Active Soviet military support for Indonesia during the 1962 West New Guinea Crisis

This article shows that during the 1962 West New Guinea Crisis the Soviet Union played a much more active military role than previously assumed. Khrushchev secretly supplied Indonesia with Soviet manned submarines and bombers and was prepared for these units to participate in an Indonesian attack against the Dutch. The Soviets also helped the Indonesians draw up operational plans. This deployment fits into a pattern of covert Soviet military interventions in the developing world between 1960 and 1962 and suggests that in some cases Khrushchev was prepared to use Soviet military units to support wars of national liberation in the developing world.

Key words: West New Guinea, West Irian, Sukarno, Khrushchev, wars of national liberation, Cuban Missile Crisis.

Since the end of the Cold War researchers have uncovered several Soviet military operations

in the developing world which were hitherto unknown to the Western public. It has been

revealed that in the Korean War Soviet pilots secretly flew North Korean MiG-15 jet fighters

in combat missions against American aircraft.1 Similarly, Soviet personnel flew Egyptian

Tupolev Tu-16 medium bombers during Egypt’s military intervention in Yemen and helped

man North Vietnamese anti-aircraft missile batteries in the Vietnam War.2 Even the Soviet

deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962 had an unknown dimension, with the

discovery that the Moscow also sent tactical nuclear weapons to the island for use on short

range rockets, cruise missiles and bombers.3 Clearly, in the first half of Cold War the Soviet

leadership was more willing than previously thought to send its combat forces into the

developing world, although it sought to conceal their presence and activities.

1 Xiaoming Zhang, Red Wings Over the Yalu: China, the Soviet Union, and the Air War in Korea (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2002), 122-142. 2 Jesse Ferris, “Soviet Support for Egypt’s Intervention in Yemen, 1962-1963”, Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3 (2008), 31-32; Ilya Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War, (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996), 61.3 Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, ‘One Hell of a Gamble’: Khrushchev, Castro, Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1958-1964 (London: Pimlico, 1999), 188, 210, 217.

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Evidence has also emerged of another covert Soviet military deployment, this time to help

Indonesia in its confrontation with the Netherlands over the Dutch colony of West New

Guinea. Former Soviet naval officers have revealed in the Russian and Dutch media that they

took part in an operation to aid the Indonesians.4 They claimed that in 1962 the USSR

secretly provided Indonesia with submarines and Tu-16 bombers manned by Soviet crews

and assigned them to take part in a large scale Indonesian attack on West New Guinea. Other

Russian sources, including a revised edition of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s memoirs,

support these claims.5 Furthermore, a Dutch researcher, Matthijs Ooms, has shown that the

Dutch naval intelligence service, MARID (Marine Inlichtingendienst), received information

in the summer of 1962 that Soviet crews were manning Indonesian submarines.6

This degree of Soviet involvement has not been appreciated in the existing English language

literature on the West New Guinea crisis.7 Previous authors have recognised that the Soviet

Union sold arms to the Indonesians but Moscow was not thought to have committed its own

forces to the Indonesian cause. Drawing on published Russian, Dutch and Indonesian sources

and contemporaneous American, Australian and British intelligence reports, this article will

show that the Soviets played a much more active military role in the West New Guinea

4 Rudolf Ryzhikov, “Topi ikh vsekh!”, Tekhnika Molodezhi, No. 11 (1995): 52-54; Bart Rijs, “Moskou beraamde in ’62 aanval op Nieuw-Guinea”, Volkskrant, 10 February 1999, 1, 5; Wies Platje, “Dutch Sigint and the Conflict with Indonesia, 1950-62,” in Secrets of Signals Intelligence during the Cold War and Beyond, ed. Matthew M. Aid and Cees Wiebes (London: Frank Cass, 2001), 309; Rudolf Ryzhikov, Na Rumbe – Okean (Saint Petersburg: IPP Novik, 2004).5Nikita Khrushchev, Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev: Volume 3: Statesman (1953-1964), ed. Sergei Khrushchev, trans. George Shriver (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Press, 2007), 789-790; Viktor Andrii͡anov, Kosygin (Moscow: Molodai͡a Gvardii͡a, 2003), 169. See also Alexey Muraviev and Colin Brown, “Strategic Realignment or Déjà vu? Russia-Indonesia Defence Cooperation in the Twenty-First Century”, Australian National University Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Working Paper No. 411 (2008), 5-6. 6 Matthijs Ooms, “Geheime Sovjetsteun in Nieuw-Guinea”, Marineblad, Vol. 122, No. 5 (2012), 26.7 Pieter Drooglever, An Act of Free Choice: Decolonization and the Right to Self-Determination in West Papua trans. Theresa Stanton, Maria van Yperen and Marjolijn de Jager (Oxford: Oneworld, 2009); Matthew Jones, Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia, 1961-1965: Britain, the United States and the Creation of Malaysia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Christopher Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle: Dutch Decolonisation and Indonesia, 1945-1962 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002), 340-342; Bradley Simpson, Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and US-Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008); David Webster, Fire and the Full Moon: Canada and Indonesia in a Decolonizing World (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009).

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Crisis. It confirms that Khrushchev secretly supplied the Indonesians with Soviet manned

submarines and bombers and was seemingly prepared for them take in part in a major attack

on the Dutch forces in West New Guinea. The Soviets also helped the Indonesians prepare

operational plans and encouraged them to take the territory by force. This aggressive

behaviour by the Soviets turned West New Guinea into a potential Cold War crisis. The

Netherlands was a NATO ally of the United States and through its intelligence services

Washington knew of the secret Soviet deployment. Soviet involvement in an Indonesian

attack could therefore have caused a superpower confrontation. More broadly, the Soviet

operation in West New Guinea sheds new light on Khrushchev’s foreign policy in the early

1960s. Together with other examples it suggests that the Soviet leader was ready to covertly

use Soviet military units to support wars of national liberation in the developing world.

The West New Guinea crisis arose from the process of Dutch decolonisation in South East

Asia. The Netherlands gave independence to most of the Dutch East Indies in 1949, thereby

creating Indonesia, but it chose to retain the West New Guinea portion of the colony. The

Indonesian President, Sukarno, opposed this colonial holdover and he pushed the Dutch to

withdraw from the territory, which the Indonesians called West Irian, and transfer

sovereignty to Indonesia. The Netherlands refused. West New Guinea did not share a land

border with Indonesia and the Dutch argued that the Papuan peoples in the colony were

ethnically distinct from Indonesians and should in time exercise the right to national self-

determination on their own. Negotiations over the issue became deadlocked so Sukarno

applied escalating economic and diplomatic pressures on the Dutch . In 1957 he seized Dutch

commercial assets in Indonesia and in 1960 he broke off diplomatic relations. The Dutch

remained obdurate, however, and took steps to advance West New Guinea to self-

government.

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Indonesia therefore turned to military action. Amidst much belligerent rhetoric from Sukarno,

Indonesian guerrillas were infiltrated by sea into the colony and in January 1962 the Mandala

military command was set up to plan, prepare and execute operations to recover West New

Guinea.8 The Mandala commanders envisaged a three phase campaign; in phase one, lasting

until the end of 1962, more Indonesian guerrillas would be infiltrated into West New Guinea

and ‘free areas’ set up.9 At the same time naval, air and land bases in Indonesia would be

developed in preparation for full scale war. Phase two would start at the beginning of 1963

with an operation to capture and occupy the small island of Biak, just north of West New

Guinea, which was central to the Dutch defences. In phase three the Indonesians would take

control over the rest of the territory.

