FRIENDS LIKE THESE: WASHINGTON AND ASIAN

AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES DURING THE VIETNAM WAR ERA

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A Thesis

Presented to the

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Faculty of

IE San Diego State University

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In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

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Master of Arts

in

History

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by

Griffin Aaron Cassell

Spring 2020
 SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY

The Undersigned Faculty Committee Approves the

Thesis of Griffin Aaron Cassell:

Friends Like These: Washington and Asian Authoritarian Regimes during the

Vietnam War Era

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_____________________________________________
IE Pierre Asselin, Chair
Department of History
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_____________________________________________
Kathryn Edgerton-Taupley
Department of History
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_____________________________________________
Grace Cheng
Department of Political Science

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Approval Date
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IECopyright © 2020
by
Griffin Aaron Cassell
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All Rights Reserved
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DEDICATION

To my mother, Erin – this endeavor would have been impossible without your overwhelming
support, encouragement, and love.

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ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

Friends Like These: Washington and Asian Authoritarian Regimes

during the Vietnam War Era
by
Griffin Aaron Cassell
Master of Arts in History
San Diego State University, 2020

Traditional Cold War narratives assert that the two hegemons, the United States and
the Soviet Union, crafted and dominated the international system. These narratives tend to

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advance a position of American triumphalism in which US policymakers promoted
democracy and human rights while decrying Soviet totalitarianism and its accompanying
socio-political repression. They also strip many Third World countries of their agency,
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treating them as reactive subjects of the superpower competition. Existing research has a
noticeable gap regarding American support for right-wing authoritarian regimes in Asia. This
study examines Washington’s relationship with three such countries during the Vietnam War
era: Indonesia, Cambodia, and the Republic of China. It argues that in the context of the
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global Cold War generally and the Vietnam War specifically American policymakers
dismissed moral concerns and sidestepped their public promotions of democracy for
geopolitical stability. In Indonesia, Washington was complicit in the mass-murder of tens of
thousands of known and suspected communists in 1965. It also supported Jakarta’s 1975
invasion of East Timor to undermine Beijing and demonstrate resolve after the fall of Saigon.
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In Cambodia, Lon Nol received American assurances, and even premeditated plans, for a
coup. Thereafter, the United States aided his regime despite its military and economic
ineptitude and a mounting insurgency. Lastly, Washington maintained its commitment to
Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang after 1949 despite widespread political repression and
Chiang’s own delusional desires to invade mainland China.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

ABSTRACT ...............................................................................................................................v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... vii
CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1
2 TURNING A BLIND EYE – THE GOVERNMENT OF INDONESIA ....................15

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Politicide of the Left – Mass Purges of Suspected Communists (1964-
1966) ......................................................................................................................17
Unfriendly Neighbor – Expansion into East Timor (1975-1998) ..........................31
3
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THE BEST OF A BAD SITUATION – THE KHMER REPUBLIC ..........................45
Trouble Brewing – Chaotic Cambodia prior to the March 1970 Coup
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(1953-1969)............................................................................................................46
Political Turnover in Phnom Penh – The March 1970 Coup.................................53
Regional Assistance – The Internationalization of the Cambodian Struggle
(1970-1973)............................................................................................................62
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Informational Breakdowns – The Final Years of the Khmer Republic

(1973-1975)............................................................................................................71
4 EXPEDIENCY AT THE EXPENSE OF DEMOCRACY – THE REPUBLIC
OF CHINA ...................................................................................................................80
Indispensable Ally – Kuomintang Repression and American Indifference
(1945-1963)............................................................................................................84
Autocratic Stability – Taiwan’s Role in the Vietnam War (1964-1972) ...............94
Shifting Alliances – Taiwan as a Bargaining Piece (1972-1975) ........................107
5 CONCLUSION ..........................................................................................................119
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................125
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research would not have been possible without the momentous support of the entire San
Diego State History Department. I would like to thank Dr. Paula DeVos for inspiring her
students and pushing them to reach their potential. Immeasurable thanks go to the members
of my thesis committee: Dr. Pierre Asselin, Dr. Kathryn Edgerton-Tarpley, and Dr. Grace
Cheng. Your feedback, input, advice, and encouragement were truly invaluable. I sincerely
appreciate your time and attention, and I will forever be grateful.

