Author/Former CIA Agent John Kenneth Knaus Sheds Light on Recent Developments in Tibet, Cold War Mistakes

TORONTO, March 14, 2000 -- John Kenneth Knaus, a key figure in the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's covert operation in Tibet in the 1960s, will discuss the failed campaign and current developments around the recent flight from Tibet of the 14-year-old lama believed to be the 17th incarnation of the Karmapa Lama.

During a public lecture entitled America's Great Game in Tibet on Fri., March 17, 1 p.m., Knaus -- a guest of the Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies (JCAPS) at York University and the University of Toronto -- will describe the seven years he spent helping to direct U.S.-trained Tibetan guerrillas in a campaign against the Chinese, why the operation failed, and what level of autonomy might be achievable for Tibetans today. Knaus's book Orphans of the Cold War: America and the Tibetan Struggle for Survival (New York: Public Affairs, 1999) is the first account by a participant of the CIA campaign in Tibet that ended in 1974. Knaus is currently an associate at the Fairbank Centre for East Asian Research at Harvard University, where he was most recently Central Intelligence Agency officer in residence at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

"The complex political and religious history of Tibet and its historical relationship with China is seldom understood in the West in the public clamour to support Tibetan independence," said JCAPS Director, Bernard Frolic, professor of Political Science at York. "Knaus's work reveals the many layers of misunderstanding that have characterized U.S. and Chinese policy in their dealings with Tibet," he added.

The international spotlight is again on Tibet following the flight to India in January of the 14-year-old lama believed to be the 17th incarnation of the Karmapa Lama, leader of one of Tibet's most powerful Buddhist sects. Tibetan Buddhists believe that intensely holy priests, like the first Karmapa, are reincarnated many times. The current Dalai Lama is the 14th reincarnation and leader of the Yellow Hat sect, which ruled Tibet at the time of his flight from the Chinese occupation. The 17th Karmapa is pursuing religious tradition in seeking to retrieve the instruments of ordainment that his predecessor, the 16th Karmapa, took with him when he fled from China four decades ago. The Chinese had been cultivating the young Karmapa as a "patriotic" lama. He is now faced with the decision to return to Tibet or seek political asylum in India.

The lecture will convene in room 108 at the Koffler Institute, 569 Spadina Avenue, University of Toronto.

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For further information, please contact:

Prof. Bernard Frolic (on China Tibet relations)
Director, JCAPS
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 88821
bfrol@yorku.ca

Prof. David Schimmelpenninck (on Tibet)
Department of History
Brock University
(905) 688-5550, ext. 3507
Dschimme@spartan.ac.brocku.ca

Lynne Russell
Program Coordinator, JCAPS
University of Toronto
(416) 946-8987
lynne.russell@utoronto.ca

Susan Bigelow
Media Relations
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22091
sbigelow@yorku.ca
YU/030/00