This is a list of activities carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in Indonesia. Indonesia, pre-World War II Prior to WWII, Indonesia was a Dutch colony. The Dutch took control of the islands in the early 17th century and called it the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch held control over Indonesia until 1942, when the Japanese took control of the region. The Japanese controlled the region until 1945. In 1945, the Indonesians declared their independence from the Japanese empire. It took four years of rebellion and negotiations with the United Nations before the Netherlands finally recognized the independent status of Indonesia. The Dutch saw the US as a potential blocker in their attempts to regain control of the region, and the U.S. had to play a large mediating role in Indonesia as they needed to appease the Dutch, the British, and the Indonesians themselves. This would prove difficult as the region became increasingly unstable during the period. Indonesia, 1945–1950 Operation ICEBERG After World War II, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was dismantled by an executive order signed by President Truman on October 1, 1945 and temporarily the War Department was given control of the OSS branches that were still operational. Thus, departments were renamed to incorporate these new branches resulting in the Strategic Services Unit (SSU) and the Interim Research Intelligence Service (IRIS). These departments, along with military intelligence agencies, were put on the mission to collect surrendering Japanese troops, and recovering military POWs and civilian internees. One recovery mission, known as Recovery of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees (RAPWI), had major complications because of the different approaches of the U.S., British, and Dutch allies. The humanitarian nature of these rescue missions provided cover for the CIA's real objective: to create a place to perform espionage in what would turn into the nation of Indonesia. The US did this out of fear for communist expansion in Southeast Asia, as it had already taken hold in the People's Republic of China. As Asia became a focal point for many conflicts, the native people of Indonesia came to realize that they were not helpless and their enemies were not invincible. Moreover, the U.S. needed a "postwar central intelligence agency." According to the CIA online library, the US needed "a secret foreign intelligence service that preserved OSS's capacity to report 'information as seen through American eyes' and 'to analyze