A life with (almost) no regrets
It has been a big week for former leftist politician Fong Swee Suan. On Tuesday, he reunited with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, some 50 years after they crossed swords in Parliament. They were there for the launch of the book, Men In White, which features both their stories. Insight speaks to Mr Fong, an influential figure in the early days of the PAP, for his thoughts on the meeting with a foe from the past as well as a life full of ups and downs.
By Jeremy Au Yong
WHEN talking about Mr Fong Swee Suan, it is difficult to avoid wandering into the 'what ifs'. What if this founding member of the People's Action party (PAP) never broke away to join the Barisan Sosialis party? What if the Barisan had succeeded in wresting power from the PAP?
Pass the genial Mr Fong on the street, and most people would not bat an eyelid. In his typical neatly pressed short-sleeved shirt and pants, the 78-year-old looks like any senior going about his daily business.
Few would realise that this is a man who - but for a series of what ifs - could have been one of Singapore's top political leaders.
He was once in the upper echelons of the PAP leadership. In 1954, he was one of the 14 founding members of the PAP, among whom were Mr Lee Kuan Yew, Dr Goh Keng Swee and the late S. Rajaratnam. He had also served as a political secretary in the PAP government.
Yet none of the what ifs seems to bother Mr Fong. Speaking at his Bukit Panjang flat, he betrays no resentment or bitterness over what happened to him.
He tells of his arrests - once in connection with the Hock Lee bus riots in 1955 and another as a suspected communist sympathiser in 1963's Operation Cold Store - calmly and matter-of-factly, the way one might describe a bout of chicken pox.
Today, Mr Fong is back in the news for two reasons. First, he is featured prominently in a new book about the history of the PAP called Men In White: The Untold Story of Singapore's Ruling Political Party.
Second, he was part of a historic moment at the book launch on Tuesday, when he and a handful of leftists reunited with their long-time political foe, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew.
There certainly appeared to be no animosity between Mr Fong and MM Lee. The two smiled, exchanged warm handshakes, posed for photos and engaged in polite conversation.
Reflecting on their chat the day after, Mr Fong stresses that what was said did not matter. 'The words are not important. The main thing is the gesture, to show that we are all sincere about meeting each other again. I felt it was a very happy occasion,' he says.
Mr Fong's willingness to let go of the past was reflected in his readiness to meet and talk to the book's authors.
The 692-page book is written by three Straits Times journalists: Mr Sonny Yap, Mr Richard Lim and Mr Leong Weng Kam.
Of the numerous former leftists they approached for an interview, many rebuffed them, thinking the book would be a piece of propaganda used to vilify them.
But there was no hint of any reluctance from Mr Fong. He agreed to meet them, and even gave the team the names of people who were deported and are now living in Hong Kong.
Having read a draft copy of the book, he says he is happy it did him justice.
'I think it is quite impartial. The writers have done their duty. At least this book gives people a different view.'
However, getting to meet Mr Fong is one thing. Getting him to open up is a separate matter altogether.
Mr Leong recalls that it took the team almost a year to build up their relationship with him to a point where he could be comfortable with them.
The private Mr Fong
MR FONG'S reticence could be nailed down to sheer force of habit after numerous jail terms in the past, he says.
'He is very experienced at being interrogated. So maybe that's why he is very guarded,' adds Mr Leong.
Indeed for each question posed to him, he paused, thought it through and gave a short to-the-point answer.
But that is not to say Mr Fong made for a boring interviewee. Far from that. The chats were spiced up because they often turned out to be family affairs.
On the morning Insight visited Mr Fong at home, his wife, 73-year-old Chen Poh Cheng, joined in the chat.
Mr Fong sat at the dining table while Madam Chen sat a short distance away on the living room sofa, leafing through a newspaper but evidently listening to every word.
At different times during the interview, she would interject with her own opinion or to correct an answer she thought was wrong.
Madam Chen, a former trade unionist like her husband, is known to be a firebrand. So much so that in her earlier days, this tanned woman was known as the 'Black Peony'. The nickname - derived from a rare flower - denotes ferocity and boldness, not necessarily in a good way.
The two were childhood friends. They started dating in 1953 and married in 1960.
It is clear she is a source of strength for Mr Fong and he credits her for keeping the family in order through their difficulties.
And there have been many.
Six months after their eldest child, a daughter, was born in 1962, he was arrested in Operation Cold Store.
Even after his release, she had to be the one to hold everything together. Their three children were all schooled in Singapore, but only Madam Chen could participate in their school life as Mr Fong was forced to live in Johor Baru. He was banned from entering Singapore until 1990.
