"Feet to the Fire" is a well documented, unbiased account of CIA shenanigans in Indonesia during a brief period in the 1950's. (At least it seems to me to be well documented and unbiased but I have no first-hand knowledge of any of the events described.) To me, the story is fantastic and so is the cast: scheming Indonesian politicians, indecisive Indonesian colonels, CIA employees cast from the Felix Leiter mold, CIA contractors playing cowboys and Indians with very dangerous toys, a prevaricating ambassador, and gray-haired old men in Washington pulling the strings.
Of special interest to me were the detailed, almost day-by-day descriptions of events put together by the authors from as many sources as they could access. They begin to give a picture of a "day in the life" of at least some people involved in covert action, with secret supply missions by the Navy, flights to clandestine air strips, a sub popping up off the coast of Sumatra to rescue five CIA men, and a C-46 flying another bunch to safety at Clark AFB. As an American who has lived overseas for many years and met such people, I have long been curious about just what they do. (You can't ask them.)
No individual is portrayed in great depth and it is just as well since most are rather unappealing, coming off as either connivers or flakes, or both. One character that did catch my attention was Fravel "Jim" Brown, a CIA careerist who was present when rebels he was supporting were captured by government paratroopers taking an airfield. He walked up to the paratroopers' commander, introduced himself as "Brown from Caltex," made some small talk, then slipped away. A few days and hundreds of kilometers away Brown was in a rebel-held port as it too was captured, by the same paratroopers. Once again he slipped away. Is there a name for that personality trait, extremely valuable for people in certain professions, that combines chutzpah with blarney?
As an American living in Indonesia, I found the book interesting and very readable. However, I suspect that readers with no knowledge of Indonesian political history or geography will find the narrative a bit tedious unless they are fervent espionage afficionados.
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