The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World

by Vincent Bevins

The story I tell here is based on declassified information, the consensus formed by the most knowledgeable historians, and overwhelming first-person testimony. I rely extensively on my own interviews with survivors, and of course I was not able to check every single one of the claims regarding their own lives, such as what things felt like, what they were wearing, or what date they were arrested. But none of the details I include contradict the established facts or the larger story that historians have already uncovered. To tell it as accurately as possible, to be faithful to the evidence and respectful to those who lived through it, I found it had to be done a certain way. First, the story is truly global; every life on Earth is treated as equally important, and no nations or actors are viewed, a priori, as the good or bad guys. Secondly, we’ve all heard the maxim that “history is written by the victors.” This is usually, unfortunately, true. But this story by necessity pushes back against that tendency—many of the people at its center were some of the biggest losers of the twentieth century—and we cannot be afraid to let the facts of their lives contradict accepted popular understandings of the Cold War in the English-speaking world, even if those contradictions may be very uncomfortable for the winners. And finally, I avoid speculation entirely, resisting any urge to try to tackle the many unsolved mysteries by myself. We have to accept there’s a lot we still don’t know.