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

by Vincent Bevins

Richard Nixon, gave voice to the general feeling in Washington when he said that “a democratic government was [probably] not the best kind for Indonesia” because “the Communists could probably not be beaten in election campaigns because they were so well organized.”

“Washington policymakers had not been privy to all the facts nor really grasped the inwardness of the situation, but had proceeded on the assumption that Communism was the main issue,” he wrote. “This was the all too common weakness of Americans—to view conflict in black and white terms, a heritage, no doubt, from our Puritan ancestors. There were no grays in the world landscape. There was either good or evil, right or wrong, hero or villain.”