Brian Behnken
Audrey and George Kahin’s Subversion as Foreign Policy documents the changing nature of US foreign policy in the late 1950s from that of ambassadorial diplomatic relations to the use of the Central Intelligence Agency as a tool for international diplomacy. The book chronicles the end of World War II as witnessed by Indonesia, and how this country dealt with its subsequent freedom. The book is aptly titled, for what it seeks to explain, in part, revolves around the way the CIA ignored or subverted normal diplomatic channels in Indonesia in favor of covert operations. As most historians now understand, the CIA increasingly used covert ops in the late 1940s and on through the 1980s as a distinct methodology for the gaining of diplomatic goals. Covert ops themselves became diplomacy, and foreign policy was often dictated by how covert operations played out. Of course, as most now know, these operations often produced lasting problems in the countries in which they were performed. This is the case with Indonesia.
Before the US ever remotely considered involving itself in the affairs of Indonesia, the island group worked hard to overcome certain deficits that remained from colonialism. Indonesia, a Dutch colony, suffered from the pervasive racist attitudes of the time and the Dutch viewed the Indonesians as backwards, ignorant, and barbaric. Almost all Indonesians performed some form of manual labor and very few middle class Indonesians existed. During WWII, Japan began landing forces on various Indonesian islands, and the Indonesian people rejoiced. Even though the Japanese elevated the conditions of most Indonesians by training them for the armed forces, giving them public education and assistance, and forcing the Dutch to a powerless standstill, in the end the Japanese were disliked as much as the Dutch. Indonesia suffered as Japan began to lose the war. Japan pressured the island group for more and more raw goods to feed the Japanese war machine. After the war, with the Japanese basically ousted from the country and only a small contingent of Dutch people and troops remaining, Sukarno announced Indonesian independence. Sukarno had been a political prisoner during Dutch rule and was released by the Japanese. One of the few well-educated Indonesians, Sukarno soon took a prominent role in the country’s affairs. The next most prominent citizen, Mohammad Hatta, was also a political prisoner released by the Japanese. The two leaders worked with Japan under the belief that Indonesia would one-day be granted independence.
The Japanese forces remained firmly entrenched in Indonesia when Japan surrendered to the allies. The US seemingly had bigger fish to fry at the time and worried little over Indonesia’s fate. A Communist threat in Europe and the concluding peace talks were far more important than a group of islands in the middle of nowhere. The Japanese had little control over Indonesian actions at this time and without their assistance Sukarno and Hatta led the country. When British forces arrived to “liberate” the island, they found an already functional Indonesian government. The British, however, saw the country as a Dutch colony and made assurances to the Dutch that they would return the colony. When the Indonesians fought back, the British realized that they were out of place. When the British pulled out, 91,000 Dutch troops arrived to replace them. The arrival of the Dutch troops signaled the start of a full-fledged revolution. Ignoring the fact that a new, albeit rudimentary, Indonesian government already existed, the US greatly supported the Dutch efforts. Fearing that Indonesia might be overrun with Communists, the US provided the Dutch with great amounts of military equipment. Indonesia was hardly a bastion of Communism, however. Most of the country’s political parties had mildly socialist views and the PKI, the only communist party, always finished dead last in the polls. Nevertheless the US feared a Communist takeover of the islands. Finally, the UN halted the Dutch activities and in a striking move saddled Indonesia with a huge debt to the Netherlands in exchange for the withdrawal of Dutch troops.
Indonesia won the revolution, but at huge costs. The US reversed its position and supported Indonesia towards the end of the revolution, but the aid was minimal both during and after the war. Sukarno seems to have trusted the US little more than any of the previous countries that had dealings in the island chain. It is no wonder that with the intermixing of affairs with the Dutch, Japanese, and British, Sukarno and Hatta called for national unity. Sukarno, however, wanted the PKI included in this unity. Hatta resigned in protest, although he would continue to play a substantial role in the country’s political affairs for years to come. Sukarno’s call went unheeded by the Indonesian people, however. The army remained in a deplorable state after the war, the parliament disagreed with Sukarno often, and the country suffered from religious strife between Christians and Moslems. Also, Sukarno continually tried to get the island of West Irian (still Dutch) back into the sphere of Indonesia’s influence. All of these internal factors culminated in a revolt of several military colonels.
