Download “Many Weird and Unpredictable Changes Are Taking Place in the

“Many Weird and Unpredictable Changes
Are Taking Place in the World…”1
Dutch-American Relations and the Future of the
Netherlands East Indies, 1940-1945
In the sizeable volume that was recently published to celebrate the Dutch Foreign
Ministry’s two hundred year anniversary, a chapter on the Indonesian struggle for
independence is curiously missing. A paragraph on what is called “the conservative
period,” ranging from 1920 until 1942, is immediately followed by a discussion of
“decolonization, the Cold War, and foreign aid,” covering the period 1949-1962.2 This
glaring reflection of the Dutch historians’ struggle with the years 1942 until 1949 alone
warrants continued research on the topic of the Indonesian revolution. The oversight hints,
too, at the lack of attention that has been paid to the Dutch and Indonesian experiences
under wartime Japanese occupation of the East Indies (1942-1945), and disregards the
influence of Dutch-American relations and the role of the rapidly growing economic,
political, and military power of the United States in the immediate post-war period,
instead treating both American and Dutch foreign policy decisions as deus ex machina
variables. The issue that many contemporary politicians euphemistically referred to as the
“Indonesian question,” therefore, still leaves historians with puzzles to solve and answers
to find.
1
American Consul-General in Batavia Erle Dickover to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, January 22,
1940, No. 456, RG 165, War Department, general and Special Staffs, Military Intelligence Division,
Regional File, 1922-1944, Netherlands East Indies, Box No. 2629, NARA.
2
R.E. van Ditzhuyzen et al., eds., Tweehonderd Jaar Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken [Two
Hundred Years Ministry of Foreign Affairs], The Hague: Sdu Uitgevers (1998), 272-273.
The story of Indonesia’s struggle for independence during the first five years
immediately following World War II, is a truly international one. The key players include
the former Dutch colonial elite in the East Indies, stripped of their authority and locked
up in internment camps by the Japanese army; the government in the Netherlands that
had newly returned from its exile in London after the German surrender and faced a
myriad of challenges of which the restoration of Dutch imperial rule in the East was only
one; and the people of Indonesia, who had lived through three-and-a-half years of
Japanese occupation after three-and-a-half centuries of subjugation to the Dutch and now
recognized a window of opportunity that might lead to national liberation. The American
government, moreover, after World War II began carving out its role as leader of the free
world, in principle supporting self-determination and independence for colonized peoples
but at the same time perceiving itself as increasingly limited in its freedom of action as
Cold War tensions rapidly built. The conflict in Indonesia and the relationship between
the United States and the Netherlands, increasingly troubled when it concerned the future
of the colony, furthermore concerned the British and Australian governments and
simultaneously emerged as one of the first agenda points for the newly established United
Nations.
This complex international story is the topic of the dissertation I am working on,
titled “Between Colonialism and the Cold War: Dutch-American Relations and the
Indonesian Struggle for Independence, 1945-1949.” The period that most deserves further
study is comprised of the years 1945-1947, which I regard as a lost “window of
opportunity” for a more peaceful transfer of power from the Dutch colonial
administration to the Indonesian nationalists. The broad question at the heart of my study
therefore is: how and why did the parties involved miss this chance for a smooth
transition? To better understand this glossed-over twenty-four month period, and to
appreciate the early stances the various governments and politicians involved took
regarding the issue, I am paying much more attention than other scholars have done to the
Dutch, Indonesian, and American experiences during World War II. This paper examines
that wartime background, and focuses on Dutch-American relations from the invasion of
the Netherlands by Hitler’s armies in May 1940 until the one-sided declaration of
independence by Indonesian nationalists in August 1945.
By the early 20th century, the Dutch had ruled the Indonesian archipelago for almost three
centuries, at first primarily through the vehicle of the privately owned Dutch East India
Company. With commercial rather than territorial goals in mind, the footholds on Java,
Sumatra and the Moluccas were used by the Dutch to trade and collect revenues.
Between 1850 and 1880 European imperial powers shifted the focus of their policies and
started dividing up Southeast Asia into spheres of influences, ringing in what
contemporary academics call the era of high colonialism. Control of the government of
the Netherlands over the indigenous peoples of the Dutch East Indies, however, still did
not extend much beyond the metropolitan centers. During the years of conquest and
consolidation, from 1880 until 1920, the Dutch established centralized administrativebureaucratic states in the colonial dependency, and the rule of the Netherlands over the
East Indies tightened. Attempts to “improve” the lives of subjects by reaching into the
daily business of ordinary villagers was summed up in what Rudyard Kipling famously
called “the white man’s burden” and what around the turn of the century by the Dutch
was phrased as their new and more enlightened “ethical colonial policy.”