Sukarno could contemplate such action against the Dutch because he had received strong

backing from Khrushchev and the Soviet Union. Soviet propaganda and diplomacy supported

the Indonesian claim to West New Guinea and Khrushchev supplied Sukarno with

considerable amounts of modern weaponry, so much so that by 1962 Indonesia was the

biggest non-communist recipient of Soviet Bloc military aid.10 Initially it obtained its

equipment via Moscow’s East European satellites, buying arms worth $182 million from

Poland and Czechoslovakia in 1958. These purchases equipped the Indonesian air force,

AURI (Angkatan Udara Republik Indonesia), and navy, ALRI (Angkatan Laut Republik

Indonesia), with Soviet built jet fighters and bombers, destroyers and two Project 613 diesel-

electric submarines. In January and February 1961 Sukarno expanded ALRI and AURI still

8 Dinas Sejarah Militer TNI – Angkatan Darat, Cuplikan Sejarah Perjuangan TNI – Angkatan Darat (Jakarta: Fa Mahjuma and Dinas Sejarah, 1972), 462-463.9 Abdul Nasution, Memenuhi Panggilan Tugas, Jilid 5:Kenangan Masa Orde Lama (Jakarta: Gunung Agung, 1985), 295-297.10 Webster, Fire and the Full Moon, 117; Ragna Boden, Die Grenzen der Weltmacht: Sowjetische Indonesienpolitik von Stalin bis Breznev (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2006), 206-216; Declassified Document Reference Service (DDRS), CIA Current Intelligence Weekly Summary, 16 February 1961; DDRS, Intelligence Report, Indonesia’s Growing Dependence on Soviet Bloc Arms, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, State Department, 24 February 1961; The British National Archive (TNA), DEFE 5/130, Memorandum COS (62) 374, 11 September 1962.

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further, with two huge arms deals signed directly with the Soviet Union. The USSR agreed to

supply Indonesia with $521 million worth of arms between 1961 and 1964, including four

more Project 613 submarines, destroyers and a light cruiser. AURI would receive the latest

Soviet military aircraft, such as 20 MiG-21 fighters and 20 Tu-16 medium bombers, six of

which were the Tu-16KS variant armed with the Kometa air to surface anti-shipping missile.

The Kometa was a formidable weapon, with a range of 70-90 kilometres and a one tonne

warhead.11 The arms were sold on credit and the terms were generous, giving a one-third

discount on nominal cost price and allowing repayments to be deferred until 1964. It would

take time for Soviet Bloc instructors to properly train Indonesian personnel in how to use this

advanced weaponry, limiting its immediate effectiveness, but it enabled Sukarno to pose a

growing military threat to West New Guinea.

These developments caused unease in Washington. Khrushchev appeared to be exploiting the

West New Guinea issue and lavishing Sukarno with arms in order to woo Indonesia into the

Soviet camp. Indonesia was officially non-aligned in the Cold War but Sukarno was a vocal

critic of Western imperialism. There was also a large domestic communist party, the Partai

Komunis Indonesia (PKI), which urged using all means to ‘liberate’ West New Guinea.12 By

backing Sukarno’s irredentist campaign Khrushchev could build upon these elements and

lure Indonesia away from non-alignment. If an Indonesian-Dutch war did break out it could

drive Sukarno even closer to the Soviets and bolster the PKI. Indonesia might be lost to the

West and that would be a major blow because Indonesia had a population of 92 million, the

sixth largest in the world, valuable raw resources such as rubber, tin and oil, and an important

strategic location, dominating sea lanes and not far from countries like Laos and South

11 Yefim Gordon and Vladimir Rigmant, Tupolev Tu-16 Badger (Hinckley: Midland Publishing, 2004), 36.12 Justus van der Kroef, The Communist Party of Indonesia: Its History, Program and Tactics (Vancouver: University of British Columbia), 257.

5

Vietnam which were already struggling with communist insurgencies.13 Mindful of these

strategic concerns, the United States moved towards a policy of pushing the Dutch into

serious negotiations with Indonesia and ultimately withdrawing from the colony.14 By 1962

then the West New Guinea dispute had taken on a Cold War dimension, with the Soviet

Union supplying Indonesia with arms while the United States promoted a negotiated

settlement.

American anxieties were intensified by an Indonesian-Dutch naval clash in January 1962 but

this incident also exposed Indonesian military weaknesses. MARID had discovered from

signals intercepts that Indonesian motor torpedo boats were going to land 150 marines on the

south coast of West New Guinea near Vlakke Hoek.15 The Dutch decided to intercept the

infiltration operation and on the evening of 15 January Dutch destroyers attacked the

Indonesian boats, sinking one and killing around 50 Indonesians.16 The Indonesian leadership

was furious at this humiliating defeat. The next day it held an emergency meeting at the

presidential palace to discuss how to retaliate but the discussion revealed that even with the

ample supply of Soviet arms Indonesia was not yet prepared for open war.17 Sukarno and

other civilian leaders wanted AURI aircraft to immediately sink a Dutch warship. However,

the air force commander, Suryadi Suryadarma, who had previously boasted that at every

minute AURI was ready to attack, had to admit that his new Tu-16 bombers were not fully

operational. AURI did not have enough trained pilots to fly them.18 The AURI airbases on the

Maluku Islands, which were nearest to West New Guinea, were not ready either ruling out

13 TNA, AIR 24/2690, Far East Air Force (FEAF) Intelligence Summary, December 1961 – January 1962, not dated. 14 Jones, Conflict and Confrontation, 49; Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle, 340-342.15 Platje, “Dutch Sigint”, 304.16 Drooglever, An Act of Free Choice, 448-449.17 Nasution, Memenuhi Panggilan Tugas, 226; DDRS, Telegram 1241, Jakarta to State Department, 16 January 1962. 18 Rosihan Anwar, Sukarno, Tentara, PKI: Segitiga Kekuasaan sebelum Prahara Politik, 1961-1965 (Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia, 2006), 115.

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attacks even by Indonesia’s elderly B-25 Mitchell piston engine bombers.19 Suryadarma was

duly dismissed from his post.

Unable to immediately retaliate Sukarno took a dual-track approach. On the one hand, he

consented to American proposals for talks with the Dutch. The United States was making

strenuous efforts to get negotiations underway and avoid further military clashes. In February

American Attorney General Robert Kennedy visited Indonesia and the Netherlands and

pressed both sides to be more flexible. It was finally agreed in March that secret Indonesian-

Dutch talks would be held in the United States with an American mediator. At the same time

though Sukarno continued the infiltrations of guerrillas into West New Guinea and the

preparation of Indonesian military forces and bases for large-scale warfare. An American

intelligence report indicated that in the first three months of 1962 an additional 7,000 AURI

and ALRI personnel were deployed in the ‘New Guinea operations area’.20

The negotiation track of Sukarno’s policy seems to have caused some friction between the

Soviet Union and Indonesia. As part of its build-up of Indonesian forces, Jakarta sought to

obtain further military equipment from the USSR. In early February the new head of AURI,

Omar Dani, flew to Moscow and met with Khrushchev.21 He reportedly asked for more MiG-

21 fighters and Tu-16 bombers. Unfortunately Dani’s trip coincided with Robert Kennedy’s

visit to Jakarta and he found the Soviets suspicious and critical of Indonesia’s behaviour.

