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    Kahin - Subversion As Foreign Policy

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    Andrew S. Terrell
    Kahin, Audrey, and George McTurnan Kahin. Subversion As Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia. Seattle, Wash: University of Washington Press, 1997.

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    Kahin - Subversion As Foreign Policy

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    Andrew S. Terrell
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    Kahin, Audrey, and George McTurnan Kahin. Subversion As Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia. Seattle, Wash: University of Washington Press, 1997.

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    Kahin - Subversion as Foreign Policy

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    Kahin, Audrey, and George McTurnan Kahin. Subversion As Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia. Seattle, Wash: University of Washington Press, 1997.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    805 views2 pages

    Kahin - Subversion As Foreign Policy

    Uploaded by

    Andrew S. Terrell
    Kahin, Audrey, and George McTurnan Kahin. Subversion As Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia. Seattle, Wash: University of Washington Press, 1997.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 2

    Andrew S. Terrell - HIST 6393: Empire, War & Revolution!

    Fall 2010

    • Kahin, Audrey, and George McTurnan Kahin. Subversion As Foreign Policy: The Secret
    Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia. Seattle, Wash: University of Washington
    Press, 1997.

    George and Audrey Kahin look at President Eisenhower’s hidden hand policies in

    Southeast Asia during the 1950s. They begin by putting Indonesia in context with earlier moves

    in Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam citing how the eventually misdeeds of these militarized

    covert actions were not seen as long term failures in the contemporary. During the Eisenhower

    administration, Communist infiltration was feared to be grouping much of Southeast Asia

    together and the Eisenhower administration had no intentions of allowing for such a large

    expansion by Communism. The Dulles brothers, John Foster and Allen, urged Eisenhower to

    deal with Indonesia by weakening the central government’s favor on Sumatra and Sulawesi. To

    accomplish this goal in 1957, the Eisenhower administration enlisted not only the CIA, but also

    “substantial components of the U.S. Seventh Fleet.” The Chinese nationalist regime on Taiwan

    allowed for a close port and supply centers as well. After two years the instigated civil war

    pushed for a policy reassessment in Washington where Eisenhower concluded that reconciliation

    with Sukarno was the prudent course of action.

    Based on numerous interviews and State Department document, the Kahins have added

    to the colorful historiography of US covert actions. Readers’ attention is brought to significant

    problems with decision makers in the early Cold War years through the Kahins’s elaborate

    monograph on a little known, and little understood period in U.S. history. During Eisenhower’s

    successive administrations, covert action capability expanded beyond what Truman intended

    with the National Security Act of 1947. The Kahins raise significant questions about historical

    analogies and lessons and the role history should have played even in the 1950s. Foremost is the
    Andrew S. Terrell - HIST 6393: Empire, War & Revolution! Fall 2010

    reasonable assertion that a successful scenario cannot be duplicated unless all considerations and

    requirements are identical to the first. For example, the successes in Iran and Guatemala a few

    years before this were in different societies, under different circumstances, and were carried out

    by completely different forces. The Kahins suggest these short-term successes along with others

    may have given the Dulles brothers and Eisenhower a false sense of security that proved

    disastrous. The Kahins also note that the rapprochement with Sukarno should have been a

    warning for future escalations in Vietnam.

    As the Kahins did write this in the post Cold War world, they spent some time looking at

    long term changes in Indonesia after Eisenhower. As it turned out, the US operation pushed

    Sukarno to build up an army that eventually staged a coup and led to the ousting of communists

    from all levels of state. The subsequent massacres involved in the overthrow of Sukarno and rise

    of the military Junta led by Suharto, the Kahins concede, had no definitive links to American

    intervention. In the end, despite an initial failure and oversight of the CIA, Indonesia would be

    communist free by 1966.

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