This is my (revised) answer:
Dear Nicholas,
a) The first 'view' you quote is well sourced as fact. Actually by mistake (for which I apologise) I did not put the references for this in brackets after the CIA paragraph. But if you had gone to the original article by the highly respected Michael Parenti you could have seen Note 44: Jim Mann, "CIA Gave Aid to Tibetan Exiles in '60s, Files Show," Los Angeles Times, 15 September 1998; and New York Times, 1 October, 1998. There is also a detailed sub-chapter in the extremely impressive book by the Trimondis I mentioned earlier: http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Part-2-09.htm#CIA
Regarding your points b and c): what he believes in his innermost heart I do not know, but this quotation about the use of violence is from his own mouth: “The wrathful goddesses and the enraged gods are there in order to demonstrate that one can grasp the use of violence as a method; it is an effective instrument, but it can never ever be a purpose” (Levenson, 1992, p. 284). The Trimondis cite several familiars with the Tibetan exile scene who allege that on occasion the Dalai Lama sends messages to the fighters to say keep going while at the same town or event he publicly emphasizes the necessity of nonviolence. It is also alleged that on the Tibet national day there is a huge turn out when the Dalai Lama first talks about nonviolence, then everyone gets on with the martial enthusiasm for kicking out the Chinese by force, or so the anthems go.
Remember Gandhi often said (in part rhetorically) that any resistance to oppression was better than none. (Buddhists would tend rather to remember to First Do no Harm (if possible), although we would also accept that the decision not to intervene and stop bullying with available necessary focused controlled force is not a way to avoid the karma of 'violence', because it too incurs the karma of inaction in the face of oppression: which is what Gandhi was driving at when he said this, in my opinion.) Behind the scenes Gandhi got on well with the leader of the armed Indian resistance, Bose.
Refusing to condemn a priori those who take up arms in a defensive cause, seems reasonable. But it will be reasonable to criticise armed actions as unskillful and as being productive of further rounds of suffering if
a) they kill civilians in the process; and/or
b) they are disproportionate to the scale of the current offence - How many Haitians or Congolese would give their right arm to be living in Lhasa?; and/or
c) there is no good hope of victory, and post Saddam's overthrow we also need to add that there should be a realistic prospect of any 'victory' actually helping to achieving the advertised desirable objectives, especially in the light of the danger of relying on exile propaganda and the likelihood of unexpected consequences which affect every great or small plan; and/or
d) the armed actions would not benefit the supposed beneficiaries (if successful), but merely keep the restorationist hopes alive of an exile caste, and/or
e) the violent actions do not benefit the supposed beneficiaries, make life harder for them, and bring down predictable reprisals or frustrate constructive progress, and/or
f) those pursuing the path of armed resistance have not done all they could to exhaust alternative peaceful remedies, including provision of whatever assurances might be required to enable reasonable compromises to be achieved (such as promising to cut all links with the armed forces and clandestine agencies of the country which spends more on 'defense' than all the rest of the world put together - for example).
Using violence against the Chinese army is really really stupid, and using it against Chinese civilians is even more unskilful. The monks in Tibet often belonged to big monastery armies which fought each other for centuries (like in Dogen's Japan around 1200 CE). If we want not to repeat the past we need to bring it into the light to heal old patterns. This applies to e.g. continuing British denial of the genocidal nature of 'our' bombing campaign in WW2, or to the denial of the counter-productive effects of nearly all the West's 'interventions'; why should we not join Norbu in calling for a similar de-mythologization of Tibet's past, including critical examination of the many strong motifs about violence in its dominant religion.
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