1957–1959: Indonesia

See also: CIA activities in Indonesia

As a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement and host of the April 1955 Bandung Conference, Indonesia, which had been a democracy under president Sukarno since 1945, was charting a course toward an independent foreign policy that was not militarily committed to either side in the Cold War. After a visit to the People's Republic of China in October 1956, Sukarno instituted a form of autocratic rule called Guided Democracy. Starting in 1957, Eisenhower order the CIA to overthrow Sukarno. The CIA supported a failed coup plan by rebel Indonesian military officers in February 1958. CIA pilots, such as Allen Lawrence Pope, piloted planes operated by CIA front organization Civil Air Transport (CAT) that bombed civilian and military targets in Indonesia. The CIA instructed CAT pilots to target commercial shipping in order to frighten foreign merchant ships away from Indonesian waters, thereby to weaken the Indonesian economy and thus to destabilize the government of Indonesia. The CIA aerial bombardment resulted in the sinking of several commercial ships and the bombing of a marketplace that killed many civilians. The coup attempt failed at that time and U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower denied any U.S. involvement.

1965–1967: Indonesia

Main article: Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66

Junior army officers and the commander of the palace guard of President Sukarno accused senior Indonesian military brass of planning a CIA-backed coup against President Sukarno and killed six senior generals on October 1, 1965. General Suharto and other senior military officers attacked the junior officers on the same day and accused the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) of planning the killing of the six generals. The army launched a propaganda campaign based on lies and riled up civilian mobs to attack those believed to be PKI supporters and other political opponents. Indonesian government forces with collaboration of some civilians perpetrated mass killings over many months. Scholars estimate the number of civilians killed range from a half million to over a million. US Ambassador Marshall Green encouraged the military leaders to act forcefully against the political opponents. In 2017, declassified documents from the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta have confirmed that the US had knowledge of, facilitated and encouraged mass killings for its own geopolitical interests. US diplomats admitted to journalist Kathy Kadane in 1990 that they had provided the Indonesian army with thousands of names of alleged PKI supporters and other alleged leftists, and that the U.S. officials then checked off from their lists those who had been murdered. President Sukarno's base of support was largely annihilated, imprisoned and the remainder terrified, and thus he was forced out of power in 1967, replaced by an authoritarian military regime led by General Suharto. This campaign is considered a major turning point in the Cold War, and was such a success that it served as a model for other U.S.-backed coups and anti-communist extermination campaigns throughout Asia and Latin America.

1997–1998: Indonesia

Main article: Fall of Suharto

The Clinton administration saw an opportunity to oust Indonesian President Suharto when his rule over Indonesia became increasingly precarious in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. American officials sought to exacerbate Indonesia's monetary crisis by having the International Monetary Fund oppose Suharto's efforts to establish a currency board to stabilize the rupiah, thereby provoking discontent. IMF Director Michel Camdessus boasted that, "We created the conditions that obliged President Suharto to leave his job". Former US Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger would later remark, "We were fairly clever in that we supported the IMF as it overthrew [Suharto]. Whether that was a wise way to proceed is another question. I'm not saying Mr. Suharto should have stayed, but I kind of wish he had left on terms other than because the IMF pushed him out." Hundreds would die in the crisis that followed.