151. Letter From the Ambassador to Indonesia (Jones) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Robertson)0
Dear Walter: I have been here just six months and have several times started to write you, only to have events in this fast moving situation overtake what I had wanted to say. I am also keenly aware of the tremendous burden of reading in FE and have not wished to add unnecessarily to it.
First, I do want to express my deep appreciation for the wonderful support you have been giving us here. This goes for all of FE and the Secretary, of course, but no one knows better than I who has led the fight and no one appreciates more than I the difficulties involved in some of the problems and situations we have had to pass to you for solution.
I am confident that we are embarked on the right course. Since the announcement and actual delivery of military aid here, the very atmosphere [Page 275] in Djakarta has noticeably changed. When my car passes by, people wave and smile and several times this past week, teenagers on their bicycles have waved and cried, “Hi, Mr. Jones.” This has even happened to Mary Lou when she has been alone without a flag on the car. And several Indonesians have commented that all Indonesia heaved a great sigh of relief when the bridge was crossed which seemed to them to prove that America was with them instead of against them.
The President’s taking a ride in the Globemaster had a significance out of all proportion to the event itself. It helped to avoid any impression that we were backing Nasution against Sukarno and removed the impression in some circles that the President was less enthusiastic about American military aid than Djuanda and the Army. Finally, it tended to line up the President with the US in Indonesian eyes and was considered here as more a political gesture than anything else.
In saying the above, I don’t mean to imply that I am in any sense betting on the President. He continues to be “all things to all men”. But he is not merely a power factor here today; he is the dominant power factor and part of the problem we face here is to keep him genuinely neutralized while anti-Communist forces within the country are built up to do the job that must be done here. I know that the Secretary does not want Sukarno to get the credit for US assistance and I think he is absolutely right.
So far, Sukarno has not only not gotten the credit, he has made no effort to take the credit. This, frankly, is what worried me more about his August 17 speech than anything else. His failure at least to give US aid a nod in the speech was to me an indication that he doubted we meant business or that he interpreted it as an anti-Sukarno move. This, too, was one of the reasons that putting on the airplane ride for the President assumed, from our side, an exceptional importance. I am glad we were able to do it. Had we not done so after his request, the negative implications would have been just as strong against us as the positive implications have been since we carried it off successfully. All this may have seemed “Much ado about nothing” in Washington, but it represented a US triumph locally.
I believe that we have turned the corner and that if we are able to maintain the momentum we now have, our chances of achieving our objectives are reasonably good. Again, let me emphasize that I think we certainly should not at this point be led into putting our faith in or our chips on Sukarno. Gestures in his direction are important—they help to keep him on course with those Indonesians whose objectives are the same as ours. That is why I think it imperative for us to break loose the TB hospital equipment. The amount of money involved is small compared with the good it will do in terms of keeping Sukarno in line. Don’t let anyone in Washington consider that at this stage I or anyone in the [Page 276] Embassy has any illusions on the subject of wooing Sukarno. Let’s do what we can to keep him from being completely taken in by forces actively moving against us. This requires, as l see it, a skillful combination of power factors moving Indonesia in the direction we wish to see it go and to which Sukarno will bend if they are sufficiently strong, and enough gestures toward the President at least to encourage him to support this internal struggle against the PKI.
There is another reason for a gesture or two in Sukarno’s direction: to keep him from moving against Nasution. His natural suspicions are being fanned by the PKI. He can cause us no end of trouble if he reaches the conclusion which I am convinced he is testing in his mind that we are building up the Army in a move against him as well as against the PKI. The same reasoning applies, of course, to at least limited aid for the Indonesian Air Force. But I need not elaborate on that. You have had our cables.
I should like to revert to a suggestion I made sometime ago—the possibility of Djuanda’s visiting the US. I think that if we move forward as we hope here that visits by both Djuanda and Nasution would be most useful. I am not advocating this at present. First, we have to come closer together with the Indonesians. Also we have the President to worry about. It could hurt both men if the President thought we were beginning to play up to them rather than himself. Our tactics in connection with any such invitations will have to be thought through very carefully. But we should bear the above in mind in planning FE area official visits to Washington next year.1
[Here follow brief personal remarks.]
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.56D/9–258. Secret.↩
- Robertson responded on September 26. His letter to Jones reads in part as follows: “I share completely your view of Sukarno. We know, and I suspect most politically aware Indonesians also realize, that he has been in the past few years a divisive and disruptive influence. He is nonetheless a primary political force and a political fact of life that we are going to have to live with. We should be under no illusions that we can make him over into a genuinely constructive influence and a champion of the Free World. We must at the same time do what we can to neutralize and contain his disruptive capacities, and deny to the Communists his continued hold over the masses.” (Ibid.)↩