Guess What? Bernard Kalb

Guess What? Bernard Kalb

Any foreigner who uses Bung (brother) to address an Indonesian
is likely to have spent a great deal of time in Indonesia in the
1950s, when the term was widely used by government officials and
fellow freedom fighters to refer to one another.

Bernard Kalb, who runs the CNN's weekly program Reliable
Sources, is one American who uses Bung to address any Indonesian
male he comes across. Kalb remembers affectionately the time he
worked as New York Times correspondent in Indonesia in the 1950s.

"I got arrested for several hours," he recalled during a
recent encounter in Hong Kong. The military never gave any reason
for the arrest but he suspected it had to do with his report of
the secret arrival of the first Soviet MiG jet to Indonesia.

His article never reached New York because it was stopped by
the telegraphic office in Jakarta. His release came a few hours
later when president Sukarno learned of his arrest, he said.

Kalb, who interviewed "Bung Karno" several times during his
posting in Jakarta, said he hoped to come to Jakarta soon. "I
would really love to interview Bung Soebandrio," he said of
Sukarno's deputy prime minister and foreign minister. Soebandrio
was jailed after Sukarno's downfall in 1966, and was only freed
after then president Soeharto granted clemency in 1995. He has
not given a press interview since his release.

"Bung Bandrio was a good friend of mine," Kalb said. (emb)