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Intelligence and National Security

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British Intelligence and Propaganda

during the 'Confrontation', 1963-1966
D. Easter
Published online: 08 Sep 2010.

To cite this article: D. Easter (2001) British Intelligence and Propaganda during the 'Confrontation',
1963-1966, Intelligence and National Security, 16:2, 83-102, DOI: 10.1080/714002893

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 162ins05.qxd 04/10/01 14:38 Page 83

British Intelligence and Propaganda During

the ‘Confrontation’, 1963–1966

D AV I D E A S T E R

This study examines the importance of British intelligence and

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propaganda in the Confrontation with Indonesia. It shows that Britain

had access to human and signals intelligence on Indonesia, which
influenced British policy and strategy in several ways. In particular,
signals intelligence gave London the confidence to launch ‘Claret’
cross border raids against Indonesia from 1965. The study also
reveals that Britain mounted an aggressive propaganda campaign
against Indonesia during the Confrontation and especially after an
abortive coup attempt in 1965. British propaganda successfully
encouraged the army to destroy the Indonesian Communist Party,
remove President Sukarno from power and end the Confrontation.

The 1963–66 ‘Confrontation’, or undeclared war between Britain, Malaysia

and Indonesia, provides a good example of a successful counter-insurgency
campaign. Indonesia’s attempt to break up the Malaysian federation by
sponsoring a guerrilla movement in Borneo was decisively defeated.
Explanations for this victory have tended to focus on Britain’s military
tactics. A recent study concluded that Britain’s and Malaysia’s success was
mainly due to the mobility provided for British and Commonwealth troops
by helicopters, the effects of secret ‘Claret’ cross-border operations and
field intelligence.1
However, evidence has also emerged of British propaganda and wider
intelligence work during the Confrontation and these were important factors
in Britain’s victory. British strategy and policy was heavily influenced by
human and signals intelligence. In particular, signals intelligence gave
Britain the confidence to launch the Claret cross-border raids into
Indonesia, which were so crucial in containing the Indonesian guerrillas. At
the same time Britain carried out an aggressive propaganda campaign
against Indonesia that might have played a major role in the removal of the
Indonesian leader, Sukarno, and affected Jakarta’s decision to end the
Confrontation in 1966.

Intelligence and National Security, Vol.16, No.2 (Summer 2001), pp.83–102

PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON
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84 I NTELLI GEN C E A N D N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y

To understand the significance of British intelligence and propaganda it

is necessary to briefly explain what the Confrontation was. In 1961, Britain
and the Malayan Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, decided to create a
federation of Malaysia by merging the British colonies in Borneo and the
island colony of Singapore with already independent Malaya. London was
attracted to this scheme because it saw Malaysia as a way of preserving its
major military base in Singapore. The pro-Western Tunku would become
the Prime Minister of Malaysia and he was prepared to let Britain carry on
using the Singapore base.
From January 1962, President Sukarno of Indonesia openly opposed the
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Malaysia plan. He denounced Malaysia as a neo-colonialist plot to maintain

a British presence in the region and claimed that it denied Borneans their
legitimate right to self-determination. Under Sukarno’s leadership
Indonesia embarked on a policy of ‘Confrontation’, exerting diplomatic,
economic, political and military pressure against London and Kuala
Lumpur. From April 1963 guerrillas made raids into Borneo from the
neighbouring Indonesian territory of Kalimantan. Malaysia was nonetheless
set up in September 1963 but Sukarno carried on and even escalated his
Confrontation campaign; from August 1964 Indonesian guerrillas made
landings in peninsular Malaya. British and Commonwealth troops defended
Malaysia against the Indonesian attacks, and although Singapore split from
Malaysia in 1965, the Confrontation proved a failure. Indonesia was forced
to accept the new state.

INTELLIGENCE

Britain had several sources of intelligence during the Confrontation. On a

local, tactical level cross-border reconnaissance by British and
Commonwealth troops and cooperation with the indigenous border peoples
provided important information on the activities of the Indonesian
guerrillas. Other tactical intelligence came from the interrogation of
Indonesian prisoners and analysis of captured documents.2
On a broader scale Britain had access to strategic intelligence;
intelligence that could be used to shape Britain’s overall policy and military
strategy in the Confrontation. This intelligence was gathered through three
main sources: air photo-reconnaissance, human agents (Humint) and
intercepted Indonesian signals (Sigint). From 1963 until 1966 Royal Air
Force planes carried out secret overflights of Indonesia, photographing
border areas, airfields and guerrilla infiltration bases, and obtaining useful
information on Indonesian military deployments.3
A variety of sources offer evidence for Humint and Sigint operations. A
former British government official, who did not wish to be identified, has
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BRITISH INTELLIGENCE & PROPAGANDA DURING ‘CONFRONTATION’ 85

confirmed that Britain had agents within the Indonesian government and
military.4 There are also hints in released British government documents that
London broke the Indonesian ciphers. For example in 1965 the Foreign
Office was concerned over the possible sale of advanced American
communications equipment to the Indonesians because of the ‘intercept
aspect’. The Foreign Office wished to ensure that ‘the GCHQ interests are
fully appreciated’.5 In 1969, after the conflict had ended, the Chiefs of Staff
discussed whether Sigint should be included in a prospective official history
of the Confrontation.6
More evidence for British Sigint is provided by Spycatcher, the memoirs
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of former MI5 officer Peter Wright. In his book, Wright described ways of
intercepting and deciphering encoded messages by placing listening devices
in or outside foreign embassies. He recalled that ‘We operated in the same
way against the Indonesian Embassy at the time of the Indonesian/
Malaysian confrontation, and read the cipher continuously through the
conflict.’7 Again a former British government official has confirmed that
Britain did break the Indonesian ciphers during the Confrontation and was
able to read both diplomatic and military traffic.8 In addition to intercept
operations against the Indonesian Embassy in London Britain could target
Indonesian communications from listening stations in Hong Kong and at
Phoenix Park in Singapore. The collected intelligence on Indonesia was
then shared with the Americans, who had their own, high quality sources of
information.9
The extent of Britain’s intelligence penetration does appear impressive
and certainly the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) received ‘ministerial
commendation on the quality of its reporting on Malaysia’.10 However, it is
hard to establish the exact value of this intelligence to British policy-makers
during the Confrontation. Released JIC assessments of Indonesian
intentions and capabilities conceal the sources of their information, making
it difficult to see what material the air reconnaissance, Sigint and Humint
was actually providing.11 Nonetheless with the fragmentary evidence
available some preliminary conclusions can be drawn.
First, the strategic intelligence seems to have confirmed the British in
their view that Indonesia was implacably hostile to the creation of Malaysia.
For example, in January 1963 the British High Commission in Kuala
Lumpur informed London about the latest reports from ‘our friends and
their friends’ (often a euphemism for the intelligence services), which
indicated ‘increasing determination on the part of Indonesians to unmask
Tunku as arch-neo-imperialist and to frustrate Malaysia’.12 In August 1963
a decrypted Indonesian telegram stated unambiguously that ‘The anti-
Malaysia movement (actions) is aimed at the overthrowing of British power
in South East Asia.’13 When Singapore separated from Malaysia in August
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86 I NTELLI GEN C E A N D N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y