Recalls Mr Otto Fong, 41, the couple's youngest child: 'It was a heavy burden for her. She helped him with his business and maintained our Singapore lives. Anything to do with school, she had to be the one to attend because he could not enter Singapore.'
And so together, the quiet old man in the dining room and the Black Peony in the living room laid out their side of the story.
The public Mr Fong
THERE are two events people tend to connect the name Fong Swee Suan with.
The first is the Hock Lee bus riots, and the second is Operation Cold Store.
Both were traumatic events in Mr Fong's life. They landed him in jail, with the latter effectively ending his political career.
The infamous bus riots remain one of the bloodiest protests in Singapore's history.
Four people were killed, including a volunteer constable who was brutally hacked with a garden hoe and an American journalist who was beaten to death by the mob.
In a chapter titled The Night When Singapore Went Mad in Men In White, Mr S. Rajaratnam described it as the 'first demonstration of the ruthlessness of the communists and their capacity to unleash violence in Singapore...'
At the time the bus workers took to the streets, Mr Fong was the secretary-general of the Singapore Bus Workers Union (SBWU).
Though he does not deny responsibility for the strikes that ultimately led to the riots, he says the employers also have some of the blood on their hands.
The management of the Hock Lee Amalgamated Bus Company, he said, in carrying out a mass sacking of SBWU workers, left them with little choice.
'The management was the one who initiated the strike. We never wanted it,' he says.
Still, no one imagined the strikes would end in riots.
'I thought the government would step in,' adds Mr Fong.
The whole episode began as a power struggle between Hock Lee bus company and the SBWU.
The management, in a bid to reduce the influence of SBWU, tried to get new employees to join a rival union instead of letting all workers join the SBWU.
According to Mr Fong, when sufficient new employees were recruited, 229 SBWU members were sacked and replaced. The union launched its first protest, a 24-hour hunger strike.
Matters would escalate in the following days.
For his role in the riots, Mr Fong was arrested and detained for 45 days by the Labour Front government of David Marshall.
He was released, only to be rearrested a year later when he was involved in more riots, this time involving Chinese middle school students protesting against some of the government's aggressive anti-communist measures.
In 1959, as part of a deal brokered by Mr Lee Kuan Yew, Mr Fong was released.
He became political secretary to Labour and Law Minister K.M. Byrne, but was soon transferred to the same position in the deputy prime minister's office after he criticised government policies.
Cracks that would ultimately lead to Mr Fong leaving the party were beginning to show.
Throughout his time as a unionist and politician, Mr Fong was a close ally of Mr Lim Chin Siong, who died in 1996.
Mr Lim would go on to lead the breakaway group from the PAP and form the Barisan Sosialis.
The two met when they were classmates in Chinese High School in 1949. So close were they that they were often referred to as nan xiong nan di (Chinese for brothers who went through thick and thin together).
In the book, Mr Fong says they had much in common.
'We were both ardent anti-colonialists and we were both fascinated by the surge of national movements in Asia and Africa,' he told the authors.
In 1961, the two of them quit the PAP and formed the Barisan Sosialis.
One commonly cited reason for the split was that leftists like Mr Fong were against the idea of a merger with Malaysia.
However, he tells Insight he was never against the idea. He simply did not think the conditions were right.
'I was never anti-Malaysia. We all wanted the same thing, we just had different approaches. I just said that before you merge, the criteria must be set, we must have citizenship, we must have Parliament representation, then we come together. If not, it won't last long,' he says.
Not that he derived much joy when Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia. He says he still feels the two countries should merge again some day.
'I don't really see a lot of division between the two countries,' he says.
Is he a communist?
THE other major ideological difference cited between the leftists and the PAP was that of communism.
However, asked if he considers himself a communist, Mr Fong smiles.
'In Malaysia at that time, there were very few people who were not pro-left, but it's very difficult to be communist,' he says.
For the leftists, being a communist means being approved for membership by the Malayan Communist Party.
Pro-left or communist though, Mr Fong was rounded up along with more than 100 others in Operation Cold Store.
The massive operation was aimed at putting communists and suspected communists behind bars.
It wiped out much of the Barisan and served to effectively end Mr Fong's involvement in politics.
By the time he was released from detention in Malaysia some 41/2 years later, he says, it was too late to start all over again. At any rate, he was barred from entering Singapore.
So he got down to rebuilding his life. He went to work in Kuala Lumpur for a company dealing with sugar cane.