While the Netherlands continued to reap the dividends generated by its lucrative
Southeast Asian territory, policymakers in The Hague thus believed that they could treat
the peoples of the Indies like a child, as the American Consul-General in Batavia reported
to Washington in 1939, “a stepchild […] who might be the main source of income for the
family, but who nevertheless may be starved and neglected with impunity.”3 The “ethical
policy” in theory implied that Indonesians would be “raised” and prepared for
independence under strict Dutch guardianship, but in practice a majority of Dutch
citizens feared that without its overseas territory, the Netherlands would degenerate into
“a small farm on the shores of the North Sea.”4
In the United States public opinion as well as the sentiments of the policymaking
establishment were ambiguous. Foreign Service officers supported Indonesians’ desire
for a regime under which they might obtain “equal rights with Europeans.”5 In the minds
of many Americans, the colonial record of the United States and the gradual process
toward independence in the Philippines was to serve as a model that the European powers
should emulate. At the same time, the “ethical colonial policy” of the Dutch, even if it
was only that in name, had struck a chord with Americans. In the course of the late
3
Frances Gouda and Thijs Brocades Zaalberg, American Visions of the Netherlands East
Indies/Indonesia: US Foreign Policy and Indonesian Nationalism, 1920-1949, Amsterdam: Amsterdam
University Press (2002), 106; Dickover to Secretary of State, January 6, 1939, No. 132, RG 165, War
Department, General and Special Staffs, Military Intelligence Division, Regional File, 1922-1944,
Netherlands East Indies, Box No. 2631, NARA.
4
Dickover to Secretary of State, January 6, 1939, No. 132, RG 165, War Department, General and
Special Staffs, Military Intelligence Division, Regional File, 1922-1944, Netherlands East Indies, Box No.
2631, NARA.
5
American Visions, 106; Dickover to Secretary of State, January 22, 1940, No. 456, RG 165, War
Department, General and Special Staffs, Military Intelligence Division, Regional File, 1922-1944,
Netherlands East Indies, Box No. 2629, NARA.
1930’s, the American press produced an array of temperate articles about the Dutch East
Indies in widely distributed magazines and newspapers such as Life, the Christian
Science Monitor, the New York Herald Tribune, and the Daily Mirror, reaching large
American audiences.6 These articles described the East Indies as an idyllic world, where
Hollanders had ruled sternly and paternalistically, but nevertheless wise and just. By the
time the war came, then, the Dutch government was thinking about changing the status
quo in the Netherlands East Indies only after perhaps decades more of “enlightened”
colonial rule.
When Hitler’s armies overran and occupied the Netherlands in May 1940, the
Dutch royal family and the government of the Netherlands fled to London, making the
Indies a colony without a motherland. Although Japan’s alliance with Nazi Germany
made its increasing aggression in Southeast Asia and towards the vulnerable East Indies
all the more threatening, neither the Dutch government led by Prime Minister Dirk Jan de
Geer and his successor Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy, nor the Dutch East Indies government,
led by Governor General Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer, saw any reason to give in
to the demands of Indonesian nationalists. All the Dutch East Indies government was
willing to do was install a commission, headed by F.H. Visman, that would investigate
the political developments in the Indies and report on the wishes of its people.
The Dutch government in exile was less optimistic about the future of the empire.
Minister of the Colonies Charles J.I.M. Welter, influenced by his assistant W.G. Peekema,
was open to concessions. Peekema had argued for reforms even before the war, and in a
memorandum dated August 23, 1940 he called for an official declaration by the Dutch
government regarding the future of the Indies. Van Starkenborgh Stachouwer thought
6
American Visions, 102-103.
Welter and Peekema were moving too quickly, and believed such a statement would not
satisfy the nationalists and, moreover, lead to concern among the Dutch population of the
Indies. It took until the summer of 1941 to resolve this dispute. After Welter had visited
the Indies, the Governor General announced to the “Volksraad” (People’s Council, the
governing body of the Dutch East Indies), that a “Rijksconferentie” (Imperial Conference)
about the future of the kingdom would take place immediately after the liberation of the
Netherlands.
