Sukarno and the Indonesian Coup

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Sukarno and the Indonesian Coup The Untold Story

Helen-Louise Hunter

Book Code: C7438

ISBN: 0-275-97438-3

ISBN-13: 978-0-275-97438-1

DOI:

216 pages

Praeger Security International

Publication: 5/30/2007

List Price: $75.00 (UK Sterling Price: £41.95)

Availability: In Stock

Media Type: Hardcover

Also Available: Ebook

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Subjects:

Reviews:

[I]t is a meritorious work and does shed some light on the events that began with the killing of Indonesia's six most senior military leaders in one night, precipitating a backlash that may have claimed a quarter of a million lives....Recommended. Graduate students and faculty.
—Choice November 2007
The coup referred to by Hunter (a political analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency for 23 years) in the title of her book is not the toppling of Indonesian president Sukarno and assumption of power by General Suharto, but instead the preceding failed attempt to establish a military junta by the "30th of September Movement" in response to an alleged CIA-sponsored opposing coup conspiracy by the so-called "Council of Generals." Hunter examines these events in reverse chronological order, attempting to establish that at the heart of the "30th of September Movement" was a secret organization run by high-level members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) that planned, with President Sukarno's active cooperation, to institute a socialist state under Sukarno's leadership, later to be succeeded by PKI Chairman Aidit.
—Reference & Research Book News August 2007

Endorsement From B. Hugh Tovar
formerly CIA station chief in Djakarta: Helen-Louise Hunter, an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence during the Indonesian crisis of 1965-66, drew upon masses of classified intelligence available in CIA and other government agencies to produce the first reliable analysis of a episode that not only defied comprehension at the time it occurred, but has since retained an aura of mystery and, indeed, controversy among observers in and outside of government. Ms. Hunter deserves admiration for an impressive accomplishment. Finally declassified by the Central Intelligence Agency, the story is now open to the public. It is readable, intelligible and enormously interesting. As one who witnessed the Indonesian upheaval at first hand, I recommend her book as the best thing written on the subject to date.

Description: On September 30, 1965, six of Indonesia's highest ranking generals were killed in an effort by President Sukarno to crush an alleged coup. The events of that were part of a rapidly growing power struggle pro and anti-Communist factions. The elimination of the generals, however, did little to increase and preserve Sukarno's power, though, and he was stripped of the presidency in 1967. Hunt's work is a unique and original examination of the events that culminated on that night in September, 1965. It is the first detailed account of the Indonesian Coup that reveals the previously unknown workings of the PKI's ultra-secret Special Bureau, a clandestine organization within the Communist Party that may be the prototype of other similar entities that flourished around the world in the mid-50's and 60s. No such expose of secret communist organizations committed to covert killings of the top military or political leaders of the country has ever been published. She establishes beyond any doubt that the PKI, under Chairman Aidit's direction, using the capabilities of a secret organization within the PKI that only Aidit and a handful of trusted high-level members of the Communist Party even knew about, and, most importantly, acting with President Sukarno's full knowledge and approval, planned and then-dramatically-failed to execute a bold plan to kill the top leadership of the Army and proclaim a new socialist state under President Sukarno's leadership with PKI Chairman Aidit as his proclaimed successor. At the time of the coup, government analysts as well as non-government scholars were of two minds. Some, like the group at Cornell University, were convinced that the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) had not been involved, that the coup was the action mid-level army officers against the top leadership. That was the official line at the time. Others were convinced that the PKI alone had planned and executed the coup in its long-held desire to remove the pro-U.S. army leadership. No one at the time saw the hand of Indonesia's world-famous President Sukarno in the affair.

LC Card Number: 2007003040

LCC Class: DS644

Dewey Class: 959


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