• Newly declassified U.S. State Department files show that American officials looked on silently during Indonesia’s anti-Communist blood bath in the mid-60s — and at times even applauded the forces behind the killings of at least half a million people.

Cold War attitudes may have motivated U.S. diplomats to simply watch as mass extrajudicial executions spread beyond suspected Communists to target ethnic Chinese, students and union members. Above, President Kennedy with President Sukarno in 1961.

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