With Suharto’s accession to power, Indonesia shifted almost overnight from being a strong voice for neutrality and anti-imperialism, actively courting the attention of the Soviet Union and Communist China, to becoming a more compliant partner with the US, which now saw Indonesia as a major stabilizing force in a volatile region. As a result, there was no appetite among the US and its allies – including my own country, and the Australian government of which I was a member – to look closely, then or since, at how Suharto’s New Order consolidated its power.