I would also like to thank my departmental colleagues for driving me to achieve greater

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things while making lifelong friendships. Many meaningful conversations, academic and
personal, took place over great drinks and excellent company. Special thanks go to Cody
Billock, John Gove, and Amanda Schumaker – I am grateful for your critiques and
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suggestions in an endless series of drafts and for never failing to keep me afloat with your
humor and camaraderie.
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Additional thanks go to my childhood friends Andres Delao, Alex McCarver, and Derrek
Rogers. I appreciate your willingness to endure my incessant babbling about research,
writing, and a series of academic topics. You all provided much needed laughter, and I could
not have completed this project without your friendship.
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I would like to offer a sincere thank you to my AP World History teacher, Frank Varni. Your
class instilled a deep appreciation for the past and the critical importance of historical
empathy.

Thank you to my mother, Erin, and grandmother, Cecelia, for recognizing and fostering my
love of reading and writing. I cannot convey my appreciation for driving me to succeed and
creating a lifelong pursuit of learning and growth. You both have always been a source of
stability and strength, and I look forward to many more discussions, debates, and stories.

Lastly, infinite thanks to my partner Shelbi – you saw my potential many years ago and
always keep me grounded and on track. You are a constant beacon of love and help, whether
we took a dinosaurs class together, we wandered the halls of Girvetz Hall at UCSB (or as you
like to call it – Girfetz), or you simply assured me I was not going crazy throughout graduate
school. Your company on many late nights and innumerable Starbucks runs are among my
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favorite memories, and this work could not have become a reality without your help. I
apologize for the immense mess this academic pursuit brought upon our household with
various drafts scattered throughout the kitchen and living room, and I can only pray our
bookshelf does not collapse under the weight of the books that helped create this thesis.

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

“If we were to adopt such a policy [of denying aid to undemocratic allies], we would not
only lose many friends and allies, but we would also withdraw support from many
countries that need it in order to maintain their independence.”1
– Secretary of State John Foster Dulles

Traditional Cold War narratives assert that the two superpowers, the United States and

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the Soviet Union, were responsible for shaping the global geopolitical environment. These
narratives suggest a distinct triumphalism in which American policymakers proudly advocated
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global democratization and Third World development while condemning Communist
suppression of freedom and democracy.2 Because a significant amount of conventional
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scholarship focuses on this dichotomy, it often overlooks Washington’s realpolitik motivations
that neglected moral issues behind U.S. national interests. Specifically, Washington worked with
authoritarian governments to combat the expansion of Soviet and Chinese influences.
The flaws of these traditional accounts are compounded by an unwillingness to
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comprehensively examine many Third World countries, instead suggesting that the leaders of
smaller countries were merely subjects of the larger hegemons. A substantial amount of research
that focuses on American foreign policy in Asia is dominated by analyses of the Vietnam War
and the “loss” of China, relegating the history of US support for dictatorial regimes in Indonesia,

1
Richard C. Bush, At Cross Purposes: U.S. Taiwan Relations Since 1942 (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2004), 75.
2
The term “Third World” refers to recently decolonized countries after the end of World War II or other
neutral countries that did not side with either the Soviet Union or the United States. For a greater examination of
Third World characteristics and critiques of the term’s usage, see Steven R. David, “Explaining Third World
Alignment,” World Politics 43, no. 2 (January 1991): 233-256.
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Cambodia, and Taiwan to footnotes. It is in this context that American relationships with various
authoritarian regimes throughout Asia must be given far more historical attention.
American policymakers attempted to counter the expansion of global Communism by
forging alliances with several members of the so-called Third World. Much scholarly attention
has been devoted to the Soviet Union’s position as the greatest challenge to the United States,
but Moscow sought to avoid another close encounter with nuclear holocaust after the 1962
Cuban Missile Crisis and improved relations with Washington. Instead, the People’s Republic of
China (PRC) was perhaps the greatest wild-card in international politics after successfully testing
its first nuclear weapon in October 1964. The PRC, already blamed for worsening the earlier
Korean War, emerged from the destructive Great Leap Forward and, shortly thereafter,
embarked on the polarizing, unpredictable Cultural Revolution.3 Many countries throughout

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Southeast and East Asia were powder kegs. Newly decolonized countries and independence
movements proliferated, creating ripe conditions for bloody ideological contests. Beijing
emerged as a larger threat than Moscow as an exporter of leftist revolutions in Asia, Africa, and
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the Middle East. But while American rhetoric lambasted communist countries’ authoritarian rule,
subversion of democracy, and lack of freedom, many American allies reflected similar qualities.
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This research explores Washington’s alliances with right-wing, authoritarian leaders during the
Vietnam War, and the impact of those alliances on the global Cold War.
The Vietnam War commanded the attention of American policymakers throughout the
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1960s and 1970s, and Washington sought to solidify relationships with cooperative, anti-
communist regimes in East and Southeast Asia to exhibit resolve. With that goal, Washington
consistently supported unsavory, but steadfastly anti-communist, regimes in Asia to appear
resolute during the escalating situation in Indochina. Among them were the Government of
Indonesia (GOI), the Khmer Republic, and the Republic of China (ROC). Fearing that

