UNCLASSIFIED CONFIDENTIAL CONFIDENTIAl RELEASED IN FtlLBt THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON MEMORANDUM OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION SUBJECT Telecon with Soeharto President of Indonesia C PARTICIPANTS Soeharto ' President of Indonesia Interpreter Dan Fietkiewicz Notetakers James Smith Jeffrey Rathke Lyle Harrison Robert Ford' James Gagnon DATE TIME AND PLACE The President January 15 1998 11 27 - 11 36 a m EST Oval Office Hello Mr Presid nt U President Soeharto Good morning Mr President this opportunity to talk to you on the telephone Thank you for U The President I am glad to hear your voice Thank you again for taking time to meet-with-Treasury Deputy Secretary Summers U President Soeharto Thank you very much indeed The last two days'of discussions with Deputy Managing Director Stanley Fischer of the IMF have been very good indeed These discussions were followed by a meeting with the Managing Director of the IMF Michel Camdessus This morning I signed a letter of intent and presented the letter to the Manaqing Director And soon after that Mr Camdessusheld a press conference at which ne mentioned his very good impression with the agreements that have been reached C As a follow-on to implementation of the agreement I have established a Council of National Economic and Financial Resilience over which I will preside I will be assisted by Dr Widjojo Nitisastro who will be the Secretary General The members of the Council will come from ' the economic ministries and have two representatives from the private ' sector They will immediately beqin to carry out the task of implementing plans CONFIDENTIAL UNCLASSIFIED Classified by Glyn T Davies Reason 1 5 b d Declassify On 1 19 08 CONFIDENTIAL UNITED STATES DEPART lVIENT OF STATE REVIEW AUTHORITY CHARLES E LAHlGUERA DATE CASE ID 30 APR 2008 2005029 6D _______ ____ r CONFIDENTIAL and programs in accordance with the letter of intent that I presented to Mr eamdessus this morning e With the view of maintaining better contact between Indonesia and the IMF I have requested the Managing 'Director to assign a senior IMF official to Jakarta to assist me in implementing the program Mr Camdessus has appointed temporarily the Director for Asia Pacific Affairs of the IMF He will be succe'e ded lc tter by a more senior IMF official Every three months we will conduct a review of the development of the program'and plan what is to be done e I would like to take this occ sion to express my gratitude for your assistance Your Excel lency and I believe it appropriate to ask you to make a statement to the world that Indonesia and the IMF have ' reached an agreement I also met with the Deputy Secretary Mr Summers and received your messages Your Excellency At almost the same time I received the Secretary of Defense of the United states These two high-ranking qfficials of the United States were both able to see close up the real situation in Jakarta el The President Well thank you very much Mr President First of all I think the agreement is good but I am most encouraged by the explanation of how it will be implemented That is the next big step Investors will be looking at this You obviously have a very good plan for doing that I will release a statement saying you called me and that I welcomed these steps and I am encouraged by them We intend to continue our involvement and to work with you in this difficult time I hope the statement will have a positive effect C President Soeharto Thank you very much Your Excellency The most important thing is implementation of this program the world is anxiously waiting to see what will happen The most immediate action will be the revision of the state budget I presented to the parliament s veral days ago Secondly we are committed to the reform of the banking system not only the central bank and state banks but also private banks C The President Thank you This is very good news keep working with you Goodbye U End of Conversation CONFIDENTIAL -------- _ - _ _ We will I This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu