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

by Vincent Bevins

When Jones’s diplomatic approach collapsed, both the US and the British governments escalated secret activities in Indonesia. Their full nature is still hidden to us, but they included “black operations” and preparations for psychological warfare. The British created the position of “director of political warfare” in Singapore in December 1964. The US government approved a secret plan on March 4, 1965, though the funding source and the amount of money provided remain classified. Most of the secret activities were probably carried out by CIA and MI6. Given the way these organizations operated, it is almost certain that operations also included placing untrue or provocative stories in the Indonesian and international press. They wanted to goad the Communists into taking action. Since the early 1960s, both the American and British governments had believed, and discussed often, that the ideal situation would be a “premature PKI coup” that could provoke an Army response. It’s possible that some version of this plan had been worked on secretly, under the cover of Kennedy’s civic action program, since 1962.32