The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

by John Perkins

is burdened with debt. The rich get richer and the poor grow poorer. Yet, from a statistical standpoint, this i...

Our schools and our press have taught us to perceive all of our actions as altruistic.

However, these people have no clue that the main reason we establish embassies around the world is to serve our own interests, which during the last half of the twentieth century meant creating history’s first truly

global empire — a corporate empire supported and driven by the US government.

Indonesia also happened to be an oil-rich Muslim nation and a hotbed of Communist activity.

“Let’s just say you need to come up with a very optimistic forecast of the economy, how it will mushroom after all the

new power plants and distribution lines are built.

“They’re engineers,” she said. “They design power plants, transmission and distribution lines, and seaports and roads to bring in the fuel. You’re the one who predicts the future. Your forecasts determine the magnitude of the systems they

design — and the size of the loans. You see, you’re the key.”

MAIN seemed to offer everything my life had lacked. In the end, I convinced myself that by learning more, by experiencing it, I could better expose it later — the old “working from the inside” justification.

Once you’re in, you can never get out. You must decide for yourself, before you get in any deeper.”

“We’re paid — well paid — to cheat countries around the globe out of billions of dollars. A large part of your job is to encourage world leaders to become part of a vast network that promotes US commercial interests. In the end, those leaders become ensnared in a web of debt that ensures their loyalty.

Meanwhile, the owners of US engineering and construction companies become very wealthy.”

But with the end of World War II, the emergence of the Soviet Union, and the specter of nuclear holocaust, the military solution became just too risky.

The decisive moment occurred in 1951, when Iran rebelled against a British oil company that was exploiting Iran’s natural resources and its people.

However, both countries feared that military retaliation would provoke the Soviet Union into taking action on behalf of Iran.

Instead of sending in the Marines, therefore, Washington dispatched CIA agent

Kermit Roosevelt (Theodore’s grandson). He performed brilliantly, winning people over through payoffs and threats. He then enlisted them to organize a series of street riots and violent demonstrations, which created t...

Roosevelt’s gambit reshaped Middle Eastern history even as it rendered obsolete all the old strategies for empire building. It also coincided with the beginning of experiments in “limited nonnu-clear military actions,” which ultimately resulted in US humiliations in Korea and Vietnam.

it would have to employ strategies modeled on Roosevelt’s Iranian example. This was the only way to beat the Soviets without the threat of nuclear war.

He had orchestrated the first US operation to overthrow a foreign government, and it was likely that many more would follow, but it was important to find an approach that would not directly implicate Washington.

US intelligence agencies — including the NSA — would identify prospective EHMs, who could then be hired by international corporations. These EHMs would never be paid by the government; instead, they would draw their salaries from the private sector.

As a result, their dirty work, if exposed, would be chalked up to corporate greed rather than to government policy.

“So you see,” Claudine concluded, “we are just the next generation in a proud tradition that began back when you were in first grade.”

When Columbus set sail in 1492, he was trying to reach Indonesia, known at the time as the Spice Islands.

He sent Russian-armed Indonesian troops into neighboring Malaysia in an attempt to spread communism throughout Southeast Asia and win the approval of the world’s Socialist leaders.

In the end, the Communist Party was held responsible — especially those factions aligned with China. In the army-initiated massacres that followed, an estimated three hundred thousand to five hundred thousand people were killed.

By 1971, US determination to seduce Indonesia away from communism was heightened because the outcome of the Vietnam War was looking very uncertain.

Indonesia was the key. MAIN’s electrification project was part of a comprehensive plan to ensure American dominance in Southeast Asia.

The premise of US foreign policy was that Suharto would serve Washington in a manner similar to the shah of Iran. The United States also hoped the nation would serve as a model for other countries in the region.

Something else was also happening in my life: Ann and I were not getting along. We quarreled a great deal. She complained that I had changed, that I was

not the man she’d married or with whom she had shared those years in the Peace Corps. Looking back, I can see that she must have sensed that I was leading two lives.

“Never admit to anyone about our meetings,” she said in a stern voice. “I won’t forgive you if you do, ever, and I’ll deny I ever met you.”

I had to admit to the cleverness of the scheme. The fact was that all of our time together had been spent in her apartment. There was not a trace of evidence about our relationship, and no one at MAIN was implicated in any way. A part of me also appreciated her honesty; she had not deceived me the way my parents had about Tilton and Middlebury.

“Behave yourselves, or the Bugimen will get you.”

Perhaps I could have guessed that the beacon shines on a destiny that is not always the one we envision.

Our team, of course, was quartered in the country’s fanciest hotel, the Hotel InterContinental Indonesia. Owned by Pan American Airways, like the rest of the InterContinental chain scattered around the globe, it catered to the whims of wealthy foreigners, especially oil executives and their families.

But let’s not forget

that we have a mission to accomplish.” He looked down at a handful of note cards. “Yes, we’re here to develop a master plan for the electrification of Java — the most populated land in the world.

“We are here to accomplish nothing short of saving this country from the clutches of communism.

Our responsibility is to make sure that Indonesia doesn’t follow in the footsteps of its northern neighbors, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. An integrated electrical system is a key element. That, more than any other single factor (with the possible exception of oil), will assure that capitalism and democracy rule.

So, as you develop this master plan, please do everything you can to make sure that the oil industry and all the others that serve it — ports, pipelines, construction companies — get whatever they are likely to need in the way of electricity for the entire duration of this twenty-five-year plan.”

“Better to err on the high side than to underestimate. You don’t want the blood of Indonesian children — or our own — on your hands. You don’t want them to live under the hammer and sickle or the Red flag of China!”

After all, I told myself, I am here to help Indonesia rise out of a medieval economy and take its place in the modern industrial world.

Tossing and turning in my bed, I found it impossible to deny that Charlie and everyone else on our team were here for selfish reasons. We were promoting US foreign policy and corporate interests. We were driven by greed rather than by

any desire to make life better for the vast majority of Indonesians. A word came to mind: corporatocracy.

It struck me that the current president of the World Bank, Robert McNamara, was a perfect example. He had moved from a position as president of Ford Motor Company to secretary of defense under presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and now occupied the top post at the world’s most powerful financial institution.1

that in many cases helping an economy grow only makes those few people who sit atop the pyramid even richer, while it does nothing for those at the bottom except to push them even lower. Indeed, promoting capitalism often results in a system that resembles medieval feudal societies.

Exposing the truth would undoubtedly cost those professors their jobs — just as such revelations could cost me mine.

I was helping to implement a development model that was sanctioned by the best minds at the world’s top think tanks.