What ensued was called by the New York Times one of the most savage mass slaughters of modern political history. 7 Violence, wrote Life magazine, tinged not only with fanaticism but with blood-lust and something like witchcraft. 8

Twenty-five years later, American diplomats disclosed that they had systematically compiled comprehensive lists of communist operatives, from top echelons down to village cadres, and turned over as many as 5,000 names to the Indonesian army, which hunted those persons down and killed them. The Americans would then check off the names of those who had been killed or captured. Robert Martens, a former member of the US Embassys political section in Jakarta, stated in 1990: It really was a big help to the army. They probably killed a lot of people, and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but thats not all bad. Theres a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive moment.

I know we had a lot more information [about the PKI] than the Indonesians themselves, said Marshall Green, US Ambassador to Indonesia at the time of the coup. Martens told me on a number of occasions that... the government did not have very good information on the Communist setup, and he gave me the impression that this information was superior to anything they had.

No one cared, as long as they were Communists, that they were being butchered, said Howard Federspiel, who in 1965 was the Indonesia expert at the State Departments Bureau of Intelligence and Research. No one was getting very worked up about it.

Although the former deputy CIA station chief in Indonesia, Joseph Lazarsky, and former diplomat Edward Masters, who was Martens boss, confirmed that CIA officers contributed in drawing up the death lists, the CIA in Langley categorically denied any involvement.9

The massacre put a horrific end to the well-organized PKI national organization. But it did not put to rest the basic questions underlying the events of 1965, to wit:

Was there in actual fact a Generals Council aiming to take over the government within a matter of days? A semi-official account of the whole affair published in Indonesia in 1968 denied the existence of the Council.10 However, a study written and published by the CIA the same year confirmed that there was indeed a Generals Council but that its purpose was only to devise a way to protect itself from a purported plan of Sukarno to crush the army.11

What was the nature and extent, if any, of PKI involvement in the alleged coup attempt? Did some members of the party know of the junior officers plans in advance and simply lend moral support, or did they take a more active role? The semiofficial account stated that the PKIs aim was not to seize political power for itself but to prevent the army from eliminating the Parry after Sukarnos death. 12 (Sukarno had suffered a kidney attack in August, although he quickly recovered. His part in the affair also remains largely a mystery.) The CIA study comes to a similar conclusion: It now seems clear that the Indonesian coup was not a move to overthrow Sukarno and/or the established government of Indonesia. Essentially, it was a purge of the Army leadership. 13

What was the role, if any, of the CIA? Was the coup attempt instigated by an agent provocateur who spread the story of the Generals Council and its imminent putsch? (The killing, or even the abduction, of the six generals probably could not have been foreseen-three of them were actually slain resisting abduction.)14 Was PKI participation induced to provide the excuse for its destruction? There are, in fact, indications of an agent provocateur in the unfolding drama, one Kamarusaman bin

Ahmed Mubaidah, known as Sjam . According to the later testimony of some of the arrested officers, it was Sjam who pushed the idea of the hostile Generals Council and for the need to counteract it. At the trials and in the CIA Study, the attempt is made to establish that, in so doing, Sjam was acting on behalf of PKI leader Aidit. Presentation of this premise may explain why the CIA took the unique step of publishing such a book; i.e., to assign responsibility for the coup attempt to the PKI so as to justify the horror which followed.

But Sjam could just as easily have been acting for the CIA and/or the generals in the same manner. He apparently was a trusted aide of Aidit and could have induced the PKI leader into the plot instead of the other way around. Sjam had a politically checkered and mysterious background, and his testimony at one of the trials, in which he appeared as a defendant, was aimed at establishing Aidit as the sole director of the coup attempt.15

The CIA, in its intimate involvement in Indonesian political affairs since at least the mid-1950s (see Indonesia, 1957-58 chapter), had undoubtedly infiltrated the PKI at various levels, and the military even more so, and was thus in a good position to disseminate disinformation and plant the ideas for certain actions, whether through Sjam or others.

The desire of the US government to be rid of Sukarno-a leader of the non-aligned and anti-imperialist movements of the Third World, and a protector of the PKI-did not diminish with the failure of the Agency-backed military uprising in 1958. Amongst the various reports of the early 1960s indicating a continuing interest in this end, a CIA memorandum of June 1962 is strikingly to the point. The author of the memo, whose name is deleted, was reporting on the impressions he had received from conversations with Western diplomats concerning a recent meeting between President Kennedy and British Prime Minister Macmillan. The two leaders agreed, said the memo, to attempt to isolate Sukarno in Asia and Africa. Further, They agreed to liquidate President Sukarno, depending upon the situation and available opportunities. (It is not clear to me [the CIA officer] whether murder or overthrow is intended by the word liquidate.) 16

Whatever was intended, Sukarno was now, for all practical purposes, eliminated as an international thorn in the flesh. Of even greater significance, the PKI, which had been the largest Communist Party in the world outside the Soviet bloc and China, had been decimated, its tattered remnants driven underground. It could not have worked out better for the United States and the new military junta if it had been planned.

If the generals had been planning their own coup as alleged, the evidence is compelling that the United States was intimately involved before, during and after the events of 30 September/1 October. One aspect of this evidence is the closeness of the relationship between the American and Indonesian military establishments which the United States had been cultivating for many years. President Kennedy, his former aide Arthur Schlesinger has written, was anxious to strengthen the anti-communist forces, especially the army, in order to make sure that, if anything happened to Sukarno, the powerful Indonesian Communist Party would not inherit the country. 17

Roger Hilsman, whose career spanned the CIA and the State Department, has noted that by 1963 ...

one-third of the Indonesian general staff had had some sort of training from Americans and almost half of the officer corps. As a result of both the civic action project and the training program, the American and Indonesian military had come to know each other rather well. Bonds ofpersonal respect and even affection existed.18

This observation is reinforced by reports of the House Committee on Foreign

Affairs:

At the time of the attempted Communist coup and military counter-coup [sic] of October 1965, more than 1,200 Indonesian officers including senior military figures, had been trained in the United States. As a result of this experience, numerous friendships and contacts existed between the Indonesian and American military establishments, particularly between members of the two armies. In the post-coup period, when the political situation was still unsettled, the United States, using these existing channels of communication, was able to provide the anti-Communist forces with moral and token material support.19

When the average MAP [Military Assistance Program] trainee returns home he may well have some American acquaintances and a fair appreciation of the United States. This impact may provide some valuable future opportunity for communication as occurred in Indonesia during and immediately after the attempted Communist-backed coup of October 1965.20

The CIA, wrote the New York Times, was said to have been so successful at infiltrating the top of the Indonesian government and army that the United States was reluctant to disrupt CIA covering operations by withdrawing aid and information programs in 1964 and 1965. What was presented officially in Washington as toleration of President Sukarnos insults and provocations was in much larger measure a desire to keep the CIA fronts in business as long as possible. 21

Finally, we have the testimony of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara before a Senate Committee in 1966:

Senator Sparkman: At a time when Indonesia was kicking up pretty badly-when we were getting a lot of criticism for continuing military aid-at that time we could not say what that military aid was for. Is it secret any more? McNamara: I think in retrospect, that the aid was well justified. Sparkman: You think it paid dividends? McNamara: I do, sir.22

There are other statements which may be pertinent to the question of American involvement. Former US Ambassador Marshall Green, speaking in Australia in 1973 where he was then ambassador, is reported as saying: In 1965 I remember, Indonesia was poised at the razors edge. I remember people arguing from here that Indonesia wouldnt go communist. But when Sukarno announced in his August 17 speech that Indonesia would have a communist government within a year [?] then I was almost certain. ... What we did we had to do, and youd better be glad we did because if we hadnt Asia would be a different place today. 23

James Reston, writing in the New York Times in 1966:

Washington is being careful not to claim any credit for this change [from Sukarno to Suharto] ... bur this does not mean that Washington had nothing to do with it. There was a great deal more contact between the anti-Communist forces in chat country and at least one very high official in Washington before and during the Indonesian massacre than is generally realized. General Suhartos forces, at times severely short of food and munitions, have been getting aid from here through various third countries, and it is doubtful if the [Suharto] coup would ever have been attempted without the American show of strength in Vietnam or been sustained without the clandestine aid it has received indirectly from here.24