3
For more information on the Korean War, see William Stueck, The Korean War: An International History
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). For an examination the Great Leap Forward, see Felix Wemheuer,
Famine Politics in Maoist China and the Soviet Union (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014). For an extensive
historiography on the Cultural Revolution, see Joseph Esherick, Paul Pickowicz, and Andrew Walder, The Chinese
Cultural Revolution as History: Studies of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2006).
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communist successes in Asia would embolden communists elsewhere, American leaders sought
to create bulwarks against their ideological foes by relying on the GOI’s, Khmer Republic’s, and
ROC’s autocratic tendencies. To that end, Washington opted to overlook the violence each
committed against its own people and their failure to enact democratic reform.
Indonesia, Cambodia, and Taiwan were testaments to American commitment in Asia.
Each accentuated the extent to which the US sought to contain communist expansion, and they
further reflected the paramount goal of remaining credible in the ideological contestation against
Moscow, Beijing, and Hanoi. Comparing the three cases reveals how the Vietnam War
influenced American policy generally. It also reveals the unique circumstances of each country.
Engaging with different countries and governments required contextualized solutions, and US
efforts along these lines met varying degrees of success. This is best seen in the gulf between the

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successes in supporting the emergent Suharto regime in Indonesia and maintaining the ROC as a
distinct government, on the one hand, and witnessing the complete collapse of the Khmer
Republic and subsequent humanitarian disaster, on the other. US support for the GOI, Khmer
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Republic, and ROC reveals the intertwined and global nature of the Cold War, as no country’s
events occurred in isolation.
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Modern scholars have a momentous opportunity to discern the intentions, motivations,
and biases of US policymakers by examining the voluminous declassified memorandums,
conversational transcripts, and communiqués contained within the United States Department of
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State’s Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series. The National Security Archive,
based at George Washington University, also released copious declassified information, made
possible because of the 1967 Freedom of Information Act. The primary sources obtained from
the FRUS and National Security Archives are crucial to examining the development of American
relations with Indonesian, Cambodian, and Chinese officials. These documents relate the
substance of secret conversations, negotiations, and decisions between American leaders and
their foreign counterparts. Many important documents involve President Lyndon Johnson and his
Cabinet, President Richard Nixon, and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger during their
respective tenures. The latter two’s distrust of others drove the duo to formulate U.S. foreign
policy with little assistance from the State Department and other agencies. Focus on archival
documentation is not meant to suggest that secondary source analysis is not valuable, but it is
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essential to recognize that primary source research trims scholarly biases and agendas while
building on existing literature.
Researching the Cold War requires an understanding of nuance and pragmatism, as the
United States’ commitment to global democracy was not as firm as proclaimed. This study could
be advanced with further examination of difficult, but ultimately possible, archival access in
Jakarta, Phnom Penh, Taipei, Beijing, and Hanoi to reveal the extent to which each country’s
leaders understood their place on the larger international chessboard. Scholars with fluency in
multiple Asian languages could benefit greatly from such documents. While growing attention
has been devoted to smaller states’ roles in the Cold War, there are still plentiful openings for
researchers to examine other historically neglected countries, including Burma, Laos, and
Thailand. Research into these countries’ ties to Washington during the Vietnam War era would

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prove particularly fruitful, as newly declassified documents become more become accessible.
Until the mid-1990s, a large amount of American scholarship framed Southeast Asian
Cold War history as a subset of broader Vietnam War studies, neglecting to adequately assess the
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other critical “dominoes” in the region.4 Neglect can be partially attributed to language barriers,
and while increasing numbers of American scholars are fluent in Chinese, few have taken up
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Indonesian or Khmer. Primary sources have also remained extraordinarily limited until the past
two decades. The Khmer Rouge government of Democratic Kampuchea failed to adequately
transcribe older records or archive existing documents, often discarding or permanently
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misplacing evidence from the previous Lon Nol regime (1970-1975). The Indonesian case is also
exceptional, as significant evidence of potential war crimes and other humanitarian failings on
behalf of Washington delayed the declassification of key transcripts. The newly available
information and the lack of significant secondary sources provide a clear path for new research
focused on Washington’s relationships with right-wing dictators in Asia and highlights a US
preference for realpolitik over their pro-democratic declarations.

