WWI - July 6, 1914, Germany giving Austria a green light

Here for the first time the President faced a situation where his judgment had been mistaken, in spite of the fact that week after week of conferences had taken place before he gave the green light (for the Cuban expedition).

NOTES ON CUBAN CRISIS

Cabinet Meeting on Thursday, April 20th, the first day immediately after the collapse of the Cuban expedition became known.
I attended the Cabinet meeting in Rusk's absence and it was about as grim as any meeting I can remember in all my experience in government, which is saying a good deal.
The President was really quite shattered, and understandably so. Almost without exception, his public career had been a long series of successes, without any noteworthy set backs. Those disappointments which had come his way, such as his failure to get the nomination for Vice President in 1956 were clearly attributable to religion.
Here for the first time he faced a situation where his judgment had been mistaken, in spite of the fact that week after week of conferences had taken place before he gave the green light.   (Full text)

Later it was argued that my speech "gave the green light" to the attack on South Korea by not including it within the "defensive perimeter." This was specious, for Australia and New Zealand were not included either, and the first of all our mutual defense agreements was made with Korea. If the Russians were watching the United States for signs of our intentions in the Far East, they would have been more impressed by the two years' agitation for withdrawal of combat forces from Korea, the defeat in Congress of a minor aid bill for it, and the increasing discussion of a peace treaty with Japan.

Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation:
My Years at the State Department

The speech of January 12, 1950, "Crisis in China - An Examination of United States Policy," has been called "one of the most brilliant as well as the most controversial speeches ever made by Secretary Acheson." Both adjectives are interesting: the first, because how complimentary it was meant to be obviously depends upon the author's unknown opinion of my other speeches; the second, because, although there was an immediate outburst, the principal controversy arose later and involved not what was said about China, but inferences drawn about a wholly different subject, Korea. The speech was another effort to get the self-styled formulators of public opinion to think before they wrote, and do more than report as news the emotional or political utterances of political gladiators. On the preceding day, one of these, Senator Taft, had been widely quoted charging in the Senate that the State Department had "been guided by a left-wing group who obviously have wanted to get rid of Chiang and were willing at least to turn China over to the Communists for that purpose." Senator Vandenberg had rebuked him for saying this. At the time, Mao Tse-tung was in Moscow negotiating with Stalin what proved to be the Sino-Soviet Treaty of February 14, 1950. It was a supercharged moment to be speaking on Asian matters.

However, the China bloc in Congress opened fire on me at once. Senator Styles Bridges demanded a vote of censure against the Administration and a withholding of funds until it changed its policy. The next day a new uproar followed announcement that the Chinese Communists had seized our consular premises and property in Peking, thus repudiating the treaties of 1901 and 1943. Senator Knowland demanded my resignation. Mr. Vishinsky attacked me from Moscow. However, the Democratic senators voted to support our Far Eastern policy.

On January 19 came a bitter and unexpected blow. "This has been a tough day," I wrote our daughter, "not so much by way of work, but by way of troubles. We took a defeat in the House on Korea, which seems to me to have been our own fault. One should not lose by one vote. [The vote was 193 to 192.] We were complaisant and inactive. We have now a long road back."

The vehicle of this trouble was not an important or controversial bill, but a comparatively small supplemental appropriation for aid to Korea in 1950. In accordance with resolutions of the United Nations sponsored by us at the request of the Pentagon to get our remaining divisions out of Korea, all foreign troops (that is, Soviet and American) were to leave Korea and did so by mid-1949. For our part, only an advisory group of about five hundred officers and men remained to complete equipping South Korean forces. We wished to boost South Korean morale by some economic action. Hence the bill. It seemed so small and harmless that we neglected our usual precautions and were caught off guard by a combination of China-bloc Republicans and economy-minded southern Democrats and defeated on a snap vote.

The President and I expressed our "concern and dismay" over what had occurred and called for its early remedy. An extension of the China Aid Act for a few months was joined with the Korean appropriation and a little sweetening added for congressional adherents of Chiang Kai-shek. The new bill became law on February 14, 1950. But the damage had been done.    (Full text)

Early studies of the Korean War blamed the United States for the North Korean attack, invariably charging that the Truman Administration had abandoned South Korea publicly and thus gave Kim Il-sung a green light to launch his invasion.

Korea's Partition: Soviet-American
Pursuit of Reunification, 1945-1948

President Harry S. Truman provided the touchstone for the debate surrounding the reasons for the Korean War just two days after the start of hostilities.] On 27 June 1950, he told the American people that North Korea's attack on South Korea showed that world "communism has passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now use armed invasion and war." This assessment reflected Truman's firm belief that North Korea was a puppet of the Soviet Union. Acting on instructions from Moscow, Kim Il-sung had sent troops southward as part of the Soviet plan for global conquest. In his memoirs, Truman equated Joseph Stalin's actions with Adolf Hitler's in the 1930s, arguing that military intervention to defend the Republic of Korea (ROK) was essential because appeasement had not prevented but ensured the outbreak of World War II. Top Administration officials, as well as the general public, fully shared these assumptions. This traditional interpretation provided the analytical foundation for insider accounts of the origins of the Korean War.

Surprisingly, some observers challenged Truman's assessment even before the Korean War ended on 27 July 1953. For example, Wilbur Hitchcock published an article in 1951 asserting that Kim Il-sung, not Stalin, "pulled the switch" initiating the Korean conflict. I. F. Stone, in contrast to Hitchcock, focused his 1952 study of the Korean War on South Korea's responsibility for the outbreak of hostilities.

