U.S. interventionism goes back to the 1950s

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