INDONESIA: WHOSE COUP?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000700410007-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 17, 2004
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: October 17, 1966
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

OCT 17 1966
ti'Appl~dveJPMe 2005/01/05: CIA-RD 75-0'0:.9Rlt1b70 4
I' Whose Coup?
tary officers sat in judgment last week
cal ally: ex-Foreign Minister Subandrio:
l.. '_
Until the di
^- -- --
t
sas
rous
a
1:. nist attempt at a coup a year ago,
i stigator of Sukamo's gradual drift into j.
league with Red China. And, suspi- i
Subandrio was off in Sumatra, then a
Communist stronghold.
Now on trial for subversion, the once-
sitting alone between the judges and"_
some 500 spectators. Haggard after
,; months of questioning and disheveled in j
hurled at him. Was he not, as head of
I Indonesia's Central Intelli
ence Bureau
g
,
informed in advance of the Communist;
plot? Yes, he admitted. Why had he
.
1
failed to report such critical news to.
Sukarno? "Because I have an inferiority)
complex toward Sukarno. If the reports
I was true, then Bung Karno with his,
thousand eyes and ears would already
know about it." Had he not bowed to
::? :u j the influence of Communist China? Yes,
( he had taken Premier Chou En-lai's ad-
'vice not to pay a $100 million debt to
Russia, and Chou had once offered him.,
100,000 weapons to arm Indonesia's
Diversion: Characteristically, Suban- 1
1, to a purported British-U.S. plan to attack
Indonesia last year. He made much of a
document describing such a scheme, al-
legedly written by British Ambassador..
found in the home of U.S. businessman
' . William Palmer, whom many Indonesians
suspect of being a CIA-agent. But the
is admission that after the coup he had
flung about charges of CIA conspiracy.,
without any foundation. -
As the trial wore on
few Indonesians
,
had any doubt about the outcome:
Subandrio would be found guilty and
self clearly had his eyes and ears trained
~''on the courtroom. Far from hinti
t
ng a
clemency for his erstwhile colleague, he'-'
the Communist putsch, in which some
'
believe he was personally implicated.,
I To loud applause he shouted, I curse,
-this coups" But this did not stop violent
I, rioting around his Merdeka Palace by
'Djakarta students demanding that Su-
karno himself go on trial. As one senior'
om r to ant WE e' ' ,
Appir , e r
gg Q art,' P75-00I49R00070041000 ;=6