Neither the Hitchcock nor Stone interpretation had won many adherents as the fighting in Korea ended. Thereafter, the Truman assessment prevailed for a decade largely because Soviet-American relations remained acrimonious. Early studies of the Korean War blamed the United States for the North Korean attack, invariably charging that the Truman Administration had abandoned South Korea publicly and thus gave Kim Il-sung a green light to launch his invasion. For proof, these writers pointed to Secretary of State Dean Acheson's National Press Club speech excluding the ROK from the US "defensive perimeter," congressional rejection of the Korean aid bill, Senator Tom Connally's public prediction that Soviet or Chinese communist conquest of all Korea was inevitable, and limits on the military capabilities of South Korea. This traditional analytical approach survived into the 1960s; some recent detailed studies still reflect this viewpoint.    (Full text)

Chen Jian is convinced that the two leaders did discuss Kim's plans, at least in general terms, and that these discussions constituted a "Chinese-Soviet green light for Kim Il-sung."

The Korean War Revisited

Two Chinese scholars, Chen Jian in China's Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation, and Zhang Shu Guang in Mao's Military Romanticism: China and the Korean War, 1950-1953, focus on China's role in the war. Both authors make use of memoirs, selectively released Chinese primary documents, and the work of Chinese researchers with access to archival and classified Chinese sources in their work. Some of their interpretations may be disputed, but they both provide valuable and informative insights into Chinese strategic-level decisionmaking.

As Mao's forces neared victory in mid-1949, the Chinese began to release the ethnic Korean divisions for return to Korea, greatly increasing North Korean combat potential. In December 1949, Mao began a two-month-long visit to Russia, during which a Sino-Soviet mutual security treaty and other agreements were signed. In his memoirs, Nikita Khrushchev claims that Mao and Stalin discussed Kim Il-sung's desire to attack the south, with Mao arguing that the United States was unlikely to intervene. The evidence from other participants in the discussions is ambiguous, but Chen is convinced that the two leaders did discuss Kim's plans, at least in general terms, and that these discussions constituted a "Chinese-Soviet green light for Kim Il-sung." Zhang does not address the Mao-Stalin talks, but points out that in early 1950 the Chinese stepped up the repatriation of ethnic Korean soldiers, strengthened their defensive forces in the Northeast (Manchuria) in preparation for the coming North Korean offensive, and concluded with the North Koreans a series of civilian communications agreements that would enhance combined military cooperation.

Both Chen and Zhang agree that, by the time of the North Korean attack on 25 June 1950, the Chinese leadership had long-since concluded that the United States was China's primary enemy and that a military conflict was likely.    (Full text)

"Given the current deterioration of human rights in Mexico," an expanded role in counter-drug operations by the United States "could lead to a green light for further violations."

Still seeing red: The CIA fosters
death squads in Colombia

Guatemala: Death Squads Resume Activity Department of State, confidential intelligence analysis November 21, 1983 The Bureau of Intelligence and Research blames Chief of State Mejía Victores for rising violence in Guatemala, and notes that his lack of interest in human rights sends military and paramilitary forces the message that they can take whatever measures they deem necessary to crush "perceived subversive threats." GUATEMALAN DEATH SQUAD DOSSIER UNCOVERED Internal Military Log Reveals Fate of 183 "Disappeared" Washington, May 20, 1999 The Guatemalan military kept detailed records of its death squad operations, according to a document released by four human rights and public interest groups today. The army log reveals the fate of scores of Guatemalan citizens who were "disappeared" by security forces during the mid-1980s. Replete with photos of 183 victims and coded references to their executions, the 54-page document was smuggled out of the Guatemalan army’s intelligence files and provided to human rights advocates in February, just two days before a UN-sponsored truth commission released its report on the country’s bloody 35-year civil war. Throughout the war, the Guatemalan military used abduction, torture and assassination in their counterinsurgency campaign against the Guatemalan left. By the time the government and the guerrillas signed the peace accord in 1996, some 160,000 people had been killed and 40,000 "disappeared" -- 93 percent at the hands of the Guatemalan security forces, according to "Guatemala: Memory of Silence," the report of the Historical Clarification Commission.

This year, the State Department reports, "Guatemala is the preferred location in Central America for storage and transshipment of South American cocaine destined for the United States via Mexico."

Mexico is the next stop on the CIA counter-narcotics train. The fact that Mexico's former top counter-drug officer, General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, was himself recently indicted for drug trafficking, raises the same old question: What is U.S. policy really all about? Before Gutierrez was busted, the DEA thought he was dirty, while U.S. officials, like General McCaffrey, still sporting Cold War lenses, thought he was clean and vouched for him shortly before his indictment.

Some DEA special agents question the CIA's priorities in counter-drug programs. Human-rights groups remain suspicious of the same programs for different reasons.

"There is no magic line dividing counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency operations," says Salinas of Amnesty International. "Given the current deterioration of human rights in Mexico," an expanded role in counter-drug operations by the United States "could lead to a green light for further violations."

Testifying before Congress in March, the CIA Inspector General, Frederick R. Hitz, finally addressed allegations that the CIA once backed Cold War allies like the Nicaraguan contras even though they ran drugs. Hitz admitted that, at the very least, there have been "instances where CIA did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with individuals supporting the contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug trafficking activity, or take action to resolve the allegations."   (Full text)

Results of the 1973 Church Committee Hearings,
on CIA misdeeds, and the 1984 Iran/Contra Hearings

A major requirement of covert operations over the years has been that in the event something goes wrong, the president, as head of state in the U.S., should be able to believably deny any knowledge of the clandestine activity. This concept is known as plausible deniability and it has been a cornerstone in the foundation of presidential decisions to authorize covert operations. The misconception that plausible deniability is a valid method of concealing U.S. involvement in covert activities has led to a number of problems over the years.

