clear explanation even when it had become a crucial issue, produced the strongest

of suspicions.1
But more important in explaining the resentment which was felt was the
general Indonesian attitude toward the United States and particularly toward U.S.
attempts to bring Indonesia into fuller alignment with the U.S.-led bloc of states.
The signing of the M.S.A. agreement, coming as it did on top of the signing of the
San Francisco treaty (and coming as the action of a cabinet which had inaugurated
repression of the PKl ), seemed to strike at the very roots of the independent foreign
policy. And this policy had become a cardinal symbol and central ideological tenet
of the nation.2
In one sense the "independent (foreign) policy" was less than a policy
merely the agglomeration of the ideas of all groups of the political elite about
foreign policy generally. Such was the prestige value of the term "independent
policy" that, like "democracy" or "progress," it was applied by all groups to their
own varying concepts of policy.
It was indeed given a variety of meanings. For some groups it meant an
isolationist independence of the two world blocs, while others emphasized that
independence was necessarily a relative thing not to be considered except in relation
to Indonesia's concrete national interests. For some it meant a commitment to
neutrality in the event of world war, while others merely emphasized not being
committed in advance to either bloc, preferring to defer all mention of what would
happen in this event. Advocates of closer alignment with the United Staters found

1
According to the New York Times of Feb. 25, 1952, the State Department's communication
to Cochran had suggested that an economic agreement,under Section 51lb of the act would suffice
for Indonesia, but the ambassador had asked the State Department to reconsider this advice,
undertaking instead to induce Subardjo 10 accept the lenns of Section sna. This same source has it
also that Cochran refused to allow the chief of the M.S.A. mission in Indonesia to participate in
drafting the agreement, even declining to see him for a period of three week. See Kahin, lndonesian
Politics and Nationalim," in Holland. ed., op. cit., p. 193. It would appear that Subardjo had never
been told of the possibility that Indonesia could receive aid under Section 511b.
2
For discussions of the policy in these earlier years of the postrevolutionary period see
Mohammad Hatta. "Indonesia's Foreign Policy," Foreign Affair, XXXI (April 1953), 441-452, and
Kahin, "Indonesian Politics and Nationalism," In Holland, ed., op. cit., p. 169-178. See also
Mohammad Raem, Politik Indonesia 1952 ("Indonesian Policy, 1952"; Djakarta: Penjiaran Ilmu,
1952); Tindjauan Politik dan Ekonomi Kita pada Dewasa Ini ("A Review of Our Politics and
Economics at the Present Time"; Djakarta: Kementerian Penerangan, 1951 ); and "The Historical
and Philosophical Background of Our Independent Policy," Indonesian Affair" vol. I, no. 1 (July
1951).
it useful to use the term, arguing that an independent policy was one which took
Indonesia's internal requirements seriously. Communists used the term to mean the
same as an "anti-imperialist" policy. No one was against the independent foreign
policy, not at any rate in public. It was aptly said that it was a sort of ideological
prism through which all practical policies had to be refracted.
Nevertheless, there was, at least within the main body of the nationalist
movement, a commonly accepted core of meaning, which gave the term a certain
precision and made it more than merely a prestige word. Practically all nationalists
agreed that it was a policy of optimal independence of outside countries, that it was
based on Indonesia's national interests, which included world peace, and on the
desire for maximum opportunity for Indonesians to shape their society as they
themselves wanted to, to prevent Indonesia from becoming either another power's
political or cultural appendage or an ideological battlefield. A considerable majority
of these nationalists agreed this involved working for a degree of independence of
the two power blocs that permitted good relations with both and established a
position from which third-party moves to promote conciliation would be possible.
They added that such a degree of independence would eliminate the possibility of
either bloc's having to fear that Indonesia would be used aggressively against it by
the other. For quite a number of them the policy involved working for an
independent Asian or Asian-Arab bloc which could ultimately perhaps hold a
balance of power in world politics.
It is in the light of this type of thinking that the resentment of the Subardjo-
Cochran agreement is to be understood. It is not clear how far Indonesia would have
been committed to U.S. policies by the agreement if it had not later been
superseded. But the symbolism of it, the insistence tluit Indonesia should make a
formal ideological surrender by putting its signature to a statement of tbe ideas of
the U.S. Congress about the nature of the world strugglethis was utterly irksome.
The supporters of the agreement argued that it was merely an executive step,
that it did not involve a policy change.3 They pointed to the fact that since the little-
publicized Constabulary Agreement of August 1950 Indonesia had been receiving
small amounts of military equipmentvehicles, radio sets, small arms, and so on

