Telegram 183 A From American Consulate in Medan to American Embassy in Jakarta, Confidential
National Security Archive
A December 1965 consular cable reveals how Indonesia’s army turned Sumatra into a militarized fief, laying the groundwork for Suharto’s New Order.
Source: Telegram 183 A From American Consulate in Medan to American Embassy in Jakarta, Confidential Date: Dec 6, 1965 Archive: RG 84, Entry P 339, Jakarta Embassy Files, Box 14, Folder 7 pol 23-9 September 30th Mvt, dec 1-31, 1965 Collection: U.S. Embassy Tracked Indonesia Mass Murder 1965 Oct 17, 2017
Editorial Analysis
Original analysis by the DriftSeas editorial desk. The complete primary-source document, transcribed from the National Security Archive scan, appears in full below.
From Medan to Jakarta: A Consular Snapshot of the Army’s Post‑Coup Consolidation
The telegram dated 6 December 1965 was sent by the U.S. consular officer in Medan to the American embassy in Jakarta, with a copy to the State Department. It arrives just weeks after the failed 30 September coup and the ensuing wave of anti‑Communist killings that wiped out the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and its affiliates. The document is a routine security‑policy cable, but its content lays bare how quickly the Indonesian army, under General Suharto’s de facto commander‑in‑chief General Abdul Haris Mokoginta, moved from a chaotic purge to a systematic re‑engineering of civil society on Sumatra.
The telegram belongs to the broader episode of the 1965–66 Indonesian mass violence, a turning point that ended President Sukarno’s guided democracy and ushered in the New Order regime. Historians estimate that between 500,000 and one million people were killed, and that the army emerged as the dominant political force. The Medan cable is valuable because it records the army’s own internal logic at a moment when Western analysts were still trying to decipher whether the coup had been a genuine communist insurrection or a pre‑planned military takeover.
The most striking actor in the report is General Mokoginta, the army commander for Sumatra. The consular officer notes that Mokoginta publicly announced plans to create a “Muslim umbrella organization” to absorb and control all Islamic groups, and that he has placed his own appointees in every provincial department. This reveals an explicit strategy: replace party politics with “functional groups” that the military could dominate. The cable also mentions the forced dissolution of student organizations and the compulsory enrollment of children aged eight to thirteen in the army‑run youth movement Pramuka, echoing the PKI’s earlier proposal to arm workers and peasants. By co‑opting the same social mechanisms the communists had used, the army ensured that its authority would be normalized at the grassroots level.
What the telegram does not say outright, but implies, is the degree of coordination between the army and the emerging civilian bureaucracy. The consular officer observes that “civil service cowed by drastic purges” and that “heads of departments now under army control in daily operations.” This suggests that the purge was not merely a reactionary cleanup of suspected communists but a deliberate restructuring of the state apparatus to serve military interests. The mention of “armed Hansip units” – local security forces now equipped by the army – signals a diffusion of military power into every village, effectively turning the countryside into an extension of the armed forces.
The cable also hints at the limits of opposition. While the consular officer acknowledges that the Indonesian National Party (PNI) retains a “large following,” he notes that the party is split, under suspicion of communist infiltration, and that the army is already planning to purge it. The assessment that “no other faction… is likely to challenge the army on the ground in Sumatra” foreshadows the near‑total political marginalization of civilian parties during the New Order.
Why this document matters today is twofold. First, it provides contemporaneous evidence that the U.S. diplomatic corps recognized the army’s intent to institutionalize its power well before Suharto officially assumed the presidency in 1967. This counters later narratives that portray the United States as a passive observer of an inevitable Indonesian transition. Second, the telegram’s detailed description of the army’s social engineering – from youth indoctrination to media control – helps explain why the New Order could sustain itself for three decades despite its authoritarian character. The mechanisms identified in Medan became the template for the regime’s nationwide “pembangunan” (development) program, which combined economic growth with tight political control.
In sum, Telegram 183 A is not merely a bureaucratic report; it is a window onto the army’s rapid transformation of Sumatra into a militarized polity, a microcosm of the national shift that would define Indonesia for the next thirty‑plus years. Its declassification allows scholars to trace the early articulation of the New Order’s core strategies and to reassess the extent to which U.S. policy was informed – and perhaps complicit – in the army’s consolidation of power.