1965 London found that ‘Instructions from Djakarta to Indonesian posts

suggest, as expected, intention to treat Singapore secession as result and
first fruit of confrontation; further fruits to be gathered include Borneo wind
falls and withdrawal of British base.’14
These reports fed a general British belief that it was futile to seriously
negotiate with the Indonesians over the Confrontation because Sukarno was
determined to destroy Malaysia and remove British influence from the
region. A Foreign Office paper presented to the Cabinet in January 1964
warned that in talks Indonesia might ask for restrictions on Britain’s use of
the Singapore military base or demand a plebiscite in Borneo on whether the
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territory should remain part of Malaysia. Unless Britain and Malaysia were
prepared to make these kinds of dangerous concessions it would be useless
for them to contemplate a negotiated solution until ‘Indonesia had first been
brought to her knees by a prolonged process of attrition’.15 A joint Foreign
Office/Commonwealth Relations Office paper produced for the new Labour
government in January 1965 was even more suspicious of Indonesian
intentions. It claimed that Indonesian opposition to Malaysia was
‘inevitable’ because Sukarno had ‘a long-cherished ambition to seize
Malaya, politically if not territorially’.16 The paper argued that there was not
likely to be a sincere Indonesian desire for negotiations in the near future.
Britain would have to maintain the defence of Malaysia and ignore any
diplomatic approaches from Sukarno.
This tough line in the Confrontation was not initially supported by all of
Britain’s allies. The United States in particular wanted to establish a modus
vivendi with Sukarno because of Indonesia’s strategic importance in the Cold
war. Consequently during 1963 the State Department and the White House
pressed for talks between Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta, in the hope that Sukarno
might drop his opposition to Malaysia if some kind of face-saving political
formula could be found.17 London regarded all these efforts as tantamount to
appeasement and tried to rein in Washington. It was here that Britain again
seems to have made use of its strategic intelligence sources. Intelligence on
Indonesia was passed on to American policy-makers in order to convince
them of Indonesia’s deep-set hostility towards Malaysia. In September 1963
the Foreign Office suspected that Averell Harriman, the US Assistant
Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, did not believe Sukarno was
determined to destroy Malaysia through Confrontation.18 In order to convince
him, the Foreign Office told the British ambassador to show Harriman a ‘Top
Secret document’ which demonstrated that ‘the Indonesian Government have
set their face against coming to a settlement with Malaysia or seeking to
maintain tolerable relations with Her Majesty’s Government’.19
In January 1964, after the Americans had surprised London by sending
Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General, to south-east Asia to arrange
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BRITISH INTELLIGENCE & PROPAGANDA DURING ‘CONFRONTATION’ 87

negotiations, Britain went a stage further. When Kennedy stopped off in
London on his way back to Washington British officials showed him the raw
Sigint material.20 These efforts may have had some effect because by the
autumn of 1964 American policy towards Indonesia fell more in line with
the British position. However, this seems to have been due more to
Sukarno’s own increasingly aggressive and anti-American behaviour than
Britain’s lobbying use of intelligence.21
Britain also used her intelligence sources to gather information on the
state of Sukarno’s health. This rather morbid interest was caused by
Britain’s strategic predicament – as there appeared no chance of an
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acceptable political settlement while Sukarno was in power, London hoped

that his early death might open up a way to end the Confrontation. This was
not merely wishful thinking, for Sukarno was believed to be suffering from
a kidney stone. Confirmation of this came in December 1964 when a ‘CX
report’, a Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) intelligence report, showed that
Sukarno did have a kidney stone. The CX report revealed that Sukarno’s
Viennese specialist had recommended more X-rays before the stone could
be removed in an operation.22 Britain also managed to covertly obtain X-
rays of the Indonesian leader.23
Unfortunately for London the medical intelligence proved to be of only
limited value. In January 1965, the JIC made a prognosis that without an
operation on his kidney Sukarno was unlikely to live more than a year. If he
had a successful operation he might last as long as two to three years.24
However, the JIC’s forecast turned out to be overly optimistic, for although
he had persistent kidney problems Sukarno lived on until July 1970.
Analysis of Sukarno’s health had also indicated that he might have uraemia,
a form of blood poisoning caused by chronic kidney failure. The British
Chiefs of Staff (COS) were warned in January 1965 that Sukarno’s uraemia
‘could lead to a condition bordering on mania and the consequently far
greater possibility of his making rash decisions’, something which dictated
a certain degree of caution in Britain’s actions.25 For example, the COS
advised that if ministers wanted to initiate a war of nerves in the
Confrontation it would have to be directed at the Indonesian army rather
than Sukarno, because of his ‘known irrationality’.
Sukarno’s possible uraemia illustrated a wider problem that hindered the
use of Britain’s strategic intelligence sources. Whatever his actual medical
condition, the Indonesian dictator was certainly volatile, impulsive and
prone to sudden grandiloquent gestures, so even with the benefit of good
intelligence it was hard for Britain to predict what Indonesia would do next
in the Confrontation. Perhaps because of this on occasions Britain’s
intelligence sources failed to correctly anticipate Indonesian military and
political moves in the conflict. In August 1964 Jakarta was able to surprise
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88 I NTELLI GEN C E A N D N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y

London and Kuala Lumpur, and dramatically escalate the Confrontation, by

landing guerrillas for the first time in peninsular Malaya.26 Britain was also
taken unawares by Sukarno’s abrupt announcement in January 1965 that
Indonesia was going to leave the United Nations.27 As withdrawal from the
UN seemed totally counter productive to Indonesian interests British
officials speculated that Sukarno might have taken the decision while under
the effects of uraemia.28
At other times outbursts by Sukarno may have led Britain’s intelligence
sources to give misleading information. In May 1964 a SIS CX report
warned that at a meeting with the chiefs of the Indonesian armed forces on
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9 May, Sukarno had said he would order the start of ‘local war’ or ‘limited
war’ against ‘Malaysian-Borneo’, including air attacks on oil installations
in the neighbouring Sultanate of Brunei, if the results of a forthcoming
summit meeting with the Tunku were unsatisfactory.29 This report caused a
minor panic in London and led the Commonwealth Relations Office to
request an urgent appraisal from the JIC. But despite the subsequent failure
of the summit, an Indonesian attack failed to materialise nor were there any
signs that one was seriously being prepared. Sukarno’s comments were
perhaps said in the heat of moment and the idea then dropped. Alternatively
the JIC suggested that they could have been a deliberate leak to intensify a
war of nerves. Sukarno might have made the threat assuming that it would
leak out and thereby influence the British and Malaysians ahead of the
summit.
Notwithstanding the difficulties caused by Sukarno’s mercurial
personality and his medical condition, Britain’s strategic intelligence did
provide London with useful insights into Indonesian thinking. In particular,
it allowed British policy-makers to see how Indonesia reacted to British
military actions in the Confrontation. After the Indonesian landings in
peninsular Malaya in August 1964 Britain despatched considerable troop
and aircraft reinforcements to Singapore and provocatively sent the aircraft
carrier HMS Victorious through Indonesian claimed waters. Strategic
intelligence sources showed that these countermeasures had worried
Jakarta: Indonesia dispersed shipping and re-deployed aircraft during the
passage of Victorious and London discovered that Sukarno had nervously
asked his attachés in Western capitals to report on British intentions.30 The
Chairman of the JIC concluded that Sukarno had been convinced that
Britain was determined and able to retaliate if there were further attacks. He
commented that ‘We know … that our recent actions impressed them [the
Indonesians] far more than any words could have done – or had done, over
the whole confrontation period’.31
In the same way intelligence was useful to Britain in the area of cross-
border operations. In April 1964 London had authorised British troops to
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BRITISH INTELLIGENCE & PROPAGANDA DURING ‘CONFRONTATION’ 89

