The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 13 | Issue 31 | Number 2 | Aug 03, 2015

1

Still Uninvestigated After 50 Years: Did the U.S. Help Incitethe 1965 Indonesia Massacre?

Peter Dale Scott

It is now fifty years since the so-called “G30S”or “Gestapu” (Gerakan September Tigahpuluh)event of September 30, 1965 in Indonesia,when six members of the Indonesian armygeneral staff were brutally murdered. Thisevent was a decisive moment in Indonesianhistory: it led to the overthrow of PresidentSukarno, his replacement by an army general,Suharto, and the subsequent massacre of a halfmillion or more Indonesians targeted ascommunists.1 It is also forty years since I firstwrote to suggest that the United States wasimplicated in this horrendous event,2 and thirtyyears since I wrote about it again in 1985 in theCanadian journal Pacific Affairs.3

Strikingly, there has been very little follow-upinvestigating these events inside the UnitedStates. A new generation of scholars, notablyJohn Roosa and Bradley Simpson, havedocumented U.S. involvement in theexploitation of Gestapu to justify thesubsequent mass murder, in the massacreproject itself, and in the formation of thesubsequent capitalist New Order.4 But therehas been, I shall try to show, little or noAmerican response to facts I presented thensuggesting U.S. involvement in inciting thespecific event of September 30 itself.

T h e I n d o n e s i a m a s s a c r e o f 1 9 6 5(https://www.google.com/search?q=anwar+congo&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ _ A U o A W o V C h M I w r q V t c r -xgIVyx8eCh37wwzn&biw=1015&bih=529#tbm=isch&q=indonesia+massacre+1965&imgrc=iykY5RJW33Rf7M:)

Consider five facts about the U.S. andIndonesia in 1965, facts that (apart from thefirst) have been little noted or greeted inAmerica with silence.

Fact No. 1) Prior to Gestapu, a number ofU.S. academics and policy intellectualswith connections to the CIA and RANDCorporation publicly urged their contactsin the Indonesian Army "to strike, sweeptheir house clean” (Guy Pauker), while“liquidating the enemy's political andguerrilla armies” (William Kintner).

Text of my article in Pacific Affairs

APJ | JF 13 | 31 | 2

2

In a RAND Corporation bookpublished by Princeton UniversityPress, Pauker, a Rand Corporationanalyst and consultant to theNational Security Council, urgedhis contacts in the Indonesianm i l i t a r y t o a s s u m e " f u l lresponsibility" for their nation'sleadership, "fulfill a mission," andhence "to strike, sweep their houseclean."42 [From fn. 43:] WilliamKintner, a CIA (OPC) senior staffofficer from 1950-52, and laterNixon's ambassador to Thailand,also wrote in favor of "liquidating"the Indonesian Communist Party[PKI] while working at a CIA-subsidized think-tank, the ForeignPolicy Research Institute, on theUniversity of Pennsylvania campus.

Documentation in my article for Fact No. 1

Fn. 42. Guy J. Pauker, “The Role ofthe Military in Indonesia,” in JohnH. Johnson, ed., The Role of theMilitary in UnderdevelopedCountries (Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1962), pp.222-24. The foreword to the bookis by Klaus Knorr, who worked forthe C IA wh i l e t each ing a tPrinceton. The book was based onpapers delivered to a conference atPrinceton in 1962 attended bymilitary officers from other third-world countries, including Brazil,whose U.S.-backed army coup in1964 preceded Indonesia’s by ayear.

Fn. 43. William Kintner and JosephKornfeder, The New Frontier ofWar [London: Frederick Muller,1963], pp. 233, 237-38): "If the PKIis able to maintain its legal

existence and Soviet influencecontinues to grow, it is possiblethat Indonesia may be the firstSoutheast Asian country to betaken over by a popularly based,legal ly e lected communistgovernment.... In the meantime,with Western help, free Asianpolitical leaders -- together withthe military -- must not only holdon and manage, but reform andadvance while liquidating theenemy's political and guerrillaarmies."

Reception of Fact No. 1

Googling for “pauker + kintner + indonesia”yields many results. Of the first ten, five are tomy work, and five are to works sourcing me. Ifailed to discover any independent discussion.But this first fact, unlike those following, wasrelatively widely received, because thequotations from Pauker and Kintner werepicked up and reproduced by Noam Chomsky.

Fact No. 2) Gestapu was a false flagoperation: it claimed to have acted todefend Sukarno, but the pro-Sukarnogenerals in the Indonesian Army GeneralStaff were in fact among the first to beassassinated.

Text of my article

According to the Australian scholarHarold Crouch, by 1965 theIndonesian Army General Staff wassplit into two camps. At the centerwere the general staff officersappointed with, and loyal to, thearmy commander General Yani,who in turn was reluctant tochallenge President Sukarno'spolicy of national unity in alliancewith the Indonesian Communist

APJ | JF 13 | 31 | 2

3

party, or PKI. The second group,including the right-wing generalsNasution and Suharto, comprisedthose opposed to Yani and hisSukarnoist policies.5 All of thesegenerals were anti-PKI, but by1965 the divisive issue wasSukarno.

