Den vaderland getrouwe. Uit het dagboek van een journalist

Appendix XI

Time
The Weekly Newsmagazine

August 27, 1969

Dear Mr. Oltmans:

We have reported in some detail the bloodbath in Indonesia that took place in the wake of President Sukarno's removal from power, time readers were fully informed at the time of the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people who were Communists or presumed to be Communists. But as a weekly newsmagazine with relatively limited space at our disposal, we cannot always review for readers the events of previous years unless they have some direct and important bearing on the news we are reporting in a particular week. We would be hopelessly bogged down otherwise in material which is more properly the province of the history books. In any event our June 13 cover story was primarily a look at the split in the world Communist camp today, and we thought it would be useful to show how the Commu-

[p. 631]

nist parties in some 88 countries line up in the ideological dispute between the u.s.s.r. and Red China. At this point, obviously, the Indonesian Communist Party with its reduced membership of 5,000, is hardly a factor of any importance.

Thank you very much for your letter. We appreciated your interest.

Sincerely,

Isabel Kouri

Mr. Willem L. Oltmans

de Genestetlaan 10

Bilthoven, The Netherlands

IK:msr