Feet to the Fire: CIA Covert Operations in Indonesia, 1957-1958

Feet to the Fire

FEET TO THE FIRE

CIA Covert Operations

in Indonesia,

1957–1958

■

Kenneth Conboy and

James Morrison

NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS

Annapolis, Maryland

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

© 1999 by Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First Naval Institute Press paperback edition published in 2018.

ISBN: 978-1-68247-345-0

ISBN: 978-1-68247-350-4 (eBook)

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Conboy, Kenneth J.

Feet to the fire: CIA covert operations in Indonesia, 1957–1958 / Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison

p. cm.—(Naval Institute Special Warfare Series)

Includes bibliographic references and index

ISBN 1-55750-193-9 (alk. paper)

1. Indonesia—Politics and government—1950–1966. 2. Military assistance, American—Indoesia. 3. United States. Central Intelligence Agency. 4. Indonesia—Foreign relations—United States. 5. United States—Foreign relations—Indonesia. 6. United States—Foreign relations—1953–1961. I. Morrison James.

II. Title. IIISeries.

DS644.C6337 1999

959.803’5—dc21

99-32286

Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Printed in the United States of America.

26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First printing

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Notes on Indonesian Spelling

  1  Baptism by Fire

  2  Convergent Interests

  3  Point of No Return

  4  The Chinese Pipeline

  5  Padang via Kurdistan

  6  Parallel Structures

  7  Ostiary

  8  The Butterfly Catchers

  9  Building an Air Force

10  17 Agustus

11  Raising the Stakes

12  The Great White Hunters

13  Looking East

14  Nunusaku

15  The Paper Trail

16  Pulling the Plug

17  Confronting Reality

18  Crawl to the Finish

Epilogue

Maps

Notes

Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THIS BOOK is based upon both written sources and extensive oral interviews. In the United States, the written sources were primarily gathered from the Foreign Relations of the United States series, as well as the releases in the Declassified Documents Reference System and relevant media transcripts recorded by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service.

In Indonesia, the effort centered on sifting through the available published military histories and memoirs on file at the Armed Forces Library in Jakarta. With the generous assistance of Col. William D. Patton and Col. Imam Wahyudi, unfettered access was also received to three extensive volumes kept by the Indonesian Air Force, which include literally hundreds of pages of previously classified documents dealing with the PRRI-Permesta rebellion.

For oral sources, Barbara Harvey, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Jakarta, and Eddy Tumengkol, executive director of the United States-Indonesia Society, were particularly helpful in arranging the initial contact with several key participants. Two others, Sjoeib and Yanto Simbolon, were especially generous with their patience and assistance over the months of arduous work that followed. From the Republic of China on Taiwan, Chuang-wen Yu went out of his way to locate several critical sources.

Finally, thanks to our wives for their continued understanding in letting a couple of history buffs pursue such time-consuming and expensive research.

NOTES ON INDONESIAN SPELLING

IN INDONESIA, spelling is not an exact science. This situation was supposed to have changed in August 1972, when a new grammatical format for Bahasa Indonesia—the national language of Indonesia—was introduced. Under the modified system, numerous simplifications—for example, c replaced tj; j replaced dj; u replaced oe—were to have become standard. Old ideas die hard, however. In many cases, especially those involving family and place names, both new and old spellings continue to be used interchangeably. For example, there are two post-1972 biographies of General Yani: one book spells his first name Ahmad, the other Achmad. Similarly the island of Seram is still sometimes listed as Ceram, just as the name of the Muluku islands is sometimes spelled Molucca.

In some cases, spelling was inconsistent even before the 1972 changes. One can find references to Menado, for example, almost as often as Manado. As the latter seems to be preferred by local residents, it is used in this text.

It should also be noted that Indonesians have a propensity to use only a given name and no family name.

Feet to the Fire

1

Baptism by Fire

INDONESIA IS, in a word, complex. Consisting of more than seventeen thousand islands stretched over an archipelago greater than the distance from New York to Los Angeles, Indonesia is populated by dozens of ethnic groups speaking literally hundreds of dialects. Yet for all this diversity, Southeast Asia’s largest nation, in simple political and military terms, can be divided in two: Java and everything else.

