Telegram A-808 from American Embassy to Department of State, 'Army Military Police Corps Assuming Role as Thought Police?', Confidential

Source: Telegram A-808 from American Embassy to Department of State, 'Army Military Police Corps Assuming Role as Thought Police?', Confidential Date: Jun 29, 1966 Archive: RG 84, Entry P 339, Jakarta Embassy Files, Box 23, Folder 12 - DEF6 Armed forces 1966 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.

The Telegram in Context

On 29 June 1966 the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta sent a terse, classified cable—Telegram A‑808—to the State Department, flagging a development that would have seemed absurd to any Cold‑War observer: the Indonesian Army’s Military Police Corps (CPM) was being turned into a de‑facto “thought police.” The cable, filed under the embassy’s DEF6 series on “Armed forces 1966,” was produced in the chaotic aftermath of the September 30, 1965 coup attempt, a night when a failed “Movement” allegedly orchestrated by the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) set off a wave of mass killings and a complete re‑ordering of power.

The immediate trigger for the telegram was a series of reports from two Indonesian ministries that General Suharto, now the de‑facto head of state, had issued an order (dated 11 March) empowering the CPM to screen civil‑service officials for “subversive opinions” linked to the September 30 affair. The embassy officer notes that the CPM had drafted a detailed questionnaire, to be administered to ministers, deputy ministers and senior bureaucrats, probing personal biographies, past political affiliations, and even opinions on President Sukarno’s recent MPRS speech. The cable stresses the logistical absurdity of such a sweep across a three‑thousand‑mile archipelago, suggesting that enforcement would be limited to Jakarta, but it flags the broader implication: the army was now assuming the role of ideological arbiter.

A Turning Point in the 1965‑66 Power Struggle

The telegram belongs to the larger episode of Indonesia’s violent transition from Sukarno’s guided democracy to Suharto’s New Order. After the alleged PKI coup, the army, under Suharto’s command, launched a systematic purge that killed an estimated 500,000 to one million people and eliminated the PKI as a political force. By early 1966, Suharto had supplanted Sukarno’s authority, first by taking control of the armed forces and then by assuming the presidency in March 1967. The CPM’s new mandate represented a shift from the earlier “Tjakrabirawa” presidential guard—once tasked with safeguarding the “ideology of the state” under Sukarno—to a military police force loyal to Suharto, tasked with excising any lingering communist sympathies from the bureaucracy.

The telegram’s reference to the “Movement” and the “prologue” to the September 30 affair reflects the army’s narrative that the PKI had orchestrated a pre‑emptive plot, a story used to legitimize the purge. By institutionalising a questionnaire, the CPM was not merely vetting loyalty; it was attempting to rewrite the bureaucratic memory of the 1965 crisis, forcing officials to publicly confess mistakes and denounce the PKI. This mirrors the broader New Order strategy of consolidating power through a combination of coercion, propaganda, and the co‑optation of civil institutions.

What the Cable Reveals About U.S. Perception

The embassy’s tone is simultaneously alarmist and analytical. The officer acknowledges the “logistical problems” but stresses the “more interesting” aspect: the army’s adoption of thought‑control functions. By labeling the CPM’s role as “thought police,” the cable signals Washington’s awareness that Suharto’s regime was moving beyond conventional security into the realm of ideological engineering—a concern for a U.S. foreign‑policy establishment accustomed to confronting Soviet‑style political policing.

The telegram also hints at internal U.S. debates. The inclusion of a “COMMENT” line suggests the writer was tasked with interpreting raw intelligence for policymakers, weighing the significance of a bureaucratic questionnaire against the broader geopolitical stakes of a staunchly anti‑communist ally consolidating power. The reference to other pre‑September 30 mechanisms—KOTRAR, the Central Intelligence Body—indicates that the embassy saw continuity between Sukarno’s revolutionary apparatus and Suharto’s emerging security state.

Legacy and Contemporary Relevance

Telegram A‑808 is a rare glimpse into how U.S. diplomats documented the early institutionalization of New Order authoritarianism. It foreshadows later, well‑documented practices such as the “Bureaucratic Purge” of the late 1960s and the pervasive surveillance of political dissent that persisted throughout Suharto’s three‑decade rule. The cable’s focus on the CPM’s questionnaire anticipates the New Order’s reliance on bureaucratic loyalty tests, which became a staple of civil‑service management and a tool for marginalising dissenting voices long after the 1965‑66 violence subsided.

For historians, the telegram underscores the speed with which the Indonesian military moved from battlefield commander to domestic ideological enforcer, a transformation that was both a cause and a consequence of the mass killings. For contemporary readers, it serves as a reminder that state security organs can be repurposed to police thought, especially in moments of political rupture. The document’s declassification in 2017, nearly five decades after the events, allows scholars to trace the early contours of a regime that would dominate Southeast Asian politics until 1998, and to reflect on how foreign observers interpreted—and sometimes tacitly approved—such shifts in the name of anti‑communist stability.

DEF6
POLICE
CONFIDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL
A-808
FILE
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
INFO : MEDAN, SURABAYA

Ambassy DJAKARTA
June 29, 1966
Army Military Police Corps Assuming Role as Thought Police?

[DECLASSIFIED
Authority NNO 67289]

The reporting officer has heard from sources in two Ministries that the Army's Military Police Corps (CPM) has been assigned the main role in the screening out of individuals in GOI Ministries for subversive opinions related to the 30th of September Affair. The CPM's authority in this specific function derives directly from General Suharto under his March 11 Order powers, and is superior to that of all individuals of the rank of Deputy Minister or below except in the Armed Forces.

The CPM has worked up a questionnaire which it is in the process of administering to all officials of all Ministries, including Deputy Ministers. The questionnaire is broken down into several sections. The individual is first required to write a short biography of himself with a detailed explanation of his political associations, if any. He is then asked to explain any "mistaken" he believes he made during the "prologue" to the 30th September Affair, and to point out in what way he made clear his opposition to the "Movement" after it occurred. Finally, he is asked a series of questions on his position on current events, such as, for instance, his opinion of the President's recent MPRS speech. CPM monitors patrol the rooms during the testing.

COMMENT: The logistical problems of administering such a test to the Indonesian Government's multi-million member civil service spread throughout a 3,000 mile wide archipelago are obvious, and it seems likely it will only be enforced in any meaningful way in the capital. More interesting than the test itself is the assignment of the Military Police to a role of ensuring ideological purity.

Group 3: Downgrade each 12 yrs;
not automatically declassified.
CONFIDENTIAL

POL:RCleveland/sc 6/28/66
POL:EEMasters

CONFIDENTIAL