Clinton Sounds Alarm On Indonesia

In a measure of Washington’s growing concern that the Asian crisis is worsening, President Clinton called President Suharto of Indonesia on Thursday night to insist that his country put in place commitments to overhaul its economy, White House officials said.

Aides to Clinton gave few details of the 20-minute conversation, which took place shortly after 9 p.m., when Clinton was aboard Air Force One en route to Texas. But a senior administration official said that “the president made it quite clear that the IMF program has to be followed.” That International Monetary Fund program calls for a series of politically painful measures and threatens the multibillion-dollar business empire owned by Suharto’s family.

The White House would not say how Suharto responded to Clinton. In recent days, however, officials in the administration and the IMF said they did not know whether the Indonesian leader had a clear understanding of how close his country’s economy was to the precipice, or how the default of its businesses could deepen the crisis that has already engulfed the Asian economies.

Clinton also told Suharto, officials said, that he was sending a delegation of officials led by Lawrence Summers, the deputy treasury secretary, to the region in the next several days.