As Indonesia’s geographic core, Java runs the show. Comprising about half of the country’s population, ethnic Javanese have traditionally constituted a majority in the military and government.¹ Java’s culture, too, dominates, and its economic development leads the nation.

Radiating outward from Java is everything else. These outer islands range in size and population, some having enough of each to partially emerge from Java’s shadow. The most important is Sumatra. The size of California and home to over 20 percent of the population, Sumatra was born of fire. Some sixty-five volcanoes form a ragged spine down its length; the largest, exploding in one of the greatest eruptions the world has ever known, threw ash as far as the Bay of Bengal. As compensation for this Vulcan past, the island is wrapped in a fertile soil blanket. Ample deposits of oil and tin along with rich earth and a favorable climate have conjoined to assure Sumatra’s renown as Indonesia’s wealth reserve.

Natural resources are not Sumatra’s only physical attribute, however. Located on the western extreme of the island chain, Sumatra sits astride vital waterways connecting the Indian Ocean with the South China Sea. From this strategic vantage point, the island has historically acted as a gateway for foreign influence. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam all made their appearance in Indonesia by way of Sumatra.

Precisely because of its location and natural wealth, Sumatra has long attracted the attention of outsiders. Beginning in the eleventh century, a line of southern Sumatran kingdoms had to contend with the expanding influence of the neighboring Javanese. By the seventeenth century, Europeans were added to the equation. In short order, a patchwork of British, Dutch, French, and Portuguese colonial footholds were milking the island of resources.

Eventually the Dutch negotiated sole rights to Sumatra, obtaining a free hand to do what had never been done before: meld the island under single rule. The challenges to this unity were legion, but by 1903, after overcoming particularly fierce resistance from Acehnese tribesmen in the far north, the Dutch claimed the task complete.

•

Dutch boasting aside, the first decades of the twentieth century saw little ethnic or linguistic cohesion on Sumatra. By the time Imperial Japanese forces seized the archipelago during World War II, however, a transformation had occurred. Though still an ethnic mosaic, Sumatrans from all corners of the island now seemed to feel a common identity within their immediate shores. Moreover, as part of an anti-European consciousness stoked by Tokyo, Sumatrans were sharing an anticolonial affinity with all the former Dutch holdings across insular Southeast Asia. In 1945, when the Japanese belatedly encouraged thoughts of an independent Sumatra, the offer went nowhere. Two years later, after the returning Dutch dangled plans for a federated system with generous autonomy for the outer islands, the concept gained little currency. The people of Sumatra apparently were determined to cast their lot with others seeking a unified Indonesian nation spanning the archipelago.

In the end, they all got what they wished. By December 1949, after a fierce independence struggle and considerable diplomatic mediation by the United States, the Dutch agreed to relinquish their colony and grant Indonesians full sovereignty. On the surface, it seemed like a good deal for Sumatra. One of the prominent Sumatran mother tongues had already been adopted as the basis for the national link language, Bahasa Indonesia. Well-versed in the dialect, Sumatrans were able to dominate the ranks of Indonesia’s early intellectuals. One of them, Mohammad Hatta, was even selected as the united republic’s first vice president.

Quickly, however, Sumatrans soured to the decision. Early resistance came from the Acehnese, the staunchly Muslim and fiercely independent ethnic group that had given the Dutch so much trouble. The Acehnese took exception to the territorial command arrangement organized by the nascent Indonesian National Army (Tentara National Indonesia, or TNI). In Sumatra, the TNI had formed two military regions. One of them, headquartered in the city of Palembang, covered the southern half of the island. The other, headquartered in Medan, spanned the north. This split meant that within northern Sumatra, Acehnese Muslims fell within the same administrative boundaries as Batak highlanders, many of whom were Christian converts. The Acehnese, who had quietly nursed hopes of Indonesia’s becoming a Muslim state, bristled at the thought of being pooled alongside the Batak. Exacerbating matters, the commander of this military region was a Christian.

