Key World Leader

• This Documentary will present Sukarno as a key world leader of his

time, not just in the 1950-60’s Cold War era but also in the 1920s to 40s,
showing the political philosophy and experience he acquired in that period
• Together with his people, Sukarno - more than any other individual -
released his country from the yoke of colonialism: Indonesia, in
demographic terms now the fourth largest country and the largest Muslim
nation in the world.
• His early anti-colonial struggle, exile, Japanese wartime occupation and
independence, family life, Panca Sila and his focus on unity throughout the
Indonesian archipelago – all will contribute to a broader understanding of
Sukarno
• His political demise, however, is still clouded in misunderstanding: the
key to correcting this is in the last few years of his presidency – the period of
Konfrontasi

The “spark which started Konfrontasi” – most history books inform us

– was the Brunei Revolt in December 1962.

• As shown in ‘Genesis of Konfrontasi’, British intelligence officer, Roy

Henry, has admitted starting the Brunei Rebellion, December 1962, but
Azahari was blamed
• British troops from Singapore BEFORE going to Brunei to crush the
revolt by Brunei nationalists, landed in Sarawak
• In Sarawak, British intelligence AND a group in the CIA (working
against Kennedy’s directives) had previously supplied small-arms to the
CCO – a Chinese Communist organisation comprising several thousand
young Chinese communists
• Many of those who had weapons fled into Indonesian Kalimantan
• THIS was the spark which started Konfrontasi when Indonesia
immediately criticized ‘British colonial rule in Malaya’…
• Sarawak (30% Chinese) was seeking independence with Brunei and
Sabah, as one unit (North Kalimantan) before joining Malaya/Singapore to
form Malaysia
• Jakarta fell into a trap, not realizing the CCO (who were used as
pawns) had been armed by the CIA
Indonesian Response
• When Jakarta saw the CCO fleeing from the British, the response
was the start of Konfrontasi
• Jakarta saw the political scenario as similar to anti-Dutch
campaign in Netherlands New Guinea : indigenous people seeking
independence from colonial rule
• both the PKI and the Army quickly became involved in the anti-
British outcry, but the person at the front was Subandrio

Indonesia and the Sino-Soviet Split

The difference between the ‘Soviet Union (USSR) and

Communist China’ in their respective approaches
towards Indonesia involvement in Confrontation with
Malaysia, was outlined in a CIA analytical assessment for
the Whitehouse in October 1963. (National Intelligence
Estimate Number 54/55-63, The Malaysian-Indonesian
Conflict, approved for release June 1999.)

“... (T)he Soviets have hinted that if Malaysia seemed to be

‘independent’, it might gain Soviet diplomatic
recognition. Moscow has
also shown a lukewarm-ness to the Indonesian case. These
Soviet attitudes are almost certainly conditioned by misgivings
concerning potential Chinese Communist influence …and the
generally pro-Chinese orientation of the PKI leadership.” (p. 8-
9)

China, on the other hand, “has adopted a forthright pro-

Indonesian
anti-Malaysian stand and has offered ‘moral and material’
support. Its material support will probably be
 negligible… Communist China may also be of assistance in
building CCO support in Sarawak for the anti-Malaysian
struggle, but as yet there is no evidence of such activity.”
(p.9)

Reply Reply to All F

CIA involvement in Sarawak was directly contrary to Kennedy’s
Indonesia policy

Considering that William Andreas Brown of the CIA, based in

Singapore in 1962, (see ‘Genesis of Konfrontasi’ p.268) had
supplied small-arms to the CCO in Sarawak – which proved to be
the key to set Confrontation in motion – the quip about ‘no
evidence of such activity’ (referring to assistance for the CCO from
China) deserves condemnation.
It is an indication of either extreme hypocrisy or extreme
dysfunctionality within the CIA.

email 8
Why the CIA assessment is deceptive

1. does not inform Kennedy the Sino-Soviet split was real (Kennedy
said it could be an intelligence ploy, or the split was not yet serious
enough to influence US policy).