He later moved to Johor Baru, where he started a business selling small industrial machines.
His family moved across the Causeway to be with him and his children made a daily commute in and out of the country to attend school in Singapore. It meant a three-hour trip, twice a day.
It is this inconvenience, curiously enough, that Mr Fong talks about when he says he paid a heavy price for his role in politics.
He laments the suffering of his children and wife, but not his own in detention and interrogation.
The entry ban was lifted in 1990 and he returned to Singapore in 1998 after retiring.
Seemingly at peace
IT SEEMS almost mind-boggling that someone who went through what he did bears no grudges.
Over and over again during the interview, Mr Fong repeats that not only was everything forgiven, but also there really was nothing to be angry about in the first place.
He says: 'This is politics. This is what happens. But once we can survive and look after our families, that's all that's important.'
'Angry also useless,' adds Madam Chen from the living room sofa.
Their son Otto, a comic artist, says he has noticed this tone from his father in recent years.
'He never sounded bitter. Even when he told us about it, he always spoke calmly. The trauma was never transferred to the children,' he says.
If there was any hint that he harboured some ill-feelings, it came in the form of exclamations when he was having a bad day.
'Sometimes out of frustration he would say, 'If only these things didn't happen to me',' recalls the younger Mr Fong.
But even those faded away.
Says Mr Otto Fong: 'In the past 10 years, there's definitely been a more reconciliatory tone. He says that everybody was idealistic then and everybody has their own point of view. And he acknow-ledges that Singapore has got to a point where it is a good place.'
Indeed, the elder Mr Fong seems to be genuinely at peace with all that has happened.
Asked if he has any regrets, he thinks for a while and replies that there is only one.
'The only regret is that I achieved very little. I did not contribute enough,' he says.
Not surprisingly, he refuses to be drawn on any what if.
A chapter in Men In White ponders the question of what would have happened if the Barisan had won the 1963 elections.
But when this poser is put to Mr Fong, his response is simple: 'I don't want to guess, because even if we were in power, we don't know what would happen. There is no point thinking about it.'
jeremyau@sph.com.sg
Friday, September 11, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
The PAP story, blemishes and all
The PAP story, blemishes and all
Speech by Dr Tony Tan, chairman of Singapore Press Holdings, at the book launch
What is Men In White all about? How different is it from previous books on Singapore's ruling political party?
Let me clarify what the book is not.
It is not a re-telling of Singapore's transformation from Third World ghetto to First World city, a story which Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew so vividly documented in his memoirs. It is also not about the PAP Government and the art of policy-making.
Men In White is the untold story of the rise, fall, capture, split and resurgence of one of the world's most successful and longest ruling political parties, a story narrated for the first time through the voices of the victors and the vanquished as well as eyewitnesses to its unfolding history.
It is untold because many of these voices had not been heard in earlier books on the PAP - the voices of former PAP stalwarts and grassroots activists and their adversaries.
The story is untold because the voices of the Mandarin- and dialect-speaking, Malay-speaking and Tamil-speaking cast of characters often overlooked are also aired for the first time.
The result is a story of the PAP, warts, blemishes and all.
It is a story which details the ups and downs and twists and turns of the PAP and the pivotal moments in its history. It is a story which combines political theatre with human drama.
It tells of friends who turned foes when they found themselves on different sides of the ideological divide and of ordinary people who rose to meet extraordinary challenges in extraordinary times.
This book marks the culmination of a seven-year journey for our project team led by former SPH editor-in-chief Cheong Yip Seng and later by Straits Times editor Han Fook Kwang.
It all started in May 2001 when then-Prime Minister and PAP secretary-general Goh Chok Tong broached the idea of a book to mark the 50th anniversary of PAP in 2004. Mr Goh and Mr Cheong agreed that it should not be a commemorative coffee-table book, and that it should be well-researched. More importantly, it should be non-partisan and not written for the PAP, but rather the authors' version of the PAP story.
When Mr Goh Chok Tong told then-Senior Minister Lee about the book, the latter said that it would make for compelling reading if it covered the views of all the players in the struggle - those for and against the PAP.
Mr Lee told the team: 'If you're going to tell my side of the story, then you might as well not write the book. This has to be your book.'
He stressed that the authors - Sonny Yap, Richard Lim and Leong Weng Kam - should get the facts right but stand by what they have written.
When the initial drafts were shown to him, he pointed out factual errors but did not question the narrative thread or request that any of the critical and contentious points surrounding him be taken out.