4
‘Dominoes’ refers to the popular domino theory, in which if one state fell to communism its neighbors would
quickly follow suit; see Odd A. Westad, The Cold War: A World History (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 151.
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The majority of existing research on Indonesia is largely focused on either the country’s
Dutch colonial history or its post-1991 recent history, neither of which sufficiently engages with
a Cold War diplomatic history approach. Most books or articles that meaningfully examine
Indonesia during the Cold War fall into a comparative genocide discourse.5 The remaining
scholarship is entrenched in social history and political science following the 1999 United
Nations intervention that sought to ensure successful Timorese self-determination and voter
protections during the post-Suharto transition.6 This is not to say there is no relevant
historiography on this topic; it has become a topic of greater interest within the past decade.
Gregg Brazinski’s recent book, Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry During the
Cold War, provides a superb background on the Indonesian political climate prior to 1970, and it
examines the clear and contentious rivalry between Beijing and Washington over gaining

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Jakarta’s allegiance.7 Brazinski does a masterful job setting the context of American support for
the 1965 abortive coup and the following eradication of potential communists.
John Roosa’s Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto’s
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Coup d’état in Indonesia is a uniquely insightful revisionist history that utilizes a diverse set of
oral histories and Indonesian government documents. He establishes that the Indonesian
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Communist Party (PKI) was centrally responsible for the September 30th Movement of 1965,
which included the kidnapping and execution of six army generals and one lieutenant to prevent
a supposed right-wing coup, by using a document authored by a PKI co-conspirator, Brigadier
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General Supardjo. Roosa shines in giving Indonesians agency. He firmly dismisses any notion of
direct US involvement in the coup, but he also stresses, “One should not jump to the other

5
Deborah Mayersen and Annie Pohlman, eds., Genocide and Mass Atrocities in Asia: Legacies and
Prevention (London: Routledge, 2013); John G. Taylor, East Timor: The Price of Freedom (New York: Zed Books,
1999); Leslie Dwyer and Degung Santikarma, “When the World Turned to Chaos: 1965 and its Aftermath in Bali,
Indonesia,” in The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective, ed. Robert Gellately and Ben
Kiernan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
6
To examine a significant study of Cold War Indonesia using a comparative genocide lens, see Helen Fein,
“Revolutionary and Antirevolutionary Genocides: A Comparison of State Murders in Democratic Kampuchea, 1975
to 1979, and in Indonesia, 1965 to 1966,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 35, no. 4 (1993): 796-803.
7
Gregg Brazinski, Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry During the Cold War (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 2017).
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extreme and argue that US officials and army generals were surprised.”8 Roosa refutes a popular
argument in the literature regarding Suharto’s role in orchestrating the murder of the generals.
He extensively cites archival evidence to highlight that Suharto’s ascension was a result of
opportunism, government-sponsored terror, and an understanding of complex constitutional
procedures, but the September 30th Movement was not orchestrated or masterminded by Suharto
himself. A sizeable amount of his book examines the local impacts of the Movement and trends
toward a social history. Roosa’s work is a foundational and invaluable contribution to the
understanding the motivations of the 1965 coup and its impact on alienating and suppressing left-
wing ideologies.
Bradley Simpson’s foundational work on Indonesian Cold War history, Economists with
Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968, discusses how the

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American fear of communism prompted intensive modernization efforts by the Kennedy and
Johnson administrations and eventually “led to more than thirty years of corrupt authoritarian
rule by General Suharto.”9 Simpson’s article, “Illegally and Beautifully: The United States, the
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Indonesian Invasion of East Timor, and the International Community, 1974-1976,” provides a
clear setting describing American foreign policy strategy and support for the 1975 invasion.10
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Simpson is a leading scholar in Cold War Indonesian history, but few have followed suit. Little
other research addresses the strength of American support based on newly declassified evidence,
and the lack of research illustrates that many historians do not consider Indonesia an important
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Cold War battleground. The release of 1960s and 1970s State Department documents within the
last decade thus proves rewarding, as there is space to examine Washington’s discussions and
negotiations with Jakarta. The evidence specifically reveals American policymakers’ support for

8
John Roosa, Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto’s Coup d’état in Indonesia
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), 177.
9
Bradley Simpson, Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1960-
1968 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008), 2.
10
Bradley Simpson, “Illegally and Beautifully: The United States, the Indonesian Invasion of East Timor, and
the International Community, 1974-1976,” Cold War History 5, no. 3 (2005): 281-315.
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Indonesian communist suppression campaigns as well as later support for intervention into East
Timor to establish a regional fortress.
Much historical research on Cold War Cambodia is similar to that on Indonesia in that it
is not focused on foreign policy but generally falls under genocide histories.11 Those diplomatic
histories that do include Cambodia generally portray the country as a passive actor during the
Vietnam conflict and include little historiography on American involvement with Prince
Norodom Sihanouk (1922-2012) and the subsequent power transition to Prime Minister Lon Nol.
Few foreign policy analyses exist that profoundly examine the Lon Nol regime of the early
1970s.
Roger Smith’s early study on Cambodia follows a traditional approach with scant
primary source evidence. The lack of material can largely be attributed to a dearth of available

