Stringing for Time Magazine PART 2
Tom Graciano / Indonesia Media
T he economists had been appointed by General Suharto as his Asisten Pribadi (ASPRI) or private assistants. All of them were lecturers in the University of Indonesia (UI), the oldest and most prestigious, government-owned institution of higher education. Most of them were graduates of the University of California in Berkeley, which was why they were cynically dubbed “the Berkeley Mafia.” These scholars later on were all appointed ministers in General Suharto’s cabinet after he was elected president in 1968. Prof. Dr. Widjojo Nitistastro became Senior Minister for Economy and Finance. Prof. Dr. Emil Salim was Minister of Communications. Prof. Dr. Ali Wardhana became Minister of Finance. Prof. Dr. Subroto was Minister of Mines, later on replaced by Prof. Dr. Moh. Sadli. Prof. Dr. Selo Sumardjan was the only one not appointed minister because he was the private assistant of Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX , who became vice president in one of Suharto’s six five-year terms as president.
 Amir and I were assigned to collect the photos and biographical data of those economists which I had to translate into English. We were the liaison between Time Inc. and the scholars, relaying information back and forth between the two sides on any revision of the agenda or the topics of the meeting. As we were just stringers, we were not invited to the conference. But we heard it was a smashing success. This was evident in the speed in which a new Law on Foreign Investment was drafted by the government of Acting President Suharto and approved by the House of Representatives. The badly-needed foreign investment started flowing into the country after that which drove the economy into high gear.
Coming on the heels of the Geneva conference, Time Inc. organized a look-see trip to Jakarta for 80 to 100 top executives of major North American and European corporations. Many of them had attended the Geneva meeting. Top executives of Time Inc. and senior Time magazine editors and correspondents joined the group. They were received by Acting President Suharto in the Merdeka Palace.
Life magazine was a sister publication of Time magazine at the time, both published by Time Inc. Life had a project for a major story about the Java rhino, the single-horn species that was believed to be on the way to its extinction. Only a few of them remained at large in West Java’s Ujung Kulon natural forest conservation. The magazine assigned its veteran photographer, Eliot Elisofon, to do the picture story.
Eliot stayed in the forest for three or four months in mid-1967 doing a stake-out on the elusive rhinos. He lived in a hut built high above the ground, eating canned foods all the time. I don’t remember what he did for drinking water because bottled water as we know it today didn’t exist at the time. He almost caught a rhino on his camera two or three times, but in the end he didn’t make it. Though a non-story as far as the Java rhino was concerned, Life ran several pages of beautiful photos of his escapade in the jungle. And he wrote a fascinating book titled The Java Diary chronicling his day-to-day life isolated in the forest.
 Time-Life Books, a subsidiary of Time Inc., planned to publish a book titled Hawaiian and Southeast Asian Cooking as part of its Foods of the World series. A selection of traditional Indonesian dishes would be featured in the book. Taking advantage of Eliot’s presence in Indonesia, the editor assigned him to do the illustration for the book’s Indonesian food section. The photographer was very happy to get a two-week break away from the boredom of his jungle isolation.
Eliot asked Amir if he could take me along on the assignment to help with research and setting up the photo sessions with people whose cuisines would be used for illustration of the book. Amir was happy to let me go with Eliot as he couldn’t possibly leave town due to his daily commitment with the German news agency. And I was extremely overjoyed to get such a rare opportunity to work with and learn from one of Life magazine’s top photographers, and get paid handsomely for it to boot.
Eliot told me later he had quit being a staff photographer for Life magazine but continued to contribute stories and photographs to the magazine. He was allowed to keep his office and secretary in the Time-Life Building, an indication of how much Life valued his photographic expertise. He was color consultant for the Hollywood movies Bell, Book and Candle, for which he also shot still photos, Moulin Rouge and The Greatest Story Ever Told. I watched the first one, about some kind of witchcraft, no less than three times. James Stewart and Kim Novak, both among my favorite movie stars in my early twenties, played the leading roles with Jack Lemmon co-starring. The year before he went to Indonesia Eliot was creative director for ABC-TV’s series Africa. All these things Eliot told me boosted my excitement about my two-week close encounter with the man.
Indonesia is the largest archipelagic nation in the world with more than 18,000 islands strung across a distance of about 3,000 miles along the equator, at the crossroads of the Pacific and the Indian oceans. It’s slightly more than the distance from Los Angeles to New York. The country’s cuisine is as diverse as the variety of the ethnic groups inhabiting about one-third of those islands. Due to time constraint, I suggested to Eliot that we select three major culinary groups to photograph – Javanese, West Sumatran and Balinese. He agreed.
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