The simple (yet untold) story ofSukarno's overthrow is that in thefall of 1965 Yani and his innercircle of generals were murdered,paving the way for a seizure ofpower by right-wing anti-Yaniforces allied to Suharto. The key tothis was the so-called Gestapucoup attempt which, in the name ofsupporting Sukarno, in facttargeted very precisely the leadingmembers of the army's most loyalfaction, the Yani group.6 An armyunity meeting in January 1965,between "Yani's inner circle" andthose (including Suharto) who "hadgrievances of one sort or anotheragainst Yani," lined up the victimsof September 30 [the Yani faction]against those who came to powerafter their murder [the anti-Yanifaction including Suharto].7 Notone anti-Sukarno general wastargeted by Gestapu, with theobvious exception of GeneralNasution.8 But by 1961 the CIAoperatives in Washington hadbecome d is i l lus ioned wi thNasution as a reliable asset,because of his "consistent recordof yielding to Sukarno on severalmajor counts."9 Relations betweenSuharto and Nasution were alsocool , s ince Nasut ion, afteri nves t i ga t i ng Suhar to oncorruption charges in 1959, hadt r a n s f e r r e d h i m f r o m h i scommand. 1 0

The duplicitous distortions ofreal i ty, f irst by Lt. ColonelUntung's statements for Gestapu,and then by Suharto in "puttingdown" Gestapu, are mutuallysupporting lies.11

(https://www.google.com/search?q=)Suharto,t h e b e n e f i c i a r y o f t h e G e s t a p u p l o t(https: / /www.google.com/search?q=)

Documentation for Fact No. 2

Fn. 5. Harold Crouch, The Armyand Politics in Indonesia (Ithaca,New York: Cornell UniversityPress, 1978), pp. 79-81.

Fn. 6. In addition, one of the twoGestapu victims in Central Java(Colonel Katamso) was the only

APJ | JF 13 | 31 | 2

4

non-PKI official of rank to attendthe PKI's nineteenth anniversarycelebration in Jogjakarta in May1964: Mortimer, IndonesianCommunism, p. 432.5 Ironically,the belated "discovery" of hiscorpse was used to trigger off thepurge of his PKI contacts.

Fn. 7. Four of the six pro-Yanirepresentatives in January werekilled along with Yani on October1 . O f t h e f i v e a n t i - Y a n irepresentatives in January, weshall see that at least three wereprominent in "putting down"Gestapu and completing theelimination of the Yani-Sukarnoloyalists (the three were Suharto,Basuki Rachmat, and Sudirman ofSESKOAD, the Indonesian ArmyStaff and Command School):Crouch, The Army, p. 81n.

Fn. 8. While Nasution's daughterand aide were murdered, he wasable to escape without seriousinjury and supported the ensuingpurge.

Fn. 9. Indonesia, 22 (October1976), p. 165 (CIA Memorandum of22 March 1961 from Richard M.Bissell, Attachment B). By 1965Washington’s disillusionment withNasution was heightened byNasution's deep opposition to theU.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Reception of Fact No. 2

Not mentioned, as far as I know, in the UnitedStates.

Fact No. 3) The Johnson Administrationmisled members of the 88th US Congress,in order to continue aid to the Indonesian

army following a Senate amendmentprohibiting it.

Footnote 75 to my article: ASenate amendment in 1964 to cuto f f a l l a i d t o I n d o n e s i aunconditionally was quietly killedin conference committee, on themisleading ground that theForeign Assistance Act "requiresthe President to report fully andconcurrently to both Houses of theCongress on any assistancefurnished to Indonesia" (U.S.Cong. , Senate , Report No.88-1925, Foreign Assistance Act of1964, p. 11). In fact the act'srequirement that the presidentreport "to Congress" applied toeighteen other countries, but inthe case of Indonesia he was toreport to two Senate Committeesand the speaker of the House:Foreign Assistance Act, Section620(j).

Text of my article: After March1964, when Sukarno told the U.S.,"go to hell with your aid," itbecame increasingly difficult toextract any aid from the U.S.congress: those persons not awareof what was developing found ithard to understand why the U.S.should help arm a country whichwas nationalizing U.S. economicinterests, and using immense aidsubsidies from the Soviet Union toconfront the British in Malaysia.

Thus a public image was createdthat under Johnson "all UnitedStates aid to Indonesia wasstopped," a claim so buttressed bymisleading documentation thatcompetent scholars have repeatedit.74 In fact, Congress had agreed

APJ | JF 13 | 31 | 2

5

to treat U.S. funding of theIndonesian military as a covertmatter, restricting congressionalrev i ew o f t he p res iden t ' sdeterminations on Indonesian aidto two Senate committees, and theHouse Speaker , who wereconcurrently involved in oversightof the CIA.75

Ambassador Jones' more candidaccount admits that "suspension"meant "the U.S. governmentundertook no new commitments ofassistance, although it continuedwith ongoing programs.... Bymaintaining our modest assistanceto [the Indonesian Army and thepolice brigade], we fortified themfor a virtually inevitable showdownwith the burgeoning PKI."76

Only from recently releaseddocuments do we learn that newmilitary aid was en route as late asJuly 1965, in the form of a secretcontract to deliver two hundredA e r o - C o m m a n d e r s t o t h eIndonesian Army: these were lightaircraft suitable for use in "civicaction" or counterinsurgencyoperations, presumably by theArmy Flying Corps whose seniorofficers were virtually all trained inthe U.S.77

(http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.connectedcommunities.net/robertfearey/images/green.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.connectedcommunities.net/robertfearey/green.html&h=376&w=302&tbnid=hdj_YC_FFvRCiM:&tbnh=160&tbnw=128&usg=__sq_WBeiKbqPXcrTTRuy2RI7CSKU=&docid=aCOdnGG6349KiM&itg=1)Marshall Green, U.S. Ambassador to Jakarta in1965, said to have approved lists of candidates fort h e p u r g e(http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.connectedcommunities.net/robertfearey/images/green.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.connectedcommunities.net/robertfearey/green.html&h=376&w=302&tbnid=hdj_YC_FFvRCiM:&tbnh=160&tbnw=128&usg=__sq_WBeiKbqPXcrTTRuy2RI7CSKU=&docid=aCOdnGG6349KiM&itg=1)

Documentation for Fact No. 3

Fn. 74. The New York Times ,August 5, 1965, p. 3; cf. Nishihara,The Japanese, p. 149; Mrázek, vol.II, p. 121.

