George Renz asked if Moynihan had ever responded to criticisms of his
role in East Timor.  I haven't seen any, but this LA Times story may be
the reason why.

The Los Angeles Times   Thursday, September 30, 1999

AMERICA'S SORDID PAST IN EAST TIMOR

A recounting of the sorry story of the U.S. role in the region is now
in order.

        By Alexander Cockburn

        As the U.N. peacekeepers take control of East Timor, the
unfortunate inhabitants gratefully salute relief from the savage
attacks of the Indonesian militias.
     Thankful though we should be at any stay to their suffering, we
should not for one moment forget the utterly shameful role of
successive governments of the United States in this bloody tale.
     It was obvious months ago to those familiar with East Timor
that Indonesia was contriving mayhem around the long-awaited
referendum on independence. If Indonesia's leaders and military had
been warned months ago to behave themselves or expect serious
sanctions, many lives might have been saved.
     Yet no such admonitions were made. And so the militias were
unleashed by the Indonesian military, itself furious at the
prospective nullification of its invasion, which began Dec. 7, 1975,
a few days after President Ford and Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger visited Jakarta.
     The obvious inference that the itinerant American
plenipotentiaries gave the go-ahead for Indonesia's onslaught was
buttressed by publication of secret cables from the secretary of
State instructing the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta not to involve itself
and "to cut down its reporting on Timor." Ninety percent of
Indonesia's military equipment derived at that time from the U.S.
     We may assume that the U.S. Embassy obeyed Kissinger's
commands. Possibly owing to kindred secret briefings, or more
likely out of basic instinct, the U.S. press followed suit.
     As Noam Chomsky puts it in one of his excellent essays on East
Timor: "In the New York Times . . . coverage of Timorese issues
had been substantial in 1975 but declined as Indonesia invaded and
reduced to zero as atrocities reached their peak with the new
equipment provided by the Human Rights Administration [i.e.
Jimmy Carter] in 1978. The occasional reports carefully avoided the
many Timorese refugees in Portugal and Australia, choosing to rely
instead on Indonesian generals, who assured the reader, via the free
press, that the Timorese who had been 'forced' into the mountains
by Fretilin [i.e. the Timorese independence movement] were fleeing
from its 'control' to Indonesian protection."
     One man particularly involved in this terrible affair was the
darling of New York's liberals, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then U.S.
ambassador to the United Nations. Moynihan's job was to snuff out
any organized protest in the U.N. against the invasion. In a secret
cable to Kissinger on Jan. 23, 1976, Moynihan cited "considerable
progress" in his tactics and crowed that the "United States wished
things to turn out as they did and worked to bring this about. The
Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly
ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given
to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success."
     Moynihan certainly knew what was happening on the ground,
pointing out that the level of East Timorese deaths--estimated at
200,000--at the hands of the invaders amounted to "10% of the
population, almost the proportion of casualties experienced by the
Soviet Union during the Second World War." As Chomsky notes,
"Moynihan is taking credit for an achievement that he proudly
compares to Hitler's in Eastern Europe."
     Moynihan had no shame, of course. Three years later he was the
main speaker at a conference of the Committee for U.N. Integrity,
where he deplored the fact that the organization was "no longer the
guardian of social justice, human rights and equality among the
nations" because it is "perverted by irrelevant political
machinations."
     At about the same moment as Moynihan first came to
prominence in the 1960s, his ultimate boss, Lyndon Baines
Johnson, was giving expression to the realities of international
power in terms both pithy and shorn of the pretensions. The leftish
regime of Georgios Papandreou in Greece was protesting the U.S.
decision to establish NATO bases on Cyprus. The Greek
ambassador in Washington invoked the Greek parliament as
unlikely to accept the U.S. plan. Johnson exploded at the uppity
diplomat:
     "F--- your parliament and your constitution. America is an
elephant, Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If these two fellows
continue itching the elephant, they may get whacked by the
elephant's trunk, whacked good. . . . If your prime minister gives
me talk about democracy, parliament and constitution, he, his
parliament and his constitution may not last very long." As the
ambassador left the room, Johnson shouted after him: "Don't forget
to tell old Papawhatshisname what I told you . . . you hear?" It was
not long before the Greek generals took over.
     It was during this same Johnson era that the CIA abetted the
coup that brought the Indonesian army to power, killing at least
800,000 leftists and setting the stage for the invasion of East Timor
a decade later.

                                        - - -

Alexander Cockburn Writes for the Nation and Other Publications