encouraged the rebels and armed them with cash, weapons, logistics, and mercenaries, in the hopes of toppling what they believed to be the dangerously pro-communist Sukarno regime.
A fairly typical Cold War gambit for that era, this covert effort at subverting a country with which we were in theory enjoying friendly relations was so clumsy and inept that the Indonesian government easily uncovered it. Had it not been for the help provided by Major Benson and the near infinite patience and tact of our ambassador to Indonesia Howard P. Jones (who was also at least partly out of the Dulles loop), it is probable that Sukarno would have publicly exposed the plot and used it as a pretext to sever relations with the West and move his country firmly into the Eastern bloc.1
The lesson I drew from that incident was that there are times—fortunately rare—when diplomats on the ground have both the obligation and capability to save our country from the consequences of mistakes made by our bosses at home.
Though I never paid a call that turned out to be half as momentous as Barbara Benson’s, I found there were occasional glamorous moments in diplomacy, such as the annual Queen’s Birthday Ball held (where else?) at the British Cricket Club, better known as “the Box.” While our furniture was in storage in America, I had had shipped out with our most essential belongings my only ball gown. This was a white lace confection made by Worth of Paris—straight out of an Edith Wharton novel. John had insisted we buy it at Bonwit’s in Boston in a wildly extravagant moment, for me to wear to the Harvard senior prom. I had no idea, then, how much use I would get out of such a ball gown over the years.
At the ball a Viennese waltz was played, of course. David Goodall, John’s counterpart at the British embassy, stood to help me from my chair onto the dance floor, and said, “I feel I must warn you, I don’t reverse!” A happy but very dizzy young woman in white lace was returned to her seat afterward, to drink champagne and to feel that the diplomatic life was, every once in a while, precisely what one imagined it should be. David, almost intimidatingly well educated, remained one of our closest friends ever after. He became a consummate British diplomat, and over the years that brought him ever better jobs and higher honors, we stayed in touch. During those years, David taught John and me a lot about what good diplomats do and, also, how differently our closest allies can sometimes approach the same issues our government faces.
I learned another, more painful lesson about dealing with British diplomats during that first year in Jakarta. Through David Goodall, John and I met an absolutely charming and original poet and British council member named Henry, who came from a very modest family background and whose excellent education had been entirely the product of his good brain and hard work. Also through David, we were later introduced to a new, very upper-class British couple at his embassy, whom I shall call Hermione and Alec. Just for fun, we invited Hermione and Alec to our house for dinner, the only other guest being Henry. While we watched helplessly, the couple put Henry through a thorough examination of his background: where had he gone to school? Oxford, ah yes, but they meant school, and Henry was obliged to name the state-financed grammar school he had attended, not a famous so-called public school like Eton or Harrow. And who were his friends? Alec and Hermione didn’t know them. And where did his parents live? And on and on, while John and I cringed with embarrassment at having exposed poor Henry to this onslaught—to which I must confess Henry seemed more inured than John or I were.
The worst came when Henry got to ask them where their parents lived. At the mention of a village somewhere near Bath, Henry said with a twinkle in his eye, “Ah yes, I rather think my father passed through there during the Jarrow Hunger March of ’36.”
I still shudder when I think of that evening. The lesson I drew was never to invite British people to the same small occasion unless I was sure they were from the same class. It would take me longer to learn (from my Congolese giant friend) that I needed to compose every dinner party carefully to make sure all our guests would be comfortable with one another.
I was almost finished with my protocol calls when Hester Henderson, her heart in the right place, over dinner with her husband and John and me, tried to involve me in a Women’s International Club sewing circle. The ladies’ project, she explained, was to make stuffed animals out of cotton felt, as toys for Indonesian children. My own view (which even I knew enough to keep to myself) was that the children would probably prefer a new white blouse or shirt for school. In any case, the prospect of my spending hours each week, sitting around with the club’s ladies sewing, filled me with dread. John, seeing my face, said bravely: “You know, Hester, some people don’t drink and some don’t smoke—and my wife doesn’t sew.” I would have married him again for that alone.
Undaunted, Hester next inveigled me into becoming the treasurer of the Women’s International Club, but I couldn’t get into the club’s postal bank account without bribing the clerk—which John wisely discouraged me from attempting, so I had to resign. Eventually Hester found for me a class of Indonesian women who spoke English and were looking for a native English speaker to help them learn how to give public speeches, since they were seeking to participate in international conferences. Teaching that weekly class of a dozen enterprising women soon became my favorite activity.
Looking back on my introduction to being a diplomat’s wife, I am struck by the almost infinite effort made by the wife of my husband’s boss to help me fit in and find satisfying ways to occupy my time. In those days in our Foreign Service, the boss’s wife was often regarded as a dragon needing to be placated for fear she might breathe fire and destroy one’s husband’s career. Hester probably was a dragon in the sense that she wanted me to learn to do things “the right way,” but I thank her for taking the trouble to teach me what I needed to know.
Note
1. For more about this failed attempt at regime change, read Subversion as Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia, by Indonesia scholars Audrey Kahin and George McT. Kahin, published by New Press in 1995 and based on declassified official US government sources.
Chapter 3
Party Magic
DURING THOSE EARLY DIPLOMATIC days in Jakarta, there was one job I was assigned by my dragon lady boss’s wife that I bet few other wives were ever asked to do. And yet, in that time and context, somebody had to do it.
As the lowest-ranking officer in the political section, John’s duties included being the embassy’s protocol officer. The protocol job came to an annual crescendo of activity in preparation for the Fourth of July reception at the ambassador’s residence, the biggest diplomatic reception of the year. John and a cast of thousands—or so it seemed—prepared guest lists, kept track of how many people would attend, and figured out the logistics for such a big event. I was not involved until about a week before the party, when Hester told me that I was responsible for making sure that it did not rain during the reception. How I did it was up to me.
I had reason to take the assignment seriously. By then I knew that Billy Palmer, our Shangri-La weekend host, had been obliged to host a full-blown selamatan (a big feast with lots of food, gamelan music, costumed dance and puppet shows, and featuring the efforts of a local sorcerer to placate mischievous spirits) after the third attempt to pour cement for his swimming pool in the hills had failed. As his domestic staff boasted afterward, the fourth pouring went without a hitch.
I went to Chi-chi, our astute one-eyed cook, to get advice on how to prevent rain at the residence on July Fourth. She first suggested a selamatan, but I said that even if we could ignore the ambassador and his wife’s strong Christian Science beliefs, I could never get the money for such an enterprise. Nor did we have time to arrange it; the Fourth was just days away.
In that case, her second-best suggestion was for me to do precisely