APJ | JF 13 | 31 | 2

6

Fn. 75. A Senate amendment in1964 to cut off all aid to Indonesiaunconditionally was quietly killedin conference committee, on themisleading ground that theForeign Assistance Act "requiresthe President to report fully andconcurrently to both Houses of theCongress on any assistancefurnished to Indonesia" (U.S.Cong. , Senate , Report No.88-1925, Foreign Assistance Act of1964, p. 11). In fact the act'srequirement that the presidentreport "to Congress" applied toeighteen other countries, but inthe case of Indonesia he was toreport to two Senate Committeesand the speaker of the House:Foreign Assistance Act, Section620(j).

Fn. 76. Jones, Indonesia: ThePossible Dream, p. 324.

Fn. 77. U.S., Congress, Senate,Committee on Foreign Relations,Multinational Corporations andUnited States Foreign Policy,Hearings (cited hereafter asChurch Committee Hearings), 94thCong., 2nd Sess., 1978, p. 941;Mrázek, The United States, vol. II,p. 22. Mrázek quotes Lt. Col. Juonoof the corps as saying that "we arecompletely dependent on theassistance of the United States."

Cf. Fn. 43: [A] memo to PresidentJohnson from Secretary of StateRusk, on July 17, 1964, makes itclear that at that time the chiefimportance of MILTAG was for itscontact with anti-Communistelements in the Indonesian Armyand its Territorial Organization:"Our aid to Indonesia ... we are

satisfied ... is not helping Indonesiamilitarily. It is however, permittingus to maintain some contact withkey elements in Indonesia whichare interested in and capable ofresisting Communist takeover. Wethink this is of vital importance tot h e e n t i r e F r e e W o r l d "(Declassified Documents QuarterlyCatalogue, 1982, 001786 [DOSMemo for President of July 17,1964; italics in original]).

Reception of Fact No, 3

A Google search for “Indonesia + SenateReport No. 88-1925” (the Foreign AssistanceAct of 1964) yields seven results, five in Englishand two in German. All seven are to my 1985article in Pacific Affairs.

Fact No. 4) In May 1965, months beforethe September coup, CIA-related Lockheedpayments shifted from a Sukarno backer toa Suharto backer.6

APJ | JF 13 | 31 | 2

7

(https://www.google.com/search?q=sasakawa+ryoichi&biw=1015&bih=529&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAmoVChMIreT E z 8 3 -xgIVAx0eCh3iuAgy#imgrc=rmlr4BtRA5PcSM:)Sasakawa Ryoichi: a recipient of CIA-relatedLockheed payments, who boasted of his involvementi n I n d o n e s i a ' s r e g i m e c h a n g e(https://www.google.com/search?q=sasakawa+ryoichi&biw=1015&bih=529&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X& v e d = 0 C A c Q _ A U o A m o V C h M I r e T E z 8 3 -xgIVAx0eCh3iuAgy#imgrc=rmlr4BtRA5PcSM:)

It is now generally accepted that (as TimWeiner documents in the case of Japan),“Instead of passing suitcases filled withcash in four-star hotels, the CIA usedtrusted American businessmen as go-betweens to deliver money to benefit itsallies. Among these were executives fromLockheed, the company then building theU-2.”7

Text of my article

From as early as May 1965, U.S.mil i tary suppliers with CIAconnections (principally Lockheed)were negotiating equipment saleswith payoffs to middlemen, in sucha way as to generate payoffs tobackers of the hitherto little-knownleader of a new third faction in thearmy, Major-General Suharto --rather than to those backingNasution or Yani, the titularleaders of the armed forces. Onlyin the 1980s was it confirmed thatsecret funds administered by theU.S. Air Force (possibly on behalfof the CIA) were laundered as"commiss ions" on sa les o fLockheed equipment and services,in order to make political payoffsto the military personnel of foreigncountries.85

A 1976 Senate investigation intothese payoffs revealed, almostinadvertently, that in May 1965,over the legal objections ofLockheed's counsel, Lockheedcommissions in Indonesia had beenredirected to a new contract andcompany set up by the firm's long-time local agent or middleman.86

Its internal memos at the timeshow no reasons for the change,but in a later memo the economiccounselor of the U.S. Embassy inJakarta is reported as saying thatthere were "some pol i t ica lconsiderations behind it."87 If thisis true, it would suggest that inMay 1965, five months before thecoup, Lockheed had redirected itspayo f f s t o a new po l i t i ca leminence, at the risk (as itsassistant chief counsel pointed out)of being sued for default on itsformer contractual obligations.

APJ | JF 13 | 31 | 2

8

The Indonesian middleman, AugustMunir Dasaad [Agus MusinDassad], was "known to haveassisted Sukarno financially sincethe 1930's."88 In 1965, however,Dasaad was building connectionswith the Suharto forces, via afamily relative, General Alamsjah,who had served briefly underSuharto in 1960, after Suhartocompleted his term at SESKOAD.Via the new contract, Lockheed,Dasaad and Alamsjah wereapparently hitching their wagonsto Suharto's rising star:

When the coup wasmade during whichSuharto replacedSukarno, Alamsjah,who controlled certainconsiderable funds, ato n c e m a d e t h e s eavailable to Suharto,w h i c h o b v i o u s l ye a r n e d h i m t h egratitude of the newPresident . In duec o u r s e h e w a sappointed to a positiono f t r u s t a n dconfidence and todayAlamsjah is, one mights a y , t h e s e c o n dimportant man afterthe President.89

Thus in 1966 the U.S. Embassyadvised Lockheed it should"continue to use" the Dasaad-Alamsjah-Suharto connection.90

Documentation for Fact No. 4

Fn. 85. San Francisco Chronicle,October 24, 1983, p. 22, describeso n e s u c h U S A F - L o c k h e e doperation in Southeast Asia, "code-named 'Operation Buttercup' thatoperated out of Norton Air ForceBase in California from 1965 to1972." For the CIA 's c loseinvolvement in Lockheed payoffs,cf. Anthony Sampson, The ArmsBazaar (New York: Viking, 1977),pp. 137, 227-28, 238.

