The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (49 page)

Ong had a deputy secretary called Val Meadows, a most capable officer, stout-hearted, with a distinguished war record. Meadows had
been deputy secretary to Hamid Jumat when he was minister for local government, and had drafted Hamid’s replies to Ong when they were locked in the altercation that culminated in his suspending the Mayor’s powers. Ong bore Meadows a grudge.

Meadows recounted 36 years later that he was “utterly unprepared for the degree of hostility” he encountered. He was physically banished to the southern islands to see what could be done for their improvement and development. As he had already prepared plans for clinics, wells, piers, pathways, schools, community centres and fishing cooperatives when he was with Hamid, this was done expeditiously. But instead of being complimented, he was evicted from his office in the ministry in his absence. When he returned one Saturday morning to write his reports, he found to his utter amazement that it had vanished. Wooden frames and panels, doors, glass windows, air-conditioner, desk, office equipment – all had disappeared without trace, leaving a void in their place. The permanent secretary told him he had acted on ministerial orders. Meadows could use the communal clerical office. At that moment, Ong walked in to savour his discomfiture, but Meadows made a studied effort not to overreact. The following Monday, he handed in his resignation, but was told by the head of the establishment office to hang on as a rescue operation was “in train”. That was my taking the portfolio away from Ong and instructing Val Meadows to discharge his duties from my office.

Ong had already made several other mistakes, and the whole cabinet and a large number of the assemblymen had concluded that he was going to be a liability and not an asset to the government. Keng Swee had earlier complained to me in writing that he had asked for $415 million for public housing without submitting any detailed plans or explaining how they were going to be achieved. I therefore moved to take the City Council away from him, instructing him to distribute its various components to other relevant government ministries. Ironically, the
excuse given to the public was that he needed to concentrate on public housing, and for the sake of appearances, I also adjusted the portfolio of another ministry.

I made Val Meadows my deputy secretary and put him in charge of breaking up the City Council, creating a statutory board to take over its departments for public utilities, water, electricity and gas, and sorting out what to do with the others. I wanted to signal to expat officers and civil servants generally that I did not approve of what had happened and that I was not afraid of being dubbed their puppet.

I was reluctant to act against Ong, but not because I feared he would displace me. I had not coveted my job as prime minister; whoever held it was going to be the prime target when the communists opened fire, and I did not relish that prospect. I knew Ong would not have the courage to take them on. I had seen him blanch when they targetted him at a party conference in August 1957 and got him voted out of the central executive committee. Later, although he was the minister with the most support among the Chinese-speaking, he declined to move the extension of the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance as the cabinet wanted, and it was left to Chin Chye to make the firm speech we had settled. But Ong was still our best Hokkien speaker. If we downgraded him, we would lower his public standing and be hard put to find someone to replace him.

Ong, the economy, the civil servants, the communists, the language difficulties – these immediate problems allowed little time for us to stand back and evaluate our own performance. But there was one man who was deeply involved, yet could make a dispassionate assessment of our first six months in office, and his last six months in Singapore – Bill Goode, the former governor, who for six months was the transitory head of state, the Yang di-Pertuan Negara. He summed up the PAP’s first days in three reports to his secretary of state. His first, on 26 June, started on an optimistic note:

“The new ministers are intelligent men. They have given much thought to their political programme which was put to the electorate in carefully prepared speeches. They are extreme socialists by conviction, but they realise the practical limitations imposed by Singapore’s peculiar circumstances as an international trading centre. They also realise the gravity of the economic problem presented by a rapidly increasing population expecting a high standard of living in a city which depends for its income upon winning business against keen competition. Above all else, they are obsessed by the threat of communism.

“To succeed they must retain the support of the Chinese working and student classes. In this lies their weakness, since they will be obliged to indulge in popular gestures which will antagonise the business and commercial class upon whom they depend for economic progress. Their obsession with the political and ideological struggle to win the minds of the masses to democratic socialism in preference to communism is likely to prejudice a competent approach to the other problems of making Singapore’s economy work. …

“The ministers have also decided to restrict attendance at social functions. The general impression which they are trying to foster is that of sober dignified dedication to the task of governing for the benefit of the masses.

“They (therefore) call themselves non-communist and are at pains to show that they are not puppets of the West. They are sensitive even to praise from the West, since they consider that it damages the popular support of the left-wing Chinese population of Singapore which they must firmly retain against the alternative leadership of the communists.

“The MCP are unlikely for some time to challenge a government which undoubtedly commands the enthusiastic support of the Chinese-speaking mass of the population. Mr Lee Kuan Yew himself estimates this period of grace as being probably a year or more.”

Two and half months later, on 7 September, he was still optimistic, despite listing my government’s shortcomings:

“It is hard to recognise in all this the extremist PAP of the last four years, penetrated by communists and sweeping to power on mass support won by exploiting the grievances of workers, peasants, Chinese middle school students and young intellectuals. But it would be wrong to think that the responsibilities of office have changed these young men.