According to an American intelligence report, the Soviets complained to Dani that the

Indonesians had failed to produce detailed plans for a large scale attack on West New Guinea

with Sukarno appearing to now favour negotiations with the Dutch.22 The Soviets refused to

19 Nasution, Memenuhi Panggilan Tugas, 226.20 Digital National Security Archive (DNSA), National Security Agency Collection, CIA Current Intelligence Weekly Review, 30 March 1962. 21 DDRS, State Department Research Memorandum RSB-96, Hilsman to Rusk, 27 April 1962.22 TNA, AIR 24/2690, FEAF Weekly Intelligence Summary, 10/62, Reports Received During the Period Ending 16

March, 1962, not dated.

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provide the aircraft Dani requested, though they did supply 200 military advisers and

promised to speed up work on a surface to air missile site near Jakarta.23

Soviet displeasure increased when the Indonesians agreed to attend the secret talks with the

Dutch in the United States. Moscow appeared to fear that in spite of its substantial military

and diplomatic investment in the Indonesian cause, it was losing influence to the Americans.

On 16 March the Soviet ambassador in Jakarta had a testy meeting with the Indonesian

Foreign Minister, Subandrio.24 The ambassador urged Subandrio to reconsider, arguing that

negotiations should take place under United Nations’ rather than American auspices and

accused the Indonesians of submitting to American pressure. Khrushchev was later reported

to have written a reproachful letter to Sukarno expressing regret that after all the support the

Soviet Union had given the Indonesians they had turned to United States for help over West

New Guinea.25 Subandrio tried to reassure the Soviets by choosing Adam Malik, the

Indonesian ambassador to the Soviet Union, as Indonesia’s representative at the talks.26 As a

further conciliatory gesture Sukarno made a public speech on 21 March praising Soviet aid to

Indonesia.27

The Indonesian-Dutch talks began on 20 March at Middleburg near Washington, with the

veteran American diplomat Ellsworth Bunker acting as mediator. The negotiations were

friendly but they quickly reached an impasse and Malik departed for Indonesia. In an effort to

kick start the diplomatic process Bunker put forward a formula for a settlement.28 Under this

three stage ‘Bunker Plan’ the Dutch would first transfer West New Guinea to a United

Nations body which would administer the territory for one or two years. The United Nations

23 DDRS, State Department Research Memorandum RSB-96, Hilsman to Rusk, 27 April 1962.24 Ibid; DNSA, National Security Agency Collection, CIA Current Intelligence Weekly Review, 30 March; TNA, FO 371/166514, Letter Selby to Warner, 28 March 1962. 25 TNA, FO 371/166514, Letter Selby to Warner, 4 April 1962. 26 Subandrio, Meluruskan Sejarah Perjuangan Irian Barat (Jakarta: Yayasan Kepada Bangsaku, 2001), 54-55.27 DDRS, Telegram 1691, Jakarta to State Department, 21 March 1962. 28 Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle, 360-361; Drooglever, An Act of Free Choice, 468-469.

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would then hand over West New Guinea to Indonesia. Finally Jakarta, in cooperation with

the United Nations, would give the people of West New Guinea an opportunity to exercise

their right of national self-determination. The Americans recommended the Bunker Plan to

the Indonesians and Dutch as a basis for further negotiations. Sukarno was receptive,

although he wanted Indonesia to have control over West New Guinea by the end of 1962

which would mean shortening Bunker’s timetable.29 By contrast, the Dutch and especially the

pugnacious Dutch Foreign Minister, Joseph Luns, were dismayed and indignant.30 They saw

the Bunker Plan as merely a face-saving device to cover an Indonesian take-over of West

New Guinea. Furthermore, they did not believe that the Indonesians would ever allow the

Papuans a truly free vote on self-determination. Given the importance of American support

the Dutch cabinet was not able to reject the Bunker Plan outright but for weeks Luns sought

to water down its provisions and delay negotiations. At the same time, to counter the

Indonesian military build-up and guerrilla infiltrations the Dutch sent out naval and troop

reinforcements to West New Guinea.

It was at this point, with negotiations stalled and the Dutch reinforcing their position in West

New Guinea, that Sukarno appears to have decided to ask Khrushchev for submarines and

aircraft manned by Soviet crews. On 2 May the Indonesian Foreign Ministry announced that

Sukarno had sent Subandrio to Moscow to buy more arms.31 Before he left, Subandrio

explained to the American ambassador, Howard Jones, why he was going. He said that Luns

and the Dutch cabinet were delaying negotiations because they knew the balance of military

power was in their favour. The purpose of his trip to Moscow was to make arrangements to

correct this imbalance as soon as possible.32 General Abdul Nasution, the Indonesian Minister

29 TNA, DO 169/167, Telegram 322, Jakarta to Foreign Office, 27 April 1962.30 Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle, 359-368; Drooglever, An Act of Free Choice, 469-477.31 John F. Kennedy National Security Files, 1961-1963, Asia and the Pacific (JFK) (University Publications of America, Bethesda, 1987), Microfilm, Reel 10, Telegram 1945, Jakarta to State Department, 2 May 1962.32 Ibid., Reel 10, Telegram 1941, Jakarta to State Department, 1 May 1962.

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of Defence, gave a rather different explanation to the Indian ambassador.33 He told him that

the Indonesian cabinet had decided to build up military forces and ultimately attack West

New Guinea, although Nasution did not believe he could mount an effective offensive until

December. Nasution said Subandrio’s mission to the USSR was to implement the cabinet’s

decision. Whatever the motivation Subandrio signed a new arms deal in Moscow on 8 May.34

No details were publicly disclosed but the New York Times reported a ‘high Indonesian

source’ as saying that the new Soviet military aid was ‘enough to take care of the West Irian

problem.’35

A fuller picture of what was agreed in Moscow can be gathered from various later statements

by Khrushchev and Anastas Mikoyan, the Soviet First Deputy Chairman. It seems to have

been the Indonesians who requested the weapons and crewmen. In discussions with

Rumanian communist leaders in October Khrushchev said that Sukarno had taken the

initiative and sent Subandrio to Moscow to ask for ‘submarines, aircraft and commanders for

these things.’36 Despite, or perhaps because of the recent friction between Moscow and

Jakarta, Khrushchev gave Sukarno what he wanted. Mikoyan told Soviet military officers in

November that:

This summer, when Sukarno was getting ready to decide this issue…[h]e asked and we gave him several submarines with Soviet crews, several (I cannot cite the numbers) TU-16s with antiship missiles, so that they could destroy Dutch ships.37

Judging by Mikoyan’s comments and the deliveries of arms after the deal was signed, the

Soviets agreed to provide the Indonesians with six more Project 613 submarines and six more

33 United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Record Group 59, General Records of the State Department, Central Decimal File, 1960-1963, Box 1355, 656.9813/5-162, Telegram 2027, Jakarta to State Department, 17 May 1962.34 TNA, FO 371/166514, Telegram 801, Moscow to Foreign Office, 9 May 1962.35 “Indonesia to Get New Soviet Arms”, New York Times, 7 May 1962, 16.36 Petre Opris, “Romania and the Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Nuclear Warheads for Romania?”, Cold War International History Project Bulletin, No.17/18 (2012), 517. 37 Sergo Mikoyan, The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis: Castro, Mikoyan, Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Missiles of November, ed. Svetlana Savranskaya (Chicago: Woodrow Wilson Center Press/Stanford University Press, 2012), 467.