This approach meant keeping an open mind, unfettered by any preconceived notions. Just let the story unravel - through the voices of about 300 people interviewed and of some 200 oral history interviewees recorded in the National Archives as well as the voices resurrected from unpublished memoirs and declassified documents.
The challenge for the team lay in tracking down former political players lost in the fog of history. After locating them, the next great challenge was in cajoling and coaxing them to give their side of the story.
Many were initially sceptical if not cynical. Some were downright hostile, assuming that the book would be just a propaganda exercise.
Typical of their responses were: 'Why should I cooperate with you to do a book on the party whose government locked me up for so many years?
'Are you sure that whatever I tell you will be printed?'
Fortunately, most of the people contacted gave the writers the benefit of the doubt and agreed to be interviewed. Despite being on the losing side and spending years in detention, many former leftists betrayed little bitterness or rancour and extended full cooperation to the team.
Some of them are now with us in the chamber: Fong Swee Suan, Dominic Puthucheary, Lim Chin Joo, Chen Say Jame and Low Por Tuck.
Unfortunately, some had passed away since their interviews.
What proved to be a treasure trove of precious insights were the 200-odd oral history interviews released by the National Archives of Singapore.
They included the voices of Lee Kuan Yew and his wife Kwa Geok Choo, S. Rajaratnam, C.V. Devan Nair, E.W. Barker, Fong Sip Chee, Richard Corridon, Lord Selkirk, David Marshall, S. Woodhull, James Puthucheary, Ong Chang Sam, Soon Loh Boon and Chen Say Jame.
Apart from listening to hundreds of hours of oral history interview tapes, the researchers pored over reams of documents, scanned reels of microfilm, ploughed through volumes of Chinese and Malay newspapers and sought the help of libraries and government agencies for the required information.
The team was also fortunate in gaining access to confidential party documents such as PAP's Analysis of the 1984 General Election; declassified diplomatic records from British National Archives; Mr Lee Kuan Yew's correspondence in the 1950s before he became PM and unpublished papers and memoirs belonging to Francis Thomas, Maurice Baker, SR Nathan and others.
Singaporeans might ask: Why should we know the PAP story?
Since 1959, PAP has won 12 general elections making it one of the most successful and longest ruling elected parties in the world. The 55-year-old party has ruled Singapore for 50 years. So whether you are for or against PAP, knowing the history of the party would mean knowing the political development of Singapore.
As former leftist leader Fong Swee Suan said, modern Singapore and PAP are inseparable. Their stories are intertwined.
They say that history favours the victors but in Men In White the voices of the vanquished are also aired.
Many of the leftists and communists who found themselves on the wrong side of history were idealistic young men and women, fired up by the Chinese revolution and the rise of socialism, to fight against the colonialists and champion the plight of the working class and the poor. Their support for PAP in the early years contributed to the victory of the party in the 1959 elections.
In some way, belated as it may be, the book has accorded recognition to their roles and contributions in the political development of Singapore. Thanks to their inputs and insights, Men In White is a rounded and balanced account of the Singapore Story.
In relating the fortunes of Singapore's ruling political party, the book also highlights the values, convictions, ideals, instincts, beliefs and world views of the generation of politicians who laid the foundation for today's Singapore. Whether as protagonists or antagonists, they were fighting for the future of Singapore.
The reader will be struck by the idealism, integrity and self-sacrifice of the first generation of PAP and non-PAP leaders: Lee Kuan Yew charging little or no fees as lawyer for political activists and trade unionists; Goh Keng Swee bringing soap flakes on his overseas trips to do his own washing to save taxpayers' money; ministers and legislative assemblymen refusing to accept bribes; Francis Thomas requesting the Ministry of Education to drop his expatriate allowance after he became a Singapore citizen; and leftists leading an austere life which compelled PAP leaders to do likewise to win the hearts and minds of the people.
Indeed Men In White can be read as a tribute to the generation born before the war who suffered under British colonialism and Japanese occupation, endured unimaginable poverty and privations, underwent social and political upheaval, and yet were able to overcome the tears and the trauma to lay the foundation for a new nation.
If not for the thrift, frugality, hard work and tremendous sacrifices of the leaders and the people, the present generation would not enjoy the privilege of being the beneficiaries of Singapore's peace and prosperity today.
We believe that the book will be new grist for the mill, a source of reference for future writers, researchers and scholars to pursue new lines of enquiry and expand on the themes and issues raised in the book.
This huge project will not be in vain if the book helps to equip a new generation of readers to rethink the Singapore Story, overturn some longstanding assumptions, question some conventional wisdom and debunk some myths and taboos.