The “rebellion” of the four colonels soon aroused further US attention. Suddenly the island group did not seem so far away and the threat of Communism loomed large. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles (Secretary of State) became further concerned when in 1957 Sukarno rejected US-style democracy. He also made trips to China and the USSR, further exciting the US. Also, the PKI had steadily grown in influence because the party supported Sukarno’s claim to West Irian. To top it all off, after years of requesting substantial US military aid to no avail, Sukarno appealed to Soviet bloc countries for aid and received it. This was too much for Eisenhower, the ambassadors in Indonesia, and the Dulles brothers. Allen Dulles viewed Indonesia as spinning out of control and wanted to begin a covert operation to replace Sukarno. While officials at the State Department disagreed with Allen Dulles, the strength of the Dulles brothers in the eyes of Eisenhower allowed their view to become gospel. When the four dissident colonels appealed to the US for military aid, the CIA slowly began supplying the rebels with US personnel for training Indonesian soldiers. The US ambassador to Indonesia never received this information. Eisenhower’s reluctance to begin a full covert operation in the country ended when Sukarno seized all remaining Dutch properties in Indonesia as a result of failed negotiations for West Irian. He also repudiated the huge debt owed to the Dutch. The US saw that Sukarno had clearly been subverted by Communist forces.
Thereafter, shipments of arms began secretly arriving in the rebel colonels home bases at regular intervals. US diplomats in Indonesia also had no knowledge of this occurrence. Sukarno became aware of this aid and announced that Indonesia would henceforth have a twelve mile territorial boundary instead of a three mile boundary. This further angered leadership in Washington and Eisenhower ordered the US 7th Fleet to Indonesia with the purpose of protecting American interests. The rebels soon began bombing Indonesian cities and military vessels using American B-26 and B-29 aircraft. On the ground, however, the forces of the Indonesian government under the command of General Nasution carried the day. In response to the crushing defeats suffered at the hands of the government forces, the rebels retreated and announced the formation of a counter-government in Indonesia. Sukarno responded by bombing rebel strongholds. Much of the rebel airforce, the only real advantage the rebels had over the government, met with destruction in the bombing runs. When it became obvious that the rebels were losing , the US decided to distance itself from the mess that it partially created. The US still desired to oust Sukarno, however, and they began concentrating their efforts on anticommunist elements through Nasution. Nasution, however, was loyal to Sukarno and refused US entreaties. Finally, the US reversed course and began to directly aid Sukarno.
The rebellion, however, lasted another three years and cost hundreds of thousands of lives. The US so bolstered the rebels with supplies that they were able to slip into the jungle after their most crushing defeats and continue a guerrilla war. As a result of all of the fighting, Sukarno began tightening his overall control over the country. He strengthened the executive branch, dismissed the parliament, and returned to the Indonesian Constitution of 1945 to give himself further authority. Finally the rebels surrendered in 1961, but the country’s problems were still far from over. Eisenhower’s goals had exactly the opposite effect than he had intended. Instead of ousting Sukarno, Ike made him stronger. Instead of destroying the Communists in Indonesia, the Communists grew as they continued to support Sukarno. The army controlled almost all aspects of the country, the country became authoritarian instead of democratic, and representative government came to an end. When Suharto overthrew Sukarno, a dictatorship had already been created and a true dictator took power. Due to US involvement the country had a tremendous supply of weapons, and Suharto had a fear of Communists. In purges not unlike those seen in the USSR, Suharto had thousands of communists killed. American weapons made this job much easier for him.
The Kahin’s call the US involvement in Indonesia “a debacle.” Truly, the efforts of the US in this clusterfuck were deplorable and counterproductive. Events turned out exactly the opposite of how the US expected they would. Of course, at this time the US also had dealings with supposed Communist threats in Iran and Guatemala, as well as in the US itself thanks to McCarthy. It seems that the Dulleses and Ike created a mindset preferable to seeing Communist activities almost everywhere. Had this country’s leaders not seen red so often, perhaps things might have turned out differently. The Kahin’s main point, that the US subverted diplomatic channels, is perhaps the most poignant. Had Eisenhower chosen to negotiate or at least communicate through diplomatic channels, this whole mess might have been avoided. The Kahin’s do an excellent job of examining all issues surrounding these events. One could only hope for improvement in a few small areas, for instance; the reason why the US was so interested in such a small country, the overall economic value of Indonesia, and the inclusion of information examining the US role in Indonesia after the rebellion. Suharto’s legacy is, of course, another book altogether, but some small introspection by the authors to explain the US’s continued support of such a dictator would seem to be in order.
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