Gardner's book has many authors

By Yenni Djahidin

WASHINGTON (JP): Paul F. Gardner, a retired American diplomat, says that in writing Shared Hopes, Separate Fears -- Fifty Years of U.S.-Indonesia Relations, he only put together information collected from other people.

"There were many, many authors of this book, and I simply put it together," Gardner said.

Gardner spent 10 years on and off in Indonesia, and was in Jakarta at the time of Gestapu, or the Gerakan 30 September (Sept. 30 Movement) which launched the abortive coup against president Sukarno's government in 1965.

He speaks Bahasa Indonesia fluently, although he admits that his reading is better. "I don't have a chance to speak Indonesian here, but I read some 40 pages in Indonesian every day," he said in a recent interview at the State Department cafeteria.

Although retired from the foreign service, Gardner still does consultancy work for the State Department.

Here is an excerpt from the interview.

Question: Tell me about your book.

Answer: It was the idea of the U.S.-Indonesia Society. I was hesitant at first because I thought so much had been written about Indonesia that I wouldn't have anything more to add. However, I discovered that there were some new things that could be added to it.

For one thing, the State Department has released all its documents, including all its documents on the PRRI/Permesta rebellion. So, that would be something new.

The State Department released documents before and during the Gestapu. So, all of the American Embassy's thoughts, ideas, the contacts and everything else that was going on just before Gestapu and thereafter, have been released.

And the other thing is that there are a good number of human resources, which had not been fully developed. People who had been to Indonesia in the old days, and are now in their 80s, for example. They could tell good stories.

Prof. Sumitro Djojohadikusumo told me some wonderful stories about his experiences here in Washington. He also pointed me to an American he had known back in 1947/1948 in Indonesia, and came back to work in State Department. His name is Carlton Ogbum, he is 84, and he shared with me all of his reminiscences, his letters home during the time he was there.

So, I piggybacked on a lot of other authors. As I say in the book, there are many, many authors and I simply put it together.

And there are many other good stories, including one from Katinuharto Kartodirjo. He had been the head of the rebel air force during the PRRI/Permesta rebellion and flew with the aviator who was shot down. He had some very interesting stories to tell about that period.

Once I got into it, I found so many stories were fascinating and I was really very pleased to be able to share them with other people, including from a great number of Indonesians who were very forthcoming and told a good deal about the old days.

All the old players are there: Nasution, Moerdani, and a couple others, saying good things and bad things about the United States, and Americans are saying good things and bad things about Indonesia. The relationship was very tumultuous in its first 25 years. Things were going up and down a lot.

There were bad times and good times, but the bad times seemed to be getting worse and the good times didn't seem to be getting better until after Gestapu.

And the last 30 years have been quite.

It was fascinating for me because I had lived in Indonesia, read a lot about it, but there was so much I didn't know that I found out from reading old documents and from talking to a lot of people.

Q: How long did it take you to write the book?

A: Two years off and on, because I had some other commitments.

Q: What is the goal of this book?

A: The book is called Shared Hopes, Separate Fears and the reason for that is, I thought during the first few years, we had the same aspirations, the same ideals but we had such greatly different fears, and the fears seemed to run things. I quoted that from Sudjatmoko, that "fears can be important dangerous companions". I thought that was a very important statement.

Q: What is your assessment on the U.S.-Indonesia relations now?

A: We're having the same sort of relationship we have with a great number of other countries. It is less exciting because the relationship is so broad and so very deeply based. It's very stable.

But there will be irritations and good times, and good issues and bad issues. So, it depends on which issue you are working on. In some, we have problems such as human rights and we discuss that; and in certain trade issues, there are problems and some of these problems are never going to go away because they are based on differences, not just cultural, but geographic differences, and those you just can't overcome.

There will be geographical differences in our law of the sea policy. A continental sea-going power and an archipelago power are going to have different views.

There will be different views culturally on certain things, especially on internal affairs and on human rights, and there will be different views between a still developing country that is developing very, very rapidly and a more mature economy (such) as ours, because we have different interests.

I think there is this type of trust now that we can really talk them out without the relationship ever being in danger. We have the type of trust that, I think, we can build on.

I am still discouraged that Americans don't know much about Indonesia. And that's part of the reason for the book: to get the general public more educated on Indonesia.

Indonesians know more about the United States in some aspects than I do. So, there's not much I can tell them except about the history and that, I mean, they are pretty well up-to-date on what our policies are.

But it's changing. Part of the book is making it change more rapidly. To get Americans interested in Indonesia.

The book was basically written for Americans, but I think Indonesians will find it very, very interesting from what their own people say. I don't think Indonesians know some of the things that we were up to in the old days.

Some of them are very bad, as you'll find out in the book. The book is very honest. And some are good.

Q: Do you have a favorite part or chapter in the book?

A: Not really. I think the earlier chapters are much more interesting to me. I knew less about the earlier period. The period I lived through, I knew a good deal about it, and, of course that was a very interesting turbulent period, the last years of Sukarno and the beginning of the Soeharto regime.

Obviously its a fascinating period, but since I lived through it, it was less interesting to me because I already knew what happened. I knew the personalities involved and that sort of thing. The book tries to describe a little bit about personalities, because they look so much, you know, how people thought, and that's a great deal.

But I didn't know so much about the American and the Indonesian personalities in the earlier days. Sukarno, yes, but not some of the others in the earlier days, and I came to have a tremendous appreciation of (former vice president Muhammad) Hatta.

And I always had a tremendous appreciation of Muhammad Roem. I thought he was one of the wisest, nicest, best men that I'd ever known. But I didn't know Hatta very well. I just met him and I had a great appreciation for his mind.

And (former prime minister) Syahrir, I'd read more about Syahrir before. Those two people had great minds, really tremendous role quality minds, whichever way you look at it. It's very interesting reading about them.

Q: Do you have any favorite leaders in Indonesia?

A: I think Soeharto did a wonderful job at the beginning and, I think, the people that he had helping him with the economy at the beginning did a fabulous job; Soemitro is in there, Emil Salim, Salim Widjojo.

Their experiences and how they brought their American experiences and changed to fit the Indonesian environment. I hope I caught that. That's what they were talking to me about. I think all of those people were great heroes.

Sukarno was one of the greatest orators I've ever heard. Because I was an Indonesian language officer, I had to go at least once a week to one of the rallies and listen to him speak. He was probably the greatest speaker I've heard in my life. But I can't agree with his politics. At the beginning, yes. At the beginning, throughout the first period, but not at the end of the Guided Democracy.

He was very anti-American at the end. But he was a fabulous person and a great personality to explore. And I am not sure any of us fully understood him then, or now. But you can look at him in various angles. I prefer to put his earlier days aside from his latter days when he was not among our friends. In fact, he was actually subtly suggesting that people push us out of the country and that we were enemy number one.