cross the border in hot pursuit of guerrillas and in July this permission was
extended to allow offensive patrols by British forces up to 3,000 yards over
the border into Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo.32 But these steps
were not taken without much trepidation. The Foreign Office and the COS
were worried that if the patrols became public they could be used by
Sukarno to rally Indonesian morale.33 To avoid creating propaganda
opportunities for Jakarta the cross-border operations had to be deniable, in
the sense that Indonesia could not prove that the border had been crossed.34
The British government could then maintain the fiction that its soldiers
never knowingly crossed the frontier.35
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In November 1964 Admiral Sir Varyl Begg, the British Commander-in-

Chief in the Far East, asked for permission to extend the range of the
deniable patrols to 5 miles inside Kalimantan but this request was rejected
by the COS.36 The Chiefs feared that deeper operations might not be
credibly deniable and could encourage Indonesia to escalate the conflict. In
January 1965 a build up of Indonesian forces in Kalimantan and Sumatra
led Begg to again request an extension of the cross-border patrols and this
time he was able to use Sigint to support his case. Decrypted Indonesian
military signals showed that the local commanders in Kalimantan always
reported any clash, even those in which their troops were defeated, as a
great victory.37 As Begg pointed out to the COS on 12 January, it had not
been necessary for Britain to ever deny a cross-border operation and this
‘might be due to the fact that local Indonesian commanders were loath to
report such occurrences, describing imaginary assaults of their own
instead’.38 Therefore, Begg argued, larger British cross-border raids,
attacking Indonesian camps, staging areas and supply dumps up to a depth
of 10,000 yards, offered no greater risk, as the ‘[Indonesian] High
Command might well remain in ignorance of them’.
The COS accepted Begg’s argument and recommended that cross border
operations be extended up to 10,000 yards, including attacks on specific
targets. On 13 January senior ministers gave permission for these deeper,
‘Claret’ cross-border raids, a clear example of Sigint influencing Britain’s
military strategy in the Confrontation.39 This example was especially
significant because the Claret operations allowed British and
Commonwealth forces to win control of the border region and greatly
reduce the level of Indonesian guerrilla attacks.40
In general then the strategic intelligence helped British policy-makers to
gauge how much military force they could or should apply in the
Confrontation. London could try to calibrate the use of force so as to deter
or counter act Indonesian aggression while at the same time not being so
military aggressive itself so as to provoke Sukarno into escalating the
conflict. It also meant that Britain could make the most battle and cost
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90 I NTELLI GEN C E A N D N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y

effective use of her sometimes strained military resources, a point that was
appreciated by the British military commanders. At the close of the conflict
in June 1966 Air Marshal Sir Peter Wykeham, the RAF Commander in the
Far East, reportedly claimed that
… it had been a war where Intelligence had played the vital role. Had
it not been for the quality of our Intelligence the forces needed, the
states of readiness required and the deployments for reinforcements
would have been far higher than had proved necessary.41
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P R O PA G A N D A

This section will concentrate on covert and unattributable propaganda, that

is propaganda where the government source of the information is concealed.
Both sides in the Confrontation made extensive use of this type of
propaganda. Indonesia, for example, operated ‘black’ radio stations to whip
up popular support for the guerrillas in Borneo. In March 1963 Radio
Kalimantan Utara, ‘the voice of the Freedom Fighters of North Borneo’,
began broadcasting.42 Based at Bogor near Jakarta, the station carried
speeches and messages allegedly from rebel leaders and it urged support for
the guerrillas in the struggle against Malaysia. It also broadcast propaganda
to British servicemen in the region. At one point the Tunku was said to be
regular listener to Radio Kalimantan Utara.43 Another Indonesian pirate
station, Radio Kemam, operated from Sumatra, using Radio Malaya’s
wavelength and carrying anti-Malaysia and anti-Tunku material.44
In addition the Indonesians successfully used propaganda to aggravate
racial tensions in Malaysia between Chinese and Malays. After bloody race
riots in Singapore in July 1964 that left 22 dead, the Joint Intelligence
Committee (Far East) noted that
… since April Indonesian intelligence had been conducting a series of
psychological warfare operations in Malaya and Singapore by means
of pamphlets, ‘black newspapers’, the spreading of rumour and the
writing of slogans on walls.45
Indonesia’s black radio stations also played a part in stirring up racial
hatred. On 17 July 1964, four days before the Singapore riots, Radio
Kemam claimed that the Chinese in peninsular Malaya had killed a Malay
Muslim with ‘a pork butcher’s knife’ and forced Malays to eat pork.46
Britain replied in a similar fashion, employing propaganda to influence
three different sets of audiences during the Confrontation.47 First, London
used propaganda to win diplomatic support for Malaysia from other
countries and especially the newly independent Afro-Asian states. Second,
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BRITISH INTELLIGENCE & PROPAGANDA DURING ‘CONFRONTATION’ 91

propaganda was used internally in Borneo to counter act Indonesian
subversion, particularly among the Chinese community in Sarawak. Finally,
and perhaps most importantly, propaganda was directed at Indonesia itself
in order to cause divisions and undermine support for the Confrontation
policy.
The coordination of British propaganda in the Confrontation was
initially carried out by the Counter Subversion Committee, an informal
Foreign Office body set up in 1962 to help coordinate counter subversion
activities.48 The actual propaganda work in the field was mainly done by
officials from the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department (IRD)
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which specialised in unattributable propaganda, although some ‘black’

operations were conducted by the SIS and army psychological warfare
teams.49 In April 1963, before the creation of Malaysia, an IRD official was
sent to the Borneo colonies to help counter hostile Indonesian propaganda
and to advise the colonial governors on the use of unattributable
propaganda.50 The IRD started to prepare a series of radio feature
programmes for Radio Sarawak to appeal to disaffected Chinese youth in
the colony.51 The IRD officer also stimulated a flow of information material
to London for use in reducing opposition to Malaysia at the United Nations
and among Afro-Asian states.52
In September 1963 the Borneo colonies and Singapore reached full
independence by joining Malaya to form Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur took
on more responsibility for the propaganda work. However, the Malaysians
lacked the necessary funds, equipment and staff for these types of
operations.53 To help them, in November 1963 the Counter Subversion
Committee was given a £50,000 subvention from the Secret Vote for use
against Indonesian propaganda and subversion.54 Money from this ‘Special
Counter Subversion Fund for Malaysia’ was channelled by way of the
British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur to the Malaysian government.
An extra IRD officer was also sent to Kuala Lumpur.55 The Counter
Subversion Committee itself was upgraded – in January 1964 it was turned
into an interdepartmental official committee reporting to the new official
Cabinet Defence and Oversea Policy Committee.56
By this time the British and Malaysians had several outlets for their
propaganda against Indonesia. The Foreign Office and Commonwealth
Relations Office routinely supplied the BBC with telegrams from British
overseas delegations that contained information on the Confrontation.57 The
BBC could then use this information in its vernacular radio programmes.
The diplomatic telegrams were also passed on by the British High
Commission in Canberra to the Australian Radio Authority and sent via
IRD channels to Radio Malaysia, for use in overseas broadcasts to
Indonesia.58 The Counter Subversion Committee felt that the function of the
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92 I NTELLI GEN C E A N D N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y