Fn. 86 . Church Commit teeHearings, pp. 943-51.

Fn. 87. Ibid., p. 960.

Fn. 88. Nishihara, The Japanese, p.153.

Fn . 89 . Lockheed A i rcra f tInternational, memo of Fred C.Meuser to Erle M. Constable, 19July 1968, in Church CommitteeHearings, p. 962.

Fn. 90. Ibid., p. 954; cf. p. 957. In1968, when Alamsjah suffered adecline in power, Lockheed didaway with the middleman and paidits agents' fees directly to a groupof military officers (pp. 342, 977).

Fn . 91 . Church Commit teeHearings, p. 941; cf. p. 955.

APJ | JF 13 | 31 | 2

9

General Ibnu Sutowo, whose army oilcompany was engaged in selling oil to theU.S., was said by Fortune to have “played akey part in bankrolling” the overthrow ofS u k a r n o(https://www.google.com/search?q=ibnu+sutowo&biw=1015&bih=529&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMI0L6b4t L -xgIVxXYeCh0CnwsF#imgrc=h2OUCcVJJMDz4M:)

Reception of Fact No. 4

Googling for “Lockheed + August MunirDasaad” yields 207 results, only one more thanif you google for “’Peter Dale Scott’ + ‘AugustMunir Dasaad.’” All the hits are either directlyto my work, in Indonesian, or both. Of the firstfifteen results for “Lockheed + Alamsjah,” twoare irrelevant and the rest are to my work.

Fact No. 5) The Lockheed payment wasparalleled, two months before Gestapu, by

a similar payoff to Suharto’s businessassociate Bob Hasan, on a US militarycontract involving Rockwell Aero-commanders

Text of my article

In July 1965, at the alleged nadir ofU.S.-Indonesian aid relations,R o c k w e l l - S t a n d a r d h a d acontractual agreement to delivertwo hundred light aircraft (Aero-Commanders) to the IndonesianArmy (not the Air Force) in thenext two months.91 Once again thecommission agent on the deal, BobHasan, was a political associate(and eventual business partner) ofSuharto.92 More specifically,S u h a r t o a n d B o b H a s a nes tab l i shed two sh ipp ingcompanies to be operated by theCentral Java army division,Diponegoro. This division, as haslong been noticed, supplied thebulk of the personnel on both sidesof the Gestapu coup drama -- boththose staging the coup attempt,and those putting it down. And oneof the three leaders in the CentralJava Gestapu movement was Lt.Col. Usman Sastrodibroto, chief ofthe Diponegoro Division's "sectiondeal ing with extrami l i taryfunctions." 9 3

Thus of the two known U.S.military sales contracts from theeve of the Gestapu Putsch, bothinvolved political payoffs topersons who emerged afterGestapu as close Suharto allies.

Documentation for Fact No. 5

APJ | JF 13 | 31 | 2

10

Fn. 91 . Church Commit teeHearings, p. 941; cf. p. 955.

Fn. 92. Southwood and Flanagan,Indonesia: Law, p. 59.

Fn. 93. Crouch, The Army, p. 114.

Reception of Fact No. 5

A Google Books search for “Rockwell + 1965 +‘Bob Hasan’” yields 201 results, mostly inIndonesian (Bahasa Indonesia). Of the firstnine, all four of the hits in English, and at leastone hit in Indonesian, are to my 1985 article inPacific Affairs.

(http://stoomark.com/media/resize/post/normal/316/324/440/440/images.jpg)Bob Hasan,Suharto's business associate, who received U.S.p a y o f f s o n t h e e v e o f G e s t a p u(http://stoomark.com/media/resize/post/normal/316/324/440/440/images.jpg)

Insert picture with caption] Bob Hasan, Suharto’sbusiness associate, who received U.S. payoffson the eve of Gestapu

Reception in general of these facts, and ofmy article

To my knowledge, I am not aware that any ofthe above facts (other than the first, picked up

by Noam Chomsky) have been discussed in anyAmerican source, or indeed in any countriesother than Indonesia, even since 1998.

As for my article, I am aware of two academicreferences to it in the United States beforeSuharto’s ouster in 1998. Along with otherworks by Benedict Anderson, Ruth McVey, andRalph McGehee, it was cited in a singlefootnote as part of an article by H. W. Brands,“The Limits of Manipulation: How the UnitedStates Didn't Topple Sukarno,” in the Journal ofAmerican History, (December 1989).

