A week before General Suharto was sworn in as president on March 12, 1967, Aloysius Sugiyatno was given a special task by Ali Murtopo. Sugiyanto, then an intelligence major, was assigned to fetch painter Basoeki Abdullah, who lived in Bangkok, Thailand. "We elected Basoeki Abdullah to paint Pak Harto," said Sugiyanto.

Sugiyanto, now 85, was a former member of a special intelligence agency Murtopo formed in the mid-1960s. Sugianto said the plan to