3
Keng Po, Feb. 12, 1952.
for its police force,4 and they went on to argue that the Subardjo-Cochran agreement
was an organizational arrangement for continuation of this, not a political step
toward greater dependence on America. Others argued that it was necessary for
Indonesia to accept aid under Section 511a of the act, rather than 511b, because this
would enable it to buy arms and equipment which had been unprocurable in the
United States or Europe except in exchange for political guarantees. 5 All these
groups held that Indonesia's need for U.S. military supplies was greater than that of
countries like India, Pakistan, or Bunna, which had accepted aid under Section 511b
only because they were either receiving military equipment through the British
Commonwealth or had arms factories of their own. Less publicly some supporters
of the agreement argued that Indonesia did indeed need to ally itself with the United
States militarily for protection against Communist power.
As against these groups, the great majority who opposed the agreement
recalled the fact that the Natsir government had refused U.S. military aid when this
was offered by the Melby mission of the Departments of State and Defense in
October 1950. They drew attention to a note which Ambassador Cochran had sent
to the government on January 22, 1952, asking for a guarantee, which the cabinet
did not give, that controls would be placed on Indonesian exports to countries of
the Soviet bloc. Many of them argued that for internal security and political stability
it was better to do without overseas equipment if the cost of obtaining it was a
further strengthening of those groups in Indonesia which alleged that the Revolution
had been betrayed by compromise with foreign powers. National unity, they said,
required that the Cold War be kept out. If Indonesia was to continue to yield to
American endeavors to include it in an anti-Communist bloc, there would soon be,
they insisted, a point of no return as far as any independent foreign policy was
concerned.
On February 12 came a major blow to the cabinet. The Masjumi executive,
following its chairman Natsir, decided that the Masjumi is unable to be responsible

4
See Third Semi-annual Report to Congress on the M.D.A.P., House Document no. 179,
June 25, 1951.
5
E.g., Jusuf Wibisono in Mimbar Indonesia, April 19, 1952. According to Kahin
("Indonesian Politics and Nationalism." in Holland, ed., op. cit., p. 193 ), Indonesia desired some
help in purchasing additional small arms during 1952. This was to be done outside M.S.A. or other
U.S. government agencies but would have required some help in obtaining priorities.
for the signing of the agreement concerning Mutual Security Agency aid which has
taken place.6 This was followed four days later by a decision of the PNI executive
to the effect that the cabinet should return its mandate to the President in order to
overcome the present difficulties.7 It was a somewhat ambiguous statement, for
there was no indication of when the PNI would want the mandate to be returned,
and this was interpreted in the light of earlier statements by PNI leaders to the effect
that a cabinet crisis should be avoided while negotiations were going on with the
Netherlands about the future of Irian and the Netherlands-Indonesian Union.
For some days the issue was held in abeyance. The parties were known to be
at variance on whether the cabinet should take a decision on tile Subardjo-Cochran
agreement. The small parties wanted a cabinet vote on the issue, but both the
Masjumi and the PNI were against it, partly because of fear that this would further
add to their own internal divisions and partly because they expected such a vote to
complicate the task of forming a new cabinet.
On February 19 came Ambassador Cochran's reply to the requests the cabinet
had made of his government at its meeting of February 8. The State Department, it
read, was not prepared to agree to a post factum omission of the fourth point of the
agreement which Subardjo had signed. But it had agreed that this point should be
interpreted as follows:
Make a full contribution, consistent with its political and economic capacity, as
determined by the Indonesian Government and with its population, natural resources,
facilities and general economic situation, to the development and maintenance of its
own defenses and to the defensive strength of the free and sovereign countries.
[My itaIic.]
The answer strengthened the cabinets position slightly. But it had come too
late. It was clear that a preponderance of power was now with those who wanted to
see Sukiman fall. On February 21 the cabinet passed a motion disapproving
Subardjos handling of the matter, whereupon the Foreign Minister, in accordance
with his letter to the cabinet on February 11, resigned. Even this, however, was not
enough. Prime Minister Sukiman had shared responsibility with Subardjo for the

