kudeta 8

manuscript  keenam, Telegram rahasia Sekretariat Negara, kode DDRS R: 608 E, tanggal 8 

Oktober 1965, dikirim dari kedubes AS di Jakarta, ditujukan ke  

Washington dan berbagai kedubes AS di Canberra, Bangkok, Hongkong, Kuala Lumpur, 

London, Manila dan Tokio. Berisi 7 pokok situasi negara kita   

sesudah  seminggu pembunuhan terhadap para pimpinan tentara: (1) PKI dan Soekarno diduga 

terlibat dalam peristiwa ini , (2) komunis cerai berai dan Aidit melarikan diri, (3) 

penangkapan Nyono, Nyoto dikejar kejar, pembakaran kantor kantor PKI, (4) semua organisasi 

islam dan kristen bergabung dengan tentara, (5) dalam KIAPMA, konperensi anti basis basis  

militer luar negeri yang dijadwalkan Oktober, diperkirakan akan dipakai Soekarno dan 

soebandrio   untuk propaganda melawan AS dan CIA, (6) tentara terus mencari bukti bukti 

keterlibatan PKI, dan (7) para pimpinan tentara mulai sadar bahwa inilah saatnya bangkit 

melawan Sukarno, namun  di lain pihak menyadari mereka tetap membutuhkan namanya, untuk 

memenangkan pertarungan ini .  

 

National Security Archive 

Document1.pp.379 380 

                  

 

 

Document2.pp.386 387 

          

The United States and the Overthrow of Sukarno, 1965 1967 

Peter Dale Scott  

 

This article is from Pacific Affairs, 58, Summer 1985, pages 239 264. Peter Dale Scott is a professor of English 

at the University of California in Berkeley, and a member of the advisory board at Public kabar rmation 

Research.  

 

In this short paper on a huge and vexed subject, I discuss the U.S. involvement in the bloody 

overthrow of negara kita 's President Sukarno, 1965 67. The whole story of that ill understood 

period would transcend even the fullest possible written analysis. Much of what happened can 

never be documented; and of the documentation that survives, much is both controversial and 

unverifiable. The slaughter of Sukarno's left wing allies was a product of widespread paranoia as 

well as of conspiratorial policy, and represents a tragedy beyond the intentions of any single 

group or coalition. Nor is it suggested that in 1965 the only provocations and violence came from 

the right wing Indonesia military, their contacts in the United States, or (also important, but 

barely touched on here) their mutual contacts in British, German and Japanese intelligence.  

And yet, after all this has been said, the complex and ambiguous story of the Indonesia 

bloodbath is also in essence simpler and easier to believe than the public version inspired by 

President Suharto and U.S. government sources. Their problematic claim is that in the so called 

Gestapu (pergerakan  September Tigahpuluh) coup attempt of September 30, 1965 (when six senior 

army generals were murdered), the left attacked the right, leading to a restoration of power, and 

punitive purge of the left, by the center.1 This article argues instead that, by inducing, or at a 

minimum helping to induce, the Gestapu  coup,  the right in the Indonesia Army eliminated its 

rivals at the army's center, thus paving the way to a long planned elimination of the civilian left, 

and eventually to the establishment of a military dictatorship.2 Gestapu, in other words, was only 

the first phase of a three phase right wing coup    one which had been both publicly encouraged 

and secretly assisted by U.S. spokesmen and officials.3  

Before turning to U.S. involvement in what the CIA itself has called  one of the worst mass 

murders of the twentieth century, 4 let us recall what actually led up to it. According to the 

Australian scholar Harold Crouch, by 1965 the Indonesia Army General Staff was split into two 

camps. At the center were the general staff officers appointed with, and loyal to, the army 

commander General Yani, who in turn was reluctant to challenge President Sukarno's policy of 

national unity in alliance with the Indonesia Communist party, or PKI. The second group, 

including the right wing generals Nasution and Suharto, comprised those opposed to Yani and 

his Sukarnoist policies.5 All of these generals were anti PKI, but by 1965 the divisive issue was 

Sukarno.  

The simple (yet untold) story of Sukarno's overthrow is that in the fall of 1965 Yani and his inner 

circle of generals were murdered, paving the way for a seizure of power by right wing anti Yani 

forces allied to Suharto. The key to this was the so called Gestapu coup attempt which, in the 

name of supporting Sukarno, in fact targeted very precisely the leading members of the army's 

most loyal faction, the Yani group.6 An army unity meeting in January 1965, between  Yani's 

inner circle  and those (including Suharto) who  had grievances of one sort or another against 

Yani,  lined up the victims of September 30 against those who came to power after their 

murder.7  

Not one anti Sukarno general was targeted by Gestapu, with the obvious exception of General 

Nasution.8 But by 1961 the CIA operatives had become disillusioned with Nasution as a reliable 

asset, because of his  consistent record of yielding to Sukarno on several major counts. 9 

Relations between Suharto and Nasution were also cool, since Nasution, after investigating 

Suharto on corruption charges in 1959, had transferred him from his command.10  

The duplicitous distortions of reality, first by Lt. Colonel Untung's pernyataan s for Gestapu, and 

then by Suharto in  putting down  Gestapu, are mutually supporting lies.11 Untung, on October 

1, announced ambiguously that Sukarno was under Gestapu's  protection  (he was not); also, that 

a CIA backed Council of Generals had planned a coup for before October 5, and had for this 

purpose brought  troops from East, Central, and West Java  to Jakarta.12 Troops from these areas 

had indeed been brought to Jakarta for an Armed Forces Day parade on October 5th. Untung did 

not mention, however, that  he himself had been involved in the planning for the Armed Forces 

Day parade and in selecting the units to participate in it; 13 nor that these units (which included 

his own former battalion, the 454th) supplied most of the allies for his new battalion's Gestapu 

activities in Jakarta.  

Suharto's first two broadcasts reaffirmed the army's constant loyalty to  sukarno  the Great 

Leader,  and also blamed the deaths of six generals on PKI youth and women, plus  elements of 

the Air Force     on no other evidence than the site of the well where the corpses were found.14 

At this time he knew very well that the killings had in fact been carried out by the very army 

elements Untung referred to, elements under Suharto's own command.15  

Thus, whatever the motivation of anggotanya als such as Untung in the Gestapu putsch, Gestapu as 

such was duplicitous. Both its rhetoric and above all its actions were not simply inept; they were 

carefully designed to prepare for Suharto's equally duplicitous response. For example, Gestapu's 

decision to guard all sides of the downtown Merdeka Square in Jakarta, except that on which 

Suharto's KOSTRAD [Army Strategic Reserve Command] headquarters were situated, is 

consistent with Gestapu's decision to target the only army generals who might have challenged 

Suharto's assumption of power. Again, Gestapu's announced transfer of power to a totally 

fictitious  Revolutionary Council,  from which Sukarno had been excluded, allowed Suharto in 

turn to masquerade as Sukarno's defender while in fact preventing him from resuming control. 

More importantly, Gestapu's gratuitous murder of the generals near the air force base where PKI 

youth had been trained allowed Suharto, in a Goebbels like manoeuvre, to transfer the blame for 

the killings from the troops under his own command (whom he knew had carried out the 

kidnappings) to air force and PKI personnel who where ignorant of them.16  

From the pro Suharto sources    notably the CIA study of Gestapu published in 1968    we learn 

how few troops were involved in the alleged Gestapu rebellion, and, more importantly, that in 

Jakarta as in Central Java the same battalions that supplied the  rebellious  companies were also 

used to  put the rebellion down.  Two thirds of one paratroop brigade (which Suharto had 

inspected the previous day) plus one company and one platoon constituted the whole of Gestapu 

forces in Jakarta; all but one of these units were commanded by present or former Diponegoro 

Division officers close to Suharto; and the last was under an officer who obeyed Suharto's close 

political ally, Basuki Rachmat.17  

Two of these companies, from the 454th and 530th battalions, were elite raiders, and from 1962 

these units had been among the main Indonesia recipients of U.S. assistance.18 This fact, which 

in itself proves nothing, increases our curiosity about the many Gestapu leaders who had been 

U.S. trained. The Gestapu leader in Central Java, Saherman, had retour d from training at Fort 

Leavenworth and Okinawa, shortly before meeting with Untung and Major Sukirno of the 454th 

Battalion in mid August 1965.19 As Ruth McVey has observed, Saherman's acceptance for 

training at Fort Leavenworth  would mean that he had passed review by CIA observers. 20  

Thus there is continuity between the achievements of both Gestapu and the response to it by 

Suharto, who in the name of defending Sukarno and attacking Gestapu continued its task of 

eliminating the pro Yani members of the Army General Staff, along with such other residual 

elements of support for first Yani and then Sukarno as remained.21  

The biggest part of this task was of course the elimination of the PKI and its supporters, in a 

bloodbath which, as some Suharto allies now concede, may have taken more than a half million 

lives. These three events    Gestapu, Suharto's response, and the bloodbath    have nearly always 

been presented in this country as separately motivated: Gestapu being described as a plot by 

leftists, and the bloodbath as for the most part an irrational act of pojuga r frenzy.  

U.S. officials, journalists and scholars, some with rather prominent CIA connections, are perhaps 

principally responsible for the myth that the bloodbath was a spontaneous, pojuga r revulsion to 

what U.S. Ambassador Jones later called PKI  carnage. 22 Although the PKI certainly 

contributed its share to the political hysteria of 1965, Crouch has shown that subsequent claims 

of a PKI terror campaign were grossly exaggerated.23 In fact systematic killing occurred under 

army instigation in staggered stages, the worst occurring as Colonel Sarwo Edhie's RPKAD 

[Army Paracommando Regiment] moved from Jakarta to Central and East Java, and finally to 

Bali.24 Civilians involved in the massacre were either recruited and trained by the army on the 

spot, or were drawn from groups (such as the army  and CIA sponsored SOKSI trade unions 

[Central Organization of Indonesia Socialist Employees], and allied student organizations) 

which had collaborated for years with the army on political matters. It is clear from 

Sundhaussen's account that in most of the first areas of organized massacre (North Sumatra, 

Aceh, Cirebon, the whole of Central and East Java), there were local army commanders with 

especially strong and proven anti PKI sentiments. Many of these had for years cooperated with 

civilians, through so called  civic action  programs sponsored by the United States, in operations 

directed against the PKI and sometimes Sukarno. Thus one can legitimately suspect conspiracy 

in the fact that anti PKI  civilian responses  began on October 1, when the army began handing 

out arms to Muslim students and unionists, before there was any publicly available evidence 

linking Gestapu to the PKI.25  

Even Sundhaussen, who downplays the army's role in arming and inciting the civilian murder 

bands, concludes that, whatever the strength of pojuga r anti PKI hatred and fear,  without the 

Army's anti PKI propaganda the massacre might not have happened. 26 The present article goes 

further and argues that Gestapu, Suharto's response, and the bloodbath were part of a single 

coherent scenario for a military takeover, a scenario which was again followed closely in Chile 

in the years 1970 73 (and to some extent in Cambodia in 1970).  

Suharto, of course, would be a principal conspirator in this scenario: his duplicitous role of 

posing as a defender of the constitutional status quo, while in fact moving deliberately to 

overthrow it, is analogous to that of General Pinochet in Chile. But a more direct role in 

organizing the bloodbath was played by civilians and officers close to the cadres of the CIA's 

failed rebellion of 1958, now working in so called  civic action  programs funded and trained by 

the United States. Necessary ingredients of the scenario had to be, and clearly were, supplied by 

other nations in support of Suharto. Many such countries appear to have played such a 

supporting role: Japan, Britain, Germany,27 possibly Australia. But I wish to focus on the 

encouragement and support for military  putschism  and mass murder which came from the 

U.S., from the CIA, the military, RAND, the Ford Foundation, and anggotanya als.28  

The United States and the Indonesia Army's  Mission   

It seems clear that from as early as 1953 the U.S. was interested in helping to foment the regional 

crisis in negara kita , usually recognized as the  immediate cause  that induced Sukarno, on March 

14, 1957, to proclaim martial law, and bring  the officer corps legitimately into politics. 29  

By 1953 (if not earlier) the U.S. National Security Council had already adopted one of a series of 

policy documents calling for  approlaki-laki te action, in collaboration with other friendly countries, 

to prevent permanent communist control  of negara kita .30 Already NSC 171/1 of that year 

envisaged military training as a means of increasing U.S. influence, even though the CIA's 

primary efforts were directed towards right wing political parties ( moderates ... on the right,  as 

NSC 171 called them): notably the Masjumi Muslim and the PSI  Socialist  parties. The millions 

of dollars which the CIA poured into the Masjumi and the PSI in the mid 1950s were a factor 

influencing the events of 1965, when a former PSI member    Sjam    was the alleged 

mastermind of Gestapu,31 and PSI leaning officers    notably Suwarto and Sarwo Edhie    were 

prominent in planning and carrying out the anti PKI response to Gestapu.32  

In 1957 58, the CIA infiltrated arms and personnel in support of the regional rebellions against 

Sukarno. These operations were nominally covert, even though an American plane and pilot 

were captured, and the CIA efforts were accompanied by an offshore task force of the U.S. 

Seventh Fleet.33 In 1975 a Senate Select Committee studying the CIA discovered what it called 

 some evidence of CIA involvement in plans to assassinate President Sukarno ; but, after an 

initial investigation of the November 1957 assassination attempt in the Cikini district of Jakarta, 

the committee did not pursue the matter.34  

On August 1, 1958, after the failure of the CIA sponsored PRRI Permesta regional rebellions 

against Sukarno, the U.S. began an upgraded military assistance program to negara kita  in the 

order of twenty million dollars a year.35 A U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff memo of 1958 makes it 

clear this aid was given to the Indonesia Army ( the only non Communist force ... with the 

capability of obstructing the ... PKI ) as  encouragement  to Nasution to  carry out his 'plan' for 

the control of Communism. 36  

The JCS had no need to spell out Nasution's  plan,  to which other documents at this time made 

reference.37 It could only imply the tactics for which Nasution had distinguished himself (in 

American eyes) during the crushing of the PKI in the Madiun Affair of 1948: mass murders and 

mass arrests, at a minimum of the party's cadres, possibly after an army provocation.38 Nasution 

confirmed this in November 1965, after the Gestapu slaughter, when he called for the total 

extinction of the PKI,  down to its very roots so there will be no third Madiun. 39  

By 1958, however, the PKI had emerged as the largest mass movement in the country. It is in 

this period that a small group of U.S. academic researchers in U.S. Air Force  and CIA 

subsidized  think tanks  began pressuring their contacts in the Indonesia military publicly, 

often through U.S. scholarly journals and presses, to seize power and liquidate the PKI 

opposition.40 The most prominent example is Guy Pauker, who in 1958 both taught at the 

University of California at Berkeley and served as a consultant at the RAND Corporation. In the 

latter capacity he maintained frequent contact with what he himself called  a very small group  

of PSI intellectuals and their friends in the army.41  

In a RAND Corporation book published by the Princeton University Press, Pauker urged his 

contacts in the Indonesia military to assume  full responsibility  for their nation's leadership, 

 fulfill a mission,  and hence  to strike, sweep their house clean. 42 Although Pauker may not 

have intended anything like the scale of bloodbath which eventually ensued, there is no escaping 

the fact that  mission  and  sweep clean  were buzz words for counterinsurgency and massacre, 

and as such were used frequently before and during the coup. The first murder order, by military 

officers to Muslim students in early october, was the word sikat, meaning  sweep,   clean out,  

 wipe out,  or  massacre. 43  

Pauker's closest friend in the Indonesia army was a U.S. trained General Suwarto, who played 

an important part in the conversion of the army from a revolutionary to a counterinsurgency 

function. In the years after 1958, Suwarto built the Indonesia Army Staff and Command School 

in Bandung (SESKOAD) into a training ground for the takeover of political power. SESKOAD 

in this period became a focal point of attention from the Pentagon, the CIA, RAND, and 

(indirectly) the Ford Foundation.44  

Under the guidance of Nasution and Suwarto, SESKOAD developed a new strategic doctrine, 

that of Territorial Warfare (in a document translated into English by Pauker), which gave priority 

to counterinsurgency as the army's role. Especially after 1962, when the Kennedy administration 

aided the Indonesia Army in developing Civic Mission or  civic action  programs, this meant 

the organization of its own political infrastructure, or  Territorial Organization,  reaching in 

some cases down to the village level.45 As the result of an official U.S. State Department 

recommendation in 1962, which Pauker helped write, a special U.S. MILTAG (Military Training 

Advisory Group) was set up in Jakarta, to assist in the implementation of SESKOAD's Civic 

Mission programs.46  

SESKOAD also trained the army officers in economics and administration, and thus to operate 

virtually as a para state, independent of Sukarno's government. So the army began to collaborate, 

and even sign contracts, with U.S. and other foreign corporations in areas which were now under 

its control. This training program was entrusted to officers and civilians close to the PSI.47 U.S. 

officials have confirmed that the civilians, who themselves were in a training program funded by 

the Ford Foundation, became involved in what the (then) U.S. military attache called 

 contingency planning  to prevent a PKI takeover.48  

But the most significant focus of U.S. training and aid was the Territorial Organization's 

increasing liaison with  the civilian administration, religious and cultural organizations, youth 

groups, veterans, trade unions, peasant organizations, political parties and groups at regional and 

local levels. 49 These political liaisons with civilian groups provided the structure for the ruthless 

suppression of the PKI in 1965, including the bloodbath.50  

Soon these army and civilian cadres were together plotting disruptive activities, such as the 

Bandung anti Chinese riots of May 1963, which embarrassed not just the PKI, but Sukarno 

himself. Chomsky and Herman report that  Army inspired anti Chinese programs that took place 

in West Java in 1959 were financed by U.S. contributions to the local army commander ; 

apparently CIA funds were used by the commander (Colonel Kosasih) to pay local thugs in what 

Mozingo calls  the army's (and probably the Americans') campaign to rupture relations with 

China. 51 The 1963 riot, which took place in the very shadow of SESKOAD, is linked by 

Sundhaussen to an army  civic action  organization; and shows conspiratorial contact between 

elements (an underground PSI cell, PSI  and Masjumi affiliated student groups, and General 

Ishak Djuarsa of the Siliwangi Division's  civic action  organization) that would all be 

prominent in the very first phase of Suharto's so called  response  to the Gestapu.52 The May 

1963 student riots were repeated in October 1965 and (especially in Bandung) January 1966, at 

which time the liaison between students and the army was largely in the hands of PSI leaning 

officers like Sarwo Edhie and Kemal Idris.53 The CIA Plans Directorate was sympathetic to the 

increasing deflection of a nominally anti PKI operation into one embarrassing Sukarno. This turn 

would have come as no surprise: Suwarto, Kemal Idris and the PSI had been prominent in a near 

coup (the so called  Lubis affair ) in 1956.54  

But increasingly Suwarto cultivated a new student, Colonel Suharto, who arrived at SESKOAD 

in October 1959. According to Sundhaussen, a relatively pro Suharto scholar:  In the early 1960s 

Soeharto was involved in the formation of the Doctrine of Territorial Warfare and the Army's 

policy on Civic Mission (that is, penetration of army officers into all fields of government 

activities and responsibilities).55 Central to the public image of Gestapu and Suharto's response is 

the much publicized fact that Suharto, unlike his sometime teacher Suwarto, and his long time 

chief of staff Achmad Wiranatakusuma, had never studied in the United States. But his 

involvement in Civic Mission (or what Americans called  civic action ) programs located him 

along with PSI leaning officers at the focal point of U.S. training activities in negara kita , in a 

program which was nakedly political.56  

The refinement of Territorial Warfare and Civic Mission Doctrine into a new strategic doctrine 

for army political intervention became by 1965 the ideological process consolidating the army 

for political takeover. After Gestapu, when Suwarto was an important political advisor to his 

former SESKOAD pupil Suharto, his strategic doctrine was the justification for Suharto's 

announcement on August 15, 1966, in fulfillment of Pauker's public and private urgings, that the 

army had to assume a leading role in all fields.57  

Hence the army unity meeting of January 1965, arranged after Suharto had duplicitously urged 

Nasution to take  a more accommodating line 58 towards Sukarno, was in fact a necessary step in 

the process whereby Suharto effectively took over from his rivals Yani and Nasution. It led to 

the April 1965 seminar at SESKOAD for a compromise army strategic doctrine, the Tri Ubaya 

Cakti, which  reaffirmed the army's claim to an independent political role. 59 On August 15, 

1966, Suharto, speaking to the nation, justified his increasing prominence in terms of the 

 Revolutionary Mission  of the Tri Ubaya Cakti doctrine. Two weeks later at SESKOAD the 

doctrine was revised, at Suharto's instigation but in a setting  carefully orchestrated by Brigadier 

Suwarto,  to embody still more clearly Pauker's emphasis on the army's  Civic Mission  or 

counterrevolutionary role.60 This  Civic Mission,  so important to Suharto, was also the principal 

goal and fruit of U.S. military aid to negara kita .  

