Book contents
- Spying in South Asia
- Spying in South Asia
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- A Note on Place Names
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Transfer of Power: British Intelligence and the End of Empire in South Asia
- 2 Silent Partners: Britain, India, and Early Cold War Intelligence Liaison
- 3 India’s Rasputin: V. K. Krishna Menon and the Spectre of Indian Communism
- 4 Quiet Americans: The CIA and the Onset of the Cold War in South Asia
- 5 Confronting China: The Sino-Indian War and Collaborative Covert Action
- 6 Peddling Propaganda: The Information Research Department and India
- 7 From Russia with Love: Dissidents and Defectors in Cold War India
- 8 The Foreign Hand: Indira Gandhi and the Politics of Intelligence
- 9 Battle of the Books: Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Seymour Hersh, and India’s CIA ‘Agents’
- 10 Indian Intelligence and the End of the Cold War
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Quiet Americans: The CIA and the Onset of the Cold War in South Asia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2024
- Spying in South Asia
- Spying in South Asia
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- A Note on Place Names
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Transfer of Power: British Intelligence and the End of Empire in South Asia
- 2 Silent Partners: Britain, India, and Early Cold War Intelligence Liaison
- 3 India’s Rasputin: V. K. Krishna Menon and the Spectre of Indian Communism
- 4 Quiet Americans: The CIA and the Onset of the Cold War in South Asia
- 5 Confronting China: The Sino-Indian War and Collaborative Covert Action
- 6 Peddling Propaganda: The Information Research Department and India
- 7 From Russia with Love: Dissidents and Defectors in Cold War India
- 8 The Foreign Hand: Indira Gandhi and the Politics of Intelligence
- 9 Battle of the Books: Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Seymour Hersh, and India’s CIA ‘Agents’
- 10 Indian Intelligence and the End of the Cold War
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
During the first two decades following India’s independence, the CIA had a complex, and often conflicted relationship with the ruling Congress party and the Indian media. Despite public and private criticisms levelled at the Agency by Jawaharlal Nehru, a number of CIA covert operations in the subcontinent were undertaken with the full knowledge and support of India’s intelligence service and senior figures within the Congress Party: In Kerala, in the late 1950s, the CIA worked with the Congress Party to destabilise a democratically elected communist administration; following an abortive Tibetan uprising in 1959, India’s Intelligence Bureau chose to ‘look the other way’ as CIA aircraft transited through Indian airspace in support of Agency sponsored resistance operations in Chinese-controlled Tibet; and CIA operatives spirited the Dalai Lama out of Lhasa and into northern India. This chapter probes the genesis and evolution of the CIA’s relationship with India during the Agency’s so-called ‘golden age’ in the long 1950s, when a series of major US covert operations were conducted across the globe, in places such as the Congo, Guatemala, Iran, Indonesia, and Tibet.
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- Spying in South AsiaBritain, the United States, and India's Secret Cold War, pp. 76 - 99Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024