The Year of the Showdown

Trained, armed, funded, and encouraged by the United States to attack the Communist Party, the army high command decided in January 1965 to begin contingency planning for doing so. A series of events prompted Yani and his inner circle to believe that President Sukarno’s rule was becoming less stable and that, as a consequence, the threat of the PKI was increasing. Sukarno’s health was failing, as evidenced by a kidney ailment that required an operation in December 1964. He was also becoming more isolated on the international stage. In response to the UN Security Council’s approval of a council seat for Malaysia, Su- karno announced on January 7 that Indonesia was withdrawing from the United Nations. His policy of Confrontation against Malaysia was emboldening the Communist Party to demand that thousands, if not millions, of civilians be armed and organized into a new ﬁfth service

Suharto, the Indonesian Army, and the United States t 189 of the military. With the possibility of the PKI’s becoming armed, the

army generals realized that Confrontation was spinning out of their control.

According to the CIA’s published analysis of the movement, Yani and four other generals began meeting in January 1965 “to discuss the deteriorating political situation and what the Army should do about it. The group, known as the ‘brain-trust,’ included four other generals: Gen. Suprapto, Gen. Harjono, Gen. Parman, and Gen. Sukendro.” These generals met “regularly, in secret.” 43 The ﬁrst three generals were on Yani’s general staff. The last, Sukendro, had led the crackdown on the PKI in July–September 1960 and had, with other hard-line anti- Communists within the army, demanded that Nasution stage a coup d’état against Sukarno at that time. Sukarno negotiated a compromise with the army that led to ending the repression against the Communist Party and to sending Sukendro into exile for three years. 44 Those were the years that Sukendro spent at the University of Pittsburgh, where he developed close contacts with U.S. ofﬁcials and the CIA. Yani brought Sukendro back into the army in 1963 and later entrusted him with the top-level plotting to resume what he had attempted so crudely back in 1960: crush the PKI and overthrow Sukarno.

Information leaked out about Yani’s select group of generals. Su- karno heard the rumors about the Council of Generals and summoned Yani to the palace on May 22 for an explanation. As the CIA acknowl- edged, Yani’s brain trust was “almost certainly the group the PKI was warning Sukarno about.” 45 Yani conjectured that some people had mis- construed the army’s committee for senior promotions (Wanjakti) as the Council of Generals.

The U.S. ambassador, Howard Jones, learned of the discussions of Yani’s brain trust in January. Jones wired his superiors in Washington that an embassy informant, who had just come from a meeting with General Parman, had reported that the army was “developing spe- ciﬁc plans for takeover of government moment Sukarno steps off stage.” Although this contingency planning was being done “with an eye to post-Sukarno era,” some ofﬁcers in the “top military command” were pushing for a coup before Sukarno’s death if the Communist Party suc- ceeded in forming an armed civilian militia. The informant explained that if the military did takeover before Sukarno died, the “coup would

be handled in such a way as to preserve Sukarno’s leadership intact.” It would be a coup that would not appear to be a coup. Jones’s informant stated that even the president’s detractors in the army “were convinced

190 t Suharto, the Indonesian Army, and the United States that there was no possibility of any coup succeeding against Sukarno.

He was still beloved of the masses.” Jones considered the information credible because the informant was an “excellent source.” 46

The experienced diplomat Ellsworth Bunker, sent to Jakarta in April 1965 for an overall evaluation of U.S.-Indonesia relations, con- ﬁrmed this assessment of Sukarno’s unassailability. “There is little question of his hold on the loyalty of the Indonesian people,” he wrote in his report to President Johnson. Indonesians “in large measure look to him for leadership, trust his leadership, and are willing to follow him. No force in the country can attack him nor is there evidence that any signif- icant group would want to do so.” 47

For a coup d’état to succeed in Indonesia, it would have to be disguised as its opposite: an effort to save President Sukarno. The military would have to appear as Sukarno’s savior instead of his grave digger. The problem for the army was that such a disguised coup needed a pretext. As I noted earlier, by 1959 the U.S. National Security Council had recognized that the repression of the PKI had to be “politically justiﬁ- able in terms of Indonesian self-interest”; the Communist Party had to

be driven “into positions of open opposition to the Indonesian Govern- ment.” The logical pretext for a coup would be a coup attempt by the PKI. Ambassador Jones told a closed-door meeting of State Depart- ment ofﬁcials in the Philippines in March 1965, “From our viewpoint, of course, an unsuccessful coup attempt by the PKI might be the most effective development to start a reversal of political trends in Indone- sia.” Jones hoped the PKI would give the army a “clear-cut kind of challenge which could galvanize effective reaction.” 48

Jones was not alone in thinking about an “unsuccessful coup attempt by the PKI” as the ideal pretext. The idea circulated widely among the diplomatic corps of countries allied with the United States. Edward Peck, the assistant secretary of state in the Foreign Ofﬁce in Britain, suggested “there might therefore be much to be said for encouraging a premature PKI coup during Sukarno’s lifetime.” 49 Responding to Peck in December 1964, the New Zealand high commissioner in London averred that a premature PKI coup “might be the most helpful solution for the West—provided the coup failed.” 50 The idea even reached as far as the Pakistani foreign service. A Dutch intelligence ofﬁcer with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization informed a Pakistani ambassador in Western Europe about it in December 1964. The ambassador dutifully reported to his superiors in Islamabad that a “premature communist coup” that would be “foredoomed to fail” would provide “a legitimate

Suharto, the Indonesian Army, and the United States t 191 and welcome opportunity to army to crush the communists and make

Sukarno a prisoner of the army’s good will.” 51 Apparently, the idea was considered so clever that it became the banter of the cocktail circuit.

This may explain why Jones used the phrase “of course” while broaching the subject with his State Department colleagues, as if they were already familiar with it.