Emotions peaked in 1953 when the Acehnese revolted, declaring their home districts loosely aligned with Darul Islam, a Muslim separatist force already controlling about a third of rural West Java. While cities were quickly retaken by the TNI, the Aceh countryside remained outside of central control.

Besides the brewing insurgency in Aceh, Sumatran opposition to the central government was also building within local elements of the TNI. Ironically, the top officer in the TNI, Col. Abdul Haris Nasution, was himself a Sumatran. Born in 1918, Nasution was a devout Muslim Batak and highly regarded as a professional soldier. Rising rapidly within the revolutionary army that fought the Dutch, he had been named army chief of staff in 1948. When Indonesia emerged as a fully independent nation in late 1949, he retained the top slot.

From this key post, Nasution faced the hapless job of welding together a national force from the disparate armed elements that had campaigned against the Dutch. A more difficult task could hardly be imagined. Besides the official revolutionary army, there were some one hundred thousand guerrillas roaming the countryside, not to mention another sixty-five thousand Indonesians who had fought on behalf of the Dutch. Combined, these forces amounted to nearly half a million men under arms. From this total, Nasution wanted to retain only fifty-seven thousand. Such hard choices were sure to earn him few friends. Sumatran units of the TNI, in particular, charged Nasution and the central government with targeting them for disproportionate cuts.

Predictably, resistance to the streamlining grew. By late 1952, the battle to shape the postindependence TNI grew more complex when a power struggle divided the army’s upper echelon. Leading one faction was Nasution. Facing him was the TNI’s chief of intelligence, Col. Zulkifli Lubis. First cousins, the two were bitter rivals. In October, Lubis spread the rumor that Nasution was planning a coup. Hearing this, the country’s mercurial leader, President Sukarno, summarily fired his chief of staff.²

Though down, Nasution was not out. Staying active, the colonel dabbled in politics and wrote two treatises on military science.³ After a decent interval of three years, he was deemed sufficiently rehabilitated for reinstatement to his old TNI position. With Sukarno’s backing, he returned to the demobilization process with a vengeance. By now, however, the task was more difficult than ever. Just as in several other Southeast Asian armies—Laos and Vietnam, for example—decentralization of the military had become institutionalized. This erosion of central control was magnified in Indonesia, where island topography and a limited interisland transportation network led to the rise of virtually autonomous military fiefdoms. These regional commanders not only controlled military affairs but also had a hand in commercial ventures. Protecting their turf, they turned a deaf ear to unpopular decisions from Jakarta.

Looking to attack the problem at the top, Nasution in early 1956 announced plans to rotate key territorial commanders. Not surprisingly, reaction from the field was one of singular opposition. From Sumatra, objections were particularly terse. Already, Nasution’s personnel cuts—forcing many Sumatran revolutionaries back to civilian life—had left a bad aftertaste. Now that he was looking to change the top staff, and perhaps put an end to lucrative military-backed bartering across the Malacca Strait with Singapore, hints of insubordination arose.

•

No one was more threatened by the proposed changes than the forty-year-old commander for north Sumatra, Col. Maludin Simbolon. A native of the region, Simbolon was a Christian Batak. Renowned among Indonesians for their flamboyance, the Batak were also famous for their rough edge. Years earlier, they had practiced public cannibalism as a form of capital punishment. In 1834, when two American missionaries accidentally shot a Batak woman while on a hunting expedition, they were eaten for their offense.

Like Nasution, however, Simbolon shattered the Batak archetype. Highly polished, he had a tall, impressive physique and an equally impressive intellect. Despite his never having been abroad, he had an ear for languages and could speak colloquial English.⁴ He was also a natural leader. Soon after Indonesia declared independence in August 1945, Simbolon had maneuvered to the top of the revolutionary forces forming in Sumatra and was given command of a division. He then spent much of the next three years shuttling to Java to consult with other revolutionary leaders and representatives from the United Nations dispatched to negotiate a settlement with the Dutch. By late 1948, after peace talks collapsed, Simbolon was back in Sumatra leading his troops.⁵