6
Jusuf Wihisono Mimbar Indonesia, April 19, 1952. Jusuf stated that the decision of the
executive council was not the Masjumis final decision as it still had to be approved by the larger
party council or legislative council (headed by Dr. Sukiman). However, as no meeting of the
legislative couneil was held 10 review the executive's dec:lslon, the latter was binding on the
Masjumi ministers.
7
Antara, Feb. 17, 1952.
agreement, and so had several other cabinet members; their abandonment of
Subardjo was therefore regarded as unprincipled.8 In any case it was clear that the
cabinet could not execute policy with a bearing on Mutual Security aid. It faced the
prospect of having to give a full explanation of its actions in reply to a parliamentary
interpellation on the matter, which was to be debated on February 25.
There seemed only one way out of the situation. On February 23 the cabinet
decided unanimously to return its mandate to the President. It did so, it stated, to
improve the political atmosphere so that the difficulties which have arisen from the
signing of the Mutual Security Agreement may be able to be overcome. It had not
taken any attitude or decision on the agreement itself. A government broadcast of
the same day stated that the resignation of the cabinet should not be construed as
meaning that the State would shirk its obligations arising from an agreement with a
foreign country.9
In retrospect it is clear that the M.S.A. crisis was only one of the major causes
of the Sukiman cabinets fall. The fact that it fell when it did was due to the way in
which its actions on the matter of U.S. aid had violated the ideological consensus
on foreign policy prevailing in the political public. But pressures against the cabinet
had been building up for many months.
On a number of issues with which the cabinet had attempted to deal,
uncompromisable or near-uncompromisable differences of policy had developed
betwccn the Masjumi and the PNIwith the result that the cabinet had to resort to
inaction to avert threats to its continued existence. It has been shown how this
happened in the case of the San Francisco treaty. Also noticed was how the
conflicting positions of the two main parties of the cabinet made negotiation with
the Netherlands difficult for the Supomo mission. Furthennore, there was still
deadlock between the parties on the matter of the regional legislative councils: it
was clear from at least November 1951 onward that the two main parties could not
agree on a basis on which interim regional councils could be established as an
alternative to the basis laid down in the old Regulation 39 of 1950.10 These

8
Abadi, Feb. 13, 1952; statement by Mr. Djody Gondokusumo in lndonesia Raya, Feb. 23,
1952.
9
Indonesian Affairs, vol. II, no. 1 (Feb.-March 1952).
See Sajuti Melik, Pemandangan Dalam Negeri (Views on the Home Situation),
10

Mimbarr Indonesia, Nov. 10, 1951.

paralyzing intracabinet cleavages were pointed to by opponents of the cabinet as
evidence of the need for a government established on a completely new basis. And
many in the government parties were convinced that there was no other way out of
the existing frustrations.
In the case of this cabinet too, as in the case of its predecessor, the time for
someone else to have a tum at being minister factor was operative. This was rarely
given direct expression in public statements, but there were a number of predictions
of the early fall of the cabinet long before the M.S.A. crisis began. In December,
Mr. Tadjuddin Noor, the chairman of the PIR parliamentary fraction, declared that
the cabinet may fall in March if there is no decrease in the price of commodities
or if it fails to give economic support to national enterprises, The Antara report
continues: He added that in March the cabinet would be ten months old and thus
had enjoyed much opportunity to work. If it falls, it cannot be said that people like
cabinet crises.11 Surely. Tadjuddin seemed to be saying. one could not be thought
irresponsible for wanting a cabinet change after ten months. His party was one of
those with a high turnover of individuals included in the various successive
cabinets.
The Socialist Party, as a group with a clear interest in seeing the cabinet fall,
had been campaigning since late 1951 for early elections and for the idea that
Indonesia should be governed by a 'business cabinet until elections had been held.
It had been working actively with the Natsir group of the Masjumi and also with
individuals and groups in the PNI which sympathized with Sjahrir and Natsir
positions. Its influence within the press, both in Djakarta and in regional centers,
was brought to bear particularly in the last three weeks of the cabinets life.12
But before that Socialist-influenced newspapers had been hammering
effectively on a number of anti-Sukiman themes. They had stressed the divisions
inside the cabinet, its readiness to resort to horse-trading compromises, and its
consequent inability to provide the country with inspiring leadership. They had
attacked the government for its shortcomings with regard to the first point of its