For the project team, it has been an epic journey into a long forgotten and fractious past.
Many of you present here have helped our team to bring the past to life again. We thank you for sharing your recollections of those turbulent days.
Whether you were on the side of the PAP or against the PAP or were bystanders and witnesses to unfolding history, you are honoured guests today.
Directly or indirectly, in one way or another, you have all helped to contribute to the political development and common good of Singapore and your voices deserve to be heard.
Speech by Dr Tony Tan, chairman of Singapore Press Holdings, at the book launch
What is Men In White all about? How different is it from previous books on Singapore's ruling political party?
Let me clarify what the book is not.
It is not a re-telling of Singapore's transformation from Third World ghetto to First World city, a story which Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew so vividly documented in his memoirs. It is also not about the PAP Government and the art of policy-making.
Men In White is the untold story of the rise, fall, capture, split and resurgence of one of the world's most successful and longest ruling political parties, a story narrated for the first time through the voices of the victors and the vanquished as well as eyewitnesses to its unfolding history.
It is untold because many of these voices had not been heard in earlier books on the PAP - the voices of former PAP stalwarts and grassroots activists and their adversaries.
The story is untold because the voices of the Mandarin- and dialect-speaking, Malay-speaking and Tamil-speaking cast of characters often overlooked are also aired for the first time.
The result is a story of the PAP, warts, blemishes and all.
It is a story which details the ups and downs and twists and turns of the PAP and the pivotal moments in its history. It is a story which combines political theatre with human drama.
It tells of friends who turned foes when they found themselves on different sides of the ideological divide and of ordinary people who rose to meet extraordinary challenges in extraordinary times.
This book marks the culmination of a seven-year journey for our project team led by former SPH editor-in-chief Cheong Yip Seng and later by Straits Times editor Han Fook Kwang.
It all started in May 2001 when then-Prime Minister and PAP secretary-general Goh Chok Tong broached the idea of a book to mark the 50th anniversary of PAP in 2004. Mr Goh and Mr Cheong agreed that it should not be a commemorative coffee-table book, and that it should be well-researched. More importantly, it should be non-partisan and not written for the PAP, but rather the authors' version of the PAP story.
When Mr Goh Chok Tong told then-Senior Minister Lee about the book, the latter said that it would make for compelling reading if it covered the views of all the players in the struggle - those for and against the PAP.
Mr Lee told the team: 'If you're going to tell my side of the story, then you might as well not write the book. This has to be your book.'
He stressed that the authors - Sonny Yap, Richard Lim and Leong Weng Kam - should get the facts right but stand by what they have written.
When the initial drafts were shown to him, he pointed out factual errors but did not question the narrative thread or request that any of the critical and contentious points surrounding him be taken out.
This approach meant keeping an open mind, unfettered by any preconceived notions. Just let the story unravel - through the voices of about 300 people interviewed and of some 200 oral history interviewees recorded in the National Archives as well as the voices resurrected from unpublished memoirs and declassified documents.
The challenge for the team lay in tracking down former political players lost in the fog of history. After locating them, the next great challenge was in cajoling and coaxing them to give their side of the story.
Many were initially sceptical if not cynical. Some were downright hostile, assuming that the book would be just a propaganda exercise.
Typical of their responses were: 'Why should I cooperate with you to do a book on the party whose government locked me up for so many years?
'Are you sure that whatever I tell you will be printed?'
Fortunately, most of the people contacted gave the writers the benefit of the doubt and agreed to be interviewed. Despite being on the losing side and spending years in detention, many former leftists betrayed little bitterness or rancour and extended full cooperation to the team.
Some of them are now with us in the chamber: Fong Swee Suan, Dominic Puthucheary, Lim Chin Joo, Chen Say Jame and Low Por Tuck.
Unfortunately, some had passed away since their interviews.
What proved to be a treasure trove of precious insights were the 200-odd oral history interviews released by the National Archives of Singapore.
They included the voices of Lee Kuan Yew and his wife Kwa Geok Choo, S. Rajaratnam, C.V. Devan Nair, E.W. Barker, Fong Sip Chee, Richard Corridon, Lord Selkirk, David Marshall, S. Woodhull, James Puthucheary, Ong Chang Sam, Soon Loh Boon and Chen Say Jame.
Apart from listening to hundreds of hours of oral history interview tapes, the researchers pored over reams of documents, scanned reels of microfilm, ploughed through volumes of Chinese and Malay newspapers and sought the help of libraries and government agencies for the required information.