The doctrine of plausible deniability led to many of the widespread abuses of power that occurred in the CIA before the Intelligence Reform Era in the mid-1970s. It led the agency to believe that CIA officers had a green light to conduct almost any actions they saw fit to reach their goals. McGeorge Bundy, a former Special Assistant for National Security Affairs to President's Kennedy and Johnson, has stated:
While in principle it has always been the understanding of senior government officials outside the CIA that no covert operations would be undertaken without the explicit approval of "higher authority", there has also been a general expectation within the Agency that it was proper business to generate attractive proposals and to stretch them, in operation, to the furthest limit of any authorization actually received.

It is easy to see how this misperception on the part of the CIA developed. A president, hoping to pursue his goals, would communicate his desire for a sensitive operation indirectly, thereby creating sort of a "blank check". CIA officers, intending to carry out the wishes of the president, would then set about furthering the expressed desires of the Commander in Chief. However, instead of informing the president of the progress of the covert planning, the officers would be tempted to keep him unaware of it, thereby enabling him to "plausibly deny" any knowledge of the scheme.

Darrel Garwood, the author of a comprehensive work on CIA activities entitled Under Cover writes, "Plausible deniability" could be regarded as one of the most wretched theories ever invented. Its application...was based on the idea that in an unholy venture a president could be kept so isolated from events that when exposure came he could truthfully emerge as shiningly blameless. In practice, whether he deserved it or not, a president almost always had to take the blame for whatever happened.

Although these techniques were still considered experimental, the prevailing opinion among members of the special interrogation teams was that there had been enough experiments "to justify giving the green light to operational use of the techniques."

The directive was intended to shake up Diem, neutralize Nhu, and strengthen the hands of a group of generals who opposed the two brothers' coercive policies and deplored their counterinsurgency tactics. The directive proved crucial two months later, in effect giving a green light to a coup against Diem.

Episode 2, 1963-1965
CIA Judgments on President Johnson's
Decision To "Go Big" in Vietnam

The attitude of senior Vietnam policy advisers at State, however, hardened toward Diem's family as the Buddhist crisis gathered momentum through the summer amid reports of restiveness among Diem's generals. The storming of Buddhist pagodas on 21 August by forces directed by Ngo Dinh Nhu crystallized the "Diem must go" convictions, and on Saturday, 24 August, at a time when President Kennedy, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, Secretary of Defense McNamara, Secretary of State Rusk, and DCI McCone happened to be out of town, a small group of strategically placed senior State Department officials smoked a fateful Top Secret/Operational Immediate cable past interagency coordinators to a receptive Ambassador Lodge. In effect, that cable told the Ambassador to advise Diem that immediate steps must be taken to improve the situation--such as meeting Buddhist demands and dismissing his brother. If Diem did not respond promptly and effectively, Lodge was instructed to advise key Vietnamese military leaders that the United States would not continue to support his government. The directive was intended to shake up Diem, neutralize Nhu, and strengthen the hands of a group of generals who opposed the two brothers' coercive policies and deplored their counterinsurgency tactics. The directive proved crucial two months later, in effect giving a green light to a coup against Diem.

The point man of this fast shuffle was Roger Hilsman, a hard-charging officer who at the time was State's Assistant Secretary for Far Eastern Affairs. His chief colleagues in this affair were Averell Harriman, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and Michael V. Forrestal, a centrally influential NSC staff member and Harriman protege. George Ball, the ranking State Department officer in town, cleared the cable for transmission.

Similarly, Lyndon Johnson later termed the dispatching of the cable a crucial decision that "never received the serious study and detached thought it deserved," a "hasty and ill-advised message" that constituted a green light to those who wanted Diem's downfall, and a "serious blunder which launched a period of deep political confusion in Saigon that lasted almost two years."

DCI John McCone reported that he was told by Secretaries Rusk and McNamara on 4 September that they were unhappy with the manner in which the 24 August cable had been handled, McNamara adding that the cable "did not represent the views of the President."
McCone, the administration's principal liaison to Dwight Eisenhower, briefed the former President about the cable a few days later. McCone circulated to Lodge (the former Republican Vice Presidential candidate) and others Eisenhower's advice that bringing off a coup would be no small task and would require great care and deliberation. The former President added that even if a coup were successful, the aftermath would have its own special problems.
Despite these and other cautions, neither the White House nor the State Department ever rescinded or substantially amended the cabled instructions to Lodge.

East Timor: A People Shattered By Lies and Silence

- IN REALITY, EAST TIMOR WAS OCCUPIED BY THE UNITED STATES, AUSTRALIA, UNITED KINGDOM, THE VATICAN, JAPAN AND OTHER POWERS, THROUGH INDONESIA. INDONESIA WAS NOT MUCH MORE THAN AN EXECUTOR OF A POLICY THAT INTERESTED THE WEST

Being at that time the fifth nation in the world in terms of population (with the extinction of the Soviet Union, it is now the 4th) and in a period of fast economic expansion (around 7% of annual growth of the internal product), Indonesia was a desired commercial partner by the industrialised countries, exporters of manufactured goods and importers of raw materials.

