In 1955, Sukarno hosted the leaders of twenty-nine Asian, African, and Middle Eastern nations in Bandung at a conference that launched the nonaligned movement. The movement called for neutrality between the two Cold War behemoths, supported decolonization efforts, and encouraged third-world nations to assert greater control over their resources.
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles felt particular rancor toward Sukarno for spearheading this effort. In 1955, the CIA’s appropriately nicknamed Health Alteration Committee contemplated assassinating him. “There was planning of such a possibility,” CIA Deputy Director Richard Bissell acknowledged. After the conference, Sukarno inched toward the Communist bloc, visiting the Soviet Union and China and purchasing arms from Eastern Europe. The Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) had begun to play a prominent role in Sukarno’s coalition government. The CIA attempted to weaken Sukarno by spreading rumors that he was involved with a beautiful Russian blonde who had him under her control. The CIA planned to release a pornographic film with a couple resembling Sukarno and his seductress. Failing to find a suitable facsimile, it sent a Sukarno mask to be worn by a porn actor, but the film, if made, was never actually released.71
With Eisenhower’s approval, the CIA actively supported a coup hatched in late 1957 by rebel officers. CIA pilots supplied the rebels and bombed military and civilian targets. The United States was badly embarrassed in late May when a CIA pilot, Allen Pope, who had been shot down, was presented at a news conference. Years later, Pope remarked, “I enjoyed killing Communists. I liked to kill Communists any way I could get them.”72 Eisenhower had publicly denied U.S. involvement in the coup attempt, an assurance dutifully echoed by the New York Times.73
The coup proved to be as successful as the porn-movie venture. The CIA put out cover stories that its training teams in Indonesia were big-game hunters caught in the uprising and scientists searching for exotic butterflies. Among the casualties of this bungled operation was Frank Wisner, chief of the clandestine service, the Directorate of Plans, at the CIA, who, having already started to become unglued, went completely crazy. Diagnosed with “psychotic mania,” he underwent six months of electroshock therapy and was later reassigned to head the agency’s London office. Sukarno responded to the coup by eliminating most of the opposition political parties and speaking out more forcefully against U.S. foreign policy, especially in Vietnam.74
Following the failed coup, PKI membership and influence grew by leaps and bounds. Partly in response, Sukarno strengthened Indonesia’s ties to Communist China. The CIA remained committed to overthrowing the Indonesian leader. Bissell lumped Sukarno together with Patrice Lumumba as “two of the worst people in public life… mad dogs… dangerous to the United States.”75 But President Kennedy forced a reversal of policy. Sukarno visited the White House in 1961, and Robert Kennedy returned the favor with a visit to Indonesia the following year. Meanwhile, President Kennedy helped broker an agreement between Indonesia and the Netherlands—Indonesia’s former colonizer—that averted a war between the two countries. Prior to Sukarno’s 1961 visit, Kennedy had remarked, according to Roger Hilsman, “when you consider things like the CIA’s support to the 1958 rebellion, Sukarno’s frequently anti-American attitude is understandable.” Sukarno had gotten wind of that comment and appreciated it greatly. He urged the president to visit him in Indonesia, promising him “the grandest reception anyone ever received here.” On November 19, three days before the assassination, Kennedy decided he would visit early the next year.76
Johnson again reversed course. But when he threatened to cut off economic aid to Indonesia, Sukarno chided him, “Don’t publicly treat Sukarno like a spoiled child by refusing him any more candy unless he’s a good boy because Sukarno has no choice but to say ‘to hell with your aid.’”77 Johnson backed down, fearing that curtailing aid would drive Indonesia into the Communist camp and jeopardize substantial U.S. investments. He decided to wait for a more propitious moment.
In October 1964, two major global developments occurred in rapid-fire succession. On October 16, the world awoke to the news that Nikita Khrushchev had been ousted. His duties were divided between two of his top lieutenants: Leonid Brezhnev would serve as Communist Party chief, and Alexei Kosygin would be premier. The news caught Washington completely off guard. The ouster was a response to the slowing economy and a series of foreign policy failures, including Khrushchev’s recklessness in placing missiles into Cuba and then the humiliation of withdrawing them. He was faulted for putting too much stock in peaceful coexistence with the United States. His ouster was also seen as a concession to the Chinese, who had been demanding his removal as the first step toward repairing relations between the two countries.
The very day the news from Moscow was breaking, the Chinese exploded an atomic bomb at their Lop Nor test site. The test had long been anticipated by U.S. authorities. In fact, Kennedy had several times sounded out the Soviet Union’s willingness to join the United States in a preemptive strike against the Chinese nuclear site. Johnson, too, had resisted the Pentagon’s pressure to act unilaterally, instead sounding out Soviet willingness to launch a joint attack. Rusk had alerted the public to the possibility of a Chinese test just two weeks earlier. But that didn’t cushion the blow when it actually occurred. Experts estimated a yield of 10 to 20 kilotons. Johnson insisted that it would be many years before the Chinese possessed “a stockpile of reliable weapons with effective delivery systems.”78 But U.S. officials feared that the successful test would enhance Chinese prestige and encourage a more aggressive stance in Southeast Asia.
China’s gains raised the stakes in Indonesia. By 1965, the 3.5 million–member PKI had become the third largest Communist Party in the world behind the Soviet Union’s and China’s. Thus emboldened, Sukarno repeatedly declared that Indonesia would soon test an atomic bomb, presumably with Chinese assistance. Meanwhile, within Indonesia, activists seized a US Information Agency library, ransacked the U.S. Consulate, and expropriated 160,000 acres of United States Rubber Company plantations and of Caltex, which was owned by the Texas Company and Standard Oil of California. U.S. officials contemplated provoking an incident that would turn the army against the PKI. Ambassador Howard Jones believed that an unsuccessful PKI coup attempt might prove the most effective catalyst. His successor, Marshall Green, arrived in Jakarta in July. His first report to Washington warned, “Sukarno is deliberately promoting Communism’s cause in Indonesia.”
On October 1, 1965, a group of junior military officers, led by the commander of Sukarno’s palace guard, killed six generals whom they accused of plotting a CIA-backed overthrow of Sukarno. But mysteriously, both General Abdul Haris Nasution, the defense minister, and General Suharto, the head of the Army Strategic Reserve, managed to escape. Before the day was out, Suharto led the army in crushing Sukarno’s supporters. Suharto accused the PKI of masterminding the affair. Undersecretary of State George Ball expressed hope that the army might “keep going and clean up the PKI.” Ambassador Green urged military leaders to act forcefully. The United States added as much fuel to the fire as it could, even though it had no evidence that PKI leaders were actually involved.79