Feet to the Fire: CIA Covert Operations in Indonesia, 1957-1958 (Special Warfare Series)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

More than forty years ago the Central Intelligence Agency began a top-secret covert action campaign designed to hold Indonesia's left-leaning President Sukarno's feet to the fire and prevent a strategic crossroad from falling into the communist camp. In a fast-paced, engrossing narrative evoking the novels of John LeCarré and Graham Greene, the authors provide the first unclassified, detailed case study of an operation that has escaped public scrutiny for decades.

FROM THE CRITICS

Times Literary Supplement

Earlier this year, I went to see the dirty little separatist war that is consuming Aceh. On one sweltering afternoon, after going through the requisite labyrinthine arrangements to meet up with rebels from the Free Aceh Movement (or GAM in Indonesian), I found myself in a tiny jungle clearing. What followed was the increasingly common scene of foreign-journalist-meets-GAM: the ritualistic raising of the rebel flag, the posing with their weapons, the interviews on why they are at war with Indonesia, and the tales of torture and death at the hands of the Indonesian army.

They answered all my questions, but they were sorely disappointed I had come without a camera crew. "We need to get our war on CNN and then the UN will intervene", explained the group's leader, a thirty-four-year-old wearing a baseball cap and dark sunglasses. In GAM's convoluted logic, first comes CNN, then the UN and then independence. "If East Timor can do it, why not Aceh?" the rebel asked.

Neither CNN nor the United Nations has paid all that much attention to this sad, sputtering war on the northern tip of Sumatra. Even Indonesia's remarkable new president, Abdurrahman Wahid (better known as Gus Dur), seems confounded by the rebellion in Aceh, as he tries to reinvent this gigantic, stunningly diverse archipelago as a democracy after the failures of thirty-two years of authoritarian rule. So far in Aceh, lifting the lid of dictatorship has only made the violence worse. On June 2, GAM and the Indonesian military began what is supposed to be a three-month-long "humanitarian pause", but many Acehnese doubt whether the truce will hold.

Every day, corpses appear like grotesque offerings on the main road through the lush coastal plain that is home to about 4.2 million Acehnese. The rebels toss grenades at the Indonesian Army, the soldiers burn down villages in retaliation, and the villagers suffer in the crossfire. As the bodies pile up - 300 people died between January and March alone - Aceh poses a central challenge to the government of Gus Dur and the idea of a reinvented Indonesia. It is a challenge with a long, sometimes colourful but also brutal history.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Conboy and Morrison have done masterful research, ferreting out documents and interviewing both American and Indonesian participants. A surprising number of former CIA agents appear here, and their input makes this an extraordinarily important piece of history. The authors found an exciting story, one that has never been told in this sort of detail. They know their subject matter and have produced a first rate work. — Dale Andrad