2. does not inform Kennedy that persons within the CIA (‘rogue
elements’) had armed the CCO, which started Konfrontasi.

3. should have informed Kennedy the Soviet approach to Konfrontasi was

not supportive of Indonesia primarily because Moscow wanted the PKI to
reap the benefit of the anti-colonial victory against the Dutch in New
Guinea.

Because Kennedy had forced the Dutch to exit from Netherlands New
Guinea, he was keen to ensure his intervention to end the New Guinea
dispute did not benefit the PKI as they had been prominent in the anti-
Dutch campaign.
4. CIA informed Kennedy the Soviet response to Konfrontasi was
“lukewarm” when actually it was AGAINST Indonesian
involvement. Nevertheless, Moscow had to show some support (that
is why it was described as “lukewarm”) or risk splitting the PKI by
forcing the PKI to choose one or the other in the Sino-Soviet
split. The pro-Chinese tendency within the PKI meant that had
Moscow been anything other than ‘lukewarm’, Moscow would be the
loser ! By being lukewarm it was merely ‘staying in the
game’

5. CIA assessment (of course) does not explain Allen Dulles’ motive in
helping to start Konfrontasi - a “wedge” to further the split between
Moscow and Beijing, and to bring the Indonesian economy to “screaming
point” with inflation, to edge Indonesia closer to regime-change and
thereby gain access to the wealth of natural resources in Indonesia
(especially after the inclusion of Netherlands New Guinea in which Allen
Dulles’ had a key role).

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Reply Reply to All Forward More
12
JFK’s plan to pour US Aid into Indonesia
• JFK was planning to reduce PKI influence by increasing the
standard of living… this would take time but did not involve physical
elimination (ie. Had JFK’s Indonesia-strategy gone ahead, the horror of
1965 would not have occurred.)
• JFK’s plan was centred on maintaining the presidency of Sukarno,
the exact opposite of Dulles’ plan
• JFK intended Indonesian army to build infrastructure, roads and
bridges etc….
not turn into the military regime that ousted President Sukarno.
• But JFK’s follow-up plan for US Aid (after New Guinea dispute)
was stopped because US Congress blocked US Aid once Konfrontasi
was fully underway in 1963
Reply Reply to All Forward More

orward More
email 13

JFK resolved to end the blockage of Aid to Indonesia imposed by the

US Congress
• After many months of negotiation, Sukarno and JFK agreed together
they would end Konfrontasi, during JFK’s proposed visit to Jakarta
• A few days later in November 1963, General Nasution visited
Washington to discuss issues of security for the proposed visit in early 1964;
he was doing this when JFK was assassinated in Dallas.

mail 10
This needs to be stated again because it led to Kennedy’s friendship
with Sukarno being seen as ‘Kennedy-inspired foreign policy
endangering the US national interest’.
After President Kennedy’s intervention in the Dutch-Indonesian
dispute over sovereignty of West New Guinea, in 1962….

• The Cold War was at its height in the early 1960s and Allen
Dulles had a crucial role in building up tension between the West
(mainly UK and USA) and the East (Moscow and Beijing) One
example was how Dulles planned the ‘Bay of Pigs’ invasion of
Cuba, for which JFK held him responsible.
• Jakarta had asked for US arms (to help oust the Dutch from
Irian) but Washington had refused : the Dutch were NATO allies,
they said….
• US Director Central Intelligence, Allen Dulles was key
figure in refusing US arms (so Jakarta had no option but to
seek arms from Moscow)
JFK did not want to support colonial Dutch over New Guinea dispute
because 1) Jakarta had Soviet support and 2) USA would lose support in the
UN General Assembly from many newly-independent countries
• JFK’s proposal to pour US Aid into Indonesia, to ‘win’
Indonesia away from the influence of the Eastern Bloc
(Moscow/Beijing) would have undone years of planning by Dulles
Subandrio
• the British (MI6) had wanted Sukarno out since the 1950s
• Lord Landsdowne was a key figure; he had previously worked
with Allen Dulles’ covert CIA activity in the Congo at the time of
the assassination of UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjold
(see Chapter 2 of ‘Incubus of Intervention’).
• Joining with covert CIA group, MI6 motives seemed similar,
but Allen Dulles did not want civilian replacement of Sukarno.
Dulles was preparing military rule to replace Sukarno; his aim to
eliminate the PKI’s potential to be voted into government was part
of a larger COLD WAR strategy to “drive a wedge” between
Moscow and Beijing.
• Dulles’ role in helping to start Konfrontasi was not the same
as the British; Dulles gained extra support from the US Chiefs of
Staff because his strategy (unlike JFK whom Dulles had not fully
briefed) included widening the Sino-Soviet split.
Reply Reply to All Forward More

