page_title: Cornell Paper
section_title: Interpretation of events
hierarchical_section_title: Cornell Paper / Work and summary / Interpretation of events
caption_attribution_description: The Indonesian Army General Staff immediately before the G30S incident
context_page_description: A Preliminary Analysis of the October 1, 1965, Coup in Indonesia, more commonly known as the "Cornell Paper", is an academic publication detailing the events of an abortive coup d'état attempt by the self-proclaimed September 30 Movement, produced on January 10, 1966. The study was written by Benedict Anderson and Ruth McVey, with the help of Frederick Bunnell, using information from various Indonesian news sources. At the time of writing, the three were members of Cornell University's network of graduate students and scholars on Southeast Asia.
  In their work, Anderson and McVey theorized that neither the Communist Party of Indonesia nor President Sukarno took part in organizing the operation; instead, they became the victims. On the basis of the material available, they proposed that the coup was indeed an "internal army affair" as was claimed by the September 30 Movement to remove members of the Indonesian Army General Staff who allegedly worked with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. By the end of the following week, the movement had been crushed by forces of Major General Suharto, who was charged with the sole responsibility of restoring order.
context_section_description: The Diponegoro Division, according to Anderson and McVey, comprised a greater percentage of ethnic Javanese people than other units in the Indonesian Army. Compared to neighboring West Java and East Java, the region of Central Java, where the Diponegoro Division was headquartered, experienced a more traditional culture. Because the region "has been for centuries the seat of political power in Java", residents believed that its position "has been usurped by Djakarta". This inequality resulted in a hostility between officers who held traditional Javanese values and the revolutionary movement in high esteem and officers of the Army General Staff who were more "intellectual" and educated in the ways of the Dutch. Anderson and McVey observed that the more traditional officers believed "soldiering itself is less a matter of techniques and skills, than the development of moral and spiritual faculties through a kind of modernized asceticism". Officers of the Diponegoro Division had a number of sympathizers throughout several military branches inside and outside the capital city, including Lieutenant Colonel Untung Syamsuri of the presidential guard. Fueled by rumors that members of the General Staff had been working with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, a group of officers from the Diponegoro Division plotted to conduct a series of raids to kidnap members of the General Staff to either be held as hostages or killed. They believed that President Sukarno, whom Untung would warn of an impending coup by the Army General Staff, would be persuaded to support the Diponegoro coup group while the Army was "too decimated in its top leadership to do anything but acquiesce".
  The officers understood that "the one occasion in the year when Diponegoro troops could legitimately be in Djakarta was the annual parade and demonstration put on by paratroop, cavalry, armor and other units for Armed Forces Day October 5". After securing a number of supporters in the Indonesian Air Force, the officers decided to utilize Halim Perdanakusuma Air Force Base as the location to which Sukarno would be evacuated. Additionally, they enlisted the help of Communist radical youths in order to secure military installations across the city. Anderson and McVey theorized that the night of Thursday, September 30, was chosen for the operation because it is a time of the week when, "in universal Javanese belief, magical forces are abroad, and spiritual strength and support most readily obtained". They further discovered evidence that at least two "prominent leaders" other than Sukarno were evacuated to Halim Perdanakusuma: Air Force Commander Omar Dani and PKI Chairman Dipa Nusantara Aidit. Anderson and McVey suggested that Aidit's presence would "prove to the President that the PKI was inextricably compromised in the affair, and therefore that if he wished to preserve his 'leftward course', [...] he had no alternative but to come out" against the Council of Generals. Anderson and McVey emphasized that in the announcement made on the morning of October 1, "Untung repeatedly stressed that the September 30th Movement was purely and simply an internal Army affair". As such, the movement did not find it necessary to "impose any form of press control, nor indeed any particular mobilization of the press". In the announcement, Untung asserted that all "political parties, mass organizations, newspapers, and periodicals may continue functioning" until it became necessary for them to "declare their loyalty to the Indonesian Revolution Council".
  Seeking to seize the political initiative, Sukarno refused to make any decision until he was allowed contact with political friends and advisors. With no reason to doubt Sukarno or their control of Jakarta, Untung and his men allowed the President to communicate via couriers. One such courier delivered a message read over Radio Republik Indonesia (RRI) at 1:15 p.m. that Sukarno was not a prisoner of Untung's movement, which "carried far more weight than anything that Untung himself could say" because the statement was issued with the 
caption: The Army General Staff at the time of the coup attempt. The names of the generals killed are shown in gray.
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