striking example is the matter of the Chinese army documents, whose capture in a Tibetan ambush of a high-ranking Chinese officer is depicted in grisly detail in a huge painting in the CIA’s museum in Washington. In addition to revealing low Chinese morale, the documents disclosed the extent of Chinese violence in Tibet. “This information was the only documentary proof the Tibetan government [in exile] had of the Chinese atrocities and was therefore invaluable,” MacGranahan notes. Yet the documents and their capture rarely came up during her long interview sessions with the veterans. “Why is it that this particular achievement, so valued by the US and Tibetan governments, is not remotely as memorable for [the] soldiers?”
One reason is that the Tibetan fighters were told nothing about the value of the documents, which they couldn’t read. One veteran explains to her:
Our soldiers attacked Chinese trucks and seized some documents of the Chinese government. After that the Americans increased our pay scale. Nobody knew what the contents of those documents were. At that time, questions weren’t asked. If you asked many questions, then others would be suspicious of you.
Whole Dude – Whole Secret: That is the very essence of covert operations. Information is never shared with the person or party who gathers the information.
The leader of the ambush tells her that “as a reward the CIA gave me an Omega chronograph,” but he, too, had little knowledge of the documents’ importance. As McGranahan shows in extensive detail, the veterans were preoccupied above all by their devotion to the Dalai Lama, whom they wanted to resume his position as supreme leader of an independent Tibet.
Whole Dude – Whole Secret: TIBET CONSCIOUSNESS – TIBET PROBLEM ON THE BACK BURNER. IN 1971, INDIA REFUSED TO KEEP THE PROBLEM OF BANGLADESH ON THE BACK BURNER. INDIA TOOK UNILATERAL, DECISIVE ACTION TO RESOLVE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN BANGLADESH.
After the CIA mission was ended (I clarify that the CIA mission has not ended but remains on ‘The Back Burner’), Tibet became increasingly marginal to Washington’s China policy, as Knaus has now made clear in a second book, Beyond Shangri-la: America and Tibet’s Move into the Twenty-First Century. The reality is that American presidents now face a world power in Beijing. In language that sums up the cats-cradle of American justifications for ignoring Tibet, ex-Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Marshall Green recalls to Knaus, “there was nothing we could do to help the Tibetans except by improving our relations with the Chinese Communists so that we might be in a position to exert pressure on them to moderate their policies towards the Tibetans.” Green “admitted that this was ‘perhaps a rationalization.’”
President Obama will soon meet the new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. His advisers will have reminded him of the encounter between his predecessor, Bill Clinton, and then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin on June 27, 1998. In that meeting, Clinton assured Jiang that, “I agree that Tibet is a part of China, an autonomous region of China. And I can understand why the acknowledgement of that would be a precondition of dialog with the Dalai Lama.” Banking on his well-known charm, Mr. Clinton added, “I have spent time with the Dalai Lama. I believe him to be an honest man, and I believe if he had a conversation with President Jiang, they would like each other very much.” Jiang, it is reported, threw back his head and laughed. Clinton’s suggestion was omitted from the official Chinese transcript.
Whole Dude – Whole Secret: The CIA covert operations inside Tibet led to the creation of a military organization called Establishment Number. 22, or Special Frontier Force which was formed in 1962 during the presidency of John F. Kennedy. Indian Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s visit to Hq Establishment 22.Whole Dude – Whole Secret: CIA Tibet Operation.Whole Dude – Whole Secret: CIA Tibet Operation.Whole Dude – Whole Secret: CIA Tibet Operation.Whole Dude – Whole Secret: The CIA Tibet Operation.Whole Dude – Whole Secret: CIA Tibet OperationWhole Dude – Whole Secret: CIA Tibet OperationWhole Dude – Whole Secret: CIA Tibet OperationWhole Dude – Whole Secret: CIA Tibet OperationWhole Dude – Whole Secret: CIA Tibet Operation
Whole Dude – Whole Secret: TIBET AWARENESS – PROJECT CIRCUS. The quest for Freedom in Tibet. A military training Camp known as Camp Hale was established in Colorado under the supervision of CIA officers Roger E. McCarthy and John Reagan.TIBET AWARENESS – PROJECT CIRCUS . A TRIBUTE TO JOHN KENNETH KNAUS OF CIA FOR RENDERING SERVICE IN SUPPORT OF TIBET’S FREEDOM AND LIBERATION FROM MILITARY OCCUPATION.Whole Dude – Whole Secret: TIBET AWARENESS – PROJECT CIRCUS – BRUCE WALKER, OFFICIAL OF CIA.Whole Dude – Whole Secret: TIBET AWARENESS – PROJECT CIRCUS – CIA OFFICIALS JOHN KENNETH KNAUS AND JOHN GREANEY.Whole Dude – Whole Secret: TIBET AWARENESS – PROJECT CIRCUS – ‘ORPHANS OF THE COLD WAR’ BOOK BY JOHN KENNETH KNAUS.Whole Dude – Whole Secret: TIBET AWARENESS – PROJECT CIRCUS. THE CIA’S SECRET WAR IN TIBET BY KENNETH CONBOY AND JAMES MORRISON.Whole Dude – Whole Secret: Tibet Awareness – Project CIRCUS. A special tribute to Allen Welsh Dulles, the Director of CIA who organized training of Tibetans at Camp Hale, Colorado (May 1959 to November 1964).