PP RUMJBT DE RUMJEM 392 3400129 ZNY CCCCC R 060120Z
FM AMCONSUL MEDAN TO RUMJBT/AMEMBASSY DJAKARTA 337 INFO RUEHCR/SECSTATE WASHDC 78 STATE GRNC
BT CONFIDENTIAL 06 DEC 65
CONFIDENTIAL Poc 239
EEM MVT RJM HLH RGR PFG RCH FHM HGI OJE DJN Action Taken [signature] 12/6
CN: 183A DATE: DECEMBER 6, 1965 1125 ACTION: POL INFO: CHRON AMB DCM RF ECON POL [shown to ARMA] eg
- FOLLOWING VIRTUAL DESTRUCTION OF PKI AND ITS FAR LEFT ALLIES ON SUMATRA, ARMY IMPLEMENTING VARIETY OF MEASURES AIMED AT STRENGTHENING ITS GRIP ON ALL ASPECTS POLITICAL LIFE THIS ISLAND. ARMY NOW IN PROCESS OF OPENLY ENGINEERING FORMATION OF MOSLEM UMBRELLA ORGANIZATION TO EMBRACE AND CONTROL ALL MOSLEM ORGANIZATIONS. CIVIL SERVICE COWED BY DRASTIC PURGES AND TOP OFFICIALS CLEARLY TAKING ORDERS FROM ARMY. ACTING GOVERNOR BY HIS OWN ACCOUNT CHOSEN BY GENERAL MOKOGINTA FOR THE JOB. CONSULATE HAS DIRECTLY OBSERVED THAT HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS NOW UNDER ARMY CONTROL IN DAILY OPERATIONS. CFN 337 78
DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 67289
CONFIDENTIAL
PAGE TWO RUMJEM 392 C O N F I D E N T I A L AT DISTRICT LEVEL, MILITARY COMMANDERS RECENTLY BECAME HEADS OF DISTRICT GOVERNING BODIES, THE SECOND LEVEL PANTJA TUNGGALS, BY ORDER OF PROVINCIAL COMMANDER. ARMY HAS ACTED TO CONTROL YOUTH AT EARLY AGE BY BANNING ALL STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS IN SUMATRAN SCHOOLS BELOW UNIVERSITY LEVEL WHILE AT SAME TIME MAKING MEMBERSHIP IN ARMY CONTROLLED PRAMUKA COMPULSORY FOR ALL STUDENTS BETWEEN AGES 8 AND 13. IN ADDITION TO EXTENSIVE PURGE AND NAMING ARMY OFFICER AS SEC- RETARY, NORTH SUMATRA NATIONAL FRONT HAS BEEN PUBLICLY LECTURED AND CRITICIZED BY PROVINCIAL COMMANDER. HIS COMMENTS MAKE IT CLEAR THAT FRONT WILL NOW BECOME ARMY INSTRUMENT FOR CONTROLLING PARTIES AND MASS ORGANIZATIONS. PRESS FIRMLY UNDER ARMY DIRECTION FOLLOWING EXTENSIVE PURGE OF PWI JOURNALISTS ASSOCIATION WHICH NOW HEADED IN NORTH SUMATRA BY ARMY OFFICER. MOKOGINTA HAS PUBLICLY ANNOUNCED THAT IN ADDITION TO PERMISSION FROM MINISTRY INFORMATION, NEWSPAPERS MUST HAVE HIS APPROVAL PRIOR TO PUBLICATION. ARMY ALSO BROADENING AND EXTENDING ITS PHYSICAL CONTROL OF BOTH CITIES AND COUNTRYSIDE BY ARMING SELECTED HANSIP UNITS, A MEASURE WHICH AMOUNTS TO ARMY VERSION OF PKI PROPOSAL TO ARM WORKERS AND PEASANTS. WHEN IMPLEMENTED, THIS MEASURE WILL EXTEND DIRECT MILITARY CHAIN OF COMMAND INTO EVERY VILLAGE ON SUMATRA. CFN 8 13
CONFIDENTIAL
PAGE THREE RUMJEM 392 C O N F I D E N T I A L
ALL-SUMATRA COMMANDER GENERAL MOKOGINTA AND OTHER TOP OFFICERS HERE HAVE MADE IT CLEAR ON SEVERAL OCCASSIONS THAT THEY BELIEVE POLITICAL PARTIES SHOULD BE ELIMINATED FROM INDONESIAN POLITICAL LIFE. ABOVE MEASURES CERTAINLY TEND TO WEAKEN PARTIES ON THIS ISLAND. BEFORE ABORTIVE COUP, MOKOGINTA ONCE TOLD ME HE ENVISAGES PROPER INDONESIAN POLITICAL ORGANIZATION AS BASED ON FUNCTIONAL GROUPS RATHER THAN PARTIES. ARMY MOVES ALSO TEND IN THAT DIRECTION, WITH SIGNIFICANT ADDITIONAL FACTOR OF ARMY CONTROL OVER ALL SUCH GROUPS.
ALTHOUGH MOKOGINTA HAS SAID THAT ARMY IS NOT RPT NOT ENGAGED IN SETTING UP PERMANENT MILITARY REGIME, IT IS DIFFICULT TO BELIEVE ARMY WILL AT SOME POINT IN FUTURE WILLINGLY RELINQUISH ITS NOW SWEEPING POWERS.
WHILE I ASSUME MANY FACTIONS HERE ARE NOT PLEASED BY PROSPECT OF PERMANENT ARMY REGIME WHICH HARDLY LIKELY BE VERY DEMOCRATIC, THERE IS NO RPT NO APPARENT OPPOSITION. MANY APPEAR TO SEE ARMY REGIME AS ONLY ALTERNATIVE TO COMMUNIST REGIME AND THEY PREFER ARMY. OTHERS ARE SIMPLY WAITING TO SEE WHAT ARMY REGIME WILL BE LIKE.
REGARDLESS OF ULTIMATE POPULAR REACTION TO ARMY AS POLITICAL MASTER THIS ISLAND, IT IS UNLIKELY THAT ARMY CAN BE EFFECTIVELY
CONFIDENTIAL
PAGE FOUR RUMJEM 392 C O N F I D E N T I A L CHALLENGED ON THE GROUND IN SUMATRA. WITH EXCEPTION OF ARMY, PKI HAD EFFECTIVELY DESTROYED OR EMASCULATED VIRTUALLY ALL POLITICAL FO- RCES HERE PRIOR TO COUP. LONG INACTIVE AND DISCREDITED MASJUMI CERTAINLY IN NO RPT NO POSITION RESIST ARMY DOMINATION. ONE GROUP CAPABLE OF AT LEAST PASSIVE RESISTANCE IS PNI WHICH STILL COMMANDS LARGE FOLLOWING. HOWEVER PNI SPLIT AND UNDER HEAVY SUSPICION OF COMMUNIST INFILTRATION. ARMY SOURCES HAVE OPENLY EXPRESSED CONCERN ABOUT PNI SHELTERING SECRET PKI MEMBERS AND LEADERS OF ARMY- CONTROLLED YOUTH GROUPS HAVE TOLD CONSULATE THAT THEY INTEND PURGE PNI OR DESTROY IT. THUS, WHILE PNI MAY CAUSE ARMY SOME DIFFICULTIES, IT IS UNLIKELY TO PRESENT SERIOUS OR EFFECTIVE RESISTANCE TO ARMY REGIME.
- IN SHORT, SUMATRA IS RAPDILY BECOMING AN ARMY FIEF. EVENTS IN DJAKARTA COULD OF COURSE QUICKLY ALTER THIS DEVELOPING PATTERN. BUT EVEN SHARP REVERSES FOR NASUTION AND SUHARTO IN THEIR STRUGGLE WITH PALACE WOULD NOT NECESSAR ILY HAVE ANY GREAT IMPACT ON MILITARY CONTROL OF SUMATRA.
GP-3 HEAVNER [CONFIDENTIAL] 1
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