By August 1964, moreover, Suharto had initiated political contacts with Malaysia, and hence 

eventually with Japan, Britain, and the United States.61 Although the initial purpose of these 

contacts may have been to head off war with Malaysia, Sundhaussen suggests that Suharto's 

motive was his concern, buttressed in mid 1964 by a KOSTRAD intelligence report, about PKI 

political advances.62 Mrazek links the peace feelers to the withdrawal of  some of the best army 

units  back to Java in the summer of 1965.63 These movements, together with earlier deployment 

of a politically insecure Diponegoro battalion in the other direction, can also be seen as 

preparations for the seizure of power.64  

In Nishihara's kabar rmed Japanese account, former PRRI atau  Permesta personnel with intelligence 

connections in Japan were prominent in these negotiations, along with Japanese officials.65 

Nishihara also heard that an intimate ally of these personnel, Jan Walandouw, who may have 

acted as a CIA contact for the 1958 rebellion, later again  visited Washington and advocated 

Suharto as a leader. 66 I am reliably kabar rmed that Walandouw's visit to Washington on behalf of 

Suharto was made some months before Gestapu.67  

The U.S. Moves Against Sukarno  

Many people in Washington, especially in the CIA Plans Directorate, had long desired the 

 removal  of Sukarno as well as of the PKI.68 By 1961 key policy hard liners, notably Guy 

Pauker, had also tour d against Nasution.69 Nevertheless, despite last minute memoranda from 

the ouoing Eisenhower administration which would have opposed  whatever regime  in 

negara kita  was  increasingly friendly toward the Sino Soviet bloc,  the Kennedy administration 

stepped up aid to both Sukarno and the army.70  

However, Lyndon Johnson's accession to the presidency was followed almost immediately by a 

shift to a more anti Sukarno policy. This is clear from Johnson's decision in December 1963 to 

withhold economic aid which (according to Ambassador Jones) Kennedy would have supplied 

 almost as a matter of routine. 71 This refusal suggests that the U.S. aggravation of negara kita 's 

economic woes in 1963 65 was a matter of policy rather than inadvertence. Indeed, if the CIA's 

overthrow of Allende is a relevant analogy, then one would expect someday to learn that the 

CIA, through currency speculations and other hostile acts, contributed actively to the radical 

destabilization of the Indonesia economy in the weeks just before the coup, when  the price of 

rice quadrupled between June 30 and October 1, and the black market price of the dollar 

skyrocketed, particularly in September. 72  

As was the case in Chile, the gradual cutoff of all economic aid to negara kita  in the years 1962 65 

was accompanied by a shift in military aid to friendly elements in the Indonesia Army: U.S. 

military aid amounted to $39.5 million in the four years 1962 65 (with a peak of $16.3 million in 

1962) as opposed to $28.3 million for the thirteen years 1949 61.73 After March 1964, when 

Sukarno told the U.S.,  go to hell with your aid,  it became increasingly difficult to extract any 

aid from the U.S. congress: those persons not aware of what was developing found it hard to 

understand why the U.S. should help arm a country which was nationalizing U.S. economic 

interests, and using immense aid subsidies from the Soviet Union to confront the British in 

Malaysia.  

Thus a public image was created that under Johnson  all United States aid to negara kita  was 

stopped,  a claim so buttressed by misleading documentation that competent scholars have 

repeated it.74 In fact, Congress had agreed to treat U.S. funding of the Indonesia military (unlike 

aid to any other country) as a covert matter, restricting congressional review of the president's 

determinations on Indonesia aid to two Senate committees, and the House Speaker, who were 

concurrently involved in oversight of the CIA.75  

Ambassador Jones' more candid account admits that  suspension  meant  the U.S. government 

undertook no new commitments of assistance, although it continued with ongoing programs.... 

By maintaining our modest assistance to [the Indonesia Army and the police brigade], we 

fortified them for a virtually inevitable showdown with the burgeoning PKI. 76  

Only from recently released documents do we learn that new military aid was en route as late as 

July 1965, in the form of a secret contract to deliver two hundred Aero Commanders to the 

Indonesia Army: these were light aircraft suitable for use in  civic action  or counterinsurgency 

operations, presumably by the Army Flying Corps whose senior officers were virtually all 

trained in the U.S.77 By this time, the publicly admitted U.S. aid was virtually limited to the 

completion of an army communications system and to  civic action  training. It was by using the 

army's new communications system, rather than the civilian system in the hands of Sukarno 

loyalists, that Suharto on October 1, 1965 was able to implement his swift purge of Sukarno 

Yani loyalists and leftists, while  civic action  officers formed the hard core of lower level 

Gestapu officers in Central Java.78  

Before turning to the more covert aspects of U.S. military aid to negara kita  in 1963 65, let us 

review the overall changes in U.S. Indonesia relations. Economic aid was now in abeyance, and 

military aid tightly channeled so as to strengthen the army domestically. U.S. government 

funding had obviously shifted from the Indonesia state to one of its least loyal components. As 

a result of agreements beginning with martial law in 1957, but accelerated by the U.S. negotiated 

oil agreement of 1963, we see exactly the same shift in the flow of payments from U.S. oil 

companies. Instead of token royalties to the Sukarno government, the two big U.S. oil companies 

in negara kita , Stanvac and Caltex, now made much larger payments to the army's oil company, 

Permina, headed by an eventual political ally of Suharto, General Ibnu Sutowo; and to a second 

company, Pertamin, headed by the anti PKI and pro U.S. politician, Chaerul Saleh.79 After 

Suharto's overthrow of Sukarno, Fortune wrote that  Sutowo's still small company played a key 

part in bankrolling those crucial operations, and the army has never forgotten it. 80  

U.S. Support for the Suharto Faction Before Gestapu  

American officials commenting on the role of U.S. aid in this period have taken credit for 

assisting the anti Communist seizure of power, without ever hinting at any degree of 

conspiratorial responsibility in the planning of the bloodbath. The impression created is that U.S. 

officials remained aloof from the actual planning of events, and we can see from recently 

declassified cable traffic how carefully the U.S. government fostered this image of detachment 

from what was happening in negara kita .81  

In fact, however, the U.S. government was lying about its involvement. In Fiscal Year 1965, a 

period when The New York Times claimed  all United States aid to negara kita  was stopped,  the 

number of MAP (Military Assistance Program) personnel in Jakarta actually increased, beyond 

what had been projected, to an unprecedented high.82 According to figures released in 1966,83 

from FY 1963 to FY 1965 the value of MAP deliveries fell from about fourteen million dollars 

to just over two million dollars. Despite this decline, the number of MAP military personnel 

remained almost unchanged, approximately thirty, while in FY 1965 civilian personnel (fifteen) 

were present for the first time. Whether or not one doubts that aid deliveries fell off as sharply as 

the figures would suggest, the MILTAG personnel figures indicate that their  civic action  

program was being escalated, not decreased.84 We have seen that some months before Gestapu, a 

Suharto emissary with past CIA connections (Colonel Jan Walandouw) made contact with the 

U.S. government. From as early as May 1965, U.S. military suppliers with CIA connections 

(principally Lockheed) were negotiating equipment sales with payoffs to middlemen, in such a 

way as to generate payoffs to backers of the hitherto little known leader of a new third faction in 

the army, Major General Suharto    rather than to those backing Nasution or Yani, the titular 

leaders of the armed forces. Only in the last year has it been confirmed that secret funds 

administered by the U.S. Air Force (possibly on behalf of the CIA) were laundered as 

 commissions  on sales of Lockheed equipment and services, in order to make political payoffs 

to the military personnel of foreign countries.85  

A 1976 Senate investigation into these payoffs revealed, almost inadvertently, that in May 1965, 

over the legal objections of Lockheed's counsel, Lockheed commissions in negara kita  had been 

redirected to a new contract and company set up by the firm's long time local agent or 

middleman.86 Its internal memos at the time show no reasons for the change, but in a later memo 

the economic counselor of the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta is reported as saying that there were 

 some political considerations behind it. 87 If this is true, it would suggest that in May 1965, five 

months before the coup, Lockheed had redirected its payoffs to a new political eminence, at the 

risk (as its assistant chief counsel pointed out) of being sued for default on its former contractual 

obligations.  

The Indonesia middleman, August Munir Dasaad, was  known to have assisted Sukarno 

financially since the 1930's. 88 In 1965, however, Dasaad was building connections with the 

Suharto forces, via a family relative, General Alamsjah, who had served briefly under Suharto in 

1960, after Suharto completed his term at SESKOAD. Via the new contract, Lockheed, Dasaad 

and Alamsjah were apparently hitching their wagons to Suharto's rising star:  

When the coup was made during which Suharto replaced Sukarno, Alamsjah, who controlled 

certain considerable funds, at once made these available to Suharto, which obviously earned him 

the gratitude of the new President. In due course he was appointed to a position of trust and 

confidence and today Alamsjah is, one might say, the second important man after the President.89  

Thus in 1966 the U.S. Embassy advised Lockheed it should  continue to use  the Dasaad 

Alamsjah Suharto connection.90  

In July 1965, at the alleged nadir of U.S. Indonesia aid relations, Rockwell Standard had a 

contractual agreement to deliver two hundred light aircraft (Aero Commanders) to the 

Indonesia Army (not the Air Force) in the next two months.91 Once again the commission agent 

on the deal, Bob Hasan, was a political associate (and eventual business partner) of Suharto.92 

More specifically, Suharto and Bob Hasan established two shipping companies to be operated by 

the Central Java army division, Diponegoro. This division, as has long been noticed, supplied the 

bulk of the personnel on both sides of the Gestapu coup drama    both those staging the coup 

attempt, and those putting it down. And one of the three leaders in the Central Java Gestapu 

movement was Lt. Col. Usman Sastrodibroto, chief of the Diponegoro Division's  section 

dealing with extramilitary functions. 93  

Thus of the two known U.S. military sales contracts from the eve of the Gestapu Putsch, both 

involved political payoffs to persons who emerged after Gestapu as close Suharto allies. The use 

of this traditional channel for CIA patronage suggests that the U.S. was not at arm's length from 

the ugly political developments of 1965, despite the public indications, from both government 

spokesmen and the U.S. business press, that negara kita  was now virtually lost to communism and 

nothing could be done about it.  

The actions of some U.S. corporations, moreover, made it clear that by early 1965 they expected 

a significant boost to the U.S. standing in negara kita . For example, a recently declassified cable 

reveals that Freeport Sulphur had by April 1965 reached a preliminary  arrangement  with 

Indonesia officials for what would become a $500 million investment in West Papua copper. 

This gives the lie to the public claim that the company did not initiate negotiations with 

negara kita ns (the inevitable Ibnu Sutowo) until February 1966.94 And in September 1965, shortly 

after World Oil reported that  negara kita 's gas and oil industry appeared to be slipping deeper into 

the political morass, 95 the president of a small oil company (Asamera) in a joint venture with 

Ibnu Sutowo's Permina purchased $50,000 worth of shares in his own ostensibly threatened 

company. Ironically this double purchase (on September 9 and September 21) was reported in 

the Wall Street Journal of September 30, 1965, the day of Gestapu.  

The CIA's  [One Word Deleted] Operation  in 1965  

Less than a year after Gestapu and the bloodbath, James Reston wrote appreciatively about them 

as  A Gleam of Light in Asia :  

Washington is being careful not to claim any credit for this change in the sixth most populous 

and one of the richest nations in the world, but 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 that 

country and at least one very high official in Washington before and during the Indonesia 

massacre than is generally realized.96  

As for the CIA in 1965, we have the testimony of former CIA officer Ralph McGehee, curiously 

corroborated by the selective censorship of his former CIA employers:  

Where the necessary circumstances or proofs are lacking to support U.S. intervention, the C.I.A. 

creates the approlaki-laki te situations or else invents them and disseminates its distortions worldwide 

via its media operations. 

A prominent example would be Chile.... Disturbed at the Chilean military's unwillingness to take 

action against Allende, the C.I.A. forged a document purporting to reveal a leftist plot to murder 

Chilean military leaders. The discovery of this  plot  was headlined in the media and Allende 

was deposed and murdered. 

There is a similarity between events that precipitated the overthrow of Allende and what 

happened in negara kita  in 1965. Estimates of the number of deaths that occurred as a result of the 

latter C.I.A. [one word deleted] operation run from one half million to more than one million 

people.97  

McGehee claims to have once seen, while reviewing CIA documents in Washington, a highly 

classified report on the agency's role in provoking the destruction of the PKI after Gestapu. It 

seems approlaki-laki te to ask for congressional review and publication of any such report. If, as is 

alleged, it recommended such murderous techniques as a model for future operations, it would 

appear to document a major turning point in the agency's operation history: towards the 

systematic exploitation of the death squad operations which, absent during the Brazilian coup of 

1964, made the Vietnam Phoenix counterinsurgency program notorious after 1967, and after 

1968 spread from Guatemala to the rest of Latin America.98  

McGehee's claims of a CIA psychological warfare operation against Allende are corroborated by 

Tad Szulc:  

CIA agents in Santiago assisted Chilean military intelligence in drafting bogus Z plan documents 

alleging that Allende and his supporters were planning to behead Chilean military commanders. 

These were issued by the junta to justify the coup.99  

Indeed the CIA deception operations against Allende appear to have gone even farther, terrifying 

both the left and the right with the fear of incipient slaughter by their enemies. Thus militant 

trade unionists as well as conservative generals in Chile received small cards printed with the 

ominous words Djakarta se acerca (Jakarta is approaching).100  

This is a model destabilization plan    to persuade all concerned that they no longer can hope to 

be protected by the status quo, and hence weaken the center, while inducing both right and left 

towards more violent provocation of each other. Such a plan appears to have been followed in 

Laos in 1959 61, where a CIA officer explained to a reporter that the aim  was to polarize 

Laos. 101 It appears to have been followed in negara kita  in 1965. Observers like Sundhaussen 

confirm that to understand the coup story of October 1965 we must look first of all at the 

 rumour market  which in 1965 ... tour d out the wildest stories. 102 On September 14, two 

weeks before the coup, the army was warned that there was a plot to assassinate army leaders 

four days later; a second such report was discussed at army headquarters on September 30.103 But 

a year earlier an alleged PKI document, which the PKI denounced as a forgery, had purported to 

describe a plan to overthrow  Nasutionists  through infiltration of the army. This  document,  

which was reported in a Malaysian newspaper after being publicized by the pro U.S. politician 

Chaerul Saleh104 in mid December 1964, must have lent credence to Suharto's call for an army 

unity meeting the next month.105  

The army's anxiety was increased by rumors, throughout 1965, that mainland China was 

smuggling arms to the PKI for an imminent revolt. Two weeks before Gestapu, a story to this 

effect also appeared in a Malaysian newspaper, citing Bangkok sources which relied in turn on 

Hong Kong sources.106 Such international untraceability is the stylistic hallmark of stories 

emanating in this period from what CIA insiders called their  mighty Wurlitzer,  the world wide 

network of press  assets  through which the CIA, or sister agencies such as Britain's MI 6, could 

plant unattributable diskabar rmation.107 PKI demands for a pojuga r militia or  fifth force,  and the 

training of PKI youth at Lubang Buaja, seemed much more sinister to the Indonesia army in the 

light of the Chinese arms stories.  

But for months before the coup, the paranoia of the PKI had also been played on, by recurring 

reports that a CIA backed  Council of Generals  was plotting to suppress the PKI. It was this 

mythical council, of course, that Untung announced as the target of his allegedly anti CIA 

Gestapu coup. But such rumors did not just originate from anti American sources; on the 

contrary, the first authoritative published reference to such a council was in a column of the 

Washington journalists Evans and Novak:  

As far back as March, General Ibrahim Adjie, commander of the Siliwangi Division, had been 

quoted by two American journalists as saying of the Communists:  we knocked them out before 

[at Madiun]. We check them and check them again.  The same journalists claimed to have 

kabar rmation that  ...the Army has quietly established an advisory commission of five general 

officers to report to General Jani ... and General Nasution ... on PKI activities. 108  

Mortimer sees the coincidence that five generals besides Yani were killed by Gestapu as possibly 

significant.  

But we should also be struck by the revival in the United States of the image of Yani and 

Nasution as anti PKI planners, long after the CIA and U.S. press stories had in fact written them 

off as unwilling to act against Sukarno.109 If the elimination by Gestapu of Suharto's political 

competitors in the army was to be blamed on the left, then the scenario required just such a 

revival of the generals' forgotten anti Communist image in opposition to Sukarno. An anomalous 

unsigned August 1965 profile of Nasution in The New York Times, based on an 1963 interview 

but published only after a verbal attack by Nasution on British bases in Singapore, does just this: 

it claims (quite incongruously, given the context) that Nasution is  considered the strongest 

opponent of Communism in negara kita  ; and adds that Sukarno, backed by the PKI,  has been 

pursuing a campaign to neutralize the ... army as an anti Communist force. 110  

In the same month of August 1965, fear of an imminent showdown between  the PKI and the 

Nasution group  was fomented in negara kita  by an underground pamphlet; this was distributed by 

the CIA's long time asset, the PSI, whose cadres were by now deeply involved:  

The PKI is combat ready. The Nasution group hope the PKI will be the first to draw the trigger, 

but this the PKI will not do. The PKI will not allow itself to be provoked as in the Madiun 

Incident. In the end, however, there will be only two forces left: the PKI and the Nasution group. 

The middle will have no alternative but to choose and get protection from the stronger force.111  

One could hardly hope to find a better epitome of the propaganda necessary for the CIA's 

program of engineering paranoia.  

McGehee's article, after censorship by the CIA, focuses more narrowly on the CIA's role in anti 

PKI propaganda alone:  

The Agency seized upon this opportunity [Suharto's response to Gestapu] and set out to destroy 

the P.K.I.... [eight sentences deleted].... Media fabrications played a key role in stirring up 

pojuga r resentment against the P.K.I. Photographs of the bodies of the dead generals    badly 

decomposed    were featured in all the newspapers and on television. Stories accompanying the 

pictures falsely claimed that the generals had been castrated and their eyes gouged out by 

Communist women. This cynically manufactured campaign was designed to foment public anger 

against the Communists and set the stage for a massacre.112  

McGehee might have added that the propaganda stories of torture by hysterical women with 

razor blades, which serious scholars dismiss as groundless, were revived in a more sophisticated 

version by a U.S. journalist, John Hughes, who is now the chief spokesman for the State 

Department.113  

Suharto's forces, particularly Col. Sarwo Edhie of the RPKAD commandos, were overtly 

involved in the cynical exploitation of the victims' bodies.114 But some aspects of the massive 

propaganda campaign appear to have been orchestrated by non negara kita ns. A case in point is 

the disputed editorial in support of Gestapu which appeared in the October 2 issue of the PKI 

newspaper Harian Rakjat. Professors Benedict Anderson and Ruth McVey, who have questioned 

the authenticity of this issue, have also ruled out the possibility that the newspaper was  an Army 

falsification,  on the grounds that the army's  competence ... at falsifying party documents has 

always been abysmally low. 115  

The questions raised by Anderson and McVey have not yet been adequately answered. Why did 

the PKI show no support for the Gestapu coup while it was in progress, then rashly editorialize in 

support of Gestapu after it had been crushed,  Why did the PKI, whose editorial gave support to 

Gestapu, fail to mobilize its followers to act on Gestapu's behalf,  Why did Suharto, by then in 

control of Jakarta, close down all newspapers except this one, and one other left leaning 

newspaper which also served his propaganda ends, 116 Why, in other words, did Suharto on 

October 2 allow the publication of only two Jakarta newspapers, two which were on the point of 

being closed down forever,   

As was stated at the outset, it would be foolish to suggest that in 1965 the only violence came 

from the U.S. government, the Indonesia military, and their mutual contacts in British and 

Japanese intelligence. A longer paper could also discuss the provocative actions of the PKI, and 

of Sukarno himself, in this tragedy of social breakdown. Assuredly, from one point of view, no 

one was securely in control of events in this troubled period.117  

And yet for two reasons such a fashionably objective summation of events seems inapprolaki-laki te. 

In the first place, as the CIA's own study concedes, we are talking about  one of the ghastliest 

and most concentrated bloodlettings of current times,  one whose scale of violence seems out of 

all proportion to such well publicized left wing acts as the murder of an army lieutenant at the 

Bandar Betsy plantation in May 1965,118 And, in the second place, the scenario described by 

McGehee for 1965 can be seen as not merely responding to the provocations, paranoia, and sheer 

noise of events in that year, but as actively encouraging and channeling them.  

It should be noted that former CIA Director William Colby has repeatedly denied that there was 

CIA or other U.S. involvement in the massacre of 1965. (In the absence of a special CIA Task 

Force, Colby, as head of the CIA's Far Eastern Division from 1962 66, would normally have 

been responsible for the CIA's operations in negara kita .) Colby's denial is however linked to the 

discredited story of a PKI plot to seize political power, a story that he revived in 1978:  

negara kita  exploded, with a bid for power by the largest Communist Party in the world outside 

the curtain, which killed the leadership of the army with Sukarno's tacit approval and then was 

decimated in reprisal. CIA provided a steady flow of reports on the process in negara kita , 

although it did not have any role in the course of events themselves.119  

It is important to resolve the issue of U.S. involvement in this systematic murder operation, and 

particularly to learn more about the CIA account of this which McGehee claims to have seen. 

