The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

by John Perkins

Now he was responsible for forecasting the amount of energy and generating capacity (the load) the island of Java would need over the next twenty-five years, breaking this down into city and regional forecasts. Because electricity demand is highly

correlated with economic growth, his forecasts depended on my economic projections.

During our meetings, Charlie continually emphasized the importance of my job, and he badgered me about the need to be very optimistic in my forecasts. Claudine had been right; I was the key to the entire master plan.

“You gotta act fast. By the end of month one, Howard’ll need to get a pretty good idea about the full extent of the economic miracles that’ll happen when we get the new grid on line. By the end of the second month, he’ll need more details — broken down into regions. The last month will be about filling in the gaps. That’ll

Howard clearly saw the situation and the role they wanted him to play, and he was determined not to be a pawn.

I doubt he had ever heard the term “economic hit man,” but he knew they intended to use him to promote a form of imperialism he could not accept.

“They’ll try to convince you that this economy is going to skyrocket,” he said. “Charlie’s ruthless. Don’t let him get to you.”

I’ve seen what can happen when oil is discovered. Things change fast.”

And I can say for sure that no electric load ever grew by more than 7 to 9 percent a year for any sustained period. And that’s in the best of times. Six percent is more reasonable.”1

“Go ahead,” he snarled. “Sell out. I don’t give a damn what you come up with.”

“You’ve sold your souls to the devil. You’re in it for the money. Now,” he feigned a smile and reached under his shirt, “I’m turning off my hearing aid and going back to work.”

You’re in it for the money. I heard Howard’s words, over and over. He had struck a raw nerve.

Slowly the sorry fact settled in. Once again, there was no one I could talk to.

Charlie had made it clear that he expected Howard and me to come up with growth rates of at least 17 percent per annum. What kind of forecast would I produce?

I could please my bosses with a high economic forecast and he would make his own decision; my work would have no effect on the master plan.

“No need to cook the numbers,” he said. “I’ll not be part of that scam, no matter what you say about the miracles of economic growth!”

I found that I saw my fellow Americans in a different light. The young wives seemed not quite so beautiful. The chain-link fence around the pool and the steel bars outside the windows on the lower floors, which I had barely noticed before, now took on an ominous appearance. The food in the hotel’s posh restaurants seemed insipid.

I noticed something else, too. During my meetings with political and business leaders, I became aware of subtleties in the way they treated me. I had not perceived it before, but now I saw that many of them resented my presence. For example, when they introduced me to each other, they often used Bahasa terms that according to my dictionary translated to inquisitor and interrogator.

Yet, the more time I spent with these men, the more convinced I became that I was an intruder, that an order to cooperate had come down from someone, and that they had little choice but to comply.

All I knew was that, although they invited me into their offices, offered me tea, politely answered my questions, and in every overt manner seemed to welcome my presence, beneath the surface there was a shadow of resignation and rancor.

It made me wonder, too, about their answers to my questions and about the validity of their data.

Everything these captains of commerce and government provided, and all they said during the interviews, indicated that Java was poised for perhaps the biggest boom any economy had ever enjoyed. No one — not a single person — ever questioned this premise or gave me any negative information.

It occurred to me that everything I was doing in Indonesia was more like a game than reality.

The second puppet carried in one hand a bucket decorated with dollar signs. He used his free hand to wave an American flag over Nixon’s head in the manner of a slave fanning a master.

Each time, the Nixon doll screamed out some epithet before dropping the country into his bucket, and in every instance, his vituperative words were anti-Islamic: “Muslim dogs,” “Mohammad’s monsters,” and “Islamic devils.”

“Give this one to the World Bank. See what it can do to make us some money off Indonesia.” He lifted Indonesia from the map and moved to drop it into the

bucket, but just at that moment another puppet leaped out of the shadows.

The crowd burst into applause. Then Bucket Man lifted his flag and thrust it like a spear into the Indonesian, who staggered and died a most dramatic death.

I wondered aloud whether this had been staged in my honor. Someone laughed and said I had a very big ego. “Typical of Americans,” he added, patting my back congenially.

Doesn’t your government look at Indonesia and other countries as though we are just a bunch of . . .” She searched for the word. “Grapes,” one of her friends coached. “Exactly. A bunch of grapes. You can pick and choose. Keep England. Eat China. And throw away Indonesia.” “After you’ve taken all our oil,” another woman added.

asked them why they thought the dalang had singled out Muslim countries, except for Vietnam. The English student laughed at this. “Because that’s the plan.” “Vietnam is just a holding action,” one of the men interjected, “like Holland was for the Nazis. A stepping-stone.” “The real target,” the woman continued, “is the Muslim world.”

“the West — especially its leader, the US — is determined to take control of all the world, to become the greatest empire in history. It has already gotten very close to succeeding.

History demonstrates that faith — soul, a belief in higher powers — is essential. We Muslims have it. We have it more than anyone else in the world, even more than the Christians.

“We will take our time,” one of the men chimed in, “and then like a snake we will strike.”

The English major looked me directly in the eyes. “Stop being so greedy,” she said, “and so selfish. Realize that there is more to the world than your big houses and fancy stores. People are starving and you worry about oil for your cars.

There’s not much time left. If you don’t change, you’re doomed.”

Several days later the popular Bandung politician, whose puppet stood up to Nixon and was impaled by Bucket Man, was struck and killed by a hit-and-run

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“I’m firing Howard Parker. We don’t need to go into the details, except to say that he’s lost touch with reality.” His smile was disconcertingly pleasant as he tapped his finger against a sheaf of papers on his desk. “Eight percent a year. That’s his load forecast. Can you believe it? In a country with the potential of Indonesia!”

His smile faded and he looked me squarely in the eye. “Charlie Illingworth tells me that your economic forecast is right on target and will justify load growth of between seventeen and twenty percent. Is that right?” I assured him it was. He stood up and offered me his hand. “Congratulations. You’ve just been promoted.”

I threw myself onto the bed, overwhelmed with despair. I had been used by Claudine and then discarded. Determined not to give in to my anguish, I shut down my emotions. I lay there on my bed, staring at the bare walls for what seemed like hours.

word. I not only had been promoted to Howard’s old job; I also had been given the title of Chief Economist and a raise. It did cheer me up a bit.

I came up with the type of study my bosses wanted to see: a growth in electric demand averaging 19 percent per annum for twelve years after the new system was completed, tapering down to 17 percent for eight more years, and then holding at 15 percent for the remainder of the twenty-five-year projection.

By then, my emotions had turned into a sort of grim determination, not unlike those that had driven me to excel rather than to rebel during my prep school days.

“Who can see twenty-five years into the future?” she had asked. “Your guess is as good as theirs. Confidence is everything.”

Robert McNamara, the buttoned-down president of the World Bank, former president of Ford Motor Company, and John Kennedy’s secretary of defense. Here was a man who had built his reputation on numbers, on probability theory, on mathematical models, and — I suspected — on the bravado of a very large ego.

In truth, my expertise was extremely limited, but what I lacked in training and knowledge I made up for in audacity.

At first, all the attention went to my head. I began to think of myself as a Merlin who could wave his wand over a country, causing it suddenly to light up, industries sprouting like flowers.

Then I became disillusioned. I questioned my own motives and those of all the people I worked with.

The better I came to know those who made the decisions that shape the world, the more skeptical I became about their abilities and their goals.