11
Antara, Dec. 10, 1951.
12
On Feb. 25, 1952, two days after the cabinets fall, Abadi, which usually spoke tor the
Natsir group of the Masjumi, said editorially that directly or indirectly the press helped to throw
out the old cabinet. On the same day Pedoman, which usually reflected the PSI position rather
closely, ran a cartoon headed "A Victory for the Press.
program, the restoration of security. They had attacked it for encouraging an inflow
of large cars and other luxury commodities, while doing nothing to keep down the
price of rice (which in fact rose unusually steeply in the preharvest months of
December 1951 to February 1952).13 And they had criticized it for its tendency to
yield before American pressure, thus compromising the independent foreign policy.
For a great part of the political public, these were most effective appeals. But
if opinion within the political public and factional pressures inside the main
government parties were two main elements of the power which brought down the
cabinet, the leadership of the army was a third. There is some doubt whether army
pressure for the cabinet to resign was exerted directly at the time of the M.S.A.
crisis. But members of the political elite were given the clear impression that the
army leaders would be pleased to see Sukiman step down. This was certainly a
major factor in bringing the cabinet to admit defeat.
THE CABINET AND THE LEADERS OF THE ARMY
At this point it would be well to review the history of relations between the
Sukiman cabinet and the army. We have referred to a number of instances where
co-operation between these two was conspicuously lacking. We have seen how the
army reacted to Justice Minister Yamin's action in releasing political prisoners
without the army leaders approval. We saw too how the army leaders refused to
assist the Prime Minister when he sought to invoke the State of War and Siege
regulations as a legal cover for the August mass arrests. In the case of these arrests,
as with the earlier releases, the cabinet had not consulted the army leaders, and the
same pattern repeated itself over the matter of the agreement on Mutual Security
aid.
Nor were these the only signs of conflict. In August 1951 Defense Minister
Sewaka told Parliament that be was not prepared to assume responsibility for his
ministrys 1951 budget since this had been prepared by his predecessor,14 The
statement was interpreted as a sign of conflict on budgetary matters between him
and the armed forces leaders. On December 7 an army battalion located at Kudus,
Central Java, mutinied and began an attempt to establish itself as a Central Java

13
The Java Bank, Report for the Financial Year 19S1-l952 (Djakarta, 1952 ), pp. 74-76.
14
Aneta, Aug. 7, 1951.
section of Darul Islam. The reaction of the territorial commander for Central Java
was to do everything to capture the mutineers, and he engaged some of them in
fighting. Then on December 12if one is to believe the report of the Semarang
daily Suara Merdeka (whose editor was jailed for publishing it)Prime Minister
Sukiman sent a cable to one of the battalion commanders who was pursuing the
mutineers, asking rum to desist from any harsh action against them.15 In a press
interview given in Jogjakarta near the area of the mutiny in early February. Defense
Minister Sewaka denied rumors that there was a rift between him and the armys
Chief of Staff, Colonel Nasution. But he added: The army in particular must realize
that besides strong and fum measures one must not forget justice and humanity or
offend religious sentiment.16
To understand these antagonisms between the Sukiman cabinet and the army.
one needs to remember not only the frequent conficts between the civilian
government and the army during the Revolution, but also the very great political
and governmental role which the anny had played in the period of Revolution. For
many Indonesians, particularly village dwellers, the anny was the Republic in this
period. Particular anny commanders were treated with respect and awe by the
inhabitants of their areas of command. and often with great affection. At the same
time they came to feel a strong sense of obligation to act as guardians and defenders
of these local people.
With the cessation of hostilities and the transfer of sovereignty much of this
had to change. The anny had to be reduced in size, it had to accept a working
relationship with former soldiers of the KNIL, and its members had to adjust
themselves to a new situation of routinization and boredom. Furthermore. it bad to
accept a radical reduction of its power and prestige. If constitutional democracy was
to be the state's form of governmentand the anny leaders supported this, or at
least accepted it without public grumblingthen civilians would sway predominant
power in government affairs at all levels and hold an exclusive right on political
activity. Regional commanders would be deprived of their formal claims to the
actual control of government activity (this would be partly so while the State of

