U.S. interventionism goes back to the 1950s

Feet to the Fire, CIA Covert Operations in Indonesia, 1957-1958; By Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison; Published by Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 1999. 218 pages

JAKARTA (JP): Anyone trying to figure out why many Indonesians still harbor suspicions against the U.S. government of meddling in their domestic affairs will likely find the answer by looking at events some 43 years ago. So blatant was Washington's covert intervention, particularly in supporting regional rebellions against Jakarta, that many Indonesians today still, rightly or wrongly, like to postulate U.S. interventionist policy in explaining major political changes in the country. Because of that, Washington at times has also become a convenient scapegoat whenever Indonesians are lost for words in trying to explain the inexplicable.

Perhaps, typical of a society not known for transparency or for record keeping, indulging in conspiracy theories has become a national past time. How else do you explain the rise and fall of their first two tyrannical and powerful presidents Sukarno and Soeharto, the demise of the once influential Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), and now, the virtual decimation of the even mightier Indonesian Military?

There is not a single answer to these questions, as well as to questions about most of the major changes Indonesia has seen since independence in 1945. There is no shortage of theories, including the conspiratorial ones, and Washington is often part of the picture, either actively or lurking in the background.

Historians of postindependence Indonesia must have a hard time reconstructing the major turning points in Indonesia in the last 50 years or so. But in cases where foreign interventions played some role, historians have reliable references to turn to, particularly if those resources are located in Washington. Minutes of meetings of government agencies involved in the policy making on Indonesia, and correspondents between the agencies, including with the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, are all well kept. And they are accessible to the public after 25 years as required under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

If historians have been able to write extensively about the major political events in Indonesia in the late 1950s more so than in any other period, they have Washington to thank for that. A number of books have been written about events in Indonesia for the period between 1955 and 1960 -- particularly about the short-lived armed rebellions against Jakarta in Sumatra and Sulawesi -- using declassified U.S. government documents.

Ironically, U.S. involvement in Indonesia in the 1950s, although already well-documented, has not evoked the same interests in the American public as its other post World War II military adventures elsewhere in the world. Indonesia certainly predated the invasion of Bay of Pigs in Cuba, the entanglement in Vietnam and the CIA role in the bringing down of a democratically elected president in Chile.

Feet to the Fire by no means is the first book to be written about the subject in that period, and probably not the last one either. But it nevertheless counts as a welcome addition to the literature on that unfortunate episode in Indonesia's history.

The international setting is the 1950's Cold War amid U.S. fear that a newly independent but struggling Indonesia was veering toward the communist bloc. When the CIA saw an opening to change the course Indonesia was taking, it jumped at the opportunity to present its case to president Eisenhower to approve the covert operation. The goal, as the title of the book aptly suggests, was to hold president Sukarno's "feet to the fire."

Earlier authoritative books about this period in Indonesia's history, from which the authors also draw heavily, include Subversion as Foreign Policy -- The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia by Audrey R. Kahin and George McT. Kahin (The New Press, New York, 1995) and Permesta, Half a Rebellion by Barbara S. Harvey (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1977). Some of the revelations in Feet to the Fire may contradict postulations made by the Kahins, but they only go to show the tough challenges that writers face in reconstructing history.

Contradictions aside, the new book complements the earlier ones in helping us to understand the whys and the hows of the simultaneous rebellions in the 1950s, and the reason for the American involvement. If Subversion relies on interviews with the big time policy makers in Jakarta and Washington, Feet to the Fire's relies mostly on extensive interviews with the Indonesian and American operatives whom the authors managed to track down after all these years. These operatives, rather than the top policymakers, are the protagonists in the story.

Based on these interviews (mostly cross-referenced for accuracy) and declassified documents from U.S. State Department and the CIA and to a lesser extent from the Indonesian archives, the authors have put together a vivid account of events before and during the U.S. government's policy to try to undermine president Sukarno.

Were it not for the distracting but crucial footnotes which appear in almost every other paragraph, reading Feet to the Fire would be like going through one of Tom Clancy's action-packed novels, minus the dichotomy of the good and bad guys. The book takes us back and forth between Washington and Jakarta, and then on to Padang/Bukittinggi (West Sumatra), Medan (North Sumatra) and Manado (North Sulawesi), and some brief visits to Singapore, Taipei and Manila. There are even dialogs, which the interviewees must have been able to recollect, to spice up the story. And like all good novels, the book introduces us to all the leading players, replete with their background and experience, as each makes his appearance. The protagonists of the story range from discontented Indonesian Army colonels who launched the rebellions in Sumatra and Sulawesi, the CIA operatives in Jakarta and Singapore, to the American and Filipino pilots who carried out the bombing campaigns against Jakarta-owned military facilities.

Unlike the books by the Kahins and Harvey, Feet to the Fire makes no scholarly pretense to answer such pertinent questions as to why the rebellions failed, and why the United States was reluctant to go all the way in supporting the rebellions, and why it switched sides to support Jakarta, effectively pulling the rug from under the rebels' feet when it did. Instead, the book lets readers draw their own conclusions about these questions based on the multitude of facts presented. Compared to Kahins and Harvey, who lived through this episode, the authors wrote Feet to the Fire in a detached way and pass no moral judgments whatsoever about the decisions that affected Indonesia's history. Rather than a weakness, this detached view of history could just be its chief strength.

-- Endy M. Bayuni