The momentous signing of the Atlantic Charter by President Roosevelt and Prime
Minister Churchill in August 1941 made little impression on Dutch politicians in London.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Eelco van Kleffens and Prime Minister Gerbrandy assumed
that the declaration that the war against the Germans was now a struggle for the liberation
of all oppressed peoples had little meaning for, and did not apply to the Netherlands and
its colonies. The government of the Dutch East Indies was similarly under whelmed by
the Charter. In response to questions regarding its importance in the Volksraad on
November 10, 1941, the Atlantic Charter was dismissed as not concerning the internal
affairs of long-standing empires.7 By late 1941, too, the Visman Commission published
its report; a “thorough” investigation had led the researchers to believe that the people of
the Indies did not wish to break the bond with the Netherlands. The convenient findings
greatly influenced the thinking of the Dutch government in London.
Japan’s military might erupted in full force in late 1941 and 1942. The Netherlands East
Indies had always been particularly vulnerable to attack given the archipelago’s oil fields
7
Notulen Ministerraad 1940-1945, August 16, 1941 and November 10, 1941, Dutch National
Archives.
and sophisticated petroleum industry. Japan relied on these for its regular supply of fuel;
“without the Indies, Japan [would] never have all the oil, rubber and tin she needs, nor
the power and prestige she thinks she needs to be a great empire.”8 The Dutch colonial
authorities in the years leading up to the outbreak of World War II in Asia had refused to
give in to the Japanese demand that the colony furnish the nation with all the oil and
other essential resources it needed, but after only a brief period of resistance the colony
surrendered on March 9, 1942, and the quick defeat and crumbling of the colonial regime
left Indonesians astonished.9
To reconquer the islands, it soon became clear, the Dutch would largely have to
rely on the American military. Large parts of the Indies were counted in the South-West
Pacific Area, commanded and to be liberated by General Douglas MacArthur. In the
United States the quick capitulation of the East Indies government and the lack of
resistance by the population who had at times even welcomed the Japanese, had left a
stark impression too. Mere days before the fall of the Dutch Indies, in late February 1942,
Roosevelt’s anti-imperialism was evident in a radio speech. The president declared that
everyone had the right to choose their own government, and that this principle was
applicable to the whole world.10 Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles in May of that
year echoed similar sentiments, announcing that “the age of imperialism [had] ended,”
thus seemingly leaving no doubt about the policy of the United States. “The principles of
8
9
10
Time, “Far East: Porcupine Nest,” August 18, 1941.
American Visions, 104.
New York Times, February 24, 1942, 4.
the Atlantic Charter,” he said, “must be guaranteed to the world – in all oceans and
continents.”11
The anti-imperialism of the Roosevelt Administration did not sit well with
politicians and citizens in Europe’s colonial powers. Prime Minister Churchill famously
said he had not become the “King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation
of the British Empire.”12 And it was not just Democrats who argued against colonialism
and drew contentious responses: the defeated Republican candidate of the 1940
presidential elections, Wendell L. Wilkie, announced in 1942 that imperial powers had
lost their legitimacy because the peoples of Asia were no longer willing to serve as
“Eastern slaves for Western profits.”13
Although the Dutch government in London had initially reacted coolly to the
messages from the United States, it felt at once uneasy with the condemnations and selfassured about their “ethical” colonial policy. The Dutch stepped up their efforts to
influence American public opinion in their favor. The government established the
Netherlands Information Bureau (NIB) in New York, which specifically interpreted
Dutch policy as well as events in the Indies for an American audience. Its Englishlanguage publications focused on the “positive aspects” of the Dutch colonial
administration. When Minister of Foreign Affairs Van Kleffens met with editors of the
New York Times in February 1942 they made clear to him their inclinations toward selfdetermination and independence for the peoples of Southeast Asia. Going against this,
11
New York Times, 31 May 1942, 1; Rodman, More Precious Than Peace: The Cold War and the
Struggle for the Third World, New York: Scribner’s Sons (1994), 37-44; McMahon, Colonialism and Cold
War: The United States and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence, 1945-1949, Ithaca: Cornell
University Press (1981), 54-55.
12
Churchill in a speech held at Mansion House, November 10, 1942.
