The Dalai Lama and his resistance supporters played a massive role in the success of the mission. The people who participated in the resistance were able to retrieve incredibly helpful and important documents for the U.S. to use against China. In fact, some call this particular mission one of the greatest intelligence successes of the Cold War. Yet, the Tibetan people claim that they were used as pawns to keep the Chinese busy with the resistance fight, but the U.S. never actually helped set up independence for the Tibetan people after the success.