BBC and Australian Radio transmissions to Indonesia was to provide ‘the

steady pressure of true facts, the supply of which to the BBC was an
important responsibility of the C.R.O. and the F.O.’59 For ‘more pointed
propaganda’ Radio Malaysia could be used and it did seem to be effective
in this role, for by November 1963 the Indonesian government had banned
its citizens from listening to it, although this ban was widely flouted.60 The
Malaysians were also operating their own ‘black’ radio station against
Indonesia, ‘Radio Free Indonesia’, which masqueraded as the work of
Indonesian émigrés.61
Aside from radio, other outlets for propaganda were being used. In late
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1963, after a United Nations report had concluded that the majority of the
Borneans supported the creation of Malaysia, the IRD paid for the printing
of the report in the Indonesian language.62 The IRD then helped drop copies
along the border in Borneo. In December 1963 a British official also
reported that the Malaysians were running ‘a covert campaign to spread
disaffection amongst the Chinese in Indonesian territory’.63 Indonesian
guerrilla infiltration bases were targeted as well. On 2 November 1964 RAF
and Malaysian planes dropped leaflets on the Indonesian bases used to
support guerrilla landings in peninsular Malaya.64 The Malaysians carried
out further leaflet drops in April 1965.65
The propaganda pushed several themes. British officials generally
agreed that in propaganda aimed at Indonesia, it was pointless to attack
Sukarno personally because of his still immense popularity in the country.66
Instead propaganda should criticise ‘bad advisers’, ’ruling cliques’ and ‘the
Djakarta gang’. A particular target was the Indonesian Communist Party,
the PKI. Although the PKI was loathed and feared by the Indonesian army,
it was a major force in Indonesian politics and had a strong influence on
Sukarno. The communists were also enthusiastic supporters of the
Confrontation campaign against Malaysia and in its unattributable
propaganda the IRD stressed the PKI’s involvement. An IRD pamphlet sent
to the Malaysian Commercial Association in the summer of 1964 warned
that the PKI was encouraging Confrontation, and thereby breaking
Indonesia’s ties with the West, in order to smooth the way for a communist
takeover.67
Another theme of British propaganda was the untrustworthiness of
Indonesian propaganda. Once British troops started to cross the border into
Kalimantan in April 1964 London wanted to make it as difficult as possible
for the Indonesians to publicly protest about the incursions. The Foreign
Office therefore tried to pre-empt any Indonesian complaints by giving
Jakarta a reputation for mendacity, exaggeration and distortion. The IRD
prepared ‘unattributable material designed to discredit Indonesian
propaganda’.68 Admittedly this was not difficult to do, since the Indonesian
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BRITISH INTELLIGENCE & PROPAGANDA DURING ‘CONFRONTATION’ 93

news agency Antara almost daily carried entirely fictitious accounts of
British aggression and guerrilla victories.
As the Confrontation progressed through 1964 and 1965 Britain
reorganised its propaganda machinery and devoted extra resources to a
more active propaganda campaign against Indonesia. This process started in
September 1964 with an IRD proposal to create a special propaganda unit
in Singapore.69 The special unit would
… engage in covert propaganda operations against Indonesia with the
aim partly of stirring up dissension between different factions inside
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Indonesia and partly of giving the impression that the various

dissident groups inside Indonesia are stronger than they in fact are.70
In connection with the last point, it is worth noting that by July 1964 the
British and Malaysians were giving covert aid to rebels against the central
government in the outer Indonesian islands of Sulawesi, Sumatra and
Kalimantan.71
The IRD proposal was strongly supported by the British High
Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur and quickly approved by ministers.72
However, there were delays before the special unit could be set up as the
IRD had problems in finding politically reliable and secure Indonesian
writers to staff the unit. By December 1964 this problem seemed to have
been overcome and Sir Burke Trend, the Cabinet Secretary, could report
that the project was going forward.73
At the same time the propaganda coordinating machinery was
restructured in Whitehall. In October 1964 the Foreign Office and the
Commonwealth Relations Office created a Joint Malaysia-Indonesia
Department (JMID) to deal with external affairs relating to the
Confrontation.74 The JMID took over from the Counter Subversion
Committee the roles of sanctioning counter subversion projects and
authorising spending from the Special Counter Subversion Fund for
Malaysia.75 In February 1965 the special fund was increased to £85,000, a
sign of the increased effort being given to propaganda.
There was also more explicit political direction. In February-March
1965 senior ministers approved paper JA(65) 9 (Final) produced by the
Joint Action Committee.76 JA(65) 9 (Final) was intended to be a general
statement of Britain’s aims in the Confrontation that could provide
guidelines for more detailed tactical planning, especially psychological
warfare and propaganda from Singapore.77
The paper defined Britain’s ultimate aim as to have a non-communist
Indonesia living in good relations with Malaysia.78 To achieve this goal
British ‘covert propaganda and clandestine operations’ should try to
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94 I NTELLI GEN C E A N D N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y

Undermine the will of the Indonesian forces to attack Malaysia, by

representing that their real enemies are the PKI and China and bring
home to them that their incursions have consistently failed and that
there is no popular support for them inside Malaysia.
In addition, covert propaganda should aid and encourage dissident groups in
the outer Indonesian islands in order to weaken the Indonesian military
effort against Malaysia. Finally, covert propaganda should
Discredit any potential successor to Sukarno (since Sukarno’s own
position is invulnerable) whose accession to power might benefit the
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PKI. Any attempt to build up an anti-PKI candidate would be counter-