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resources, but he still provides a foundational consideration of Phnom Penh’s decision-making in
his 1965 book, Cambodia’s Foreign Policy. The work is notably dated, with limited source
material, but Smith’s conclusions were nevertheless revolutionary. He was among the first
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Western historians to recognize the split between Vietnamese and Cambodian communists.
Many Cambodians perceived Hanoi and Vietnamese cadres as threats to their government by the
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1960s, because “Viet Minh designs on Cambodia during the Franco-Vietnam war have not been
forgotten,” he explains. “Viet Minh-supported activities in Cambodia make it likely that
[Sihanouk] considers the North Vietnamese to be a more serious threat to his country than the
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Thai and the South Vietnamese,” he added.12 Since the early years of the Indochinese
Communist Party (ICP), founded in 1930, the Vietnamese communists imagined building a
larger sphere of influence throughout Indochina to promote their own security, prompting
Cambodians to doubt their neighbor’s promises of communist solidarity.

11
Ben Kiernan ed., Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations, and the
International Community (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993); Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime: Race,
Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979), 3rd ed. (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2008); David P. Chandler, A History of Cambodia, 4th ed. (Boulder: Westview Press, 2008).
12
Roger Smith, Cambodia’s Foreign Policy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1965), 120.
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Many traditional works, like Smith’s, examine Cambodia with mostly secondary sources,
often leading to biases and flawed assumptions. William Shawcross’s Sideshow: Kissinger,
Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia typifies this. Sideshow is an overwhelmingly popular
account of American involvement in Cambodia and its role in the Khmer Rouge’s path to power.
However, Shawcross has a noticeable predisposition against the Nixon Administration that taints
some of his valuable insights. This is evident in his refusal to adequately assign agency to the
Cambodians themselves, and his claim that American policy in Cambodia was overtly criminal:
“Statesmen must be judged by the consequences of their actions. Whatever Nixon and Kissinger
intended for Cambodia, their efforts created catastrophe … Cambodia was not a mistake; it was a
crime.”13 However, he provides little evidence to substantiate international illegality throughout
his work. While these moral judgments are unnecessary, the crux of Shawcross’ argument – that

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extensive, indiscriminate bombing campaigns severely radicalized the Cambodian countryside –
is credible given his overall source material. This paper’s analysis builds on some of his
underlying points, but fills in many remaining gaps by elaborating on how the Khmer Rouge’s
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successes and how American/Khmer Republic failures resulted from each side’s inability to craft
an effective strategy.
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A popular debate remains regarding the extent of American involvement in the 1970
coup that deposed Prince Sihanouk and brought Lon Nol to power. While some historians, such
as Kenton Clymer, see the lack of substantial evidence as an indicator of, at most, tacit approval
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to depose Sihanouk, others disagree.14 Wilfred Burchett, a vocal communist sympathizer,

remains well-cited in the literature for his plentiful interviews with Cambodians. In 1972,
Burchett argued the United States acted imperialistically, and he described the 1970 National
Assembly vote that installed Lon Nol as “well-financed treason … a military coup and armed
intervention by the United States and its Saigon satellite.”15 This claim was fundamentally

13
William Shawcross, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia (New York: Washington
Square Press, 1979), 396.
14
Kenton Clymer, The United States and Cambodia, 1969-2000: A Troubled Relationship (New York:
Routledge, 2004).
15
Wilfred Burchett, Foreword to My War with the CIA: The Memoirs of Prince Norodom Sihanouk (New
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inaccurate and repeated the debunked theory that Saigon was Washington’s puppet.16 Burchett’s
claims represent a scholastic disagreement over the extent of Washington’s involvement in the
affairs of foreign governments. Newer scholarship dismisses Burchett and shows that American
involvement in Southeast Asian coups, including the 1963 Diem coup in South Vietnam and
1970 removal of Sihanouk, was often secondary to local plotters.17 Clymer represents the newer
trend in Cold War historiography, basing his arguments on newly declassified available evidence
from both Washington and Phnom Penh.
Recently, greater focus has been devoted to using interviews and declassified
documentation in the U.S. and Washington, and this newer revisionism has paid dividends. Ben
Kiernan, one of the few scholars fluent in Khmer, is the leading historian on Cambodian history.
His most notable work, How Pol Pot Came to Power: Colonialism, Nationalism, and

