Indonesia Documentation Project

Videos

Bradley Simpson testifying before the International People's Tribunal 1965
The Hague, November 13, 2015

Featured Posting

Washington, D.C., March 19, 2026 - On August 10, 1973, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger placed a call to Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird to complain about U.S.…

Mar 19, 2026

Previous Postings

Henry Kissinger: The Declassified Obituary

Nov 29, 2023

U.S. sought to preserve close ties to Indonesian military as it terrorized East Timor in runup to 1999 independence referendum

Aug 28, 2019

US Promoted Close Ties to Indonesian Military as Suharto’s Rule Came to an End in Spring 1998

Jul 24, 2018

U.S. Embassy Tracked Indonesia Mass Murder 1965

Oct 17, 2017

Suharto: A Declassified Documentary Obit

Jan 28, 2008

East Timor truth commission finds U.S. "political and military support were fundamental to the Indonesian invasion and occupation"

Jan 24, 2006

A Quarter Century of U.S. Support for Occupation

Nov 28, 2005

East Timor Truth Commission report uses declassified U.S. documents to reveal support for Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor from 1975 until U.N. sponsored vote in 1999

Nov 28, 2005

Indonesia's 1969 Takeover of West Papua Not by "Free Choice"

Jul 9, 2004

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About this Project

Since 2002, the National Security Archive's Indonesia / East Timor documentation project has sought to identify and obtain the release of thousands of secret US documents concerning US policy toward Indonesia and East Timor from 1965 to the present. The work aims to assist East Timorese and Indonesian official and nongovernmental efforts to document and seek accountability for more than three decades of human rights abuses committed during the rule of Indonesian President Suharto (1965-1998), and to contribute to current campaigns in Indonesia for more open government.

Books

Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968
By Bradley R. Simpson

"Simpson's book constitutes an important addition to our knowledge of the global Cold War. It is based on meticulous archival research, frames its detailed finding within a larger argument and is written in a direct and accessible prose style. This text will be of interest to scholars and students of U.S. foreign policy, the international Cold War, and the modern history of Southeast Asia and Indonesia."
– Edward Aspinall, American Historical Review

In the Media

Jimmy Carter Championed Human Rights But Also Funded & Armed Indonesia’s Genocide in East Timor

Democracy Now!

Jan 10, 2025

'Infuriated' Alexander Downer tried to get US officials to mask Australian inaction on East Timor

The Guardian

Aug 29, 2019

US stood by as Indonesia deployed militia in Timor Leste conflict: Declassified documents

The Jakarta Post

Aug 29, 2019

The US, the Silent Witness to Atrocities in East Timor’s Independence Push

The Latin American Herald Tribune

Aug 29, 2019

US had known for months that Indonesian military armed militias before independence referendum

Expresso

Aug 29, 2019

Truth Commission

The Indonesia Project cooperated closely with the U.N.-sponsored Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation (CAVR) in East Timor, which released its final report in early 2006. The project provided nearly 5,000 pages of fully digitized documents, together with an Excel database indexing the materials. CAVR staff cited the Archive documents explicitly as the basis for much of the final report’s historical narrative.

Project Staff

Dr. Bradley R. Simpson
Associate Professor of History
University of Connecticut