Indonesia: The President, the Generals, And the Angry Young Men

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"How about a smile?" asked a reporter. "I am smiling," snapped a puffy-faced President Sukarno at the Pakistan Ambassador's reception. "I'm smiling at the many foreign correspondents abroad. Abroad they say I have been ousted. They say I am a sick man. They say I nearly committed suicide. But I am not a sick man. I have not been ousted. I will never try to commit suicide because I love life. Here I am. I am still President of the Republic. I am still leader of the revolution."

Perhaps. But a better judge of the situation was Sukarno's Japanese third wife, the fetching Ratna Sari Dewi, who donned tight slacks to spend a Sunday on the golf links with the nation's new apparent strongman, Lieut. General Suharto (he plays; she doesn't). Word had it that she was playing a mediator's role between her husband and the new regime, attempting to talk Sukarno into giving in gracefully to the generals. Though his phone line was now cut and his helicopters were grounded, Sukarno still held out against the new, smaller Cabinet, purged of Communists, proposed by Suharto and his men.

Patiently, with elaborate deliberation, the generals argued on and on. They were backed by more than just their own determination. Bespectacled Liem Bian Khoen, 24, a leader in Djakarta's potent and demonstration-happy student organization, KAMI, warned that if no new Cabinet is named, "You shall see. We shall not just sit here," and Brigadier General Ibnu Subroto, army chief of information, agreed: "I hope that the President will give his consent. We have to deal with angry young men." On one point, at least, the students and the generals were in accord. Subroto announced that the new regime would be "leftist to the end of time, against colonialism, capitalism and all forms of neocolonialism and imperialism."