Subversion as Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia [Paperback]

Audrey R. Kahin (Author), George McT Kahin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1997

Based on access to secret documents and interviews with many of the participants, Subversion as Foreign Policy is an extraordinary account of civil war in Indonesia provoked by President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and resulting in the killing of thousands of Indonesians and the destruction of much of the country's air force and navy.

"This startling new book reveals a covert intervention by the United States in Indonesia in the late 1950s involving, among other things, the supply of thousands of weapons, the creation and deployment of a secret CIA air force and logistical support from the Seventh Fleet. The intervention occurred on such a massive scale that it is difficult to believe it has been kept almost totally secret from the American public for nearly 40 years. And this CIA operation proved to be even more disastrous than the Bay of Pigs". -- San Francisco Chronicle

"An exemplary study of an ignominious chapter of the Cold War in Southeast Asia". -- Journal of Asian Studies

"Subversion as Foreign Policy is a remarkable book.... The Kahins have provided a rare insight into the workings of U.S. policy towards Indonesia, both clandestine and official". -- London Times Literary Supplement

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1957, President Eisenhower, his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, and the CIA--unbeknownst to Congress or to the American public--launched a massive covert military operation in Indonesia. Its aims were to topple or weaken Indonesia's populist President Sukarno, viewed as too friendly toward Indonesia's Communist Party, and to cripple the Indonesian army. The CIA, run by Allen Dulles, the brother of the secretary of state, funneled financial support and weapons to rebel colonels on the islands outside Java, seat of the government. In the ensuing civil war, thousands of civilians were killed; the Indonesian army put down the rebellion and crushed noncommunist political parties; Sukarno's centralized regime became more authoritarian and jettisoned parliamentary government. Historian Audrey Kahin, editor of the journal Indonesia, and Cornell professor of international studies George Kahin have written a disturbing, scholarly expose of a major covert operation that paved the way for the Indonesian army's massacre of half a million people in 1965-66 with Washington's support. The authors maintain that Indonesia's communist party was essentially a homegrown nationalist movement and that the Eisenhower administration's fears were misguided.

Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

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Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: University of Washington Press (April 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0295976187
• ISBN-13: 978-0295976181
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,050,375 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a green light to Suharto's atrocities?, September 12, 2007

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W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Subversion as Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia (Paperback)

The book raises unsettling questions about possible American involvement in the rise to power of Suharto. It is well known that the Nixon administration aided Pinochet's coup against Allende in the 1970s, and turned a blind eye to the purges later committed by Pinoceht. But Suharto's accession and the anti-communist purges in Indonesia involved far more dead. Maybe half a million.

Thus far, those events have received little recognition inside or outside Indonesia for any American influence. The book delves into this. It furnishes details about Dulles' fear, apparently successfully conveyed to Eisenhower, that communists were on the verge of taking over Indonesia. Recall that this was in the depths of the Cold War. The "loss" of China to Mao's forces was still fresh. So too the baleful influence of Joseph McCarthy in Washington. Given this US worldview, the book's premise is rather plausible. That, to some extent, the US gave a green light to Suharto's atrocities.