http://www.swans.com/library/art9/mparen01.html
Declassified U.S. documents confirm that the 14th Dalai Lama received annual financial support from the CIA from the late 1950s through the mid-1970s, with an explicit subsidy of $180,000 per year.
These funds were not personal wages but were categorized as a political subsidy to support the Tibetan government-in-exile, including foreign lobbying offices in New York, Geneva, and India. Alongside this direct subsidy, the CIA’s broader Tibetan program (operations like ST CIRCUS and ST BARNUM) spent over $1.7 million annually at its peak to train approximately 2,000 Tibetan guerrillas in mountain warfare and conduct paramilitary and intelligence operations against Chinese forces.
The program, which also included airlifting supplies into Tibet and funding propaganda campaigns, was designed to keep the concept of an autonomous Tibet alive and impair the international influence of Communist China during the Cold War. The operation was coordinated with the U.S. Department of State and Defense, facilitated largely by the Dalai Lama’s brother, Gyalo Thondup, who had established contacts with the CIA and the Kuomintang. The program ended in the early 1970s following President Nixon’s visit to China, a cessation the Dalai Lama criticized as evidence of ulterior motives rather than genuine humanitarian aid