Brands did not mention the arguments for U.S.involvement. Instead his claim (that

“In fact, Sukarno’s overthrow had little to dowith American machinations”) relied ondocuments in the LBJ library: “The story theytell,” he assured readers, “does render largelyuntenable the notion that Sukarno’s demiseand the accompanying bloodbath originated inthe USA.”8 His method, in short, was to trustwhat U.S. government documents said on thetopic, a naïve method that I fear one finds alltoo frequently among what I call archivalhistorians. Brands concedes that “Certaincommunications remain classified [and] somemay have been consigned to the shredder” (p.788). But he writes as if unaware that the CIAis quite capable of falsifying releases of its owninternal records, when it serves to protectoperational secrecy from outsiders.9

The same naïve method marks the only otherresponse (as far as I know) to my argument,this in a book by the journalist Victor Ficimplicating China in Gestapu (and published inIndia):

Peter Dale Scott is the leadingtheor is t about the a l legedAmerican role in this conspiracy….However CIA and other documentsdeclassified and published by theGovernment of the United States…

APJ | JF 13 | 31 | 2

11

render Scott’s theory implausibleas the CIA, by its own admission,did not have assets in Indonesia tocarry out such a ‘coup’ to deposeSukarno or destroy the PKI.10

Fic’s argument deserves a little more attention,since he also refers to an editorial in support ofGestapu which appeared in the October 2,1965, issue of the PKI newspaper HarianRakjat. Once again, if taken at face value, thissupport for the generals’ murder from aCommunist paper would seem to corroboratethat Gestapu was, as Fic claimed, a left-wingputsch attempt.

However Fic simply ignored the argumentsreferred to in my essay that the Harian Rakjat“editorial” was in fact a propaganda forgery,perhaps from the CIA. As I quoted then fromAnderson and McVey:

Professors Benedict Anderson andRuth McVey, who have questionedthe authenticity of this issue, havealso ruled out the possibility thatthe newspaper was "an Armyfalsification," on the grounds thatthe army's "competence ... atfalsifying party documents hasalways been abysmally low."115

The questions raised by Andersonand McVey have not yet beenadequately answered. Why did thePKI show no support for theGestapu coup while it was inprogress, then rashly editorializein support of Gestapu after it hadbeen crushed? Why did the PKI,whose editorial gave support toGestapu, fail to mobilize itsfollowers to act on Gestapu'sbehalf? Why did Suharto, by thenin control of Jakarta, close down allnewspapers except this one, and

one other left-leaning newspaperwhich also served his propagandaends?116 Why, in other words, didSuharto on October 2 allow thepublication of only two Jakartanewspapers, two which were onthe point of being closed downforever?

Fn. 115. Anderson and McVey, APreliminary Analysis of the October 1, 1965, Coup in

Indonesia (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1971)],

p. 133.

Fn. 116. Benedict Anderson andRuth McVey, "What Happened inIndonesia?" New York Review ofBooks , June 1, 1978, p . 41;personal communication fromAnderson. A second newspaper,Suluh Indonesia, told its PNIreaders that the PNI did notsupport Gestapu, and thus servedto neutralize potential oppositionto Suharto's seizure of power.

How to Explain the Fifty Years of Silence?

It is obvious why American Indonesianists werereluctant to mention my art icle or toinvestigate the avenues that it opened up aslong as Suharto was in power: their careersdepended on the ability to visit the country theywrote about. Professor Benedict Anderson atCornell, was one of the first scholars toquestion the official account of Gestapu, in theso-called Cornell Report of 1971.11 Later he wasfamously turned back in Jakarta airport, eventhough he had arrived on a valid visa.

Another obvious reason is methodological.Diplomatic historians are accustomed to workwith government records, rather than concernthemselves (as I did) with released internaldocuments from companies like Lockheed

APJ | JF 13 | 31 | 2

12

which, in my analysis, operate as part of theAmerican deep state.12

Recently, in an essay that explicitly noted CIAinvolvement in the 1958 Permesta rebellion,Anderson acknowledged U.S. support in 1965for the violent response to Gestapu, but asdistinguished from Gestapu itself.13 BradleySimpson, in a definitive account of thatsupport, says of Gestapu itself only that“American historians in particular [he cites myessay in an endnote] have spilled much ink onthe question of Washington’s involvement.”14

Today it has become common to see discussionof U.S. involvement in targeting PKI membersafter Gestapu, as well as in the generalrepression that followed Gestapu.15 But onedoes not yet see much discussion of U.S.involvement in Gestapu itself.

My article’s reception outside the United Stateshas been quite different. Published first inCanada in 1985, it was subsequently translatedand/or published in Amsterdam (1985, inDutch), Paris (1986), West Berlin (1988, inBahasa Indonesia), Hull, England (1990), andsince then, starting in 1998, at least six othertimes in Bahasa Indonesia, inside Indonesiaitself.16

I am in no position to estimate the reception inIndonesia of the article (it was actuallypublished there as a book). A sign that thebootleg 1988 translation from West Berlin wasbeing circulated clandestinely in Indonesia isthe fact that the book was officially banned bySuharto’s Bureau of Censorship.17 To this day.to my knowledge, the only newspaperreference anywhere to my hypothesis of U.S.involvement in Gestapu was in the English-language Jakarta Post of July 25, 2013.18

Now that Indonesia itself is becoming moreopen to discussions of Gestapu and itsaftermath, it is high time for a similar changeof att i tude in the United States. Andinternationally.

Ali Murtopo, conspiratorial Indonesian general inc o n t a c t w i t h B r i t i s h M I 6(https://www.google.com/search?q=)

Epilogue

My views on Sukarno’s overthrow have evolvedsince the 1980s. In that era, seeing Sukarno incontrast to the repressive dictator Suharto, Idescribed Sukarno as “an undeniably popularand reasonably constitutional civilian leader.”19

Today I recognize that in the last years of hisrule the country was becoming more and moreunstable, major economic problems were notbeing addressed, and Sukarno sought toplacate public unrest by an ill-advised militarycampaign against his neighbor Malaysia.