Whole Dude – Whole Director: The Spymaster of Special Frontier Force. The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Richard Helms. His famous quote: “God did not give prescience to human beings.”
Excerpt: It may be noted that there is not much awareness about CIA’s covert operations inside countries like Tibet. I sincerely appreciate the dedication of CIA officers who had served in Southeast Asia to defend freedom, and democracy in the occupied Land of Tibet.
Whole Dude – Whole Director:
Special Frontier Force pays a respectful tribute to Richard McGarrah Helms (b. March 30, 1913 – d. October 23, 2002, Washington D.C.), the Chief Spymaster of the Central Intelligence Agency from June 1966 to February 1973.
Whole Dude – Whole Director: Richard M Helms during the year 1980, in this White House ceremony received an award from President Ronald Reagan for “Exceptionally Meritorious Service.” It may be noted that George Herbert Walker Bush who was the Vice President at that time had also served as the Director of CIA (1976-1977)during the presidency of Gerald Ford.
Richard M Helms – The Intelligence Professional:
Whole Dude – Whole Director: Richard Helms was appointed as the eighth Director of CIA on June 30, 1966. In a function held in the East Room, White House, President Lyndon B. Johnson is seen speaking to Dennis Helms, son of the newly sworn in CIA Director.Whole Dude – Whole Director: This World War II era letter from Richard Helms to his young son Dennis reveals the long history of meritorious service rendered by Helms since the time he served in the wartime Office of Strategic Services. This letter is most interestingly written on Adolf Hitler’s private stationery.
Richard Helms was the chief architect of the legislation, National Security Act of September 1947 that created the Central Intelligence Agency replacing the wartime Office of Strategic Services. CIA came into existence during the presidency of Harry S Truman, 33rd President of the US (1949-1952). The National Security Council that is chaired by the President was formed in 1949, CIA was established in 1951.
Whole Dude – Whole Director: The Original Headquarters Building (OHB) reflects the vision of Allen Welsh Dulles, the 5th Director of CIA. CIA is the principle Intelligence and Counterintelligence agency of the US Government. It is organized as 1. The Intelligence Directorate, 2. The Directorate of Operations which includes espionage, 3. The Directorate of Science and Technology, and 4. The Directorate of Administration.
Whole Dude – Whole Director: The entrance to the Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters. In a world of sovereign nations, information is a prime element of national power. Intelligence is best defined as evaluated information, is the vital and pivotal foundation for national decisions. The Director of CIA is Adviser to the National Security Council which is chaired by the President. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Richard Helms was commissioned into US Naval Reserve during 1942 and served as Lieutenant Commander. He served with Office of Strategic Services and its successors from 1943 to 1947. He held various appointments within the CIA. He was the Deputy Director of Plans from 1962 to 1965. He was the Deputy Director of the CIA from April 28, 1965 to June 1966. Intelligence in service to Liberty found an unsurpassed Champion in Richard Helms who served two presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon.
Whole Dude – Whole Director: June 30, 1966 The White House. Richard Helms replaced CIA Director William F. Raborn who served from 1965 to 1966. The 5th Director of CIA, Allen Welsh Dulles attended this swearing-in ceremony.
Allen Welsh Dulles, the 5th Director of CIA told US Congress, “The CIA should be directed by a relatively small but elite corps of men with a passion for anonymity and a willingness to stick at that particular job.” Helms truly depicts the qualities demanded by Allen Welsh Dulles. Helms said, “Intelligence was not merely a job but rather a calling.” He asked his employees to “Make Intelligence a profession, not just an occupation.”
Whole Dude – Whole Director: During the presidency of Richard Nixon, the CIA Director was placed under tremendous pressure to accomplish the political agenda of the President without real concern for national interests.Whole Dude – Whole Director: The National Security Council briefing by CIA Director Richard Helms. It must be noted that Dr. Henry Kissinger used his position to undermine the importance of Central Intelligence Agency. Kissinger also undermined the role of the Secretary of State before he became the Secretary of State. Kissinger’s foreign policy initiatives are not based upon analysis of Intelligence.