The team was also fortunate in gaining access to confidential party documents such as PAP's Analysis of the 1984 General Election; declassified diplomatic records from British National Archives; Mr Lee Kuan Yew's correspondence in the 1950s before he became PM and unpublished papers and memoirs belonging to Francis Thomas, Maurice Baker, SR Nathan and others.
Singaporeans might ask: Why should we know the PAP story?
Since 1959, PAP has won 12 general elections making it one of the most successful and longest ruling elected parties in the world. The 55-year-old party has ruled Singapore for 50 years. So whether you are for or against PAP, knowing the history of the party would mean knowing the political development of Singapore.
As former leftist leader Fong Swee Suan said, modern Singapore and PAP are inseparable. Their stories are intertwined.
They say that history favours the victors but in Men In White the voices of the vanquished are also aired.
Many of the leftists and communists who found themselves on the wrong side of history were idealistic young men and women, fired up by the Chinese revolution and the rise of socialism, to fight against the colonialists and champion the plight of the working class and the poor. Their support for PAP in the early years contributed to the victory of the party in the 1959 elections.
In some way, belated as it may be, the book has accorded recognition to their roles and contributions in the political development of Singapore. Thanks to their inputs and insights, Men In White is a rounded and balanced account of the Singapore Story.
In relating the fortunes of Singapore's ruling political party, the book also highlights the values, convictions, ideals, instincts, beliefs and world views of the generation of politicians who laid the foundation for today's Singapore. Whether as protagonists or antagonists, they were fighting for the future of Singapore.
The reader will be struck by the idealism, integrity and self-sacrifice of the first generation of PAP and non-PAP leaders: Lee Kuan Yew charging little or no fees as lawyer for political activists and trade unionists; Goh Keng Swee bringing soap flakes on his overseas trips to do his own washing to save taxpayers' money; ministers and legislative assemblymen refusing to accept bribes; Francis Thomas requesting the Ministry of Education to drop his expatriate allowance after he became a Singapore citizen; and leftists leading an austere life which compelled PAP leaders to do likewise to win the hearts and minds of the people.
Indeed Men In White can be read as a tribute to the generation born before the war who suffered under British colonialism and Japanese occupation, endured unimaginable poverty and privations, underwent social and political upheaval, and yet were able to overcome the tears and the trauma to lay the foundation for a new nation.
If not for the thrift, frugality, hard work and tremendous sacrifices of the leaders and the people, the present generation would not enjoy the privilege of being the beneficiaries of Singapore's peace and prosperity today.
We believe that the book will be new grist for the mill, a source of reference for future writers, researchers and scholars to pursue new lines of enquiry and expand on the themes and issues raised in the book.
This huge project will not be in vain if the book helps to equip a new generation of readers to rethink the Singapore Story, overturn some longstanding assumptions, question some conventional wisdom and debunk some myths and taboos.
For the project team, it has been an epic journey into a long forgotten and fractious past.
Many of you present here have helped our team to bring the past to life again. We thank you for sharing your recollections of those turbulent days.
Whether you were on the side of the PAP or against the PAP or were bystanders and witnesses to unfolding history, you are honoured guests today.
Directly or indirectly, in one way or another, you have all helped to contribute to the political development and common good of Singapore and your voices deserve to be heard.
Another bit of history - Sept 9 2009
MORE than one for the album, this was a picture for the history books.
If not for the numerous photographs capturing the moment, many would have scarcely believed what took place yesterday in the Old Parliament House - in the same chamber where the People's Action Party (PAP) fought its fiercest battles with its breakaway faction, the Barisan Sosialis, in the early 1960s.
Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, a PAP founder, exchanged smiles and warm handshakes with those who had been his rivals from the country's early years.
Among them were Mr Fong Swee Suan, Mr Dominic Puthucheary and Mr Lim Chin Joo, all of whom, despite their advancing age, looked in fine form.
At the launch of Men In White, a book chronicling the PAP's history, the conflicts and differences of half a century ago seemed all but forgotten.
The old foes agreed to stand together to have their picture taken. It was perhaps a fitting way to launch a book documenting their history: by creating another bit of history.
(From left: Madam Ho Puay Choo, Mr Teo Hock Guan, Mr Low Por Tuck, Mr Ong Chang Sam, Mr Fong Swee Suan, MM Lee, Dr Tony Tan, Mr Dominic Puthucheary and Mr Lim Chin Joo.)