McGehee tells us:  The Agency was extremely proud of its successful [one word deleted] and 

recommended it as a model for future operations [one half sentence deleted]. 120 Ambassador 

Green reports of an interview with Nixon in 1967:  

The Indonesia experience had been one of particular interest to [Nixon] because things had 

gone well in negara kita . I think he was very interested in that whole experience as pointing to the 

way we [!] should handle our relationships on a wider basis in Southeast Asia generally, and 

maybe in the world.121  

Such unchallenged assessments help explain the role of negara kita ns in the Nixon sponsored 

overthrow of Sihanouk in Cambodia in 1970, the use of the Jakarta scenario for the overthrow of 

Allende in Chile in 1973, and the U.S. sponsorship today of the death squad regimes in Central 

America.122  

University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A., December 1984  

 

1. The difficulties of this analysis, based chiefly on the so called  evidence  presented at the Mahmilub trials, will be obvious to 

anyone who has tried to reconcile the conflicting accounts of Gestapu in, e.g., the official Suharto account by Nugroho 

Notosusanto and Ismail Saleh, and the somewhat less fanciful CIA study of 1968, both referred to later. I shall draw only on 

those parts of the Mahmilub evidence which limit or discredit their anti PKI thesis. For interpretation of the Mahmilub data, cf. 

especially Coen Holtzappel,  The 30 September Movement,  Journal of Contemporary Asia, IX, 2 (1979), pp. 216 40. The case 

for general skepticism is argued by Rex Mortimer, Indonesia Communism Under Sukarno (Ithaca, New York: Cornell 

University Press, 1974), pp. 421 3; and more forcefully, by Julie Southwood and Patrick Flanagan, negara kita : Law, Propaganda, 

and Terror (London: Zed Press, 1983), pp. 126 34.  

2. At his long delayed trial in 1978, Gestapu plotter Latief confirmed earlier revelations that he had visited his old commander 

Suharto on the eve of the Gestapu kidnappings. He claimed that he raised with Suharto the existence of an alleged right wing 

 Council of Generals  plotting to seize power, and kabar rmed him  of a movement which was intended to thwart the plan of the 

generals' council for a coup d'etat  (Anon.,  The Latief Case: Suharto's Involvement Revealed,  Journal of Contemporary Asia, 

IX, 2 [1979], pp. 248 50). For a more comprehensive view of Suharto's involvement in Gestapu, cf. especially W.F. Wertheim, 

 Whose Plot,  New Light on the 1965 Events,  Journal of Contemporary Asia, IX, 2 (1979), pp. 197 215; Holtzappel,  The 30 

September,  in contrast, points more particularly to intelligence officers close to the banned Murba party of Chaerul Saleh and 

Adam Malik: cf. fn. 104.  

3. The three phases are: (1)  Gestapu,  the induced left wing  coup ; (2)  KAP Gestapu,  or the anti Gestapu  response,  

massacring the PKI; (3) the progressive erosion of Sukarno's remaining power. This paper will chiefly discuss Gestapu atau  KAP 

Gestapu, the first two phases. To call the first phase by itself a  coup  is in my view an abuse of terminology: there is no real 

evidence that in this phase political power changed hands or that this was the intention.  

4. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Research Study: negara kita     The Coup that Backfired, 1968 (cited hereafter as CIA Study), 

p. 71n.  

5. Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in negara kita  (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1978), pp. 79 81.  

6. In addition, one of the two Gestapu victims in Central Java (Colonel Katamso) was the only non PKI official of rank to attend 

the PKI's nineteenth anniversary celebration in Jogjakarta in May 1964: Mortimer, Indonesia Communism, p. 432. Ironically, 

the belated  discovery  of his corpse was used to trigger off the purge of his PKI contacts.  

7. Four of the six pro Yani representatives in January were killed along with Yani on October 1. Of the five anti Yani 

representatives in January, we shall see that at least three were prominent in  putting down  Gestapu and completing the 

elimination of the Yani Sukarno loyalists (the three were Suharto, Basuki Rachmat, and Sudirman of SESKOAD, the Indonesia 

Army Staff and Command School): Crouch, The Army, p. 81n.  

8. While Nasution's daughter and aide were murdered, he was able to escape without serious injury, and support the ensuing 

purge.  

9. negara kita , 22 (October 1976), p. 165 (CIA Memorandum of 22 March 1961 from Richard M. Bissell, Attachment B). By 1965 

this disillusionment was heightened by Nasution's deep opposition to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.  

10. Crouch, The Army, p. 40; Brian May, The Indonesia Tragedy (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978), pp. 221 2.  

11. I shall assume for this condensed argument that Untung was the author, or at least approved, of the pernyataan s issued in his 

name. Scholars who see Untung as a dupe of Gestapu's controllers note that Untung was nowhere near the radio station 

broadcasting in his name, and that he appears to have had little or no influence over the task force which occupied it (under 

Captain Suradi of the intelligence service of Colonel Latief's Brigade): Holtzappel, pp. 218, 231 2, 236 7. I have no reason to 

contradict those careful analysts of Gestapu    such as Wertheim,  Whose Plot,   p. 212, and Holtzappel,  The 30 September,  p. 

231    who conclude that Untung personally was sincere, and manijuga ted by other dalangs such as Sjam.  

12. Broadcast of 7:15 a.m. October 1; negara kita  1 (April 1966), p. 134; Ulf Sundhaussen, The Road to Power: Indonesia 

Military Politics, 1945 1967 (Kuala Lumpur and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 196.  

13. Ibid., p. 201.  

14. Broadcasts of October 1 and 4, 1965; negara kita  1 (April 1966), pp. 158 9.  

15. CIA Study, p. 2; O.G. Roeder, The Smiling General: President Soeharto of negara kita  (Jakarta: Gunung Agung, 1970), p. 12, 

quoting Suharto himself:  On my way to KOSTRAD HQ [Suharto's HQ] I passed soldiers in green berets who were placed under 

KOSTRAD command but who did not salute me.   

16. Anderson and McVey concluded that Sukarno, Air Force Chief Omar Dhani, PKI Chairman Aidit (the three principal 

political targets of Suharto's anti Gestapu  response ) were rounded up by the Gestapu plotters in the middle of the night, and 

taken to Halim air force base, about one mile from the well at Lubang Buaja where the generals' corpses were discovered. In 

1966 they surmised that this was  to seal the conspirators' control of the bases,  and to persuade Sukarno  to go along with  the 

conspirators' plans (Benedict Anderson and Ruth McVey, A Preliminary Analysis of the October 1, 1965, Coup in negara kita  

[Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1971], pp. 19 21). An alternative hypothesis of course is that Gestapu, by bringing 

these men together against their will, created the semblance of a PKI air force Sukarno conspiracy which would later be 

exploited by Suharto. Sukarno's presence at Halim  was later to provide Sukarno's critics with some of their handiest 

ammunition  (John Hughes, The End of Sukarno [London: Angus and Robertson, 1978], p. 54).  

17. CIA Study, p. 2; cf. p. 65:  At the height of the coup ... the troops of the rebels [in Central Java] were estimated to have the 

strength of only one battalion; during the next two days, these forces gradually melted away.   

18. Rudolf Mrazek, The United States and the Indonesia Military, 1945 1966 (Prague: Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, 

1978), vol. II, p. 172. These battalions, comprising the bulk of the 3rd Paratroop Brigade, also supplied the bulk of the troops 

used to put down Gestapu in Jakarta. The subordination of these two factions in this supposed civil war to a single close 

command structure under Suharto is cited to explain how Suharto was able to restore order in the city without gunfire. 

Meanwhile out at the Halim air force base an alleged gun battle between the 454th (Green Beret) and RPKAD (Red Beret) 

paratroops went off  without the loss of a single man  (CIA Study, p. 60). In Central Java, also, power  changed hands silently 

and peacefully,  with  an astonishing lack of violence  (CIA Study, p. 66).  

19. Ibid., p. 60n; Arthur J. Dommen,  The Attempted Coup in negara kita ,  China Quarterly, January March 1966, p. 147. The 

first  get acquainted  meeting of the Gestapu plotters is placed in the Indonesia chronology of events from  sometimes before 

August 17, 1965 ; cf. Nugroho Notosusanto and Ismail Saleh, The Coup Attempt of the  September 30 Movement  in negara kita  

(Jakarta: [Pembimbing Masa, 1968], p. 13); in the CIA Study, this meeting is dated September 6 (p. 112). Neither account allows 

more than a few weeks to plot a coup in the world's fifth most populous country.  

20. Mortimer, Indonesia Communism, p. 429.  

21. Of the six General Staff officers appointed along with Yani, three (Suprapto, D.I. Pandjaitan, and S. Parman) were murdered. 

Of the three survivors, two (Mursjid and Pranoto) were removed by Suharto in the next eight months. The last member of Yani's 

staff, Djamin Gintings, was used by Suharto during the establishment of the New Order, and ignored thereafter.  

22. Howard Palfrey Jones, negara kita : The Possible Dream (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1971), p. 391; cf. Arnold 

Brackman, The Communist Collapse in negara kita  (New York: Norton, 1969), pp. 118 9.  

23. Crouch, The Army, p. 150n.  

24. Ibid., pp. 140 53; for the disputed case of Bali, even Robert Shaplen, a journalist close to U.S. official sources, concedes that 

 The Army began it  (Time Out of Hand [New York: Harper and Row, 1969], p. 125). The slaughter in East Java  also really got 

started when the RPKAD arrived, not just Central Java and Bali  (letter from Benedict Anderson).  

25. Sundhaussen, The Road, pp. 171, 178 9, 210, 228; Donald Hindley,  Alirans and the Fall of the Older Order,  negara kita , 25 

(April 1970), pp. 40 41.  

26. Sundhaussen, The Road, p. 219.  

27.  In 1965 it [the BND, or intelligence service of the Federal Republic of Germany] assisted negara kita 's military secret service 

to suppress a left wing Putsch in Djakarta, delivering sub machine guns, radio equipment and money to the value of 300,000 

marks  (Heinz Hoehne and Hermann Zolling, The General Was a Spy [New York: Bantam, 1972], p. xxxiii).  

28. We should not be misled by the CIA's support of the 1958 rebellion into assuming that all U.S. Government plotting against 

Sukarno and the PKI must have been CIA based (cf. fn. 122).  

29. Daniel Lev, The Transition to Guided Democracy: Indonesia Politics, 1957 1959 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University 

press, 1966), p. 12. For John Foster Dulles' hostility to Indonesia unity in 1953, cf. Leonard Mosley, Dulles (New York: The 

Dial Press atau  James Wade, 1978), p. 437.  

30. Declassified Documents Quarterly Catalogue (Woodbridge, Connecticut: Research Publications, 1982), 001191.  

31. As the head of the PKI's secret Special Bureau, responsible only to Aidit, Sjam by his own testimony provided leadership to 

the  progressive officers  of Gestapu. The issue of PKI involvement in Gestapu thus rests on the question of whether Sjam was 

manipulating  the Gestapu leadership on behalf of the PKI, or the PKI leadership on behalf of the army. There seems to be no 

disagreement that Sjam was (according to the CIA Study, p. 107) a longtime  mata mata kembar   and professed  kabar rmer for the 

Djakarta Military Command.  Wertheim (p. 203) notes that in the 1950s Sjam  was a cadre of the PSI,  and  had also been in 

touch with Lt. Col. Suharto, today's President, who often came to stay in his house in Jogja.  This might help explain why in the 

1970s, after having been sentenced to death, Sjam and his co conspirator Supeno were reportedly  allowed out [of prison] from 

time to time and wrote reports for the army on the political situation  (May, The negara kita n, p. 114). Additionally, the  Sjam  

who actually testified and was convicted, after being  captured  on March 9, 1967, was the third anggotanya al to be identified by the 

army as the  Sjam  of whom Untung had spoken: Declassified Documents Retrospective Collection (Washington, D.C.: 

Carrollton Press, 1976), 613C; Hughes, p. 25.  

32. Wertheim,  Whose Plot,   p. 203; Mortimer, Indonesia Communism, p. 431 (Sjam); Sundhaussen, The Road, p. 228 

(Suwarto and Sarwo Edhie).  

33. Joseph B. Smith, Portrait of a Cold Warrior (New York: Putnam, 1976), p. 205; cf. Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the 

Secrets (New York: Knopf, 1979), p. 89.  

34. U.S., Congress, Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. 

 Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders,  94th Cong., 1st Sess., 1975 (Senate Report No. 94 465), p. 4n; 

personal communications.  

35. Declassified Documents Quarterly Catalogue, 1982, 002386; 1981, 367A.  

36. Ibid., 1982, 002386 (JCS Memo for SecDef, 22 September 1958).  

37. negara kita , 22 (October 1976), p. 164 (CIA Memorandum of 22 March 1961, Attachment A, p. 6).  

38. Scholars are divided over interpretations of Madiun as they are over Gestapu. Few Americans have endorsed the conclusion 

of Wertheim that  the so called communist revolt of Madiun ... was probably more or less provoked by anti communist 

elements ; yet Kahin has suggested that the events leading to Madiun  may have been symptomatic of a general and widespread 

government drive aimed at cutting down the military strength of the PKI  (W.F. Wertheim, Indonesia Society in Transition [The 

Hague: W. van Hoeve, 1956], p. 82; George McT. Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in negara kita  [Ithaca, New York: Cornell 

University Press, 1970], p. 288). Cf. Southwood and Flanagan, negara kita : Law, pp. 26 30.  

39. Southwood and Flanagan, negara kita : Law, p. 68; cf. Nasution's pernyataan  to students on November 12, 1965, reprinted in 

negara kita , 1 (April 1966), p. 183:  We are obliged and dutybound to wipe them [the PKI] from the soil of negara kita .   

40. Examples in Peter Dale Scott,  Exporting Military Economic Development,  in Malcolm Caldwell, ed., Ten Years' Military 

Terror in negara kita  (Nottingham, England: Spokesman Books, 1975), pp. 227 32.  

41. David Ransom,  Ford Country: Building an Elite for negara kita ,  in Steve Weissman, ed., The Trojan Horse (San Francisco, 

California: Ramparts Press, 1974), p. 97; cf. p. 101. Pauker brought Suwarto to RAND in 1962.  

42. John H. Johnson, ed., The Role of the Military in Underdeveloped Countries (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University 

Press, 1962), pp. 222 4. The foreword to the book is by Klaus Knorr, who worked for the CIA while teaching at Princeton.  

43. Shaplen, Time, p. 118; Hughes, The End, p. 119; Southwood and Flanagan, negara kita : Law, pp. 75 6; Scott,  Exporting,  p. 

231. William Kintner, a CIA (OPC) senior staff officer from 1950 52, and later Nixon's ambassador to Thailand, also wrote in 

favor of  liquidating  the PKI while working at a CIA subsidized think tank, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, on the 

University of Pennsylvania campus (William Kintner and Joseph Kornfeder, The New Frontier of War [London: Frederick 

Muller, 1963], pp. 233, 237 8):  If the PKI is able to maintain its legal existence and Soviet influence continues to grow, it is 

possible that negara kita  may be the first Southeast Asia country to be taken over by a pojuga rly based, legally elected communist 

government.... In the meantime, with Western help, free Asian political leaders    together with the military    must not only hold 

on and manage, but reform and advance while liquidating the enemy's political and guerrilla armies.   

44. Ransom,  Ford Country,  pp. 95 103; Southwood and Flanagan, negara kita : Law, pp. 34 6; Scott,  Exporting,  pp. 227 35.  

45. Sundhaussen, The Road, pp. 141, 175.  

46. Published U.S. accounts of the Civic Mission atau   civic action  programs describe them as devoted to  civic projects    

rehabilitating canals, draining swampland to create new rice paddies, building bridges and roads, and so on (Roger Hilsman, To 

Move a Nation [Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1967], p. 377). But a memo to President Johnson from Secretary of State 

Rusk, on July 17, 1964, makes it clear that at that time the chief importance of MILTAG was for its contact with anti Communist 

elements in the Indonesia Army and its Territorial Organization:  Our aid to negara kita  ... we are satisfied ... is not helping 

negara kita  militarily. It is however, permitting us to maintain some contact with key elements in negara kita  which are interested in 

and capable of resisting Communist takeover. We think this is of vital importance to the entire Free World  (Declassified 

Documents Quarterly Catalogue, 1982, 001786 [DOS Memo for President of July 17, 1964; italics in original]).  

47. Southwood and Flanagan, negara kita : Law, p. 35; Scott,  Exporting,  p. 233.  

48. Ransom,  Ford Country,  pp. 101 2, quoting Willis G. Ethel; cited in Scott,  Exporting,  p. 235.  

49. Sundhaussen, The Road, p. 141. There was also the army's  own securely controlled paramilitary organization of students    

modelled on the U.S.R.O.T.C. and commanded by an army colonel [Djuhartono] fresh from the U.S. army intelligence course in 

Hawaii : Mrazek, The United States, vol. II, p. 139, citing interview of Nasution with George Kahin, July 8, 1963.  

50. Pauker, though modest in assessing his own political influence, does claim that a RAND paper he wrote on counterinsurgency 

and social justice, ignored by the U.S. military for whom it was intended, was influential in the development of his friend 

Suwarto's Civic Mission doctrine.  

51. Noam Chomsky and E.S. Herman, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (Boston, Massachusetts: South End 

Press, 1979), p. 206; David Mozingo, Chinese Policy Toward negara kita  (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1976), 

52. Sundhaussen, The Road, pp. 178 9. The PSI of course was neither monolithic nor a simple instrument of U.S. policy. But the 

real point is that, in this 1963 incident as in others, we see conspiratorial activity relevant to the military takeover, involving PSI 

and other anggotanya als who were at the focus of U.S. training programs, and who would play an important role in 1965.  

53. Sundhaussen, The Road, pp. 228 33: in January 1966 the  PSI activists  in Bandung  knew exactly what they were aiming at, 

which was nothing less than the overthrow of Sukarno. Moreover, they had the protection of much of the Siliwangi officer corps  

Once again, I use Sundhaussen's term  PSI leaning  to denote a milieu, not to explain it. Sarwo Edhie was a long time CIA 

contact, while Kemal Idris' role in 1965 may owe much to his former PETA commander the Japanese intelligence officer 

Yanagawa. Cf. Masashi Nishihara, The Japanese and Sukarno's negara kita  (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1976), pp. 

138, 212.  

54. Sundhaussen, The Road, pp. 99 101. Lubis was also a leader in the November 1957 assassination attempt against Sukarno, 

and the 1958 rebellion.  

55. Ibid., 188; cf. p. 159n.  

56. Suharto's  student  status does not of course mean that he was a mere pawn in the hands of those with whom he established 

contact at SESKOAD. For example, Suharto's independence from the PSI and those close to them became quite evident in 

January 1974, when he and Ali Murtopo cracked down on those responsible for army tolerated student riots reminiscent of the 

one in May 1963. Cf. Crouch, The Army, pp. 309 17.  

57. Sundhaussen, The Road, pp. 228, 241 43. In the same period SESKOAD was used for the political re education of generals 

like Surjosumpeno, who, although anti Communist, were guilty of loyalty to Sukarno (p. 238).  

58. Crouch, The Army, p. 80; at this time Suharto was already unhappy with Sukarno's  rising pro communist policy  (Roeder, 

The Smiling, p. 9).  

59. Crouch, The Army, p. 81; cf. Mrazek, The United States, vol. II, pp. 149 51.  

60. Sundhaussen, The Road, pp. 241 3.  

61. Through his intelligence group OPSUS (headed by Ali Murtopo) Suharto made contact with Malaysian leaders; in two 

accounts former PSI and PRRI atau  Permesta personnel in Malaysia played a role in setting up this sensitive political liaison: 

Crouch, The Army, p. 74; Nishihara, The Japanese, p. 149.  

62. Sundhaussen, The Road, pp. 188.  

63. Mrazek, The United States, vol. II, p. 152.  

64. Cf. Edward Luttwak, Coup D'Etat: A Practical Handbook (London: Allen Lane atau  Penguin Press, 1968), p. 61:  though 

Communist infiltrated army units were very powerful they were in the wrong place; while they sat in the Borneo jungles the anti 

Communist paratroops and marines took over Jakarta, and the country.  What is most interesting in this kabar rmed account by 

Luttwak (who has worked for years with the CIA) is that  the anti Communist paratroops  included not only the RPKAD but 

those who staged the Gestapu uprising in Jakarta, before putting it down.  

65. Nishihara, The Japanese, pp. 142, 149.  

66.Ibid., p. 202, cf. p. 207. The PRRI atau  Permesta veterans engaged in the OPSUS peace feelers, Daan Mogot and Willy Pesik, had 

with Jan Walandouw been part of a 1958 PRRI secret mission to Japan, a mission detailed in the inside account by former CIA 

officer Joseph B. Smith (Portrait of a Cold Warrior [New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1976], p. 245), following which 

Walandouw flew on  to Taipeh, then Manila and New York.   