productive.
The emphasis in JA(65) 9 (Final) on covert propaganda against the PKI
reflected concerns in London about growing communist influences in
Indonesia. Sukarno was cultivating closer links with Red China and
allowing the PKI to becoming more and more powerful domestically. The
Foreign Office feared that the longer he remained in power the more likely
it was that he would be succeeded by a PKI government.79 This would put
paid to British hopes of being able to find a settlement to Confrontation
when Sukarno died, as a PKI led Indonesia was likely to be just as hostile
to Britain and Malaysia. The fall of Indonesia to communism would also be
a major geo-political defeat for the West in the Cold War.
The last part of the reorganisation of Britain’s propaganda apparatus was
the appointment of a Political Warfare Coordinator in Singapore. Sir
Andrew Gilchrist, the British Ambassador to Indonesia, and Lord
Mountbatten, the Chief of Defence Staff, had asked for a senior officer to
coordinate British propaganda and political and psychological warfare.80 In
July 1965 this post was approved and Norman Reddaway, the Regional
Information Officer in Beirut, was selected for the position.81
Reddaway did not take up the job until November 1965 and by that time
political events in Indonesia had completely transformed the situation. On 1
October 1965 a Lieutenant Colonel Untung attempted a coup d’état in
Jakarta.82 Troops loyal to Major General Suharto, the commander of the
army’s strategic reserve, swiftly put down the rebels but not before they had
killed six leading Indonesian army generals. The coup’s origins were obscure
but circumstantial evidence suggested that the PKI and Sukarno might have
been involved. Certainly the Indonesian army professed to believe this and it
arrested PKI members in Jakarta and banned communist newspapers. Suharto
also began to gradually challenge Sukarno for political power.
For Britain the tumult in Indonesia presented an excellent opportunity to
disrupt the Confrontation campaign and smash the PKI, and it quickly made
use of its enhanced propaganda machinery. On 8 October the Foreign Office
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BRITISH INTELLIGENCE & PROPAGANDA DURING ‘CONFRONTATION’ 95

gave Singapore guidance on the propaganda to be directed at Indonesia at
this crucial time. It advised that
Our objectives are to encourage anti-Communist Indonesians to more
vigorous action in the hope of crushing Communism in Indonesia
altogether, even if only temporarily, and, to this end and for its own
sake, to spread alarm and despondency in Indonesia to prevent, or at
any rate delay, re-emergence of Nasakom Government [government
including the PKI] under Sukarno.83
Suitable propaganda themes to achieve these goals were
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… PKI brutality in murdering Generals and families, Chinese

interference, particularly arms shipments, PKI subverting Indonesia
as agents of foreign Communists; fact that Aidit [the PKI’s leader]
and other prominent Communists went to ground; the virtual
kidnapping of Sukarno by Untung etc.84
As well as smearing the PKI and communist China with unproven
accusations, propaganda should build up the army leaders by portraying
them as patriotic Indonesians.
In order to put across these themes the IRD was trying to stimulate
broadcasts to Indonesia by the BBC, Radio Malaysia, Radio Australia and
the Voice of America.85 The press was also being approached, as the IRD
tried to get material into newspapers read in Indonesia such as the Straits
Times. The same anti-PKI message was to be spread by more clandestine
outlets, such as a ‘black transmitter’, presumably the one operated by the
Malaysians, and ‘I.R.D.’s regular newsletter’, which seems to have been
directed at Indonesian troops.86 On the next day, 9 October, the JMID
reported that it was mounting some ‘short term unattributable ploys
designed to keep the Indonesian pot boiling’.87
To continue with the JMID’s glib metaphor, over the next few months
the Indonesian ‘pot’ completely boiled over. From the middle of October
the Indonesian army launched a savage campaign to destroy the PKI,
ignoring protests from Sukarno who wanted to protect the party. The army
captured and killed Aidit, it encouraged the mass killings of communists by
religious groups in Sumatra and Bali, and in Java Indonesian soldiers
rounded up and massacred thousands of PKI cadres. In the chaos older
hatreds surfaced as Indonesians attacked ethnic Chinese in the country.
When the killings subsided at the end of December the PKI had been
physically exterminated as an effective political force and an estimated
500,000 people had been slaughtered.88
Throughout this period London did all it could to encourage the
destruction of the PKI and strengthen the Indonesian military leaders. On 25
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96 I NTELLI GEN C E A N D N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y

November a draft JMID brief revealed that Britain had been

(a) blackening the PKI’s reputation within Indonesia and outside, by

feeding into the ordinary publicity media news from Indonesia that
associates the PKI and the Chinese with Untung’s treachery plus
corresponding covert activity;

(b) trying in our publicity to present the Generals as Indonesian patriots,

and in no way Western stooges, but rather good anti-imperialists.89
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Much of this propaganda work was being done in Singapore. The IRD’s
special propaganda unit there prepared the ‘Black Indonesian newsletter’
and provided services for psychological warfare operations.90 It had minimal
contacts with journalists and broadcasters, leaving this to Reddaway, who
was newly installed as Political Warfare Coordinator. Reddaway received
news on the situation in Indonesia from British overseas missions,
especially the Embassy in Jakarta, and from ‘intelligence available in
Phoenix Park’, which was almost certainly Sigint.91 He would then supply
information that suited British purposes to news agencies, newspapers and
radio via contacts in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong. The news
would be carried out into in the world’s media and return to Indonesia,
allowing Britain to influence Indonesian opinion. Reddaway claimed that
information in telegrams from Ambassador Gilchrist in Jakarta was ‘put
almost instantly back into Indonesia via the B.B.C.’92 Many of the stories
had an anti-PKI slant: Reddaway recalled that a story of ‘P.K.I systematic
preparations before the coup – the carving of the town into districts for
systematic slaughter … was carried by [news] agencies’. The story seems to
have been untrue.
While the elimination of the PKI removed some of the most vocal
opponents of Malaysia and weakened Sukarno, it did not guarantee that
Jakarta would end its Confrontation campaign. British propaganda therefore
also focused on other targets, attacking advocates of Confrontation such as
the Foreign Minister Raden Subandrio and increasingly even Sukarno
himself, and promoting the development of a military regime. Reddaway
plugged themes such as
… the disadvantages of the Djakarta/Peking axis, the guilt of
Subandrio & co., the incompatibility of reconstruction and confrontasi
[Confrontation] and the advantages for Indonesia of switching to good
neighbour policies.93
Subandrio was linked to the communists by a story of a messenger plying
between him and Aidit, which was carried by newspapers, agencies and
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BRITISH INTELLIGENCE & PROPAGANDA DURING ‘CONFRONTATION’ 97

94
radio. Details of money accumulated abroad by Subandrio and Sukarno
came out in Hong Kong and were widely publicised.
During the spring of 1966 the Indonesian army began to move against
Sukarno and Subandrio and in March it effectively carried out a coup d’état.
Sukarno was forced to grant Suharto sweeping political powers, Subandrio
was arrested and the PKI was formally dissolved. As the new military
government consolidated its position Britain scaled back its propaganda
activities, in case they might prove counter productive in the new political
climate.95 Instead London would rely on diplomacy, mainly conducted by
the Malaysians, to negotiate a settlement with the more amenable Suharto.
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A settlement was quickly reached. At the end of May Indonesia and