Between 1950 and 1973, the CIA had also carried on extensive mind-control experiments at universities, prisons, and hospitals which included the use of LSD and other mind-altering drugs on unwitting test subjects. However, there is a huge concern about CIA tactics to prevent Salvador Allende from winning the 1970 elections in Chile and later when CIA worked to topple him from power. CIA had tried to assassinate several foreign leaders, including Fidel Castro of Cuba. But, the CIA had not acted on its own and was only trying to serve the political bosses of their times.
Whole Dude – Whole Director: Richard Helms got ensnared in US Congress’s investigation because a successor, William Colby released a trove of documents, nicknamed “The Family Jewels” detailing the misdeeds of the Agency. Helms testified in Congressional hearings.Whole Dude – Whole Director: Apart from the Congressional hearings, Richard Helms had faced news media during April 1975 and spoke to reporters who had very little understanding of Agency’s great performance in other countries.Whole Dude – Whole Director: Damage was done to the personal reputation of Richard Helms and he was painted as a dangerous CIA Director while he tried his best to serve the President and the country without any political bias.Whole Dude – Whole Director: The CIA celebrated its 50th Anniversary during 1997 and the former Director Helms was most warmly received and was acknowledged for his great contribution to the Organization in a variety of capacities.
It may be noted that there is not much awareness about CIA’s covert operations inside countries like Tibet. I sincerely appreciate the dedication of CIA officers who had served in Southeast Asia to defend freedom, and democracy in the occupied Land of Tibet.
Whole Dude – Whole Director: TIBET AWARENESS – PROJECT CIRCUS. The quest for Freedom in Tibet. A military training Camp known as Camp Hale was established in Colorado under the supervision of CIA officers Roger E. McCarthy and John Reagan.Whole Dude – Whole Director: The history of Special Frontier Force-Establishment No. 22 can be traced back to 1957-58 when the CIA launched Operation ST CIRCUS. This Commemoration on September 10, 2010 was the first time that US had officially acknowledge the CIA operation with the Tibetans and it includes the Mustang(Nepal) Operation.Whole Dude – Whole Director: The CIA covert operations inside Tibet led to the creation of a military organization called Establishment Number. 22, or Special Frontier Force which was formed in 1962 during the presidency of John F. Kennedy.
I would like to recognize Richard M. Helms as a Cold War Era Hero who did his best to support and encourage the cause of political freedom, liberty, and democracy in the world in very difficult times.
Whole Dude – Whole Director: Special Service Award presented by all Officers D Sector, Establishment – 22 on 19 January 1973.Whole Dude – Whole Director: The Spirits of Special Frontier Force recognizes CIA Director Richard Helms as a Cold War Era Hero. Helms was skeptical about the likely success of large-scale covert actions meant to manipulate political and economic events abroad. CIA should not try to bite more than what it can chew.
I say Richard Helms is the greatest Spymaster who had ever served the Central Intelligence Agency and what do you want to say?
Whole Dude – Whole Spy: The Central Intelligence Agency must become the Champion of Freedom and Democracy in the rest of the world. In its entire history of existence, the CIA’s work in Tibet truly reflects the ideals of Human Rights, Peace and Liberty.
Whole Dude – Whole Champion: A special tribute to Spymaster John Alexander McCone, the 6th CIA Director who played a leading role during the Cuban Missile Crisis. EXCOMM meeting at the White House Cabinet Room during the Cuban Missile Crisis on October 29, 1962. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Excerpt: Establishment – 22 is the child of CIA’s Secret War in Tibet and it will be correct to recognize CIA as the ‘Mastermind’ of this operation to defend Freedom, and Democracy in the occupied Land of Tibet. Special Frontier Force take this opportunity to pay a special tribute to its ‘Master’, John Alexander McCone (b. January 04, 1902 – d. February 14, 1991) who served as the Director of CIA from November 1961 to April 1965.
Special Frontier Force – The Great Spymaster:
Whole Dude – Whole Champion: A special tribute to Spymaster John Alexander McCone, the 6th CIA Director who played a leading role during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Special Service Award presented by all Officers D Sector, Establishment -22 on 19 January 1973.
Establishment No. 22 is a military establishment that represents a military pact/alliance between the United States, India, and the Tibetan Government -in-Exile. It came into existence during November 1962 and during 1966, this organization was named Special Frontier Force. Between the Central Intelligence Agency and the members of Special Frontier Force there has been a Master-Student relationship. Establishment – 22 is the child of CIA’s Secret War in Tibet and it will be correct to recognize CIA as the ‘Mastermind’ of this operation to defend Freedom, and Democracy in the occupied Land of Tibet. Special Frontier Force take this opportunity to pay a special tribute to its ‘Master’, John Alexander McCone (b. January 04, 1902 – d. February 14, 1991) who served as the Director of CIA from November 1961 to April 1965.