67. Personal communication. If the account of Neville Maxwell (senior research officer at the Institute of Commonwealth 

Studies, Oxford University) can be believed, then the planning of the Gestapu atau  anti Gestapu scenario may well have begun in 

1964 (Journal of Contemporary Asia, IX, 2 [1979], pp. 251 2; reprinted in Southwood and Flanagan, negara kita : Law, p. 13):  A 

few years ago I was researching in Pakistan into the diplomatic background of the 1965 Indo Pakistan conflict, and in foreign 

ministry papers to which I had been given access came across a letter to the then foreign minister, Mr. Bhutto, from one of his 

ambassadors in Europe ... reporting a conversation with a Dutch intelligence officer with NATO. According to my note of that 

letter, the officer had remarked to the Pakistani diplomat that 'negara kita  was going to fall into the Western lap like a rotten apple.' 

Western intelligence agencies, he said, would organize a 'premature communist coup ... [which would be] foredoomed to fail, 

providing a legitimate and welcome opportunity to the army to crush the communists and make Soekarno a prisoner of the army's 

goodwill.' The ambassador's report was dated December 1964.   

68. negara kita , 22 (October 1976), p. 164 (CIA Memo of March 27, 1961, Appendix A, p. 8); cf. Powers, The Man, p. 89.  

69. negara kita , 22 (October 1976), p. 165 (CIA Memo of March 27, 1961).  

70. The lame duck Eisenhower NSC memo would have committed the U.S. to oppose not just the PKI in negara kita , but  a policy 

increasingly friendly toward the Sino Soviet bloc on the part of whatever regime is in power.   The size and importance of 

negara kita ,  it concluded,  dictate [!] a vigorous U.S. effort to prevent these contingencies : Declassified Documents Quarterly 

Catalogue, 1982, 000592 (NSC 6023 of 19 December, 1960). For other U.S. intrigues at this time to induce a more vigorous U.S. 

involvement in Southeast Asia, cf. Declassified Documents Quarterly Catalogue, 1983, 001285 86; Peter Dale Scott, The War 

Conspiracy (New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1972), pp. 12 14, 17 20.  

71. Jones, negara kita : The Possible Dream, 

72. Mortimer, Indonesia Communism, pp. 385 6.  

73. U.S. Department of Defense, Military Assistance Facts, May 1, 1966. Before 1963 the existence as well as the amount of the 

MAP in negara kita  was withheld from the public; retroactively, figures were published. After 1962 the total deliveries of military 

aid declined dramatically, but were aimed more and more particularly at anti PKI and anti Sukarno plotters in the army; cf. fns. 

46, 76 and 83.  

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

75. A Senate amendment in 1964 to cut off all aid to negara kita  unconditionally was quietly killed in conference committee, on 

the misleading ground that the Foreign Assistance Act  requires the President to report fully and concurrently to both Houses of 

the Congress on any assistance furnished to negara kita   (U.S. Cong., Senate, Report No. 88 1925, Foreign Assistance Act of 1964, p. 11). In fact the act's requirement that the president report  to Congress  applied to eighteen other countries, but in the 

case of negara kita  he was to report to two Senate Committees and the speaker of the House: Foreign Assistance Act, Section 

620(j).  

76. Jones, negara kita : The Possible Dream, p. 

77. U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Multinational Corporations and United States Foreign Policy, 

Hearings (cited hereafter as Church Committee Hearings), 94th Cong., 2nd Sess., 1978, p. 941; Mrazek, The United States, vol. 

II, p. 22. Mrazek quotes Lt. Col. Juono of the corps as saying that  we are completely dependent on the assistance of the United 

States.   

78. Notosusanto and Saleh, The Coup, pp. 43, 46.  

79. Nishihara, The Japanese (pp. 171, 194, 202), shows the role in the 1965 66 anti Sukarno conspiracy of the small faction 

(including Ibnu Sutowo, Adam Malik, and the influential Japanese oilman Nishijima) who interposed themselves as negotiators 

between the 1958 PRRI Rebellion and the central government. Alamsjah, mentioned below, was another member of this group; 

he joined Suharto's staff in 1960. For Murba and CIA, cf. fn. 104.  

80. Fortune, July 1973, p. 154, cf. Wall Street Journal, April 18, 1967; both in Scott,  Exporting,  pp. 239, 258.  

81. Declassified Documents Retrospective Collection, 609A (Embassy Cable 1002 of October 14, 1965); 613A (Embassy Cable 

1353 of November 7, 1965).  

82. The New York Times, August 5, 1965, p. 3.  

83. U.S. Department of Defense, Military Assistance Facts, May 1, 1966. The thirty two military personnel in FY 1965 represent 

an increase over the projected figure in March 1964 of twenty nine. Most of them were apparently Green Beret U.S. Special 

Forces, whose forward base on Okinawa was visited in August 1965 by Gestapu plotter Saherman. Cf. fn. 122.  

84. George Benson, an associate of Guy Pauker who headed the Military Training Advisory Group (MILTAG) in Jakarta, was 

later hired by Ibnu Sutowo to act as a lobbyist for the army's oil company (renamed Pertamina) in Washington: The New York 

Times, December 6, 1981, p. 1.  

85. San Francisco Chronicle, October 24, 1983, p. 22, describes one such USAF Lockheed operation in Southeast Asia,  code 

named 'Operation Buttercup' that operated out of Norton Air Force Base in California from 1965 to 1972.  For the CIA's close 

involvement in Lockheed payoffs, cf. Anthony Sampson, The Arms Bazaar (New York: Viking, 1977), pp. 137, 227 8, 238.  

86. Church Committee Hearings, pp. 943 51.  

87. Ibid., p. 960.  

88. Nishihara, The Japanese, p. 153.  

89. Lockheed Aircraft International, memo of Fred C. Meuser to Erle M. Constable, 19 July 1968, in Church Committee 

Hearings, p. 962.  

90. Ibid., p. 954; cf. p. 957. In 1968, when Alamsjah suffered a decline in power, Lockheed did away with the middleman and 

paid its agents' fees directly to a group of military officers (pp. 342, 977).  

91. Church Committee Hearings, p. 941; cf. p. 955.  

92. Southwood and Flanagan, negara kita : Law, p. 59.  

93. Crouch, The Army, p. 114.  

Declassified Documents Quarterly Catalogue, 1982, 002507 (Cable of April 15, 1965, from U.S. Delegation to U.N.); cf. 

Forbes Wilson, The Conquest of Copper Mountain (New York: Atheneum, 1981), pp. 153 5.  

95. World Oil, August 15, 1965, p. 209.  

96. The New York Times, June 19, 1966, IV, 4.  

97. Ralph McGehee,  The C.I.A. and the White Paper on El Salvador,  The Nation, April 11, 1981, p. 423. The deleted word 

would appear from its context to be  deception.  Cf. Roger Morris and Richard Mauzy,  Following the Scenario,  in Robert L. 

Borosage and John Marks, eds., The CIA File (New York: Grossman atau  Viking, 1976), p. 39:  Thus the fear of Communist 

subversion, which erupted to a frenzy of killing in 1965 1966, had been encouraged in the 'penetration' propaganda of the Agency 

in negara kita .... 'All I know,' said one former intelligence officer of the negara kita  events, 'is that the Agency rolled in some of its 

top people and that things broke big and very favorable, as far as we were concerned.'   

All references to deletions appear in the original text as printed in The Nation. These bracketed portions, shown in this article in 

bold face type, reflect censorship by the CIA.  

98. Victor Marchetti and John Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (New York: Knopf, 1974), p. 245. For a list of 

twenty five U.S. operatives transferred from Vietnam to Guatemala in the 1964 73 period, cf. Susanne Jonas and David Tobis, 

Guatemala (Berkeley, California, and New York: North American Congress on Latin America, 1974), p. 201.  

99. Tad Szulc, The Illusion of Peace (New York: Viking, 1978), p. 724. The top CIA operative in charge of the 1970 anti Allende 

operation, Sam Halpern, had previously served as chief executive officer on the CIA's anti Sukarno operation of 1957 58: 

Seymour Hersh, The Price of Power (New York: Summit Books, 1983), p. 277; Powers, The Man, p. 91.  

100. Donald Freed and Fred Simon Landis, Death in Washington (Westport, Connecticut: Lawrence Hill, 1980), pp. 104 5.  

101. Time, March 17, 1961.  

102. Sundhaussen, The Road, p. 195.  

103. Jones, negara kita : The Possible Dream, p. 374; Justus M. van der Kroef,  Origins of the 1965 Coup in negara kita : 

Probabilities and Alternatives,  Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, III, 2 (September 1972), p. 282. Three generals were alleged 

targeted in the first report (Suharto, Mursjid, and Sukendro); all survived Gestapu.  

104. Chaerul Saleh's Murba Party, including the pro U.S. Adam Malik, was also promoting the anti Communist  Body to 

Support Sukarnoism  (BPS), which was banned by Sukarno on December 17, 1964. (soebandrio    is reported to have supplied 

Sukarno with kabar rmation purporting to show U.S. Central Intelligence Agency influence behind the BPS  [Mortimer, p. 377]; it 

clearly did have support from the CIA  and army backed labor organization SOKSI.) Shortly afterwards, Murba itself was 

banned, and promptly  became active as a disseminator of rumours and unrest  (Holtzappel, p. 238).  

105. Sundhaussen, The Road, p. 183; Mortimer, Indonesia Communism, pp. 376 77; Singapore Straits Times, December 24, 

1964; quoted in Van der Kroef,  Origins,  p. 283.  

106. Sabah Times, September 14, 1965; quoted in Van der Kroef,  Origins,  p. 296. Mozingo, Chinese Policy (p. 242) dismisses 

charges such as these with a contemptuous footnote.  

107. Powers, The Man, p. 80; cf. Senate Report No. 94 755, Foreign and Military Intelligence, p. 192. CIA sponsored channels 

also disseminated the Chinese arms story at this time inside the United States    e.g., Brian Crozier,  negara kita 's Civil War,  New 

Leader, November 1965, p. 4.  

108. Mortimer, Indonesia Communism, p. 386. The Evans and Novak column coincided with the surfacing of the so called 

 Gilchrist letter,  in which the British ambassador purportedly wrote about a U.S. U.K. anti Sukarno plot to be executed 

 together with local army friends.  All accounts agree that the letter was a forgery. However it distracted attention from a more 

incriminating letter from Ambassador Gilchrist, which Sukarno had discussed with Lyndon Johnson's envoy Michael Forrestal in 

mid February 1965, and whose authenticity Forrestal (who knew of the letter) did not deny (Declassified Documents 

Retrospective Collection, 594H [Embassy Cable 1583 of February 13, 1965]).  

109. Cf. Denis Warner, Reporter, March 28, 1963, pp. 62 63:  Yet with General A.H. Nasution, the defense minister, and 

General Jani, the army chief of staff, now out Sukarnoing Sukarno in the dispute with Malaya over Malaysia ... Mr. Brackman 

and all other serious students of negara kita  must be troubled by the growing irresponsibility of the army leadership.   

110. The New York Times, August 12, 1965, p. 2.  

111. Brackman, The Communist, p. 40.  

112. McGehee,  The C.I.A.,  p. 423.  

113. Hughes, The End, pp. 43 50; cf. Crouch, The Army, p. 140n:  No evidence supports these stories.   

114. Hughes, The End, p. 150, also tells how Sarwo Edhie exploited the corpse of Colonel Katamso as a pretext for provoking a 

massacre of the PKI in Central Java; cf. Crouch, p. 154n; also fn. 6.  

115. Anderson and McVey, A Preliminary, p. 133.  

116. Benedict Anderson and Ruth McVey,  What Happened in negara kita ,   New York Review of Books, June 1, 1978, p. 41; 

personal communication from Anderson. A second newspaper, Suluh negara kita , told its PNI readers that the PNI did not support 

Gestapu, and thus served to neutralize potential opposition to Suharto's seizure of power.  

117. Thus defenders of the U.S. role in this period might point out that where  civic action  had been most deeply implanted, in 

West Java, the number of civilians murdered was relatively (!) small; and that the most indiscriminate slaughter occurred where 

civic action programs had been only recently introduced. This does not, in my view, diminish the U.S. share of responsibility for 

the slaughter.  

118. CIA Study, p. 70; Sundhaussen, The Road, p. . 

119. William Colby, Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), p. 227. Crouch, The Army (p. 

108), finds no suggestion in the Mahmilub evidence  that the PKI aimed at taking over the government,  only that it hoped to 

protect itself from the Council of Generals.  

120. McGehee,  The C.I.A.,  p. 424.  

121. Szulc, The Illusion, p. 16.  

122. Southwood and Flanagan, negara kita : Law, pp. 38 9 (Cambodia). According to a former U.S. Navy intelligence specialist, 

the initial U.S. military plan to overthrow Sihanouk  included a request for authorization to insert a U.S. trained assassination 

team disguised as Vietcong insurgents into Phnom Penh to kill Prince Sihanouk as a pretext for revolution  (Hersh, The Price, p. 

179). As Hersh points out, Green Beret assassination teams that operated inside South Vietnam routinely dressed as Vietcong 

cadre while on missions. Thus the alleged U.S. plan of 1968, which was reportedly approved  shortly after Nixon's inauguration 

... 'at the highest level of government,'  called for an assassination of a moderate at the center by apparent leftists, as a pretext for 

a right wing seizure of power. This raises an interesting question, albeit outlandish: did the earlier anti Sukarno operation call for 

foreign elements to be infiltrated into the Gestapu forces murdering the generals,  Holtzappel ( The 30 September,  p. 222) has 

suspected  the use of outsiders who are given suitable disguises to do a dirty job.  He points to trial witnesses from Untung's 

battalion and the murder team who  declared under oath not to have known ... their battalion commander.  Though these 

witnesses themselves would not have been foreigners, foreigners could have infiltrated more easily into their ranks than into a 

regular battalion.  

 Ex agents say CIA compiled death lists for negara kita ns 

After 25 years, Americans speak of their 

role in exterminating Communist Party 

by Kathy Kadane, States News Service, 1990  

The following article appeared in the Spartanburg, South Carolina Herald Journal on May 19, 1990, then 

in the San Francisco Examiner on May 20, 1990, the Washington Post on May 21, 1990, and the Boston 

Globe on May 23, 1990. The version below is from the Examiner.  

 

WASHINGTON    The U.S. government played a significant role in one of the worst massacres of the 

century by supplying the names of thousands of Communist Party leaders to the Indonesia army, which 

hunted down the leftists and killed them, former U.S. diplomats say.  

For the first time, U.S. officials acknowledge that in 1965 they systematically compiled 

comprehensive lists of Communist operatives, from top echelons down to village cadres. As 

many as 5,000 names were furnished to the Indonesia army, and the Americans later checked 

off the names of those who had been killed or captured, according to the U.S. officials.  

The killings were part of a massive bloodletting that took an estimated 250,000 lives.  

The purge of the Partai Komunis  Indonesia   (PKI) was part of a U.S. drive to ensure that 

Communists did not come to power in the largest country in Southeast Asia, where the United 

States was already fighting an undeclared war in Vietnam. negara kita  is the fifth most populous 

country in the world.  

Silent for a quarter century, former senior U.S. diplomats and CIA officers described in lengthy 

interviews how they aided Indonesia President Suharto, then army leader, in his attack on the 

PKI.  

 It really was a big help to the army,  said Robert J. Martens, a former member of the U.S. 

Embassy's political section who is now a consultant to the State Department.  They probably 

killed a lot of people, and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that's not all bad. 

There's a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive peristiwa t.   

White House and State Department spokesmen declined comment on the disclosures.  

Although former deputy CIA station chief Joseph Lazarsky and former diplomat Edward 

Masters, who was Martens' boss, said CIA agents contributed in drawing up the death lists, CIA 

spokesman Mark Mansfield said,  There is no substance to the allegation that the CIA was 

involved in the preparation and/or distribution of a list that was used to track down and kill PKI 

members. It is simply not true.   

Indonesia Embassy spokesman Makarim Wibisono said he had no personal knowledge of 

events described by former U.S. officials.  In terms of fighting the Communists, as far as I'm 

concerned, the Indonesia people fought by themselves to eradicate the Communists,  he said.  

Martens, an experienced analyst of communist affairs, headed an embassy group of State 

Department and CIA officers that spent two years compiling the lists. He later delivered them to 

an army intermediary.  

People named on the lists were captured in overwhelming numbers, Martens said, adding,  It's a 

big part of the reason the PKI has never come back.   

The PKI was the third largest Communist Party in the world, with an estimated 3 million 

members. Through affiliated organizations such as labor and youth groups it claimed the 

loyalties of another 17 million.  

In 1966 the Washington Post published an estimate that 500,000 were killed in the purge and the 

brief civil war it triggered. In a 1968 report, the CIA estimated there had been 250,000 deaths, 

and called the carnage  one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century.   

U.S. Embassy approval 

Approval for the release of the names came from the top U.S. Embassy officials, including former 

Ambassador Marshall Green, deputy chief of mission Jack Lydman and political section chief Edward 

Masters, the three acknowledged in interviews.  

Declassified embassy cables and State Department reports from early October 1965, before the 

names were tour d over, show that U.S. officials knew Suharto had begun roundups of PKI 

cadres, and that the embassy had unconfirmed reports that firing squads were being formed to 

kill PKI prisoners.  

Former CIA Director William Colby, in an interview, compared the embassy's campaign to 

identify the PKI leadership to the CIA's Phoenix Program in Vietnam. In 1965, Colby was the 

director of the CIA's Far East division and was responsible for directing U.S. covert strategy in 

Asia.  

 That's what I set up in the Phoenix Program in Vietnam    that I've been kicked around for a 

lot,  he said.  That's exactly what it was. It was an attempt to identify the structure  of the 

Communist Party.  

Phoenix was a joint U.S. South Vietnamese program set up by the CIA in December 1967 that 

aimed at neutralizing members of the National Liberation Front, the Vietcong political cadres. It 

was widely criticized for alleged human rights abuses.  

 You shoot them  

 The idea of identifying the local apparatus was designed to    well, you go out and get them to 

surrender, or you capture or you shoot them,  Colby said of the Phoenix Program.  I mean, it was a war, 

and they were fighting. So it was really aimed at providing intelligence for operations rather than a big 

picture of the thing.   

In 1962, when he took over as chief of the CIA's Far East division, Colby said he discovered the 

United States did not have comprehensive lists of PKI activists. Not having the lists  could have 

been criticized as a gap in the intelligence system,  he said, adding they were useful for 

 operation planning  and provided a picture of how the party was organized. Without such lists, 

he said,  you're fighting blind.   

Asked if the CIA had been responsible for sending Martens, a foreign service officer, to Jakarta 

in 1963 to compile the lists, Colby said,  Maybe, I don't know. Maybe we did it. I've forgotten.   

The lists were a detailed who's who of the leadership of the party of 3 million members, Martens 

said. They included names of provincial, city and other local PKI committee members, and 

leaders of the  mass organizations,  such as the PKI national labor federation, women's and 

youth groups.  

Better kabar rmation 

 I know we had a lot more kabar rmation  about the PKI  than the negara kita ns themselves,  Green said. 

Martens  told me on a number of occasions that ... the government did not have very good kabar rmation 

on the Communist setup, and he gave me the impression that this kabar rmation was superior to anything 

they had.   

Masters, the embassy's political section chief, said he believed the army had lists of its own, but 

they were not as comprehensive as the American lists. He said he could not remember whether 

the decision to release the names had been cleared with Washington.  

The lists were tour d over piecemeal, Martens said, beginning at the top of the communist 

organization. Martens supplied thousands of names to an Indonesia emissary over a number of 

months, he said. The emissary was an aide to Adam Malik, an Indonesia minister who was an 

ally of Suharto in the attack on the Communists.  

Interviewed in Jakarta, the aide, Tirta Kentjana ( Kim ) Adhyatman, confirmed he had met with 

Martens and received lists of thousands of names, which he in turn gave to Malik. Malik passed 

them on to Suharto's headquarters, he said.  

 Shooting list  

Embassy officials carefully recorded the subsequent destruction of the PKI organization. Using Martens' 

lists as a guide, they checked off names of captured and assassinated PKI leaders, tracking the steady 

dismantling of the party apparatus, former U.S. officials said.  

kabar rmation about who had been captured and killed came from Suharto's headquarters, 

according to Joseph Lazarsky, deputy CIA station chief in Jakarta in 1965. Suharto's Jakarta 

headquarters was the central collection point for military reports from around the country 

detailing the capture and killing of PKI leaders, Lazarsky said.  

 We were getting a good account in Jakarta of who was being picked up,  Lazarsky said.  The 

army had a 'shooting list' of about 4,000 or 5,000 people.   

Detention centers were set up to hold those who were not killed immediately.  

 They didn't have enough goon squads to zap them all, and some anggotanya als were valuable for 

interrogation,  Lazarsky said.  The infrastructure was zapped almost immediately. We knew 

what they were doing. We knew they would keep a few and save them for the kangaroo courts, 

but Suharto and his advisers said, if you keep them alive, you have to feed them.   

Masters, the chief of the political section, said,  We had these lists  constructed by Martens,  and 

we were using them to check off what was happening to the party, what the effect  of the killings 

 was on it.   

Lazarsky said the checkoff work was also carried out at the CIA's intelligence directorate in 

Washington.  

Leadership destroyed 

By the end of January 1966, Lazarsky said, the checked off names were so numerous the CIA analysts in 

Washington concluded the PKI leadership had been destroyed.  