email 9

Kennedy’s plan to stop Konfrontasi

Allen Dulles’ did not want THE RESUMPTION OF US AID FOR

SUKARNO (after it had been stopped by US Congress because of
Konfrontasi)
- from JFK’s point of view, the resumption of US Aid was a stop
towards ‘bringing Indonesia on-side in the Cold War’ which JFK
wanted to do in order to justify his intervention in the New Guinea
dispute
- but from Dulles’ point of view, the resumption of US Aid
(which would have occurred had JFK gone to Jakarta as he planned
to do) could be described for the benefit of the US Joint Chiefs of
Staff) as acting against the national interest of USA
Reply Reply to All Forward More
ail 11
What Allen Dulles did not tell JFK……
• Dulles’ role in PRRI (in 1958) was designed to foment rebellion but, in
doing so, Dulles was aiming to create a centralised army command to
counter the rising political power of the PKI; that is, Dulles helped to start
the rebellion, but he did not want the PRRI to be successful
• Zulkifli Lubis, a leading figure in the PRRI (interviewed 1983) told me
: “the Americans tricked us”
• Dulles did not tell JFK that West New Guinea contained a huge gold
deposit and neither did the Dutch Foreign Minister LUNS tell JFK about
gold
• this was a principal reason why Luns had wanted the Dutch to stay in
New Guinea) and this was confirmed in my interview with Luns when he
was NATO Secretary-General.
• Dulles did not tell JFK the Sino-Soviet split was real, but Dulles knew it
was real - even though CIA in 1963 officially stated they did not know if the
split was real or not.
• Dulles was planning to oust Sukarno (many assassination attempts)
• regime-change would “drive a wedge” between Moscow and
Beijing…because each was trying to gain influence over the PKI
• the PKI was physically eliminated in the regime-change…………..

mail 15 (last one)

The first company to sign up with Sukarno’s successor, Suharto, was the US
company Freeport in a deal arranged by Marshall Green
• It should be noted that Marshall Green (US Ambassador who came
to Jakarta shortly before September 1965) was one of only a small group
in the CIA who knew that the Sino-Soviet split was real
• We may surmise that Marshall Green’s motives in helping the
Indonesian army to eliminate the PKI in 1965-66 would have been partly
inspired by his awareness that the greater the death toll, the greater the
split would become between Moscow and Beijing.
• only after 1965 did Sino-Soviet rivalry become open fighting,
involving tank battles along the Ussuri River.
• A few years later, bilateral relations were so bad that the population
of Beijing conducted emergency procedures in case of nuclear attack –
sirens would warn large numbers of people in Beijing to seek immediate
shelter in vast underground accommodation sites which had been
 constructed in the event of an attack from Moscow using atomic
weapons.
• It was in this context that Henry Kissinger (long-time associate of
Allen Dulles since working together in Berlin in post World-War 2 days)
sought rapprochement with Beijing. This completed the rupture of the
Sino-Soviet bloc. Indonesia’s role under President Sukarno was crucial
and pitted against him in his final years was Allen Dulles – the man
described by W.D.Strong (who dominated Britain’s spy services for
twenty-five years) as “the greatest intelligence officer who ever lived.”

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