I also attribute greater importance to the factthat Sukarno thus contributed unwittingly tohis own downfall, since the secret army specialoperations unit OPSUS, created by Suharto to

APJ | JF 13 | 31 | 2

13

handle a peace initiative towards Malaysia ofwhich Sukarno knew nothing, evolved into partof the apparatus plotting for his removal,perhaps indeed the planning core of it.20

Although my 1985 article mentioned OPSUSonly in a footnote, I now suspect it may havesupplied the milieu for a second coup-mindedplot, piggy-backed within the first. I mean bythis that there was at first an OPSUS plot,pushed by Suharto and sanctioned by Yani, tonegotiate peace with Malaysia againstSukarno’s wishes; but then some of the peopleconspiring may have had a second agenda, topurge (by means of the false-flag pretext ofGestapu) the army general staff of Yani andother overall Sukarno loyalists, thus clearingthe way for the coup and the massacre. Such asophisticated two-level plot, l ike thepropaganda forgery of the Harian Rakjat“editorial,” may have been beyond thecapabilities of Indonesians acting alone.21

Piggy-backed plots are however are a staple ofthe CIA, and before them of the British MI6.And in 1965 the British Foreign Office, workingwith MI6, sent its top propaganda expert,Norman Reddaway, to Singapore. In 1998,shortly before his death, Reddaway wentpublic, to describe how “the overthrow ofSukarno was one of the Foreign Office's ‘mostsuccessful’ coups, which they have kept asecret until now:”

A c o v e r t o p e r a t i o n a n dpsychological warfare strategy wasinstigated, based at Phoenix Park,i n S i n g a p o r e , t h e B r i t i s hheadquarters in the region. TheMI6 team kept close links with keyelements in the Indonesian armythrough the British Embassy. Oneof these was Ali Murtopo, laterGeneral Suharto's intelligencechief, and MI6 officers constantlytravelled back and forth betweenSingapore and Jakarta.22

Stephen Dorril’s book MI6 confirms that “InSouth-East Asia MI6 was working hand in glovewith the CIA to ‘liquidate’ Indonesia’s PresidentSukarno.”23

In the same period Ali Murtopo, the head ofOPSUS, also traveled back and forth, not just tonegotiate clandestinely with the Malaysiangovernment, but also to smuggle “rubber andother goods” to generate money for OPSUS andaccumulate $17 million in banks in Singaporeand Malaysia.24 Yani had authorized Murtopo’sclandestine MI6 contacts; he would have noway of knowing if these talks had turned toplans to eliminate Yani himself.

Like his close ally Suharto, Murtopo rose upthrough the Diponegoro Divisision, the divisionwhich played a central role both in stagingGestapu, and also in putting it down.25 As Iwrote in 1985:

From the pro-Suharto sources --notably the CIA study of Gestapupublished in 1968 -- we learn howfew troops were involved in thealleged Gestapu rebellion, and,more importantly, that in Jakartaas in Central Java the samebattalions that supplied the"rebellious" companies were alsoused to "put the rebellion down."Two thirds of one paratroopbrigade (which Suharto hadinspected the previous day) plusone company and one platoonconstituted the whole of Gestapuforces in Jakarta; all but one ofthese units were commanded bypresent or former DiponegoroDivision officers close to Suharto;and the last was under an officerwho obeyed Suharto's closepolitical ally, Basuki Rachmat.17

Two of these companies, from the454th and 530th battalions, were

APJ | JF 13 | 31 | 2

14

elite raiders, and from 1962 theseunits had been among the mainIndonesian recipients of U.S.assistance.18 This fact, which initself proves nothing, increases ourcuriosity about the many Gestapuleaders who had been U.S.-trained.The Gestapu leader in CentralJava, Saherman, had returned fromtraining at Fort Leavenworth andOkinawa shortly before meetingwith Untung and Major Sukirno ofthe 454th Battalion in mid-August1965. 1 9 As Ruth McVey hasobserved, Saherman's acceptancefor training at Fort Leavenworth"would mean that he had passedreview by CIA observers."20

Fn. 17. CIA Study, p. 2; cf. p. 65:"At the height of the coup ... thetroops of the rebels [in CentralJava] were estimated to have thestrength of only one battalion;during the next two days, theseforces gradually melted away."

Fn. 18. Rudolf Mrázek, The UnitedStates and the Indonesian Military,1945-1966 (Prague: CzechoslovakAcademy of Sciences, 1978), vol.II, p. 172. These battalions,comprising the bulk of the 3rdParatroop Brigade, also suppliedthe bulk of the troops used to putdown Gestapu in Jakarta. Thesubordination of these two factionsin this supposed civil war to asingle close command structureunder Suharto is cited to explainhow Suharto was able to restoreorder in the city without gunfire.Meanwhile out at the Halim airforce base an alleged gun battlebetween the 454th (Green Beret)and RPKAD (Red Beret) paratroopswent off "without the loss of a

single man" (CIA Study, p. 60). InCentral Java, also, power "changedhands silently and peacefully," with"an astonishing lack of violence"(CIA Study, p. 66).

Fn. 19. Ibid., p. 60n; Arthur J.Dommen, "The Attempted Coup inIndonesia," China Quarterly,January-March 1966, p. 147. Thefirst "get-acquainted" meeting ofthe Gestapu plotters is placed inthe Indonesian chronology ofevents from "sometimes beforeAugust 17, 1965"; cf. NugrohoNotosusanto and Ismail Saleh, TheCoup Attempt of the "September30 Movement" in Indonesia(Jakarta: [Pembimbing Masa,1968], p. 13); in the CIA Study, thismeeting is dated September 6 (p.112). Neither account allows morethan a few weeks to plot a coup inthe world's fifth most populouscountry.

Fn. 20. Mortimer, IndonesianCommunism, p. 429.

I would now suspect, admittedly without proof,that if one wanted to research CIA and/or MI6input into the 1965 Gestapu plot, the MI6/AliMurtopo connection would be a good place tobegin.

