Documents Reveal Active US Support

Newly declassified files from the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta confirm the extent to which American officials supported the killings of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians in the 1960s, as the U.S. worked to keep Southeast Asia from falling into Communist control.

The U.S. supported a narrative pushed by the Indonesian military that blamed Communists for a failed coup in 1965, targeting the anti-American President Sukarno.

This narrative emboldened the Indonesian military, paramilitaries and othe...