Background to October 1st
Undoubtedly, elements of the Indonesian military (and other
anti-Communist groups) were also considering what to do about the
drift of Indonesia toward Communist rule. It was highly unlikely,
however, that the U.S. could sit passively and expect that Indonesians
on their own would do what had to be done. American analysts seemed
to have concluded that no Indonesian group on its own had the capability
and will to do what was necessary to prevent Communist takeover. American
initiative and cooperation were necessary.
The U.S. over the years had built up close relationships with
many Indonesians, particularly in the Army. In fact, this was the
essence of U.S. policy toward Indonesia over the previous five or more
years. The coincidence of U.S. and anti-PKI Army interest would make
natural, and simply a continuation of patterns already established,
a collaboration and pooling of resources to carry out the best means
available for stopping the PKI and "saving" Indonesia. The CIA
provided a pool of expertise and technical capability for devising
and implementing a relatively sophisticated and delicate maneuver.
The problem of lack of Army internal cohesion, as indicated
in Option 4, remained a stumbling bloc. Efforts were made to achieve
unity in moving against the PKI (and necessarily Sukarno) but
although most generals agreed that the PKI had to go, some very
important officers--notably the Army Chief of Staff General Yani--
were apparently unwilling to take steps that would severely damage
Sukarno. After the failure of attempts to secure Army unity, the U.S.
and the collaborating generals (principally Suharto and Nasution)
[1995 note: again, I would today delete Nasution] decided that the urgency
of the threat and the need for quick action required working with those
who were willing. It was necessary to move in spite of the absence of
Army unity.
Actions were undertaken to try to polarize Indonesian politics
between the Communists and others, an effort that it was hoped might
move the reluctant generals to the "right" side. The Gilchrist letter
seems to have been part of a covert effort to stimulate distrust and
antagonism between Sukarno and General Yani. It appears, however, that
General Yani remained something of a Sukarno-loyalist. General Yani had
become dispensable and probably he stood in the way of what had to be done.
The "Generals' Council" rumor, frequently considered the product of
PKI work, was probably an important element of the CIA-Suharto covert
operation in preparing the ground for GESTAPU. The rumor served a number
of useful purposes. It helped to further the heightening of tension and
uncertainty in Indonesian political life. It served to stimulate mistrust
between Sukarno and certain generals that the CIA wanted to break with
Sukarno. It alarmed the PKI and might even make it take the provocatory
step that was hoped for. It provided a focus for debate and rumor that
distracted attention from the real "conspiracy." It bore a resemblance
to something that actually existed, General Yani's "braintrust," and
thus provided a ready target group for the GESTAPU operation, plausible
victims for the "PKI's" atrocities. The rumor helped to create a climate
in which people would find GESTAPU at least superficially plausible,
especially immediately on October 1st. There would be widespread belief
in the imminent threat of a Generals' Council coup and "unwitting" people
(notably the soldiers used by GESTAPU on October 1st) would be willing
to take actions that they might otherwise question. The General's
Council rumor helped to create something of a "controlled environment"
in which certain planned stimuli would produce a relatively predictable
response. Finally, the rumor was an important part of the cover story for
why the PKI might be believed to have taken the action to be attributed to it.
The exploitation of the Sukarno's health rumor mill was
another important part of the cover for GESTAPU. Unfortunately for
the cover story, however, it turns out to have been one of the weak
links. The post-1965 explanation of why the PKI allegedly carried out
GESTAPU attributes a major role to the presumed fear on the part of
the PKI that Sukarno was about to die. Chinese doctors are alleged to
have convinced Aidit of this. The problem is that Sukarno recovered rapidly
from his illness in August 1965 and Aidit, who was in constant contact with
Sukarno, had more than sufficient time to find out about Sukarno's health
for himself and to turn off any plans that were based on Sukarno's imminent
demise. (The implausibility of this story may in part account for the growth
of theories that attribute the authorship of GESTAPU to Sukarno and place
the PKI in a subordinate role. Even the Suharto government seems to have
adopted this "explanation.~) In 1965, however, the circulation of rumors
by the CIA-Suharto group served to create a climate that would make GESTAPU
plausible as well as the PKI's complicity in it.
It does seem clear that the PKI Politburo held meetings in
August 1965 at which the health of Sukarno was discussed, as well
as the Generals' Council rumors, and probably the existence of
"progressive" officers. What was actually said about these subjects,
however, is far from clear. The official Army version, presented
through "confessions," probably took real events, kernels of truth,
and spun them into the required pattern.
