Double Play

September weather in Moscow is mild, but for Indonesia's President Sukarno there was evidently a chill in the air. "I come from ... a warm climate where it is not so cold as it is here," he told Soviet bigwigs, "but . . . your smiles have warmed me." The little President of the big and uncommitted republic of Southeast Asia flashed a friendly grin as he skipped through the Distinguished Visitors Routine (TIME, Sept. 17), but the grin was full of ambiguity. At a mass meeting in Moscow, sandwiched between effusive compliments, was a message that must have sounded strange to propaganda-conditioned Russian ears. "Part of mankind doesn't know what the Soviet Union is," said Sukarno. "There are even some who say that the Soviet Union likes war, that the people of the Soviet Union are bent on aggression, that they want to threaten someone . . . I have been to other countries [e.g., the U.S. last May], and I can say that they love peace . . ."

Experts in this kind of doubletalk themselves, the Soviet leaders wrapped up Sukarno's visit in a joint communique piously proclaiming the "solidarity of the two governments," later let it be known that a $100 million loan to Indonesia (repayable in twelve years at 2 1/2%) had been signed. Indonesia has already had a $100 million loan from the U.S. and last March received what amounted to a gift of U.S. surplus farm commodities worth $96 million. While some Indonesian officials were saying that, by comparison with the U.S. loans, the Soviet loan was "without strings," actually the goods and services (hydroelectric and mining projects) which the Russians are offering Indonesia will place Soviet "technicians" in strategic points in the sprawling republic, which already has a well-organized Communist Party (estimated membership: 200,000). The Indonesians, however, were said to be planning to divert Russian aid to the islands of Sumatra and the Celebes.

While the Russians tried to assess the effect of their wooing, Indonesia's President moved amiably on to Belgrade, where persuasive Marshal Tito was on hand to match smiles and, it might be assumed, pass on his own experience at playing the East against the West.

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