Whole Dude – Whole Champion: This is a special tribute to Spymaster John Alexander McCone who served as CIA’s 6th Director from November 1961 to April 1965.
John A. McCone obtained a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of California at Berkeley. He built his career in the steel, construction, shipping, shipbuilding, and aircraft production industries. He founded the Bechtel-McCone Steel Company and his role in shipbuilding, and military aircraft production had attracted the attention of President Harry S. Truman who had appointed him to the Air Policy Commission in 1947 to develop strategy for American military airpower. During 1948, he was appointed as the Special Deputy to the Secretary of Defense. In 1950, he was appointed as Undersecretary of the Air Force. President Dwight Eisenhower appointed him as the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission during 1958 and held that position until 1961.
Whole Dude – Whole Champion: In this photo taken during 1958, John A. McCone, Chairman of the World Affairs Council is seen with General Lauris Norstad, Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Europe.
Whole Dude – Whole Champion: U.S. delegates to the Fourth General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria 1960. Left to Right:- Ambassador John S. Graham, Vice Admiral Paul F. Foster, US Navy (Retd), the Permanent U.S. Representative to the IAEA, and John A. McCone, Chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
During his tenure as the Chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, John McCone made very significant disclosures about Israel’s nuclear capabilities. After the disaster of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba, President Kennedy forced the resignation of the CIA director Allen Welsh Dulles and Richard Bissell, the Deputy Director for Plans and Operations who had a major role in making the plan for this CIA’s Black Operation. In a very surprising, and sudden move, President Kennedy called John McCone, a Republican to take charge of the Central Intelligence Agency disregarding the fact that McCone had no prior experience in Intelligence.
Whole Dude – Whole Champion: President John F. Kennedy’s selection of Spymaster during 1961. Left to Right:- Allen Welsh Dulles, 5th Director of CIA, Richard Bissell, Deputy Director of Plans/Operations, President John F. Kennedy, and the newly selected 6th Director of CIA, John A. McCone.Whole Dude – Whole Champion: September 27, 1961. President Kennedy with CIA Director Allen Dulles and his new pick, John A. McCone.Whole Dude – Whole Champion: November 29, 1961. President John F. Kennedy with outgoing CIA Director Allen Dulles.
Whole Dude – Whole Master: November 29, 1961. President John F. Kennedy welcomes the 6th Director of CIA, John Alexander McCone.
Whole Dude – Whole Champion: John Alexander McCone gets the task of “rebuilding” CIA after the Bay of Pigs debacle.Whole Dude – Whole Champion: A new chapter in the history of CIA. John Alexander McCone became the “Government’s principal foreign intelligence Officer” and he would work the heads of all departments and agencies, such as the State, Defense, the Attorney General, and the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, that have responsibilities in the foreign intelligence field. In this photo McCone is seen with Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General. The DCI would coordinate and direct the total intelligence community.
John McCone played a leading role in strengthening the intelligence gathering abilities of CIA by launching a technological revolution. On August 05, 1963, he created the Directorate of Science and Technology.
Whole Dude – Whole Champion: May 01, 1964. Presidential candidate, New York State Governor, Nelson A. Rockefeller gets Intelligence briefing. Left to Right:John McCone, DIC; Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller; Robert S. McNamara, Defense Secretary; Dean Rusk, Secretary of State. Photo credit: Francis Miller/Time & Life.
McCone was responsible for a number of covert operations in Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, Ecuador, and Brazil. John McCone was present in the meeting held at The White House on November 19, 1962 to enter into an agreement/pact with India, and the Tibetan Government-in-Exile to formulate Establishment No. 22/Special Frontier Force to address the military threat posed by People’s Republic of China’s military occupation of Tibet. This operation that involves India and Tibet remains a secret. McCone was a key figure during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. He predicted that the Soviet Union would place offensive nuclear weapons in Cuba. However, he had differences with President Lyndon B. Johnson and had resigned from his post during April 1965 and was replaced by Admiral William F. Raborn. President Ronald Reagan during 1987 presented John McCone with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
I say that John McCone was one of the best managers that CIA ever had. I call him a Whole Champion. What do you want to say?
Whole Dude – Whole Champion: Spymaster John Alexander McCone created the Directorate of Science and Technology on August 05, 1963 and launched technological revolution in Intelligence
Special Service Award presented by all Officers, D-Sector, Establishment 22 in appreciation of my Service in the North East Frontier Agency/Arunachal Pradesh in January 1973.
Excerpt: I love the Service Award I earned at Doom Dooma without using any Service Weapon. I love Doom Dooma for the opportunity it gave to me to demonstrate my commitment to serve the men who serve our country without any concern for my personal safety.