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Tu-16KS bombers equipped with the Kometa anti-shipping missile. Soviet personnel would

man the Tu-16KS bombers as well as the submarines. Khrushchev told the plenum of the

central committee in 1964 that he had supplied Indonesia with crews for submarines and

added that ‘Sukarno also asked for crew for missile carrier aircraft. In conversation with

minister for foreign affairs Subandrio, I said very well, we will assist you.’38 Khrushchev

even seemed willing for the Soviet piloted planes to take part in combat against the Dutch. In

his memoirs he freely admitted that during the West New Guinea crisis Soviet personnel had

been commanding Indonesian submarines and piloting Tu-16s.39 Khrushchev recalled that

during Subandrio’s visit:

I asked Subandrio: “What are the chances that an agreement [with the Dutch] could be successfully be reached?” He answered: “Not very great.” I said: If the Dutch fail to display sober-mindedness and engage in military operations, this is a war that could to some extent serve as a proving ground for our pilots who are flying planes equipped with missiles. We’ll see how well our missiles work.40

The Soviets quickly despatched the weaponry to Indonesia with the submarines coming from

the Soviet Pacific Fleet. In May two Project 613 submarines left Vladivostok and sailed for

Indonesia. On board one of them was Rudolf Ryzhikov, a Soviet naval officer who later

wrote an account of his experiences.41 After a 15 day voyage Ryzhikov’s submarine arrived

at the port of Surabaya in Java and the crew were ordered to change into ALRI uniforms.

They were soon joined by another four Soviet manned submarines and a support tender. The

passage of these submarines did not pass unnoticed by the Americans. By 18 May the Central

Intelligence Agency (CIA) knew that the Soviets had agreed to provide Subandrio with

additional submarines and aircraft, though it seemed unaware that they would have Soviet

crews, and it monitored the delivery of the equipment.42 The CIA detected the arrivals of the

38 Andrii͡anov, Kosygin, 169. Translation by author.39 Khrushchev, Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, 790.40 Ibid., 791-792.41 Ryzhikov, “Topi ikh vsekh!”, 52.42 NARA, CREST, CIA Current Intelligence Weekly Summary, 18 May 1962; Memorandum from Assistant Director, Research and Reports to Deputy Director for Politico-Military Affairs, State Department, 18

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six Project 613 submarines in Surabaya and it reported that on 29 June six Tu-16s landed at

Jakarta airport.43 These aircraft were the Tu-16KS variant, able to carry the Kometa missile.44

The agency was perturbed by the speed of these deliveries, warning that they ‘were the

quickest ever noted for such complex equipment under a Soviet arms deal with a nonbloc

country.’45

As the Soviet submarines and bombers arrived in Indonesia, the Indonesian military prepared

a large scale attack on the Dutch. On 22 June the Mandala Command issued orders for

Operation Jayawijaya (‘Glorious Victory’), a combined arms assault on Biak.46 In the

operation AURI and ALRI would first seek to establish air and sea superiority. Indonesian

paratroopers would then be dropped on Biak followed by an amphibious landing. Once Biak

was captured, the city of Hollandia on West New Guinea would be attacked. This was an

ambitious operation, far bigger and more complex than the guerrilla infiltrations the

Indonesian military had been carrying out, and it was set to take place in August, earlier than

envisaged by the Mandala Command back in January 1962. The forces allocated to

Jayawijaya suggest that at least some Soviet personnel would take part in the operation. The

planned attacking force included 12 submarines and 20 Tu-16 and Tu-16KS bombers.47 Since

the Indonesians only possessed six submarines the other six in the plan had to be the Soviet

manned submarines moored in Surabaya harbour. Indonesia did have 20 Tu-16 and Tu-16KS

bombers so on paper AURI could mount this part of Jayawijaya on its own.48 But an

September 1962.43 Ibid., CIA Current Intelligence Weekly Summary, 6 July 1962. 44 TNA, DEFE 5/130, Memorandum COS (62) 374, 11 September 1962.45 NARA, CREST, CIA Current Intelligence Weekly Summary, 6 July 1962.46 Awaloedin Djamin, ed., Ir. H. Djuanda, Negarawan, Administrator dan Teknokrat Utama (Jakarta: Buku Kompas, 2001), 155; Nasution, Memenuhi Panggilan Tugas, 310-311.47 Nasution, Memenuhi Panggilan Tugas, 310-311; Dinas Sejarah Militer, Cuplikan Sejarah Perjuangan, 467.48 TNA, DEFE 5/130, Memorandum COS (62) 374, 11 September 1962.

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Indonesian source told the Australian air attaché in Jakarta in July that AURI had trained

crews for just six Tu-16s.49

The Soviets may also have helped draw up the plans for Jayawijaya. In his memoirs

Khrushchev wrote that:

…Sukarno was asking us to send knowledgeable staff officers to help him work out a plan for military operations in the event of a resort to arms. We agreed to this and sent our people to Indonesia.50

Khrushchev told a Cuban delegation in 1963 that Soviet airmen and sailors had ‘helped [the

Indonesians] to master Soviet weaponry and participated in working out plans for offensive

operations.’51 Significant in this context may have been the visit to Indonesia between 20

June and 2 July of Air Marshal Konstantin Vershinin, the commander of the Soviet air

force.52 Certainly Vershinin seems to have given advice to the Indonesians. According to one

American intelligence report, Vershinin complained to AURI that its Soviet supplied aircraft

were not being handled properly.53 He suggested and the Indonesians agreed that an

additional 225 Soviet air force personnel should be quickly sent to Indonesia to work on MiG

19 and 21 fighters and Tu-16s. The Australian military attaché in Jakarta was told by a ‘very

reliable’ Indonesian source that Vershinin had pushed the Indonesians to take West New

Guinea by force.54

Sukarno though had not completely abandoned the negotiation track. The build-up of

Indonesian forces would soon give him the ability to launch a full scale attack on West New

Guinea but it could also be used to intimidate the Dutch and win the territory through

49 National Archives of Australia (NAA), A1838,3034/12/5 Part 7, Letter Upton to Department of External Affairs, Annex A, 26 July 1962.50 Khrushchev, Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, 792.51 Aleksandr Fursenko, ed., Prezidium T͡SK KPS. 1954-1964 Tom 3. Postanovlenii͡a 1959-1964 (Moscow: Rospen, 2008), 899. Translation by author.52 TNA, FO 371/166514, Letter Petersen to London, 20 June 1964; Letter Petersen to London, 4 July 1964.53 TNA, AIR 24/2692, FEAF Weekly Intelligence Summary 27/62, Reports Received During the Period Ending 13 July, 1962, not dated.54 NARA, RG 59, Central Decimal Files State Department, 1960-63, 656.9813/5-1762 – 656.9813/8-162, Box 1356, Telegram CX-127, Jakarta to State Department, 28 July 1962.