13
American Visions, 114; quoted by Wm. Roger Louis, Imperialism at Bay. The United States and
the Decolonization of the British Empire, 1942-1945, New York: Oxford University Press (1978), 199-200.
Van Kleffens tried to explain to them that the Indonesians lacked the gifts of “good
governance” and would need “a steady hand” for years if not decades to come.14
Over the course of 1941 and 1942, however, the Dutch read the writing on the
wall and attempted to avoid serious strains with the United States over its Asian interests.
Through shrewd maneuvering and capitalizing on Roosevelt’s benign attitude toward the
Dutch, the government-in-exile and the Dutch ambassador in Washington, Alexander
Loudon, tried to commit the United States to the restoration of Dutch sovereignty in the
Indies. Policymakers in the State Department, most notably political adviser Stanley
Hornbeck, Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs Maxwell Hamilton, and
Undersecretary of State Welles believed in March 1942 that the United States should
avoid any such commitment, especially seeing the ineffective Dutch and native resistance
in the East Indies against Japanese aggression and the changes in the colonial world the
end of the war would bring. 15 A mere month later, however, in a letter to Queen
Wilhelmina, President Roosevelt reassured the Dutch, saying: “when and if [Germany is
defeated] the combined power of the United Nations will not take long to drive the
Japanese back into their own islands. The Netherlands Indies must be restored – and
something within me tells me that they will be.”16
One Dutch politician who would in the years to come play an important role in
the Indonesian conflict was particularly sensitive to the American perception of the
Netherlands and its East Indies policy. Hubertus J. van Mook understood the international
14
Eelco van Kleffens quoted in L. de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede
Wereldoorlog [The Kingdom of the Netherlands in World War II], XIc, 94.
15
Gary R. Hess, The United States’ Emergence as a Southeast Asian Power, 1940-1950, New York:
Columbia University Press (1987), 54.
16
FDR to Wilhelmina, April 6, 1942, in FDR: His Personal Letters, 1928-1945 II, New York: Duell,
Sloan and Pearce (1970), 1305.
power relations and the influence of America and American public opinion better than
most of his colleagues in the Dutch government in exile. An article in Time described
Van Mook as “a big, burly, blond Dutchman” who had “a sharp, broad mind and a sense
of humor” and who was moreover “no bluffer” and “everything the traditional negotiator
[was] not.” Quoted as opening every discussion with “This is our last word,” and then
sticking to that, and described as “a man of very liberal ideas,” Van Mook was “a scholar
raised to the rank of statesman.” Born in Java, educated in the Netherlands, and having
attended California’s Stanford University, the only 46-year old Van Mook spoke English
with an American accent, “[played] golf and [smoked] Camels.” The magazine reported
him as being American in outlook, and said he advocated more influence for the Indies
and pronounced strong convictions on the part the United States would play in the
ultimate Pacific settlement.17
Van Mook had been Lieutenant-Governor General of the Indies and had been able
to flee Java just before the Japanese invasion. He was appointed Minister of the Colonies
under Prime Minister Gerbrandy in May 1942, mere days before Welles’s “end of
imperialism” speech. Although Ambassador Loudon had tried to reassure the Dutch
government in London by saying that the undersecretary had directed his words to the
British and could not be taken to have spoken for the entire American government in any
case, Van Mook was not convinced.18 In June 1942, Loudon informed Van Kleffens that
the Americans would not be satisfied with the mere suggestion of an Imperial Conference
like the one that had been made the previous summer.
17
Time, “Far East: Porcupine Nest,” August 18, 1941.
Alexander Loudon, June 5, 1942, Ministry of the Colonies in London, XI II AXB, M73, No. 987989, Dutch National Archives.
18
It was in the interest of the Dutch government, therefore, to formulate its postwar
plans for the Indies in a more positive and constructive tone. Together with Van Kleffens
and Gerbrandy, Van Mook made a recommendation to Queen Wilhelmina, who was
about to visit the United States and was to stay with President Roosevelt on his estate in
Hyde Park, New York. During several personal conversations between the two heads of
state, of which no notes but only later recollections exist, the president pressed the queen
to make an announcement regarding Dutch postwar goals for the Indies.19 He said he
considered this necessary both for public opinion in the United States as well as for the
securement of peace in the future. Wilhelmina, who thought that a speech might
strengthen the people’s resolve in wartime and might also serve to counter anti-Dutch
Japanese propaganda in the Indies, for the time being did not object to the careful
preparation of a speech.20
A small group of Dutch politicians thus proceeded to discuss the options. In
September 1942 Peekema wrote what would become a prophetic memorandum, claiming
that the Dutch government must assume that upon liberation of the East Indies, the
Indonesians would be technically free.21 The only option open to the Dutch, Peekema
claimed, was to make it as attractive as possible for the nationalists to voluntarily
continue the bond with the Netherlands. Van Mook was more optimistic; as becomes
clear from a memorandum written in early October 1942, he held that the war would
19
President Roosevelt later told General MacArthur about these private conversations with Queen
Wilhelmina. MacArthur then briefed Dutch civil servant Charles O. van der Plas, after which the dialogue
was recorded.
20
Cees Fasseur, De Weg naar het Paradijs [The Road to Paradise], Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Bert
Bakker (1995), 221-222; L. de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog [The
Kingdom of the Netherlands in World War II], XIc, 79-82.
21
Memorandum Peekema, Ministry of the Colonies in London, XI II AXB, M73, Dutch National
Archives.
strengthen the bond between the Dutch and Indonesians.22 Influenced by the findings of
the Visman Commission, Van Mook believed the Indies wanted only equal status within
the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and that reforming the organization of the kingdom
would satisfy even the more radical Indonesian nationalists.23
Few foresaw that Van Mook’s memorandum conveyed opinions from a Dutch
point of view, did not take into account the ideas of freedom that lived with the masses in
Indonesia, and could serve only as a basis for further negotiations. Imprisoned by their
isolated and wishful thinking, the Dutch policymakers did not realize that the right to
independence for the Indies had to be recognized, and that keeping the Indies as part of
the kingdom, even on a basis of more equality, would require their consent.
The memos by Peekema and Van Mook were discussed in a special meeting of
the council of ministers on October 13, 1942. Peekema’s suggestions were immediately
dismissed; the government feared that if it accepted a priori the idea that Indonesians had
the right to independence, it would quickly lose control of the gradual process toward
decolonization it had in mind.24 Van Mook, about to visit the United States in order to
discuss the liberation and reconstruction of the Indies with the Americans, reiterated that
clarity must be given regarding Dutch postwar plans. The other ministers saw little in his
plan, however. Minister of Justice Johannes R.M. Van Angeren held that the Indies’ right
to self-determination interfered with Dutch sovereignty. Minister of the Interior Hendrik
Van Boeyen, describing the Indonesians as children, saw things in an even simpler light:
the Dutch had obligations to the peoples of the Indies, he claimed, and the government
22
Memorandum Van Mook, Ministry of the Colonies in London, XI II AXB, M73, Dutch National
Archives.
23
Fasseur, De Weg naar het Paradijs [The Road to Paradise], 222-223; De Jong, Het Koninkrijk der
Nederlanden [The Kingdom of the Netherlands], XIc, 85-89.
24
De Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden [The Kingdom of the Netherlands], XIc, 84.
could not let them down. Prime Minister Gerbrandy expected “nothing but accidents”
from Van Mook’s proposals.25 The Queen tellingly wrote on her copy of Van Mook’s
memorandum: “save this in case I ask for it later.”26 She obviously did not consider his
ideas to be of great value.
A second deliberation took place on October 22. Here it was agreed that the
Queen in her address would speak of the possibility to “reconstruct the Kingdom on the
solid foundation of complete partnership, which [would] mean the consummation of all
that [had] been developed in the past.” It was decided, too, that she should mention that
“no political unity nor national cohesion [could] continue to exist which [were] not
supported by the voluntary acceptance and the faith of the great majority of the
citizenry.” The will and ability of both the people of the Netherlands and the East Indies
for “harmonious and voluntary cooperation” was thus to be emphasized. The government
in London furthermore deemed it crucial that the Queen include in her speech a line that
made it clear that “it would be neither right nor possible to define […] the precise form
[of the political reconstruction] at [the present] moment.” The Queen herself had stood by
her belief that her speech aimed to convince the Americans that they could not press the
Dutch to reveal precise postwar plans for the Indies. 27
Wilhelmina went on the radio in London at 8:45pm British time on December 6,
1942, almost exactly one year after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and held a speech in
which she announced that a “round table conference,” symbolizing the equality of the
25
Notulen Ministerraad 1940-1945, (V) 168-182, and (VI) 2-18, 24-29, Dutch National Archives;
Fasseur, De Weg naar het Paradijs [The Road to Paradise], 224-231; De Jong, Het Koninkrijk der
Nederlanden [The Kingdom of the Netherlands], XIc, 87.