Sainya Seva Medal. Service Award without Service Weapon.
SAINYA SEVA MEDAL
The Government of India awards Sainya Seva Medal to Service Personnel serving in Indian Armed Forces in recognition of ‘non-operational’ services under conditions of special hardship and severe climate. The bar or clasp shows the words ” NEFA ” in Hindi. To qualify for this award, an aggregate of one- year service in the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) is required. The Medal shows an image of Nanda Devi Himalayan mountain peak with a bamboo stand in the foreground.
REMEMBERING A WAR:THE 1962 INDIA-CHINA WAR: This is a photo image taken in 1972, ten years after the 1962 War, while I had proudly served the Nation in North East Frontier Agency. There was no schism or division among the Officers Corps. The Men and the Officers were totally united and were fully motivated to fight the Enemy and we had patrolled the border along the McMahon Line and went beyond the border for Operational reasons. There was no Fear and we were Prepared for the Challenge.
I am proud of my military service in North East Frontier Agency (renamed Arunachal Pradesh) for several reasons. These are;
Special Frontier Force – Sainya Seva Medal – Service Award without Service Weapon
In 1962, Communist China’s War of Aggression across Himalayan Frontier motivated me to Resist, to Oppose and to Fight against Red China’s military threat posed from Occupied Tibet. 54 Years after the 1962 War, India is unwilling to part with her territory. India lost control of her territory in the Ladakh region as Tibet still remains under Chinese occupation.
REMEMBERING THE 1962 INDIA – CHINA WAR: The McMahon Line in India’s North East Frontier Agency or the State of Arunachal Pradesh. The Top Secret of 1962 War is the number of Chinese soldiers that were killed and injured during their military attack. Communist China must take courage and admit the true numbers. This War was not a total loss. India learned its lesson. We had a spectacular Military Victory in 1971 during our Bangladesh Liberation War.
Fortunately, in the North-East Himalayan Sector, India retains control over territory which we initially lost in the 1962 War. In 1972, I was very glad to serve in this area for one complete year and I could personally witness the fact that India is fully prepared to fight against Red China one more time. We are willing to do our best to keep ‘NEFA’ (Arunachal Pradesh) under our control whatever may be the Chinese threats protests, and claims to territory she calls “Southern Tibet.” China, apart from the illegal military occupation of Tibet, claims Indian territory publishing maps showing international borders. In recent years, China refused to issue a visa to an Officer of the Indian Administrative Service who had earlier served in this region.
Special Frontier Force – Sainya Seva Medal – Service Award without Service Weapon
The tensions still exist and I am glad for we are better prepared now and if war is inevitable, we welcome that challenge. To serve in NEFA, I was stationed at Doom Dooma, Tinsukia District, Assam. When I first arrived in Doom Dooma to join my Unit, the first thing that I was told by my Unit Adjutant was, ” Rudra, if you need a copy of your most recent photo, ask the Chinese Intelligence, and they could provide you one.” The Chinese Intelligence operatives or spies keep tabs on each Officer who is entering this area while keeping a close watch on our movements.
To my utter surprise, my Indian Army Picture ID Card stolen during 1972 resurfaces in the Indian Movie titled TE3N. Doomsayer of Doom Dooma earns Sainya Seva Medal – Service Award Without Service Weapon.
We are neither threatened nor intimidated by this kind of Chinese surveillance. We want to assure China that we will not be deterred by their superior Intelligence capabilities.
Special Frontier Force – Sainya Seva Medal. Service Award without Service Weapon.
I arrived in Doom Dooma without my Service Weapon issued by Indian Army as I am expected to participate in operations not known to Indian Army.
Special Frontier Force – Sainya Seva Medal – Service Award without Service Weapon. Doomed Gun of Doom Dooma
My Unit in Doom Dooma is fully armed and equipped by the United States. While I arrived in Doom Dooma, US President Richard M. Nixon arrived in Peking seeking Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong’s hand in friendship.
Special Frontier Force – Sainya Seva Medal – Service Award without Service Weapon. Richard Nixon Visits China. The Last Week of February 1972 My Life Doomed.
I was not amused. I had no choice, no alternative for providing Military Service using the US Infantry Weapon for my personal protection. At Doom Dooma, I am predestined to oppose Red China without access to any Service Weapon. I moved around in NEFA performing military tasks sanctioned by my Unit without carrying any Military Weapon.
Indian Army’s Commitment to its Men:
In the Indian Army, we take pride in looking after our men and very often we stretch ourselves to do our best to safeguard the welfare of our men even under the most difficult circumstances. And we maintain this attitude while extending help to others who may not be members of our Service.