Malaysia signed an agreement to end the Confrontation and despite some
last ditch delaying tactics by Sukarno, the agreement was ratified in August.
Britain had got the result it wanted – a non-communist Indonesia that
renounced Confrontation and was ready to live peacefully with Malaysia.
But to what extent was this due to British propaganda? This question admits
of no easy answer but two points do seem to stand out. First, credit (or
blame) for events in Indonesia could not be claimed by Britain alone, for she
was not the only outside party trying to influence Indonesian opinion. As
mentioned above, Malaysia was also carrying out propaganda operations
and they did appear to have an impact. In November 1965 an Indonesian
military leader told the Malaysians that even Sukarno listened every day to
Radio Malaysia’s overseas broadcasts.96 There are also signs that the
Americans may have been using propaganda against the PKI after Untung’s
abortive coup.97
The second point is that an accurate assessment of the effectiveness of
British propaganda depends partly on the intentions of the Indonesian army
leadership. After the coup attempt, Suharto and the other generals may not
have needed any encouragement to wipe out the PKI, remove Sukarno and
Subandrio and end the Confrontation. British propaganda might have been
pushing at an open door, urging the army to do things that it was going to
do anyway. Too little is known of Suharto’s initial intentions to be able to
come to a definite conclusion on this, but it is notable that British policy-
makers were cautious about how much influence their propaganda had on
the generals. In November 1965 the JMID made the modest assessment that
the propaganda ‘may have contributed marginally towards keeping the
Generals going against the PKI and causing friction with China’.98
Certainly it would be wrong to see the army as merely passive recipients
of British propaganda. Indeed they quickly set in motion their own
propaganda campaign against the PKI. From 8 October 1965 army
sponsored newspapers in Indonesia alleged that the six generals killed in the
coup attempt had been tortured and their sexual organs mutilated by
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98 I NTELLI GEN C E A N D N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y

members of the PKI’s women’s organisation, Gerwani. These claims were

false, as Suharto well knew, for he had attended the autopsy of the dead
generals on 4 October.99 But they served to inflame feelings against the PKI.
Furthermore the army leaders actively sought Malaysian help in putting
across their propaganda message. On 2–3 November 1965 Indonesian
Brigadier General Sukendro had secret talks in Bangkok with Dato Ghazali
Shafie, the Permanent Secretary at the Malaysian Ministry of External
Affairs.100 Sukendro explained that the army needed six months to
consolidate its position. In this period it would try to widen the basis of its
support in Indonesia ‘by re-conditioning the people’s mind to win them to
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its side’. Malaysian help would be needed to do this; Sukendro said Radio
Malaysia should emphasise PKI atrocities and the party’s role in the coup.
The station should not give the army ‘too much credit’ or attack Sukarno
directly. Subandrio even gave the Malaysians tape recorded statements by
Untung in connection with the coup, which could be used as material for
broadcasts. He also claimed that the army was trying to discredit the
Confrontation policy by linking it with the PKI. A document had been
‘exposed’ showing a plan of the PKI to put pressure on Sukarno to fight
Malaysia. More such exposures were planned. Finally, Sukendro said that
… means and ways must be obtained to remove SUBANDRIO.
Towards this end, KEN requested for assistance in the character and
political assassination of SUBANDRIO. He would send us materials
of background information which could be used by us in whatever
way suitable.
We have then the unusual situation of an army conspiring with the supposed
enemy to remove its own foreign minister.
In light of the above it seems likely that the British propaganda had a
greater effect on the Indonesian public rather than the already sympathetic
army leaders. Through its manipulation of the international media and its
covert propaganda Britain ensured that news coming into Indonesia
supported the stories being spread by the Indonesian army. It helped to incite
people against the PKI, damaged Subandrio and Sukarno’s image in the
country and undermined popular support for the Confrontation campaign.
Nonetheless it is still hard to measure how important this propaganda
was. Potentially it could have been a key factor in removing the PKI and
Sukarno and clearing the way for the army to end the Confrontation. If so,
it would have been a major achievement for British propagandists,
comparable to coups in the past such as influencing American opinion in the
First World War with the Zimmermann Telegram. By the end of
Confrontation, British officials were more convinced that their propaganda
had been effective. In the summer of 1966, Alec Adams, the political
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BRITISH INTELLIGENCE & PROPAGANDA DURING ‘CONFRONTATION’ 99

adviser to the Commander-in-Chief in Singapore, summed up Reddaway’s
activities and wrote that their ‘impact has been considerable’.101 Yet Adams
provided no evidence to substantiate this claim and at present we lack such
basic information as polling data on Indonesian public attitudes towards the
PKI, Sukarno and the Confrontation or listener and readership figures for
British propaganda outlets in Indonesia. This sort of information may not
exist anyway but without it is impossible to establish with certainty whether
British propaganda did cause the downfall of Sukarno and end the
Confrontation.
Intelligence and propaganda were not in themselves war-winning
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weapons. Ultimately Britain’s victory in the Confrontation was due to the

ability of Commonwealth soldiers fighting in Borneo to contain and drive
back the Indonesian guerrillas, and the political instability in Indonesia
which brought down Sukarno. But good intelligence enabled Britain to
deploy its limited military resources for the greatest effect. And when a
political opening appeared in Indonesia in October 1965, Britain used
propaganda against the supporters of Confrontation, although this was not
without terrible human cost.

NOTES

1. Peter Dennis and Jeffrey Grey, Emergency and Confrontation (Sydney: Allen and Unwin
1996) pp.246–53. Dennis and Grey do mention Britain’s use of Sigint but they do not assess
how important it was in defeating Confrontation.
2. Ibid.
3. Public Records Office (PRO) DEFE 13/385, Minute Kyle to Thorneycroft, 19 March 1964.
PRO DEFE 13/498, Minute M015/2/1 Healey to Stewart, 3 Jan. 1966.
4. This former Commonwealth Relations Office official will henceforth be cited as ‘Official A’.
5. PRO DEFE 25/166, Minute Wright to Acting Chief of Defence Staff, 26 July 1965.
6. PRO AIR 8/2441 COS(69) 7th Meeting, (4), 11 Feb.1969.
7. Peter Wright, Spycatcher (NY: Viking Penguin 1987) p.113.
8. This former Foreign Office official did not wish to be identified. Henceforth cited as ‘Official
B’.
9. Letter from Official A. For evidence of CIA intelligence being shared with the British, see
PRO DEFE 4/174, COS(65) 57th Meeting, (5), 22 Sept. 1964 and Declassified Documents
Reference System (DDRS) 1975 (53C), CIA Tel TDCS 314/02920-64, Jakarta to
Washington, 11 Sept. 1964.
10. PRO CAB 159/41, JIC(64) 41st Meeting, (9), 13 Aug. 1964.
11. PRO PREM 13/2718, JIC/796/65 ‘Special Assessment – Indonesia’, 4 Oct. 1965. PRO CAB
158/46, JIC(62) 58 (Final) ‘Indonesian Aims and Intentions’, 28 Jan.1963.
12. PRO DO 169/237, Tel 105 Kuala Lumpur to CRO, 24 Jan. 1963.
13. PRO CAB 21/5520, ‘Foreign Office telegram 897/8 from Djakarta refer’, not dated. The
word in brackets appears to be an alternative phrasing suggested by the translator.
14. PRO DEFE 25/209, Minute Burlace to APS/Secretary of State, 9 Sept 1965.
15. PRO CAB 129/116, CP(64)5, 6 Jan. 1964.
16. PRO CAB 148/19, OPD (65) 25, 26 Jan. 1965.
17. PRO PREM 11/4349, Tel. 7462 FO to Washington, 4 Aug. 1963. PRO DO 169/278, Tel.
1676 Dean to FO, 6 Oct. 1963. Interestingly the CIA, which had access to British intelligence
and its own sources, supported British policy and agreed with British assessments of
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100 I NTELLI GEN C E A N D N AT I O N A L S E C U R I T Y

Indonesian motives. See John Subritzky, Confronting Sukarno (Basingstoke: Macmillan

2000) p.66–7. However, it seems that the State Dept. and the White House ignored the CIA’s
views.
18. PRO DO 169/241, Warner to Trench, 24 Sept. 1963.
19. PRO PREM 11/4870, Tel. 9489 FO to Washington, 24 Sept. 1963.
20. Interview and letter from Official A. Corroborating evidence is provided by PRO PREM
11/4906, ‘Report of a conversation between the Foreign Secretary and Mr Robert Kennedy,
the United States Attorney General on January 24, 1964’, 27 Jan. 1964. This records that the
British ‘showed Mr Kennedy certain evidence which, coupled with President Sukarno’s
speech caused us to doubt Indonesian good faith’.
21. Subritzky (note 17) pp.121–4.
22. PRO DEFE 25/164, Memo by D.1.34C, 17 Dec. 1964.
23. This information was provided by a former Foreign Office official who did not wish to be
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identified. Henceforth cited as ‘Official C’.

