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Esmond Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 9/3/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

TIBETAN REFUGEES

Sir. – Recent devastating events in Tibet caused over 15,000 Tibetans to cross the perilous Himalayas into India. It may be a long time before these unfortunate people can safely return to their overrun country. Our own consciences should allow us neither to neglect nor forget them.

The Indian Government has manfully coped with this addition to its own problems at home. In this country we are bound in honour to help relieve needs of the Tibetan refugees, because from 1905 to 1947 there was a special relationship between Tibet and the United Kingdom – a relationship handed on to the new India.

On balance we think it wisest to concentrate chiefly on collecting money which can be used for the benefit of the refugees, not least in the purchase of necessary antibiotics and other medicaments. The Tibet Society has opened a Tibet Relief Fund for which we now appeal in the hope of a generous response. Donations should be sent to the address below or direct to the National Bank Ltd. (Belgravia Branch), 21 Grosvenor Gardens, S.W.I.

Yours faithfully,

... Harmsworth ... The Tibet Relief Fund, 58 Eccleston Square, S.W. I., Letter to the Times, July 31, 1959, p.7.

-- Tibet Society, by tibetsociety.com

-- Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, by Wikipedia

-- Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, by Wikipedia

-- Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park, by Wikipedia

-- The Anglo-American Establishment: From Rhodes to Cliveden, by Carroll Quigley

The Right Honourable
The Viscount Rothermere
Born 29 May 1898
Died 12 July 1978 (aged 80)
Nationality British
Education Eton College
Occupation Politician, Publisher
Title 2nd Viscount Rothermere
Spouse(s) Margaret Hunam Redhead (1920–1938)
Ann Geraldine Mary Charteris (1945–1952)
Mary Murchison (1966–1978)
Children With Margaret:
* Lorna Peggy Vyvyan Harmsworth (1920–2014)
* Esmé Mary Gabrielle Harmsworth (1922–2011)
* Vere Harmsworth, 3rd Viscount Rothermere (1925–1998)
With Mary:
* Esmond Vyvyan Harmsworth (b. 1967)
Parent(s) Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere & Mary Lilian Share

Esmond Cecil Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere (29 May 1898 – 12 July 1978) was a British Conservative politician and press magnate.



Early life

Harmsworth was the son of Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, who had founded the Daily Mail in partnership with his brother Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe. He was educated at Eton College and commissioned into the Royal Marine Artillery in World War I. His two older brothers were both killed in action. Esmond served as Aide-de-Camp to the Prime Minister at the Paris Peace Conference. In 1919, he was elected as a Unionist Member of Parliament for the Isle of Thanet, one of the youngest MPs ever. He served until 1929.

Press career



After 1922, the Daily Mail and General Trust company was created to control the newspapers that Lord Rothermere retained after Lord Northcliffe's death (The Times, for example, was sold). As his father dabbled in association with the Nazis and a flirtation with becoming King of Hungary, it fell to Harmsworth to manage the businesses. His father retired as chairman of Associated Newspapers in 1932 at the age of 64, and Harmsworth took over that role.[1] He served as chairman until 1971, after which he assumed the titles of President and Director of Group Finance, and chairman of Daily Mail & General Trust Ltd, the parent company, from 1938 until his death.

Harmsworth ran the businesses with sufficient skill that they remain firmly under family control today, majority ownership being voted by his grandson, the 4th Viscount Rothermere, and a significant minority by Vyvyan Harmsworth, the 2nd Viscount's son by his third marriage. Never as flamboyant as his father or his son, he wielded his power on Fleet Street alongside other press lords whose families have all relinquished control of their holdings today.

Harmsworth also had a significant impact on the development of Memorial University of Newfoundland (the family has had a long-standing interest in Newfoundland, having built a paper mill in Grand Falls before the outbreak of the First World War). The University's first residence in Paton College, known as Rothermere House, is named after the Viscount. Harmsworth was the first Chancellor of Memorial University and the benefactor who provided the funds to construct Rothermere House.

Personal life



Lord Rothermere succeeded his father in the viscountcy in 1940. He married three times and had four children:.[2] His first marriage was to Margaret Hunam Redhead, daughter of William Lancelot Redhead, on 12 January 1920 (divorced 1938). They had three children:

• Hon. Lorna Peggy Vyvyan Harmsworth (1920–2014) who married Neill Cooper-Key MP (1907–1981), and had issue two sons and two daughters; her younger and only surviving son was the first husband of Lady Mary-Gaye Curzon-Howe (mother by later marriages of actress Isabella Calthorpe and society beauty Cressida Bonas).
• Hon. Esmé Mary Gabrielle Harmsworth (1922–2011) who married Rowland Baring, 3rd Earl of Cromer, and had issue two sons and one daughter by her first marriage.
• Vere Harmsworth, 3rd Viscount Rothermere (1925–1998)

For fourteen years Orage continued to edit ‘The New Age’. His reputation as a literary critic and writer on current affairs in almost every field of human effort was at its height when an inner discontent began increasingly to manifest itself. With all his searching he had not been able to find an answer to the question which never allowed him to sleep in peace – the question of the meaning and aim of existence. The possibility of finding an answer, however, was nearer than he supposed. P. D. Ouspensky, whom he had been in touch with for some time, arrived in London in the autumn of 1921 and spoke with him about the teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff. Orage, with Rowland Kenny, organized a study group for Ouspensky which first met at the studio of Lady [Margaret Hunam Redhead Harmsworth] Rothermere in Circus Road, N.W. After some months of work Gurdjieff himself visited the group in London early in February 1922 [2] and again for a three week visit in March of that year [3].

-- Alfred Richard Orage (1873-1934), by Leeds Gurdjieff Fourth Way Group

He married, secondly, Ann Geraldine Mary Charteris, widow of Shane Edward Robert O'Neill, 3rd Baron O'Neill, who was killed in action in 1944 in Italy. She also was the daughter of Captain Hon. Guy Lawrence Charteris and Frances Lucy Tennant and granddaughter of Hugo Richard Charteris, 11th Earl of Wemyss, on 28 June 1945 (divorced 1952). Ann Charteris then married the writer Ian Fleming in 1952.[3]

Lord Rothermere married, thirdly, Mary Murchison, daughter of Kenneth Murchison, on 28 March 1966, by whom he had a second son:[4]

• Hon. Esmond Vyvyan Harmsworth (b. 1967), who moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1993.[4]
Lord Rothermere died on 12 July 1978, aged 80, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Vere Harmsworth.

References

1. "A Newspaper Magnate Railway Service Fire Alarms Banditry in East and West". The Times of India. 21 October 1932.
2. http://thepeerage.com/p1377.htm#i13767
3. Jennet Conant, The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington, 2008. p. 332
4. "Viscountess Rothermere, Socialite, Is Dead". The New York Times. 7 April 1993. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Viscount Rothermere

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Peter Fleming (writer)
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 9/3/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

TIBETAN REFUGEES

Sir. – Recent devastating events in Tibet caused over 15,000 Tibetans to cross the perilous Himalayas into India. It may be a long time before these unfortunate people can safely return to their overrun country. Our own consciences should allow us neither to neglect nor forget them.

The Indian Government has manfully coped with this addition to its own problems at home. In this country we are bound in honour to help relieve needs of the Tibetan refugees, because from 1905 to 1947 there was a special relationship between Tibet and the United Kingdom – a relationship handed on to the new India.

On balance we think it wisest to concentrate chiefly on collecting money which can be used for the benefit of the refugees, not least in the purchase of necessary antibiotics and other medicaments. The Tibet Society has opened a Tibet Relief Fund for which we now appeal in the hope of a generous response. Donations should be sent to the address below or direct to the National Bank Ltd. (Belgravia Branch), 21 Grosvenor Gardens, S.W.I.

Yours faithfully,

... Peter Fleming ... The Tibet Relief Fund, 58 Eccleston Square, S.W. I., Letter to the Times, July 31, 1959, p.7.

-- Tibet Society, by tibetsociety.com

Annex C
Excerpt from Master of Deception, The Wartime Adventures of Peter Fleming
by Alan Ogden
2019

Annex C

Staff List - GSI (d) / D. Division / Force 456

Officer commanding GSI (d)
Colonel Peter Fleming

Officers commanding D. Division
Colonel Peter Fleming (from November 1943)
Colonel Sir Ronald Wingate Bt. (from 25 April 1945) 

Officer commanding Force 456 (from 25 April 1945)
Colonel Peter Fleming

Policy and Plans HQ SEAC Kandy
Wing Commander The Hon. Mervyn Horder, RAFVR
Lieutenant Commander the Earl of Antrim, RNVR5 [Posted SACSEA 14 November 1944.]
Captain Saunders

D. Division Rear HQ Delhi
Commander Alan Robertson-Macdonald RN, Eastern Fleet Representative
Major Peter Thorne, Grenadier Guards
Major Lucas J. Ralli, Royal Signals, GSO 2 Wireless Comms
Major A.D.R. Wilson
Captain the Hon. A.J.A Wavell
Navy Lieutenant Pei, Chinese LO

Operations Section
Lieutenant Colonel A.G. 'Johnnie' Johnson, RA6 [He does not show up on 1944/45 Indian Army Intelligence Directorate List. Holt says he came across from A Force.]
Major Gordon Rennie
Captain K.L. Campbell (from 12 March 1945)
Captain J.N. Carleton-Stiff, R.Sigs.

Technical Section
Major C.H. Starck, RE
Captain J.A. Gloag, (Z Force from 15 March 1945)
Captain G.T.H. Carter, RE (from 2 April 1945)
Captain D.W. Timmis
Captain Skipworth

Tac HQ Calcutta (Advanced HQ ALFSEA)
Lieutenant Colonel 'Frankie' Wilson, GSO 1
Major J.M. Howson (from 30 March 1945)
Major J.C.W. Napier-Munn, RA
Major R.A. Gwyn, Base Signal Office Calcutta
Squadron Leader J. King7 [Does not show on 1945 RAF List (India).]
Captain 'Jack' Corbett (US) March 1945

Control Section
Major S.C.F. Pierson, GSO 2

D Force

Force HQ
Lieutenant Colonel P.E.X Tumbull -- Commanding officer
Major E.F.A 'Ted' Royds -- 2 i/c
Major J.C. Gladman8 [Keen collector of butterflies of the Arakan coast!] - Officer i/c Sonic
Captain K.A.J. Booth -- Adjutant
Captain P.R. Hedges -- 2 i/c Sonic
Lieutenant M.W. Trennery -- i/c Sonic training
Lieutenant B.E. Chambers -- i/c Sonic training

Companies
Captain G. Morgan -- OC 51 Coy
Lieutenant E.H. Morris, RE -- 2 i/c 51 Coy
Captain J.A. Fosbury -- OC 52 Coy
Captain C.A.R. Richardson -- OC 53 Coy
Lieutenant R.A. Spark -- 2 i/c 53 Coy
Captain J.I. Nicolson, KAR Reserve of Officers -- OC 54 Coy
Lieutenant R.H. Walton, RA -- 2 i/c 54 Coy
Lieutenant G.H. Smith -- i/c Sonic 54 Coy
Captain G.W. Boyd -- OC 55 Coy
Lieutenant J.D. Taylor -- 2 i/c 55 Coy
Captain C.J.C. Lumsden -- OC 56 Coy
Lieutenant J.H. Atkinson -- i/c Sonic 56 Coy
Captain D.W. Timmis -- OC 57 Coy
Captain R.H.D. Norman -- OC 58 Coy
Lieutenant B. Raymond -- 2 i/c 58 Coy
Lieutenant J.G. Sommerville -- i/c Sonic 58 Coy

No.1 Naval Scout Unit
Lieutenant Commander H.B. Brassey, RNVR

ITB
Colonel Reginald Bicat
Chief Clerk: Sergeant Ashley
Major N.P. Dawnay
Major J.A. Denney
Major H.L. Frenkel
Major D.W. Gaylor
Major J.F. Howarth
Major D.K. Kerker
Major J.L. Schofield
Major J.E. Vaughan
Captain H.N. Barker
Captain R. Baxter
Captain A. Forbes
Captain D.H. Pickhard
Captain B.K.H. Richards
Captain E.G. Sperring
Captain A.H.D. Williams

Liaison officers with Army Formations
Eastern Army (1943): Colonel 'Fookiform' Foulkes and Major Frankie Wilson
HQ Fourteenth Army: Major John Warde-Aldham
NCAC: Captain Jack Corbett (US). Appointed February 1945
IV Corps: Major J.M. Howson
XV Corps: Major D. Graham, MC
XXXIII Corps: Major R. Campbell GSO 2

Control Section China Chungking
Major S.C.F. Pierson
Lieutenant Colonel F.G. Bishop

Peter Fleming
OBE DL
Born Robert Peter Fleming
31 May 1907
Mayfair, London, England
Died 18 August 1971 (aged 64)
Black Mount, Argyllshire, Scotland[1]
Resting place St. Bartholomew's Churchyard, Nettlebed
Education Eton College
Alma mater Christ Church, Oxford
Occupation Writer, adventurer
Spouse(s) Celia Johnson (m. 1935)
Children 3
Relatives Ian Fleming (brother)

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Peter Fleming OBE DL (31 May 1907 – 18 August 1971) was a British adventurer, soldier and travel writer.[2] He was the elder brother of Ian Fleming,[3] creator of James Bond.