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coercive diplomacy. Encouraged by the United States, Luns had finally agreed to negotiate

on the basis of the Bunker Plan and Sukarno decided to resume talks with the Netherlands.

Accordingly on 13 July negotiations restarted at Middleburgh. Malik initially headed the

Indonesian delegation with Subandrio taking over from 18 July.55 Progress was difficult,

mainly because by this time the Indonesians wanted better terms than those laid out in the

Bunker Plan. Malik asked the Dutch for a shortening of the two year period for the transfer of

West New Guinea.56 Subandrio suggested to the Americans that the territory could be passed

directly to the Indonesians without any intervening United Nations administration.57 The

threat of war lay in the air if they did not get their way. The CIA reported that Sukarno had

given Subandrio one week to secure Dutch agreement and until 4 August to arrange the

details of the transfer of West New Guinea.58 If the Dutch had not agreed after a week,

Subandrio was to return home and Sukarno would order large scale landings in West New

Guinea, which almost certainly meant launching Jayawijaya.

By this time the United States had discovered that Soviet personnel were manning

‘Indonesian’ submarines and aircraft. An American intelligence report in early July stated

that:

…the six W-class submarines which arrived in Surabaya in June were entirely Russian manned. At present all six submarines, still with Soviet crews, are stationed in Surabaya. Crews of two of these submarines are wearing ALRI uniforms without insignia. ALRI officers jokingly refer to these men as “volunteers”.59

News of the Soviet presence percolated through the administration. Robert Komer, a staffer

on the National Security Council, advised Robert Kennedy on 16 July that if the talks in

Middleburgh failed ‘Sukarno will move to military action. Our reports indicate he’s poised to

55 Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle, 372.56 TNA, FO 371/166547, Minute by Chalmers, 18 July 1962. 57 JFK, Reel 10, Telegram 87, Jakarta to State Department, 13 July 1962. 58 DNSA, National Security Agency Collection, CIA Current Intelligence Weekly Review, 20 July 1962. 59 TNA, AIR 24/2692, FEAF Weekly Intelligence Summary, Reports Received During the Period Ending 13 July 1962, not dated. W-class stood for ‘Whiskey’ class, Whiskey being the NATO codename for Project 613 submarines.

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do so, even if he has to use subs and planes with Soviet crews.’60 The Americans attempted to

warn off the Soviets. At the Geneva Conference on Laos, William Sullivan from the State

Department’s Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs brought up the subject of West New Guinea on

22 July with Georgi Pushkin, the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister for Southeast Asian

Affairs. Sullivan told Pushkin that the American government was ‘alarmed at the apparent

wish of the Russians to bring about active fighting in the area.’61 He added that:

…the only way by which the Indonesians could penetrate the Dutch destroyer screen [around West New Guinea] would be by submarine attacks. These submarines had Soviet crews and if Dutch destroyers were attacked, the United States Government would know that the Russians had taken this war like action.62

Pushkin gave no substantive reply to this warning, merely saying that Sullivan ‘spoke like a

colonialist.’63

For their part, the Soviets were unhappy that the Indonesians were once again negotiating

with the Dutch under American auspices.64 Mikoyan made a hastily arranged visit to

Indonesia from 20 to 24 July and according to a later CIA study, he urged the Indonesians to

attack West New Guinea using the Soviet submarine and bomber crews.65 British and

Australian diplomats in Jakarta heard reports of acrimonious discussions between the Soviet

party and the Indonesians.66 But the conduct of Subandrio was also irritating the Soviet

leadership. Seemingly inspired by Khrushchev’s blasé comments in Moscow in May about

testing Soviet missiles, Subandrio was busily telling Americans and Dutch diplomats that the

Soviets wanted to try out their combat aircraft in West New Guinea. On 16 July he confided

60 Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1961-63, Vol. XXIII, Southeast Asia, Document 275, Memorandum Komer to Kennedy, 16 July 1962.61 TNA, FO 371/166547, Telegram 30, Geneva to Foreign Office, 23 July 1962.62 Ibid.63 Ibid.64 JFK, Reel 10, Telegram 95, Jakarta to State Department, 16 July 1962. 65 CIA Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room (CIA FOIA), http://www.foia.cia.gov/ CAESAR document, Memorandum “The Soviet Missile Base Venture in Cuba”, 17 February 1964; TNA, FO 371/166514, Letter Petersen to Cable, 25 July 1962.66 TNA, FO 371/166514, Letter Petersen to Cable, 25 July 1962; NAA, A1838/3034/11 52 Part 4, Letter 111/3 Evans to Department of External Affairs, 28 July 1962.

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to Jones that the Soviets ‘have been trying to induce us to use their T-16 [sic] bombers. They

have never tested these out…and they would like us to give them the opportunity.’67 Three

days later in Washington, Subandrio told Secretary of State Dean Rusk that ‘the Russians

would have the Indonesians test these weapons, such as the MIG-21, presumably against the

Dutch’.68 On 25 July Subandrio bluntly warned the Dutch negotiators that ‘they [the Soviets]

want us to try out their equipment’.69 This was a shrewd negotiating tactic, which played on

American Cold War concerns and signalled that the Indonesians were coming under Soviet

pressure to escalate their military action and therefore should be appeased with concessions.

Unfortunately Khrushchev found out what Subandrio was doing, probably from KGB signals

intercepts, and he was shocked and angry.70 The Soviet leader later complained that when

Subandrio had visited the State Department he had revealed the full details of their

conversation in Moscow.71 He told the Cubans that Subandrio was a ‘very shifty person’ who

had gone to Washington and said that it is ‘not they, the Indonesians, but us, the Russians

who first and foremost want to carry out drastic measures against the [Dutch] colonialists.’72

The Soviets protested to Sukarno about Subandrio’s behaviour but the Indonesian president

seemed unconcerned.73

In the last week of July the West New Guinea crisis came to a head. Subandrio and Malik

asked for the territory to be transferred to Indonesia by 31 December 1962 and for minimal

United Nations’ involvement in subsequent consultations with the Papuans on self-

determination. The Dutch balked at these modifications to the Bunker Plan so Subandrio

67 JFK, Reel 10, Telegram 95, Jakarta to State Department, 16 July 1962. 68 Ibid., Memorandum of Conversation between Subandrio and Rusk, 19 July 1962. 69 Jacobus de Beus, Morgen, bij het Annbreken van de Dag (Rotterdam: Ad. Donker, 1978), 378.70 Khrushchev, Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, 792. At this point in time microphones in the American embassy in Moscow enabled the KGB to intercept and decipher telegrams between the State Department and the embassy. See FRUS, 1964-68, Volume XIV, Soviet Union, Document 47, Estimate of damage to U.S. Foreign Policy Interests, 2 October 1964. The State Department sent the record of the meeting between Subandrio and Rusk on 19 July by telegram to the Moscow embassy. 71 Khrushchev, Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, 792; Opris, “Romania and the Cuban Missile Crisis”, 517.72 Fursenko, Prezidium, 899. Translation by author.73 Khrushchev, Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, 792.