15
Antara. Dec. 18, 1951; Aneta, Dec. 19, 1951 .
16
See Sewaka, Tjorat-Tjoret (Sketches; n.p., 1955 ), p. 309.
War and Siege regulations applied, and all the more so once they were lifted in
particular areas), and official obstacles would be placed in the way of their claims
to represent the interests of the people in their area of command. Large numbers of
anny officers would fall in the prestige scale of their communities in relation to
civilians of comparable rank.
Clearly it was a political task of major proportions to induce the army to
accept this change in its status. The Hatta and Natsir cabinets had worked at the task
with considerable success, co-operating as they did with the administrator group
of army leaders, men like Colonels T.B. Simatupang and A.H. Nasution. By the
time these two cabinets had completed their work the army was not only a far more
cohesive and well-disciplined force. but also several steps further removed than in
1949 from participation in government and politics.
It is important to understand, however, that this was not a simple surrender of
power on the army's part, but rather a conditional arrangement. The army leaders
who worked closely with the cabinets of Hatta and Natsir did not do so to create a
nonpolitical army in the Western sense. Such a goal would have been impossible of
realization, and they would have had no interest in its realization. Their endeavor
was rather to reorganize the ramshackle forces in such a way that the political
pressure which army officers would inevitably seek to apply would be brought to
bear centrally at the level of the cabinet, rather than diffusely at a variety of regional
levels. Their aim was to build a strong, cohesive army with high professional
standards and a good name in the community generally. To do this they believed
they should withdraw their subordinate officers from political and governmental
participation at regional and local levels and thus remove them from temptations of
corruption and officiousness and free them for more intensive military training.
But the army leaders were not committed to doctrines of civilian supremacy.
Several of them continued to speak of the army as a guardian of the state and the
people, implying that they might sub-sequently claim the role of saving the state or
the people from the civilian politicians. They stressed that the army was and would
remain a political body, that it was composed of nationalists who had joined the
force from political conviction, not to earn a living, and could not therefore be
stripped of political influence. In effect, they insisted that the assistance they had
given to civilian governments in withdrawing their subordinates from politics at the
regional and local levels implied a quid pro quo. That quid pro quo was a great
amount of influence for themselves as the army's central leaders in all such affairs
of cabinet politics as affected the armys interests and tasks.
The tenns of this infonnal reciprocal arrangement were adhered to in the
period of the Hatta and Natsir cabinets. Army leaders then frequently attended
cabinet mcctings and had great influence on decisions affecting the anny. Moreover,
their interests were well served by the Sultan of Jogjakarta, a civilian who had
played an active military role in the Revolution and was highly respected in the
army. But in addition to pressing army interests in the cabinet, the Sultan pressed
civilian viewpoints on the army. Thus he was responsible for much of the success
achieved in restraining antipolitician feeling in the army, Cabinet-army frictions
existed in this period, notably over army arrests of West Java Masjumi members
suspected of supporting the Darul Islam17 and over Natsir's decision (of which the
army was not told) to send the Masjumi leader, Wali Alfatah, as an envoy to
Kartosuwirjo of the Darul Islam. But they were not of great importance.
With the formation of the Sukiman cabinet a new situation developed in
cabinet-army relations. At the time of the cabinet's formation the army leaders asked
that the Sultan be given the portfolio of Defense, and the post was offered to him.
But the Sultan declined, apparently because of dissatisfaction. with the political
character of the projected cabinet. When Sewaka of PIR was given the post, the
army leaders felt slighted and resentful.
Sewaka, hitherto the Governor of West Java, was a man of the older
generationhe was 56 whereas Nasution was 33 and Simatupang 31and, unlike
every previous Defense Minister since 1945, he was not first-ranking political
figure. Thus relations between him and the army leaders were strained from the
beginning. It was not that the army leaders regarded Sewaka as a politician put
above them to keep them in order, but rather that they had wanted a minister who
would actively assist them in the work of army reorganization and generally in
promoting army interests as they saw them. When they found that Sewaka was not

