"To hold Tibet firmly," goes an old Tibetan saying, "the conqueror must win Potala's top floor." Potala is the 500-ft.-high, 1,400-room Lhasa stronghold of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's powerful temporal ruler, and the top floor is the Lama's private residence. Since Red China "liberated" Tibet in 1951, hundreds of Chinese officials have been popping in and out of Potala's top floor, wooing the 21-year-old Dalai Lama with flattery and gifts (among them: ten autos, a direct phone to Peking), and isolating him from his own countrymen. But despite his...
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