Lord Rothermere succeeded his father in the viscountcy in 1940. He married three times and had four children ....

He married, secondly, Ann Geraldine Mary Charteris, widow of Shane Edward Robert O'Neill, 3rd Baron O'Neill, who was killed in action in 1944 in Italy. She also was the daughter of Captain Hon. Guy Lawrence Charteris and Frances Lucy Tennant and granddaughter of Hugo Richard Charteris, 11th Earl of Wemyss, on 28 June 1945 (divorced 1952). Ann Charteris then married the writer Ian Fleming in 1952.[3]

-- Esmond Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere, by Wikipedia

Early life

Peter Fleming was one of four sons of the barrister and MP Valentine Fleming, who was killed in action in 1917, having served as MP for Henley from 1910. Fleming was educated at Eton, where he edited the Eton College Chronicle. The Peter Fleming Owl (the English meaning of "Strix", the name under which he later wrote for The Spectator) is still awarded every year to the best contributor to the Chronicle.[4] He went on from Eton to Christ Church, Oxford, and graduated with a first-class degree in English.

Fleming was a member of the Bullingdon Club during his time at Oxford.[5] On 10 December 1935 he married the actress Celia Johnson (1908–1982), best known for her roles in the films Brief Encounter and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.[6]

Travels

In Brazil

In April 1932 Fleming replied to an advertisement in the personal columns of The Times: "Exploring and sporting expedition, under experienced guidance, leaving England June to explore rivers central Brazil, if possible ascertain fate Colonel Percy Fawcett; abundant game, big and small; exceptional fishing; room two more guns; highest references expected and given." He then joined the expedition, organised by Robert Churchward, to São Paulo, then overland to the rivers Araguaia and Tapirapé, heading towards the last-known position of the Fawcett expedition.

During the inward journey the expedition was riven by increasing disagreements as to its objectives and plans, centred particularly on its local leader, whom Fleming disguised as "Major Pingle" when he wrote about the expedition. Fleming and Roger Pettiward (a school and university friend recruited onto the expedition as a result of a chance encounter with Fleming) led a breakaway group.

This group continued for several days up the Tapirapé to São Domingo, from where Fleming, Pettiward, Neville Priestley and one of the Brazilians hired by the expedition set out to find evidence of Fawcett's fate on their own. After acquiring two Tapirapé guides the party began a march to the area where Fawcett was reported to have last been seen. They made slow progress for several days, losing the Indian guides and Neville to foot infection, before admitting defeat.

The expedition's return journey was made down the River Araguaia to Belém. It became a closely fought race between Fleming's party and "Major Pingle", the prize being to be the first to report home, and thus to gain the upper hand in the battles over blame and finances that were to come. Fleming's party narrowly won. The expedition returned to England in November 1932.

Fleming's book about the expedition, Brazilian Adventure, has sold well ever since it was first published in 1933, and is still in print.

In Asia

Fleming travelled from Moscow to Peking via the Caucasus, the Caspian, Samarkand, Tashkent, the Turksib Railway and the Trans-Siberian Railway to Peking as a special correspondent of The Times. His experiences were written up in One's Company (1934). He then went overland in company of Ella Maillart from China via Tunganistan to India on a journey written up in News from Tartary (1936). These two books were combined as Travels in Tartary: One's Company and News from Tartary (1941). All three volumes were published by Jonathan Cape.

According to Nicolas Clifford, for Fleming China “had the aspect of a comic opera land whose quirks and oddities became grist for the writer, rather than deserving any respect or sympathy in themselves”.[7] In One's Company, for example, Fleming reports that Beijing was “lacking in charm”, Harbin was a city of “no easily definable character”. Changchun was “entirely characterless”, and Shenyang was “non-descript and suburban". However, Fleming also provides insights into Manchukuo, the Japanese puppet state in Manchuria, which helped contemporary readers to understand Chinese resentment and resistance, and the aftermath of the Kumul Rebellion. In the course of these travels Fleming met and interviewed many prominent figures in Central Asia and China, including the Chinese Muslim General Ma Hushan, the Chinese Muslim Taoyin of Kashgar, Ma Shaowu, and Pu Yi.

Of Travels in Tartary, Owen Lattimore remarked that Fleming, who "passes for an easy-going amateur, is in fact an inspired amateur whose quick appreciation, especially of people, and original turn of phrase, echoing P. G. Wodehouse in only a very distant and cultured way, have created a unique kind of travel book". Lattimore added that it "is only in the political news from Tartary that there is a disappointment," as, in his view, Fleming offers "a simplified explanation, in terms of Red intrigue and Bolshevik villains, which does not make sense."[8]

Stuart Stevens retraced Peter Fleming's route and wrote his own travel book.[9]

World War II

Just before war was declared, Peter Fleming, then a reserve officer in the Grenadier Guards, was recruited by the War Office research section investigating the potential of irregular warfare (MIR). His initial task was to develop ideas to assist the Chinese guerrillas fighting the Japanese. He served in the Norwegian campaign with the prototype commando units – Independent Companies – but in May 1940 he was tasked with research into the potential use of the new Local Defence Volunteers (later the Home Guard) as guerrilla troops. His ideas were first incorporated into General Thorne's XII Corps Observation Unit, forerunner of the GHQ Auxiliary Units. Fleming recruited his brother, Richard, then serving in the Faroe Islands, to provide a core of Lovat Scout instructors to his teams of LDV volunteers.

When Colin Gubbins was appointed to head the new Auxiliary Units, he incorporated many of Peter's ideas, which aimed to create secret commando teams of Home Guard in the coastal districts most liable to the risk of invasion. Their role was to launch sabotage raids on the flanks and rear of any invading army, in support of regular troops, but they were never intended as a post-occupation 'resistance' force, having a life expectancy of only two weeks.[10]

Peter Fleming later served in Greece, but his principal service, from 1942 to the end of the war, was as head of D Division,[11] in charge of military deception operations in Southeast Asia, based in New Delhi, India.

Fleming was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1945 Birthday Honours and in 1948 he was awarded the Order of the Cloud and Banner with Special Rosette by the Republic of China.[12][13]

Later life

After the war Peter Fleming retired to squiredom at Nettlebed, Oxfordshire and was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Oxfordshire on 31 July 1970.[14]

Death

Fleming died on 18 August 1971 from a heart attack while on a shooting expedition near Glen Coe in Scotland. His body was buried in Nettlebed Churchyard, where a stained glass window was later installed in the church dedicated to his memory.[15] The gravestone reads:

He travelled widely in far places;
Wrote, and was widely read.
Soldiered, saw some of danger's faces,
Came home to Nettlebed.

The squire lies here, his journeys ended –
Dust, and a name on a stone –
Content, amid the lands he tended,
To keep this rendezvous alone.

Family

After the death of his brother Ian, Peter Fleming served on the board of Glidrose, Ltd, the company purchased by Ian to hold the literary rights to his professional writing, particularly the James Bond novels and short stories. Peter also tried to become a substitute father for Ian's surviving son, Caspar, who overdosed on narcotics in his twenties.

Peter and Celia Fleming remained married until his death in 1971. He was survived by their three children:

• Nicholas Peter Val Fleming (1939–1995), writer and squire of Nettlebed. He deposited Peter Fleming's papers for public access at the University of Reading in 1975. These include several unpublished works, as well as the manuscripts of several of his books that are now out of print. Nichol Fleming's partner for many years was the merchant banker Christopher Roxburghe Balfour (b. 1941), brother of Neil Balfour, second husband (1969–78) of Princess Jelizaveta of Yugoslavia. Nettlebed is now jointly owned by his sisters.
• (Roberta) Katherine Fleming (b. 1946), writer and publisher, is now Kate Grimond, wife of Johnny Grimond, foreign editor of The Economist. Johnny is the elder surviving son of the late British Liberal Party leader Jo Grimond, and grandson maternally of Violet Bonham-Carter, herself daughter of the British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith. Kate and John have three children, Jessie (a journalist), Rose (an actress turned organic foods entrepreneur) and Georgia (a journalist at The Economist online).
• Lucy Fleming (born 1947), now Lucy Williams, is an actress. In the 1970s she starred as Jenny in the BBC's apocalyptic fiction series Survivors. She was first married in 1971 to Joseph "Joe" Laycock (d. 1980), son of a family friend Robert Laycock and his wife Angela Dudley Ward, and was on honeymoon at the time of her father's sudden death in Argyllshire. Lucy and Joe had two sons and a daughter, Flora. Flora and her father, Joe, were drowned in a boating accident in 1980. At the time of their deaths Lucy and Joe were separated on good terms. Lucy later married the actor and writer Simon Williams. Her sons are Diggory and Robert Laycock.

Peter Fleming was the godfather of the British author and journalist Duff Hart-Davis, who wrote Peter Fleming: A Biography (published by Jonathan Cape in 1974). Duff's father Rupert Hart-Davis, a publisher, was good friends with Peter, who gave him a home on the Nettlebed estate for many years and gave financial backing to his publishing ventures.

Legacy

The Peter Fleming Award, worth £9,000, is given by the Royal Geographical Society for a "research project that seeks to advance geographical science".[16]
Fleming's book about the British military expedition to Tibet in 1903 to 1904 is credited in the Chinese film Red River Valley (1997).

Quotations

• "São Paulo is like Reading, only much farther away." – Brazilian Adventure
• "Public opinion in England is sharply divided on the subject of Russia. On the one hand you have the crusty majority, who believe it to be a hell on earth; on the other you have the half-baked minority who believe it to be a terrestrial paradise in the making. Both cling to their opinions with the tenacity, respectively, of the die-hard and the fanatic. Both are hopelessly wrong." – One's Company
• The recorded history of Chinese civilisation covers a period of four thousand years.
The Population of China is estimated at 450 million.
China is larger than Europe.
The author of this book is twenty-six years old.
He has spent, altogether, about seven months in China.
He does not speak Chinese.
Preface, One's Company

Fleming's works

Fleming was a special correspondent for The Times and often wrote under the pen-name "Strix" (Latin for "screech owl") an essayist for The Spectator.

Non-fiction

• 1933 Brazilian Adventure – Exploring the Brazilian jungle in search of the lost Colonel Percy Fawcett.
• 1934 One's Company: A Journey to China in 1933 – Travels through the USSR, Manchuria and China. Later reissued as half of Travels in Tartary.
• 1936 News from Tartary: A Journey from Peking to Kashmir – Journey from Peking to Srinagar via Sinkiang. He was accompanied on this journey by Ella Maillart (Kini). Later reissued as half of Travels in Tartary.
• 1952 A Forgotten Journey – A diary Fleming kept during a journey through Russia and Manchuria in 1934. Reprinted as To Peking: A Forgotten Journey from Moscow to Manchuria (2009, ISBN 978-1-84511-996-6)
• 1953 Introduction to Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer published by Rupert Hart-Davis, London[17]
• 1955 Tibetan Marches – A translation from French of Caravane vers Bouddha by André Migot
• 1956 My Aunt's Rhinoceros: And Other Reflections — A collection of essays written (as "Strix") for The Spectator.
• 1957 Invasion 1940 — an account of the planned Nazi invasion of Britain and British anti-invasion preparations of the Second World War. Published in the United States as Operation Sea Lion
• 1957 With the Guards to Mexico: And Other Excursions — A collection of essays written for The Spectator.
• 1958 The Gower Street Poltergeist — A collection of essays written for The Spectator.
• 1959 The Siege at Peking — An account of the Boxer Rebellion and the European-led siege of the Imperial capital.
• 1961 Bayonets to Lhasa: The First Full Account of the British Invasion of Tibet in 1904
• 1961 Goodbye to the Bombay Bowler — A collection of essays written for The Spectator as 'Strix'.
• 1963 The Fate of Admiral Kolchak — a study of the White Army leader Admiral Kolchak who attempted to save the Imperial Russian family at Ekaterinburg in 1918.
Fiction[edit]
Books
• 1940 The Flying Visit – A humorous novel about an unintended visit to Britain by Adolf Hitler. Illustrated by David Low.
• 1942 A Story to Tell: And Other Tales — A collection of short stories.
• 1952 The Sixth Column: A Singular Tale of Our Times
• The Sett (unfinished, unpublished)[18]
Short fiction
• "The Kill" (1931)[19]
• "Felipe" (1937)[20]
References[edit]
Notes
1. "Peter Fleming, 64, a British writer". New York Times. Special to the New York Times. 20 August 1971. p. 36.
2. "Obituary Colonel Peter Fleming, Author and explorer". The Times, 20 August 1971 p14 column F.
3. "Authors". webcache.googleusercontent.com. Archived from the original on 2 April 2016. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
4. "Captain Peter Fleming". http://www.coleshillhouse.com. Retrieved 13 May 2019.
5. "Expedition Fleming: Writer, Traveller, Soldier, Spy". Artistic Licence Renewed. 5 October 2017. Retrieved 13 May2019.
6. "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31289.
7. Nicholas J. Clifford. "A Truthful Impression of the Country": British and American Travel Writing in China, 1880–1949.Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. pp. 132–33
8. Pacific Affairs 9.4 (1936): 605–606 [1]
9. Stuart Stevens (1988). Night Train to Turkistan: Modern Adventures Along China's Ancient Silk Road. Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 978-0-87113-190-4.
10. Atkin, Malcolm (2015). Fighting Nazi Occupation: british Resistance 1939 – 1945. Barnsley: Pen and Sword. pp. 24, 26, 31, –2, 56–61, 66, 72, 76–7, 87, 172, 181. ISBN 978-1-47383-377-7.
11. "Captain Peter Fleming". coleshillhouse.com. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
12. "No. 37119". The London Gazette (Supplement). 8 June 1945. p. 2943.
13. "No. 38288". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 May 1948. p. 2921.
14. "No. 45170". The London Gazette. 11 August 1970. p. 8872.
15. 'Grave of Capt. Peter Fleming', film of Fleming's grave, published on Youtube, 26 July 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2Xsy3YgqlY
16. "Peter Fleming Award". Rgs.org. Archived from the original on 25 January 2011. Retrieved 27 October 2010.
17. Harrer, Heinrich. "Seven Years in Tibet". The Internet Archive. Archived from the original on 29 June 2015. Retrieved 2 May 2017.
18. Hart-Davis 1974, p. 316.
19. "Bibliography: The Kill". Internet Speculative Fiction Database.
20. "Bibliography: Felipe". Internet Speculative Fiction Database.
Cited works
• Hart-Davis, Duff (1974). Peter Fleming: A Biography. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-01028-X.
• Clifford, Nicholas J (2001). A Truthful Impression of the Country: British and American Travel Writing in China, 1880–1949. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0472111973.
• La Gazette des Français du Paraguay – Peter Fleming Un Aventurier au Brésil – Peter Fleming Un Aventurero en Brasil – Numéro 5 Année 1, Asuncion Paraguay.
External links[edit]
• A short biography provided by the University of Reading
• A profile stressing his travel writing
• Peter Fleming genealogy. Retrieved 21 September 2007.
• Peter Fleming's daughters
• Source for the death date of his son Nicholas Fleming at ianfleming.org
• Peter Fleming's rook rifle – a correspondence
• Peter Fleming on IMDb
• Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers.
• Podcast talk and live blogging at the Shanghai International Book Festival with Paul French's talk on Peter Fleming
• Paul French, "Peter Fleming" [2]
• "Archival material relating to Peter Fleming". UK National Archives.
• Portraits of (Robert) Peter Fleming at the National Portrait Gallery, London
• Translated Penguin Book – at Penguin First Editions reference site of early first edition Penguin Books.
• I.B. Tauris published Fleming's To Peking: A Forgotten Journey from Moscow to Manchuria (out of stock 4/18), News from Tartary and Bayonets to Lhasa: The British Invasion of Tibet; also its A Dance with the Dragon: The Vanished World of Peking's Foreign Colony by Julia Boyd includes Fleming among its subjects.

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Robert Ford, who has died aged 90, was a career diplomat who, as a young RAF radio officer in Tibet, was imprisoned and brainwashed by the Chinese.
by The Telegraph
6:32PM BST 06 Oct 2013

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Robert Ford with the Dalai Lama


Robert Ford after his arrest


Robert Ford being greeted by his mother on his return to Britain in 1955

Captured on the Tibet-China border in 1950 by the invading Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Ford was imprisoned for nearly five years, also undergoing “re-education” and “thought reform”. He was one of only 86 westerners to reach Lhasa between the British invasion of 1904 and 1950, when China annexed Tibet. After retiring from the Foreign Office he took up the cause of the Tibetan people, by whom he was revered as “Phodo Kusho” – “Ford Esquire”. He became a close friend of the Dalai Lama .

Robert Webster Ford was born on March 27 1923 at Burton-on-Trent, the only child of an engine mechanic. Educated at Alleyne’s Grammar School, Uttoxeter, in 1939 he took an RAF exam to become a radio technician and was accepted by RAF Cranwell. Eighteen months later he was sent to the No 1 Polish Flying Training School at RAF Hucknall, near Nottingham, and in 1943 was posted to India, helping to establish the No 1 Indian Air Force Signals School near Lahore. The unit relocated to an airbase at Secunderabad, where Ford was promoted to sergeant.

But Ford wanted more action; and when in June 1945 he had the opportunity to go to Lhasa, capital of Tibet, he grasped it. His role was to relieve, for three months, the resident radio operator at the British Mission, Reginald Fox.

Ford later recalled his first impressions of Tibet, “travelling by pony up a hot and sticky valley to above the leech line at Karponang with thinning vegetation. The undulating, craggy path was a botanist’s dream. Crossing the Natu La pass from Sikkim at 14,300ft, I got a view into Tibet. At the top the sky cleared and I saw the incredibly beautiful peak of Chomolhari towering to 24,000ft ... [I] did not realise then that it was the start of a lifelong attachment to Tibet.”

Fox left within 48 hours, and Ford had only a brief introduction as to how everything worked. Coded diplomatic reports were transmitted twice daily to the External Affairs Department in India. At the time there were only two transmitting radios in the entire country, the other being at the Chinese Mission. Immediately the world war ended, however, “ham” radio was again permitted, and a radio contact with Tibet was the most sought-after in the world: “We were our own licensing authority and I gave myself the call sign AC4RF (AC4 was the radio country code for Tibet, RF was for Robert Ford).”

During his sojourn in the capital, Ford attended many social functions thrown by the Tibetans, who loved picnics, partying, drinking, singing and dancing; a keen dancer himself, Ford introduced the samba to Lhasa. Then, after three months, Fox came back and Ford went to the Political Mission in Sikkim, where he served as radio operator until 1947. During this period he encountered Dmitri Nedbailof, a White Russian who had fled across Siberia to China and thence walked to India, where he had been interned during the war. He had escaped to Tibet but was turned back to Sikkim. Later, under the patronage of a Tibetan noble, he would be employed in Lhasa for his electrical skills, where Ford would meet him again.

When India achieved Independence, Ford was invited by the Tibetan government to install and develop the country’s first broadcasting station, Radio Lhasa. Accordingly, he became the first of five foreigners to be formally employed by the Tibetans from 1947 to 1950 (Heinrich Harrer was among the other four). After a year in Lhasa (having on one occasion been blessed by the 14-year-old Dalai Lama, an honour normally reserved for the highest ranking officials) he was requested to go to Chamdo, 100 miles from the Chinese border, to improve internal political and trade communications.

Along with four Indo-Tibetan radio trainees, Ford travelled in a caravan of 100 animals, 40 porters and 12 soldiers. He was the fourth westerner known to have made the journey. “What worried me most was the Tibetans’ habit of stacking cans containing 400 gallons of petrol for the radio generators as wind breaks next to their camp fires,” he recalled. By the time he arrived in Chamdo, at 10,500ft above sea level, Ford was sporting a red beard; he shaved it off, and a rumour spread that two Englishmen had arrived: “The whole town had turned out to look at my blue eyes and long nose.”

For several months Ford lived on the upper floor of the former Summer Palace of the Governor-general of the province. One day, while searching amateur radio wavebands, he made contact with a Mr Jeffries who by chance lived in his home town of Burton-on-Trent, and he was soon able to enjoy a weekly conversation with his parents by radio-telephone.

His agreeable life in Chamdo, where there were lavish summer parties, was soon disrupted by threats of Chinese invasion, broadcast by Radio Peking in January 1950. By mid-October the Red Army was on the doorstep, and panic ensued. The Governor, Ngabo Shape, fled to Lhasa, and Ford — having removed the crystals from his radio sets to render them useless — planned to escape south to India; but all the mountain tracks had been obliterated by an earthquake, and he followed the Governor. Both were captured by the Chinese at a monastery near Lamda. Taken back to Chamdo, Ford was interrogated and accused of being a British spy, spreading anti-communist propaganda and of being involved in the murder of a Chinese official.

For five months he was not allowed to wash; in solitary confinement in rat-infested cells, he was sometimes forced to sit motionless for 16 hours a day. “I was never struck a single blow,” he remembered, “but mentally it was no holds barred. I thought I would go mad.”

For three years he underwent intensive interrogation and “re-education”. Eventually he signed a false confession, and in May 1954 he was permitted to write to his parents. In December he was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment, then told he was to be deported — a process which took a further six months.

On May 27 1955 he was deported to Hong Kong with six HK dollars in his pocket: “I had to walk 50 yards across a rickety wooden railway bridge — I didn’t know whether I would get a bullet in my back.”

Ford was flown back to London, where he was offered the job of Marconi’s representative in Asia. Instead he decided to spend 10 months recuperating and writing a book, Captured in Tibet, which was published in 1957. Although in demand for interviews and lectures, and for occasional journalism, Ford still needed a regular income.

His chance came when he was offered a temporary job in the Foreign Office, analysing Chinese propaganda in a covert department. He was twice sent to Saigon in South Vietnam, then to Laos and Cambodia. On his return to Britain he passed an exam for a permanent job in the Diplomatic Service.

In 1959 Ford was appointed senior branch information officer in Jakarta, Indonesia, where “two air force pilots attacked the Presidential Palace; our Embassy was next door, and they strafed the road outside. I was holed up for two days.”

From 1960 to 1962 he served as First Secretary at the British Embassy in Washington, DC. He later had postings in London, Tangier, Angola, São Tomé and Principe, Bordeaux and Gothenburg. He ended his career as Consul General in Geneva, retiring in 1983, a year after being appointed CBE.