24. PRO DEFE 31/54, Minute DCDS(I) to Chief of Defence Staff, 27 Jan. 1965. The CIA made
a similar prognosis in Jan. 1965. According to a CIA memorandum ‘Sukarno’s Viennese
doctors believe that unless he undergoes surgery for removal of a kidney stone in the near
future he will die within a year or two – possibly sooner and suddenly’. DDRS, 1981, (274C),
Office of National Estimates Special Memorandum 4-65, 26 Jan. 1965.
25. PRO DEFE 4/179, COS(65) 3rd Meeting, (1A), 12 Jan.1965.
26. PRO PREM 11/4909, Tel. 1917 CRO to Head, 17 Aug. 1964.
27. PRO FO 371/181560, Tel. 11 Gilchrist to FO, 2 Jan. 1965; Tel. 17 Gilchrist to FO, 3 Jan.
1965.
28. PRO DEFE 4/179, COS(65)1st Meeting, (1A), 5 Jan. 1965. It seems to have been the drugs
used to treat the uraemia rather than the illness itself that would cause the manic state.
29. PRO DEFE 25/157, Minute Golds to Wright, 29 May 1964. PRO CAB 158/53, JIC (64) 54
‘Indonesian air attacks against oil installations in Brunei’, 15 June 1964.
30. PRO DEFE 4/174, COS(65) 57th Meeting (5A), 22 Sept. 1964. PRO DEFE 4/175, COS(65)
58th Meeting, (4A), 29 Sept. 1964.
31. PRO DEFE 25/161, Minute COS 3052/13/10/64 Annex Lapsley to COS, 12 Oct. 1964.
32. PRO DEFE 4/169, COS(64) 33rd Meeting, (7), 5 May 1964. PRO DEFE 13/385, Tel.
COSSEA 143 MOD to Begg, 1 July 1964.
33. PRO DEFE 4/167, COS(64) 27th Meeting, (4), 7 April 1964. PRO FO 371/179120, Brief by
Peck, 7 April 1964.
34. PRO DEFE 13/385, Tel. COSSEA 143 MOD to Begg, 1 July 1964.
35. PRO PREM 11/4908, Tel. 5560 FO to Washington, 24 April 1964.
36. PRO DEFE 4/177, COS(64) 70th Meeting, (2A), 26 Nov. 1964.
37. Letters from Officials A and B.
38. PRO DEFE 4/179, COS(65) 3rd Meeting, (1B), 12 Jan. 1965. It is not clear why the
Indonesian commanders acted in this way. Defence Secretary Denis Healey suggested to a
Labour MP in 1965 that the Indonesians did not publicise Britain’s cross-border operations
‘probably because the army did not wish to accept the loss of prestige that would accompany
such an admission’. PRO DEFE 25/170, MO/25/3 ‘Note of a discussion between the
Secretary of State for Defence … and Mr Tam Dalyell MP on Wednesday, 13 October 1965’,
14 Oct. 1965. However, the Indonesian army was also deliberately obstructing Indonesian
operations that might provoke Britain and escalate the conflict. See Harold Crouch, The
Army and Politics in Indonesia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1978) pp.69–75. Furthermore in
secret contacts with the British and Malaysians in the spring of 1965, army leaders stressed
that they did not want to escalate the fighting. PRO FO 371/181498, Tel. 713, CRO to Kuala
Lumpur, 4 March 1965. PRO FO 371/181499, Tel. 700 Head to CRO, 20 April 1965.
Conceivably then the Indonesian army did not inform Sukarno about the British raids in case
he reacted violently and triggered off a wider war.
39. PRO CAB 148/19, OPD(65) 8, 12 Jan. 1965. PRO CAB 148/18, OPD(65) 1st Meeting, 13
Jan. 1965. PRO FO 371/181525, Tel. 142 CRO to Kuala Lumpur, 14 Jan.1965.
40. PRO DEFE 4/198, COS(66) 18th Meeting, (2), Minute COS 1394/30/3/66 Lapsley to COS,
31 March 1966.
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41. PRO DEFE 13/476, Minute Strong to Healey, 22 June 1966.
42. PRO DEFE 4/179, COS(65) 3rd Meeting, (1B), 12 Jan. 1965. PRO CAB 21/5520, ‘Draft
White Paper – Indonesia and Malaysia’, 28 June 1963. PRO FO 371/169737, Memo by
Cable, 8 Mar. 1963, Tel. 218 Singapore to FO, 29 April 1963.
43. PRO FO 371/169693 ‘Note of a Conversation between Mr Lee Kuan Yew and Mr Moore
held on 15th October, 1963’. Not dated.
44. PRO DEFE 7/2388 ‘Draft White Paper – Indonesian and the British Borneo Territories’, not
dated.
45. PRO DEFE 5/154, COS (64) 273, 8 Oct. 1964.
46. D. Hyde, Confrontation in the East (London: The Bodley Head 1965), p. 100.
47. PRO FO 953/2176, ‘Counter Subversion Committee Record of a Meeting held on May 12,
1964 in the Commonwealth Relations Office’, 14 May 1964.
48. PRO DEFE 28/145, Minute COS 1350/12/2/64 Watkins to COS, 12 Feb. 1964; ‘Review of
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activities of Counter Subversion Committee, 1961–64’, 8 Jan. 1965.

