During the Cold War, both the CIA and KGB attempted to discredit Indonesian President Sukarno, a charismatic, non-aligned leader known for his womanizing reputation, using sexual kompromat. These bizarre espionage blunders highlight the era’s absurd tactics and Sukarno’s unflappable personality.
The KGB struck first. During Sukarno’s visits to Moscow in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Soviet agents arranged a classic honey trap. Glamorous women, posing as flight attendants or hotel staff, seduced him, and the encounters were secretly filmed, sometimes involving multiple partners. When KGB operatives later confronted Sukarno with the footage, expecting shame and compliance, his reaction stunned them. Far from embarrassed, he reportedly expressed delight, even requesting extra copies to showcase his virility back home. The blackmail attempt collapsed spectacularly, reinforcing Sukarno’s image as an unapologetic “great lover” rather than damaging it.
Not to be outdone, the CIA, viewing Sukarno’s neutralism and Soviet ties as threats, launched its own operation in the mid-1950s. Unable to find suitable existing pornographic material featuring a Sukarno look-alike (despite scouring Los Angeles blue films), the agency produced a fake film titled “Happy Days.” It featured an actor wearing a full-face mask resembling Sukarno (or possibly a bald Chicano stand-in) in explicit scenes with a blonde woman meant to evoke a Soviet stewardess affair. The goal: distribute the film or stills in conservative, Muslim-majority Indonesia to portray Sukarno as immoral and Soviet-controlled, eroding his public support.
The plan flopped. The fabricated footage was either never widely released or had zero impact, some accounts suggest Sukarno would have happily promoted it himself if it reached him. Declassified CIA documents and memoirs (including references in Senate reports and books like William Blum’s Killing Hope) confirm the agency’s “sex blunder,” turning it into a legendary intelligence embarrassment.
No genuine sex tape of Sukarno has ever surfaced publicly; the stories endure as cautionary tales of cultural miscalculation in spy craft. Sukarno’s bold embrace of his personal life turned superpower dirty tricks into unwitting endorsements of his charisma. In the end, the attempts only amplified the legend of Indonesia’s founding father.
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