"ARGO" not the first attempt by the CIA to make a "movie"

Not too long ago the Academy Award for best film went to Argo. It was a loosely fact-based (emphasis on loosely) account of how a handful of Americans managed to escape the takeover by an Iranian mob—no doubt less “spontaneous” than an orchestrated event—of the U.S. embassy in 1979. From there the film purports to show how a CIA operative concocted a scheme whereas the Americans would be transformed into a Canadian film crew out on a location shoot for a sci-fi flick. The ruse worked, and the film provides us with a heroic perception of the CIA compared to that of Zero Dark Thirty, which without comment portrays the agency as a torture mill.

The CIA has not always been as successful in some of its other theatrical covert operations. Take for instance its attempts to depose Sukarno, the first president of independent Indonesia after World War II.  Although Sukarno attempted to foster friendly relations with the U.S., the discovery of CIA support of  rebels in 1957 exposed the fallacy of this policy. Sukarno would subsequently begin nationalizing Western-owned operations, and his political and economic leanings were regarded as “socialist” and Communist-inspired. This made him an early target in the Cold War period. Since he was a popular and well-respected leader in his own country—having led the fight for independence from the Dutch (which was the end game of Indonesia’s de facto collaboration with the Japanese, who drove out Dutch forces during the war)—the U.S. government wanted it to appear that his overthrow was an “internal” affair. 

To this end, the CIA lent support to PERMESTA—a rebel group consisting of ethnic groups who felt their interests were not being served by the central government dominated by the Javanese ethnic group. This service was provided mainly by “advisers” on the ground, military personal masquerading as “soldiers of fortune,” and B-26 bombers, supposedly flown by Indonesian rebel pilots. Unfortunately, CIA assistance proved too little and too late, and as John Prados noted in his book Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA, rebel forces turned out to have more bluster than fight, either changing sides—gladly taking the Jakarta government’s offer of amnesty—or simply running away when fighting began. CIA personnel, finding themselves in a bit of a bind, had to explain themselves when their presence was exposed. Prados writes that

“The CIA training team made a hazardous trek to a stretch of unoccupied coast to commandeer a boat and head out to sea, where they were retrieved by the Tang. The cover story that they were big-game hunters caught in the crossfire of the rebellion had to be as ludicrous as the one they used on land…the CIA team were scientists hunting exotic butterflies.”

But this was nothing compared to an early attempt by the CIA to get into the film business. The Muslim Sukarno was a polygamist, and was known to like his women. Rumors that he had been blackmailed by a female Russian agent gave the CIA the idea that they could foment rebellion against him by distributing a pornographic film that purportedly depicted Sukarno in flagrante with a comely blonde Soviet spy. To this purpose, operatives allegedly sat through hundreds of porno films produced in the U.S., searching for someone who could pass for Sukarno and a woman who had Russian “features.” Having failed to do so, the CIA decided to produce its own film. According to historian Harry Blum, 

“The Agency developed a full-face mask of the Indonesian leader which was to be sent to Los Angeles where the police were to pay some porno-film actor to wear it during his big scene. This project resulted in at least some photographs, although they apparently were never used…Another outcome of the blackmail effort was a film produced for the CIA by Robert Maheu, former FBI agent and intimate of Howard Hughes. Maheu’s film starred an actor who resembled Sukarno. The ultimate fate of the film, which was entitled “Happy Days”, has not been reported.”

Meanwhile, the discovery of CIA efforts at regime change in Indonesia—particularly after CIA-employed pilot Allen Pope was captured after his B-26 was shot down—only served to unite, rather than divide the country, at least for a time. President John F. Kennedy sympathized with Sukarno’s perceived anti-American attitude, given all the attempts to depose him during the Eisenhower administration; but after Kennedy’s assassination, efforts were again renewed to depose him. The CIA abandoned its previous bizarre schemes, and resorted to tried and true methods, such as infiltrating student groups and running publishing companies that churned out books whose content was meant to undermine Sukarno’s rule. 

This story does not have a “heroic” finale. The CIA also worked to bankroll a right-wing “Council of Generals” whose eventual aim was to stage a coup against Sukarno late in 1965; a week before it was to occur, the coup was temporarily forestalled by junior officers led by the loyal head of the presidential palace guard, and six of the generals were killed. But the “revolt” was quickly suppressed, and Sukarno opponents used the event as an excuse to launch an anti-Communist bloodbath. Interestingly, the U.S. embassy had ready a list of thousands of alleged Communist in the country, and supplied the generals with this “death list.” Estimates vary, but with the aid of Islamic extremists in the country, probably a half-million people who may or may not have been members of, or sympathetic with, the Indonesian Communist Party were massacred within a month or two, ending their political influence. Although Sukarno remained as president for a few more years, the U.S.-supported General Suharto would effectively exercise power in the country for the next several decades.