49. Paul Lashmar and James Oliver, Britain’s Secret Propaganda War (Stroud: Sutton Publishing
1998) pp.1, 5.
50. PRO DEFE 11/236, Minute Wild to COS, 19 April 1963. PRO CAB 21/4851, Minute
Huijsman to de Zulueta, 11 March 1963.
51. PRO DEFE 28/153, ‘Report on Mr P. H. Roberts’ Tour of Duty in the Borneo Territories’,
not dated.
52. PRO DEFE 28/144, Draft letter Chairman of the Counter Subversion Committee to Trend,
not dated.
53. Ibid. Minute Wild to Secretary Counter Subversion Committee, 27 Sept. 1963.
54. PRO DEFE 28/145, Minute COS 1350/12/2/64 Watkins to COS, 12 Feb. 1964. PRO CAB
134/3326, SV(66) 19, 22 Aug. 1966.
55. PRO FO 953/2176, ‘Counter Subversion Committee Record of a Meeting held on May 12,
1964, in the Commonwealth Relations Office’, 14 May 1964.
56. PRO CAB 21/5379, Minute Caccia to Trend, 10 Oct. 1963. SV(64) 1, 1 Jan. 1964.
57. PRO FO 953/2129, Letter D1041/21/63 Joseph to Secretariat Kuching, 2 March 1963. PRO
FO 953/2128, Letter P5453/4 Stevenson to Micklethwait, 20 March 1963.
58. PRO FO 953/2176, ‘Counter Subversion Committee Record of a Meeting held on May 12,
1964 in the Commonwealth Relations Office’, 14 May 1964. PRO DO 169/518, Pilcher to
Glass, 5 April 1964. PRO FO 953/2132, Letter SPE30/35/1 Budd to Gauntlett, 4 Jan. 1964.
59. PRO FO 953/2176, ‘Counter Subversion Committee Record of Meeting held on February 11,
1964, in the Commonwealth Relations Office’, 14 Feb. 1964.
60. Ibid. PRO FO 953/2132, Letter 071/63 Gauntlett to Rivet-Carnac, 25 Nov. 1963.
61. PRO DEFE 28/144, Minute Drew to PS/Minister, 19 Dec. 1963. PRO FO 953/2140, Tel.
2380 Kuala Lumpur to CRO, 25 Oct. 1963. PRO FO 953/2176 (note 59).
62. PRO DEFE 28/144, Letter SPE38/30/1 Bottomley to Costley-White, 21 Dec. 1963.
63. Ibid. Minute Drew to PS/Minister, 19 Dec. 1963.
64. PRO FO 371/181556, Tel. 208 Adams to FO, 30 March 1965.
65. Ibid. Tel. SEACOS 80 CINCFE to Chief of Defence Staff, 11 April 1965. Tel SEACOS 82
CINCFE to Chief of Defence Staff, 12 April 1965.
66. PRO FO 953/2132, Letter 071/63 Gauntlett to Rivet-Carnac, 25 Nov. 1963; Letter
SPE30/35/1 Budd to Gaunlett, 4 Jan. 1964. PRO DEFE 28/144, ‘Malaysian Seminar on
Counter Subversion’, 22 Oct. 1963.
67. PRO DO 169/516, Letter 2FE/04/51/1 Jenkins to King, 8 Sept. 1964; B712 (R) ‘Communists
Smoothing Path to power in Indonesia’, June 1964.
68. PRO DO 169/518, Letter 2FE/50/30/1 Golds to Bottomley, 23 April 1964.
69. PRO CAB 21/5584, Minute Nicholls to Trend, 28 Sept. 1964
70. PRO DEFE 25/218, Minute Drew to Wyldbore-Smith, 11 Sept. 1964.
71. David Easter, ‘British and Malaysian Covert Support for Rebel Movements in Indonesian
during the “Confrontation”, 1963–66’, Intelligence and National Security 14/4 (Winter
1999) pp.195–208.
72. PRO CAB 21/5584, Minute Nicholls to Trend, 28 Sept. 1964.
73. Ibid. Minute Nicholls to Gordon, 29 Oct. 1964; Minute Trend to Nicholls, 3 Dec. 1964.
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74. PRO FO 371/176501 Golds to Bottomley, 21 Oct. 1964.

75. PRO CAB 134/3326, SV(66) 19, 22 Aug. 1966.
76. PRO PREM 13/430, Minute Trend to Wilson on ‘Malaysia’, not dated; Minute PM/65/32,
Stewart to Wilson, 26 Feb. 1965; Minute Healey to Wilson, 1 March 1965.
77. PRO FO 371/181503, Golds to King, 1 April 1965.
78. PRO DEFE 5/162, COS (65) 162 Appendix 1, 20 Sept. 1965.
79. PRO CAB 148/19, OPD(65) 25, 26 Jan. 1965.
80. PRO FO 371/181530, Tel. 2645 CRO to Kuala Lumpur, 19 Oct. 1965. PRO FO
371/187587, Letter 90440/2/66G Adams to Murray, 19 May 1966.
81. PRO FO 371/187587, Minute Stanley to Edmonds, 17 June 1966.
82. Crouch (note 38) pp.97–134.
83. PRO DEFE 25/170, Tel. 1863 FO to Singapore, 8 Oct. 1965.
84. PRO FO 371/181455, Tel. 2679 CRO to Canberra, 13 Oct. 1965.
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85. Ibid. PRO DEFE 25/170, Tel. 1863 FO to Singapore, 8 Oct. 1965.
86. Ibid. A breakdown of spending by the Special Counter Subversion Fund for Malaysia
mentions a ‘Newsletter for Indonesian troops’. It also reveals spending on ‘Rupiah notes as
“bait” in magazine aimed at Indonesian troops’ and ‘Polythene sealing machine for floating
leaflets down Borneo rivers’. See PRO CAB 134/3326, SV(66)1, 10 Jan. 1966; SV(66) 24,
30 Nov. 1966
87. PRO FO 371/181530, Tel. 1460 Stanley to Reddaway, 9 Oct. 1965.
88. Crouch (note 38) p.155.
89. PRO FO 371/181457, Minute Stanley to Peck, 25 Nov. 1965.
90. PRO FO 371/187587, Letter 90440/10/66G Adams to de la Mare, attached diagram, 2 June
1966. PRO FO 371/186956, ‘Hong Kong Heads of Mission Conference Information Policy
towards South East Asia and the Far East’, not dated.
91. PRO FO 371/187587, Letter 90440/2/66G Adams to Murray, 19 May 1966; Lashmar and
Oliver (note 49) pp.6–9.
92. Gilchrist Papers GILC 13/K(iii), Letter Reddaway to Gilchrist, 18 July 1966, Churchill
Archives Centre, University of Cambridge.
93. PRO FO 371/187587, Letter 90440/10/66G Adams to de la Mare, 2 June 1966.
94. Gilchrist Papers (note 92).
95. PRO CAB 134/3326, SV(66) 2nd Meeting, (1), 18 May 1966. PRO FO 371/187587,
Minute Stanley to Edmonds, 17 June 1966.
96. PRO FO 371/181457, ‘Record of Meeting between Dato M. Ghazali and Brig-General
Sukendro on 2nd and 3rd November 1965 at Bangkok’, 10 Nov. 1965
97. H.W. Brands, ‘The Limits of Manipulation: How the United States Didn’t Topple
Sukarno’, Journal of American History 76/3-4 (1989) p.802. Brands quotes the US
ambassador to Indonesia as recommending on 5 Oct. 1965 covert efforts ‘to spread the
story of the PKI’s guilt, treachery and brutality’.
98. PRO FO 371/181457, Minute Stanley to Peck, 25 Nov. 1965.
99. Crouch (note 38) p.140. Geoff Simons, Indonesia: The Long Oppression (Basingstoke:
Macmillan 2000) pp.173–4.
100. PRO FO 371/181457 (note 96).
101. PRO FO 371/187587 Letter 90440/2/66G Adams to de la Mare, 19 May 1966.