Suharto, who arrived to power with the Western support and the Soviet compliance after crushing more than half a million members and supporters of the Indonesian Communist Party (pro-Chinese), knew that the International support was indispensable to develop the country economy. That is why he was so careful as to auscultate, in the first place, the governors of the most important nations.

It was only after visiting the United States, Canada, Japan (the main investor in Indonesia), Iran (important Muslim country) and Yugoslavia (founder of the Non Aligned Movement) and assuring himself of their support to the annexation, that General Shuarto started to affirm, in public, that the Independence of East Timor would not be accepted. Only at this time (July 1975), did he give green light to the hawks of the regime to create instability in the territory and prepare the annexation by force.

Taking into account the political and diplomatic support that the mentioned States gave to the Indonesian Government and the supply of planes and other war equipment used to fight the Timorese Resistance and the covering up that they did of the crimes committed against the People of East Timor, we can say that it were the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Vatican, Japan and other powers who invaded and occupied the territory through the Indonesian intermediary. The Soldiers were Indonesian but the interests and the support were mainly those of the Western powers. Only the fact of being "their own war" can explain so much support, so much connivance, so much silence and so many lies, from the representatives of the Western governments (and also the relative silence of the Soviet Union and its satellites), as we will see next. After all, the Indonesian Government itself was not much more than the peon that, in the world geopolitical chess, the Western played against the International Communism in the defence of the interests, either global or specific of each state.

Opposition Leader Amien Rais on Indonesia's Options

Rais: That is the hardest problem. I would have to tell Washington, Tokyo, London, Bonn and Paris, and also Singapore and Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok that we had a new government, that we would respect the international treaties signed and that we would not backtrack on the implementation of the international treaties. I would also like to guarantee that we would become a good member, with normal and good relations with the international community. I would let foreign companies come to my country to share in the exploration of national resources with the new government. I would tell them that Indonesia is a chicken which lays good eggs, therefore it is better to treat the chicken rather than kill it. We have to fatten the chicken to share the golden eggs.

The military waits to see which way the wind blows.

De Sousa: How do you see the role of the armed forces?

Rais: It is a question of strategy, because their role is decisive. If they give the people the green light and efforts are jointly made to push for Suharto's ousting that could give results. But if they do not stand by the people I see a very dark future. I hope that the armed forces will change their position.
(Full text)

Indonesia's 'Disappeared' 

The Nation June 8, 1998 
http://www.thenation.com/issue/0608/0608NAIR.HTM 
By Allan Nairn (Allan Nairn, a veteran journalist and activist, was deported from Indonesia in March as a "threat to national security." Research was supported by The Nation Institute.) 

On May 20, as rumors flew that General Suharto was about to step down and protesters showed no sign of accepting his promises of "transition," tanks rolled through the capital and top military men flaunted their power. This week Allan Nairn begins a report on a new aspect of complicity between the U.S. government and the dictator's armed forces.  -- The Editors 

Kissinger and East Timor

In 1975, Freeport's mine was well into production and highly profitable. Future Freeport Director and lobbyist Henry Kissinger and President and ex-Warren Commission member Gerald Ford flew out of Jakarta having given the Indonesian Government under Suharto what State Department officials later described as "the big wink." Suharto used the Indonesian military to take over the Portuguese territory of East Timor, followed by a mass slaughter that rivaled the 1965 bloodbath.

Suharto was given the green light [by the U.S.] to do what he did. There was discussion in the embassy and in traffic with the State Department about the problems that would be created for us if the public and Congress became aware of the level and type of military assistance that was going to Indonesia at that time. ... Without continued heavy U.S. logistical military support the Indonesians might not have been able to pull if off.

In 1980, Freeport merged with McMoRan-an oil exploration and development company headed by James "Jim Bob" Moffett. The two become one, and Moffett (the "Mo" in McMoRan) eventually became President of Freeport McMoRan.   (Full text)

Blood On Our Hands

Understanding U.S. complicity in the slaughter in East Timor

One might think that the United States, which constantly congratulates itself for being the "world leader" in peace, freedom, and democracy, would cut all ties with such cold-blooded murderers. Not so. Indonesia has been one of the US government's top arms buyers and top recipients of military and economic aid for over thirty years. This aid comes largely from the pressure of US corporations, who have massive business interests in Indonesia. Simply put, the US government, US corporations, and we, the US taxpayers, have blood on our hands.
Indonesia invades
In 1975, a growing East Timorese independence movement, FRETLIN (the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor) pressured Portugal to withdraw after 450 years of colonial rule. Suharto could not tolerate the existence of a defiantly independent, leftist nation so close to the borders of Indonesia. On December 7, 1975 ten days after East Timor declared independence from Portugal, Indonesia invaded East Timor. President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had been in Jakarta meeting with Suharto only days before, and, among other topics of discussion, gave Suharto the green light to invade. While Ford and Kissinger were still in the air flying home to Washington, Indonesian vessels and para-troopers began landing on the shores of Dili, capital of East Timor.
Survivors report that, after the initial killings, Indonesian soldiers began looking for women and girls to rape, holding their husbands and parents at gun point. They also began imprisoning and torturing all those with suspected ties to FRETLIN. The US State Department estimates that 90% of the arms used in the invasion were US-made, acquired by Indonesia through direct purchases from US corporations and government-to-government sales. Two months into the Indonesian occupation, 60,000 Timorese had been killed--10% of the island-state's population. A year after the invasion, the Ford administration doubled its military aid to Indonesia to $146 million.
Those who escaped the initial slaughter retreated into the mountains and forests in the center of the island to regroup and defend themselves. In 1977, the second phase of Indonesia's attack began. Flying in Bronco aircraft, F-5 jets and B-4 bombers purchased from the US, and Hawk aircraft purchased from Britain, ABRI began carpet bombing and napalming villages and crops. Like US bomber pilots flying over Cambodia in the same planes only years before, these pilots did not discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Mass starvation set in.