“I have a regular weekly meeting with Lee Kuan Yew on Thursday afternoons at Government House, at which we talk freely and frankly. I find him greatly matured. He still has his prejudices and obsessions, but he is generally very sensible and always quick and intelligent. I have repeatedly taken him to task for the behaviour of his government, warning him bluntly of the consequences I foresee. Occasionally, he is able to correct my information or present it in a different light. Often, there is a sensible reason for what the government are (sic) doing: it is the way in which it is done that is wrong. Generally he accepts my criticism, particularly over treatment of the public service. His reply is that his ministers must learn the hard way by seeing the results of their own mistakes; that he should not stand over them; and that they will learn.

“While in the big things they are sound and responsible, in the little things they are emotional and tiresome. We shall have constant difficulties and worries in working with them; our tolerance and understanding will be strained. But they have potential to achieve much; and there is no present alternative to working with them. The opposition parties are discredited and possibly even moribund.”

On 23 November, he wrote his last or “haul-down” report, so called because British governors used to hand in their final reports as they hauled down the flag.

“It is unlikely that the present leadership of the PAP will ever commit themselves publicly as anti-communist. The government’s attitude towards communism is, however, fundamentally sound, and for this fact we have profound cause to be grateful. I remain convinced that to regard the present PAP leaders as crypto-communists would be an entire mistake. To describe them as crypto-anti-communists would be much nearer the mark.

Bidding farewell to the last British governor, Sir William Goode, and his wife, on 2 December 1959.

With President Sukarno at Merdeka Palace, Jakarta, January 1960.

“Despite the best endeavours of the Singapore ministers to win acceptance by the Federation ministers, the attitude of the Federation remains distrustful. The prime minister now realises that there can be no hope of merger during the lifetime of the present Federation government and he also appreciates that public emphasis on merger in Singapore causes political embarrassment and consequent public rebuffs in the Federation. But he is concerned to hold Singapore to its present constitutional
modus vivendi
and to keep the aim of merger as the decisive influence on Singapore politics. He rightly believes that it would be disastrous for both Singapore and the Federation if merger became discredited as unattainable and Singapore turned elsewhere for its future. It is of paramount importance to all of us that this should not happen.

“So the position today is that Mr Lee Kuan Yew is very much in command of the cabinet and the cabinet are impressively united. They have made mistakes, as was to be expected, and with the exception of the prime minister I doubt they are as able as they first appeared to be. They are finding it much more difficult to run a government than to organise a successful political party. But on the whole they have made a good start to carry out their declared policies. The prime minister tells me to postpone judgement on their competence until they have had a year in office. So far most of what he has said has been proved right.

“Our policy must continue to be to work with the PAP government and to do all we can to secure their goodwill and confidence. Thus we shall be able to help them to give Singapore a stable and competent government, and only thus shall we overcome the constant minor difficulties and provocations which I am sure we shall encounter.”

Like my form master at Raffles Institution, Goode gave me a kind report. However, he did not know what troubles were in store for my colleagues and me, and how wrong his assessment would have turned
out to be had the cards fallen differently. Goode’s haul-down report was to have a decisive influence on the incoming British commissioner, Lord Selkirk, or more accurately, on his deputy, Philip Moore, an officer of the British Civil Service who had been Selkirk’s private secretary when he was First Lord of the Admiralty.

Before Goode left on 2 December, I wrote to say that he had done his best for his Queen and country, but he had also served the people of Singapore well. He once remarked to me during one of our teatime sessions, “We are here for the percentage. If there was nothing in it for us, we would have left.” He had no pretence, and I respected him the more for it. As he chose to sail, not fly, home, the cabinet lined up on the wharf to bid him farewell.

With the departure of the last British governor, we had to appoint our own head of state. We chose Yusof bin Ishak, the managing director of the
Utusan Melayu
, to be his successor, our first native Yang di-Pertuan Negara. We wanted a distinguished Malay in order to show the Federation that Singaporeans were willing to accept Malays as their leaders, and I knew him as a good man of simple habits who carried himself with dignity. His wife, somewhat younger than himself, was lively, pleasant and sociable. He was sworn in on 3 December at the City Hall chamber, as the cabinet had been six months before. But while the cabinet had been sworn in under bare, makeshift arrangements, on this occasion there was time to organise a protocol guest list of important community and business leaders and members of the consular corps, and make proper seating arrangements. We held the ceremony at 8 am so that it would not be too hot for the one-and-a-quarter-hour parade past the City Hall steps when the new state flag was unfurled and a choir sang the new state anthem, joined by the assemblymen and ministers on the platform, surrounded by the crowd.

There had been much ado over the flag, for again racial sentiments had to be respected. The Chinese-speaking wanted red for good fortune,
the Malays red and white, their traditional colours for courage and purity. But Indonesia already had red and white for their flag, and so had Poland. The Chinese, influenced by the five yellow stars on the flag of Communist China, wanted stars. The Malays wanted a crescent moon. We settled for a crescent moon with five white stars instead of the traditional one star for Islam. The five stars represented the five ideals of the country: democracy, peace, progress, justice and equality. Thus we reconciled different racial symbols and ideals.