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Communism in Cambodia, 1930-1975, gives an exceptionally detailed and nuanced view of the
existing power structures and societal conditions that facilitated Sihanouk’s ouster, Lon Nol’s
rise, and the Khmer Rouge’s widespread appeal as an alternative to the existing corruption and
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failure to expel Vietnamese communists.18 Moreover, Kiernan’s use of interviews in his
following work, Genocide and Resistance in Southeast Asia: Documentation, Denial and Justice
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in Cambodia and East Timor, yields interesting details regarding Cambodian resistance to the
high level of domestic turmoil prior to the establishment of communist Democratic Kampuchea
in 1975.19 Many interviewees signaled support for Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s early efforts to
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keep Cambodia out of the Vietnam War, and they detail an immense distrust of his successor,
Lon Nol. Lon Nol assumed power through a non-violent coup, but some Cambodians informed

York: Pantheon Books, 1972), 15.

16
For more information about Ngo Dinh Diem’s leadership and independence from Washington, see Edward
Miller, Misalliance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and the Fate of South Vietnam (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2013).
17
Miller, Misalliance.
18
Ben Kiernan, How Pol Pot Came to Power: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Communism in Cambodia, 1930-
1975 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004).
Ben Kiernan, Genocide and resistance in Southeast Asia: Documentation, Denial and Justice in Cambodia
19

and East Timor (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2008).

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Kiernan that they were willing to resist the Khmer Republic as soon as they were asked to by the
Khmer Rouge. The interviews emphasize that resistance to the Khmer Republic regime did not
stem from a popular affinity for the Khmer Rouge brand of communism but from discontent over
Lon Nol’s corruption, American ties, and willingness to become more enmeshed in the
neighboring conflict in Vietnam.
A similar void exists in the literature investigating the US relationship with the ROC
during the Vietnam War era. There is an overwhelming surplus of research devoted to analyzing
Washington’s ties to Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang (KMT) during World War II (1937-
1945) and the following Chinese Civil War (1945-1949). However, historians are left with little
regarding American toleration of the KMT’s “White Terror” on Taiwan (1949-1987) or Chiang’s
role as a stable, but demanding, ally during the Vietnam War. Crucially, a recent revisionist

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work, Jay Taylor’s Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China,
highlights Chiang Kai-shek’s pragmatism and agency in international politics.20 The KMT leader
has often been depicted as a passive actor in the Cold War and a mere instrument of American
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foreign policy. Taylor contributes to the literature by proving that Chiang was similar to many
other US allies during the Cold War. Namely, he reveals that Chiang frequently leveraged his
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position against communism to maximize American support. While he knew how to play his
allies effectively, Chiang was not content to have the ROC’s fate decided by American whims
and decisions.
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Moreover, Taylor excels at placing Taiwan in an international context. His earlier work
on Chiang Kai-shek’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo, provided unique evidence that legitimized his
analyses and connected developments on the island to American and PRC policymakers.21 The
Generalissimo’s Son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the Revolutions on the Mainland and Taiwan
remains at the forefront of a diplomatic examination of relations between the ROC leadership
and the United States by investigating the dynamic international power structure in Asia. The

20
Jay Taylor, Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2009).
Jay Taylor, The Generalissimo’s Son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the Revolutions on the Mainland and Taiwan
21

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000).

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international power structure was markedly fluid, and various powers often lobbied for defense
treaties, most notably between South Korea, South Vietnam, and the ROC. Taylor’s work is
further unique by integrating analyses regarding Moscow’s role and even developments within
the Tibetan resistance movement. His selection of evidence from both the US State Department
and from newly accessible archives in Beijing lend credence to his claims and invite fresh
avenues for research.
Nancy Tucker’s Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945-1992: Uncertain
Friendships provides a nuanced view of Taiwanese industrialization and the stresses it placed on
the US-ROC relationship.22 Taiwan was largely agricultural when the Japanese ceded the island
to the Chinese Nationalists after World War II, but its economy diversified quickly under
relatively strict KMT control and with large amounts of American assistance. Tucker also noted

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cooperation on education spurred much of the economic growth. US educational assistance was
fundamental to developing a nuclear physics program at Tsinghua University in 1964. While
American policymakers did not approve of Taipei’s desire to attain its own nuclear weapons
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program, it is nonetheless interesting that there was significant investment in a program that
helped Taipei advance its nuclear ambitions.
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Tucker broke the mold and provided an important contribution by examining the various
domestic factors involved in the US-ROC relationship. She noted American efforts to bolster the
KMT image domestically in the early 1960s and described the use of propaganda films, such as
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“The Face of China,” which emphasized the importance of the US alliance with Taiwan as “a
key to the defense of the entire free world.”23 Beyond the use of film, mainstream media
corporations were enlisted by Washington to advance Chiang and the KMT’s image. For
instance, NBC television’s Today Show “used footage of Nationalist troops on parade provided

