Wednesday, December 27th, 2006
Democracy Now: Gerald Ford and East Timor
Former President Gerald Ford died last night at the age of 93. We begin our
coverage of Ford's time in office with a look at his support for the
Indonesian invasion of East Timor that killed one-third of the Timorese
population. We're joined by Brad Simpson of the National Security Archives
and journalist Alan Nairn. [rush transcript included]
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of the documentary Massacre: The Story
of East Timor which I produced with journalist Alan Nairn who'll be joining
us in a minute. But first to talk more about President Ford's legacy and his
role in East Timor, we are joined by Brad Simpson. Brad Simpson works for
the National Security Archives and is a Professor at the University of
Maryland. Brad, welcome to Democracy Now!.
BRAD SIMPSON: Thank you, very much, for having me on.
AMY GOODMAN: Brad, you recently got documents declassified about
President Ford and his role in 1975, in meeting with the long reigning
dictator of Indonesia, Suharto. Can you explain what you learned?
BRAD SIMPSON: Yes. Gerald Ford actually met twice with Suharto,
first in July of 1975 when Suharto came to the United States. And later in
December of 1975, of course, on the eve of his invasion of East Timor. And
we now know that for more than a year Indonesia had been planning its armed
takeover of East Timor, and the United States had of course been aware of
Indonesian military plans. In July of 1975, the National Security Council
first informed Henry Kissinger and Gerald Ford of Indonesia's plans to take
over East Timor by force. And Suharto of course raised this with Gerald Ford
in July when he met with Gerald Ford at Camp David on a trip to the United
States. And then in December of 1975 on a trip through Southeast Asia,
Gerald Ford met again with Suharto on the eve of the invasion, more than two
weeks after the National Security Council, CIA, other intelligence agencies
had concluded that an Indonesian invasion was eminent. And that the only
thing delaying the invasion was the fear that US disapproval might lead to a
cut-off of weapons and military supplies to the regime.
AMY GOODMAN: How knowledgeable was President Ford at the time of
the situation?
BRAD SIMPSON: Well, Ford was very much aware. He was receiving
hourly briefings, as was Henry Kissinger, as his plane lifted off from
Indonesia, as the invasion indeed commenced. And immediately afterwards
Gerald Ford flew to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, or to Guam-excuse me, where he
gave a speech saying that never again should the United States allow another
nation to strike in the middle of the night, to attack another defenseless
nation. This was on Pearl Harbor Day, of course. Realizing full well that
another day of infamy was unfolding in Dili, East Timor. As thousands of
Indonesian paratroopers, trained by the United States, using US supplied
weapons, indeed jumping from United States supplied airplanes, were
descending upon the capital city of Dili and massacring literally thousands
of people in the hours and days after December 7, 1975.
AMY GOODMAN: Brad, how difficult was it to get this
declassified? The memos that you got? And how long were these memos about
Ford and Kissinger's meeting with the long reigning Suharto? How long were
they kept classified?
BRAD SIMPSON: Well, they are kept classified until the fall of
2002. We now know, actually, that a Congressman from Minnesota, Donald
Fraser, had actually attempted to declassify the memo, the so-called Smoking
Gun Memo, the transcript of General Suharto's conversation with Gerald Ford,
in December of 1975. Congressman Fraser actually tried to declassify this in
document in 1978 during the Suharto adm--or during the Carter years and
Carter's National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, realizing full well
the explosive nature of this cable would show that the United States had
been an accomplice in an international act of aggression, recommended that
the State Department refuse to declassify the memo, a mere three years after
the invasion.
And it took another 25 years after this episode before the
cables were finally declassified and of course much more has come out. And I
think it's incontrovertible that the United States played the crucial role
in enabling the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. And I think it's wrong to
say that Gerald Ford was completely unconcerned with the aftermath of the
invasion. We now know that just a few days after the invasion Gerald Ford
sent a telegram to the State Department asking that an emergency diplomatic
cable be sent to General Suharto, in response to his recent visit. And
inside the cable, which was sent by diplomatic pouch from the US Embassy,
was a set of golf balls from Gerald Ford.
AMY GOODMAN: As we wrap up, the--you have a large body of
declassified documents surrounding Indonesia and East Timor, of which this
is a part, at the National Security Archive. If people want to look, where
do they go online, Brad Simpson?
BRAD SIMPSON: They can go to www.nsarchive.org. And there is a
link to the Indonesia and East Timor document case and project on that
website.
AMY GOODMAN: Brad Simpson, I want to thank you for being with
us. Of the National Security Archive and Professor of History at the
University of Maryland, College Park.
-break-
AMY GOODMAN: : To talk more about President Ford's legacy and
his role in Indonesia and East Timor, joined by colleague and Independent
Journalist Allen Nairn, who Co-produced the Documentary Massacre: The Story
Of East Timor. Alan, welcome to Democracy Now!
ALLAN NAIRN: : Thanks.
AMY GOODMAN: : We just talked to Professor Brad Simpson who got
the document declassified on the National Security Archive website, of
President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's role in giving the
green light for the invasion of Timor, December 7, 1975. Can you talk about
your interview with President Ford, and the significance of the information
that has come out since?