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announced on 25 July that he and Malik would break off talks and return to Jakarta within

three days.74 His departure would signify war. The final preparations for Operation

Jayawijaya were already underway.75 Starting on 17 July, the Mandala Command had begun

to move troops from their bases at Jakarta, Surabaya and Amahai. The invasion fleet

assembled in the waters around the Banggai Islands on the east coast of Sulawesi, in Peling

Bay and Bangkalan Bay. The Indonesians planned to carry out initial air attacks on Dutch

targets on 10 August. The assault on Biak would follow on 12 August.

The Americans and Dutch were tracking the movements of the Indonesian forces and could

see that a large scale attack was imminent, although they were uncertain of the target.76

Alarmed by the threat of war American leaders tried to deter the Indonesians.. On the evening

of 26 July President John Kennedy and Rusk met privately with Subandrio.77 According to

Subandrio’s account of the meeting, the president warned him that if Jakarta used force he

would have to send units of the 7th Fleet to evacuate American citizens from Indonesia.78

Subandrio and other Indonesian officials interpreted this as a threat that the United States

would militarily intervene in an Indonesian-Dutch war.79 There were rumours in political

circles in Jakarta that Kennedy had also referred to the Soviet manned submarines.80 The well

connected Indonesian journalist Rosihan Anwar heard that Kennedy had told Subandrio he

knew ALRI submarines were manned by Soviet sailors and as a result would have to take the

Dutch side if Indonesia invaded West New Guinea. This rumour was most probably untrue -

74 Drooglever, An Act of Free Choice, 495-497; Subandrio, Meluruskan Sejarah Perjuangan Irian Barat, 75.75 Nasution, Memenuhi Panggilan Tugas, 311-312; Suharto, Pikiran, Ucapan dan Tindakan Saya: Otobiografi (Jakarta: PT. Citra Lamtoro Guna Persada, 1989) 108; Drooglever, An Act of Free Choice, 505-506.76 Platje, “Dutch Sigint”, 305.77 FRUS, 1961-63, Vol. XXIII, Southeast Asia, Document 281, Memorandum of a Conversation between Rusk and van Roijen, 26 July 1962.78 Subandrio, Meluruskan Sejarah Perjuangan Irian Barat, 77.79 Ibid; FRUS, 1961-63, Vol. XXIII, Southeast Asia, Document 285, Telegram Jakarta to State Department, 3 August 1962; TNA, FO 371/166548, Telegram 525, Selby to Foreign Office, 1 August 1962; DDRS, Telegram SF1007, CIA to White House, 2 August 1962.80 Anwar, Sukarno, Tentara, PKI, 167.

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there is no evidence that Kennedy did speak in these terms - but it does perhaps reveal

Indonesian misgivings about the possible consequences of using Soviet military personnel.81

As well as cautioning the Indonesians not to use force, the Americans pressed the Dutch to

give ground over the handover date. Through these efforts they managed to persuade

Subandrio to stay at the talks and bridged the gap between the two sides. On 29 July

Subandrio and the Dutch delegation agreed that the transfer of West New Guinea could take

place on 1 May 1963.82 Over the next two weeks details of the deal were worked out, with

Subandrio flying to and from Jakarta to get Sukarno’s approval. Despite Kennedy’s warning

the Indonesians maintained the military pressure during this final phase. Guerrilla infiltrations

and the build-up of forces continued and although Sukarno broadly accepted the agreement

on 3 August, the Mandala command on 5 August only delayed Jayawijaya by 14 days rather

than halting it altogether.83 But on 11 August the Mandala command was ordered to cancel

plans for a large scale attack and four days later Subandrio signed an agreement with the

Dutch in New York.84 The United Nations would take control over West New Guinea and

transfer the territory to Indonesia on 1 May 1963.85 The Papuans would have to rely on an ill-

defined ‘act of free choice’ held before the end of 1969 to give their views. Essentially the

Dutch had been browbeaten into handing West New Guinea over to Indonesia.

In the end then, Sukarno did not need to fight a full scale war to recover West New Guinea.

But there is evidence that if Operation Jayawijaya had been launched the Soviet manned

submarines would have participated in it. Admiral Sudomo, the Mandala naval commander,

later revealed in an Indonesian newspaper article that six submarines with Russian crews had

81 No American transcript of the discussion between Subandrio and Kennedy has been found but Rusk did not mention this issue when he reported the conversation to the Australian ambassador later that evening. See DDRS, Memorandum of Conversation between Rusk and Beale, 26 July 1962. 82 Drooglever, An Act of Free Choice, 498.83 FRUS, 1961-63, Vol. XXIII, Southeast Asia, Document 285, Telegram Jakarta to State Department, 3 August 1962; Nasution, Memenuhi Panggilan Tugas, 313.84 JFK, Reel 10, Telegram 128, State Department to The Hague, 11 August 1962.85 Drooglever, An Act of Free Choice, 765-770.

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formed the strategic reserve of the Jayawijaya amphibious landing force and had been held

ready at Bitung in east Sulawesi.86 When Sukarno visited Moscow in 1964 Khrushchev

reminded him that the USSR had provided pilots and sailors and said that ‘If you [had] faced

Holland, our people were with you there. That is a fact.’87 The Soviet submarine veterans had

dramatic tales of being on the verge of war. Ryzhikov recalled that on 29 July 1962 his

submarine had received orders from Admiral Sergey Gorshkov, the Commander in Chief of

the Soviet Fleet, to secretly patrol a combat zone west of New Guinea and sink any shipping

after midnight on 5 August.88 When 5 August came, this order was rescinded and Ryzhikov’s

submarine sailed on the surface to Bitung where it spent the rest of the crisis. Gennadi

Melkov, an officer on another Soviet submarine, claimed his craft had orders to attack at

midnight on 15 August oil storage tanks at the port of Manokwari in West New Guinea and

torpedo a Dutch frigate nearby.89 Melkov’s submarine was ten miles from the target when it

was told to break off the attack and return to base on the surface. Other Russian veterans have

expressed scepticism about these claims though Ooms has shown that a Dutch frigate and oil

storage tanks were present at Manokwari.90 Still, it is difficult to reconcile the dates given by

Ryzhikov and Melkov with the schedule of operations in Jayawijaya.

Western intelligence services also had some indications that Soviet crewed submarines were

allocated to the Indonesian invasion fleet and would take part in the operation. The CIA’s

Current Intelligence Weekly Review for 17 August stated that Indonesian units were at

operational readiness, including ‘the large task force located in Bangkalan Bay in the Celebes

[Sulawesi], and the six Soviet-manned submarines attached to it.’91 A paper by the British

86 Sudomo, “Perebutan Irian Barat: Di Balik Konflik RI-Belanda 1962”, Suara Pembaruan, 11 August 2005. Available at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/tionghoa-net/conversations/messages/37748 (Accessed 8 March 2014). 87 Andreĭ Artizov (ed.), Nikita Khrushchev 1964: stenogrammy plenuma T͡SK KPSS i drugie dokumenty (Moscow, Materik, 2007), 153. Translation by author. 88 Ryzhikov, “Topi ikh vsekh!”, 52-54; Rijs, “Moskou beraamde in ’62 aanval”, 5. 89 Rijs,“Moskou beraamde in ’62 aanval”, 1, 5. 90 Ooms, “Geheime Sovjetsteun”, 25.91 DNSA, CIA Current Intelligence Weekly Review, 17 August 1962.

