Chinese troops crush the Tibetan rebellion in 1959 and suppress Buddhism.

The Dalai Lama flees with 100,000 Tibetans to India.

China and Russia quarel over communist policies towards the West.

Kerry Thornley is assigned to the U-2 base in Atsugi, Japan in 1959.

The 1959 collapse of Laos’s coalition governent, one of a series in which the Pathet Lao participate, is followed by a series of coups.

A 40,000 strong mercenary force allegedly recruited by the CIA and known as the Armeé Clandestine (“secret army”) draws half its members from Thailand and the rest from South Korea, Taiwan and other US client states.

The Armeé Clandestine begins operations against the Pathet Lao.

An increasingly authoritarian Sukarno dissolves Indonesia’s elected parliament in 1959.