ALLAN NAIRN: : Well, I interviewed Ford by phone, and beforehand
had told his assistant that I wanted to discuss his meeting with General
Suharto, the Indonesian Dictator, on December 5th. So coming into the
interview Ford knew the topic. And when I asked Ford whether he did in fact
authorize the invasion of East Timor, he said, "Frankly, I don't recall." He
didn't remember. And I believed him.
What Ford said was that there were many topics on the agenda
that day with Suharto. Timor was not very high on the agenda. It was one of
the lesser topics, and he just couldn't remember whether he had authorized
this invasion, which ended up killing 1/3 of the Timorese population. And
it's kind of an illustration of the fact that when, like the United States,
you're a global power with regimes everywhere dependant on your weapons, you
can start wars, authorize wars, take actions that result in mass deaths in a
fairly casual way.
In this case, the US didn't have a great interest in East Timor.
All the evidence suggests that they didn't particularly care one way or the
other whether Timor became independent. But as a favor to Suharto, who was
close to Washington, who was their protégée, they decided to let him go
ahead with the invasion. So, for just a marginal, fleeting gain - or, out of
doing a favor for a buddy -- they ended up causing a mass murder that
proportionally was the most intensive killing since the Nazis, a third of
the population killed.
AMY GOODMAN: : Now documents, Allan Nairn that you did get
declassified were a memo that involved Henry Kissinger, again, it was
Kissinger and Ford that gave the go ahead for the invasion when they visited
Suharto, the long-reigning dictator. And that was information they were
getting as they flew out of Indonesia through to Guam and Pearl Harbor, as
Brad Simpson described. But what about those documents and Kissinger's
reaction?
ALLAN NAIRN: : Well, Kissinger, and Ford, they, one of the
points they made to Suharto, was that you have to try to get this invasion
over with quickly. And Kissinger when he-- they wanted them to go in
intensively, presumably kill as many Timorese as they could quickly. So that
it wouldn't get international attention, and also, apparently they were
worried that it could get attention in Congress. Because Ford and Kissinger
knew that by authorizing this invasion, they were technically violating US
law. Because the US weapons laws at the time stated US weapons given to
foreign clients could not be used for purposes of aggression. And this was
in the judgment of the State Department's own legal analysts, this looked
like it would be an act of aggression if Indonesia were to invade East
Timor, and that could, technically, if Congress got wind of it and started
to pay attention to it, be grounds for stopping, cutting off US weapons
supply to Indonesia.
That would have been devastating for the invasion of Timor
because about 90% of the Indonesian weapons were coming from the US and they
needed spare parts, they needed ammunition, they needed a re-supply. And it
also would have been dangerous for the regime of Suharto which was based on
repression within Indonesia and needed those weapons to keep their own
population down. So Kissinger, in his internal discussions within the state
department, was pressing his people to make sure that all information about
Timor be kept under wraps. They didn't want the US Congress paying too much
attention to it. As it turned out, I think Kissinger was giving Congress a
little too much credit because there was not much evidence at the time that
apart from a few members like then-Congressman Tom Harkin, that there was
much interest in probing what the US was doing. But Kissinger knew this was
an illegal operation so he was trying to keep it quiet.
AMY GOODMAN: : And the information about Suharto's role in
general, in Indonesia at the time, as you mentioned both the invasion of
East Timor, but Suharto--what happened, how he came to power? The man that
eventually Ford and Kissinger would meet with in the capital of Indonesia,
Jakarta?
ALLAN NAIRN: : Well, Suharto came to power on the back of
essentially a military coup which overthrew Sukarno who was the founding
President of Indonesia. And from the period of 1965 to 67, when General
Suharto was consolidating his power, his army and groups working with the
army carried out a mass slaughter of Indonesian civilians. It's not clear
exactly how many were killed, but anywhere from 400,000 to perhaps more than
a million Indonesians were massacred as the Suharto regime gained power. And
they did this, the military did this with US weaponry. And in fact, the US
CIA station even gave a list of 5,000 names of people who they had
identified as communists and potential opponents of the army, and they
turned this list over to Suharto and his military intelligence people and
many of those people were subsequently assassinated.
AMY GOODMAN: : Well, Allan Nairn, I want to thank you, very much
for being with us. Allan Nairn, a journalist who interviewed President Ford
roughly a decade and a half ago about Ford's involvement in the invasion of
East Timor. That was December 7th, 1975 that the invasion occurred.
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TODAY'S STORIES
Headlines for December 27, 2006
Los Titulares de Hoy: Democracy Now!'s daily news summary
translated into Spanish
President Gerald Ford Dies at 93; Supported Indonesian Invasion
of East Timor that Killed 1/3 of Population
Investigative Journalist Robert Parry on Gerald Ford's Legacy
and the Bush Administration's Roots in the Ford White House
Did Gerald Ford Agree to Nixon Pardon Before Taking Office? The
Nation's Victor Navasky on Ford's Memoirs and the Lawsuit that Followed
Barbara Ehrenreich on Poverty, War and Feminism's Place in the
World
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