There, despite threats to Jones from the KKK grand eagle, the newspaper ran an article on KKK-run criminal activities and their control over local police.
From February 1956 to April 1957, he served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Far Eastern Economic Affairs at the State Department's headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Jones played an important role in repairing the damaged caused to United States-Indonesian relations by the Eisenhower Administration's covert support for the failed PRRI/Permesta regional uprisings in Sumatra and the Celebes.
[7][8] According to another former US diplomat and colleague Edward E. Masters, Howard Jones genuinely believed that Sukarno was a moderate who was not hostile towards the United States but was instead misled by ill-intentioned advisers like the-then Indonesian Foreign Minister Subandrio.
The CIA disliked Jones for his conciliatory approach towards President Sukarno and sought to have him replaced by undermining his reputation on charges of being soft on the Indonesian Communists.
[10] Ultimately, Howard Jones' efforts to induce a pro-American shift in Indonesian foreign policy failed due to Sukarno's increasing hostility to the West and his rapprochement with the People's Republic of China.