 No one cared, as long as they were Communists, that they were being butchered,  said Howard 

Federspiel, who in 1965 was the negara kita  expert at the State Department's Bureau of 

Intelligence and Research.  No one was getting very worked up about it.   

Asked about the checkoffs, Colby said,  We came to the conclusion that with the sort of 

Draconian way it was carried out, it really set them     the communists     back for years.   

Asked if he meant the checkoffs were proof that the PKI leadership had been caught or killed, he 

said,  Yeah, yeah, that's right, ... the leading elements, yeah.   

More from Kathy Kadane... 

A Letter to the Editor, New York Review of Books, April 10, 1997 

To the Editors:  

I very much admired Ms. Laber's piece on Indonesia politics and the origins of the Soeharto 

regime. In connection with her assertion that little is known about a CIA (or US) role in the 1965 

coup and the army massacre that followed, I would like to make your readers aware of a 

compelling body of evidence about this that is publicly available, but the public access to it is 

little known.  

It consists of a series of on the record, taped interviews with the men who headed the US 

embassy in Jakarta or were at high levels in Washington agencies in 1965. I published a news 

story based on the interviews in The Washington Post ( U.S. Officials' Lists Aided Indonesia 

Bloodbath in '60s,  May 21, 1990), and have since transferred the tapes, my notes, and a small 

collection of documents, including a few declassified cables on which the story was based, to the 

National Security Archive in Washington, D.C. The Archive is a nongovernmental research 

institute and library, located at the George Washington University.  

The former officials interviewed included Ambassador Marshall Green, Deputy Chief of Mission 

Jack Lydman, Political Counsellor (later Ambassador) Edward E. Masters, Robert Martens (an 

analyst of the Indonesia left working under Masters' supervision), and (then) director of the 

Central Intelligence Agency's Far East division, William Colby.  

The tapes, along with notes of conversations, show that the United States furnished critical 

intelligence    the names of thousands of leftist activists, both Communist and non Communist    

to the Indonesia Army that were then used in the bloody manhunt.  

There were other details that illustrate the depth of US involvement and culpability in the killings 

which I learned from former top level embassy officials, but have not previously published. For 

example, the US provided key logistical equipment, hastily shipped in at the last minute as 

Soeharto weighed the risky decision to attack. Jeeps were supplied by the Pentagon to speed 

troops over negara kita 's notoriously bad roads, along with  dozens and dozens  of field radios 

that the Army lacked. As Ms. Laber noted, the US (namely, the Pentagon) also supplied  arms.  

Cables show these were small arms, used for killing at close range.  

The supply of radios is perhaps the most telling detail. They served not only as field 

communications but also became an element of a broad, US intelligence gathering operation 

constructed as the manhunt went forward. According to a former embassy official, the Central 

Intelligence Agency hastily provided the radios    state of the art Collins KWM 2s, high 

frequency single sideband transceivers, the highest powered mobile unit available at that time to 

the civilian and commercial market. The radios, stored at Clark Field in the Philippines, were 

secretly flown by the US Air Force into negara kita . They were then distributed directly to 

Soeharto's headquarters    called by its acronym KOSTRAD    by Pentagon representatives. The 

radios plugged a major hole in Army communications: at that critical peristiwa t, there were no 

means for troops on Java and the out islands to talk directly with Jakarta.  

While the embassy told reporters the US had no kabar rmation about the operation, the opposite 

was true. There were at least two direct sources of kabar rmation. During the weeks in which the 

American lists were being tour d over to the Army, embassy officials met secretly with men 

from Soeharto's intelligence unit at regular intervals concerning who had been arrested or killed. 

In addition, the US more generally had kabar rmation from its systematic monitoring of Army 

radios. According to a former US official, the US listened in to the broadcasts on the US 

supplied radios for weeks as the manhunt went forward, overhearing, among other things, 

commands from Soeharto's intelligence unit to kill particular persons at given locations.  

The method by which the intercepts were accomplished was also described. The mobile radios 

transmitted to a large, portable antenna in front of KOSTRAD (also hastily supplied by the US    

I was told it was flown in in a C 130 aircraft). The CIA made sure the frequencies the Army 

would use were known in advance to the National Security Agency. NSA intercepted the 

broadcasts at a site in Southeast Asia, where its analysts subsequently translated them. The 

intercepts were then sent on to Washington, where analysts merged them with reports from the 

embassy. The combined reporting, intercepts plus  human  intelligence, was the primary basis 

for Washington's assessment of the effectiveness of the manhunt as it destroyed the organizations 

of the left, including, inter alia, the Indonesia Communist Party, the PKI.  

A word about the relative importance of the American lists. It appears the CIA had some access 

prior to 1965 to intelligence files on the PKI housed at the G 2 section of the Indonesia Army, 

then headed by Major General S. Parman. CIA officials had been dealing with Parman about 

intelligence concerning the PKI, among other matters, in the years prior to the coup, according to 

a former US official who was involved (Parman was killed in the coup). The former official, 

whose account was corroborated by others whom I interviewed, said that the Indonesia lists, or 

files, were considered inadequate by US analysts because they identified PKI officials at the 

 national  level, but failed to identify thousands who ran the party at the regional and municipal 

levels, or who were secret operatives, or had some other standing, such as financier.  

When asked about the possible reason for this apparent inadequacy, former US Ambassador 

Marshall Green, in a December 1989 interview, characterized his understanding this way:  

I know that we had a lot more kabar rmation than the negara kita ns themselves.... For one thing, it would have been 

rather dangerous [for the Indonesia military to construct such a list] because the Communist Party was so 

pervasive and [the intelligence gatherers] would be fingered...because of the people up the line [the higher ups, 

some of whom sympathized with the PKI]. In the [negara kita n] Air Force, it would have been lethal to do that. And 

probably that would be true for the police, the Marines, the Navy    in the Army, it depended. My guess is that 

once this thing broke, the Army was desperate for kabar rmation as to who was who [in the PKI].  

By the end of January 1966, US intelligence assessments comparing the American lists with the reports 

of those arrested or killed showed the Army had destroyed the PKI. The general attitude was one of 

great relief:  Nobody cared  about the butchery and mass arrests because the victims were 

Communists, one Washington official told me.  

                       Kathy Kadane  

The Indonesia Massacres and the CIA 

(by:Ralph McGehee) 

Covert Action Quarterly, Fall 1990 

 In my original article ( The Nation, April 11, 1981) I tried to explain, through the constraints of 

the secrecy agreement and the deletions by the CIA's review board, one aspect of the Agency's 

successful effort to manijuga te events in negara kita  in late 1965 and early 1966. The article was 

based on a classified CIA study of which I was custodian while working in the International 

Communism Branch of the CIA's Counterintelligence Staff. The Nation joined with me in an 

unsuccessful lawsuit by the ACLU to gain release of the deleted portions of the article. The 

Agency claims it cannot delete unclassified lies or speculations. By heavily censoring my article, 

it effectively admitted to an Agency role in the peration. 

 

In a recent story in the San Francisco Examiner, researcher Kathy Kadane quotes CIA and State 

department officials who admit compiling lists of names of the Communist Party of negara kita  

(PKI), making those lists available to the Indonesia military, and checking names off as people 

were  eliminated.'' The killings were part of a massive bloodletting after an abortive coup 

attempt taking, according to various estimates, between 250,000 and 1,000,000 lives and 

ultimately led to the overthrow of President Sukarno's government.  

 

Since then a debate has simmered over what happened. A recent study based on kabar rmation 

from former Johnson ad ministration officials, asserted that for months the U.S.  did their 

damnedest  through public pressure and more discreet methods, to prod the Indonesia army to 

move against Sukarno without success. 

 

Debate continues over the origins of the coup attempt called Gestapu. Was it the result of CIA 

machinations, a takeover maneuver by General Suharto, a revolt by leftist officers under the 

control of the PKI, a power play by the People's Republic of China, a pre emptive strike by 

Sukarno loyalists to prevent a move by officers friendly to the CIA, some combination of these 

factors, or others as yet unknown,  I confess to no inside knowledge of the Gestapu. 

 

Historical Background 

It is well known that the CIA had long sought to unseat Sukarno: by funding an opposition 

political party in the mid 1950s, sponsoring a massive military overthrow attempt in the mid 

1958, planning his assassination in 1961, and by rigging intelligence to inflame official U.S. 

concerns in order to win approval for planned covert actions. 

 

Before attempting to describe one aspect of the CIA's role, it is essential to provide background 

on the scope and nature of its worldwide operations. Between 1961 and 1975 the Agency 

conducted 900 major or sensitive operations, and thousands of lesser covert actions. The 

majority of its operations were propaganda, election or paramilitary. Countries of major concern, 

such as negara kita  in the early 1960s, were usually subjected to the CIA's most concerted 

attention. 

 

Critics of the CIA have aptly described the mainstays of such attention:  discrediting political 

groups... by forged documents that may be attributed to them. . . ,  faking  communist weapon 

shipments,'' capturing communist documents and then inserting forgeries prepared by the 

Agency's Technical Services Division. The CIA's  Mighty Wurlitzer  then emblazoned and 

disseminated the details of such  discoveries.  

 

The Mighty Wurlitzer was a worldwide propaganda mechanism consisting of hundreds or even 

thousands of media representatives and officials including, over a period of years, approximately 

400 members of the American media. The CIA has used the Wurlitzer and its successors to plant 

stories and to suppress expository or critical reporting in order to manijuga te domestic and 

international perceptions. From the early 1980s, many media operations formerly the 

responsibility of the CIA have been funded somewhat overtly by the National Endowment for 

Democracy (NED). 

 

From the earliest days, the Agency's International Organizations Division (IOD) implemented 

and coordinated its extensive covert operations. The division's activities created or assisted 

international organizations for youth, students, teachers, workers, veterans, journalists, and 

jurists. The CIA used, and continues to use, the various labor, student, and other suborned 

organizations not only for intelligence and propaganda purposes, but also to participate in 

elections and paramilitary operations and to assist in overthrowing governments. At the same 

time, the CIA manijuga tes their organizational publications for covert propaganda goals. 

The labor unions the CIA creates and subsidizes, in their more virulent stages, provide strong 

arm goon squads who burn buildings, threaten and beat up opponents, pose as groups of the 

opposition to discredit them, terrorize and control labor meetings, and participate in coups. 

 

Use of  Subversive Control Watch Lists  

 

As a matter of course, the Agency develops close relationships with security services in friendly 

nations and exploits these in many ways by recruiting unilateral sources to spy on the home 

government, by implementing pro U.S. policies, and by gathering and exchanging intelligence. 

As one aspect of those liaisons, the CIA universally compiles local  Subversive Control Watch 

Lists  of leftists for attention by the local government. Frequently that attention is the charter of 

government death squads. 

 

After the CIA's overthrow of Arbenz's government in Guatemala in 1954, the U.S. gave the new 

government lists of opponents to be eliminated. In Chile from 1971 through 1973, the CIA 

fomented a military coup through forgery and propaganda operations and compiled arrest lists of 

thousands, 

 

many of whom were later arrested and assassinated. In Bolivia in 1975, the CIA provided lists of 

progressive priests and nuns to the government which planned to harass, arrest and expel them. 

To curry the favor of Khomeini, in 1983 the CIA gave his government a list of KGB agents and 

collaborators operating in Iran. Khomeini then executed 200 suspects and closed down the 

communist Tudeh party. In Thailand, I provided the names of hundreds of leftists to Thai 

security services. The Phoenix program in Vietnam was a massive U.S. backed program to 

compile arrest and assassination lists of the Viet Cong for action by CIA created Provisional 

Reconnaissance Unit death squads. In fact, former Director of the CIA William Colby compared 

the Indonesia operation directly to the Vietnam Phoenix Program. Colby further admitted 

directing the CIA to concentrate on compiling lists of members of the PKI and other left groups. 

 

In 1963, responding to Colby's direction, U.S. trained Indonesia trade unionists began gathering 

the names of workers who were members or sympathizers of unions affiliated with the national 

labor federation, SOBSI. These trade unionist spies laid the groundwork for many of the 

massacres of 1965 1966. The CIA also used elements in the 105,000 strong Indonesia national 

police force to penetrate and gather kabar rmation on the PKI. 

Providing  Watch Lists  based on technical and human penetration of targeted groups is a 

continuing program of CIA covert operators. Today, U.S. advised security services in El 

Salvador, using the techniques of the Phoenix program, operate throughout El Salvador and have 

taken a heavy toll on peasants, activists and labor leaders in that country. In the late 1980s, the 

CIA began assisting the Philippine government in the conduct of  low intensity  operations by, 

among other things, computerizing security service records of leftists and assisting in the 

development of a national identity card program. Wherever the CIA cooperates with other 

national security services it is safe to assume that it also compiles and passes  Subversive 

Control Watch Lists.  

 

Putting the Pieces Together 

 

All of this is essential to understanding what happened in negara kita  in 1965 and 1966. In 

September and October of 1965, the murder of six top military officers during the Gestapu coup 

attempt provided a pretext for destroying the PKI and removing Sukarno. Surviving officers 

principally General Suharto, who was not a target rallied the army and defeated the coup, 

ultimately unseating Sukarno. 

 

Two weeks before the coup, the army had been warned that the PKI was plotting to assassinate 

army leaders. The PKI, nominally backed by Sukarno, was a legal and formidable organization 

and was the third largest Communist Party in the world. It claimed three million members, and 

through affiliated organizations such as labor and youth groups it had the support of 17 million 

others. The Army's anxiety had been fed by rumors throughout 1965 that mainland China was 

smuggling arms to the PKI for an imminent revolt. Such a story appeared in a Malaysian 

newspaper, citing Bangkok sources which relied in turn on Hong Kong sources. Such 

untraceability is a telltale mark of the Mighty Wurlitzer. 

 

Less subtle propaganda claimed that the PKI was a tool of the Red Chinese and planned to 

infiltrate and divide the armed forces. To bolster these allegations,  communist weapons  were 

discovered inside Chinese crates labeled as construction material. Far more inflammatory news 

reporting prior to October 1965 claimed the PKI had a secret list of civilian and military leaders 

marked for beheading. 

After the coup attempt the Indonesia Army in the main left the PKI alone, as there was no 

credible evidence to substantiate the horror stories in the press. [Eight sentences censored.] As 

noted, a favorite tactic is to arrange for the capture of communist documents and then insert 

forgeries prepared by the Agency's Technical Services Division. 

 

Suddenly documents were serendipitously discovered providing  proof  of PKI guilt. On 

October 23, 1965, the Suara Islam reported: 

 

...millions of copies of the text of a proclamation of the counterrevolutionary Gestapu...have 

been recovered.... The text...was obviously printed in the CPR [People's Republic of China]. 

Steel helmets and a large quantity of military equipment have also been found.... There is in 

controvertible evidence of the CPR's involvement.... The arms sent by the CPR were shipped 

under cover of  diplomatic immunity.  ...other important documents offer irrefutable evidence of 

the involvement of the CPR Embassy and the CPR ambassador.... 

 

On October 30,1965 Major General Suharto, in a speech before a military audience, angrily 

denounced the PKI saying that captured documents proved the PKI was behind Gestapu. Suharto 

demanded that the  Communists be completely uprooted.  

 

On November 2, the Indonesia Armed Forces Bulletin asserted that the PKI had a plan for 

revolution, and published supposed PKI directives for the period following the October coup 

attempt. The document stated that the PKI  is only supporting the revolutionary council  that the 

coup tried to establish. It added that if the council were crushed the PKI would  directly 

confront  the generals whom the coup leaders accused of planning to overthrow President 

Sukarno. The document also said,  when the revolution is directly led by the PKI, we can 

achieve victory because the command will be under the PKI our hidden strength is in the armed 

forces.  

 

Military leaders [seven words censored] began a bloody extermination campaign. Civilians 

involved were either recruited and trained by the army on the spot, or were drawn from groups 

such as the army  and CIA sponsored SOKSI trade unions [Central Organization of Indonesia 

Socialist Employees], and allied student organizations. Media fabrications had played a key role 

in preparing public opinion and mobilizing these groups for the massacre. 

 The documents, manufactured stories of communist plans and atrocities, and claims of 

communist arms shipments created an atmosphere of hysteria, resulting in the slaughter and the 

establishment of a dictatorship that still exists today. 

 

The Agency wrote a secret study of what it did in negara kita . [One sentence censored.] The CIA 

was extremely proud of its [one word censored] and recommended it as a model for future 

operations [one half sentence censored]. 

 

Yesterday's Fake News, Today's Fake History 

 

The CIA desperately wants to conceal evidence of its role in the massacre, which it admits was 

one of the century's worst. The U.S. media seem equally determined to protect the American 

image from consequences of covert operations. 

 

Reaction to Kadane's new revelations was swift. An Op Ed by columnist Stephen S. Rosenfeld 

in the July 20, 1990 Washington Post, and an article by correspondent Michael Wines in the July 

12, 1990 New York Times, each deny any CIA role in the massacre. Rosenfeld, reversing his 

conclusions of a week before, ignores the new evidence, cites one of many academic studies, and 

concludes with certainty:  For me, the question of the American role in negara kita  is closed.  

 

Prior to his article, Wines interviewed me. His approach was to reject any kabar rmation that might 

implicate the Agency. I told him virtually everything in this article and more. He dismissed the 

kabar rmation and instead quoted John Hughes, an  observer removed from the controversy,  

citing him as formerly of the Christian Science Monitor but failing to mention that he was also 

State Department spokesman from 1982 to 1985. In an interview with Kadane, Hughes claimed 

that during the coup which brought Suharto to power, he functioned as the  eyes and ears of the 

embassy.  Wines was uninterested. 

 

Subversive control watch lists are an effective and deadly political tool long used by U.S. 

intelligence, so deadly that the Agency cannot allow them to become public knowledge. Keeping 

them secret depends on at least two things: Agency censorship of government employees, and 

self censorship by the mainstream media. 

 Ralph McGehee worked for the CIA from 1952 until 1977 and now writes about intelligence 

matters, notably the book Deadly Deceits    My 25 years in the CIA (New York: Sheridan 

Square Press, 1983). He has compiled a computer data base on CIA activities. Persons interested 

may write to him at: 422 Arkansas Ave., Herndon, VA 22070. 

A.M.Hanafi Menggugat 

 ke Havana, Kuba 

 Menyelam' Mutiara di Laut Karibia   

19 Desember 1963. Hari itu, sesudah resmi dilantik oleh Presiden Sukarno menjadi Duta Besar 

Berkuasa Penuh R.I. untok Republik Kuba di Havana, saya dipersilakan menandatangani Surat 

Keputusan Pengangkatan di samping tandatangan Presiden Sukarno. Saya juga harus 

menandatangani surat sumpah jabatan, bersetia kepada Republik Indonesia   yang berazas 

tujuan Pancasila dan UUD '45. Ternyata lalu  hal ini yaitu  ironi kehidupan saya yang 

kedua. Ironi kehidupan saya yang pertama, ialah saat  saya di tahun  1937 berhenti menjadi 

pegawai pemerintah Belanda di Bengkulu, sebab  memilih jalan hidup berjuang bersama 

dengan sukarno  yang saat  itu dibuang oleh pemerintah kolonial Belanda ke Bengkulu.   

Siapa kira, sopo nyono, hari itu saya sudah  melangkahkan kaki untuk menempuh jalan 

perjuangan untuk bangsa dan tanah airku melalui masa pembuangan di luar negeri yang 

hanya Tuhanlah mengetahui  kapan berakhirnya. (Baris baris ini saya tulis pada 25 Juni 1997 di 

Paris). Hanya Tuhan Allah yang Maha TaLu, bahwa saya sekeluarga didampingi istri 

Sukendah, yang sejak hidup bersama di tahun  1943, pada hari itu sudah  menandatangani 

 kontrak perjuangan  yang baru, yang begitu panjang dan memilukan hati, hingga terbuang di 

luar negeri. Semua Anggota   Konferensi P.B. PARTINDO dari seluruh daerah dan semna 

Anggota   Musyawarah Besar Angkatan 45 yang sedang berlangsung diJakarta berbesar hati 

dan bangga melepaskan keberangkatan saya sekeluarga pergi ke Kuba. Mereka mengira 

hanya untuk beberapa tahun  saja berpisah dengan saya sekeluarga, yang lalu  tentulah 

akan kembali lagi ke tanah air untuk meneruskan perjuangan bersama sama lagi, perjuangan 

untak mencapai cita  cita Pancasila yang belum selesai. Banyak di antara mereka itu sekarang 

ini sudah tak ada lagi, berpulang  ke Rahmatullah.   

Beberapa hari sebelum berangkat, Sukendah memicu  Surat Kuasa kepada pamannya, Pak 

Umar, untuk mengawasi tanah warisan pekarangan di KarangAnyar JawaTengah) yang 

diperolehnya sebagai ahli waris dari kakeknya Raden Ibrahim Marsudi Suryokusumo, yaitu  

saudara dari R.T. Tirtokusumo, Bupati Karang Anyar yang terakhir. Beliau ini yaitu  Ketua 

P.B. Budi Utomo yang pertama, di tahun  1908. Kakek atau Eyang I. Marsudi Suryokusumo 

lalu  di tahun  tahun  1930an dikenal menjabat Kepala Stasian KeretaApi di Cikampek, dan 

sampai masa pensinnnya tinggal di Cikampek. Puteri Eyang Marsudi Suryokusumo yang 

bernama Sulbiah yaitu  ibu dari istriku, ayah istriku bernama Raden Dasar Sosrosoeseno, 

yang berdasar keterangan saksi  legenda legenda keluarga berasal dari keturunan Panembahan Seda Ing 

Krapyak, putra dari Senopati Ingalogo, Raja ke II dari Kerajaan Mataram I.   