A very interesting question is whether the Untung group
made contact with the PKI, perhaps to get the PKI to directly implicate
itself or at least to take actions that could later be interpreted as
"participation in GESTAPU." It seems likely that the GESTAPU conspirators
would have considered it risky to acquaint anyone not "in the know" with
what was going on. The danger would have been very great that the PKI
would be suspicious and pass the information to Sukarno who would
investigate. The PKI was constantly on the alert for "provocations."
There is a possibility, however, that some vague
intimation of GESTAPU was passed to Aidit via a source that Aidit
would have found credible. If so, it appears that Aidit rejected
PKI participation, despite later trial evidence.
An overlooked source of information on the relationship, if any,
between the PKI and a "progressive" officers GESTAPU group is an
article by the leftist journalist Wilfred Burchett that was originally
published in November 1965. Burchett, relying on "an Indonesian whom I
know as having close contact with the PKI leadership and who escaped
the army dragnet in Jakarta," states that the PKI received "documentary"
evidence of the existence of a Generals' Council in August and informed
Sukarno about it. Burchett continues:
"In late September, Colonel Untung, head of the presidential
guard, learned of the planned coup from independent sources.
He approached leaders of the PKI, among others, revealing
what they had known for some time, and urged joint action.
to thwart the coup. The PKI leaders reportedly refused on
the ground that such an action would be "premature" and that
as long as Sukarno remained at the helm everything possible
should be done to maintain unity, while all patriotic elements
within the armed forces should remain vigilant to deal with any
coup from above."
Of course, we have no way of knowing if this is what happened but it
is possible.
The backgrounds of Lt. Col. Untung, the alleged leader of the
September 30th Movement, and his colleagues have been examined
by a number of independent scholars. The picture that emerges is not
that of a group of "progressive" or disgruntled officers, but rather
of a group of successful and professional military officers who had
exhibited signs of anti-PKI views, had been given sensitive positions
in which their past and present political affiliations and views
would have been subjected to careful examination, and some of whom--perhaps
the most important ones--had recently been trained in the U.S. (General
Supardjo and Col. Suherman) and undoubtedly exhaustively "vetted" by the
CIA and U.S. defense intelligence.
What seems to link most of the GESTAPU officers together is not
their "progressiveness" but their association, both past and present,
with General Suharto. Those participants, particularly in the Air
Force, not overtly linked with Suharto may be considered CIA-Suharto
"assets" activated to play their role in the GESTAPU scenario. The
penetration of the Air Force and the Palace Guard by anti-PKI Army
forces (and the CIA) is at least as plausible as the degree of penetration
attributed to the PKI. The vigilance of the anti-PKI generals in keeping
PKI influence out of their officer corps is well known, as is the effort
to keep track of and penetrate the more leftist branches of the military
services.
Before examining what took place on October 1st it is important to
recognize that (if the thesis of this paper is correct) we are looking
at a collection of actors and a sequence of events that
were put together primarily to accomplish a very immediate and urgent
task: the discrediting of the PKI (and its allies) in as dramatic and
quick a fashion as possible, and the immobilization
of factors that might complicate the situation. While some thought had
obviously been given to cover, it is doubtful that extensive effort
was put into constructing a cover story that would withstand close,
dispassionate scrutiny . The ability of the Cornell researchers,
after only a few months of research using primarily written materials,
to reveal the weaknesses of the immediate cover story is testimony
to its inherent crudeness. The CIA-Suharto group probably felt that,
if they moved quickly and drastically enough, there was little
likelihood that much foreign effort would be put into examining GESTAPU
in detail. Certainly no Indonesian would he disposed to raise doubts.
A certain refinement of cover and justification for actions that,
for the most part, had already been taken (the murder of hundreds of
thousands of Indonesians) was provided by the obviously spurious
Aidit "confession" and the fabricated confession and show trial of
Njono. Untung was also put on trial early in 1966. Even sympathetic
foreign journalists have raised questions about these early trials
(no foreign journalists were permitted to attend and only selected
Indonesians). We do not know at what point the Indonesian authorities
found out about the Cornell study and other evidence that apparently
their story was not going over abroad as well as they had hoped. It
seems probable that the trials of Dani and Subandrio were primarily
milestones in the campaign to remove Sukarno and less parts of the
GESTAPU cover story. It was the trial of Sudisman in 1967 and that
of Sjam in 1968 that were explicitly calculated for their effect on
the foreign skeptics. Of course, Suharto has had other reasons as
well for continuing the show trials