From the S&S archives:
U.S. warns Sukarno on oil

TOKYO — Quietly but firmly, the United States Wednesday began exerting pressure on Indonesia's President Sukarno.

A special emissary from President Kennedy met twice with the vacationing Sukarno on Indonesia's plan to nationalize the multimillion dollar investments of U.S. oil firms in the Southeast Asia island nation.

In the background was growing U.S. impatience with Sukarno's seeming inability to solve Indonesia's political and economic ills, despite about $100 million in U.S. aid annually, and his threats of international adventure that keep Southeast Asia in a turmoil.

Sukarno has threatened war if Malaya forms the Malaysian federation with his close neighbors — Singapore, Brunei, Sarawak and North Borneo. The U.S. State Department is on record as favoring the federation, saying. it would enhance political stability of all Southeast Asia.

An informed source said American negotiators have given Sukarno a stiff proposition on the oil issue, pointing out there is considerable pressure in the U.S. for withdrawal of foreign aid from nations that indiscriminately nationalize American investments.

Heading the U.S. negotiating team is Kennedy's special envoy, Lt. Gov. Wilson Wyatt of Kentucky. Wyatt was accompanied Wednesday by Howard Jones, U.S. ambassador to Indonesia. and Walter Levy of New York, described here as an independent oil consultant who specializes in assisting the State Department on nationalization cases.

Wyatt and Levy arrived unannounced in Tokyo, which is Sukarno's favorite pleasure spot abroad. Jones ostensibly came for a vacation and a briefing of U.S. Peace Corps personnel to be assigned to Indonesia.

Wyatt would say only that American oil firms were discussed in his first meeting with Sukarno and that the talks were cordial and useful.

Indonesian officials were not available for comment.

Sukarno apparently did net learn until earlier this week that the oil issue would be raised during his vacation. An informed source said the U.S. ambassador to Japan, Edwin O. Reischauer, visited Sukarno in his plush Imperial Hotel Suite to inform him that a presidential emissary would be calling on him.

U.S. officials insist that they are staying out of Sukarno's confrontation with Premier Tunku Abdul Rahman, father of the Malaysia concept. Sukarno and Rahman are scheduled to confer Friday.

However, the U.S. ambassador to Malaya, Charles F. Baldwin, also is in Tokyo. U.S. officials call this a coincidence, saying Baldwin is vacationing.

Sukarno has one other iron in the fire in Tokyo. He is reported negotiating for entry of Indonesia in the 1964 Olympia Games in Tokyo. Indonesia was barred after it excluded Nationalist China and Israel from the Asian Games in Jakarta last year.