Indonesia.

1945:  

• Indonesia gains independence from the Dutch, Sukarno becomes their leader

1948:

• Sukarno crushed PKI forces in failed Madiun uprising
• PKI reorganises under leadership of D.N. Aidit, embracing electoral politics and building a “united national front” supportive but critical of Sukarno

1955:  

• PKI does very well in elections
• Sukarno organises Bandung Conference as an alternative to the US-created SEATO
• Plane crash en route to Bandung caused by two time-bombs, killing eight Chinese, one Vietnamese and two European journalists
• Book published (1967) by former CIA agent John Discoe Smith who claims to have delivered the package, which he later learned to be the two bombs
• Senate committee (1975) heard that there were suggestions to assassinate an East Asian leader to “to disrupt an impending Communist Conference in 1955”
• CIA gave Masjimi Party (opposition to Sukarno) a million dollars, with no detailed accounting of how the funds were spent

1956:

• Frank Wisner of CIA: “I think it’s time we held Sukarno’s feet to the fire”

1957:  

• PKI does even better in elections, most effective organisation in the country
• November, hand grenades tossed at Sukarno while visiting a school, killing ten people and injuring 48 children – a Muslim group did it, but the CIA put out the story that it was the PKI
• Special Group approves CIA actions, headquarters established in Singapore, training bases in Philippines, airstrips in Pacific, troops assembled in Okinawa and Philippines
• Tens of thousands of rebels armed

1958:  

• Early months:
  • Rebellion began to break out and CIA sent bombing missions to help the rebels
• April:
  • A plane bombed a ship and a church, killing everyone inside both, 700 dead
• 30 April:
  • President Eisenhower: “Our policy is one of careful neutrality and proper deportment all the way through so as not to be taking sides where it is none of our business.”
• 15 May:
  • Another bombing of marketplace in Ambon, killing civilians on way to Ascension Thursday church service
• 18 May:
  • CIA pilot Pope shot down and captured, having smuggled in identifying papers to make sure he had political value if captured – held for four years before being released
• 27 May:
  • Pope and documents presented to news conference, contradicting earlier statement by President Eisenhower among many others
• After this incident, CIA curtailed support for rebels and Sukarno’s forces crushed them

1964:  

• Neville Maxwell of Oxford University:
  • [A Dutch intelligence officer with NATO] remarked to the Pakistani diplomat that Indonesia was “ready to fall into the Western lap like a rotten apple”. Western intelligence agencies, he said, would organize a “premature communist coup … [which would be] foredoomed to fail, providing a legitimate and welcome opportunity to the army to crush the communists and make Soekarno a prisoner of the army’s goodwill”. The ambassador’s report was dated December 1964.

1960s:

• Political divide had become clear: PKI and Sukarno vs Army and the US government

1965:  

• 1 October:
  • Small force of junior officers abducts and kills six generals, seize several key points in Jakarta
  • They then said they were preventing a coup by a “General’s Council” scheduled for 5 October
  • Then, these junior officers are crushed by the army under General Suharto, who stated that they were working for the PKI, who were working for the Communist Chinese
  • They then reduced Sukarno to a figurehead – Suharto was now in charge

After:  

• Anyone suspected of being sympathetic to PKI slaughtered
• NYT: “one of the most savage mass slaughters of modern political history”
• Life magazine: “[violence] tinged not only with fanaticism but with blood-lust and something like witchcraft”
• American diplomats had compiled comprehensive lists of Communist operatives, turning over as many as 5000 names to the Indonesian army
• The diplomats would then tick them off as they were captured or killed
• Robert Martens of US Embassy in Jakarta: “it really was a big help to the army. They probably killed a lot of people, and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that’s not all bad. There’s a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive moment.”
• Howard Federspiel: “No one cared, as long as they were Communists, that they were being butchered”
• The government administers the nation on the level of the Chicago gangsters of the 1930s running a protection racket, with death squads roaming at will
• Bali among the worst hit by the violence, around 5% of the country killed (think 1.3 million Australians dead)
• Indonesians abroad who didn’t declare allegiance to Suharto had their citizenship revoked

