The Coup Attempt of the “September 30 Movement” in Indonesia

Back in 1965, only two months after the coup-attempt of the "September 30 Movement", one of the authors of this volume in his capacity as Chief Historian of the Staff of the Armed Forces. had prepared an historical account of the coup-attempt, published under the name of 40 Hari Kegagalan "G-30-S" (40 Days of Failure of the "September 30 Movement"). Having written so shortly after the event itself, the author and his editorial team had no recourse to the abundance of material which now exist after the conduct of numerous Special Military Tribunals to try the persons involved in the affair. Again, they were not at liberty to mention the sources they used in footnotes, because many of them were classified material at the time, although parts of it were released for information purposes.

When the need began to be felt to publish a foreign language account of the coup-attempt, the above-mentioned author prepared a revised edition of his volume to be translated into several foreign languages. Meanwhile, in his capacity as instructor and consultant of the Army Staff and Command School, he was given the task by Major General Suwarto, the Commandant of the School, to prepare a volume in English about the affair. Because of the legal nature of most of the evidence to be used for the volume. General Suwarto appointed Lieutenant Colonel Ismail Saleh as co-author of the book to be written.