Friends and foes under one roof
Former leftists and MM greet each other for the first time after decades
By Sue-Ann Chia , SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
IT WAS a historic moment with friends and foes gathered together under the same roof where they last met more than four decades ago - at the Old Parliament House
The occasion was the launch of a new book on the People's Action Party (PAP), which brought together Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and his former political rivals.
Against the backdrop of the august chamber, Mr Lee rose to shake the hands of his one-time rivals: people like PAP founder turned Barisan Sosialis leader Fong Swee Suan, and Mr Dominic Puthucheary, a Malaysian lawyer who was PAP assistant organising secretary before he joined the mass defection that led to the formation of the Barisan Sosialis in 1961.
Many of them were later detained or exiled by the PAP Government. Among the 10 or so former leftists present yesterday however, hardly any rancour was evident.
Instead, there were smiles as one by one, they greeted Mr Lee who then requested a group photo.
It was a kodak moment that former PAP leader and leftist unionist Chen Say Jame, 77, had been hoping for but missed as he stepped out for a toilet break.
Still, he returned to the chamber in time to say in Mandarin: 'Hello, do you remember me' to MM Lee who replied: 'Of course, I do. How are you?'
The poignancy of the bittersweet reunion was not lost on Mr Chen, who last saw Mr Lee in the House in 1961 - when the Legislative Assembly took a vote of confidence in the PAP Government. After some harrowing twists and turns, the PAP won eventually by a razor-thin margin of one vote.
Both men went their separate ways as the former PAP assistant secretary-general was detained in 1963 under Operation Cold Store, during which more than 100 leftist leaders were arrested.
When asked about the past, he said in Chinese: 'No point thinking too much, just let it go.'
About 100 guests attended the launch, most of them former and current politicians. Apart from MM Lee, no current Cabinet minister was present.
Mr Ong Pang Boon, PAP founder and Singapore's first Home Affairs Minister, declined to speak to the press apart from saying that he was last in the chamber in 1988. He stepped down as PAP MP that year.
Former Speaker of Parliament Tan Soo Khoon, who quit politics in 2006, also declined comment.
Former PAP MP Augustine Tan, who stepped down in 1991, described the gathering as a unique event, saying: 'Many historical figures are here, which is a once in a lifetime event. It is good as it can help bring some healing.'
Mr Teo Ser Luck, a 41-year-old serving PAP MP, added: 'MM and the leftists opposed each other; there may be some bitterness still. But to see them bring closure today was really the best moment.'
It was history in the making even as history was unveiled through the book, Men In White: The Untold Story Of Singapore's Ruling Political Party.
The book, published by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), chronicles the PAP's rise, fall, split and resurgence in the past 55 years since the party was formed in 1954.
It is written by three senior Straits Times journalists - Mr Sonny Yap, Mr Richard Lim and Mr Leong Weng Kam - who interviewed 300 people, went through 200 oral history interviews, and pored over confidential documents.
It was not an easy process as some interviewees were downright hostile, assuming that the book was a PAP propaganda exercise, the authors noted.
But they managed to persuade most of them to share their stories, resulting in a book which SPH chairman Tony Tan said was 'a story of the PAP, warts, blemishes and all'.
Dr Tan, who was Deputy Prime Minister until 2005, said in his speech: 'Whether you are for or against the PAP, knowing the history of the party would mean knowing the political development of Singapore and understanding how Singapore has evolved to what it is today.'
Men In White, he pointed out, captures alternative voices such as those of leftists and communists - some of whom were key players in the founding of the PAP. Many were giving their views for the first time.
'In some ways, belated as it may be, the book has accorded recognition to their roles and contributions in the political development of Singapore,' he said. With their input, the book provides a more 'rounded and balanced' account of Singapore's history.
He added that the book, which was seven years in the making, would not be in vain if it helped a new generation of readers to rethink the Singapore story.
It will also help 'overturn some longstanding assumptions, question some conventional wisdom and debunk some myths and taboos', he said.
To Mr Lim Chin Joo, however, Men In White marks 'just the beginning'.
The younger brother of the late Barisan Sosialis leader Lim Chin Siong believes more can be done. 'I hope more can be written as there are still plenty of stories that remain untold,' he told The Straits Times. 'If they are told, it may change the picture of the Singapore that is known to us. We owe this much to the younger generation. They ought to know everything, the whole story.'
Mr Lim, who was actively involved in left-wing student and trade union movements agitating for independence from the British, was arrested in the 1960s and spent nine years in detention.
He described it as a 'wonderful feeling' to be mingling with the other guests at yesterday's reception. 'After all this while, we can still be, and ought to be, friends. As far as I'm concerned, what we've done is not for personal interests but for the country.'
