The Lessons of the September 30 Affair — Central Intelligence Agency

The Lessons of the September 30 Affair — Central Intelligence Agency: The Lessons of the September 30 Affair, Richard Cabot Howland. He is dead now, but his mad rhetoric still echoes in the mind for those who were there. Speech after speech, Sukarno's cadence set the rhythm for our work and our lives in that long summer of 1965. We battened down the Embassy hatches and waited, straining to fathom his purpose and predict his next move. One after another, faster and faster, the PKI's enemies were over-run; the domino theory was being tested before our eyes. "All of history," Emerson once wrote, "stands in the long shadow of one man." So too did Indonesia by September 30 of that year ... until the last domino refused to fall...