Anti-Westerners

After 58 leaderless days, Indonesia had a new coalition government, its 14th in the brief eight years of its existence. The new Prime Minister was goateed Dr. Ali Sastroamidjojo, 50, who was recalled as Indonesian Ambassador to the U.S. to take the job. Sastroamidjojo had been running up & down the U.S., urging American businessmen to invest in his country.

A look at his Cabinet would hardly reassure most U.S. businessmen.

Catholics, Democrats and Christians were out. So were the Socialists and the Masjumi (Moslem) Party, the nation's largest; both have been moderately sympathetic to the West. Solidly in were left-wing Nationalists and a few obscure parties of the left-wing bloc. Bull-necked Marxist Iwa Kusumasumantri, jailed in 1946 for his part in the Communist Tan Malaka rebellion, was named Minister of Defense. The new Justice Minister has attended Communist peace rallies; the new Foreign Secretary signed the Stockholm peace appeal. Pro-Communists held the Ministries of Finance and Education.

Sastroamidjojo was a little worried that the U.S. would get the wrong impression of his colleagues. "People who see a Red tinge simply aren't right," he pleaded. "As long as the Communists do not oppose us, we will get along all right." Retorted the out-of-office Socialist leader: "Perhaps they have reason to hope Communists do not oppose them."

Though anti-Western forces have destroyed one Indonesia coalition after another, this is the first time they have held power for themselves. Warned one U.S. observer: "The Nationalists are under a naive impression that they are using the Communists. They will soon discover it is the other way round."

In the green and troubled land 50,000 Indonesian and Chinese Communists paraded one day last week crying: "Long live the Indonesian Communist Party!" Two days later 15,000 Moslems gathered to hear their leaders cry for a united front against "irreligious ideologies."

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