Konfirmasi mengenai  legenda asal keturunan keluarga ini  saya terima dari Bapak 

Sudarisman Purwokusumo,WalikotaYogyakarta Hadiningrat (alm.) saat  kami bersama sama 

menghadiri  Sidang MPRS di Bandung. saat  itu MPRS menetapkan sukarno  sebagai 

Presiden R.I. seumur hidup.   

Dari pihak saya sendiri, saya meninggalkan pesan kepada ponakanda Sjamsudin, alias 

SamYaw Sin, untuk mengawasi rumah milik keluarga saya di Jalan Madura No. 5, dan kepada 

saudara Baharudin, Sekretaris Pribadi (saat  saya menjabat Menteri PETERA) untuk 

mengawasi dan memelihara tanah pekarangan dan  bungalow kami di Cilember yang terletak 

di pinggir Kali Ciliwung. Berangkatlah saya sekeluarga ke pulau  Kuba, untuk  Menyelami 

Mutiara di Lautan Karibia . Di dalam EnsiLlopedia negara kita , pulau  Kuba disebut sebagai 

 Mutiara Antilla , artinya mutiara di lautan Karibia. Rakyat Kuba sendiri bangga sekali akan 

pulau nya dan menyebutnya  la perla de la Caribia , mutiara Karibia.   

Saya dan Sukendah, dikaruniai Tuhan lima orang anak: dua laki  laki dan tiga wanita . 

Masing masing menyandang nama yang menandai satu tonggak hidup perjuangan saya 

suami istri.   

Yang pertama: Dias Hanggayndha. Lahir di Jakarta pada tahun  1943.Tekad perang  merebut 

kemerdekaan.   

Yang kedua: Endang Tedja Nurdjaya. Lahir di Jakarta pada tahun  1945. Pujaan pada Nur Illahi 

atas kemenangan perjuangan kemerdekaan bangsa,   

Yang ketiga: Aditio Bambang Mataram. Lahir di Yogyakarta pada tahun  1947. Persamadhianku 

pada arwah arwah pahlawan Kerajaan Mataram, memohon restunya untuk revolusi 

kemerdekaan Nasional bangsa negara kita .   

Yang keempat: Chandra Leka Damayanti. Lahir diYogyakarta pada tahun  1949. Lahirnya di 

bawah sinar bulan taram temaram. saat  itu saya tertangkap oleh tentara pendudukan 

Belanda bersama banyak tokoh  revolusi lainnya, baik dari TNI mau pun dari partai  

partai politik. Itulah simbol tantangan hatiku yang tak kenal damai terhadap kaum kolonial. 

Damayanti meninggal di Paris, 19 No  vember 1988. Marmer putih dalam hatiku hancur 

berderai, aku simpul simpulkan dalam tanganku sampai kini.   

Yang kelima: Nina Mutianusica. sebab  terpikat oleh penamaan Kuba sebagai  la perla de la 

Carabia  yang cantik menarik itu, maka saat  istriku Sukendah melahirkan anaknya yang 

kelima seorang wanita  di Havana, ku berikan nama pada anakku itu Nina Mutianusica, 

artinya Nina Mutiara dari Nusantara dan Caribia. Nina berarti anak wanita  di dalam 

bahasa Spanyol, atau Upi' dalam bahasa Bengkulu.   

saat  Christopher Columbus, si penjelajah lautan, dalam pelayarannya pertama pada tahun  

1492 mencari kepulau an rempah  rempah (negara kita ) yang mulai terkenal mahalnya di 

kalangan pedagang di Eropa, ia rupanya sudah  salah arah. Ia menemukan pulau  Kuba dan 

Haiti. Dalam pelayarannya yang ketiga, barulah ia bisa sampai ke benua Amerika.   

Columbus, kelahiran Genoa (Italia) itu, memperoleh  bantuan dari Kerajaan Spanyol berupa 

beberapa kapal layar untuk melaksanakan cita cita petualangannya itu, dengan perjanjian 

bahwa semua hasil penemuan Columbus dan  awak kapalnya, akan dibagi dua dengan pihak 

Kerajaan Spanyol.   

Di masa Columbus, penduduk asli Kuba yaitu  bangsa Indian, seperti penduduk asli di benua 

Amerika. Amerika yaitu  benua yang ditemukan olehAmerigoVespucci di tahun  1501,yaitu 

sebelum Columbus mendarat di sana pada pelayarannya yang ketiga. Itulah sebabnya, maka 

benua baru ini  dinamakan America sampai sekarang.   

Oleh sebab  tanahnya subur dan iklimnya tropis, cocok buat pertanian, terutama kapas, tebu 

dan lain lain; maka bangsa Indian itu dihabisi dan tanah tanahnya dirampas dengan kekerasan 

oleh kaum usurpator  (perampas), terutama bangsa Spanyol. orang  Spanyol lalu  

membutuhkan tenaga tenaga kerja budak yang mereka ambil atau curi secara paksa dari 

Afrika. Masa itu yaitu  masa perbudakan yang membuat  kaya raya pedagang pedagang 

Eropa.   

Penduduk asli, bangsa Indian, di Haiti, Kuba, di Amerika dihabisi secara kejam, lalu diganti 

dengan bangsa kulit hitam dari Afrika sebagai budak untuk dipekerjakan seperti binatang di 

peladangan kapas dan tebu, dan  melakokan segala pekerjaan yang hina buat bangsa kulit 

putih, yang katanya beragama dan berbudaya. Itulah riwayat singkat mengapa penduduk Kuba 

multi rasial, terdiri dari bangsa asal kulit putih dan yang terbanyak berkulit  hitam, bangsa yang 

dalam perkembangan sejarah perjuangannya untuk membebaskan diri dari penjajahan 

Spanyol sudah  bersatu  padu menjadi satu Bangsa Kuba yang mendirikan negaranya, Republik 

Kuba (La Republica de Cuba).   

Kemerdekaan politik bangsa Kuba pada permulaannya masih bersifat semi kolonial, 

kemerdekaan dari bangsa Spanyol dan dari bangsa Amerika. Barulah lalu  mereka 

sampai pada Republik Kuba pada tahun  1952.Yang naik ke tahta kekoasaan yaitu  seorang 

sersan tentara yang lalu  menjadi kolonel, menjadi Presiden sekaligus Diktator, Fulgencia 

Batista y Zaldivar.   

Kekejaman demi kekejaman, korupsi demi korupsi, kolusi demi kolusi untuk menghisap 

kekayaan dan keringat kaum tani dan pekerja Kuba oleh kaum kolonial Spanyol, begitu juga  

kaum pengusaha Amerika itu, dengan sendirinya melahirkan perlawanan rakyat terus  

menerus sepanjang masa.Walaupun perlawanan rakyat, yang hanya bersenjatakan machete 

(golok atau parang untuk menebang tebu) berkali kali terus menerus mengalami kekalahan, 

namun keknatan  kekuatan perlawanan rakyat itu  patah tumbuh hilang berganti ,  mati satu 

tumbuh seribu . Bermunculanlah bintang bintang pahlawan di lagit lazuardi perjuangan rakyat 

Kuba, seperti di antara lainnya, Jendral Gomez yang menghidupkan dan menyalakan 

kampanye untuk menyerang LasVillas untuk mendorong Revolusi sampai ke kota Havana. 

saat  itu Kuba masih dijajah Spanyol. Tanggal 10 Februari 1874,Tentara Pemberontak rakyat 

Kuba dengan kekuatan 500 orang sudah  berhasil menghancurkan 2.000 orang pasukan artileri 

veteran Spanyol.   

Itu merupakan kemenangan gilang gemilang. Manuver manover dilakukan di bawah 

pimpinanJendral Gomez, namun   pergerakan  serbuan terhebat yang begitu bersemangat dilakukan 

di bawah pimpinan Jendral Antonio Maceo, seorang jendral berkulit hitam dari rakyat Kuba. 

Serbuan itu sudah  memicu  kemenangan ini  menjadi betul betul gilang gemilang.   

Kemenangan lainnya terjadi di dalam bulan Februari itu juga, yaitu di dalam pertempuran Las 

Guasimas melawan serdadu Spanyol yangjumlahnyajauh lebih besar.Jendral Gomez 

mengkombinasikan taktik dan strateginya dengan keahlian tempur Jendral Antonio Maceo. 

Dengan kekuatan yang terdiri hanya dari 200 pasukan kuda dan 50 pasukan infanteri, Maceo 

dan Gomez dapat menggempur pasukan serdadu Spanyol sebanyak 2.000 orang, terdiri dari 

pasukan kuda, infanteri dan artileri yang dikirim dari daerah Camaguey. lalu  dibanjirkan 

lagi 6.000 serdadu dengan enam buah senjata artileri, namun    menghadapi gempuran 

terus menerus dari Jendral Antonio Maceo, Spanyol kehilangan 1.037 serdadu mati dan luka 

luka, sedang  Tentara Pemberontak kehilangan 174 orang.Jendral Maceo yatlg secara 

hngsung mempimpin pertempuran di barisan paling depan itu, pada akhir pertempuran 

mengalami luka luka.   

Jendral Antonio Maceo yang sangat populer dan yang terkenal dijuluki The Bronze Titan atau 

 Jendral Baja Hitam , sampai sekarang patunguya tampak di jalan Malecon yang terkenal, 

dengan wajah menghadap ke teluk Havana mengarah ke Amerika. Sebuah lagi patungnya 

yang saya lihat, berada di lapangan latihan Tentara Revolusioner Kuba, agak di luar kota 

Havana. Di tanah lapangan itulah semula tadinya saya merencanakan untuk merayakan Hari 

Ulang tahun  ABRI kita, tanggal 5 Oktober 1965, sebagaimana sudah  saya bicarakan dan 

disetujui oleh Panglima Achmad Yani. Sebab itulah beliau mengusulkan kepada Panglima 

Tertinggi sukarno  agar saya diangkat menjadi MayorJendral Kehormatan T.N.I.. Amanat 

Sang Pahlawan A.Yani itu dilaksanakan oleh Presiden/ Panglima Tertinggi sukarno  yang 

upacara seremonialnya dilaksanakan oleh Menpangad Letjen Soeharto di MBAD pada tanggal 

22 Februari 1966.   

Banyak buku ditulis oleh penulis asing mau pun ahli sejarah Kuba sendiri mengenai  Kuba, ada 

baiknya dibaca untok lebih mengenal Kuba walaupun tidak langsung berkunjung ke negerinya. 

Dan khu  susnya mengenai sejarah Revolusi Kuba, buku pledooi Fidel Castro  La Historia Me 

Absolvera  ( Sejarah akan Membebaskan Saya ) yaitu  amat penting yang dia tulis saat  

ditahan di penjara di pulau  Pinal de Rio, bersama sama dengan Juan Almeida dan pemuda  

pemuda revolusioner lainnya, sesudah  mereka gagal menyerbu El Quartel Moncada (gudang 

senjata serdadu diktator Batista). Sejarah perjuangan Revolusi Kuba di zaman kapitalisme mo  

dern bertolak dari zaman diktator Batista, sesudah  ia naik rmenjadi Presiden di tahun  1952. 

Penindasan terhadap pemuda pemudi dan mahasiswa yang bergerak menentangnya 

disambungkan sebab  korupsi dan penghisapan terhadap kaum buruh dan kaum tani, dan perse  

ngkolannya dengan kaum pengusaha asing, terutama Amerika di bidang produksi dan 

penanaman tebu, tembakau, boah buahan dan sebagainya, termasuk urusan ekspor impor 

menghidupi terus api perlawanan.   

Bulan September 1953 gelombang pergerakan  revolusioner naik memuncak. Beberapa pabrik 

gula di Oriente dan di LasVillas didu  duki dan dikuasai oleh kaum buruh yang terus bekerja 

memproduLsi, namun   juga membagi bagikan tanah kepada kaum tani di daerah yang 

bersangkutan. Inisiatif untok memulai perjuangan bersenjata dimulai dengan tindakan yang 

betul betul bersojarah, yaitu penyerbuan gudang senjata yang terkenal, El Quartel Moncada, 

pada tanggal 26 Juli 1953 oleh satu grup pemuda revolusioner di bawah pimpinan Komandan 

Fidel Castro. Itu berarti hanya se tahun  sesudah Batista berkuasa. Hari itu setiap tahun  

diperingati kembali, bukan saja sebab  penting arti sejarahnya, namun  untuk mengenang 

korban korban yang tewas dalam pernyerbuan bersenjata itu. jika  Republik Indonesia   

memperingati Hari Pahlawan 10 November 1945, Republik Kuba memperingati Penyerbnan 

Benteng Moncada, 26 Juli 1953. Ada persamaannya, namun  juga ada perbedaannya. jika  di 

Kuba tradisi kepahlawanan itu dipelihara dan dibesarkan baik baik, di negara kita  tokoh  

pemuda pemimpin pertempuran bersejarah 10 November di Surabaya itu diterlantarkan, 

bahkan di dalam Peristiwa Provokasi Madiun mereka itu dihabisi; seperti'Sidik Arselan dan 

Kolonel Dahlan, sedang Sumarsono, ketua sukarno PRI diuber uber, dan  banyak lagi lainnya yang 

tak dapat disebutkan semua nama namanya. Ada juga seorang yang kita kenal sebagai  singa 

podium  BungTomo yang menerima penghargaan. Jangan tidak! Padahal kehebatan 

pertempuran arek  arek Suroboyo itu jauh lebih hebat dan gemerlap dibandingkan  

penyerbuan pemuda revolusioner Kuba atas El Quartel Moncada. Sebuah tanda kegagahan 

pemuda dalam Pertempuran 10 Novem  ber sekarang masih ada (saya kira), yaitu Tugu 

Pemuda di Surabaya dan makamnya Brigadir Jendral Mallaby dari Tentara Inggris di Menteng 

Pulo,Jakarta.   

Ya, Revolusi 17 Agustus 1945 memang yaitu  revolusi terbesar di masa penutupan perang  

Dunia ke II. Itu tidak ada yang akan membantah. 100 juta rakyat marhaen dibebaskan dari 

penghisapan dan penjajahan Belanda selama tiga setengah abad, dibebaskan dengan revolusi 

bersenjata yang dipelopori oleh sebelas pemuda radikal Komite van Aksi dari MENTENG 31 di 

bawah pimpinan Pemimpin Besar Revolusi sukarno . Bagaimana pun juga kita tidak boleh 

memandang Revolusi Kuba lebih hebat dan besar dari Revolusi Angkatan 45 untuk 

menegakkan Republik Indonesia  . Kita pun tidak boleh memiliki  kompleks melihat Revolusi Rusia 

dan RevolusiTiongkok yang dalam sejarah lebih hebat dan lebih gempita dari Revolusi 

Kemerdekaan negara kita . Bangsa negara kita  yang oleh bangsa Belanda selama tiga setengah 

abad dijadikan bangsa kuli, tidak pernah kenal dan dengar dentaman palu baja di pabrik dan 

industri, hanya kerbau kerbau yang plonga plongo, dan orang di Bengkulu tidak mengetahui  bahwa itu 

orangJawa ada insinyurnya, seperti Ir. Sukarno. Inilah hasil pendidikan kolonial Belanda yang 

provinsialistik.   

Seperti sudah  diperingatkan oleh sukarno  : Meskipun tujuan Revolution of Mankind akan 

mendatangkan dunia baru untuk memberi hidup bahagia pada semua umat manusia, satu 

dunia baru tanpa l'exploitation de l'homme par l'homme, tanpa l'exploitation de la nation par la 

nation, namun tiap tiap revolusi memiliki  identitas sendiri sendiri dan sebagai bangsa 

sebetulnya  masing masing memiliki  kepribadian masing masing , demikianlah ucap Bung 

Karno saat  saya dilantik menjadi Duta Besar.   

Basis Revolusi Kuba dengan Revolusi negara kita  berbeda sekali. Begitu juga berbeda sekali 

dengan Revolusi Rusia di permulaan abad ke XIX,juga berbeda juga  dengan RevolusiTiongkok 

di bawah Mao Ze Dong yang meningLatkan Revolusi Kuo MinTang di bawah pimpinan SunYat 

Sen yang terbengkalai.   

Revolusi Kuba ialah revolusi rakyat budak ditempa oleh sejarah perjuangan bersenjata terus 

menerus merebut kemerdekaannya untak memberi hidup bahagia pada rakyat Kuba tanpa 

rasialisme, tanpa l'exploitation de l'homme par l'homme, tanpa l'exploitation de la nation par la 

nation, segalanya bersendikan faktor situasi dan geografinya sendiri.Jose Marti merupakan 

Leitstamya, bintang yang memberikan petunjuk jalan seperti Sukarno di negara kita .   

Renungkanlah lagi: apa dan bagaimana basis Revolusi kita tanpa melupakan faktor situasi dan 

letak geografi tanah air kita sendiri dengan rakyat jajahan yang tidak homogen, tergantung tak 

bertali antara sisa sisa feodalisme purba dan kolonialisme Belanda. Berun  tung sekali bangsa 

negara kita  yang memiliki  pelopor revolusi yang radikal, tangkas dan berani merebut 

saat saat  situasi, memutuskan rantai belenggu penjajahan itu pada mata rantai yang 

terlemah. Dengan prakarsa para pemuda radikal yang memaksa Sukarno Hatta memakai  

saat saat  itu untuk memproklamasikan kemerdekaan bangsa pada 17 Agustus 1945.  Lang 

leve de avangardisten der revolutie, die de kastanjes uit het vunr durft te halen , (dirgahayu 

para perintis revolusi, yang sudah  berani menangani misi  misi  berbahaya), saya pinjam 

ungkapan Belanda ini untok men1besarkan hatiku sendiri, sisa terakhir dari sebelas pemuda 

revolusioner proklamasi yang masih diberi sukma oleh Tuhan sampai ke saat ini.   

syukur i!  

jika  sebagai ritme musik, Revolusi Kuba itu, ibaratnya dari pianosimo meningLat ke 

crescendo, bermula dengan perabu mo  tor kecil bernama Granma, di bawah pimpinan Fidel 

Castro didampingi oleh adiknya Raul Castro dan Che Guevara dan  Camillo Cienfuegos yang 

dimuat padat dengan 87 orang, dan yang pada tanggal 2 Desember 1956 mendarat di pantai 

Las Colorados di Oriente Kuba, dari Meksiko. Periode ini dapat dicatat sebagai puncak 

semangat dan keperwiraan revolusi Kuba. Begitu perahu mendarat, mereka langsung 

bertempur melawan serdadu bayaran Batista, sehingga dari 87 orang ini  hanya 12 orang 

saja yang bisa berhasil mencapai puncak Pico Turquino, yaitu puncak pegunungan Sierra 

Maestra. Dan dari tempat itulah diresmikan terbentuknya Tentara Revolusioner Kuba yang 

bernama El Ejercito Rebelde.Tiga tahun  peperang an gerilya dan perang  fFontal sudah  

menghancurkan tentara Batista, akhirnya sampailah mereka ke ibu kota Havana persis pada 

tanggal 1 Januari 1959. Sayangnya, Batista tidak bisa tertangkap, sebab  sudah lari terbirit birit 

pada parak siang di hari itu juga. maka , tuntaslah  La Historia MeAbsolvera  

ditempa oleh Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos dan Che Guevara.   

Jadilah mereka idola pemuda revolusioner sedunia, teristimewa Ch‚. Saya minta pemuda 

revolusioner negara kita  jangan iri dan bersedih hati. Jalan revolusi kita lain dari jalannya 

revolusi Kuba. Kita memiliki  identitas revolusi kita sendiri, Kuba memiliki  identitasnya sendiri. 

Ingatlah akan pelajaran  Peristiwa Tiga Daerah . Itu sebetulnya  yaitu  suatu 

universitas,sekolah tinggi revolusiAngkatan 45 bangsa negara kita . Selamilah mutiaranya di 

dalam lautan pengalaman PeristiwaTiga Daerah itu.Ambillah hasil penelitian  secara teliti dan 

secermatnya. Cita cita sosialisme negara kita  kita sudah terbukti tidak boleh dicapai dengan 

melompati kepala kepalanya orang kaum marhacn bangsa negara kita . Oleh sebab  nilai nilai 

watak rakyat kita yang menjadi basis revolusi itu masih seperti tergantung tidak bertali antara 

sisa sisa feodalisme purba dan kolonialisme Belanda. Pertama, sebab  tidak adanya partai 

pelopor persatuan nasional, seperti yang dengan tepat sekali diinginkan oleh sukarno , dan 

yang ia umumkan di sekitar hari hari Proklamasi. Kedua, tidak adanya Tentara Nasional yang 

revolusioner. Kebijakan dan penerapan Re Ra (singkatan Rekonstruksi dan Rasionalisasi) atas 

laskar laskar dan tentara kita di tahun  1947 48 dabulu salah aplikasinya.Tidak ada gunanya 

lagi tunjuk hidung siapa yang salah.   