Since its invasion in 1975, Indonesia has killed over 200,000 Timorese, roughly one-third of the population; their regime continues to this day. Noam Chomsky has called it "perhaps the greatest death toll relative to the population since the holocaust." Indonesia's operations in East Timor are nothing less than genocide. (Full text)

Who killed East Timor?

You could have predicted the world's response to the Indonesian invasion of East Timor on December 7, 1975, by its stony reaction to Timor's declaration of independence from Portugal nine days earlier. Already facing border incursions by the Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI), East Timor's most popular political party at the time, FRETILIN, tried to capture international support by bidding adieu to its colonial power and assuming nation status. The strategy backfired. Although Portugal had already initiated the decolonization process, and despite the fact that various governments already knew of the imminent Indonesian invasion, the only immediate recognition came from four former Portuguese colonies. Portugal itself, its ships visible from Timor's shore, did nothing at the time to defend the island.

In response to the invasion and subsequent onslaught, the United States and several powerful allies first were silent, and then justified Indonesia's actions, claiming insufficient evidence of atrocities while providing the assistance necessary to carry them out. For several years eyewitness testimony was dismissed and no serious effort was made to gather reports from refugees. When Australia finally sent a delegation in 1983, it was carefully guided by the Indonesian hosts, and the members had to agree that the mission was not an investigation but more of a good-will gesture. Interpretations of the situation by Indonesian officials were accepted without question; even the outlandish assertion that malnourishment among East Timorese in concentration camps was due to their "lack of variety in diet." Emboldened by the smooth visit and the delegation's non-critical stance, ABRI's Commander in Chief soon opened a new military campaign, bragging "This time, no fooling around. We are going to hit them without mercy."

In the United States, the will to ignorance was even stronger. Two years after the invasion, as the violence was escalating, J. Herbert Burke of the House Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs announced that "it is in all of our interests to bury the issue of East Timor quickly and completely." At congressional hearings in March, 1977, reaction was mostly hostile to the testimony of former Australian Consul to East Timor James Dunn, who detailed an epidemic of human rights violations in the early months of ABRI's occupation. The reason for the cold treatment of Dunn was made explicit by Rep. Goodling, who admitted, "If I were to say I am happy that you are here I would not be telling the truth...I wish you had not been invited because of the political implications." Furthermore, Goodling insisted, alleged atrocities were really no more than "some indiscretion of the part of a certain unit and they... were removed. That is past history." And so, content to be left alone by the legislators, the State Department continued the deception, claiming that only between 3000 and 10,000 East Timorese had been killed, when even Indonesia's Foreign Minister put the figure at between 50,000 and 80,000. The Department's human rights report for 1977 had nothing on East Timor and the following year repeated the Indonesian line that most deaths had occurred during the brief civil war prior to the Indonesian intervention. In this context, the State Department's country officer for Indonesia was able to say with a presumably straight face that the East Timorese had "decided their best interest lies at this time, in incorporation with Indonesia,"not mentioning that fully two-thirds of the population still remained outside areas of Indonesian control.

The United States has enjoyed enormous influence on the Indonesian military since at least the early 1960s, when it helped pave the way for the rise to power of the now 30-year-old General Suharto regime. Despite this influence, the U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia confessed prior to the 1975 invasion that he was "under instructions from [Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger personally not to involve himself in discussions on Timor with the Indonesians," but rather "allow events to take their course."

And take their course they did. The CIA at the time reported that a full-scale invasion, originally planned for the beginning of December, would be postponed until after President Ford and Henry Kissinger had completed their visit with Indonesian President Suharto on December 6. Sure enough, just hours after their trip, Indonesian ships began firing away at the capital city of Dili, planes and paratroopers filled the sky, and ABRI soldiers stormed through the streets "killing everyone they could find," in the words of the bishop of Dili at the time. "There were so many dead bodies in the street-all we could see were the soldiers killing, killing, killing." Testimonies depict men shot into the sea, families killed for displaying FRETILIN flags, grenades rolled into crowded homes. These initial killings, around two thousand in a couple of days, were accompanied by widespread rape and looting, the traditional siblings of pillage. Houses were left empty and even cars, tractors and windows were taken away on ships.

According to a CIA officer in Indonesia, Ford and Kissinger had "explicitly given the green light" for the invasion. "The U.S. understands Indonesia's position on the question" of East Timor, Kissinger told reporters during the visit, while Ford conceded that "the U.S. had to be on the side of Indonesia." Arriving in Hawaii the next morning, Ford refused to answer questions about the invasion, already underway. Perhaps he was simply too choked up to speak, for, as his press secretary explained, "The President deplores violence, wherever it occurs."

The United Nations immediately issued resolutions declaring East Timor's right to self-determination and calling for immediate withdrawal of Indonesian forces. That the U.N. never got much further in pursuing the matter was no accident. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, known for his work on international law and human rights, recalled in his memoirs: "The United States wished for things to turn out as they did and worked to bring this about. The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. The task was given to me and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success."

