E ach of these four narrative strategies fails to account for all the movement’s anomalies. The plausibility of each depends upon high-

E ach of these four narrative strategies fails to account for all the movement’s anomalies. The plausibility of each depends upon high-

lighting a limited range of facts while ignoring, glossing over, or incor- rectly explaining other facts. In the decades that have passed since the event, no one has been able to arrive at a wholly satisfactory narrative. The movement has become like an unsolvable Rubik’s cube, one on which the six colors cannot be aligned with the six sides. No one has been able to square (or cube, shall we say?) the facts with a plausible narrative.

One obstacle to solving the puzzle has been the forceful imposition of a false solution immediately after the event. As Suharto’s army as- serted its own narrative—the PKI as the dalang (the puppet master)—it

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invented facts (like the Lubang Buaya torture story and the confessions of PKI leaders). With its volumes of propaganda the Suharto regime has booby-trapped the historians’ path with false clues, dead-end diver- sions, and doctored bits of evidence. The falsity of Suharto’s solution is apparent in its imprecise use of the term PKI. According to the official version, the PKI masterminded the movement. But it is obvious that the PKI, as an institution that consisted of millions of people, could not have organized a secretive military rebellion.

If the PKI in the aggregate was not responsible, what was the precise connection between the PKI leaders and the movement? For instance, what was Aidit doing at Halim Air Force Base? Anderson and McVey presented him as “a dupe” of the rebel officers. But they wrote their analysis before information emerged about the important role played by Sjam and the Special Bureau and before Sudisman admitted that par- ticular party leaders had been involved “in a personal capacity.” Crouch reconciled this new information with the Cornell paper’s analysis by ar- guing that certain PKI leaders and members actively assisted, but did not direct, a putsch by junior army officers. Crouch’s proposed narrative has been the best informed so far but, like the Cornell paper, it has not been able to explain why a pro-Sukarno military rebellion should aim to decommission Sukarno’s cabinet.

Wertheim’s narrative managed to resolve this anomaly by depicting it as a deliberate provocation: the decommissioning of the cabinet was meant to guarantee that the public would not support the movement. According to Wertheim, certain PKI leaders became involved in the movement because they were, as the Cornell paper had argued, duped. But they were duped not by the rebel officers but by a cabal of anti-PKI officers and their double agent, Sjam. The officers who wanted to de- stroy the PKI and overthrow Sukarno designed the movement so that it would it implicate the PKI in a crime and then collapse. Sjam lured Aidit and other elements of the PKI into a trap. While Wertheim’s story line solves the anomaly of the cabinet’s decommissioning, it gen- erates other anomalies. If the movement was a setup, it had to have been designed by Suharto or officers working for him. Yet the officers in the movement did not propose that Sukarno appoint Suharto as Yani’s re- placement. Ultimately, Wertheim’s solution fails to account for many pieces of the puzzle.