After a CIA organized coup brought him to power in 1965, Suharto, who had already collaborated with Dutch colonialists and Japanese occupiers, decided to purge every last "Communist subversive from Indonesian soil". General Nasution, a former close associate of Suharto, called for the extermination of three million Indonesian communist party members.

CIA point man Colonel Sarwo Eddie personally supervised the murderous purge. Paratroopers would arrive in a region with a list of "subversives" and provide it to local vigilante groups. Using machetes and other crude weapons, the vigilantes would hack the alleged subversives to death. Entire populations of towns and villages were herded to central locations and massacred. Children would be asked to identify "communists" who would then be executed on the spot. In addition to the half million people who were killed outright after the coup, another 750,000 were arrested and tortured. Ultimately, one million people died in one of the most savage mass slaughters of modem political history.

Ironically, the New York Times reported in December 1965, two months after the purge began, that "from an American viewpoint" Suharto's new government in Indonesia "represents a positive achievement." Apparently so, for the U.S. continues to this day to train and arm the Indonesian military with the latest high-tech equipment.