But Moynihan surely does not deserve all the credit for this shining moment in the history of international diplomacy. While several Western nations put on at least a show of dismay over the events unfolding in East Timor, most displayed no great reluctance in being made "utterly ineffective." Though an initial Security Council resolution passed unanimously, some of the same countries in favor had abstained ten days earlier on a parallel but lower profile General Assembly vote. In all votes of the General Assembly since, the U.S., Australia, and Japan each voted against resolutions on East Timor, even those simply calling for further investigation.

The Australian government adopted the suggestion made by its ambassador to Indonesia that Australia take a "pragmatic rather than a principled stand," since "that is what national interest and foreign policy is [sic] all about." In this case, the "national interest" meant securing a juicy deal on Timor's oil. Once Australia formally recognized the annexation, an agreement was reached for the island's oil deposits to be divided up and plundered by both Indonesia and Australia. Explaining this breach of international law, Australian minister Gareth Evans mused, "The world is a pretty unfair place." (Full text)

For more information on East Timor and what can be done to help bring about change in the situation, contact East Timor Action Network/U.S. at (914) 428-7299, cschiner@igc.apc.org or ETAN/Providence at 863-4707, David_Blei@brown.edu Information is also available through the TimorNet web server.

East Timor and U.S. Foreign Policy

MARGARET EBERLE, Moderator CONSTÂNCIO PINTO REED BRODY ALLAN NAIRN NOAM CHOMSKY Selected Questions and Answers

We were able to get up, escape from the scene, report the massacre to the outside world. The next day, General Try Sutrisno, National Commander of the Indonesian armed forces -- formal speech to a military gathering says, "These Timorese are disrupters. Such people must be shot and we will shoot them." He's since been promoted to Vice President of Indonesia. The U.S. State Department -- they had to condemn the massacre. It was out. But they said in the next breath they were going to double military aid to Indonesia. Why? Because it inculcates democratic ideals and humanitarian values [some groans from audience] in the Indonesian military.

I'm no defender of the Indonesian military but, in a sense, this is quite unfair to them. Whose democratic ideals and humanitarian values are they going to teach? Those of President Ford and Henry Kissinger who, 16 hours before the December 7, 1975 invasion, gave the green light to Suharto to go in and begin the slaughter, doubled U.S. military aid, worked behind the scenes at the UN to prevent the UN Security Council resolutions from being enforced? Those of Jimmy Carter who has, as Constâncio described -- the Timorese were fleeing through the hills, the Indonesian army couldn't get their hands on them, Carter sent in the planes and helicopters which they used to bomb and strafe the Timorese down from the hills, put them in the prison and resettlement camps, implement the policy of enforced starvation, Pol Pot-style systematic massacres? Those of Reagan and Bush and Clinton, who have continued to arm the massacre, year after year? Those of Clinton's people who, just a couple weeks ago, as Suharto strolled into the Oval Office to be greeted by open arms by Clinton, Gore, Mickey Cantor, the trade representative, and others -- after being feted by CARE, the international humanitarian organization who praised Suharto as the elected president of Indonesia; by Asia Society, the academic organization which, likewise, praised Suharto -- and then, after that meeting, the Clinton official told the New York Times, Suharto, "he's our kind of guy"? Are these the democratic values the U.S. was going to teach to the Indonesian military?

Well, this is where the story gets quite significant. (Full text)

A discussion with East Timorese leaders and activists

On the fifth of December, I was informed that the Americans had given the green light for the invasion. The invasion was scheduled for the sixth of December and it was postponed so as not to create an embarrassing situation for President Gerald Ford, who had started a state visit on the fifth. As soon as he left, Indonesia invaded officially.
They now claim that there was a civil war. There was never a civil war in East Timor. It was a situation of civil strife which could be easily resolved between the two parties and the Portuguese administration if Indonesia hadn't invaded. (Full text)

APEC, the United States & East Timor

Clinton's APEC visit was the first trip to Jakarta by a U.S. president since 1975. Whether by coincidence or design, President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger were visiting Indonesian President Suharto during the two days preceding the December 7, 1975 Indonesian invasion of the newly-independent East Timor. There is little doubt that the U.S. gave Suharto the green light to invade. In Jakarta the day before the invasion with President Ford, U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger told reporters that "the United States understands Indonesia's position on the question" of East Timor.

According to columnist Jack Anderson, Ford admitted that, given a choice between East Timor and Indonesia, the U.S. "had to be on the side of Indonesia." Suharto was eager to obtain U.S. support for the invasion because of ABRI's (the Indonesian Armed Forces) heavy reliance on U.S. weaponry which, by U.S. law, could only be used for defensive purposes. Since Ford and Kissinger's departure from Jakarta, well over 200,000 East Timorese--about one-third of the 1975 population--have lost their lives as a result of the invasion and ongoing occupation of the former Portuguese colony.

According to the State Department, U.S. companies supplied some 90 percent of the weapons used by ABRI during the invasion. When it looked as if Jakarta were actually running out of military equipment in late 1977 due to its activities in East Timor, the Carter "human rights" administration responded by authorizing U.S.$112 million in commercial arms sales for fiscal 1978 to Jakarta, up from U.S.$5.8 million the previous year (an almost 2,000 percent increase). U.S. arms sales to Indonesia peaked during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, exceeding U.S.$1 billion from 1982-84.

