Webb MacKinley, the editor of the world news desk to which I was assigned, asked me to act on Swinton’s call. Swinton, the consummate correspondent, covered Indonesia in 1946-1947 in its years of struggle after proclaiming independence. He had gotten to know revolutionaries who had dealt with the foreign press, like Soedjatmoko and Soedarpo Sastrosatomo. He even had a wayang (shadow puppet) adorning his office wall, a gift from newspaper magnate BM Diah.

As I was the only ASEAN reporter at AP’s Rockefeller Center main office in New York, it was easy for MacKinley to pick me out. The man to interview was Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, Indonesia’s foreign minister at the time.

I was at America’s lead news agency for a four-month attachment program. I was a reporter of the KNI News Service, a domestic news agency that distributed AP news in Indonesia.  A Ford Foundation grant allowed me a US$700 monthly stipend.   

By coincidence, on the Sunday before Swinton’s ASEAN reception, I had met with Mochtar at the four-story neoclassic Indonesian consulate general at 5 East 68^th Street where he had a house-warming with the Indonesian community.

After the get-together, I asked for an interview. The minister replied he would give time for a joint interview with all Indonesian journalists in New York. After I got my assignment to interview Mochtar, I telephoned Sabam Siagian to join me. He was in Boston as a journalism fellow at Harvard’s reputable Nieman program. Siagian, then a senior editor of the Sinar Harapan afternoon daily, and later to become the first chief editor of The Jakarta Post in 1983, declined. But he encouraged me to go alone.

From the political counselor at Indonesia’s permanent mission at the UN, I learned that Mochtar was staying at the high-end Waldorf Towers in mid-Manhattan until Friday, Oct. 6.

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