Secret Operation at Phoenix Park

IN the fall of 1965, the British Foreign Ministry summoned George Frank Norman Reddaway to brief him on a special mission. The 47-year-old diplomat's star was on the rise. The ministry gave him a special task: to take over its operations in Indonesia that the ministry and the British intelligence agency MI6 had been running from Phoenix Road, Singapore. Reddaway was a propaganda expert.

Prior to Reddaway's briefing, Andrew Gilchrist, then British ambassador to Indonesia, had arrived in London. He was the one who persuaded British Foreign Minister Joe Garner to send Reddaway to Indonesia. Gilchrist said the secret operation to oppose Sukarno was not going well and he needed help.

October 6, 2015