Having settled in London, Ford renewed his interest in Tibet, and particularly his contact with the Dalai Lama, whom he met whenever the opportunity arose.

In the spring of this year the Office of Tibet in London organised a reception for Ford’s 90th birthday. He had earlier joked that he had not received his back pay, so he was presented with the last of his salary, a 100-srang bank note, with apologies for the delay “due to extenuating circumstances”. The respect shown to him by the Tibetan community in exile on this occasion moved him deeply.

Robert Ford married, in 1956, Monica Tebbett, whom he had known since his school days. They had met again in 1955 after Ford’s release when she was on leave from the United Nations in New York, where she worked in the office of the Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjold. She died last year, and he is survived by two sons.

Robert Ford, born March 27 1923, died September 20 2013

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Phuntsog Wangyal - obituary
by The Telegraph
6:56PM BST 02 Jul 2014

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Phuntsog Wangyal was the co-founder of the Tibetan Communist Party who fell in with China only to fall foul of Mao’s mandarins

Phuntsog Wangyal, who has died aged 92, co-founded the Tibetan Communist Party in the 1940s; but despite giving up on an independent Tibet and unifying his party with that in China, he was jailed in Beijing and kept in solitary confinement for almost two decades.

Phunwang — as he was commonly known — might have appeared the ideal Chinese stooge in Tibet. But though he considered the country’s independence less important than the success of socialism, he was eventually unable to turn a blind eye to the corruption of Chinese officials.


Phuntsog Wangyal (far left) with the Dalai Lama, Chen Yi, and the Panchen Lama in Lhasa,1956

“Phunwang showed that you could be a true Communist while at the same time proud of your Tibetan heritage,” stated the Dalai Lama. Phunwang’s stance, however, made him persona non grata in China. He was purged, finding himself locked up in Qincheng Prison, a maximum-security facility near Beijing notorious for its harsh conditions and detention of political prisoners.

Phuntsog Wangyal Goranangpa was born in 1922 in Batang, in the province of Kham in eastern Tibet (now part of western Sichuan Province). The area was terrorised by the Chinese warlord Liu Wenhui, an ally of the Chinese nationalist Kuomintang. As a young boy out collecting walnuts, Phunwang witnessed Wenhui’s troops carry out a brutal reprisal attack following a local uprising.

In his youth he was involved with the Tibetan Democratic Youth League, out of which he formed, in 1942, with Ngawang Kesang, the Tibetan Communist Party. Initially the party concerned itself with opposing the Kuomintang. But as a committed Marxist, Phunwang later proposed socialist reforms and the dismantling of Tibet’s feudal structures.


Phuntsog Wangyal (left) with Ngawang Kesang, in Kalimpong,1944

Shortly before the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, Phunwang announced a merger of his party with the Communist Party in China. As a result many Tibetans called him a traitor.

After the invasion, Phunwang become integral to the Chinese administration in Tibet, having been assigned to accompany Zhang Guohua, commander of the Chinese Eighteenth Army, to Lhasa. He was also the official translator for the young Dalai Lama during his meetings with Mao Tse-tung in 1954-55.

By the end of the Fifties, however, the tide had turned. Mao’s Leftist movement targeted Phunwang as a potential agitator due to his criticism of ethnic Han officials. In 1958 he was placed under house arrest and obliged to undergo “self-criticism”. He was jailed two years later, along with most of his family.

During his incarceration he was subjected to beatings, sound torture, poisonings and repetitive and intensive interrogation that was Kafkaesque in its obscurity. “They said they wanted me to confess my crimes,” he recalled, “but spoke of them only in general, so I never knew exactly what they were accusing me of.” Of all the horrors, “the total isolation was the hardest”.

He was released from Qincheng Prison in 1978, after which he went through a process of official rehabilitation before settling into life in Beijing, cut-off from the outside world. In a placatory move the Chinese authorities later offered him the position of Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region government, which he declined. He kept away from the political stage for many years, instead choosing to immerse himself in academia. His books included New Exploration of Dialectics (1990) and Liquid Water Does Exist on the Moon (1994) in which he explored the science of philosophical dialectics.

In later life Phunwang worked to promote better relations between Tibet and China, campaigning for the return of the Dalai Lama to Lhasa, which he claimed would be “good for stabilising Tibet”.

Then, in 2006, he returned to the political limelight with a series of letters to Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Chinese Communist party. In them Phunwang warned that if a permanent agreement was not found to solve “the Tibet Problem”, it would become increasingly dangerous. “Comrade Jintao,” he noted in one letter, “a single matchstick is enough for the arsonist but putting out the fire would take a great effort.” The language turned out to be appallingly apt: since then a wave of young monks and nuns in Tibet have protested against persecution under Chinese rule by setting themselves on fire.

In 2004 he provided an epilogue to a book on his life, entitled A Tibetan Revolutionary. “I worked hard for the liberation of the Tibetan nation and for national unity in the new China,” Phunwang concluded. “That work that brought unendurable difficulties, but as Beethoven said: 'I will seize fate by the throat. It won’t lay me low.’ That is what I believe I did. I did not let my suffering lay me low. I did not disgrace my dear parents, countrymen, and the Tibetans of the Land of Snow.”

Phunwang married, firstly, Tsilila. She died in prison in 1969. He is survived by his second wife, Tseten Yangdron, and by four children of his first marriage.

Phuntsog Wangyal, born 1922, died March 30 2014

********************************

Phuntsok Wangyal
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/15/20


Phuntsok Wangyal Goranangpa
Born: 2 January 1922, Batang, Kham, Tibet
Died: 30 March 2014 (aged 92), Beijing, China
Nationality: China

Phuntsok Wangyal Goranangpa (2 January 1922 – 30 March 2014), also known as Phuntsog Wangyal,[1] Bapa Phuntsok Wangyal or Phünwang, was a Tibetan politician. He is best known for having founded the Tibetan Communist Party and was a major figure in modern Sino-Tibetan relations. He was arrested by the Chinese authorities in 1960 and subsequently spent 18 years in the infamous Chinese high security prison Qincheng in solitary confinement. He lived in Beijing until his death.

Biography

Phünwang was born in Batang, in the province of Kham in Tibet. Phünwang began his political activism at school at the special academy run by Chiang Kai-shek’s Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission in Nanjing, where he secretly founded the Tibetan Communist Party. Until 1949, he organized a guerilla movement against the Chinese Kuomintang which expanded military influence in Kham.

The Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission (MTAC; Chinese: 蒙藏委員會; pinyin: Měng-Zàng Wěiyuánhuì) was a ministry-level commission of the Executive Yuan in the Republic of China (Taiwan). It was disbanded on September 15, 2017.

It was originally created during the Qing Dynasty in 1636 as Mongolian Bureau as a subsection of the Lifan Yuan, and oversaw the relationship of the Qing court to its Mongolian and Tibetan dependencies. During Kangxi Emperor rule, the bureau was renamed to Minority Affairs Council and renamed again to Ministry of Minority Affairs under Guangxu Emperor rule.

Following the 1911 revolution and collapse of the Qing dynasty, the section was replaced by Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Agency under the Ministry of the Interior in April 1912. In July 1912, the agency was again renamed as Bureau of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs and placed under the State Affairs Yuan. In 1914, it was reorganized and being placed directly under the supervision of President. On 1 February 1929, it was finally changed to Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission (MTAC) with accordance to the Nationalist Government Organizational Law. After the Communist revolution in China, and the Republic of China's relocation to Taiwan, the MTAC ceased its activities in Tibet and Mongolia, although it served as a governmental body which assisted in the relationship between ethnic Mongols and Tibetans in Taiwan and increasing the communication between the Taiwanese and the Mongols as well as the Tibetans.

After the 1959 Tibetan uprising, Chiang Kai-shek announced in his Letter to Tibetan Compatriots (Chinese: 告西藏同胞書; pinyin: Gào Xīzàng Tóngbāo Shū) that the ROC's policy would be to help the Tibetan people overthrow the People's Republic of China's rule in Tibet. The MTAC sent secret agents to India to disseminate pro-Kuomintang (KMT) and anti-Communist propaganda among Tibetan exiles. From 1971 to 1978, the MTAC also recruited ethnic Tibetan children from India and Nepal to study in Taiwan, with the expectation that they would work for a ROC government that returned to the mainland. In 1994, the veterans' association for the Tibetan guerrilla group Chushi Gangdruk met with the MTAC and agreed to the KMT's One China Principle. In response, the Dalai Lama's Central Tibetan Administration forbade all exiled Tibetans from contact with the MTAC.

-- Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, by Wikipedia

The strategy of the Tibetan Communist Party under his leadership during the 1940s was twofold: influence and gain support for his cause amongst progressive Tibetan students, intellectuals and members of the powerful aristocracy in Central Tibet in order to establish a program of modernization and democratic (i.e. socialist) reform, while at the same time sustain a guerilla war against the rule of Liu Wenhui, an important warlord who affiliated with the Kuomintang. For sometime, Wangyal lectured at Tromzikhang on Barkhor square in the 1940s when it was used as a Republican school.[2]

Ladakh was claimed as part of Tibet by Phuntsok Wangyal.[3]

Phünwang's political goal was to see an independent and united Tibet, and to achieve a fundamental transformation of Tibet's feudal social structures. He was expulsed by the Tibetan government in 1949, and after joining the Chinese Communist Party's fight against the Kuomintang he fused his Tibetan party with the Chinese Communist Party, at the behest of the Chinese military leaders, which meant that he had to abandon his goals of an independent socialist Tibet.[4] He played an important administrative role in the organization of the party in Lhasa and was the official translator of the young 14th Dalai Lama during his famous meetings with Mao Zedong in Beijing in the years 1954-55.

In the 1950s, Phünwang was the highest-ranking Tibetan in the Chinese Communist Party, and although he spoke fluent Chinese, was habituated to Chinese culture and customs and was completely devoted to the cause of socialism and to the Communist Party, his intensive engagement for the well-being of the Tibetans made him suspicious to his powerful party comrades. Eventually, in 1958, he was placed under house arrest and two years later disappeared from the public eye. He was imprisoned in solitary confinement in Beijing for the next 18 years. During his imprisonment, his wife, a Tibetan Muslim from Lhasa who stayed behind in Beijing with their children, died while she was imprisoned, and all children were sent to different prisons. It was only in 1975 that his family was told that he was still alive and had been incarcerated in a maximum-security prison for political prisoners. Unbeknownst to Phünwang, his younger brother was also imprisoned in Qincheng for 16 years.

Phuntsok Wangyal Goranangpa was officially rehabilitated a few years after his release in 1978 but remained in Beijing without any outside contact.[5][6] Later, he was offered the position of Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region government, which he declined.

A biography has been published in English, where he particularly emphasises the need to better understand the interests of the Tibetan people in the context of peace and unity in the People's Republic of China.[7]

Later, he declared in an open letter to Hu Jintao that he should accommodate for the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet, suggesting that this gesture would be "...good for stabilizing Tibet." In a third letter dated 1 August 2006, he wrote : "If the inherited problem with Tibet continues to be delayed, it is most likely going to result in the creation of 'The Eastern Vatican of Tibetan Buddhism' alongside the Exile Tibetan Government. Then the 'Tibet Problem', be it nationally or internationally, will become more complicated and more troublesome."[8]

In a letter Hu Jintao in 2007, Phuntsok Wangyal criticised cadres of the CCP whom, to support Dorje Shugden, "make a living, are promoted and become rich by opposing splittism".[9]

He died on 30 March 2014 at a Beijing hospital.[10]

Published works

• Liquid Water Does Exist on the Moon. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2002, ISBN 7-119-01349-1.
• Witness to Tibet's History, Baba Phuntsok Wangyal. New Delhi: Paljor Publication, 2007, ISBN 81-86230-58-0.
• 平措汪杰（平汪）：《平等團結路漫漫——對我國民族關係的反思》. Hong Kong: 田園書屋, 2014, ISBN 978-988-15571-9-3.

