SUKARNO

born June 6, 1901, Surabaja, Java, Dutch East Indies died June 21, 1970, Jakarta, Indonesia Sukarno, 1965 also spelled Soekarno leader of the Indonesian independence movement and Indonesia's first president (194966), who suppressed the country's original parliamentary system in favour of an authoritarian Guided Democracy and who attempted to balance the Communists against the army leaders. He was deposed in 1966 by the army under Suharto. Additional reading Bernhard Dahm, Sukarno and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence, rev. and updated ed. (1969; originally published in German, 1966), deals with Sukarno's politics to 1950. Other useful works include John Hughes, Indonesian Upheaval (1967); and J.D. Legge, Sukarno: A Political Biography, rev. ed. (1985).