26
De Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden [The Kingdom of the Netherlands], XIc, 86.
27
De Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden [The Kingdom of the Netherlands], XIc, 89-90. The full
text of the Queen’s speech is also available online at http://www.houseofdavid.ca/queen.htm.
partners, would be held after the war.28 The conference would be made up of both Dutch
and East Indies politicians and would advise on a new structure of the kingdom, in which
matters of foreign policy and defense would become common to all parts of the empire,
and internal affairs in the Indies would be the business of Indonesians. She implied, albeit
vaguely and without a discussion of the exact content of the reforms, that her government
would grant increasing powers of self-rule to native nationalists.
The queen’s speech had been meant not for Indonesians, but for an American audience,
and there it had the desired effect. The embassy in Washington reported that President
Roosevelt had reacted positively, and Van Mook stated that the “emotional” Americans
had been convinced of the good intentions of the Dutch.29 Roosevelt concluded a Pacific
War Council meeting in July 1943, for instance, by “mentioning twice the very splendid
speech which Queen Wilhelmina had recently made which pointed toward a federation
for the East Indies after the war.”30 The reduced Dutch-American tensions over Southeast
Asia were based on various misunderstandings and misperceptions, however, and evident
more when it came to the president’s personal convictions than when it concerned the
opinions of State Department officials.
The ambiguity in Dutch-American relations can partly be blamed on Roosevelt’s
vague trusteeship scheme and his inconsistent proposals regarding this plan for postwar
governance. It encompassed three categories: already existing League of Nations
28
This speech became known as the “December 7” speech because in Indonesia, it was already
December 7.
29
Fasseur, De Weg naar het Paradijs [The Road to Paradise], 231; McMahon, Colonialism, 63;
Hess, United States’ Emergence, 53-55.
30
Pacific War Council, July 21, 1943, FDR Papers, Map Room Files Box 168, FDR Library; Hess,
United States’ Emergence, 55; Louis, Imperialism at Bay, 29-30.
mandates, territory that would be taken from the Axis powers, and territory that might be
placed in trusteeship voluntarily. At no time “did he use his leadership to translate such
concepts and notions into concrete, workable policies, nor was he able to heal the deep
divisions within his on government over the future of the colonial empires.” 31 Dutch
politicians therefore, as they had previously done with the Atlantic Charter, counted the
Netherlands as exempt; in this harmless agreement, it would be able to “volunteer” a
colony for the scheme “at its own time and pace.”32 After all, the earlier referenced letter
that Roosevelt wrote to Wilhelmina in April 1942, in which he more than hinted at the
restoration of the Dutch in the Indies after the war, did not mention eventual self-rule or
even trusteeship.
Although Roosevelt privately informed Secretary of State Cordell Hull and
Admiral William Leahy in October 1943 that he would like to see at least part of the
Dutch East Indies under international trusteeship, the president did not vigorously pursue
this objective. It appears that he believed that his wish for a gradual liberalization of
imperial rule leading to eventual self-government were not necessarily incompatible with
the policy plans of the Dutch. 33 Instead he increasingly held up Queen Wilhelmina’s
conciliatory promise as a model for Britain and France to imitate. In late 1944 he told the
Australian ambassador in Washington that he would “support the Netherlands attempts to
hold on to the Dutch East Indies because he was convinced that the Dutch were genuine
in their promise to grant democracy and dominion status to their Southeast Asian
31
McMahon, Colonialism, 62.
Warren F. Kimball, The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman, Princeton: Princeton
University Press (1991), 151. Kimball here is talking about the British, who similarly misinterpreted the
vague plans.
33
McMahon, Colonialism, 62-63.
32
colony.” 34 In an informal meeting with the press held after his return from the Yalta
Conference in February 1945, he first criticized the British and French colonial systems
and then called the Dutch postwar plans “very interesting.” Remembering what
Wilhelmina had told him, he said: “the Javanese are good people – pretty civilized
country. […] [The Queen’s] idea for some of the Dutch possessions is to eventually give
them their independence, when [they are] ready.” Some parts of the Dutch East Indies, he
noted, would take another hundred years before they were ready.35 Whatever the exact
cause of the president’s sharp distinctions between French, British, and Dutch
colonialism (his Dutch ancestry, his close relations with the Dutch royal family, or his
view that the Dutch were sincerely committed to reform), it gave the Netherlands
government reason to assume that the Americans would help restore Dutch sovereignty in
the East Indies, and that it could last indefinitely.