See also

• Literature portal
• Melvyn Goldstein, Dawei Sherap, William Siebenschuh. A Tibetan Revolutionary. The political life of Bapa Phüntso Wangye. U. of California Press, pp. 371, 2004
• Political prisoner

Notes and references

1. This is the form given in the Dalai Lama's autobiography Freedom in Exile
2. Hartley, Lauren R., Schiaffini-Vedani, Patricia (2008). Modern Tibetan literature and social change. Duke University Press. p. 37. ISBN 0-8223-4277-4.
3. Gray Tuttle; Kurtis R. Schaeffer (12 March 2013). The Tibetan History Reader. Columbia University Press. pp. 603–. ISBN 978-0-231-14468-1.
4. The prisoner by Tsering Shakya
5. Lectures critiques par Fabienne Jagou
6. Le dernier caravanier par Claude Arpi
7. Biography of a Tibetan Revolutionary Highlights Complexity of Modern Tibetan Politics
8. Baba Phuntsok: Witness to Tibet's History
9. Allegiance to the Dalai Lama and those who "become rich by opposing splittism" Archived 2008-10-25 at the Wayback Machine
10. http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-ti ... es-1973510

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The Office Of Tibet London
by The Office of Tibet
Accessed: 9/6/19

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Tsarong Dundul Namgyal, b.1920 - d.2011
by Tenzin Dickyi
The Treasury of Lives
October, 2016

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Tsarong Dundul Namgyal (bdud 'dul rnam rgyal tsha rong), also known as George, was born in Lhasa in 1920. His father was Dasang Damdul Tsarong (tsha rong zla bzang dgra 'dul, 1888-1959) who took over the Tsarong estates in the early twentieth century and married several members of the household. An ardent modernizer, he served as Commander General of the Tibetan army. His mother was Dasang Damdul's second wife, Pema Dolkar (pad+ma sgrol dkar), who was the daughter of the disgraced Kalon Wangchuk Gyelpo Tsarong (bka' blon dbang phyug rgyal po, 1866-1912).

He had a sister by the same parents, named Kunzang Lhakyi (kun bzang lha skyid), born in 1923, and seven siblings born to different mothers. The Tsarong (tsha rong) was an aristocratic family that claims to originate from the famed medical master Yutok Yonten Gonpo (g.yu thog yon tan mgon po, 790-833). They took the name of Tsarong when the newly ennobled family of the Tenth Dalai Lama Tsultrim Gyatso (ta la'i bla ma 10 tshul khrims rgya mtsho, 1816-1837) adopted the family name of Yuthok.

Dundul Namgyal was one of the first Tibetans to receive a modern education. His family sent him to St. Joseph’s College, a Jesuit boys' school in Darjeeling, India, from the years 1935-1940.

Returning to Tibet to serve in the Tibetan government, he worked at the Drapchi Mint (gra phyi) along with Reginald Fox (1881-1943) a junior British officer working in the Indian Mission in Lhasa who later joined the service of the Tibetan government. They successfully powered the printing machines using a ten horse-power diesel engine that Dundul had himself brought over from India. Then Dundul joined the project to build the first-ever hydroelectric power station in Lhasa. Besides Reginald Fox and Dundul himself, the project included his father Tsarong Dasang Damdul and Peter Aufschnaiter (1899-1973), the Austrian survey engineer who had escaped to Tibet from a British prison camp in India with Heinrich Harrer (1912-2006). In 1944 he began instructions in Wireless Telegraphy at the British Mission.

Dundul was later promoted to the rank of Rimshi (rim bzhi), fourth rank, and appointed as an assistant to the Drapchi office. There were seven ranks in the Tibetan government with the Dalai Lama holding the first rank; the fourth rank was considered a high rank. During his tenure as a fourth rank official, Dundul also held the position of Yaso General (ya so mda' dpon), a commander of a cavalry of 500 men.

Dundul Namgyal married Yangchen Dolkar (dbyangs can sgrol dkar) from the aristocratic Ragashar family (ra ga shar, also known as Dokhar) and had five children. Their second youngest son Tseten Gyurme was recognized as the Seventh Drigung Chetsang, Tendzin Trinle Lhundrub ('bri gung che tshang 07 bstan 'dzin 'phrin las lhun grub, b. 1946), one of the two heads of the Drigung Kagyu tradition.

Following the invasion of Tibet by the People's Liberation Army in 1949-1959, Dundul and his wife and children left Lhasa and resettled in Kalimpong, India. His father remained in Tibet. Following the March 10, 1959, popular revolt of Lhasa, his father and other leaders of the National Assembly were jailed in the Chinese army headquarters. His father died in jail three months later.

In India, Dundul Namgyal served in the newly established Central Tibetan Administration. He was recruited at first to work at the Tibetan Bureau in New Delhi, and then transferred to work under the Dalai Lama's older brother Gyalo Thondup (rgya lo don grub, b. 1928), making investments with the Tibetan government's gold and silver reserves. He also served as English translator to Wangchuk Deden Shakabpa (dbang phyug bde ldan zhwa sgab pa, 1908-1989), the former finance minister of Tibet.

Gyalo Thondup, the key link with the CIA, had stayed away from the resistance since 1969. Not until late 1978, with the Chinese government apparently loosening its constraints on Tibet, did he rejoin the cause and lead a negotiating team to Beijing; results from this trip ultimately proved scant. Gyalo currently shuttles between residences in New Delhi and Hong Kong.....

Once the CIA decided to bypass the Sikkimese in late 1956, the royals grew somewhat annoyed. The crown prince, in particular, sniped at Gyalo Thondup and gradually came to oppose the idea of armed resistance against the Chinese. "He felt angry and used," said one of his closest confidants, "and thought the U.S. had only been toying with the Tibetans." ...

Even after the arrival of Knaus, Grimsley still retained responsibility for contact with the Tibetan refugee community in India; he also maintained close ties with Gyalo Thondup and channeled the CIA's stipend to the Dalai Lama's entourage at Dharamsala.

-- The CIA's Secret War in Tibet, by Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison

Dundul Namgyal wrote a biography of his father In the Service of His Country: The Biography of Dasang Damdul Tsarong, Commander General of Tibet, published in 2000. He was one of Tibet's first and most important photographers and his photographs of early twentieth century Tibet are still an invaluable resource. He published a book of his photographs of Tibet, What Tibet Was: As Seen by a Native Photographer, in 1990.

Dundul Namgyal and his wife moved for some years to the United States where their daughter Namgyal Lhamo (rnam rgyal lha mo) and her husband Lobsang Samten (blo bzang bsam gtan), another brother of the Dalai Lama, had immigrated. He spent some time in Maryland working as companion to an elderly physician.

He spent the last years of his life in Kalimpong and Dehradun in northern India. He died in a Dehradun hospital on June 18th, 2011.

_______________________________________


Dundul Namgyal Tsarong in 1950


Dundul Namgyal Tsarong, Yangchen Dolkar Tsarong (his wife) and Tsewang Jigme Tsarong (his son) in 1986 at Kalimpong


Trabshi Lekhung, Lhasa, Tibet, 1933


Trabshi Lekhung, Lhasa, Tibet, 1933

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Tsarong Wangchuk Gyelpo, b.1866 - d.1912
by Tenzin Dickyi
The Treasury of Lives
October, 2016

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Tsarong Wangchuk Gyelpo (tsha rong dbang phyug rgyal po) was the son of Tsarong Tsipon Kelzang Damdul (tsha rong rtsis dpon bskal bzang dgra 'dul). The Tsarong (tsha rong) family was an influential aristocratic family that had many generations of its sons serving in various ranks of the Ganden Podrang government. The family claims to originate from Yutok Yonten Gonpo (g.yu thog yon tan mgon po), the famous physician who is said to have lived in the 12th century. They stopped using the name Yutok/Yuthok and became Tsarong in 1827 after the family of the Tenth Dalai Lama, Tsultrim Gyatso (ta la'i bla ma 10 tshul khrims rgya mtsho) took the name Yuthok.

There is little information about Wangchuk Gyelpo prior to 1903, when, as the General of U Province (dbus mda' dpon), he was sent to negotiate trade with the British at the Chumbi border, known in Tibetan as Dromo (gro mo), along with Khendrung Lepar Lobzang Trinle (mkhan drung las par blo bzang 'phrin las). The talks in Dromo failed. Nevertheless, in 1903 he was appointed Minister in the Kashag (bka' shag), the council of ministers, which was the highest office beneath the Dalai Lama and the Prime Minister.

In January 1904, the British launched an invasion of Tibet led by Colonel Francis Younghusband (1863-1942). The Tibetans collapsed in the face of the superior British army, and the Thirteenth Dalai Lama Tubten Gyatso (ta la'i bla ma 13 thub bstan rgya mtsho, 1856-1875), was forced to flee to Mongolia. Wangchuk Gyelpo participated in the negotiation of the settlement treaty which gave Great Britain the right to trade markets at Gyantse (rgyal rtse), Gartok (sgar thog) and Yatung (gro mo rdzong), and determined that the Tibetan government should pay a humiliating indemnity to the British government, an amount equal to seventy-five lakh rupees (Rs. 7,500,000), as reparations for the breach of treaty obligations and the expenses of the Younghusband invasion.

In 1908 Wangchuk Gyelpo was the authorized Tibetan representative at the trade talks held between Great Britain, China and Tibet signed in Calcutta on 20 April 1908 and ratified in Peking on 14 October 1908, titled the "Agreement Between Great Britain, China and Tibet Amending Trade Regulations of 1893." However, Tibet was not an equal partner in the talks: the agreement stated that Wangchuk Gyelpo was taking part in the negotiations under the directions of the Chinese Special Commissioner Chang Yin Tang. The agreement specified the boundaries of the Gyantse (rgyal rtse) trade mart, declared that Tibetan officers will administer the trade marts under the supervision of the Chinese officers, and detailed how disputes between British subjects and Tibetan and Chinese nationalities shall be handled.

In 1909 the Thirteenth Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa after five years of exile. But in February 1910 he fled again, this time to exile in India, when the Manchu general Zhao Erfeng (趙爾豊, 1845-1911) arrived in Lhasa with his army. During the two years that the Manchu forces occupied Lhasa Wangchuk Gyelpo, as Minister of the Kashag, worked with them. In 1912, shortly before the Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa, the Tibetan leaders executed Wangchuk Gyelpo and his elder son Samdrub Tsering (bsam grub tshe ring, c. 1887-1912) for collaborating with the Manchus. Some Tibetan authors have attempted to absolve him of blame, stating that he was unjustly accused out of personal jealousies.

The Tsarong family estates were given to Dasang Damdul (zla bzang dgra 'dul, 1888 – 1959), the famous modernizing general, who married into Tsarong House by taking Wangchuk Gyelpo’s daughter Pema Dolkar (pad+ma sgrol dkar) and Samdrub Tsering's widow Rinzin Chodron (rin 'dzin chos sgron) as his wives.

Wangchuk Gyelpo had twelve children with his wife Yangchen Dolma (dbyang can sgrol ma) from the Yuthok family, ten of whom survived infancy, including Taring Rinchen Dolma (phreng ring rin chen sgrol ma, 1910-2000).

Tenzin Dickyi is an Editor at the Treasury of Lives. She is also English Editor of Tibet Web Digest, a project of Columbia University's Modern Tibetan Studies program.

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In the Service of His Country: The Biography of Dasang Damdul Tsarong, Commander General of Tibet, by D.N. Tsarong
by Snow Lion / Shambhala
Summer, 2000

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164 pp., 50 b&w photos, Oct., #SEHICO $14.95

This is the fascinating life story of the Tibetan aristocrat, politician, and general Dasang Damdrul Tsarong, who served as Commander-in-Chief of the Tibetan Army and Cabinet Minister. Tsarong was known as an advocate for modernization of Tibet's national government. This biography, by Tsarong's son, D.N. Tsarong, is a first-hand account of the most important events of the twentieth century, leading up to the period of Chinese occupation. It provides insight into the history and causes of the tragic loss of Tibet's power of self-government as seen through the life of one of the country's foremost leaders.