Within a year, the revolutionaries were victorious. As one of the most prominent in the TNI’s first generation of officers, Simbolon in May 1950 was given command over northern Sumatra. Assuming his seat in Medan, he was in many ways a reflection of that town. The largest population center on the island, Medan had once been a plantation way station populated by European overlords and a mix of Chinese and Javanese laborers. With independence came a flood of Batak arrivals. A number of foreign consulates also took root, offsetting Medan’s colonial charm with a distinct cosmopolitan flair. Given his penchant for English and his engaging personality, Simbolon personified that flair. A hit with the diplomatic crowd, he was a frequent visitor at the trendy Medan Club and played weekly softball with the American consular staff.⁶

For all his international appeal, however, Simbolon was under serious fire. Among his own constituents, the Acehnese were in open rebellion in part because they opposed his ethnic and religious affiliation. In other areas under his control, troop cuts had angered thousands of veterans. Moreover, Sumatrans of all persuasions were increasingly disillusioned following the first round of national elections held in 1955. Based on proportional representation, Sumatrans—as well as all others from the outer islands—belatedly realized their status as a permanent minority in the face of the massive Javanese voting bloc. Worse, a revolving door of cabinets in Jakarta reinforced the impression that the central government was corrupt and ineffectual.

For Simbolon, there was an added rub. Nasution’s proposed rotation of territorial commanders meant he would lose the very power base he had cultivated for six years. His new post—as inspector general of the infantry—offered little more than an empty title.⁷

Fortunately for Simbolon, he was not alone in feeling under the gun. His proposed replacement was none other than Nasution’s arch rival, Colonel Lubis. By that time Lubis had peaked as deputy chief of staff of the army—only to lose that post when he tried to obstruct plans to rotate the territorial commanders. In sending Lubis to Medan, Nasution no doubt welcomed the opportunity to rid the capital of his chief antagonist. But Lubis, interpreting the move as a demotion, was resistant. Taking matters into his own hands, he finalized plans in November 1956 for a coup against Nasution. Before it could happen, however, word leaked. As Nasution scurried to maneuver loyalist troops into position, Lubis went into hiding.

No sooner had Lubis’s November putsch fizzled, Jakarta was rocked by a bigger political shock. On 1 December, Vice President Hatta resigned from office. Though Hatta had been increasingly sidelined in the decision-making process, his presence had provided a desired balance to the national ticket. In contrast to the impulsive, philandering Sukarno, the devoutly Muslim Hatta was practical and reasoned. Moreover, as a Sumatran native, he had come to personify aspirations for all non-Javanese minorities. With his departure, those from the outer islands saw their national representation considerably weakened.

Reacting to both Hatta’s departure and Lubis’s failed coup, officers from across northern Sumatra ventured to Simbolon’s headquarters on 16 December for a strategy session. Voicing their dissatisfaction with Jakarta, forty-eight officers signed a petition reflecting their grievances. Emerging as most outspoken was the regimental commander from Padang, Lt. Col. Ahmad Husein.

•

In much the same way that Simbolon was a reflection of Medan, Lieutenant Colonel Husein personified Padang. Though it appeared to be a serene, sleepy town, below the surface Padang reveled in rich disorder. Its center was a web of narrow market streets, a locus for goods spreading down the west Sumatran coast. Not surprisingly, the local ethnic group—the deeply Islamic Minangkabau—were renowned across Indonesia for their strong entrepreneurial spirit.

Like his hometown, the thirty-one-year-old Husein had a calm exterior, his modest demeanor and heavy eyelids creating a benign first impression. His stare was sharp and penetrating, however, and it was matched by an energized personality—Husein had a decided tendency to speak his mind. Rising early to a position of authority within the revolutionary forces of west Sumatra, he had long championed the rights of his hometown combatants. In November 1956, he had even gone as far as forming the so-called Banteng Council, an ad hoc committee of over six-hundred central Sumatran active-duty and retired officers who had channeled their opposition against troop cuts into a call for greater Sumatran autonomy.