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Joint Intelligence Committee noted that there was ‘some evidence that Soviet manned

Indonesian submarines were prepared to operate in the event of an Indonesian attack on West

Irian, to make up for the technical inadequacies of the Indonesians.’92 As for the Soviet

manned Tu-16KS bombers, last minute Indonesian hesitations seem to have prevented their

use. MARID reported on 15 August that Sukarno had agreed to the Soviets crewing

submarines but not Tu-16s.93

What remains to be explained is why Sukarno and Khrushchev acted as they did. Why did

Sukarno ask for Soviet submarines and planes and why was Khrushchev prepared to supply

them and risk participating in a war against a member of NATO? Ooms has argued that

Soviet personnel were attractive for Sukarno because they would both enable him to mount

an effective attack on West New Guinea and put pressure on the Americans to meet his

demands.94 Certainly if Sukarno was going to seize West New Guinea by force in the summer

of 1962 there was a clear military need for Soviet help. The Jayawijaya invasion fleet, sailing

the more than 900 miles from the Banggai Islands to Biak would have been vulnerable to

interception by the Royal Netherlands Navy (RNN). The RNN was an experienced,

competent service and it had destroyers, frigates and submarines in the area.95 Potentially,

Project 613 submarines and Tu-16KS bombers armed with Kometa missiles could have

neutralised the Dutch naval assets and Jakarta had bought these types of arms in 1958 and

1961, but they were of little use unless Indonesian personnel could properly operate them.

AURI’s embarrassing inability to retaliate for the Dutch attack at Vlakke Hoek in January

1962 would have brought this point home to Sukarno. Shortage of trained personnel was still

a problem when Jayawijaya was being prepared in the summer. Nasution admitted in his

memoirs that training of Indonesian crews for Tu-16s and submarines had not been

92 TNA, CAB 158/47, Memorandum JIC(62) 81 (Final), 1 October 1962.93 Ooms, “Geheime Sovjetsteun”, 26.94 Ibid., 24.95 Platje, “Dutch Sigint”, 306.

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completed at the time of the planned attack, though he also claimed that despite this ‘we did

not carry Russian instructors on the decision wave of that invasion, as our enemies like to

say.’96 The Indonesians could have delayed a large scale assault until their men were fully

trained and this seems to have been the preference and original intention of the military.97 But

Sukarno was a man in hurry, who wanted the West New Guinea issue resolved in 1962,

preferably in time for his annual grand speech on Indonesian Independence Day on 17

August.98 The obvious solution for the Indonesians, pace Nasution, was to have the Soviets

man submarines and bombers.

Sukarno could also use the Soviet personnel to apply diplomatic pressure although as their

deployment was secret this required some subtlety. The Indonesian and Soviet governments

never publicly revealed that Soviet servicemen were manning submarines and aircraft.

Indeed, even though MARID picked up fragments of evidence about the Soviet crews, the

Dutch Cabinet appears to have remained ignorant of their presence and they therefore had no

direct influence on Dutch decision making during the crisis.99 But the Indonesians made sure

that the Americans knew about the Soviet role. When Mikoyan spoke to Soviet military

chiefs in November about the supply of Soviet manned submarines and bombers to

Indonesia, he explained that:

Indonesia was very smart – as if it was hiding something from the Americans, but in reality it actually helped the Americans to find out what Soviet weapons they had. The Americans learned about this. Now they were facing the question: Did they want to get into a confrontation with those ships on the side of Holland…? But this was very unfavourable for them: they knew what kind of forces we had that were concentrated in that area. All those forces were under the Indonesian flag. There was no Soviet flag on those ships, they had been temporarily transferred to Sukarno. And therefore, Sukarno was able, while playing with two

96 Nasution, Memenuhi Panggilan Tugas, 314-315. Translation by author. Nasution’s statement does not exclude Russian servicemen being part of a strategic reserve for Jayawijaya as Sudomo claimed.97 Ibid, 315.98 TNA, FO 371/166556, Telegram 65, Jakarta to Foreign Office, 23 January 1962; CIA FOIA, CIA Central Intelligence Bulletin, 12 July 1962.99 Ooms, “Geheime Sovjetsteun”, 27.

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pieces on the political chessboard, to force Holland to give up Western Irian to Indonesia through the Americans.100

By letting the Americans discover that Soviet seamen were manning some ‘Indonesian’

submarines, Sukarno could show them that a large scale Indonesian attack on West New

Guinea would be capable of inflicting real damage on the Dutch forces. Moreover, the

presence of Soviet personnel played on Washington’s anxieties about the developing

relationship between Indonesia and the USSR. The Indonesian leadership was well aware of

American fears of losing Indonesia to the Soviets in the Cold War and Subandrio artfully

warned the Americans about deeper involvement with Moscow and possible escalation if

war broke out. On 24 July he assured Robert Kennedy that he wanted a peaceful solution to

the crisis, partly because ‘if they [the Indonesians] became involved in an armed conflict it

meant the use of Russian personnel and weapons and they know that such a conflict could not

be restricted just to the local scene.’101 This tactic may have influenced the Americans

although even before the Soviet crews arrived in Indonesia the United States was pressing the

Dutch to leave West New Guinea.

Khrushchev’s motives are less immediately obvious but there are several possible

explanations for his behaviour. One is that he was trying to preserve the USSR’s relationship

with Indonesia which to a large extent centred on the West New Guinea issue.102 Khrushchev

had put considerable effort into building up Soviet influence in Indonesia, giving economic as

well as military aid and personally visiting the country in 1960. American efforts to engineer

a peaceful, diplomatic settlement of the West New Guinea dispute threatened this Soviet

position and it is notable that Moscow was distinctly hostile to the negotiations at

Middleburg. By fulfilling Sukarno’s request for active military support Khrushchev could

100 Mikoyan, The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis, 467-8. See also Lambert Giebels, Soekarno President: Een Biografie 1950-1970 (Amsterdam: Uitgeverj Bert Bakker, 2001), 259.101 FRUS, 1961-63, Vol. XXIII, Southeast Asia, Document 277, Memorandum Kennedy to Bundy, 24 July 1962.102 Ooms, “Geheime Sovjetsteun”, 24.

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strengthen their relationship and encourage the Indonesians to recover West New Guinea by

force rather than through American led negotiations.

The CIA speculated that Khrushchev might have had another, ulterior motive. It saw a

possible connection with the Soviet deployment of intermediate and medium range ballistic

nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962. The two operations were nearly contemporaneous.103 On 21

May, less than two weeks after approving the arms deal with Subandrio, Khrushchev

proposed to the Soviet presidium secretly installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. After some

hesitation the presidium agreed and while Indonesia and the Netherlands teetered on the brink

of war in July and August, the Soviet Union was secretly shipping nuclear weapons and a

large conventional military force out to Cuba. The CIA suggested that Moscow might have

given Sukarno Soviet crews and encouraged him to attack West New Guinea in order to

create a distraction from Cuba.104 The agency observed that Indonesian-Dutch hostilities in

August and September 1962 ‘clearly would have provided a substantial diversion of world

attention from other areas and a potential cover for the Cuban buildup.’105 It seems likely that

Khrushchev realised this was a possibility but so far there is no evidence from Russian

sources that Cuba determined his decision to help Sukarno.

