462 ChaPter^9
spree, aided, funded in part, and supported by the U.S.—crushed Sukarno’s
political strength.
The U.S. did not plan the coup or the massacres, but had supported
Suharto throughout it with funding for his armed forces and weapons sent
from Thailand. American diplomats, including a former ambassador to
Indonesia, and CIA officials admitted working closely with Suharto and the
paramilitary groups to carry out the mass killings, and even provided many
thousands of names of alleged Communists and subversives from their own
files for the Indonesian death lists. After 1965, Sukarno’s influence faded
badly and Suharto took control of government in March 1967 and retained
power, with continuing brutal methods and significant U.S. support, until
forced out during a 1999 economic crisis.Occupying a Hostile Foreign Country
Even while getting American forces and spies involved elsewhere, Johnson’s
priority was always Vietnam. While the Hell’s Angels might have wanted to
fight there in 1965, the U.S. military was not so eager for a war against the
PAVN and VC. Even Westmoreland, who would be remembered as one of the
biggest hawks on the war, was reluctant to commit combat troops to Vietnam.
In 1964 he “did not contemplate” putting U.S. troops into combat. That
“would be a mistake,” he believed, because “it is the Vietnamese’s war.” In
probably his most prophetic analysis, in January 1965, just 10 weeks before
the Marine landings at Da Nang, he and his staff urged against using combat
troops. The U.S. they recognized, had spent vast amounts of time and money
to develop the southern army, with little luck, and “if that effort has not suc-
ceeded, there is even less reason to think that U.S. combat forces would have
the desired effect.” The involvement of American troops in the RVN, the
military staff in Saigon concluded, quite amazingly and pessimistically, “would
at best buy time and would lead to ever increasing commitments until, like
the French, we would be occupying an essentially hostile foreign country.”
Johnson was not bleak or negative, however, so the military followed civilian
orders into a major war in Vietnam. In fact, the president was so dedicated to
“victory” in Indochina that, in truth, it was doubtful that anyone could have
stopped him. As he said in April 1965, “we will not be defeated. We will not
grow tired. We will not withdraw... We must stay in Southeast Asia.” With