As in the case of arms sales, military assistance also increased. In the year following the invasion, the Ford administration more than doubled its military assistance (to U.S.$146 million) to Jakarta. Similarly, U.S. military aid increased during the Carter and Reagan administrations, during which the bulk of the killings were taking place in East Timor. Since the invasion, over 2,600 Indonesian military officers have received military training in the U.S. under the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program. There is even strong evidence to suggest that U.S. military advisers were present in Indonesian-occupied East Timor in the late 1970s. (Full text)

Media Reporting on the Third World

BARSAMIAN: What is your response when foreign editors tell you Americans care about America and issues that affect them?

SILVERSTEIN: Again, I think that to a certain extent that is legitimate. But they apply that in a totally selective way. Look at Guatemala and East Timor, which Allan Nairn has written about extensively. I talked to him about those cases. By the mainstream media's yardstick of U.S. involvement and human drama, these are tremendously important places. In Guatemala, the U.S. supported a military coup in 1954. We have provided huge amounts of aid to successive governments. We are Guatemala's major commercial partner. In East Timor, the U.S. gave the green light to the 1975 invasion of that country by Indonesia. We have armed the occupation forces, and we have always blocked UN condemnation of Indonesia's aggression against East Timor. Both of these countries have experienced tremendous amounts of violence. The Guatemalan army has killed 1 percent of the population in the last 15 years. Indonesia has killed one-third of East Timor's 600,000 people since the invasion. Nairn calls that the largest proportional genocide since the Nazis. (Full text)

East Timor's Grief
East Timor's Unfinished Struggle
By CONSTÂNCIO PINTO and Matthew Jardine.
South End Press.

ANYONE INTERESTED in the violence and human rights abuses suffered by the people of East Timor under the Indonesian government should read Constancio Pinto and Matthew Jardine's East Timor's Unfinished Struggle. This should include every American, since, according to this book and other sources, the Ford administration gave Indonesia the green light to carry out the invasion of East Timor in the 1970s, making our country complicit in the atrocities.

Pinto opens the book with basic biographical information -- his name and the place and date of his birth -- and writes, "I was my parents' first of 11 children. Fortunately, all of my brothers and sisters are still alive." From that point onward, Pinto takes the reader on a surreal journey through his life in occupied territory -- first under Portuguese rule, then under the Indonesians. (Full text)

NOAM CHOMSKY: East Timor on the Brink

This special edition of Alternative Radio will focus on East Timor, which is once again a killing field with mass murders, expulsions and ethnic cleansing. According to a story in today's New York Times, East Timorese are being rounded up and forcibly moved across the border to Indonesian West Timor. Joining us from his home in Massachusetts is MIT professor Noam Chomsky, who was, along with his colleague Ed Herman, probably the first to write about East Timor in their book Washington Connection and Third World Fascism.

Will Seaman (International Federation for East Timor Observer Project), who has just returned from six weeks in East Timor, wants me to ask you about the U.S. military ties with Wironto and the Indonesian military. There is not an overt green light, but there is a yellow light for the Indonesian military to carry out operations in coordination with the militias in East Timor. Do you have any information on that?

The Indonesian military was for a long period essentially a U.S.-run military force. The officers were trained here. They had joint exercises. They had mostly U.S. arms. That's changed. By now I think Australia is probably much more involved in training and joint exercises. In fact, they had joint exercises very recently, including with Kopassus, the commando forces that have a horrible record and are modeled on the Green Berets. They have been implicated in most of the current massacres. Britain has been a major arms supplier. The U.S. government, the White House, has been blocked by Congress from sending most arms and carrying out direct training. The Clinton Administration has evaded those restrictions in the past, found ways around them and continued under another hat. Whether that's still continuing is very hard to say, because nobody is looking at it, as far as I know. These things usually come out a couple of years later. But whatever the arrangements may be, there is no doubt that the U.S. military has plenty of leverage, and the White House, too, if they want to use it. The Indonesians care quite a lot about what stand the U.S. takes with regard to what they do.
(Full text)

Leave aside that in the past Washington gave Indonesia the green light for its invasion and provided 90 percent of its arms; leave aside that for years the United States worked in the UN to give diplomatic support to the invasion. Consider only U.S. policy today, while the killing and conquest continue.

Bad Countries, Good Interventions

Even if the United States intervenes in a case where the Left agrees evil is being done, the government will further its own interests, not those of the local victims. World opinion was rightly horrified by Spanish treatment of the Cuban people in 1898, but U.S. intervention resulted in a half century of dictatorship and U.S. domination.

Let me be clear, when I refer to the United States as a "bad government," I mean that the United States can be shown to be a bad government by clear objective measures, by looking at what the United States has done and is doing in the world. Consider a place where some 200,000 people--one third of the population--have been killed: namely, East Timor. Leave aside that in the past Washington gave Indonesia the green light for its invasion and provided 90 percent of its arms; leave aside that for years the United States worked in the UN to give diplomatic support to the invasion. Consider only U.S. policy today, while the killing and conquest continue. In 1992, Congress ended military training aid to Indonesia in protest over a massacre in East Timor's capital of Dili. In December 1993 it was revealed that Indonesian soldiers were being trained at U.S. military bases under the technicality that Indonesia was paying for the training. The previous June, the heads of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Foreign Operations Subcommittee had written to the Department of State that allowing Indonesia to purchase U.S. military training "would be directly contrary to the intent of Congress." But that's precisely what has been going on. Note that no one is calling on the United States to risk the lives of its young men and women by invading Indonesia or bombing Jakarta, but even the minimal step of cutting off military training is unacceptable to the Clinton administration. And it is this administration that some are hoping will intervene for a good cause--sort of like approaching muggers on the street and asking them if they wouldn't mind protecting another mugging victim on the next block.
(Full text)

In 1953, under President Eisenhower, the CIA drew up the plans for assassinations, sabotage and propaganda to overthrow Arbenz. Late that year, the National Security Council gave the green light. The State Department, led by John Foster Dulles, worked closely with the CIA, which was headed by Allen W. Dulles, his brother.