In other words, my opinion of Sukarno and hisdownfall has somewhat changed. However, Icontinue to view as monstrous the criminalplans made 50 years ago to eliminate both himand the PKI through bloodshed, even if weconcede that the actual massacre may havegone way beyond whatever had been planned.

Looking back, we can see the last century as aperiod when a number of new great powersemerged, and every one of them, not just theUnited States, have had a lot of innocent blood

APJ | JF 13 | 31 | 2

15

to account for. To understand U.S. policy inpostwar Asia it is essential to determine theexact process by which the criminal decisionssurrounding Gestapu were made and toexamine them in light of covert interventionselsewhere.

The purpose of investigating the September1965 event is not to punish its perpetrators,most of whom are now dead. It is to determinewhat forces capable of such a plot still exist,including in the United States and Indonesia,and to strive to reduce the probabilities of suchcrimes occurring again in the future.

Peter Dale Scott is a former Canadiandiplomat and English Professor at theUniversity of California, Berkeley. His latestbook is The American Deep State: Wall Street,Big Oil, and the Attack on U.S. Democracy(http://www.amazon.com/dp/1442214244/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20), published by Rowman &Littlefield. He is also the author of Drugs Oila n d W a r(http://amzn.com/0742525228/?tag=theasipacjo 0 b - 2 0 ) , T h e R o a d t o 9 / 1 1(http://amzn.com/0520237730/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20), The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, andt h e D e e p P o l i t i c s o f W a r(http://amzn.com/0980121361/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20), and American War Machine: DeepPolitics, the CIA Global Drug Connection andt h e R o a d t o A f g h a n i s t a n(http://amzn.com/0742555941/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20). A contributing editor of the Asia-Pacific Journal, his website, which contains aw e a l t h o f h i s w r i t i n g s , i s h e r e(http://www.peterdalescott.net/q.html).

Recommended citation: Peter Dale Scott, "StillUninvestigated After 50 Years: Did the U.S.Help Incite the 1965 Indonesia Massacre?",The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 31, No.2, August 3, 2015.

Related articles

• Benedic t Anderson , Impuni ty and

Reenactment: Reflections on the 1965Massacre in Indonesia and its Legacy(https://apjjf.org/-Benedict-Anderson/3929)

• North American Universities and the 1965Indonesian Massacre: Indonesian Guilt andW e s t e r n R e s p o n s i b i l i t y(https://apjjf.org/-Peter_Dale-Scott/4234/article.html)

• Geoffrey Gunn, Suharto Beyond the Grave:Indonesia and the World Appraise the Legacy(https://apjjf.org/-Geoffrey-Gunn/2648)

Notes

1 Death estimates are discussed by RobertCribb, and compacted into an assessment of “aslow as 200,000 or as high as one million.”Robert Cribb, “Unresolved Problems in theIndonesian Killings of 1965–1966,” AsianSurvey, July/August 2002, p. 559).

2 Peter Dale Scott, "Exporting MilitaryEconomic Development: America and theOverthrow of Sukarno, 1965-67," in MalcolmCaldwell (ed.), Ten Years' Military Terror inIndonesia (Nottingham: Spokesman Books,1975), pp. 209-61.

3 Peter Dale Scott, "Exporting Military-Economic Development," in Malcolm Caldwell,ed., Ten Years' Military Terror in Indonesia(Nottingham, England: Spokesman Books,1975), pp. 227-61; "The United States and theOverthrow of Sukarno, 1965-1967,"(http://www.namebase.org/scott.html) PacificAffairs (Vancouver, B.C.) 58.2 (Summer 1985),pp. 239-64.

4 John Roosa, Pretext for Mass Murder: theSeptember 30th Movement and Suharto's Coupd'état in Indonesia (Madison, WI: University ofWisconsin Press, 2006); Bradley R. Simpson,Economists with Guns: AuthoritarianDevelopment and U.S.-Indonesian Relations,1960-1968 (Stanford, CA: Stanford UniversityPress, 2008).

APJ | JF 13 | 31 | 2

16

5 For full citations of this and other sources inthese footnotes, see the text of my article atScott, "The United States and the Overthrow ofS u k a r n o , 1 9 6 5 - 1 9 6 7 "(http://www.namebase.org/scott.html).

6 This has been partially corroborated byAndrew Feinstein, but without reference to the1965 shift in middlemen. See AndrewFeinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the GlobalArms Trade (New York: Picador, 2012), pp.265-66: “In Indonesia in 1965, Lockheeddisbursed bribes of $100,000 per plane.However, soon afterwards the CIA assisted theright-wing General Suharto to overthrow theSukarno government. Lockheed worried that itsagent, Isaak [sic] Dasaad, might not besufficiently well connected to the new regimeto be of use. Illustrating the extent of USgovernment complicity in controversial foreignarms sales, the company’s marketing executivenoted that a Lockheed official ‘went to the USembassy in Jakarta and asked them specificallywhether Dasaad could continue, under the newregime, to be of value to Lockheed’. Theembassy said yes, leading Lockheed to recordthat ‘apparently Dasaad has made thetransition from Sukarno to Suharto in goodshape.’” Cf. Wimanjaya K. Liotohe, Prima Dosa:Wimanjaya dan rakyat Indonesia menggugatimperium Suharto (Pasarminggu: Yayasan EkaFakta Kata, 1993).

7 Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History ofthe CIA (New York: Doubleday, 2007), p. 119.Lockheed money in Japan went to SasakawaRyoichi, a CIA agent of influence, and his friendKodama Yoshio. In my 1965 essay I noted thatSasakawa had “boasted that he played a role inthe coup that overthrew Sukarno.” TheLockheed funds to Sasakawa in Japan werepartly handled by a Japanese American, ShigKatayama, whose ID Corp. in the CaymanIslands did unexplained business with the CIA-related Castle Bank in the Bahamas.