Both the United States government and the Indonesian army’s high command spent 1965 waiting for some sort of dramatic action from the PKI that would provide a justiﬁcation for repressing it. Some even help- fully suggested that the United States serve as a catalyst for this longed- for clash. A State Department analyst in Washington wondered in March, “Is there anything that would make [such a] clash inevitable?” 52 Ellsworth Bunker, in his report of April, suggested that the “U.S. should

be directed toward creating conditions which will give the elements of potential strength the most favorable conditions for confrontation.” 53

The United States was “creating conditions” through covert operations. An NSC committee approved a proposal in March 1965 for covert actions such as “support to existing anti-Communist groups,” “black letter operations,” and “media operations.” The plan was to “portray the PKI as an increasingly ambitious, dangerous opponent of Sukarno and legitimate nationalism” and thereby unite all the non-Communist elements against the PKI. The proposal mentioned that “leading national- ist personalities” in Indonesia had already been given “some funds” through “secure channels” so that they could “take obstructive action against the PKI.” 54

The U.S. government became eager for a showdown between the army and the Communist Party in 1965 since U.S. relations with the Su- karno government were rapidly deteriorating. Militant demonstrators attacked many consulates and libraries of the U.S. government. Su- karno’s blasé reaction to these attacks in February and March suggested that he was encouraging them. The United States adopted what it called a “low-posture policy.” This entailed the withdrawal of most embassy personnel (who numbered four hundred in April and thirty-ﬁve in August), suspension of aid to Sukarno’s government, and continua- tion of contacts with the army leaders in the hope that they would act against the PKI and Sukarno. The CIA station was kept at its full con- tingent of twelve members (eight operatives plus four administrative staff ) so that it could continue its covert operations. 55

Hunkering down, U.S. embassy ofﬁcials believed the ﬁnal showdown against the Communist Party was imminent. Bunker wrote in

192 t Suharto, the Indonesian Army, and the United States April: “U.S. visibility should be reduced so that those opposed to the

communists and extremists may be free to handle a confrontation, which they believe will come, without the incubus of being attacked as defenders of the neo-colonialists and imperialists.” 56 Marshall Green, who replaced Jones as U.S. ambassador in July 1965, was deputed to take

a harder line with Sukarno. Green’s assessment after about one month in Jakarta was that the U.S. priority had to be to “maintain whatever contact possible with the military and other elements in the power struc- ture, looking toward the post-Sukarno period.” 57 During Green’s tenure the U.S. embassy laid low while hoping that its friends in the army would act against the PKI and Sukarno. As one NSC staffer explained to President Johnson, the “main objective remains to ride out the long storm with battened hatches (reduced diplomatic stafﬁng) in an effort to play for the long-term post-Sukarno stakes.” 58 The United States decided against a complete severance of relations with Indonesia so that it could maintain contact with its anti-Communist allies in the army.

One of the Americans with the closest contacts in the Indonesian army was George Benson, the civic action adviser to the Indonesian army. He was on close personal terms with Yani and many ofﬁcers on the general staff. Before returning to the United States in July 1965, Benson had lunch with Yani and Parman. Benson recalled that Yani assured him that the army was solidly anti-Communist. Yani explained that he and his general staff had appointed all 120 battalion command- ers in the country and considered them trustworthy. Yani also said, according to Benson, “We have the guns, and we have kept the guns out of their [the Communists’] hands. So if there’s a clash, we’ll wipe them out.” 59

The U.S. government, of course, did not know exactly when and how the clash would occur between the army and the Communist Party. The United States was certain, however, that such a confrontation would occur and was fairly conﬁdent that the Indonesian army would somehow prevail. Already in January 1965, a CIA assessment about the “beginnings of a scramble for succession to Sukarno” predicted that the “initial struggle to replace him would be won by Army and non-Communist elements.” 60 The simple fact, bluntly expressed by Yani to Benson, was that the army had a monopoly of arms. Frederick Bunnell has accurately described U.S. policy in 1965: “There was always the cautious conﬁdence that the army could and would prevail in a post- Sukarno showdown, but the form and timing of such a showdown could not be predicted.” 61

Suharto, the Indonesian Army, and the United States t 193 Given that the embassy wanted to provoke a showdown, it is reason-

able to assume that the CIA station’s covert operations involved mea- sures that would prompt the PKI to think that it and Sukarno were in serious danger. Some of the CIA’s “black letter operations” and “media operations” must have been designed to convince PKI leaders that the army generals and the United States were mad dogs spoiling for a coup.

U.S. ofﬁcials repeatedly informed the army generals that the United States would support them if they moved against the PKI. Howard Jones had assured Nasution back in March 1964 during a private ninety- minute meeting that there would be “U.S. support in time of crisis.” In turn, Nasution assured Jones that the army was “still anti-communist in outlook” and was indoctrinating the ofﬁcers “to ensure military will be ready to meet challenge when it came.” 62 At another meeting Nasution assured Jones that the army’s attack on the Communist Party in 1948, an attack largely conducted by Nasution’s own West Java troops, “would be mild compared with an army crackdown today.” 63

The open question was whether the PKI would give the army a pretext for an attack. While Jones saw that an “unsuccessful coup attempt by the PKI” would be the ideal event, he was pessimistic about the chances of its happening. He noted in his March 1965 State Depart- ment speech that the PKI was not likely to attempt any action against Sukarno: “The PKI is doing too well through its present tactics of cooperation with Sukarno. Unless the PKI leadership is rasher than I think they are they will not give the army the clear-cut kind of challenge which could galvanize effective reaction.” 64 Contrary to Jones’s expecta- tions, the PKI, more speciﬁcally, Aidit and Sjam, did walk into the trap.

The Year of the Showdown