The following are excerpts from In the Service of His Country.

A seventeen-year-old boy turned his horse up the mountain, sensing an attack by a group of Golok men armed with spears. These men from Amdo Province annually traveled from their homeland to visit the holy city of Lhasa and make offerings to the sacred image of Jowo Rinpoche, an image of the Lord Buddha in the Central Temple, or Tsuglak Khang. Having shot a few rounds with his Mauser pistol in the air to discourage the assumed attackers, he resumed his journey towards Lhasa. He was on leave from the Dalai Lama's court and was now returning to resume his duties at the Norbu Lingka Palace. This was my father, Dasang Damdul Tsarong, who was to serve Tibet faithfully throughout his life. He was born in a house named Khakhor Shi in Phenpo Province. It stood in a small village situated to the north of Lhasa.


Peter Aufshnaiter, D.D. Tsarong, Tsepon Shakabpa and Heinrich Harrer inspecting a newly proposed hydroelectric site.


Pema Dolkar, the wife of D.D. Tsarong; Yangchun Dolkar, the wife of the author; the author, and D.D. Tsarong.


D.D. Tsarong.


D.D. Tsarong using his skill at photography.

In the family of Khakhor Shi were my grandparents, their three sons, and their daughter. The eldest was a son named Thondup Norbu, the second was Nangang (my father), the third was a son named Phuntsok Wangdu, and the youngest was a daughter, Yangchen Dolkar. Nangang was the first name of my father because he was born on New Year's eve. The last day of each month is called nangang in Tibetan. Since the conception of my father, good luck had fallen on his parents and the house prospered; therefore, he was considered to be the source of this luck.

My grandfather died of a sudden illness when my father was five years old. Since my grandmother was left to care for the land and the young children, she experienced much difficulty and hardship. She then married my grandfather's cousin, Lhundup La. Lhundup La was a hot-tempered man who used to beat both mother and children. Soon the elder sister of lhundup, Somo Nyila, came from Lhasa to live with the family in Phenpo, and after having stayed there for some time, she saw the difficulties in the home. Out of pity for the children, who were harshly treated by their stepfather, she took the three sons to Lhasa to live with her. She lived in the apartment of a mansion named Karma Sharchen, which is in the center of the city. Somo Nyila was a kind and religious woman. She shared her wealth with her relatives and friends, and often distributed food, clothing, and money to the poor of the city. It was the custom for the proud Phenpo Tibetans to visit the major temples in their home town during the religious festivals as well as on the eighth, fifteenth, and the last day of the month. Somo Nyila never forgot her offerings and her visits to the temples in Lhasa City. She brought up the children with kindness, love, and understanding. The children were sent in 1895 to a private school in the city, Phalai Labtra. When Thondup Norbu, the eldest, came of age, she gave him in marriage to one of her friend's daughters, and he left her home. In 1900, a monk official of the Tibetan Government, Khangnyi Jinpa La, who was also a close and faithful friend and family adviser of Somo Nyila, took my father as his pupil. Khangnyi Jinpa La was in charge of Norbu Lingka, the summer palace of the Dalai Lama, and was also one of the older personal attendants of His Holiness the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. A couple of years passed while my father was trained in household work, as well as Tibetan literature and scriptures, and he earned the trust of his master and tutor.

Located on the western edge of Lhasa at the bank of River Kyichu and just a kilometer from the famous Potala Palace, Norbulingka Palace offers the best landscapes in the region. Spread over an area of 360,000 square meters, [approx. 4 million square feet] Norbulingka features the summer palaces of the Dalai Lamas with 374 rooms, and the largest, most beautiful, and well-preserved gardens in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Palaces of Norbulingka: Norbulingka has five distinct sections: Kelsang Palace, Tsokyil Palace, Golden Linka, Takten Migyur Palace, and Lake Heart Palace. Each palace has three main sections: the palace area, the forest area, and the area in front of the palace. (Note: the Tibetan word for “Palace” is “Potrang”.)

Kelsang Palace: This palace was built by the 7th Dalai Lama in typical Tibetan style and consists of worship rooms, reading rooms, and bedrooms. The main hall features the throne of the 7th Dalai Lama amidst statues of Guanyin Bodhisattva and Longevity Buddha.

Tsokyil Palace: It lies to the northwest of Kelsang Palace in the midst of the lake and is the most attractive pavilion built by the 8th Dalai Lama.

Golden Linka and Chensel Palace: To the northwest of Kelsang Phodrong lies also the Chensel Palace and on the west side of Norbulingka is the Golden Phodron. Both these were built in 1922 by a benefactor for the 13th Dalai Lama.

Lake Heart Palace: The most beautiful area in southwest Norbulingka, the Lake Heart Palace was built by the 8th Dalai Lama to hold parties with dignitaries.

Takten Migyur Palace: Completed by 1956, Takten Migyur Palace was built by the 14th Dalai Lama and is also referred to as the New Summer Palace. More magnificent and larger than the other palaces, the New Palace features exquisite murals of Sakyamuni and his eight contemplative disciples, and also those related to the development of Tibet.

-- Norbulingka Summer Palace, by Tibetpedia.com

It was on one of these days while my father was in the service of Khangnyi Jinpa La that His Holiness the Thirteenth Dalai Lama came to the house and noticed him. The Dalai Lama was a most observant man, who took care to make routine checks in and around his palace, stables, and compounds. On one such occasion, when he surprised his personal attendants in their quarters, he saw my father and was struck by an unusual air of intelligence in the young boy. After finding out about the background of the boy from Jinpa La, he recruited him as one of his servants. Father was twelve years old when he left Jinpa La's service to join the Dalai Lama's personal staff. He served well in the palace and soon came to have the confidence of the Dalai Lama and the confidence and respect of the other members of the staff as well.

Father adored his grandchildren; no matter how busy he was, he always found time to be with them, especially in the evenings when he told them bedtime stories, which they loved. As he did with his children, he insisted that his grandchildren all have an equal opportunity to go to the British schools in Darjeeling, and many of them did. Between 1942 and 1949, my wife and I had our five children, two daughters and three sons, and four of them went on to finish their secondary schooling in Darjeeling.

My second youngest son, who was born in 1946, was recognized as the incarnation of Drikung Chetsang Rinpoche, one of the two heads of the Drikung Kagyu lineage. As mentioned, even after the passing of his friend, the previous Drikung Rinpoche, Tsarong kept a close relationship with that monastery. It so happened that as administrators and attendants of the previous Rinpoche came to Tsarong House to discuss different matters, my son, at the age of only two years, exhibited an unusual attraction to these monks. He constantly wanted to be close to them and when they left, he wished to go away with them. The monks of Drikung were highly observant of this and noted his actions carefully. They began occasionally dropping by Tsarong House under false pretenses, without calling on the parents but simply asking the servants to bring the young child out to play. Eventually he was put to several tests to which all candidates are subjected for recognition as reincarnate lamas are are subjected, namely identifying among many objects the specific ones which belonged to the previous incarnation. After reviewing all the candidates and consulting the master astrologers, as well as the Takdhak Regent, who had final word, it was decided that my son was indeed the true incarnation of Drikung Chetsang Rinpoche.

As the predecessor was his close personal friend, Tsarong felt very pleased having the incarnation born into his own family, and of course my wife and I were quite surprised as well. My wife Yangchen does not remember any special incidences during the pregnancy, but there were some auspicious circumstances regarding his birth. Close to the time our child was due, preparations were being made for Drukpa Tseshi, an annual holiday celebrating the day Lord Buddha first taught, or turned the Wheel of Dharma. On this occasion all Buddhists go on short pilgrimages to sacred places in Lhasa. It is felt to be a highly auspicious day and, therefore, the Takdhak Regent decided to offer a full set of new ornaments to the image of Jowo Rinpoche at the Tsuglak Khang. Jowo Rinpoche is a sacred symbol of the Lord Buddha, but is also believed by many to be more than just a symbol. It is regarded by most Buddhists of Tibet and neighboring countries to be one of the most sacred images in existence. The Regent must somehow have been aware that Tsarong was in possession of a beautiful eighteen-carat diamond that he had purchased in India on one of his many trips. He sent his close friend Tsepon Shakabpa to our home to request that father sell it to him. Shakabpa explained that they were in need of a very precious stone to be the centerpiece of the ornamental headdress they were offering to Jowo Rinpoche on Drukpa Tseshi. Father agreed and sold it at cost.

Days later, my wife went into labor and after twenty-four hours, the baby still had not come. We were fortunate to have the assistance of Dr. Guthrie from the British Mission in Lhasa. Everyone became concerned as the labor was so prolonged. Strangely enough, many hours later, on the auspicious day of Drukpa Tseshi, during the precise time at which the ornaments were being offered to Jowo Rinpoche, our son was finally delivered. He was born not breathing, and most of the relatives gave up hope that he would live, but through the perseverance of Dr. Guthrie who, confident in his skills, slapped and tossed the baby about, his breathing finally started.

About three years later, our son was formally recognized as Drikung Rinpoche, but because of his young age, he remained at home with the family until 1950. At that time, the Regent and representatives of the Drikung Monastery came to Tsarong House to fetch Rinpoche. He was brought back to Drikung Monastery in a ceremonial procession and officially took the seat as successor of the Drikung Kagyu lineage.

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Princess Coocoola of Sikkim, Beauty who championed her northern Indian homeland and charmed the writer Heinrich Harrer in Tibet
by telegraph.co.uk
6:18PM GMT 11 Dec 2008

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"Princess Coocoola of Sikkim, who has died aged 84, was the beautiful widow of a Tibetan governor and a champion of the distinct culture of the northern Indian state of Sikkim.

Embodying a combination of oriental charm and western sophistication, she relayed messages to the outside world as the Chinese invasion of Tibet began in 1950, then devoted 10 years to running a rehabilitation centre for Tibetan refugees in Sikkim. Twenty-five years later, when Sikkim became an Indian state, she played an active role in trying to retain its separate political status and unique character, giving a press conference in Hong Kong to protest at its loss of independence.

Acting as the hostess for her brother, the Chogyal (King) of Sikkim, at State functions until he married his American wife, she travelled widely to lobby politicians in New Delhi. She mixed with John Kenneth Galbraith, Senator Edward Kennedy and presidential aides in Washington and presented an 18-in high Buddha to a Tibetan children's village at Sedlescome, Sussex.

When the Indian president Pandit Nehru offered her a pension, the princess turned it down, and asked instead for trading rights. Working from a single room in Calcutta, she and her younger sister Kula started a business importing turquoise from Iran. Later she joined the boards of a company which produced jewels for watches and of the State Bank of Sikkim.

Princess Pema Tsedeun Yapshi Pheunkhang Lacham Kusho (known as Coocoola) was the daughter of Sir Tashi Namgyal, KCSI, KCIE, the 11th Chogyal, and the granddaughter of a Tibetan general. She was born at Darjeeling on September 6, 1924, when the Himalayan kingdom, which had been established in the 1640s, was a protectorate of the British Empire.

Young Coocoola was educated by the nuns of St Joseph's convent at Kalimpong, a hill station near Darjeeling. The Tibetan Pheunkhang family then wrote to the palace, saying that they wanted a Sikkimese princess to marry their 23-year-old eldest son. Her father did not force her to accept, and she asked a secretary to reply that she wanted to go to university first. On being pressed, she accepted Sey Kusho Gompo Tsering Yapshi Pheunkhang, the governor of the Tibetan city of Gyantse and a son of one of the four ministers of Tibet. But she broke precedent by declining to marry both the bridegroom and his brother, as was the custom. "I replied that I would only marry the eldest," she recalled in later life.

In 1941 the princess duly set off on the three-week journey to Lhasa with two maids, one bearer and two horses. She rode while going through the countryside, but retreated to her palanquin when passing through towns. When she arrived she found the two sons sitting next to her at the wedding ceremony, but repeated to her intended that she would marry only him. She and her husband settled down to enjoy the leisured life of the Tibetan gentry, with parties, picnics and festivals. The few visitors who arrived in Tibet – known as "the roof of the world" – were mesmerised by her.

In his book Seven Years in Tibet Heinrich Harrer hailed her as the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and more interesting than her husband: "She possessed the indescribable charm of Asian women and the stamp of age-old oriental culture. At the same time she was clever, well-educated, and thoroughly modern... In conversation she was the equal of the most intelligent woman you would be likely to meet in a European salon. She was interested in politics, culture and all that was happening in the world. She often talked about equal rights for women… but Tibet has a long way to go before reaching that point."

Another visitor compared her to an exotic butterfly, saying her qualities showed in the quizzical way she looked up through her long lashes, and in the slow manner in which she exhaled her cigarette smoke or murmured a few words in her low, clear, musical voice. She entertained far more regally than her homely brother, the Chogyal, offering sparkling conversation as the best French wines were poured from heavy decanters. Her place at table was set with golden coasters and cutlery to remind even the most honoured guests of their inferior rank. Nevertheless, she liked to say: "Money didn't make me – I made money."

When travelling the dangerous trade route between Tibet and Gangtok, the largest town in Sikkim, with her small children bundled up in windowed boxes on horses or mules, she insisted on riding a horse with a rifle slung across her shoulder and a revolver in her pocket to repel bandits.

Princess Coocoola and her husband were founding members of the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, to which they donated manuscripts and a large silver-plated stupa to hold the relics of two Ashokan monks, which were a gift from the Indian government. She allowed the institute to scan her photographic collection.

In her last years she lived in a modest cottage on the outskirts of Gangtok, keeping up with events in Sikkim and world politics and continuing to enjoy discussions with scholars who came knocking at her door. When one completed a book on Sikkimese village religion she insisted they celebrate with a bottle of champagne.

Princess Coocoola was widowed in 1973, and is survived by three of her children. When she died on December 2 four tremors were felt in Sikkim, which, according to local belief, signals the passing of a great soul.

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Part 1 of 2

Coocoola [Kukula] of Sikkim: Lacham Kusho, That's Going with the Gods
by Simon Schreyer
Journalism on Culture and Adventure
simonside.net
[Google translated from German]

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Coocoola of Sikkim was a daring daughter of Tibet. She embodied integrity, grace and compassion. Heinrich Harrer (Seven Years in Tibet) saw in her the ideal balance between the old East and the Western Modern. Coocoola's life story begins like a medieval fairytale and ends like a world political thriller. Life picture of a fascinating woman who lost her home twice but never resigned.



Cloudy clouds nestle in dark green mountainside. Thick mists of late monsoon drift through tea plantations and rice fields in slow motion. We are located in the fashionable, British hill station Darjeeling, in the north of India. The third highest mountain in the world towers above everything: the five-peaked Kangchenjunga (8586 m), "the five treasure chambers of snow". His powerful presence can only be guessed on the horizon at this time of the year.



Here is born on September 6, 1924, in the Tibetan Year of the Wood Mouse, Princess Coocoola. Posterity knows its full name as: Semla (Princess) Pema Tsedeun Namgyal Yabshi Phönkhang, her spiritual nickname is Lacham Kusho ("Noble Consort of the Gods"). But even in her childhood, an English governess finds a lasting nickname when playing hide-and-seek - Coo-Coo-La.

Coocoola's father is the Chögyal (king) of Sikkim, Tashi Namgyal (1893-1963), a filigree sovereign and a subtle landscape painter with a penchant for melancholy, who ever before, even before the cocktail hour, one or two behind the gilded Binde tilts to shoulder the burden of representation. With the numerous spirits of the royal palace of Gangtok he maintains good contact, at night and also in broad daylight. Like them he floats silently through the palaces.

Tashi Namgyal

In all the photos that exist of him, the Chögyal of Sikkim works, one can not say it in other words: raptured. He also wears round darkened glasses on almost all photos. His hypnotic paintings, decorated with mystical vignettes of purple glaciers, blue-green lakes and yellow sunlit skies, are in the style of Nicholas Roerich (with whom he is known) or Rockwell Kent (whom he admires). What they lack is three-dimensionality, which may be due to an eye condition - the painting monarch is almost blind in the right eye.

He comes from the Tibetan vassal family of the Namgyal (literally: "the victorious"), whose ancestor Guru Tashi, a Tanguten prince, in the 13th Century from Kham in eastern Tibet on the Himalayas south migrated. The Namgyal are priest kings, Himalayan aristocracy. Since the 17th century, they have not only dominated Sikkim, but also Bhutan and Ladakh on the order of Lhasa.


The Sikkim Royal Family, 1926: Tashi Namgyal with his sons Choley (l.) And Palden Thondup (r.). Beside him his wife, Kunzang Dechen Tshomo, with Kula (Pema Chöki) on her lap and Coocoola at her feet.

Coocoola's mother, Kunzang Dechen Tshomo, is a much more robust person and resolute personality. It is on the one hand also a Namgyal, on the other hand from the ancient, Central Tibetan family of Ragashar (literally: "radiant", "beautiful") originating from Dokhar, which refers directly to one of the six primitive families of Tibet, the Ghazie clan.

Dundul Namgyal married Yangchen Dolkar (dbyangs can sgrol dkar) from the aristocratic Ragashar family (ra ga shar, also known as Dokhar) and had five children. Their second youngest son Tseten Gyurme was recognized as the Seventh Drigung Chetsang, Tendzin Trinle Lhundrub ('bri gung che tshang 07 bstan 'dzin 'phrin las lhun grub, b. 1946), one of the two heads of the Drigung Kagyu tradition.

-- Tsarong Dundul Namgyal, b.1920 - d.2011, by Tenzin Dickyi

Legend has it that these six families originated from the love affair between two semi-divine beings: a monkey powerful in language and teleportation, and a Dakini (or "Khandroma") dancing through the spheres, a veritable demon girl. (* see bonus )

Based on this legend, the Ragashar family has been living in Lhasa for a family home just across the Choglakhang, Tibet's holiest temple. The daughters of the house are in high esteem among the aristocrats and are sought-after pieces of jewelery to decorate their own family tree. They are also considered as genealogical strengthening of the same, because the Ragashar women are predominantly of balanced temperament, full of sense of class and stately.

High Cabinet Ministers of the Dalai Lama and rich merchants in Lhasa and Shigaze regularly stop for the hand of a ragashar. So does Tashi Namgyal, the XI. Chögyal of Sikkim followed by the Ragashar-daughter Kunzang Dechen Tshomo to Gangtok and three sons (Kunzang Paljor aka Choley, Palden Thondup and Jigdal Tsering aka George) and three daughters (Pema Tsedeun aka Coocoola, Pema Chöki aka Kula and Sonam Palden aka Jeanla). Because she has another daughter through an extramarital relationship with a monk, she lives separated from her husband near Gangtok.


Market scene in Sikkim's capital Gangtok, circa 1950.

Coocoola is a curious, fat and friendly child. Like her siblings, she is traditionally educated at St. Joseph's Convent in Kalimpong, one of the best British schools in India. She starts dating at the age of 13 (in Sikkim alcohol is not as taboo as in India), starts smoking, reads European literature (Stendhal, Dante and Kipling), secretly watches movies with Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo.

She spends her teenage years thriving like a wild orchid, in Kalimpong's international atmosphere full of Indian traders, mysterious European travelers and spies of all the great powers of that charged era. Like tectonic plates, the fields of world politics are converging, the quake can no longer be far away. The royal children of Sikkim feel that too.


Sikkim's King Tashi Namgyal paints Coocoola, his eldest daughter, in the garden of the palace. Photo: Palden Thondup

Russia, China and the United Kingdom are more or less openly vying for the mineral and mineral rich Tibet, the water tower of Asia. More than three billion people in Southeast Asia live off the waters of the eight rivers that spring from the Tibetan Plateau. Immortalized in an ancient iconographic culture, marked by the Bön's primitive animistic religion and tamed by the compassionate message of the Buddha, Tibet is an independent theocracy at that time. Almost independent.

There are no police in our sense of the word. Evil-doers are publicly sentenced. The punishments are pretty drastic but they seem to suit the mentality of the population. I was told of a man who had stolen a golden butter-lamp from one of the temples in Kyirong. He was convicted of the offence, and what we would think an inhuman sentence was carried out. His hands were publicly cut off and he was then sewn up in a wet yak-skin. After this had been allowed to dry, he was thrown over a precipice.....

He told us something about the life of the robbers. They lived in groups in three or four tents which serve as headquarters for their campaigns. These are conducted as follows: heavily armed with rifles and swords they force their way into a nomad’s tent and insist on hospitable entertainment on the most lavish scale available. The nomad in terror brings out everything he has. The Khampas fill their bellies and their pockets and taking a few cattle with them, for good measure, disappear into the wide-open spaces. They repeat the performance at another tent every day till the whole region has been skinned. Then they move their headquarters and begin again somewhere else. The nomads, who have no arms, resign themselves to their fate, and the Government is powerless to protect them in these remote regions. However, if once in a way a district officer gets the better of these footpads in a skirmish, he is not the loser by it for he has a right to all the booty. Savage punishment is meted out to the evildoers, who normally have their arms hacked off. But this does not cure the Khampas of their lawlessness. Stories were told of the cruelty with which they sometimes put their victims to death. They go so far as to slaughter pilgrims and wandering monks and nuns.

-- Seven Years in Tibet, by Heinrich Harrer

For the League of Nations has, despite the XIII. Dalai Lamas's request for recognition of state independence in 1913, gave no clear answer. Too large are the secret and less secret interests of the major powers in accessing Tibet, which has its own language and writing, a government with a council of ministers, stamps, passports, envoys, its own national flag and above all its own currency (Srang) - everything Insignia of sovereignty, which can no longer be seen in China since the boxer rebellion of 1911 and the decline of the empire.

In 1903, under the power-blinded super-imperialist Lord Curzon and the religiously abducted General Younghusband, the British undertook an equally insidious and cruel "expedition" to Tibet in order to anticipate a supposed Russian campaign. The English writer and China correspondent of the Times, Peter Fleming (brother of James Bond inventor Ian), will later speak in his preface to the English first edition of Heinrich Harrer's Seven Years in Tibet of a campaign that "of both daring and was characterized by compassion".

In fact, British troops show little compassion as they cross the border into Tibet and face a small army. In a massacre, the British mow down more than a thousand poorly armed Tibetans with Maxim machine guns (mostly by back shots when most of the Tibetan soldiers are already fleeing) and succeed in establishing a trade mission in Lhasa. All contacts to the XIII. The Dalai Lama had failed until then, due to the Tibetans' unwillingness to answer the British. A single envelope from the Potala Palace had reached London, its contents: a brittle breeze of yak-dung.

When Younghusband camped with his troops in 1904 before Lhasa, the XIII. Dalai Lama has already fled to Mongolia. Negotiations on a British protectorate and the construction of a road link between Tibet and India are therefore not concluded. Understandably, London has since diplomatically held back on the issue of independent Tibet. However, only superficially: through a treaty with the Manchu dynasty in 1906 on the inviolability of Tibet and a second agreement with Russia the following year, which grants the Chinese sovereign rights over Tibet, the British care for even more hopeless confusion about the independence of Tibet.

Much of the political situation in Sikkim, whose border is a few kilometers north of Darjeeling and Kalimpong is unclear for many decades. This can be illustrated by the fact that the two places once belonged to Sikkim and were "leased" by British India, albeit with no time limit and no return - except that it is the tiny country (Sikkim is about the size of the Austrian Salzburg) is spared military annexation.



The mountain dwarf state between Nepal and Bhutan has been under the protectorate of British India in this ambiguous way since the mid-19th century. In 1868, the British refuse an invasion of Tibetans who want to regain their sovereignty over Sikkim. In 1918 Sikkim received full self-government and in 1922 became a member of the Chamber of Princes, the unification of all Indian principalities. Tashi Namgyal is thus established as a recognized ruler of his tiny country, he leads free elections, begins to reform the country and to establish closer trade relations with India.

This is the world where Princess Coocoola grows up with her siblings. Against her two older brothers, who are full of practical jokes, she has to prevail early. The family is not without quirks and rich in individual, strong personalities. But without exception, all members of the Namgyal clan of Sikkim are of benevolence, occasionally sarcastic humor and passionate sophistication. It would take the bizarre Ingenuity of a Wes Anderson as a director, if one wanted to implement the everyday life in the Royal Palace of Gangtok adequately artful and funny for the cinema.

Palden Thondup is interested in technology, is a passionate Leica photographer whose images are published in the National Geographic Magazine, and amateur radio broadcasters with international license, plus he has a great deal of Buddhist-philosophical knowledge. He wants to occupy scientific subjects in Cambridge and then become a monk in one of the three major abbeys of Lhasa.

However, just like his father, Tashi (whose older brother Sidkeong contracted jaundice in 1914 and fell victim to a regurgitation with intravenously administered brandy), he is denied this call to a contemplative life. As the eldest son of Tashi Namgyal, the trained pilot Choley Paljor crashes 1941 in an aerial battle over Peshawar, Thondup stands as successor to the throne of Sikkim.


Three Graces: The Royal Daughters Sikkims, from left to right: Pema Chöki (Kula), Pema Tsedeun (Coocoola), Sonam Palden (Jeanla). Photo: Pinterest

The youngest brother Jigdal Tsering, called George-La, suffers from panic attacks. He is of a touching character but of the spiritualized worldly devotion of the Father, or - who knows - blessed with the supernatural devotion to a more eternal, timeless world; a world beyond politics, intrigues and vanities.

When he is to be married, it is his eldest sister Coocoola, who introduces him to a number of dignified young ladies at a garden party in Kalimpong. She eventually manages to pair him with a delightful Tibetan named Suang-La. Even the youngest sister Jeanla is of a deeply withdrawn character, speaks little and hardly goes out of the house. She is still, albeit late in life, the mother of a boy who is recognized as a high reincarnation.

Pema Chöki (or "Kula", as she is called in Gangtok), Coocoola's middle sister, 15 months younger, is extroverted, well-read, and very pretty. Like Jeanla, she pursued her father, with a thin face, a few lovely spots of birthmark around the corners of her mouth and a quick comprehension. She becomes one of the best students in West Bengal and for a few years a teacher at Gangtok Elementary School.

Fosco Maraini, the Florentine photographer, poet and scholar, gets to know young Kula as a member of a Giuseppe Tucci expedition as he makes a stop in Gangtok before heading into the glowing plateaus of Tibet.


Kula, Coocoola's younger sister, skiing at Nathu-La, 1948. Photo: Fosco Maraini

In his classic Secret Tibet (1952), whose iconic cover adorns Kula in a traditional Tibetan fur hat, Maraini Sikkim describes in beautiful colors - steaming, breathing, digesting jungles; hundreds of species of butterflies; steep, wooded hillsides and an almost firework-like botanical variety; the tiny fairytale town between two hilltops and the associated fairytale palace - even if this is more reminiscent of a larger bungalow.

At dinner in the palace of Gangtok, he observes the old, venerable king, who in delicate maneuvers fights with a pea that does not want to be impaled on a fork. He befriends the digestive at the fire with Kula and she returns as blatantly as guileless his flirting attempts, but without compromising even for a second.

Rather, she is a caring hostess and urbane emissary of her Tibetan culture, who brings him fresh fruit and a gramophone with music by Mozart, Brahms and Scarlatti on his return to Gangtok. The two talk about European literature, Milarepa, the peculiarities of the Tibetan Gods sky and their fiancée, whom she will soon follow to Lhasa.

Coocoola is married at 16, so very early, as is the custom among the Tibetans. Actually Coocoola wants to study, but then a letter from Tibet arrives for her in the palace of Gangtok. The heraldic seal shows five yak tails - highest Lhasa nobility. Sey Kusho Gompo Tsering Phönkhang, called Phöntsok, governor of Gyantse and eldest son of an influential Yabshi family who has already spawned two Dalai lamas, wants a Sikkimese princess to be his wife. Chögyal Tashi does not pressure his daughter. He allows Coocoola to start her studies, but the Phönkhangs insist on a speedy wedding.


Coocoola at her wedding, 1941, with her aunt Chöni Dorji, later Queen of Bhutan.

Coocoola now makes her own condition, which is almost never expressed in polyandrian Tibet: she will only marry the eldest son, Gompo Phöntsok, and not his younger brother. Vielmännerei does not meet their views.

When the parents-in-law also set aside her younger brother at the wedding, she repeats her unheard-of request. Coocoola is thus the first woman in Tibet's history who, at her own request, marries only one man and not his brothers. Whether the younger Phönkhang brother tasted this unintentional abuse or not is not known.

For the move from Sikkim to Tibet, Coocoola is provided with a tiny entourage with two court ladies, a porter and two horses. She will often ride this nearly three-week ride across the Nathu-La ("Passing Ears") and through the Chumbi Valley to Gyantse and Lhasa, passing the majestic snow cone of the Chomolhari (7330m, "Lady of the Gods").

Also with her three children (Jigme, Chimie and Sodenla), which she gives birth in the forties and fifties. In the caravan, she almost always stays in the saddle - only when passing villages and settlements she retreats into a Palanquin - and is always armed with a muzzle loader and a Luger pistol, which she knows how to deal with. The area, especially between Phari and Gyantse, is notorious for both brash and daring bandits.


Sense of adventure: Coocoola with a Horse Man, on the way between Gangtok and Chumbi.

The life of the Tibetan aristocracy in Lhasa takes place between picnics, festivals and days long wedding celebrations on the riverbank. Since she belongs to the uppermost social class of old Tibet, Coocoola lacks nothing. She comes through the dealers of Barkhor fashionable fabrics and patterns from India and Europe, reads Vogue, Claudine and Harper's Bazaar and makes top-stylish dresses for themselves and their girlfriends. Thanks to the presence of film cameras, the first documented catwalk shows in Tibet are created.

In 1942 and 1943, a two-man camera team from the Office of Strategic Services, a division of the US Army (and precursor to the CIA), visited Sikkim and Tibet. In the resulting film Inside Tibet, the viewer encounters in the first scene of the seventeen-year-old Kula, who inspects highly interested gifts of Americans in front of the palace of Gangtok, next to her the British ambassador Sir Basil Gould.



In the scenes created in Lhasa (at 15:32 and 27:58 minutes), Coocoola is seen with her first baby on the flat roof of the Phönkhang house, and later (at 26:07) with relatives (slightly tipsy) and her husband in front of him Estate Tsarongs. The package of a gift from the American filmmaker to the then seven-year-old XIV. Dalai Lama is missing a bow and so Coocoola provides her headband made of red velvet. The gift, personally selected by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, is a watertight wristwatch that the adolescent Dalai Lama later sank in the goldfish pond of Norbulingka Park to test its waterability - and never again.

In the house of Tsarongs, with its exhilaratingly colorful garden and a willow and poplar grove on the Kyi Chu ("happy river"), Coocoola goes in and out. Tsarong Dzasa, her uncle, is a self-made man and Tibetan folk hero, who was formerly Commander-in-Chief of the Tibetan Army and high minister in favor of the XIII Dalai Lama stood. Since his political withdrawal he has been a merchant, bridge builder, importer of steel, head of coinage and, with regard to the feudal system, an outspoken proponent of modernization.

Tsarong is enterprising and open-minded. He wants to learn about the world outside of Tibet and has a keen interest in all things Western: He has cameras, theodolites, telescopes and magazines from New York and Europe in his house. And he also grants the two Austrians Heinrich Harrer and Peter Aufschnaiter lodgings in the guesthouses of his extensive property when they set foot in Lhasa in the spring of 1946 after fleeing Tibet for two years.


Forbidden City: Lhasa, 1948, with the Potala Palace under a light blue autumn sky. Photo: Heinrich Harrer

At first glance Heinrich Harrer is in love with Coocoola and will describe her as one of the most beautiful women in the world in his memoirs. In Seven Years in Tibet (1952) she also mentions: "She was of that indescribable charm of the Asian, which is characterized by the ancient culture of the Orient. At the same time she was quite modern, smart and educated, educated in the best schools in India. (...) You could talk to her like the most witty lady in a European salon, she was interested in culture and politics and everything that was going on in the world. She often talked about women's equal rights, but until then there was still a long way to go ...


Coocoola and her first two children Chimie and Jigme in the late forties. Photo: Heinrich Harrer

... Coocoola distinguished herself from the other Tibetan women not only by her charming face, but above all by her slender figure, which she did not cover in several layers of thick fabrics, but like the Europeans, tightly wrapped in colorful silk. We could see each other on invitations, but hardly speak, and there were always staff at the English lessons she gave me. She had been brought up to the west and to me like a bridge to Europe.

If I remember this affection today, I especially remember the Tibetan words for my feelings. To fall in love is to say 'Shem wa' and means to lose soul, to refer to a woman as his lady of the heart is called 'Nying dug', translated 'The heart meet'. Both were probably the case. "

Other writers and travelers from the United Kingdom, the United States and India also sing about their encounter with Coocoola. For example, Indian Envoy Nari Rustomji (author of Enchanted Frontiers ) or quarrelsome cult leader and scholar Sangharakshita who writes about Sikkim's eldest princess in Facing Mount Kangchenjunga: "It was like a magical tropical butterfly fluttering across my path. Coocoola has four characteristics rarely found in a single woman: beauty, charm, intelligence and joie de vivre. And she possesses all these qualities in a much higher degree than is occasionally found in different women ...


Coocoola in the late fifties. Photo: The Telegraph

More than that, these qualities find their way into all their little, seemingly insignificant gestures - be it a puzzled look under her long eyelashes, the serene way she blows cigarette smoke from her nostrils, or a few whispered words in her full, clear and musical voice. Not only that, she enhances the effect of her personality with sumptuous costumes, which she wears in the unshakeable self-understanding and knowledge of her royal blood. The effect is subtle, devastating."

In the autumn of 1950, the darkest premonitions of the thirteenth century come to pass in Tibet. Dalai Lama and the terrible prophecies of the oracles: The military-upgraded China invades Tibet. In the following decades, architecturally, but also mentally, hardly any stone should stay on top of another. The violent occupation, secretly tolerated by all global powers, puts an end to the old Tibet. The thousand-year-old, colorful culture of Tibet, marked by a peaceful inner vision of the spirit, is banned ...

No wonder that the people of that country are extremely afraid of disobeying the orders of the Government ... crucifying, ripping open the body, pressing and cutting out the eyes, are by no means the worst of these punishments.

-- The Myth of Shangri-La: Tibet, Travel Writing and the Western Creation of Sacred Landscape, by Peter Bishop

... and the feudal lordship of the monasteries brutally and with force of arms replaced by a grotesque distortion of socialism.

Of course, Tibet would have had to go the way to modernity and democracy on its own (a British road between Bengal and Lhasa would certainly have made a start), but the invasion by the so-called "People's Liberation Army" Mao Zedong is in no way a legitimate one answer to this omission.

On the contrary, it does not seem even today that even the Chinese military and power stars had even an idea of ​​what they would bring about horror, famine and blind destructive rage over an autochthonous, profoundly religious folk community. But of course Mao and his "terrible four" were not concerned with the happiness of his or any people, but with power, land and mineral resources.

Coocoola returns to Sikkim following the Chinese invasion of Lhasa, along with her husband Phöntsok, who will never overcome the loss of his homeland. It organizes spying and search teams to rescue scattered friends and relatives from the hands of Chinese military personnel in Tibet - including the Tyrolean agricultural scientist and Tibetologist Peter Aufschnaiter, who, however, is not found, because he, waiting for political development, on the West Tibets to Nepal settles.