Yang penting sekarang, demi Pancasila sebagai dasar dan tujuan negara, bangsa negara kita  

harus memiliki  partai pelopor nasional dan tentara nasional revolusioner, harus bangun pemuda 

angkatan baru, seperti Pemuda Menteng 31, para avangarde.Artinya tidak bisa lain ialah partai 

politik yang berazaskan Pancasila itu sendirilah yang harus menjadi pelopor bagi kepentingan 

rakyat dan Negara Republik Indonesia  . jika  tidak,  jika  tidak, I'histoire se répète (sejarah 

berulang), namun  dalam bentuk bencana yang lebih ekstrem dibandingkan   Peristiwa Tiga Daerah  

dan  Peristiwa Madiun  atau juga lebih kejam meledaknya dari revolusi Prancis 1789,atau 

sepertigenocidenya Pol Pot di Kamboja yang menghancurkan semua nilai nilai 

perikernanusiaan dan semua agama manusia di dunia. Di atas kuburan Nasakom harus 

dibangun persatuan atau Front Persatuan Nasional Nasasos yang sungguh sungguh 

menjunjung ideologi negara dan bangsa: Pancasila. Bukan salahnya marxisme, namun  

aplikasinya, subyektivisme pelakunya yang dogmatik. Marxisme bukan monopoli PKI!   

Dan dari tempat pembuanganku di Paris, jauh dari tanah airku yar tercinta, saya berseru 

kepada semua kawan kawan seper  juanganku Angkatan 45, tanpa pilih, apakah yang pernah  

di sebelah kiri atau di sebelah kanan jalan perjuangan demi Ibu Pertiwi, saya serokan 

pandangilah wajah seorang wanita ideal, di dalam khayalku: Henriette Roland Holst, seorang 

wanita yang berasal keturunan Yahudi yang menjunj ng rasa cinta perikeman siaan setinggi  

tingginya. Ia berseru:  Het mensenlot is in de mensenhand gegeven, en wij voelen dat zij 

waarheid spreekt. Degroei naar het socialisme volstrekt zich niet noodzakelijk als de groei van 

een dier of een plant. Die groei vereist helder inzicht in de taken en de middelen tot 

verwezenlijking, vaste wil en wijsheid, zelfbeheersing  en zelfverloochening.... Zich allerlei 

opofferingen gctroosten terwille van de algemeene zaak; met zorgvuldige hand uiaan tot 

zaaien, wetende dat anderen zallen oogsten; daar komt het op aan. Wij zeggen niet als de 

Russische bolschewisten: Wij zijn mest op de velden der toekomst..... O, neen, menselijke 

wezens zijn nimmer enkel mest. Wij willen de dragers des toekomst zijn, de steenen 

aandragen to haar bouw, haar fundamenten leggen. Wij zijn akkers, in ons ontkiemt het zaad . 

( Nasib manusia terletak dalam tangan manusia sendiri, dan kita merasa, bahwa suara itu 

benar. Pertumbuhan ke arah sosialisme tidak berlaku seperti pertumbuhan hewan atau 

tanaman. Pertumbahan ke arah sosialisme meminta pengetahuan  yang jernih mengenai  misi   

misi  dan cara cara melaksanakannya, kemaaan yang keras dan kearifan, pengekangan diri 

dan pengorbanan kepentingan diri sendiri ...   

Kerelaan berbagai pengorbanan demi tujuan bersama, dengan cermat menebar benih, meski 

mengetabui bahwa orang lainlah yang akan memetik buahnya; itulah yang terpenting. Kita 

tidak berkata seperti kaum Bolshevik Rusia: Kita yaitu  pupuk di ladang ladang masa depan.   

O, tidak, makhluk manusia bukan hanya pupok belaka. Kita ingin menjadi pengemban masa 

depan, yang menghela batu batu demi pembangunan masa depan itu, memasangkannya 

menjadi fondamen. Kitalah ladangaya, dalam haribaan kitalah benih bersemi. ) Lihat 'Bung 

Karno: Kepada Bangsaku'.   

Saya seorang perasa  sejak umurku muda, sebab  menjunjung rasa cinta kepada bangsaku 

setinggi rasa cintaku pada ibuku yang sudah kembali ke pangkuan Bunda Bumi, meninggalkan 

570 

 

aku saat  baru berumur 10 tahun . Kehilanganku akan nafas cinta kasihnya, hanya bisa 

kutemukan kembali dalam cintaku pada bangsa dan tanah airku. Kepada enam jendral dan 

satu juta yang jadi korban khianat Soeharto, ku tebarkan benih benih cintaku, sebab  ku turut 

merasa kehilangan!   

Pembaca yang terhormat, sekian saja buat sementara sebagai oleh oleh hasil usahaku 

 Menyelami Mutiara di Laut Karibia , yang saya gosok dengan tangan pengalaman dan pikiran, 

sekadar persembahan kepada bangsaku.  

 Berjuang sebagai Duta Besar di Havana Kuba  

Saya memikul jabatan sebagai Duta Besar Republik Indonesia   Berkuasa Penuh (Plenipotentiary) 

secara resmi nya hanya selama dua setengah tahun , sebab pada bulanJuni 1966 saya dipaksa oleh 

Deparlu timbang terima misi  kekuasaan Kedutaan kepada Sekretaris I Moh. Hatta. Pemaksaan Deparlu 

itu dilakukan via kawat kawat sandi, begitu juga  sebuah kawat sandi sudah  dikirimkan kepada seluruh 

Perwakilan Republik Indonesia   di luar negeri yang menyatakan bahwa semua paspor paspor diplomatik 

saya sekeluarga (tujuh orang semuanya) tidak berlaku lagi, tanpa diberikan paspor lain sebagai gantinya, 

paspor biasa (ordinary passport), yang setiap warga negara semestinya berhak untuk memperoleh nya.   

Walau pun secara resmi nya sejak bulanJuni 1966 itu saya oleh Departemen Luar Negeri di Jakarta itu 

dianggap bukan lagi atau tidak lagi menjabat Duta Besar, namun oleh sebab saya teguh tegak 

menjunjung Konstitusi UUD'45 dan teguh menjunjung sumpah jabatan saat  saya dilantik oleh Presiden 

Sukarno pada tanggal 19 Desember 1963 sebagai Duta Besar Berkuasa Penuh dari Republik Indonesia   

untuk Republik Kuba di Havana, maka sikap politik Deparlu dengan kawat sandinya itu saya anggap tidak 

sah dan tidak konstitusional. Sesuai dengan UUD'45, pengangkatan dan pemberhentian seorang Duta 

Besar atau seorang Menteri yaitu  Hak dan Wewenang Kepala Negara atau Presiden. Persoalan ini 

sudah  saya kemukakan dengan jelas kepada pihak Pemerintah Republik Kuba, kepada Menteri Luar 

Negeri Dr. Raul Roa, yang dapat memakluminya dengan sebaik baiknya. Pada azasnya, Kuba tetap 

menerima saya sebagai Duta Besar selama Presiden Sukarno menjabat sebagai Kepala Negara 

Republik Indonesia   dan selama saya tidak diberhentikan oleh Kepala Negara atau Kepala Negara yang 

lain yang menggantikannya.   

Dari Presiden Soeharto yang menjadi Presiden  (menggantikan Presiden Sukarno) melalui 

penyelewengan SUPERSEMAR, saya tidak pernah menerima surat pemberhentian secara resmi. Itu 

tidak lain berarti, Soeharto sudah  membenarkan begitu saja perbuatan Deparlu yang tidak konstitusional 

itu, memberhentikan seorang Duta Besar semau maunya, di luar tata cara yang normal. Apakah ini 

bukan satu pembuktian salah satu aksi kudeta Letnan Jendral Soeharto terhadap Presiden Sukarno,   A 

creeping coup d'etat , seperti ditulis oleh pengamat politik di luar negeri.   

Saya kenal dan saya kenali Soeharto sejak masih Mayor TKR di Yogyakarta di tahun  1945. Dia mengetahui  

saya bukan komunis. Dia mengetahui  sikap politik saya sejak semula menentang kudeta G30S/PKI itu. namun  dia 

mengetahui  juga bahwa saya pengikut yang setia betul pada Presiden Sukarno. Katanya, dia juga menghormati 

dan mencintai Presiden Sukarno dengan segala atribut dan kwalitanya sebagai Pemimpin Besar Revolusi 

Kemerdekaan Bangsa negara kita . namun  nyatanya, semua itu hanya hypocrisy, kelicikan  yang keluar 

dari mulut seorang Politik  besar yang telanjang sebulat bulatnya. Seyogyanya dia bersikap perwira, 

fairplay, secara jujur dia harus mengkoreksi perbuatan pejabat pejabat Deparlu yang keliru itu. Hal hal 

yang bersangkutan dengan masalah ini  akan saya uraikan lebih lanjut dalam bagian bagian 

berikutnya di dalam buku ini.   

Selama bekerja   di Kuba, saya memicu  KBRI Havana menjadi perwakilan R.l. yang dinamis dan 

revolusioner sesuai dengan sifat sifat Negara R.l. yang saya wakili.pertama , saya memberikan 

pengertian kepada segenap anggota staf KBRI dan staf lokalnya menjauhi langgam kerja birokrasi yang 

mati, sleur (lamban), rutin birokrasi cara cara lama yang dikenal dan yang membosankan: habis bulan 

terima gaji, punt. Harus giat dan kreatif, supel dan tidak mahal dengan senyum sebagai pancaran sifat 

sifat budaya bangsa negara kita  yang dikenal berbudaya tinggi. Saling hubungan antara Duta Besar 

dengan semua anggota staf KBRI ialah merupakan satu unit, satu team untuk melaksanakan misi  

kewajiban negara sebaik baiknya. Waktu dan perbedaan pangkat janganlah dipersoalkan demi 

kelancaran kegiatan dan berhasilnya pekerjaan. Saya berterimakasih atas segala pengertian baik dan 

kolaborasi  yang berbahagia dengan semua staf staf saya semuanya. Rasanya tidak terasa asing jauh 

dari tanah air, sebab semua kami dengan seluruh keluarganya merupakan satu keluarga, satu unit, satu 

team keluarga negara kita  yang bekerja   untuk negara yang sama sama kita cintai.   

Dengan kenangan baik, saya tidak melupakan mereka itu. pertama  kepada Saudara Zuwir Djamal, 

Sekretaris I, lalu Saudara Rustamadji, Sekretaris Keuangan, lalu Saudara Hartono, tugas   sandi dan 

tiga orang staf lokal pembantu.Tiga jalur tenaga itulah saja yang ada saat  saya tiba pertama kali di 

Kedutaan di Havana. lalu  Deparlu mengirim Saudara Junizar Jacub, setahun  lalu  Saudara 

Mohamad Hatta, Sekretaris II dari KBRI Mexico yang memiliki  problem melawan Duta Besarnya. Mr. Ismail 

Thayeb memohon kepada saya untak bisa memindahkannya ke KBRI Havana.   

Dalam hal ini saya menyadari, bahwa saya sudah  berbuat kesalahan dalam memenuhi permohonannya 

itu, tidak bijaksana.namun   sebab  rasa kasihan kepadanya, saya sudah  meminta Deparlu agar 

diperbolehkan menempatkan Saudara Mohamad Hatta itu di KBRI Havana. Baru lalu  saya ketahui , 

bahwa sebab  sikapnya yang temperamental dan suka menentang Duta Besar Ismail Thayeb, Deparlu 

hendak memindahkannya ke Afrika sebagai hukuman  atas conuang e nya yang tidak baik itu. Pada 

akhirnya nanti saya akan mengalami sendiri hal yang tidak enak akibat kesalahan saya itu; walaupun 

sebelumnya saya sudah diperingatkan oleh Deparlu mengenai  sifat sifat, karakter pribadi saudara 

Mohamad Hatta yang suka tidak pantas, seperti terjadi terhadap atasannya, Dubes Ismail Thayeb itu tadi, 

sehingga sebaiknyalah tidak diambil.   

Saya rundingkan bersama program kerja untuk KBRI Havana yaitu baik program khusus maupun 

program umum yang biasa, tanpa menantikan misi  perintah dariJakarta. Program khusus yang bersifat 

politik, ialah yang bersifat penerangan, terutama mengenai soal Konfrontasi Malaysia, dengan segala 

sangkut pautnya, yaitu bahwa negara kita  pada prinsipnya sama sekali tidak mau menentang Malaysia 

merdeka, asal saja memegang teguh prinsip demokratis dengan tekad bertetangga baik sebagai sesama 

asal bangsa berbahasa Melayu, melalui perundingan bersama yang independen di atas semangat 

persaudaraan Konferensi Maphilindo (Malaysia Philipina negara kita ).   

Itulah program kerja yang khusus yang saya buat untuk KBRI Havana, di samping misi  penerangan 

mengenai ekonomi dan kebudayaan. Dan tentu saja, tidak pernah dilupakan, penerangan mengenai  

sejarah revolusi, perjuangan kemerdekaan bangsa negara kita , terutama mengenai  perjuangan Angkatan 45 

yang menegakkan Proklamasi Kemerdekaan 17 Agustus '45 di bawah komando Sukarno Hatta sehingga 

berhasil tercapainya pengakuan oleh negara negara di dunia secara nyata adanya Negara Republik 

negara kita  yang merdeka dan berdaulat, yang bersedia menyumbangkan segala kemampuannya demi 

segala cita cita kemanusiaan yang terbaik, bagi persahabatan dan perdamaian dunia.   

Perhatian simpati yang besar sekali kita dapatkan dari Pemerintah dan Rakyat Kuba, begitu juga dari 

kalangan diplomatik yang diakreditir di Kuba, atas kegiatan kegiatan kerja persahabatan di bidang 

penerangan dan kebudayaan itu. Berbagai pameran dan pertunjukkan kesenian dan tari tarian sudah  

menarik perhatian besar mereka. Saya memiliki   modal  kesenian tari tarian, yaitu kedua puteriku, Endang 

Teja Nurjaya dan Chandra Leka Damayanti yang bisa mempertunjukkan Tari Bali dan Tari tarian 

Sumatra.   

Saudara Gordon Tobing dan Syaugi Bustami yang kebetulan berada di Mexico, saya datangkan ke 

Havana. Hasilnya lalu  banyaklah anak gadis dan pemuda Kuba yang bisa menyanyikan dengan 

koor lagu lagu Hallo hallo Bandung, Rayuan pulau  Kelapa, bahkan Butet secara baik dan 

mempesonakan sekali.   

Saya beruntung, sesudah menyerahkan letter of credential (surat kepercayaan) kepada Presiden 

Osvaldo Dorticos, dapat menyelesaikan misi  protokoler memperkenalkan diri  kepada korps diplomatik 

yang diakreditir di Kuba, dalam tempo dua bulan saja. Sungguh, sejak tiba di Kuba, saya beusaha  

hampir setiap hari. Hal itu saya lakukan sampai empat atau lima bulan.   

Ada lagi yang luar biasa.   

Setiap ulangtahun  peristiwa peristiwa bersejarah, seperti 26 Juli 1953, 2 Desember 1956, 17 18 19 April 

1961, dijelmakan menjadi Hari Kerja Bakti dan Hari Setiakawan Revolusioner. Kegiatan demikian bukan 

hanya ditambah   oleh seluruh Rakyat Kuba,Tentara dan Rakyat bersama sama, melainkan juga diikuti juga  

oleh orang  orang berbangsa asing yang bersimpati kepada Kuba. 

 saat  saya mengadakan konsultasi yang pertama kali ke Jakarta, itu terjadi di bulanJanuari 1965. Saya 

mengusulkan kepada Presiden Sukarno, sesuai dengan harapan Fidel Castro, agar dapat dibuka 

hubungan perdagangan R.I. Kuba. Kuba membutuhkan karet, ia juga sudah melakukan impor karet dari 

Kamboja. Dan saya mengharapkan agar Chaerul Saleh, sebagai Deputy III Kabinet Dwikora, dapat 

mengurus pelaksanaannya. Itu soal pertama.   

Soal kedua yang saya ajukan, ialah mengenai masalah Angkatan 45. Sebab saya, sebagai Wakil Ketua 

Badan Musyawarah Angkatan 45, dilapori oleh saudara Chaerul Saleh sebagai Ketua Umum, bahwa 

D.N. Aidit sudah  mengusulkan kepada sukarno  sebagai Pemimpin Besar Angkatan 45, untuk 

membubarkan saja organisasi Badan Musyawarah Angkatan 45 ini . Usul pembubaran Angkatan 45 

saya tolak sekerasnya. Sebab yaitu  saya, dan bukan orang lain yang mengambil inisiatif mendirikan 

organisasi Angkatan 45 itu dengan saudara Adenan Anas Nasution, sebagai Pembantu Sekretaris. 

Bukan Chaerul Saleh, bukan Jendral Nasution. Chaerul Saleh saat  itu sedang berada di Swiss, 

memperoleh  misi  studi (sebetulnya  diselamatkan oleh sukarno  dari persoalan Laskar Bambu Runcing 

yang mendirikan Tentara Rakyat di Bante Selatan, sebab  menentang K.M.B., dan oleh sebab  itu dia 

dipenjarakan oleh Kolonel Kawilarang dari Divisi Siliwangi, di penjara Gang Tengah Salemba). Rapat 

pendirian pertama kali dilakukan di rumah saya, di Jalan Madura No. 5, dihadiri  dan disetujui secara 

aklamasi oleh yang hadir pula , yaitu: S.K Trimurti, Pardjono, Pandu Kartawiguna, Adenan Anas Nasution, F.L. 

Hutabarat dan ZusJo Chaerul dianggap sebagai mewakili suaminya, Chaerul Saleh, dan Bambang 

Suprapto. Adam Malik tidak bisa hadir pula , namun  menitipkan suaranya kepada Pandu.   

Hasil rapat di Jl. Madura No.5 itu ialah berdirinya Panitia Angkatan 45, yang lalu  didukung  dan 

diresmikan olehWalikota Sudiro di rumah rumah nya, dan disambut dengan meriah dan  spontan oleh 

banyak tokoh  pejuang yang dikenal sejak zaman Proklamasi, yang kebetulan berada di Jakarta. 

Semuanya minta dijadikan anggota penyokong utama.Tujuan didirikannya organisasi ini  yaitu : 

pertama, menggalang kembali semangat persatuan nasional di kalangan para pejuang Angkatan 45. 

Kedua, perjuangan merebut Irian Barat. Ketiga, membela dan mengisi Republik Indonesia   berdasarkan 

UUD '45 dan Pancasila. Demikianlah sudah  diletakkan misi  bersejarah dari Angkatan 45.   

lalu , untok menyambut seruan sukarno  di Konferensi B.P. PNI di Bandung pada bulan April 

1953, yaitu agar bangsa negara kita  membentuk All negara kita  Congres,Walikota Sudiro dan Asmara Hadi 

selaku anggota PB. PNI, mengusulkan agar Panitia Angkatan 45 itulah yang maju ke muka, oleh sebab  

tak ada satu partai politik pun yang berani langsung menyambut seruan sukarno  ini . Maka 

lahirlah Kongres Rakyat Seluruh negara kita  Untuk Pembebasan Irian Barat dengan Aruji Kartawinata 

sebagai Ketua dan A.M. Hanafi sebagai Sekretaris Jendralnya.   

Maka,jijika  diteliti dan dikenang kembali perjuangan Angkatan 45 ini  di atas, sesudah  Irian Barat 

kembali ke pangkuan Ibu Pertiwi, ke dalam daerah kesatuan Republik Indonesia  , yaitu  tidak pantas 

sama sekali,jijika  ada sesuatu golongan yang menepuk dada sebagai yang paling berjasa, kecuali jika 

golongan itu yaitu  bangsa negara kita  seluruhnya dengan Pemimpin Besarnya sukarno . Betul sekali 

apa yang dikatakan olehJendral Nas (A.H.Nasution):  Tentara sendiri tanpa Rakyat tidak bisa apa apa . 

Maka itu tentara tidak boleh meninggalkan Rakyat! Apalagi Satu Juta Rakyat sudah mati terbunuh, dan 

sampai sekarang tentara masih menguber siapa saja yang tidak disukai sebagai hantu Komunis.   

Uraian ini  di atas, yaitu  alasan dan keterangan saya mengapa saya menolak keras desakan 

D.N.Aidit agar sukarno  sebagai Pemimpin BesarAngkatan 45 membubarkan saja organisasi Badan 

Musyawarah Angkatan 45 itu. sebetulnya , keterangan saya itu satu overlapping, tumpang tindih, saja, 

satu hal yang tidak perlu diceritakan, sebab sukarno  sendiri sudah mengetahui  sejak semula asal 

kelahiran Kongres Rakyat Seluruh negara kita  yang belum pernah   terjadi sepanjang sejarah. dahulu  All India 

Congress yang dipelopori oleh N.l.P. di Bandung pada tahun  1922, gagal. sedang  PPPKI 

(Permufakatan Perhimpunan perhimpunan Politik Kebangsaaan negara kita ) yang dipelopori oleh Bung 

Karno dan didan  oleh: Dr. Sukirnan, Sjahbudin Latif (PSI), Mr. Iskaq (PNI), Mr. Sartono, Mr. Budiarto, 

Dr. Samsi (Algemeene Studie Club), Kusumo Utojo dan Sutopo Wonobojo (B.U.), Oto Subrata, Bakri 

SurjaatmadJa, S. Sendjaja (PASUNDAN), Parada Harahap, Dahlah Abdullah (Sarekat Sumatra). 

