Sukarno and the Indonesian Coup

Om boken

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 night were part of a rapidly growing power struggle between pro- and anti-communist factions. The elimination of the generals, however, did little to increase and preserve Sukarno's power, and he was stripped of the presidency in 1967. This 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-1950s and 1960s. No such exposé of secret communist organizations committed to covert killings of top military or political leaders has ever been published. The author establishes that the PKI, under Chairman Aidit's direction, using the capabilities of a secret organization within the PKI known only to Aidit and a handful of trusted high-level members, and 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 and non-government scholars were divided. Some, like the group at Cornell University, were convinced that the PKI had not been involved and that the coup was the action of mid-level army officers against the top leadership. 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.