dead or had been captured. The official statement about Pope by the Indonesian government was only released on 27 May 1958. Before Pope's disappearance, the United States government had started to consider a change in policy towards the situation in Indonesia. They concluded that there were still high-ranking military officers in the TNI who opposed the communist movement, such as Lt. Gen. Ahmad Yani, and hence support for the Indonesian government could still be justified. At a seminar on Permesta at the University of Indonesia in 1991 that attended by the US Ambassador to Indonesia, Sumual commented that the United States helped Permesta to secure its own interests. When later it stopped supporting Permesta and in turn helped the generals in Jakarta, that was also to secure its own interests. Operation Nunusaku A few days before Pope was shot down and the CIA withdrew its assets from Mapanget, an AURI operation called Operation Nunusaku was carried out to destroy AUREV aircraft. Five P-51 fighter planes, four B-25 bombers, and one PBY Catalina were assembled for this operation. Before the attack was carried out, the planes flew to several airfields around Ambon in the late afternoon to avoid the AUREV attacks that were usually carried out earlier in the day. At 4:00 am on 15 May 1958, the planes set out for their target. Some went to Mapanget, while the others went to Kalawiran. In Mapanget, they carried out an attack in which the B-25s bombed the runway and P-51s fired on parked AUREV aircraft. A rocket hit a PBY Catalina on the ground and it immediately caught on fire. After the attack, the remaining AUREV planes that were still functioning at Mapanget were only one B-26 bomber and one P-51 fighter. Meanwhile the attack on the Kalawiran airfield destroyed the two C-45 transport planes originating from Taiwan. On 9 June 1958, AURI planes returned to attack Mapanget airfield. The P-51 fighter planes came from Morotai (which had fallen back into the hands of the TNI). However, this attack did not produce results like the previous attack. This time the defense at Mapanget with anti-aircraft guns was better prepared. Two AURI P-51s were shot down in which one pilot was killed. Operation Mena Operation Mena was part of a joint operation called Operation Merdeka that was ordered by the central government to crush the Permesta rebellion. Operation Mena itself, which consisted