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Sukarno will certainly be looking for support on his claims to West Irian. "We will gladly accept the good offices of the United States in solving the question, as long as such mediation leads to the complete transfer of West Irian to Indonesia," explained Foreign Minister Subandrio. The Kennedy Administration has already encouraged the Indonesians (and alarmed the Dutch) by refusing to send a U.S. representative to ceremonies last month celebrating the installation of The Netherlands New Guinea's first elected council (23 of its 28 members are natives), in an effort to show itself neutral in the controversy.
Predictably, Sukarno will ask for more aid—he always does—since foreign money is the only thing that keeps his staggering economy going. The U.S. has already, in the eleven years of Indonesia's existence, given it $660 million in economic assistance, and Sukarno may have better luck with Kennedy than he did with President Eisenhower, who frankly did not like him. Apparently, the Kennedy Administration figures that unless Sukarno can be steadied down, the world's sixth most populous nation may break into warring fragments, or fall into the waiting arms of the Communists.