22 Nancy Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945-1992: Uncertain Friendships (New York: Twanyne
Publishers, 1994).
23
Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945-1992, 85.
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by a public relations firm hired by Taipei.”24 American public support for Taipei was critical to
the larger fight against communism.
Revisionist historians have paid greater attention to Chiang Kai-shek in recent years, the
most notable being Rana Mitter. One of his newer works, Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II,
1937-1945, affirms the ROC’s crucial role in World War II and dismisses traditionalist narratives
of Chiang as a corrupt American puppet. Instead, Mitter details the deep fissures between the
Generalissimo and US leadership, especially American General Joe Stilwell. Mitter evaluates the
complex and arduous conditions Chiang was forced to navigate to achieve his goal, namely that
the ROC would become “a sovereign, prosperous nation, able to take a leading role in the
postwar order in Asia and the world beyond.”25 The scope of his analysis is prior to this research
given its focus on World War II, but it provides critical insights into Chiang’s history of

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governance and long-term motivations. Mitter sometimes provides Chiang excessive leeway,
most notably regarding his decision to breach the dykes of the Yellow River to delay the
Japanese military advance and killing half a million of his own people, but he details Chiang’s
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impossible position during World War II. The greatest success of Forgotten Ally is the
application of historical empathy to a traditionally mischaracterized actor. Chiang sought to
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advance China during a time of mass violence and chaos, and Mitter recognizes the context of
his actions better than most.
Existing literature on American partnerships with right-wing regimes is primarily focused
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on Latin America, the most notable being David Schmitz’s Thank God They’re on Our Side: The
United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1921-1965.26 Schmitz provides superb analyses on
the contradiction between Washington’s vocal commitment to democracy and its actions toward
repressive regimes throughout Latin America, and to a lesser degree, Europe. He argues that a
combination of racism and paternalism crucially guided American leaders’ understanding of

24
Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945-1992, 85.
25
Rana Mitter, Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II, 1937-1945 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013),
6.
26
David F. Schmitz, Thank God They’re on Our Side: The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1921-
1965 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).
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non-Westerners as inferior. This inferiority made them unsuitable for democracy until they first
experienced a system of law and order under an authoritarian government. Moreover, American
policymakers considered these governments as anchors of stability against communist chaos and
thus at times undermined democratically elected governments, most notably in the case of
President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. Schmitz’s use of plentiful primary and secondary source
material bolsters his arguments and highlights the immense trade-offs at the heart of foreign
policy creation. However, his research exists largely outside of Asia, with the exception of
Vietnam, and prior to the scope of the Vietnam War. This thesis builds on some of the
underlying themes in Thank God They’re on Our Side while examining understudied Cold War
dictatorships in East and Southeast Asia.
The first case study addresses the development of Indonesia’s shift from a non-aligned

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government with ties to Beijing to a staunch anti-communist regime under General Muhammad
Suharto after 1965. It seeks to understand the level of American involvement in the abortive
coup of 1965 and the politicide that followed, and Washington’s role in the 1975 East Timor
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crisis. There was little resistance from the Ford Administration to an extended occupation of East
Timor, and members of the highest level of government purposefully misled the US Congress to
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ensure aid continued flowing to Jakarta. Henry Kissinger and other key US officials have been
lambasted for supporting genocide, and there have been activists demanding a trial for war
crimes following these incidents. Numerous presidential administrations were haunted by the
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outcome of the Vietnam War, which conditioned their decision-making and forced them to
retrench and harden American commitments to Indonesia.
The second case study is an examination of Cold War Cambodia in its own right, rather
than as an appendage of Vietnam. The country’s turmoil was not simply an effect of American
intervention during the Vietnam conflict. Instead, there were myriad factors that contributed to
the outbreak of civil war in 1968 and to the government’s failure to defeat the Khmer Rouge
insurgency. American attempts at intervention and support for the Lon Nol regime that deposed
the incumbent Prince Sihanouk were ill-advised and ignored the will of the Cambodian people.
The Khmer Republic aided Washington’s pursuit for an anti-communist state neighboring the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN), but US interventions and American support for an
unpopular leader were doomed from the start. No amount of economic or military aid could
create a cohesive national identity, and intelligence failures reveal that policymakers were
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ignorant of Cambodian society. The American government’s firm anti-communism and a desire
to gain a key ally were its fundamental policy considerations, rather than the promotion of a free
and democratic society.
The last case study addresses the close ties between the United States and the Republic of
China. American leaders heavily invested in preserving the Kuomintang in recognition of its
resistance to Japan in World War II and their vehement anti-communism. American ties to the
Kuomintang intensified during the early years of the Vietnam War, as Generalissimo Chiang
Kai-shek lobbied for more extensive interventions throughout Asia in an effort to retake territory
on mainland China. The relationship was often symbolic for American leaders, as it reflected
overarching American commitments to friendly regimes in Asia. American support persisted
despite the regime’s undemocratic elements, but it waned when it was politically expedient for

