Gilchrist Document

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The Gilchrist Document is a much cited letter from 1965 often used to support arguments for Western involvement in the overthrow of Sukarno in Indonesia. The document purports to be a letter from the British ambassador to Jakarta, Andrew Gilchrist, addressed to the British Foreign Office. It refers to a joint US–UK plan for military intervention in Indonesia. The letter was first made public by the Indonesian Foreign Minister Subandrio on a trip to Cairo. The US embassy in Cairo was soon able to get a photographic copy of the letter. The embassy concluded that it was a fake, and the "Gilchrist letter" was subsequently referred to as a forgery in the US administration. An internal discussion in the US administration on who was behind the forgery followed, and the US settled on a Subandrio-controlled intelligence agency. The Czechoslovak Intelligence agent Ladislav Bittman, who defected in 1968, claimed that his agency forged the letter. Bittman also claimed responsibility for the campaign against US citizen and movie distributor Bill Palmer. The papers of the British ambassador Sir Andrew Gilchrist are held in the Churchill Archive at Churchill College, Cambridge University. Some of them are still classified. Speculation about a possible British role in the overthrow of Sukarno continues. However, the British defence secretary in 1965, Denis Healey, stated in 2000 that Britain was not involved, though Healey would have supported involvement had it been possible.