8 H. W. Brands, “The Limits of Manipulation:

How the United States Didn't Topple Sukarno,”Journal of American History, Vol. 76, No. 3(Dec., 1989), pp. 785-808 (p. 787). Brands seesJohnson’s policy before his election, while stilllacking “a personal political mandate,” as amodest mélange between desires to appeaseSukarno, and “quiet efforts to encourage actionby the army against the PKI” (pp. 791, 793). Ibelieve he understates the importance of these“quiet efforts,” which (as noted above indiscussion of Fact No. 3) a memo fromSecretary of State Rusk described on July 17,1964 as “of vital importance to the entire FreeWorld." And I know of no evidence for oragainst his claim that Gestapu caught the CIA“by surprise” (p. 787).

9 For an example, see Peter Dale Scott, Oswald,Mexico, and Deep Politics: Revelations from theCIA Records on the Assassination of JFK (NewYork: Skyhorse, 2013), pp. 28-29.

10 Victor M. Fic, Anatomy of the Jakarta Coup,October 1, 1965: The Collusion with ChinaWhich Destroyed the Army Command,President Sukarno and the Communist Party ofIndonesia (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications,2004), p. 3.

11 B. R. O'G. Anderson and Ruth McVey, APreliminary Analysis of the October, 1965,Coup in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University,1971).

12 For this relationship see Peter Dale Scott,The American Deep State: Wall Street, Big Oil,and the Threat to U.S. Democracy (Lanham,MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014 (pp.16-17, 22,127-29.

13 Benedict R. Anderson, “Impunity andReenactment: Reflections on the 1965Massacre in Indonesia and its Legacy,”(https://apjjf.org/-Benedict-Anderson/3929/article.html) Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, April15, 2013: “Army leaders, helped by advice andhalf-concealed support from both the Pentagonand the CIA – then reeling under heavy

APJ | JF 13 | 31 | 2

17

reverses in Vietnam – had long been looking fora justification for a mass destruction of theParty. Now the September 30th Movement andthe murder of the six generals provided theopening they awaited.”

14 Bradley R. Simpson, Economists with Guns:Authoritarian Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968 (Stanford, CA:Stanford University Press, 2008), p.173, 311n6.

15 Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History ofthe CIA (New York: Doubleday, 2007), p. 260.

16 (1) Peter Dale Scott, Peranan C.I.A. DalamPenggulingan Bung Karno. Buku ini dilatangberedar oleh KEJAGUNG RI. (West Berlin:Perhimpunan Indonesia, 1988);

(2) Peranan C.I.A. dalam penggulingan BungKarno Konspirasi Soeharto-CIA : penggulinganSoekarno, 1965-1967 (Surabaya: PergerakanMahasiswa Islam Indonesia: PerkumpulanKebangsaan Anti Diskriminasi, [1998]); (3) Ananthology, Gestapu, matinya para jenderal danperan CIA (Yogyakarta: Cermin, 1999); (4)Peter Dale Scott, CIA dan penggulinganSukarno (Yogyakarta: Lembaga AnalisisInformasi, 1999); (5) Peter Dale Scott, AmerikaSerikat dan penggulingan Sukarno 1965-1967

([S.l. : s.n.], 2000); (6) Peter Dale Scott ... et. al.; editor, Joesoef Isak], 100 tahun Bung Karno :6 Juni 1901-2001: sebuah liber (Jakarta : HastaMitra, 2001), pp. 278-316; (7) Peter Dale Scott,Peran CIA dalam penggulingan Sukarno(Jakarta: Buku Kita, 2007.

17 Jonathon Green, Encyclopedia of Censorship[New York: Facts on File, 2005], p. 278.

18 Zoe Reynolds, “Putu Oka Sukanta and Poetryf r o m P r i s o n , ”(http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/07/25/putu-oka-sukanta-and-poetry-prison.html)Jakarta Post, July 25, 2013: “Others, such asPeter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomatand a professor at the University of California,

claim that a dalang (or puppet master) —maybe the CIA, maybe Soeharto — wasmanipulating the events that led to … thebloodletting to come.” This breaking ofjournalistic silence in Indonesia was the moreremarkable, in that an army general was stillpresident.

19 Peter Dale Scott, “How I Came to Jakarta,”Agni, No. 31/32 (1990), p. 297.

20 R. Tanter, “The Totalitarian Ambition:Intelligence Organisations in the IndonesianState,” in State and Civil Society in Indonesia,ed. A.K. Budiman, (Monash: Centre ofSoutheast Asian Studies, 1990), 218: JusufWanandi, Shades of Grey: A Political Memoir ofModern Indonesia, 1965-1998 (Jakarta:Equinox, 2012), p. 68.

21 In similar CIA-backed plots against Allende inChile (1970-73), a loyalist Army Chief of Staffwas also murdered, making way for a right-wing General Pinochet who would subsequentlycarry out an army coup and massacre. Butthese were two plots separated in time, not asingle piggy-backed plot.

22 Paul Lashmar and James Oliver, “How WeDestroyed Sukarno,” Independent (London),December 1, 1998,

23 Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert Worldof Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service(New York: Free Press, 2000), 718: “In co-operation with their colleagues from theAustralian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS),MI6’s Special Political Action group launchedup to six different disruptive actions,including… the recruitment of ‘moderate’elements within the army.”

2 4 J o h n R o o s a , r e v i e w o f W a n a n d i(http://www.insideindonesia.org/review-from-the-dark-side), Shades of Grey, Inside Indonesia.

25 Cf. Fact No. 5 above.