I remember my visit to a Forward Company location when a Sub-Inspector of Police came to me asking for medical attention. He belonged to the Central Reserve Protection Force and was dispatched to this difficult area without any prior health screening. I will not be surprised if the same thing is happening today. We deploy police personnel to work in remote areas and we do not care and value their services. This Police Officer was not medically fit to serve in this area and no attempt was made to ascertain his physical fitness to perform the task for which he was sent. Fortunately, he survived the long trek and the very difficult and physically challenging climb to reach the Village where I am camping. The Village has a Government Clinic and as there was no Doctor posted at the Clinic, I was voluntarily providing services to all civilians residing in that area.
I examined him and found his blood pressure to be very high and he was at great risk of suffering from a stroke which could be fatal or cause paralysis. Apparently, he had undiagnosed high blood pressure for a long time and I could also find evidence that his kidneys were already damaged. To bring his blood pressure under control, he needed immediate hospital treatment and required emergency medical evacuation.
His Police Department never cared to inquire about his well-being before giving him the posting order. Whereas in the Armed Forces, we routinely interview the men and get them medically examined before they are sent to difficult areas.
I prepared a note about his medical condition and the Signal Company Operators immediately dispatched this message. Within minutes, my request for Emergency Medical Evacuation was approved. Doom Dooma Air Force Station was asked to send a helicopter. After a short while, I received a call from the helicopter pilot who spoke to me on his radio and informed me that he was sitting in his helicopter and was ready to take off as soon as the weather permits. That was a particularly, rainy and cloudy day with very poor visibility and the mission was really challenging. The pilot had assured me that he would fly in spite of all odds and would pick up my patient. The control tower was closely monitoring the clouds and they were waiting for a window of opportunity to make this trip while the cloud system moves through the mountain valley. He had asked me to keep the patient ready at the helipad and that he would not be able to spend even an extra minute on the ground.
Special Frontier Force – Sainya Seva Medal – Service Award without Service Weapon. Mi- 4 Helicopter provided airlift service for our operations in NEFA (Arunachal Pradesh)
Instantly, the whole scenario at my Company location got transformed. The day started on a very dull note. It was raining and there was dense fog. Suddenly, everybody got busy. As per standing orders, armed men were sent to secure our landing strip, weather signs were posted, the helipad was marked with fresh paint. Equipment for Fire-Fighting and Smoke Signaling were positioned on the ground. We erected a small shelter for the patient to rest while awaiting evacuation. A Sub-Inspector of Police suddenly became the focus of attention literally transforming him into a ‘VIP’ or Very Important Person. He was worried about his senior officers who dispatched him to this station. He was concerned that he might offend them by leaving his duty station without their prior permission. I reassured him and told him that the Indian Army would accept total responsibility for sending him to the hospital. I informed him that we value him and care for his well-being and that we would not expect any person to perform duty when their personal health is at risk.
The pilot made the bold trip as promised and safely transported him to Service Hospital at Air Force Station, Jorhat. The Sub-Inspector of Police told me that he would never forget this particular day of his life on which he could directly experience the sense of urgency with which we acted and treated him as if he is the most precious thing on earth.
I love the Service Award I earned at Doom Dooma without using any Service Weapon. I love Doom Dooma for the opportunity it gave to me to demonstrate my commitment to serve the men who serve our country without any concern for my personal safety.
Doomsayer of Doom Dooma Earns Bharat Sarkar, Indian Army Sainya Seva Medal -Service Award for Military Service Without Military Service Weapon.Doomsayer of Doom Dooma Earns Sainya Seva Medal – Service Award Without Service Weapon.
Doomsayer of Doom Dooma Earns Sainya Seva Medal – Service Award Without Service Weapon. Walong War Memorial.
Doomsayer of Doom Dooma Earns Sainya Seva Medal – Service Award Without Service Weapon. Walong War Memorial.Special Frontier Force – Sainya Seva Medal – Service Award without Service Weapon.During 1962 Chinese aggression Indian Army had valiantly resisted the enemy’s attack in a historical battle at Namti Plains, near Walong, Arunachal Pradesh.Special Frontier Force – Lohit River: “WALONG WILL NEVER FALL AGAIN.”Special Frontier Force – Sainya Seva Medal – Special Service Award for Service without Service Weapon
Whole Dude – Whole Forfeiture: From Victory Day to forfeit of Freedom – My Journey from December 16, 1971 to December 16, 2023
From Victory Day to forfeit of Freedom – My Journey from December 16, 1971 to December 16, 2023
I participated in Bangladesh Ops, code-named ‘Operation Eagle’, initiating the Liberation of Bangladesh with military action in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, starting from November 03/04, 1971.