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Washington to advance larger strategic goals with Beijing in the early 1970s. The context of the
Cold War made Washington’s ties to Taipei clear, but the evolution of the Vietnam War and
rapprochement with Beijing altered US decision-making.
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CHAPTER 2

TURNING A BLIND EYE – THE GOVERNMENT OF

INDONESIA

During the Cold War, Indonesia gained a reputation for volatility and authoritarian
government. As the Dutch East Indies, Indonesia survived Dutch imperialism since the early 19th
century and temporary Japanese rule during World War II. The crumbling of empires and a wave

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of decolonization at the onset of the Cold War included the Republic of Dutch Indonesia, which
declared its independence in 1945 and later became fully independent with recognition from The
Hague in 1949. The movement for Indonesian liberation was led by pro-independence leader
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Sukarno, who espoused nationalist ideals after being released from a Dutch jail by the occupying
Japanese and was elected the first president of the new country in 1945. Unsurprisingly,
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Sukarno’s government in Jakarta immediately decried what it perceived as Cold War neo-
imperialism and sought to stay out of both the US’s and USSR’s orbits. Indonesia’s unique path
was particularly evident during its participation in, and hosting of, the Bandung Conference in
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April 1955, which signified the beginning of the Non-Aligned Movement and closer ties to the
CCP in Beijing.27 Beginning in 1959, Sukarno created a policy of “guided democracy” to
consolidate his power in the name of combatting imperialism.28 Jakarta tried to evade American
foreign policy, but US policymakers remained committed to gaining contested Third World
support. When the first American ground troops landed in Vietnam in March 1965, foreign
policy planning was firmly geared towards the conflict, and Washington sought to ensure other

For more information on the steps toward the Non-Aligned movement, the “Third Way” and the 1955
27

Bandung Conference, see Brazinski, Winning the Third World.

28
Timothy P. Maga, “The New Frontier vs. Guided Democracy: JFK, Sukarno, and Indonesia,” Presidential
Studies Quarterly 20, no. 1 (Winter 1990): 91-102.
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Asian powers were allies that could meaningfully contribute towards ending the war. Indonesia’s
proximity to the Indochinese countries gave it added relevance, and American policymakers
sought to gain increased regional stability with an ideological ally in the context of Cold War
competition.
Washington was increasingly willing to use a realpolitik policy by working with
authoritarian governments to combat the expansion of Soviet and Chinese influences, and the
1960s and 1970s witnessed a new, violent regime in Jakarta transform into a key American ally
in the volatile Southeast Asian region. After a failed communist coup in Indonesia in late-1965
created anti-communist resistance on the part of military leaders and civilians, Washington was
comforted knowing a new pro-American junta was in power.29 The new authoritarian Indonesian
leader, General Suharto, secured US support by brutally suppressing the Indonesian communist

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party, Partai Kommunis Indonesia (PKI).
Suharto began his military career by joining the Indonesian Security forces while the
country was under Japanese occupation in World War II. After the Japanese surrender, he joined
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a unit in the newly formed Indonesian national army and fought against the returning Dutch
military seeking to regain their former colonial holding. His continued series of victorious
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operations led to multiple promotions, despite his implication in an opium smuggling enterprise
and other instances of large-scale corruption. Suharto despised the PKI early in his career, and he
consistently sought to root out any soldiers with communist tendencies under his command. He
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was promoted to the rank of Major General early in 1965 despite his divergent views regarding
Indonesian development from Sukarno. Suharto was particularly angered when Sukarno voiced
the necessity of a dedicated proletariat army, specifically consisting of peasants and workers.
The campaign to give the PKI an independent army created tension among the established
military forces, and it hardened Suharto’s distrust of Sukarno, the PKI, and communist
sympathizers. When the opportunity arose to seize control of the military and government on 1
October 1965, Suharto jumped. Ever the opportunist, Suharto took the position of power and by

29
For more information on the structural factors of the 1965 coup and the change in leadership, see Roosa,
Pretext for Mass Murder.

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