Sukarno the Key to Any Revolution in Indonesia (Evening Post, 10 December 1965)

The key to successful revolution in Indonesia was the support of President Sukarno, whom the overwhelming majority of ordinary Indonesians—in and out of uniform—regarded as father of the nation. But the odious brutality that accompanied the “September 30” coup at once made it impossible for the “Bung” to back it openly. Six leading generals were done to death, horribly mutilated by doe-eyed girls of the Indonesian Communist Party’s (P.K.1.) “Gerwani” women’s movement, and their bodies pitched into a well. Coup-crazed Communist youth danced and sang around some of these officers before they died, capering about in glee at Halim air base in anticipation of the bloody deed to come, when they should have been moving without delay on strategic targets in Jacarta. Moreover, the secret of the coup had leaked, and, although he was in fact sceptical about the intelligence reports, General Abdul Haris Nasution, the anti-Com-