Whole Dude – Whole Forfeiture: From Victory Day to forfeit of Freedom – My Journey from December 16, 1971 to December 16, 2023Whole Dude – Whole Forfeiture: From Victory Day to forfeit of Freedom – My Journey from December 16, 1971 to December 16, 2023
In my expectation, I visualized Operation Eagle as physical and mental training to prepare me to fulfill my challenging military mission that aims at securing Freedom, Democracy, Peace, and Justice in Occupied Tibet.
Whole Dude – Whole Forfeiture: From Victory Day to forfeit of Freedom – My Journey from December 16, 1971 to December 16, 2023
Today, I need to take stock of the ground realities. Both the United States, and India have missed several opportunities to dispatch me on my military mission. Apparently, people have forfeited Freedom and Liberty in pursuit of wealth and material prosperity which they hope will provide ‘Security’.
Whole Dude – Whole Forfeiture: From Victory Day to forfeit of Freedom – My Journey from December 16, 1971 to December 16, 2023
Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada
Special Frontier Force
Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA 48104-4162
Whole Dude – Whole Forfeiture: From Victory Day to forfeit of Freedom – My Journey from December 16, 1971 to December 16, 2023
Whole Dude – Whole Forfeiture: From Victory Day to forfeit of Freedom – My Journey from December 16, 1971 to December 16, 2023
Lt Gen Niazi signing the Instrument of Surrender under the gaze of Lt Gen Aurora. (Indian Navy)
Snapshot
· Forty-six years ago today, more than 3,500 warriors of the Indian Army crafted a victory that resulted in the capture of 93,000 Pakistani prisoners of war and delivered a new nation in 14 days.
But how many of the young Indians know that 16 December is marked as Vijay Diwas?
Ask new generation Indians, the predominant group in our nation, what Vijay Diwas is all about and you are more likely to get a blank response. For a few who know anything at all, a war was fought and won, Bangladesh was created and that is all. That over 3,500 warriors of the Indian Armed Forces made the ultimate sacrifice in the war that ended in India’s victory on 16 December 1971, that we captured 93,000 Pakistani prisoners of war (PoWs) and delivered a new nation in 14 days of a two front conventional military engagement is hardly known to them.
The 1971 India-Pakistan war saw the execution of a well-considered strategy, evolved by the redoubtable Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, even as he convinced then prime minister Indira Gandhi and her close cabinet colleagues and aides on the necessity of going slow and not being tempted by the evolving situation in March 1971. The Field Marshal had the professional courage to parry demands and shun any talk of immediate war in early 1971 when the crisis in the then East Pakistan had brewed and spilled over beyond retrieval, triggering the first reactions in South Block.
The backdrop to the situation related to the state of politics in Pakistan where the Bengali Muslims of East Pakistan were clearly resistant to the idea of being subjugated by the dominant Punjabi and Mohajir influence. The issue of language had been the touchy beginning to the standoff between East Pakistan (Bengali speaking and resistant to Urdu) and West Pakistan. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, father of the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina Wajed, was illegally denied his electoral victory in 1970 by Pakistan’s ruling coterie, which was influenced by Zulfiqar Bhutto. The crisis spilled into the streets and became a point of no return in March 1971. The Pakistan Army’s reign of terror on the hapless Bengalis exacerbated the situation with an initial displacement of a million refugees who spilled across the border into India. The figure progressively moved up to 10 million.
The Field Marshal famously faced the powerful coterie of Indira Gandhi and gave them a lesson in strategy. He reminded them of his demands for an enhanced budget to buy more spares for the tanks and sufficient ammunition for the artillery which had not been granted. He let them know that a war in April or May meant for the standing crop of wheat all over Western India which would be destroyed by movement of the Army thus leading to a major food crisis in India. Among other cautionary, he stated that war in June-August would be a major problem with moving dual task Army formations west to east or vice versa due to the floods and shaky railway infrastructure besides the state of the terrain in East Pakistan.
The prime minister gave in to the Army Chief’s advice and trusted him to evolve the war fighting plans should Pakistan decide to go to war. The war finally broke out on 3 December 1971 but preceding that a series of clashes occurred at the borders some of them well above the classical description of patrol and border clashes. The Indian Army followed a simple strategy.
Firstly, the war effort would be focused on the eastern theatre where the impact would have to be decisive; there was total clarity about this.
Secondly, the western front could not be ignored as Pakistan would want India’s attention to be diverted and resources divided. The western theatre was largely to be in holding mode but that would not restrict offensive operations where ever opportunities arose.
Thirdly, for the eastern theater the strategy included speedy thrusts, bypassing main opposition which would be contained or masked to allow the main advance to progress unhindered to the identified center of gravity, Dacca.
