The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2020 BY NPR, THE FINANCIAL TIMES, AND GQ The hidden story of the wanton slaughter -- in Indonesia, Latin America, and around the world -- backed by the United States. In 1965, the U.S. government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians. This was one of the most important turning points of the twentieth century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring copycat terror programs in faraway countries like Brazil and Chile. But these events remain widely overlooked, precisely because the CIA's secret interventions were so successful. In this bold and comprehensive new history, Vincent Bevins builds on his incisive reporting for the Washington Post, using recently declassified documents, archival research and eye-witness testimony collected across twelve countries to reveal a shocking legacy that spans the globe. For decades, it's been believed that parts of the developing world passed peacefully into the U.S.-led capitalist system. The Jakarta Method demonstrates that the brutal extermination of unarmed leftists was a fundamental part of Washington's final triumph in the Cold War.
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Community Reviews
I'll just thank Bevins for being the one to write this book; were it to have been any other journalist (fuck journalists lol), this book would've just been a fucking sick bacchanalian gorging of sadism guised as detached historical reflection or ethnographic "interview" to the actual victims, whose justice won't ever be sought elsewise.
The book runs a tight through-line. It's not some niche dissertation autistically honed in on some intransigence of Indonesian history (as I had originally feared); it's a globe-spanning expository narrative, one through which nearly every satanic, neocolonialist, NWO inception of the Cold War (i.e. Iran-Contra, Operation Condor, Gladeo, the Phoenix Program, etc.) bears out as direct progeny: Operation Jakarta in 1965 being the progenitor "success-story" of a non-aligned Third World country "coming to its senses" and massacring a million of its own people to do so.
But for each case-study within this narrative, Bevins tells these intensely intimate portraits of individuals he's met and interviewed over the years, relating their stories as survivors of their country's terror regimes with painstaking compassion, and a perspicacious intuition when to stop.
The problem with - or rather, the ingenuity of -"disappearing" so many millions of innocent people over the course of a bloodthirsty, U.S.-supported, anti-communist crusade is that nobody gets closure: the trauma outlives the psyche. Bevins is acutely aware of that, so thanks for caring I guess.
I feel sick now.
The book runs a tight through-line. It's not some niche dissertation autistically honed in on some intransigence of Indonesian history (as I had originally feared); it's a globe-spanning expository narrative, one through which nearly every satanic, neocolonialist, NWO inception of the Cold War (i.e. Iran-Contra, Operation Condor, Gladeo, the Phoenix Program, etc.) bears out as direct progeny: Operation Jakarta in 1965 being the progenitor "success-story" of a non-aligned Third World country "coming to its senses" and massacring a million of its own people to do so.
But for each case-study within this narrative, Bevins tells these intensely intimate portraits of individuals he's met and interviewed over the years, relating their stories as survivors of their country's terror regimes with painstaking compassion, and a perspicacious intuition when to stop.
The problem with - or rather, the ingenuity of -"disappearing" so many millions of innocent people over the course of a bloodthirsty, U.S.-supported, anti-communist crusade is that nobody gets closure: the trauma outlives the psyche. Bevins is acutely aware of that, so thanks for caring I guess.
I feel sick now.
This is a detailed account of America’s mischief during the feverish anti-communist campaign of the 40s through 70s. It is most powerful when it includes personal testimonies from victims of these numerous, far-reaching CIA initiatives. America is the bad guy here. The rotation of new President every four or eight years provides immunity for the evil doers. If you love your apple pie and waving flags, don’t read this book. That’s how good it is.
At times I expected blood to gush forth from my iPhone, on which I read this amazing book.
Read it.
Robert Gavila
Astoria Book Club, NY
This book is well researched and should be required reading. Not many of us know what of the atrocities the US government has committed in the name of “fighting communism.” If people had a better idea of the unrest the US has caused across the globe, I’d hope US citizens would have more empathy for refugees entering the country. This book managed to maintain a non-biased approach and the author’s story telling didn’t make me feel like he is trying to sell me a narrative. Rather, he’s just delivering the truth as plainly as he can. Some of the first hand accounts are heart wrenching. I appreciate the author’s approach to asking survivors about their experience, as opposed to just asking questions about torture and trauma.
The crucial, missing side of history is told. As Indonesians, this is such a devastating read. It is as important, heartbreaking, and painful as ever to be told, especially living through how current generations so easily forgot what happened. I'm at loss for words, but I am grateful that these stories are put into words.
Maybe will write more later, I cannot conjure up words.. but must read.
Maybe will write more later, I cannot conjure up words.. but must read.
If you want to learn anything about international politics and world history, read this. It's a rough read, but it's well-written to the extent that I was able to get through it with little issue.