For Husein, the resignation of Hatta—a fellow Minangkabau native—compounded his frustration with the central government. Emotions snowballing, Husein took to the airwaves on 20 December. Announcing over Padang radio that he had overthrown the Jakarta-appointed governor of central Sumatra, Husein declared himself in charge.

In Medan, Simbolon was taken by surprise. His petition of 16 December had stopped well short of severing ties with Jakarta. Moreover, he had already given a tentative promise to Nasution that he would vacate his seat by 28 December. Husein’s move, however, greatly changed the equation. Taking a page from Padang’s Banteng Council, Simbolon on 22 December formed a Medan-based Gajah Council and announced he was no longer taking orders from the central government. Going into the final days of 1956, the northern half of Sumatra was now in open defiance of Jakarta.

•

In thumbing its nose at Java, Sumatra was not alone. To the northeast, the island of Sulawesi was also jostling for autonomy. Shaped like a distorted hand grabbing the underbelly of the Philippines, Sulawesi shared much in common with Sumatra. Both had attracted the attention of colonial powers because of plentiful natural resources. In both, it was the Dutch who ultimately prevailed and looked to unify the islands under their rule. As with the Acehnese in Sumatra, they faced stiff resistance from local Islamic rulers centered around the southern Sulawesi town of Makassar.⁸ And just as with the Batak, Protestant missionaries enjoyed success winning converts among the Minahasa people of Sulawesi’s far north.⁹

There were also key differences between the two islands. Unlike Sumatra, Sulawesi could not claim anything approaching united nationalist sentiment in the years immediately after World War II. To be sure, many locals, especially southerners, strongly opposed the return of the Dutch. In contrast, however, Minahasa Christians had enjoyed a close symbiosis with the Europeans. Physically distant from Java and vastly outnumbered in an archipelago dominated by Muslims, they had set themselves apart by not only embracing Christianity but also by proving themselves loyal colonial subjects. In return, the Dutch offered the Minahasa Christians better educational opportunities than those they offered to most of the other Indonesian ethnic groups. Thus more educated, Minahasans had been widely used as civil servants across the islands. When this relationship appeared ready to end with Indonesia’s independence, more than a few of them voted with their feet and emigrated to the Netherlands.

Once independence did come, Sulawesi suffered a further blow. In July 1950, Kahar Muzakkar, a former revolutionary leader, entered the jungle near Makassar in an attempt to mediate a settlement with local guerrillas who were irate at not having been integrated into the national army. Instead of making peace, Muzakkar himself joined the rebels as their commander. By 1953, his budding resistance movement took on an Islamic flavor, leading him to announce an alliance with the Darul Islam insurgents already fighting in Java and Aceh.

Facing this armed challenge were troops of the TNI military region encompassing Sulawesi and the Maluku islands to the immediate east. In 1952, the top slot in this sprawling insular command went to Col. Joop Warouw. Of Minahasa Christian descent, the thirty-five-year-old Warouw was highly respected as an able leader. He also had longstanding ties to Java—born in Jakarta, he had spent the revolution fighting on that island—and was known as a diehard Sukarno loyalist.

From his headquarters in Makassar, Warouw was under pressure from the start. After his own assets proved unable to contain Kahar Muzakkar’s Darul Islam insurgents roving southern Sulawesi, Jakarta dispatched over a dozen battalions of Javanese TNI reinforcements. In the north, meanwhile, enterprising Minahasans had been actively smuggling copra (dried coconut meat used as the source of coconut oil) across Southeast Asia. Much as the Sumatrans discretely bartered their goods in Singapore, those from Sulawesi saw smuggling as a way of keeping profits at home. By 1954, the central government saw fit to crack down, slapping the wrists of Warouw and several of his senior subordinates. Still, continued violations below the surface were an ongoing irritant for Jakarta.

In mid-1956, Warouw’s rocky tour was set to end. As had happened with Simbolon, Warouw’s imminent transfer meant he was set to lose his economic power base. Unlike Simbolon, however, Warouw had maintained cordial ties with the TNI top brass. With little protest, he left Makassar in August and took up his new post as defense attaché in Beijing. Nasution no doubt saw this as significant progress in breaking the cycle of regionalism