Kadane: The declassified cables from the period show that the embassy spent a great deal of time reporting the killings -- reporting army actions and reporting the killings. In addition to that, I have had a detailed description of an operation inside the embassy which was that the names that Bob and others had developed as a kind of roster, or master list, were used as a basis for determining who had been caught and who had been killed. And in fact Bob and others have said that it involved many people inside the embassy -- it was not hidden.
Masters: You mean, uh, this list that Bob had was being used as a checklist?
Kadane: Yeah. It was used as a checklist.
Masters: As we found mention in the press or from --
Kadane: You had sources. You had army sources. And what happened was, that based on this, the checking off was being done inside the embassy and was also being done in the intelligence division of the CIA in Washington. And by the end of January, 1966, it had been determined in the embassy and in Washington that the PKI "infrastructure," as they called it, had been wiped out.
Masters: Yeah, no question about that.
Kadane: So there really were two uses for that set of names, according to what I have been told by several people in a position to know.
Masters: I certainly wouldn't disagree with the fact that we had these lists, that we would use them to check off, ok, what's happening to the party, what's the effect on it [of the army attack]. But the thing that gives me real trouble, and absolutely is not correct, is we gave these lists to the Indonesians, and they went out and picked these people up and killed them. And I thought that's what you were saying.
Kadane: Well, actually I've been told that. I have been told that.
Masters: Well, I don't believe it, and I think I was in a position to know.
Kadane: Well, you told me yesterday that you were aware that Bob [Martens] was giving these names to Adhyatman.
Masters: That he [Martens] gave some names to Adhyatman, but people were giving a lot of things to a lot of people. We had people coming around, kind of saying, I'm an intermediary, use me, and I can get information to Suharto. Kim Adhyatman was one of them, Kim's a good fellow, I know him very well, and he was the sidekick of Adam Malik. He was Adam Malik's bagman.
Kadane: He was one of them.
Masters: Well, yeah, one of the key ones certainly. And we did pass some information to him, we passed information to other people. It wasn't long lists of names -- we didn't have long lists of names, frankly. But we had names of some people we identified as being in the party or front groups, but other kinds of information also. But the idea that we passed this information with the idea they would go then and pick them up and kill them is absolutely not correct.
Kadane: Well, let me ask you this Ed. Here's what I understand from Bob and from other people. The names went to Kim, and in fact thousands went to Kim. I talked to Kim myself and he told me he received thousands. I talked to Kim and I talked to Bob.
Masters: We didn't have thousands.
Kadane: Well, Bob said that he did and other people have said that he did, I guess maybe 6 or 8 other embassy officials have said that they personally saw that he had thousands of names.
Masters: Well, I doubt it, it's 25 years ago, and my memory is not as sharp on this as it once was.
Kadane: Yeah, close to 5,000 total, and these names were turned over, they were copied out by hand apparently by several people in the embassy, and then Kim and Bob met, and also one other embassy official [NAME DELETED] was involved in distributing the names to Kim over a period of several weeks or even months, Bob said, during the period of the massacre. And he has offered some proof that in fact the names got to the army. What Adhyatman said is that the names went to Malik, and Malik gave them to Suharto.
Masters: You talked to --
Kadane: I talked to Kim Adhyatman. So the fact is that is what people who are in a position to know have told me, because they said they personally did it.
Masters: Well, I would dispute the fact that anybody had 5,000 names. There's no question that certainly one of the important jobs that we set on after I got out there as political counselor was to improving the biographic capabilities, which were lousy. It was all fragmented. So we pulled together -- I think there were (inaudible) that would pool information. Because as you know, the economic guys could get information, and political from their sources, and even the agricultural attache, and everybody was picking up information, not only on communists, but on other people.
Kadane: Yeah, BAPERKI was another party that was followed. There were two leftist political parties that were examined. At least those.