M.H.Thamrin (Kaum Betawi), Sujono, Gondokusumo dan Sundjoto (Indonesiche Studieclub)   yang 

didirikan pada tanggal 17 Desember 1927, itu pun gagal juga .   

sukarno  dapat memaklumi dengan baik berdasarkan pengalaman sendiri, akan tidak mudahnya 

pekerjaan menggalang persatuan, oleh sebab  itu beliau dapat menyetujui berdirinya terus Badan 

Musyawarah Angkatan 45 itu, dengan catatan (atau syarat) agar   saya, A. M. Hanafi, memperbarui 

susunan pimpinannya dan pergi menginsyafkan D.N.Aidit agar    jangan memperbanyak musuh .   

Semua itu akan saya kerjakan, sahutku. Hanya saya mohon terlebih dahulu agar Panglima AhmadYani 

diperkenankan meng gantikan kedudukan Jendral Nas di dalam Dewan Harian Badan Musyawarah 

Angkatan 45 itu. Bagaimana bangga rasa hatiku, dapatlah kiranya dimaklumi, sebab  memperoleh  misi  

langsung dari Pemimpin Besar Angkatan 45. Terpikir dalam hati: ' Baru saja setahun  saya pergi 

meninggalkan sukarno , ada saja macam kerja Aidit bikin sulit sukarno  . Aidit saya kenal sejak 

muda, belum mengetahui  pergerakan  , direkrut oleh F.L. Hutabarat menjadi anggota Barisan Pemuda GERINDO 

Ckakak  Jakarta, di tahun  1941. saat  itu saya menjabat Sekretaris Jendral Pucuk Pimpinan Barisan 

Pemuda GERINDO sejak tahun  1939, menggantikan Saudara Wikana yang didesak mengundurkan diri 

oleh Ketua P.B. GERINDO Dr. A.K(apau!) Gani sebab  tercium keradikalannya yang  komunistis , demi 

untuk keselamatan dan kelangsungan perjuangan GERINDO.   

Ada sedikit hal lagi yang mau saya ingatkan kepada pembaca, terutama kepada para pemuda yang mau 

menjunjung sejarah pergerakan   bangsanya, mengenai riwayat PPPKI nya sukarno  yang gagal 

ini  di atas. Kegagalannya ialah sebab  ditindak oleh Pemerintah kolonial Hindia Belanda, sebab 

PPPKI mengajukan beberapa program tuntutan yang revolusioner, antara lain:   

a). Memohon kepada Pemerintah Hindia Belanda menerangkan apa kesalahannya rakyat yang dibuang 

ke Digul;   

b). Mengirimkan kawat ucapan selamat kepada Pimpinan Perhimpunan negara kita  (P.I.) di negeri Belanda 

yang sudah  dibebaskan dari penjara di mana Bung Hatta sudah  mengucapkan Pembelaannya yang 

berjudul  lNDONESIA VRIJ  ( negara kita  MERDEKA ).   

c). Menyetujui dan mengangkat P.I. di negeri Belanda sebagai Pengawal Perjuangan Bangsa negara kita  

terdepan di Eropa.   

Dus, jika  saya di dalam buku  Menteng 31   Membangun Jembatan Dua Angkatan , menyarankan  agar 

ditegakkan persatuan dan diteruskannya perjuangan cita cita Tritunggal Sukarno Hatta Sjahrir, bukanlah 

hanya sebab  keinginan subyektif, namun   sebab  ingin menjunjung sejarah perjuangan bangsa, bukan 

saja sejak dari kolaborasi  Sukarno Hatta Sjahrir di Hotel  Des Indes  pada tahun  1942 di zaman 

pendudukan Jepang, bahkan bukan saja dari saat  Sjahrir masih pemuda Sekolah AMS di Bandung 

tahun  28 an, yang mulai tertarik kepada seni oratornya sukarno , seperti diceritakan oleh Ibu Inggit 

Ganarsih kepadaku, namun   juga sebab  saya tidak melupakan sejarah perjuangan sukarno  dengan 

PPPKI yang penting itu. Semua peristiwa sejarah itu sudah  sejak semula dahulu, menjalin persatuan 

Tritunggal Sukarno Hatta Sjahrir. Hanya kita, para kader pengikutnya, salah pada pecicilan, subyektif dan 

sentimen sentimenan, hingga pada tersesat di jalan, kita cuma hanya sekedar  melihat pepohonan, namun  tak mengetahui  di mana 

hutannya. Bagaikan pepatah Belanda yang mengatakan: Zij zien wel de bomen, maar niet het bos.    

Selanjutnya sekarang, saya meningkat pada masalah ketiga, yang menyangkut kepentingan konsultasi 

pertama kali keJakarta di bulan Januari 1965 itu. Saya tidak mengira bahwa itu yaitu  konsultasi saya 

yang pertama, namun  juga yang terakhir kepada Kabinet Dwikora Presiden Sukarno, juga pertemuan yang 

terakhir dengan Panglima Achmad Yani.   

Dua hari sesudah pertemuan saya dengan sukarno  mengenai Angkatan 45, saya dipertemukan 

dengan Panglima Achmad Yani di Istana Merdeka.Waktu saya datang di pagi hari itu, PakYani saya lihat 

sudah ada bersama minum kopi dengan sukarno . Hatiku senang melihat suasana santai antara 

kedua orang penting ini .   

Rupanya, sebelum saya sampai, sukarno  sudah membuka soal Angkatan 45 yang saya bicarakan 

dua hari yang lalu itu, dan memohon agar   Pak Yani diperkenankan duduk sebagai anggota Dewan 

Harian Angkatan 45 untuk menggantikan Pak Nas. Sebab, sehabis saya menyalami PakYani dan duduk 

di sebelahnya, beliau ini langsung saja membuka pembicaraan:   

 Saya memang turut merasa bangga melihat Bapak Presiden menempatkan seorang tokoh 

pejuangAngkatan 45 ini menjadi Duta Besar R.I. di Kuba, namun   mengapa saya diminta menggantikan 

Pak Nas di dalam Dewan Harian Badan Musyawarah Angkatan 45 itu, Pak Hanafi,  Bukankah Pak Nas 

itu yaitu  senior saya,'kan,     

 PakYani memang benar sekali , sahutku. dahulu  waktu meminta Pak Nas, saya juga turut 

mengusulkannya. sebab  kami, Dewan Pimpinan Harian Angkatan 45, menghargai jasanya, keikut 

dan annya dalam peristiwa bersejarah'Kembali ke Undang undang Dasar 1945' Saya kali ini 

mengusulkan dan memohon Panglima Achmad Yani menggantikan Pak Nas di dalam Dewan Harian 

Badan Musyawarah Angkatan 45, bukan untuk mendiskreditkan Pak Nas, namun   agar PakYani dan Pak 

Nas turut dan  terus membela integritas sukarno  sebagai Presiden Pemimpin Besar Angkatan 45, 

sebab saya tidak bisa mencari calon lain yang senilai seperti PakYani.    

Pak Hardjowardojo, Kepala Rumah Tangga Istana (pensiunan Mayjen), Letkol Mangil (pengawal Bung 

Karno sejak dari zaman Jepang, asal dari  Polisi Macan ), Mayor Prihatin, dan seorang tentara pengawal 

PakYani duduk bersama sama di ujung sana di dekat pantri. Seorang pelayan istana datang menyuguhi 

kami bertiga dengan tiga cangkir kopi lagi dan sepiring singkong rebus panas.   

 Pak Yani, mari, ini singkong Marhaen, ditanam oleh kaum marhaen, makanan kaum Marhaen, ini hari 

naik ke Istana Marhaen, mari, silakan Pak .... Saya menyuguhkan piring singkong itu kepada Pak Yani, 

namun   Pak Yani mengambil piring singkong ini ., menyuguhkannya terlebih dahulu kepada sukarno , 

seraya berkata: Silakan kepada Bapak Marhaen dahulu ....    

sukarno  tertawa tawa sambil mengambil singkong dari piring di tangan Pak Yani, berkata juga : 

 Silakan,Panglima Tentara Marhaen....    

Spontan saya tertawa gelak gelak. Mereka yang duduk di ujung sana itu pasti mendengar juga cara dan 

kata kata kami itu. Saya tertawa gelak gelak lagi, lalu mengucap:  jika  begini naga naganya, saya tidak 

akan sangsi pergi 'jibaku' untuk ngabdi kepada Bapak Marhaen dan Panglima Tentara Marhaen macam 

begini ... ha ha ha ... sesuai dengan nama yang diberikan sukarno  padaku: Anak Marhaen! 

Simbolik'singkong Marhaen'ini penting!    

Pembaca yang terhormat, jika  Anda mengetahui  peribahasa Sumatra Selatan, bagai pasak bertemu tiang , 

itulah dia, pertemuan tiga iman manusia di beranda belakang Istana Merdeka di hari itu. Seperti itulah: 

cocok, rukun, mesra, bagaikan bertemunya satu keluarga, dua anak sama Bapaknya. Dan jika  

lalu  ada isu beragam  mengenai  ketidakcocokan antara Presiden Sukarno dengan Panglima 

A.Yani, bagi saya semua itu bullshit, tahi kucing! jika  memang ada, justru isu fitnah itulah yang harus 

dihantam dahulu an, oleh siapa dan untuk apa dan siapa isu fitnah itu.   

Saya mulai memiliki  simpati kepada Jendral Yani saat  zaman perjuangan pembebasan Yogyakarta dari 

pendudukan tentara Belanda. Beliau terkenal sekali, saat  itu berpangkat Letkol, Komandan Brigade 9 

yang bernama Brigade Kuda Putih dari Divisi Diponegoro dengan Batalyon yang dikomandoi Mayor 

Suryosumpeno. Brigade 9 dengan pasukan pasukan gerilyanya, menguasai urat nadi penting route 

Semarang Yogya dan Boyolali, Solo Yogya. sebab  posisi frontnya itu, Brigade 9 memperoleh banyak 

kontak  senjata (pertempuran) dengan Tentara Belanda. Ia bermarkas di Wetan Elo (di sebelah Timur 

Kali Elo) di lereng Gunung Merapi, tidak berjarak jauh dari Desa Jetis di mana pendudukuya yaitu  

hampir semua memiliki  hubungan kekeluargaan dengan mertua saya: Dasar Sosrosoeseno, putranya Pak 

Lurah Desa Blabak yang berasal dari DesaJetis ini . Dan saat  itu mertua saya ini  berada di 

Jetis dan adik ipar saya Ario Seno dari pasukan Tentara Pelajar yang bergabung pada Brigade 9, 

menjadi Ajudan Sarwo Edhie, Komandan Kompi 17.   

Walaupun saat  itu saya berada di dalam tahanan penjara di Wirogunan bersama banyak tokoh militer 

dan hampir semua tokoh partai politik yang berada diYogyakarta saat  diserbu mendadak oleh tentara 

Belanda pada tanggal 19 Desember 1948, namun saya memperoleh  kontakberitayang diatur olehArio Seno 

dan Pak Mul (Letnan) sebagai kurir rakyat yang berjuang dari DesaJetis ini  dan yang memperoleh  

perlindungan dari Brigade 9 dari Overste Achmad Yani.   

Saya kira bagi para peneliti sejarah penting sekali mengadakan penyelidikan yang sebenar benarnya 

mengenai  apa sebab dan latar belakang sehingga Ibu Kota Republik, Yogyakarta, dua hari sebelum 

penyerbuan Belanda pada tanggal 19 Desember 1948 dibiarkan kosong tanpa pertahanan Tentara R.I. 

yang berarti. Overste Soeharto sudah berangkat keWonosobo, Kolonel A.H. Nasution sudah berangkat 

ke Jawa Timur, artinya meninggalkan Panglima Besa Sudirman yang sedang sakit sendirian, dan 

Presiden dan Wakil Presiden, sukarno  dan Bung Hatta sendiri di Yogya tanpa Tentara Pertahanan 

Ibu Kota secukup  nya. Dus, apa artinya ini,  berdasar keterangan saksi  saya, pucuk pimpinan nasional itu dibiarkan pada 

nasibnya sendiri sendiri, begitupun anggota anggota Pemerintah R.I. lainnya, semua tanpa penjagaan 

dan lindungan TRI yang sesudah di  RE RA bernama TNI itu.*)   

Walaupun saya berada di dalam penjara, namun dari adik ipar saya Ario Seno dan Letnan Mulyono 

(masih pamannya Ario) ini  di atas, saya seminggu sekali kadang kadang bisa memperoleh berita 

berita, pada kesempatan istri saya, Sukendah, mengantarkan makanan dari rumah untuk saya, mengenai 

kegiatan gerilya pasukan 'Garuda Putih' PakYani, yang lalu  kita kenal sebagai Letnan Jendral 

Achmad Yani, Panglima Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonsia. Tokoh ABRI dan pejuang Angkatan 45 

ini jugalah yang dijadikan korban GESTAPU, yang lalu  menaikkan Letjen Soeharto jadi diktator 

sejak dari 1 Oktober 1965 sampai sekarang ini. Di sini bedaku sepenuhnya peribahasa Belanda de een 

zijn dood, de andere zijn brood! Seorang khilangan nyawa, orang lain yang menarik keuntungannya. Di 

negara kita  kita, Soeharto lah pelaksana pribahasa itu.   

Bukan saya sendiri saja yang bisa memperoleh  berita selundupan seperti  itu, beberapa teman 

sepenjara juga, dan hal itu mempertebal semangat juang kami. Pramudji, bekas Ajudan Ruslan 

Widjajasastra dari Laskar PESINDO, Batalyon 100 bahkan berhasil melarikan diri dari penjara 

Wirogunan. Pada kesempatan mandi sore, dia tidak kembali lagi ke kamar grupnya, namun  merayap seperti 

kadal menelusuri got, lalu  sesudah hari gelap memanjat tembok penjara, sehingga berhasillah ia 

lolos. Kami yang tinggal hanya mendengar beberapa tembakan saja, sambil berdoa mudah mudahan si 

fugitive Pramudji bisa selamat. Tiga hari sebelum pertempuran yang dinamakan  Pertempuran Enam 

Jam di Yogya  saya dengan Kapten Tema dari Divisi Siliwangi (menantu Opseter Muchdi yang saya 

kenal) dapat meloloskan diri juga dari penjara ini . Dari situ saya mengetahui  bahwa Pramudji tadi 

sudah bergabung dengan Laskar PESINDO di bawah pimpinan Supeno dan Sudisman (PKI) yang 

bersembunyi di dalam Benteng Keraton Hamengkubuwono ke lX, dan yang bersama Kapten Abdul Latief 

dengan pasukan TNI dari Godean, mempersiapkan pertem  puran, menyerbu dan menduduki Ibu Kota 

R.I., dan yang kemu  dian dinamakan  Pertempuran Enam Jam diYogya  itu.   

Siapakah Kapten Abdul Latief itu,  Dia tadinya yaitu  dari Laskar PESINDO yang dapat menyelamatkan 

diri dari Peristiwa Provokasi Madiun bersama yang lain lain di bawah pimpinan Pramudji yang 

menggabungkannya kembali ke dalam Batalyon 100. Beberapa hari sesudah terjadinya peristiwa penting 

itu, saya diminta oleh Pramudji cs agar sebagai Letnan Kolonel Staf PEPOLIT, sudi untuk diantarkan 

pergi ke Godean dan dikenalkan kepada Kapten Latief dan sekalian menyampaikan hormat dan  

penghargaan kepada Overste Soeharto yang pernah  menemui  Musso (PKI) di Madiun sebelum 

dilakukan penggempuran oleh TNI Siliwangi, dan yang mereka pandang sebagai Overste TNI yang baik . 

Dan sebab  itu juga lah, mereka setujui Kapten Latief membawa bawa  anak buahnya untuk menggabungkan diri 

dengan batalyon Overste Soeharto.sesudah  saya simpulkan bahwa pandangan mereka obyektif, saya lalu 

setuju untuk diantar Pramudji pergi ke Godean dengan, tentu saja berjalan kaki dariYogya. Sayang, saya 

tidak bisa jumpa dengan Letkol Soeharto, oleh sebab  dia sedang pergi ke seberang Kali Progo, ke 

Markasnya Kolonel Simatupang. Saya dan Pramudji diinapkan di Markas Latiefdengan stafnya Letnan 

Harjadi (pelukis), dan kepada mereka berdua saya minta agar disampaikan hormat dan salam saya 

kepada Overste Soeharto, komandan batalyon mereka.   

             

*). Di dalam pelaksanaan Re Ra (Rekonstruksi dan Rasionalisasi) Laskar laskar Rakyat disingkirkan ke 

dalam Biro TNI Masyarakat, namun  persenjatannya diambil dan dibagikan kepada TNI sendiri, untuk Pusat 

dan Daerah. Inilah sebab, mengapa Laskar Rakyat Jakarta Raya yang pernah  saya pimpin (tahun  1945   47) berdiri sendiri mempertahankan kedaulatannya dan bertahan di daerahJawa Barat di Krawang   Bekasi, dibawah pimpinan Bahar Rezak alias Sultan Akbar.   Memang penting sejarah pertempuran enam jam di Yogya, namun pelaku utama peristiwa itu sama sekali tidak disebut di dalam buku yang berjudul  Soeharto: Pikiran, Ucapan dan Tindakan Saya , yang 

disunting oleh G. Dwipayana dan Ramadhan K.H.Yang terakhir ini saya kenal di zaman Jepang sebagai pengagum sajak sajak kakak  saya Asmara Hadi, namun  lebih saya kenali jiwanya sekarang! Yang disebutkan oleh Soeharto hanya nama nama seperti Letnan Marsudi dan Letnan Amir Murtono, sedang  pelaku utamanya tidak dikabarkan . Orang yang tak dikabarkan  yang saya maksudkan ialah Kapten Abdul Latief, seorang perwira menenga yang selalu setia kepada Soeharto sampai GESTAPU, 30 September 1965. Buku Soeharto itu mengandung penggelapan sejarah yang bertendensi 

menutupi jejak hubungan ilegalnya dengan GESTAPU dan dengan PKI, yang bertolak dari pertemuannya dengan Musso (PKI) di Madiun, saat  dia diutus oleh Panglima Besar Sudirman untuk mengetahui  apa sebetulnya  yang terjadi di sana dan yang lalu  di populerkan sebagai  kudeta PKI Madiun , yang padahal tidak ada itu.Yang sebetulnya , seperti yang diceritakan oleh saudara Sumarsono, Ketua sukarno PRI, Badan Kongres Pemuda Republik Indonesia  , yalah: saat  Overste Soeharto masih di dalam perjalanan 

pulang  untuk memberikan laporan kepada Pemerintah Hatta, mereka di Madiun diserang dan dikepung oleh TNI Divisi Siliwangi, sehingga dengan terpaksa  melawan untuk membela diri. Maka terjadilah apa yang 

disebut  Peristiwa Madiun  yang disinonimkan dengan  kudeta PKI Madiun , namun   oleh PKI disebut sebagai  Provokasi Madiun  Demikianlah eksekusi Red Drive Proposal dari Gerard Hopkins, Penasihat Politik Luar Negeri Presiden Truman dan Merle Cocran di Konferensi Sarangan, yang sudah  dilaksanakan dengan sebaik baiknya oleh Pemerintah R.I. di bawah Kabinet Parlementer Bung Hatta.   Pelaksanaan apa yang disebut red drive proposal  (usul penumpasan orang  komunis) dari Merle Cochran itu, nyatanya sengaja tidak terlalu diramai ramaikan oleh golongan kanan maupun oleh golongan kiri, sebab menyangkut nama USA, negeri yang secara internasional pegang peranserta  penting, 

dan di pihak lain menyangkut nama sukarno , tokoh nasional revolusioner, Presiden R.I. Alasan 

mengapa red drive itu tidak terlalu ramai dibicarakan, mungkin yaitu  sebab  dalam Konperensi  Sarangan itu sukarno  juga hadir pula , walaupun beliau pulang  lebih dahulu, sehingga Konperensi Sarangan dengan Merle Cochran dan G.Hopkins itu dilanjutkan oleh Bung Hatta, Dr. Sukiman dan Mr. Moh. Roem.   Saya kira, inilah latar belakang mengapa sukarno  di dalam Kongres PKI ke VI di Gedung Pertemuan 

di Jakarta, untuk meredam kekecewaan PKI, berkata:  Yo sanak, yo kadang, yen mati aku sing 

kelangan *), dan yang memperoleh  tepukan dan  teriakan setuju yang hangat sekali. Maka lalu  Bung 

Karno berhasil menginsafkan Aidit untuk menyetujui Pancasila sebagai Tujuan dan Dasar Negara R.I. 

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