It is perhaps better to see the operations in Indonesia and Cuba as part of a broader trend

under Khrushchev towards greater Soviet military involvement in the developing world. For

many years after the end of the Korean War in 1953 the Soviet Union did not commit its

forces to developing world conflicts but in the early 1960s there was a spate of activity by

Khrushchev in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. He began in 1960 by giving

103 Aleksandr Fursenko and Timonthy Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006), 435-440.104 CIA FOIA, CAESAR document, Memorandum “The Soviet Missile Base Venture in Cuba”, 17 February 1964; Memorandum by the National Indications Center on “The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Discussion of Readiness Measures”, 15 July 1963.105 CIA FOIA, Memorandum by the National Indications Center on “The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis: A Discussion of Readiness Measures”, 15 July 1963.

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logistical assistance to Patrice Lumumba, the radical prime minister of newly independent

Congo, to help him suppress a separatist rebellion in Katanga province which was linked to

the Belgian ex-colonialists.106 Soviet transport planes flew in supplies and ferried Congolese

troops around the country. The operation abruptly ended in September 1960 when Lumumba

was ejected from power by the pro-American Congolese president and army, but Khrushchev

was undeterred by this failure. He next aided the communist and neutralist factions in a civil

war in Laos. Between December 1960 and November 1962 Soviet transport planes flew

military supplies into Laos for the Pathet Lao and Kong Le.107 The Americans estimated that

by March 1961 Soviet aircraft had already flown 2,000 sorties.108

Then in 1962 Khrushchev moved beyond logistical support and covertly deployed Soviet

combat forces, in Indonesia and Cuba but also in Yemen.109 An Arab nationalist coup in

Yemen in September brought down the archaic, autocratic regime of the Imam and unleashed

a civil war between Republicans and the pro-Imam Royalists. The two sides had foreign

patrons, with President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt giving strong military support to the

Republicans while Saudi Arabia and Jordan aided the Royalists. Nasser was not a communist

but he was close to the Soviets and he asked Moscow to help him in Yemen by providing

aircraft and trained pilots. Khrushchev agreed and he supplied transport planes, which

airlifted Egyptian troops and equipment into Yemen, and crews for Tu-16 bombers. Soviet

piloted Tu-16s operated from Cairo West air base under Egyptian command and bombed

Yemeni Royalist targets and occasionally their Jordanian and Saudi supporters.110 As in the

West New Guinea case this operation was carried out in great secrecy. Khrushchev later told

the central committee that although the Tu-16 bombers flying in Yemen had Egyptian

106 Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 312-316. 107 Ibid., 335; Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, 323.108 FRUS, 1961-1963, Volume XXIV, Laos Crisis, Document 25, Memorandum of a conference with Kennedy, 9 March 1961. 109 Ferris, “Soviet Support for Egypt’s Intervention in Yemen”, 12-23, 30-33.110 Ibid, 31-32; Fursenko, Prezidium, 899.

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markings, they were ‘our crews, and our planes, and our bombs, but all this we cannot say

openly. We cannot say that in fact, it is us fighting.’111

Taken together, the deployments in Congo, Laos, Indonesia, Cuba and Yemen suggest that

between 1960 and 1962 Khrushchev was progressively shedding his inhibitions about

sending Soviet military units into the developing world. This might also indicate a greater

willingness on his part to aid nationalist anti-imperialists like Sukarno and Nasser. In a

speech in January 1961 Khrushchev had identified what he called ‘wars of national

liberation’ fought by oppressed peoples in the developing world against colonial rulers or

‘rotten reactionary regimes’.112 The Soviet leader declared that communists ‘fully support

such just wars and march in the front rank with the peoples waging liberation struggles.’ 113

Historians have tended to see this formulation as mostly rhetoric, intended to blunt

communist Chinese criticism of Khrushchev for not doing enough to aid revolutionary

movements in the developing world.114 However, the deployments of Soviet forces, especially

those in Indonesia and Yemen, show that Khrushchev would sometimes back his words with

action, albeit secret action. It is noticeable that several times between 1962 and 1964

Khrushchev publicly presented the West New Guinea dispute as an example of the Soviet

Union assisting a war of national liberation.115 Behind closed doors, at meetings of the central

committee and with trusted foreign visitors, he went further and cited the commitment of

Soviet manned submarines and bombers to Indonesia and Yemen as proof of how seriously

and selflessly the USSR supported ‘struggling peoples’.116 Khrushchev emphasised to a

Cuban delegation that:

111 Andrii͡anov, Kosygin, 170. Translation by author. 112 Alvin Rubenstein, Moscow’s Third World Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 90.113 Ibid.114 Ibid., 91-92; William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man, His Era (London: The Free Press, 2003), 487.115 Nadia Derkach, “The Soviet Policy towards Indonesia in the West Irian and the Malaysian Disputes”, Asian Survey, Vol. 5, No. 11. (1965), 568.116 Andrii͡anov, Kosygin, 170; Fursenko, Prezidium, 898-900; Artizov, Nikita Khrushchev 1964, 153.

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Our sailors and pilots were ready together with the Indonesians to fight for their freedom and independence. Is this not concrete assistance from the Soviet Union to Indonesia? Is this not a manifestation of internationalism? Maybe we’ll get something from Indonesia, maybe we put in front of it some conditions, to render this help? Of course not.117

Whether his motivations were selfless or not, Khrushchev gave Indonesia a remarkably

generous level of military support over the West New Guinea issue, particularly as he risked

embroiling the USSR in a war with a NATO state and a possible escalation into a superpower

confrontation. Khrushchev armed the Indonesians, helped them devise operational plans,

supplied them Project 613 submarines and Tu-16KS bombers with Soviets crews and was

seemingly willing for these units to join in an attack on the Dutch in West New Guinea.

Effectively, by 1962 the Soviet Union and Indonesia had become military allies. Indeed,

Operation Jayawijaya probably had little chance of success without Soviet participation. Yet

surprisingly this bold intervention did not have major repercussions. Thanks to American

diplomacy an Indonesian-Dutch war was averted and there was no Cold War clash over West

New Guinea. The Dutch ceded the territory to Sukarno through negotiation, although it was

negotiation at the point of a gun. The presence of the Soviet personnel may have heightened

American anxieties and made them put more pressure on the Dutch to make concessions, but

it did not set American policy. Moreover while Sukarno achieved his objective of recovering

West New Guinea, the results for Soviet Union were meagre. In spite of Khrushchev’s

support the close military cooperation in 1962 proved to be an aberration in Soviet-

Indonesian relations. Indonesia subsequently leant towards communist China and then, after

Sukarno was toppled in 1967, aligned itself with the United States. Khrushchev may have

supplied Jakarta with Soviet submarines and bombers but this was not enough to win the

Cold War battle for influence over Indonesia.

117 Fursenko, Prezidium, 898-899. Translation by author.

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