The early multi-directional threat to Dacca would unnerve the Pakistani military leadership and force it to capitulate. The role of the Indian Air Force was crucial and it led to some decisive actions such as at Longewala (Rajasthan) where a large Armoured column of the Pakistan Army was decimated in the morning after it was brought to a standstill by a single company with two recoilless guns of 23 Punjab. The Indian Air Force also ensured total domination of the air above East Pakistan. The Indian Navy not to be left behind was entrusted the task of intimidating Pakistan with a virtual blockade of Karachi, Pakistan’s only port. The Navy went well beyond its brief and achieved total domination of the sea and even raided Karachi harbor with missile attacks.
The Indian forces in the eastern theatre comprised 4 Corps under Lt Gen Sagat Singh, 33 Corps under Lt Gen M L Thapar and the newly raised 2 Corps under Lt Gen T N Raina. In less than 14 days, the Indian troops were at the doorstep of Dacca having bypassed all islands of resistance and making use of the distinct corridors provided by the riverine terrain. A parachute drop of the 2nd Para at Tangail secured the final bridges and crossings enabling the troops to make an early entry into the outskirts of Dacca even as radio messages were transmitted to the Pakistani leadership that further resistance would only result in more bloodshed while a surrender would ensure full safety of troops.
The Pakistan Army as is well known had sufficient stocks of ammunition and other logistics wherewithal. It could have fought long and resisted to the end but devoid of any air power with its forward locations under Indian siege the only thing that the Pakistanis could fight for was their honor and name as a fighting force. Lt Gen A A K Niazi, the overall commander of Pakistani forces in the eastern theatre weighed his options and made the final decision for surrender, the details of which were negotiated by Maj Gen (later Lt Gen) JFR Jacob. The surrender ceremony which was impromptu involved the signing of the surrender document by Lt Gen Niazi and its handing over to Lt Gen Jagjit Aurora, Army Commander Eastern Command. The photograph of the ceremony is now folklore and adorns every military museum, motivation hall and officers mess of the Indian Army.
The western front saw action all along, from Naya Chor in Rajasthan to Turtuk in Ladakh. Some intense armour battles were fought in the Shakargarh Bulge. 10 Para (Commando) now 10 SF under Lt Col Bhawani Singh, MVC conducted a series of raids across the international border in the Barmer sector. 9 Para (Commando) similarly earned glory for its action in Jammu and Kashmir. The Lipa Valley was captured by the famous Dagger Division among many other gains by the Indian Army on the western front.
Among the famous battles of 1971 were Akhaura, Sylhet, Hilli, Basantar, Longewala, Lipa Valley and Naya Chor. There are many heroes of 1971 whose names need to be folklore and whose deeds must be brought to the knowledge of young Indians of today. A nation which does not sufficiently glorify its military heroes is not a nation with sufficient self-esteem. India is surely not in that category as the public loves the Armed Forces, respects them immensely but unfortunately is completely divorced from knowledge about the deeds of the very forces they revere.
The names of 2/Lt Arun Khetarpal, Major Hoshiyar Singh, Flt Lt Nirmaljeet Singh Sekhon and L/Naik Albert Ekka, all winners of the Param Vir Chakra (India’s highest wartime award for valor in the face of the enemy) need to be known to India’s young. India needs a public relations outreach to educate the public about the sacrifice of its heroes. There are many patriotic organizations which are organizing events to mark Vijay Diwas, but this really needs a major push to make it a movement.
The Indian Armed Forces need to provide an example of doing something different on Vijay Diwas. It would be good to see that along with traditional ‘barakhana’ and pep talks by commanders which are routine, all units and establishments must undertake an exercise of self-appraisal and identification of strengths and weaknesses. This should be done through an exercise of mutual discussion and consultation with all stakeholders and result in identification of one or two themes from different domains (operations, training, administration, equipment management etc.) to be undertaken for rectification over the next year.
It should be entirely an internal exercise with no checks and in an environment which promotes trust and ability to function unsupervised. Subsequently the Armed Forces should project this model of self-appraisal across the nation for all civil establishments to conduct in the same spirit. Vijay Diwas must ultimately emerge as a day beyond just ceremonials. It should be seen as a day synonymous with victory over inertia and victory over inefficiency.
We can ill-afford to forget the India-Pakistan War of 1971; it is just too important an event in India’s post-1947 history. Progressive nations move on and shape their destinies with hard work and initiatives but equally draw inspiration from the achievements of the past. We cannot allow our young not to be aware of our modern day history and therefore much more effort is needed to spread the word of India’s military heritage. Fortunately, there is deep interest in this, but not enough people to explain and render assistance to educational institutions in the field of military history and strategic culture. An odd lone ranger is doing it, but it needs to become a movement.
Happy Vijay Diwas to the nation!
Whole Dude – Whole Forfeiture: From Victory Day to forfeit of Freedom – My Journey from December 16, 1971 to December 16, 2023
Whole Dude - Whole Concept 