Reactions:

• US oil companies and Freeport mining company took over country; General Electric, American Express, Caterpillar, Goodyear, Raytheon, Lockheed, StarKist all entered Indonesia in the aftermath
• Vietnamese showed reluctant support, preoccupied with US themselves
• USSR: quiet resignation
• China used event as a propaganda tool, especially since it occurred a day after the anniversary of the founding of CCP
• Chileans reignited debate over tactics after Indonesia
• Fidel Castro, Che Guevara understood situation well, supported Indonesians in Cuba

What really happened in 1965?

• What was the role of the PKI?
  • PKI semi-official story: it was to prevent the army taking over in the event of Sukarno’s death, for which they were concerned because of a recent kidney attack
  • CIA study: “It now seems clear that the Indonesian coup was not a move to overthrow Sukarno and/or the established government of Indonesia. Essentially, it was a purge of the Army leadership”
• The agent provocateur
  • There are indications of an agent provocateur known as “Sjam”, who pushed the idea of a “General’s Council” and the need to counteract it
  • Sjam was ostensibly working for Aidit, the leader of PKI
  • He could have just as easily been working for the CIA
  • It’s known that the CIA had infiltrated the PKI, even more so the army
• Was JFK involved?
  • JFK and British PM Macmillan had reportedly agreed to attempt to isolate Sukarno in Africa and Asia, and had agreed to “liquidate President Sukarno depending on the situation and available opportunities”
  • JFK aide Schlesinger reports the president was “anxious to strengthen the anti-communist forces, especially the army, in order to make sure that, if anything happened to Sukarno, the powerful Indonesian Communist Party would not inherit the country”
• If there was truly a General’s Council, was the CIA involved?
  • CIA and State Dept’s Roger Hilsman: “one-third of the Indonesian general staff had … training from Americans and almost half of the officer corps”
  • Reports from House Committee on Foreign Affairs: “more than 1200 Indonesian officers, including senior military figures, had been trained in the United States … In post-coup period, when the political situation was still unsettled, the United States, using these existing channels of communication, was able to provide the anti-Communist forces with moral and token material support.”
  • NYT: CIA was successful at infiltrating the top of Indonesian government and army
• Exchange between Senator Sparkman and McNamara
  • Senator Sparkman: At a time when Indonesia was kicking up pretty badly—when we were getting a lot of criticism for continuing military aid—at that time we could not say what that military aid was for. Is it secret anymore?
  • McNamara: I think in retrospect, that the aid was well justified.
  • Sparkman: You think it paid dividends?
  • McNamara: I do, sir.
• US Ambassador Marshall Green: “What we did we had to do, and you’d better be glad we did because if we hadn’t Asia would be a different place today”
• Refer back to Neville Maxwell’s notes of ambassador’s 1964 report

“Happy Days”: The porno plot

• As part of the CIA propaganda effort to paint Sukarno as a communist in Indonesia, there was an extensive effort to link him with a blonde stewardess who had been everywhere with him on a trip to the Soviet Union
• Sukarno was a known polygamist, and many of his supporters saw it as a sign of his masculinity and power
• The campaign by the CIA was successful enough for the CIA to go a step further, attempting to create a spoof porno film, complete with a Hispanic-looking actor and a full-face mask to imitate Sukarno
• Another film, made for the CIA by former FBI agent (and intimate of Howard Hughes) Robert Maheu, called Happy Days featured an actor resembling Sukarno
• The narrative was that the Soviets held this sex tape to blackmail, and that the Americans would release it, exposing the depraved tactics of the Soviets
• At other times, the CIA has succeeded in this sex tape blackmail method, using female agents to lure targets into CIA safe houses

Sources:

• Killing Hope by William Blum
• The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins