7. Sugiono, a teacher at the PKI’s own theoretical school, submitted a thesis on the party’s populist approach, which consisted of positing the “dual aspect of the state,”—one being “pro-people,” and the other “anti-people.” He was indeed disappointed when ideologues in North Korea rejected it as “un-Marxist,” but the Indonesians certainly weren’t going to abandon their philosophy as a result. Recounted in John Roosa, Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto’s Coup d’Etat in Indonesia (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), chap. 5.
8. These numbers, three million for full members and twenty million for affiliates, respectively, come from the PKI and have been widely reproduced by historians as well as US officials. See, for example, Wieringa, Propaganda, 5, and Robinson, The Killing Season, 8. In 1964, Guy J. Pauker arrived at the estimate of between 25 percent and a third of registered voters in a paper for the Rand Corporation titled “Communist Prospects in Indonesia,” and this was only working with the affiliate figure of sixteen million rather than twenty million. It is difficult to know how much, if any, double counting occurred in these estimations.
9. On the PKI’s agitation for parliamentary elections under Guided Democracy, see Mortimer, Indonesian Communism under Sukarno, 120–22. More broadly, Chapter 2 of this volume includes an explanation of the party’s decision to stay very close to Sukarno in this period.
10. Jones, Indonesia: The Possible Dream, 265.
11. Simpson, Economists with Guns, 117.
12. “Crossroads for Sukarno,” New York Times, May 30, 1963.
13. Simpson, Economists with Guns, 88–89.
14. Ibid., 121.
15. Jim Baker, Crossroads: A Popular History of Malaysia and Singapore (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2010), loc. 4000–4088 of 8869, Kindle.
16. Simpson, Economists with Guns, 34.
17. Magdalena’s account is based on author interviews with Magdalena Kastinah, in Solo, Indonesia, 2018–2019.
18. Simpson, Economists with Guns, 125.
19. Jones, Indonesia: The Possible Dream, 297
20. Ibid., 299–300.
21. Simpson, Economists with Guns, 133.
22. Greg Poulgrain, The Incubus of Intervention: Conflicting Indonesia Strategies of John F. Kennedy and Allen Dulles (Petaling Jaya: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre, 2015), 247.
23. Jones, Indonesia: The Possible Dream, 321. See also Simpson, Economists with Guns, 131–34.
24. Jones, Indonesia: The Possible Dream, 325–26.
25. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 241.
26. Simpson, Economists with Guns, 134; author interviews.
27. Jones, Indonesia: The Possible Dream, 343–44, 359–60.
28. Copy of Resignation Letter, Howard P. Jones to President Johnson, November 1, 1964, Box 10, Howard Palfrey Jones Papers, Hoover Institution.
29. Dinner Invitation for May 18, Folder: Subandrio, Box 18, Howard Palfrey Jones Papers, Hoover Institution.
30. Warren Unna, “Jones Was Sukarno’s Pal,” Washington Post, January 17, 1965.
31. Warren Unna, “Our Man in Indonesia: Patsy for Sukarno or Unique Envoy?” Los Angeles Times, January 17, 1965.
32. For a summary of the limited glimpses that we have, see Robinson, Killing Season, 105–115, and Simpson, Economists with Guns, 139–58. The quote “Premature PKI coup” is from Edward Peck, assistant secretary of state in the Foreign Office, in conversation with the New Zealand high commissioner in London (cited in Simpson, 144). “Director of political warfare” is from Simpson, 158. “Virtual certainty” is a quotation from Robinson’s measured analysis of probable activities, 110.
33. Howard Jones, presentation at 1965 Chief of Mission conference, “American-Indonesian Relations,” Howard P. Jones Papers, Hoover Institution, Box 22, HI. Cited in Simpson, Economists with Guns, 157.
34. Roro Sawita, “Tanah, Landreform dan Kemelut 1965,” in Melawan Lupa: Narasi-Narasi Komunitas Taman 65 Bali (Denpasar, 2012), 3–13; Wieringa, Propaganda, 89–90.
35. Taomo Zhou, “China and the Thirtieth of September Movement,” Indonesia 98 (October 2014): 35.
36. Simpson, Economists with Guns, 165–66.
37. Zhou, “China and the Thirtieth of September Movement,” 48–49.
38. Ibid., 49–51. Zhou here interprets this passage as a kind of advance outline of the approach that developed into the September 30th Movement, but it appears in the context of a discussion regarding what the PKI might do if Sukarno dies or is removed from the scene. Upon reading the same conversation I concluded (similarly to Geoffrey Robinson) that Aidit could have been speaking about a contingency plan for a future without Sukarno, or really just speaking extemporaneously as to how they might take more power without provoking the right. What I find most interesting about the China-Indonesia exchange in 1965 is that the Chinese Communists seem to stress the need to prepare for the possibility of violent struggle and suspect the US-backed right may attempt to seize power. Zhou herself concludes unequivocally that Mao was not the architect of the September 30th Movement.
39. Robinson, The Killing Season, 112.
40. Simpson, Economists with Guns, 156.
41. Ibid., 154.
42. Memorandum Prepared for the 303 Committee, FRUS 1964–1968, Vol. XXVI, 110, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v26/d110.
43. George Ball Telephone Conversation (Telcon) with McGeorge Bundy, August 16, 1965, George W. Ball Papers, Mudd Library, Princeton, NJ. Cited in Robinson, The Killing Season, 103.
44. Cited in Robinson, The Killing Season, 110. His footnote for the document is as follows: “Neville Maxwell, a British scholar, discovered the document in the Pakistan Foreign Ministry archive. His unpublished letter of June 5, 1978, to The New York Review of Books describing the document’s contents was later printed as Neville Maxell, ‘CIA Involvement in the 1965 Military Coup: New Evidence from Neville Maxwell,’ Journal of Contemporary Asia 9, no. 2 (1979): 251–52.”
45. Roosa, Pretext for Mass Murder, chap. 1. For the narrative of October 1, I largely follow the narrative flow provided by Roosa’s account, though I do not include any elements that are unique to him and controversial.
46. Roosa, Pretext for Mass Murder. The entire volume is dedicated to making this case, using extensive analysis of documents in several languages.
47. Robinson discusses a range of theories in Killing Season, 65–80. I have very briefly summarized these and added some other questions, mostly those asked by Saskia Wieringa, survivors (in author interviews), and Subandrio (in his volume, cited below).
48. Benedict Anderson and Ruth McVey, “A Preliminary Analysis of the October 1, 1965, Coup in Indonesia,” Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1971.
49. This anecdote was passed on to me secondhand by Andreas Harsono, head of Human Rights Watch in Indonesia, in 2018.
50. Soebandrio, Kesaksianku tentang G30S. The entire volume lays out the explanation for this theory, but the most relevant sections are chaps. 2 and 3.
51. Abdul Latief, Pledoi Kol. A. Latief: Soeharto Terlibat G 30 S (Jakarta, ISAI: 2000).
52. I asked the Agency directly in 2019 what their role was. Their response was that, unfortunately, nothing new had been declassified.
53. CIA Intelligence Info Cable TDCS-315-00846-64, “US-Indonesian Relations,” September 19, 1964, DDC, 1981. Cited in Robinson, Killing Season, 103.
54. Scott, “The United States and the Overthrow of Sukarno, 1965–1967,” 245–49.
55. Soebandrio, Kesaksianku tentang G30S, 5.
56. Roosa, Pretext for Mass Murder, 114.
57. Harian Rakjat, October 2, 1965. The headline reads, “Lieutenant Colonel Untung and the Tjakrabirawa Batallion [Presidential Guard] save President and the Republic from a Council of Generals Coup,” with the subtitle “The September 30th Movement is an internal Army movement.” Copy supplied by Cornell University Library.
58. Author interviews with Aleida, 2018 and
2019.
59. Simpson, Economists with Guns, 181.
60. Scott, “The United States and the Overthrow of Sukarno, 1965–1967,” 260.
61. Angkatan Bersendjata, October 5, 1965. Copy supplied by Cornell University Library.
62. Memorandum of Telephone Conversation Between Acting Secretary of State Ball and Secretary of Defense McNamara, October 1, 1965, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vol. XXVI, Indonesia; Malaysia-Singapore; Philippines, 143, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v26/d143.
63. Telegram from the Embassy in Indonesia to the Department of State, October 14, 1965, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vol. XXVI, 155, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v26/d155.
64. Melvin, The Army and the Indonesian Genocide, 9–10, 25; author interviews with survivors in Central Java also confirm they heard this propaganda line on foreign outlets.
65. Wieringa, Propaganda and the Genocide in Indonesia, 102. See chap. 6 for the context of this particular aspect of military propaganda concerning the events of October 1.
66. See Benedict Anderson, “How Did the Generals Die?” Indonesia 43 (April, 1987): 109–34.
67. Simpson, Economists with Guns, 181.
68. Kyle Burke, Revolutionaries for the Right (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2018), 20–25.
Chapter 7. Extermination
1. Melvin, The Army and the Indonesian Genocide, 127.
2. Telegram from the Embassy in Indonesia to the Department of State, October 5, 1965, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vol. XXVI, Indonesia; Malaysia-Singapore; Philippines, 147, at https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v26/d147.
3. Melvin, The Army and the Indonesian Genocide, 82.
4. Ibid., 89.
5. Ibid., 78.
6. Ibid., 143.
7. Ibid., 3, 72.
8. Ibid., 125.
9. Angkatan Bersendjata, October 8, 1965. Copy provided by Cornell Library. This illustration is discussed in Melvin, The Army and Indonesian Genocide, 41.
10. Ibid., 1.
11. Telegram from the Embassy in Indonesia to the Department of State, Djakarta, October 20, 1965, 0330Z, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vol. XXVI, 158, at https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v26/d158.
12. Telegram, Djakara to SecState, “1. PII Moslem Youth Leader,” October 21, 1965, RG 59, Central Files 1964–1966, Pol 23-9 Indon, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
13. Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson, October 22, 1965, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vol. XXVI, Indonesia; Malaysia-Singapore; Philippines, 160.
14. Telegram, Djakarta to Sec State, October 22, 1965, “PAGE TWO RUMJBT.” Copy from original document held in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library provided by Bradley Simpson.
15. Ibid.,186–87.
16. Kathy Kadane, “US Officials’ Lists Aided Indonesian Bloodbath in ’60s,” Washington Post, May 21, 1990, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/05/21/us-officials-lists-aided-indonesian-bloodbath-in-60s/ff6d37c3-8eed-486f-908c-3eeafc19aab2/?utm_term=.d9f3a266673c.
17. Some authors have suggested that Wisner’s death was somehow caused by the consequences of the actions he took in Indonesia and elsewhere years ago. His son Frank Wisner Jr. rejects this theory, and also says he was unlikely to be reading the news or following global affairs in his final days. Author interviews, 2018 and 2019.
18. Wieringa, Propaganda, 15, 87. The “largest Muslim organization” is Nahdlatul Ulama.
19. Melvin, The Army and the Indonesian Genocide, 168, 211. For interviews with witnesses to the violence, see also Baskara Wardaya, “Truth Will Out” (Victoria: Monash University Publishing, 2013).
20. Telegram, Djakarta to SecState, Joint Sitrep No. 47, “Page 5 RumJBT 272A S E C R E T,” November 6, 1965, RG 59, Central Files 1964–1966, Pol 23-9 Indon, NARA.
21. Airgram A-545, Djakarta to State, “Subject: Alleged Aidit Confession Reported in Asahi Shimbum is Apparently False,” March 4, 1966, RG 59, Central Files 1964–1966, Pol 23-9 Indon, NARA.
22. The event was the Konferensi Internasional Anti Pangkalan Militer Asing, or KIAPMA for short. Author interviews with Martin Aleida, 2019.
23. Simpson, Economists with Guns, 196–97.
24. Telegram 741 from State to Jakarta, December 8, 1965; and Telegram 1605 from Jakarta to State, December 1, 1965, both in RG 59, Central Files, 1964–1966, POL 23-9, Indonesia, NA. Cited in Simpson, Economists with Guns, 197.
25. Simpson, Economists with Guns, 198–99.
26. Ibid., 199.
27. Geoffrey Robinson, The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Violence in Bali (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), 293.
28. Ibid., 251–54, 300.
29. Ibid., 273
30. Ibid., 184.
31. Ibid., 301.
32. Airgram A-453, Djakarta to State, “Subject: U.S. Policy Assessment,” January 14, 1966, RG 59, Central Files 1964–1966, Pol 2-3 Indon, NARA.
33. Roosa, Pretext for Mass Murder, 200.
34. Soebandrio, Kesaksianku tentang G30S, 41.
35. Wieringa, Propaganda, 35.
36. Legge, Sukarno, 402.
37. Simpson, Economists with Guns, 231–32.
38. Telegram, Singapore to SecState, “1. Several American Correspondents,” March 17, 1965, RG 59, Central Files 1964–1966, Pol 15-1 Indon, NARA.
39. “Amok” is from Malay, which is simple enough to say, but I didn’t want to confuse readers who are likely to think “Malaysia” when they hear Malay.
40. C. L. Sulzberger, “Foreign Affairs: When a Nation Runs Amok,” New York Times, April 13, 1966.
41. Robinson, Killing Season, 138.
42. For a discussion of amok in the US press, see Roosa, Pretext for Mass Murder, 26–27. The well-documented episodes of mass murder in Indonesia up to this point all involve foreign actors to some extent, and took place during the colonial period, attempts to reconquer the archipelago after World War II, and the Japanese occupation (1942–45).
43. One survivor and party member, Sunaryo, recalled that he and a few friends did consider trying to mount some resistance. But they were held back by PKI leadership in Solo. Author interviews in Solo, 2018.
44. For Sarwo Edhie’s claims, see Robinson, Killing Fields, 339 (footnote 3); for a concise discussion of the various estimates, see Ibid., 119.
45. Wieringa, Propaganda, 132.
46. Ibid., 105, and author interview with Sumiyati and other victims.
47. For the best defense of the use of the term to describe the events of 1965–66, see Melvin, The Army and the Indonesian Genocide, chap. 1. See also Helen Jarvis and Saskia E. Wieringa, “The Indonesian Massacres as Genocide,” in The International People’s Tribunal for 1965 and the Indonesian Genocide (Routledge, 2019).
48. Ragna Boden, “The ‘Gestapu’ Events of 1965 in Indonesia: New Evidence from Russian and German Archives,” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 163, no. 4 (2007): 515–17; “Memorandum about talks with the Deputy Head of the Department for International Relations of the Central Committee of the PKI, Comrade Zain Nasution, on 30 June 1965,” Stiftung Archiv Parteien und Messenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv (SAP-MO-BArch) DY 30 / IV A2 / 20, 66. Cited in Wardaya, 1965: Indonesia and the World (Jakarta 2013).
49. Final Report of the IPT 1965: Findings and Documents of the International People’s Tribunal on Crimes against Humanity Indonesia 1965 (The Hague, Jakarta, 2016).
50. Christian Gerlach, Extremely Violent Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 82.
51. Roosa, Pretext for Mass Murder, 13.
52. “A Gleam of Light in Asia,” New York Times, June 18, 1966.
53. Maior, America’s First Spy, 192–94.
54. Kathy Kadane, “US Officials’ Lists Aided Indonesian Bloodbath in ’60s.”
Chapter 8. Around the World
1. Robert McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy an
d Loss of Vietnam (New York: Times Books, 1995), 215.
2. Ibid., 219.
3. Ibid., 270.
4. Nhân Dân, October 7–18, 1965. Accessed at National Library of Vietnam in Hanoi.
5. These are official statistics from Hanoi cited approvingly by Christopher Goscha in Vietnam: A New History (New York: Basic Books, 2016), 329. As Goscha argues elsewhere in the book, the Vietnamese government tended to underplay, not overexaggerate, the sacrifices required by the war in the subsequent years. See also Philip Shenon, “20 Years After Victory, Vietnamese Communists Ponder How to Celebrate,” New York Times, April 23 1995.
6. For a discussion of why the war went on as long as it did, see Goscha, Vietnam, 333–40.
7. Ibid., 329–36.
8. Burke, Revolutionaries for the Right, 148.
9. Boden, “The ‘Gestapu’ Events,” 515.
10. Ibid.
11. For a discussion of international reactions elsewhere, especially Europe, see Gerlach, Extremely Violent Societies, 80–85.
12. For official comments and GDR commentary, see Boden, “‘Gestapu’ Events,” 515–19.
13. Author interviews, 2018 and 2019, Amsterdam.
14. Ratna Saptari, “Persecution through Denial of Citizenship: Indonesians in Forced Exile Post 1965,” in Saskia E. Wieringa, Jess Melvin, and Annie Pohlman, eds., The International People’s Tribunal for 1965 and the Indonesian Genocide (New York: Routledge, 2019).
15. Thomas, The Very Best Men, 186.
16. LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions, 166.
17. For a very general overview of this period, see Ralph Lee Woodward Jr., A Short History of Guatemala (Guatemala: Laura Lee, 2008), 140–50. For a more extensive treatment in Spanish, see Ricardo Sáenz de Tejada, “Modernización y conflictos, 1944–2000,” in Babara Arroyo et al., Los Caminos de Nuestra Historia: estructuras, procesos y actores, Volumen II (Guatemala: Editorial Cara Parens, 2015), 150–52.
18. Greg Grandin and Elizabeth Oglesby, “Washington Trained Guatemala’s Mass Murderers—and the Border Patrol Played a Role,” The Nation, January 3, 2019; Greg Grandin, “The Border Patrol Has Been a Cult of Brutality since 1924,” The Intercept, January 12, 2019.
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