JAKARTA, mid-1945, three months before the atom bomb fell on Hiroshima. About 80 people gathered at a 10-day long meeting.

There were no laborers or farmers among them, no people from pesantren or traditional-law communities, and virtually no women. Yet those 80 people were not so distant from the masses. For more than a decade, they had been active as members of the nationalist movement meeting with people from various walks of life, or t