The "new, open" CIA

The Central Intelligence Agency recently declassified 1400 pages from its files on the coup it engineered in Guatemala in 1954, installing a corrupt military regime that waged war on its citizens for the next four decades.
With US backing and military aid, more than 100,000 civilians were killed in the dirty war. Top officers were in the pay of the CIA during the war, which ended only five months ago with a negotiated settlement that left the military still with the essential power. The declassified documents represent less than 1% of the agency's file on the coup. In 1983, a CIA official testified that the agency's records ran to more than 180,000 pages.

The CIA also deleted the names of the US citizens who carried out the coup. “Those whose titles show up, but whose names were stricken from the records”, reports the New York Times, (TIM WEINER, "CIA in 1950's Drew Up List of Guatemalan Leaders to Be Assassinated," New York Times, May 28, 1997), “include agency officials whose identities have long been public, like Frank Wisner, then the agency's chief of covert operations, and his field commander for the coup, Col. Albert Haney”.

While 99% of the CIA's records remain hidden, the newly released papers do give some information. They show the existence of a plan to assassinate at least 58 Guatemalan civilian leaders, aspects of the propaganda campaign waged as part of the coup and the agency's early efforts to recruit members of the Guatemalan military.

The coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz, a mildly leftist nationalist, who had promised to help the country's impoverished workers and peasants. His moves to implement a partial land reform entailed confiscation of some lands owned by the United Fruit Company, actions that especially enraged the US government.

The planning of the coup began in 1952, after the US-installed dictator of Nicaragua, Somoza, proposed to President Truman that they work together to overthrow Arbenz, who had been elected in 1950. Truman told the CIA to go forward. A plot it organised with Guatemalan exiles was exposed and collapsed, but the plan continued.

In 1953, under President Eisenhower, the CIA drew up the plans for assassinations, sabotage and propaganda to overthrow Arbenz. Late that year, the National Security Council gave the green light. The State Department, led by John Foster Dulles, worked closely with the CIA, which was headed by Allen W. Dulles, his brother.

The official CIA history of the coup claims that the assassinations were not carried out, but only because they weren't necessary. “Until the day that Arbenz resigned in June 1954 the option of assassination was still being considered”, the history states.

The CIA historian who wrote its official history was Nick Cullather, who now teaches at Indiana University. Commenting on the CIA's release of the 1400 pages, he said, “The CIA is presenting the Guatemala release as evidence of good faith and openness , but it's the exception”.

He said the records on which he based his work were preserved only by a quirk of history: a lawsuit seeking the documents had been filed under the Freedom of Information Act by another scholar in 1982.

The day after releasing 1% of its Guatemala files, the CIA had to admit that its files on other dirty deeds were burned -- including the 1953 coup that overthrew another democratically elected President, the mildly leftist and nationalist Dr Mossadegh, in Iran, and installed the US puppet Shah Reza Pahlavi; secret missions in Indonesia in the 1950s; and another coup against Guyana in the early 1960s.

“Iran -- there's nothing”, Cullather states. “Indonesia -- very little. Guyana -- that was burned.”

Two successive directors of the CIA, Robert Gates in 1992 and James Woolsey in 1993, pledged that the CIA's records on Iran would be released as part of the CIA's new “openness”. It took five years for the CIA to admit that there were no such files. (Full text)

Relevant Declassified U.S. Documents from
the National Security Archive's Guatemala Collection

An August, 1996, series in the San Jose Mercury News by reporter Gary Webb linked the origins of crack cocaine in California to the contras, a guerrilla force backed by the Reagan administration that attacked Nicaragua's Sandinista government during the 1980s. Webb's series, "The Dark Alliance," has been the subject of intense media debate, and has focused attention on a foreign policy drug scandal that leaves many questions unanswered.

This electronic briefing book is compiled from declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive, including the notebooks kept by NSC aide and Iran-contra figure Oliver North, electronic mail messages written by high-ranking Reagan administration officials, memos detailing the contra war effort, and FBI and DEA reports. The documents demonstrate official knowledge of drug operations, and collaboration with and protection of known drug traffickers. Court and hearing transcripts are also included.

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Books
U.S. Policy in Guatemala, 1963-1993
The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations
CIA and Assassinations: The Guatemala 1954 Documents
Guatemalan "Death Squad Dossier"
Documentation of Official U.S. Knowledge
of Drug Trafficking and the Contras
Evidence that NSC Staff Supported
Using Drug Money to Fund the Contras
U.S. Officials and Major Traffickers:
Manuel Noriega
José Bueso Rosa
FBI/DEA Documentation
Testimony of Fabio Ernesto Carrasco

National Security Archive Analysis and Publications
Peter Kornbluh's Testimony at California Congressional Inquiry

"Crack, Contras, and the CIA: The Storm Over 'Dark Alliance,'"

"CIA's Challenge in South Central,"

"The Paper Trail to the Top,"

White House E-Mail: The Top Secret Computer Messages
the Reagan/Bush White House Tried to Destroy
The Iran-Contra Scandal: the Declassified History