How does the USA topple a government?
We learn about "The CIA, and a Secret War" from L. Fletcher Prouty.
"Blood ran in the streets. Villages were wiped out and a million people massacred..."
There were two attempts by the CIA.
The first one failed and the second was 'a success'.
The first action, in 1958, "involved no less than 42,000 CIA-armed rebels supported by a fleet of bombers and vast numbers of four-engine transport aircraft as well as submarine assistance from the U.S. Navy."
The CIA's 1958 attack on Indonesia, the largest Moslem country in the world, was a total failure.
Indonesia's army stayed loyal to president Sukarno and 'the rebels' were defeated.
Indonesia's President Sukarno with Johnson, who was president at the time of the 1965 coup in Indonesia which toppled Sukarno.
The CIA got to work on the Indonesian generals, such as Suharto.
The second CIA attack on Indonesia, in 1965, was 'a success'.
It brought the CIA's General Suharto to power.
General Suharto 'proceeded to assassinate nearly one million people.'
Today, "major U.S. enterprises are plundering the raw material wealth of Indonesia - rubber, tin, and oil."
The Indonesian president who was toppled in 1965 was Sukarno.
Sukarno had wanted Indonesia to be neutral.
Suharto with Nixon
L. Fletcher Prouty.looks at the roles played by Vice President Richard Nixon and the CIA in the failed 1958 attempt to topple Sukarno.
In Washington the Indonesian military attache got to know the CIA.
The CIA's Frank Wisner arranged for the miltary attache and CIA agents to visit Indonesian 'rebels'.
The CIA got its agents within the Philippines military to lend a hand.
The CIA's Frank Wisner, aided by Richard Helms, was in command of the 1958 operation.
General Lyman Lemnitzer, in Japan, provided weapons.
Rebel Indonesians, trained and equipped in the Philippines, were returned to Sumatra, in Indonesia.
Frank Wisner had his forward headquarters in Singapore.
Keeping an eye on the situation were President Eisenhower, CIA boss Allen Dulles, and Vice President Nixon.
Nixon chaired the "clandestine affairs committee" of the National Security Council.
"In other words nothing was done in Indonesia that was not directed by Nixon."
The CIA's Allen Pope during his trial.
"While the CIA was supporting up to 100,000 rebels, the State Department professed innocence.
"The U.S. ambassador, Howard P. Jones, maintained that the United States had nothing to do with the rebellion."
US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles issued a statement saying that the United States would not provide arms to either side.
However, the USA's B-26 bombers were secretly dropping bombs.
U.S. Navy submarines were aiding the rebels.
One day, a B-26 came upon an Indonesian ship.
The B-26 was hit and it ditched near the ship.
The CIA pilot, an American named Allan Lawrence Pope, was captured.
Sukarno had his proof of U.S. involvement.
The 1958 rebellion collapsed.
Nixon sacked Frank Wisner.
Wisner had been Allen Dulles' heir apparent.
Nixon was not popular with the CIA.