These misunderstanding were exacerbated by the American inability to gather
sufficient intelligence concerning the internal conditions of the Japanese-occupied East
Indies, and by bureaucratic competition in Washington. A small handful of Indonesia
specialists worked in the Research and Analysis Branch (R&A) of the Office of Strategic
Services (OSS), producing an array of reports without being able to rely on actual
contacts in the islands. 36 The contacts that policymakers in Washington got their
information from were mostly self-professed Dutch experts on the Indonesian
archipelago: citizens of the Netherlands who had lived in the East Indies before the
occupation, and had repatriated to Britain, the United States, or Australia, where they
34
American Visions, 115; Louis, Imperialism at Bay, 29-30; McMahon, Colonialism, 65.
Complete Presidential Press Conferences of Franklin D. Roosevelt, XXV, New York: Da Capo
Press (1972), 57-73, No. 992.
36
American Visions, 116.
35
mingled with American military, intelligence, and diplomatic personnel. These eager and
patriotic Dutchmen fed “facts, insights, and frequently, fantasies about the situation of the
Netherlands East Indies” to American officials.37 In attempts to convince the American
foreign policy establishment that the people of the Indies looked forward to the return of
the Dutch, they filled their reports to the American capital with self-serving
pronouncements about the enduring affection of Indonesians toward their colonial
masters.
Policy officials in Washington by 1944 “anticipated and sought to encourage
political and economic change” in Asia. 38 Most considered the Dutch an enlightened
imperial power, however. The initiatives of the Dutch to gain early recognition of their
claim to a postwar administration in the East Indies resulted in struggles over
predominance in Southeast Asia policymaking between the State Department and the
War Department, and within the former, between the offices of European and Far Eastern
Affairs. The Office of European affairs was inclined to promise a restoration of Dutch
sovereignty, whereas the Office of Far Eastern Affairs objected to American lives being
sacrificed on behalf of European imperialism.39 The eventual compromise made in early
1945 was a military agreement without political implications, in which the liberation of
the Indies by the Americans and the restoration of the Dutch would not leave Washington
without the option to press the Dutch for Indonesian independence.40
37
38
39
40
Ibid., 117.
Hess, United States’ Emergence, 119.
Ibid., 97.
Ibid., 98.
In the last few months of his presidency, Roosevelt avoided a confrontational policy
debate on the future of the European empires. Continued great power collaboration was
one of his key postwar designs, and increasingly strained relations with the Soviets meant
he could no longer afford disputes about colonialism to threaten the settlement. 41
Reasonably satisfied with the outcome of his efforts so far, he postponed further
discussions on the details of the trusteeship plan and the specific territories to be included
until after the United Nations conference, scheduled for May 1945 in San Francisco. By
the time of his death, Roosevelt had thus left his successor an ambiguous anti-imperial
legacy and a confused policy for the dismantling of the European colonial powers, in
which the case of the Dutch East Indies featured as perhaps the most complex. It is not
surprising that when the United Nations conference took place, the Dutch showed more
boldness than Americans had expected. Newly acting Governor General of the East
Indies Van Mook, who a few years earlier had been painted by Time in such a favorable
light, “brushed aside an Indonesian suggestion that the quarrel in Java be settled by the
United Nations Organization.” The Dutch, Van Mook stated, preferred “direct
discussions” between the Netherlands and the rebellious colonials.42
An ambiguous policy from Washington combined with vague promises for
postwar reforms from the Netherlands government in London had thus led the
Indonesians to believe that rhetoric would be translated into endorsements of
independence; the Dutch to hope for a complete restoration of its administration in the
East Indies; and the Americans to assume that the former two would be able to work
things out peacefully. The ominous sounds of a lengthy and violent struggle were heard
41
42
Kimball, The Juggler, 149, 151; Louis, Imperialism, 436-440.
Time, “Indonesia: Little & Big,” December 24, 1945.
only in the background when the Republic of Indonesia proclaimed its independence on
August 17, 1945.