Masters: Yeah, but a lot of the information we got was not necessarily on them. What I'm saying is, we were collecting information also on the Muslim parties, on anybody, the way an embassy does. You don't collect information just on the communists. So I don't know how many names were collected in this thing, but I would certainly dispute that there were 5,000 communists, I doubt that very much, I have no recollection of any such, and I really insist, Kathy, that if you're taking the line that we were giving these names -- Marshall Green and I and people in charge of that embassy -- giving these names to the Indonesians so they could go out and catch them and kill them, you're absolutely wrong.
Kadane: Well, I don't know what your intentions were, what your thoughts were, I asked you yesterday what your intentions and thoughts were at the time you made the decision to release the names. And you essentially told me you had expected people would be rounded up, would be "taken into custody," was your term. You then said later it became clear that there was a good deal of killing -- shooting. But at the time you said, you had thought they would be taken into custody. Now what Joe Lazarsky has told me is that in fact people knew all along that they were being killed, and the embassy went to great lengths to collect that information. So all I can do -- all I can do --
Masters: We found out killings were taking place -- we did, absolutely.
Kadane: Right, it was a critical piece of intelligence -- it was critical.
Masters: Initially, people as far as I know weren't being killed, or certainly we weren't aware of it initially -- at the early stages.
Kadane: Well the names were given out over a period of several -- literally -- weeks during the period of the massacre, Bob said, and he knows because he knows his own schedule and he knows when he did things. So the bottom line is that it is clear that it was after the names were continued to be given out during the time that the embassy was aware that there were killings. Now whether you had some role in that Ed, or not, you know, I don't know, it's up to your memory and it's up to what you feel you're able to tell me. But that is the chronology, based on what --
[Discussion whether there were 5,000 names -- Masters eventually says he is "damn sure there weren't 5,000 names. How many? I don't know. Whether there were 498 or 2,020, I don't know, but 5,000 sounds ridiculous." There are several other sources, however, backing up the figure used in the original story of "up to 5,000."]
Masters: Well, what I'm saying is, from my standpoint, (inaudible phrase) any names with the idea that they would kill them. At the time names were passed, to my knowledge, we were not aware of the killings.
Kadane: Ok, that is entirely consistent with what you told me yesterday. Let me ask you this. Would it be accurate to say that in the discussions revolving around the potential dissemination of the names, there was never any discussion that people would be killed? Would that be right? You didn't go out --
Masters: Oh, I'm sure that's correct.
Kadane: Would that be your recollection?
Masers: Yeah, oh certainly.
Kadane: Ok. That was never discussed. "These people are going to be killed." You never discussed that?
Masers: Uh, I have no recollection of it, and certainly I would not have been party to turning names over to anybody that would be picked up and killed.
(More questions about what Masters' motives and intent were in considering whether to release the names.)
Masters: We didn't have a group of people out there picking up names, sending them off to the Indonesians with the idea they were going to liquidate them -- it didn't happen.
Kadane: But what did you think was going to happen to those people? Why did you give the names out? Why did you bother to give the names out? What did you think would happen?
Masters: That they would probably pick them up, which indeed they did. When I arrived back there as ambassador, they still had 60,000 (inaud) in detention.
Kadane: So what you thought is that they would pick them up and put them in camps, or something.
Masters: Well, they would go though a normal process, screening them and so forth.
Kadane: Well, for what?
Masters: Eventually they did, but it took a long time.
Kadane: Screening them for what?
Masters: For their political affiliations.
Kadane: And then determining if they were communists, you mean?
Masters: Sure, yeah.
Kadane: Then what would happen to those people?
Masters: Well, they'd keep them in detention, or they'd let them go, or they'd reeducate them -- a lot of things could be done.
Kadane: So what you personally had in mind at the time of the decision to release the names was that these people would be rounded up and possibly reeducated. Is that the sort of thing you had in mind?
Masters: Yeah.
(Long unresolved discussion: Masters asserts again that to his recollection, "we were not passing names at the time that people were being killed." Kadane says she will write that Masters has told her that during the times Martens was distributing the names to the army intermediary, Masters did not believe that the people on the lists would be killed. That assertion was included in the original story.)
END OF INTERVIEW