Scholar Bresnan comes full circle<\/p>\n
Berni K. Moestafa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Everything has a beginning. Indonesia's economic miracle until
\nthe '90s began with the economists who designed it.<\/p>\n
Tracing back to their names, and the search for a beginning,
\nwould likely end with John J. Bresnan.<\/p>\n
The economists on his account include Widjojo Nitisastro, Ali
\nWardhana and Emil Salim. Together with Mohammad Sadli they took
\ntertiary programs at the University of California at Berkeley,
\nand are now often referred to as members of the \"Berkeley Mafia\".<\/p>\n
This group was behind the Soeharto era development, which
\nturned to foreign investment and debt to drive one of the fastest
\ngrowing economies in the world.<\/p>\n
Currently an adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia
\nUniversity's East Asian Institute, Bresnan sent them to Berkeley
\nwhile he was working for the Ford Foundation.<\/p>\n
Back then, between 1961 and 1964, he was the assistant
\nrepresentative to the foundation, and was its representative here
\nfrom 1969 until 1973.<\/p>\n
He was responsible for helping send some 5,000 Indonesians to
\nvarious universities across the United States.<\/p>\n
The author of Managing Indonesia and From Dominoes to Dynamos
\nrecently spoke to a selection of guests and friends during a
\ntribute for him by the Centre for Strategic and International
\nStudies (CSIS).<\/p>\n
\"I did not set out to build a special relationship with
\nIndonesia. I set out to be useful in the world,\" Bresnan said.<\/p>\n
\"I imagine that the same sort of rational economic planning
\nthat worked in Greece in the late forties could work as well in
\nthese new nation states.<\/p>\n
\"Indonesia was especially appealing because it was largely
\nunknown to the English-speaking world. Indonesia excited my
\ncuriosity, I wondered what it was all about and when I was given
\nan opportunity to come here to work, I took it immediately.\"<\/p>\n
His entrance into the Ford Foundation, he confided, was not so
\nmuch because of ambition but rather fate.<\/p>\n
\"I was there because I needed a job. It was that simple,\" he
\ntold reporters after the CSIS tribute.<\/p>\n
Maybe it was also his interest in the world that drew him to
\nthe foundation, or at least kept him working there. Bresnan
\nworked at the U.S. Embassy in Greece before he was forced to look
\nfor a new job.<\/p>\n
The Eisenhower administration responded to the threat of
\nCommunist infiltration of the State Department with mass layoffs
\nat U.S. embassies across the world.<\/p>\n
\"I saw people being sent home one after another. I kept being
\nasked to take one of their jobs as well as the one I had before.\"<\/p>\n
\"And then what happened is, they had got rid of all the people
\nthey wanted to get rid off and they had not reached the quota
\nthat Eisenhower set. They fired all the employees.\"<\/p>\n
So Bresnan ended up at the Ford Foundation at the age of 25.<\/p>\n
It was there that he met with Michael Harris, the foundation's
\nrepresentative in Jakarta during the 1950s who stirred Bresnan's
\ncuriosity about the country. Harris invited Bresnan to come to
\nIndonesia, which he did in 1961.<\/p>\n
Did the country met his expectations? \"Oh yes. It seemed like
\nthe end of the world.\"<\/p>\n
Indonesia in the early 1960s was poor and became poorer around
\n1965, a time when Sukarno appointed himself president for life
\nand when communism gained influence in the government.<\/p>\n
Bresnan said his first five years in Jakarta were difficult.
\nHe remembered how his team had to fight for a budget in the
\nfoundation, with other countries faring better than Indonesia.<\/p>\n
The Indonesian government was not helpful either. Then foreign
\nminister Subandrio issued a memorandum banning Indonesians from
\nstudying in the United States.<\/p>\n
This emergency called for a meeting with president Sukarno and
\nBresnan recounted the president saying: \" ... well what's your
\nproblem?\"<\/p>\n
\"And we said, 'This memo.'\"<\/p>\n
\"And he said, 'Well, why is that such a problem for you?'\"<\/p>\n
\"We said, 'We have 13 people, right now, ready to go for their
\nPhDs,'\" Bresnan said, explaining that in 1964 one of the names on
\nthat list was former Indonesian ambassador to the United States
\nand current Coordinating Minister for the Economy Dorodjatun
\nKuntjoro-Jakti.<\/p>\n
\"And he said, 'Well, maybe there are some exceptions. How many
\nexceptions are there on the list of 13?'\"<\/p>\n
\"We said all 13 are exceptionable.\"<\/p>\n
\"So he said, 'Aduh, you make it difficult for me'. He said
\n'tell Subandrio it's all right'.\"<\/p>\n
Still, this was easier said than done. Bresnan took Sukarno's
\nunwritten approval to secure \"some kind of approval from someone
\nelse in a position of authority\".<\/p>\n
However, the unfavorable environment, with political
\ninstability and communism on the rise, made it impossible to
\nmaintain the foundation's presence in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Bresnan recalled that by 1965 all the other foreign aid
\nagencies, including the United Nations, had left Jakarta.<\/p>\n
\"I felt a deep lack of accomplishment after the four years of
\nwork at Taman Kebun Sirih,\" he said referring to the foundation's
\naddress.<\/p>\n
But when Soeharto replaced Sukarno, his priority was to
\nrebuild the wrecked economy and in doing so he let technocrats
\nlead the way.<\/p>\n
This vast political change proved to be Bresnan's first real
\nbreak in attempting to emulate what he called \"rational economic
\nplanning\" on nations like Indonesia.<\/p>\n
He said then foreign minister Adam Malik came to New York to
\nreclaim Indonesia's seat in the United Nations General Assembly.<\/p>\n
Bresnan remembers meeting him and him saying, \"We want to
\nremind you that we didn't ask you to leave.\"<\/p>\n
Eighteen months after it left Jakarta the Ford Foundation was
\nback in town. Overall the foundation has given away over US$125
\nmillion in grants since 1954.<\/p>\n
Bresnan left his representative position in Jakarta to head
\nthe foundation's Asia-Pacific office from 1973 to 1981.<\/p>\n
\"I had the intellectual resources of what amounted to a
\nworldwide think tank on the subject of development, and I was
\nlimited only by my imagination,\" Bresnan said during the tribute.
\n\"I thought at the time, and I still think, it's the best job in
\nthe world.\"<\/p>\n
Last Wednesday, Bresnan was awarded the Bintang Jasa Pratama,
\nor the Star of Primary Service, one of the highest honors for
\nwork promoting Indonesia.<\/p>",
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