17
See Pertanjaan Anggota dan Djawaban Pemerintah ('Members Questions and
Government Replies; Djakarta: D.P.R.-R.I.S., 1950 ), I, 47. See also Aneta, Jan. 15, 23, 1951.
particularly interested in this and that be sought to establish his own contacts with
officer factions hostile to their leadership, the sense of strain developed into a sharp
feeling of resenbnent. It was stimulated further when they found that Prime Minister
Sukiman was prepared to ignore them repeatedly in making decisions which they
saw as directly related to their own sphere of activity.
Consequently the army leaders tended more and more to act without
consulting any cabinet members. There was a marked decline in close contacts
between the top leaders of the army on the one hand and the Defense Minister and
the rest of the cabinet on the other. The army leaders tended to see the cabinet as a
group of incompetent and reckless old men who did not know that to arouse the
anger of the army was to play with fire. The members of the cabinet looked at the
Simatupang-Nasution group of army leaders as merely one faction in army politics
and a faction which chose to be the military arm of the cabinet leaders' political
rivals. the Natsir-Sjahrir-sympathizing younger generation of politicians.
Conflict between the army leadership and the cabinet developed particularly
over the matter of the army's work in restoring security in rebel-torn areas. On the
question of how the campaign against the Darul Islam was to be fought there had
been cabinet-army friction long before the Sukiman cabinet took office. In general
terms the issue was that the army insisted that it should have a free hand in pressing
a military solution, whereas political party leaders, and especially Masjumi leaders,
argued that a political and religious approach was necessary to win away the rebels'
popular support. This issue was often most sharply focused on the role of Masjumi
branches in the areas of conflict. Masjumi leaders in Djakarta argued that these
branches offered the strongly Moslem population there a real alternative to
supporting the Darul Islam, whereas anny leaders tended to see the branches as
harboring Darul Islam sympathizers and agents. Masjumi leaders, and often the
leaders of other parties as wen, protested whenever large numbers of persons in the
areas of fighting were arrested. Army leaders resented every attempt of political
leaders to intervene and particularly all attempts to negotiate with the Darul Islam.18

18
For the army view see Nasution, Tjatatan-Tjatatan Sekitar Politik Militer, pp. 160, 180,
and passim. For one Masjumi view see M. Natsir, Djangan Ditempuh Djalan Buntu ("Let Us Not
Walk down a Blind Alley"; Djakarta: Hikmah, 1952), passim. For a theoretical discussion of the
difficuities of civilian control over the military In situations of "intrastate war" (which call for the
merging of political and military roles on both sides) see Samuel P. Huntington, "Politics, Violence
 The Sukiman cabinet was in fact more disposed to seek a tough military
solution to the Darul Islam problem than the Natsir cabinet had been. This was its
announced policy. and its actions were substantially in accordance with it.
Nevertheless, much of the same pattern of army-cabinet conflict continued to exist,
and it was now aggravated by lack of close personal liaison between the army
leaders and the cabinet. A further aggravating factor was the fact that government
and army efforts 10 diminish the proportions of the rebel-bandit problem were
failing.
Reviewing the situation from the time of the transfer of sovereignty,

and the Military: Some Preliminary Hypotheses," piper presented before the American Political
Science Association, New York, 1960.