PAP founder-turned-Barisan leader Fong Swee Suan, who spent more than four years in detention under Operation Cold Store, was equally peaceable: 'I'm happy to have seen old friends. Like Mr Lee Kuan Yew...half a century and we haven't talked face-to-face.
'Today, I asked him how he is.'
sueann@sph.com.sg
If not for the numerous photographs capturing the moment, many would have scarcely believed what took place yesterday in the Old Parliament House - in the same chamber where the People's Action Party (PAP) fought its fiercest battles with its breakaway faction, the Barisan Sosialis, in the early 1960s.
Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, a PAP founder, exchanged smiles and warm handshakes with those who had been his rivals from the country's early years.
Among them were Mr Fong Swee Suan, Mr Dominic Puthucheary and Mr Lim Chin Joo, all of whom, despite their advancing age, looked in fine form.
At the launch of Men In White, a book chronicling the PAP's history, the conflicts and differences of half a century ago seemed all but forgotten.
The old foes agreed to stand together to have their picture taken. It was perhaps a fitting way to launch a book documenting their history: by creating another bit of history.
(From left: Madam Ho Puay Choo, Mr Teo Hock Guan, Mr Low Por Tuck, Mr Ong Chang Sam, Mr Fong Swee Suan, MM Lee, Dr Tony Tan, Mr Dominic Puthucheary and Mr Lim Chin Joo.)
Friends and foes under one roof
Former leftists and MM greet each other for the first time after decades
By Sue-Ann Chia , SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
IT WAS a historic moment with friends and foes gathered together under the same roof where they last met more than four decades ago - at the Old Parliament House
The occasion was the launch of a new book on the People's Action Party (PAP), which brought together Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and his former political rivals.
Against the backdrop of the august chamber, Mr Lee rose to shake the hands of his one-time rivals: people like PAP founder turned Barisan Sosialis leader Fong Swee Suan, and Mr Dominic Puthucheary, a Malaysian lawyer who was PAP assistant organising secretary before he joined the mass defection that led to the formation of the Barisan Sosialis in 1961.
Many of them were later detained or exiled by the PAP Government. Among the 10 or so former leftists present yesterday however, hardly any rancour was evident.
Instead, there were smiles as one by one, they greeted Mr Lee who then requested a group photo.
It was a kodak moment that former PAP leader and leftist unionist Chen Say Jame, 77, had been hoping for but missed as he stepped out for a toilet break.
Still, he returned to the chamber in time to say in Mandarin: 'Hello, do you remember me' to MM Lee who replied: 'Of course, I do. How are you?'
The poignancy of the bittersweet reunion was not lost on Mr Chen, who last saw Mr Lee in the House in 1961 - when the Legislative Assembly took a vote of confidence in the PAP Government. After some harrowing twists and turns, the PAP won eventually by a razor-thin margin of one vote.
Both men went their separate ways as the former PAP assistant secretary-general was detained in 1963 under Operation Cold Store, during which more than 100 leftist leaders were arrested.
When asked about the past, he said in Chinese: 'No point thinking too much, just let it go.'
About 100 guests attended the launch, most of them former and current politicians. Apart from MM Lee, no current Cabinet minister was present.
Mr Ong Pang Boon, PAP founder and Singapore's first Home Affairs Minister, declined to speak to the press apart from saying that he was last in the chamber in 1988. He stepped down as PAP MP that year.
Former Speaker of Parliament Tan Soo Khoon, who quit politics in 2006, also declined comment.
Former PAP MP Augustine Tan, who stepped down in 1991, described the gathering as a unique event, saying: 'Many historical figures are here, which is a once in a lifetime event. It is good as it can help bring some healing.'
Mr Teo Ser Luck, a 41-year-old serving PAP MP, added: 'MM and the leftists opposed each other; there may be some bitterness still. But to see them bring closure today was really the best moment.'
It was history in the making even as history was unveiled through the book, Men In White: The Untold Story Of Singapore's Ruling Political Party.
The book, published by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), chronicles the PAP's rise, fall, split and resurgence in the past 55 years since the party was formed in 1954.
It is written by three senior Straits Times journalists - Mr Sonny Yap, Mr Richard Lim and Mr Leong Weng Kam - who interviewed 300 people, went through 200 oral history interviews, and pored over confidential documents.
It was not an easy process as some interviewees were downright hostile, assuming that the book was a PAP propaganda exercise, the authors noted.
But they managed to persuade most of them to share their stories, resulting in a book which SPH chairman Tony Tan said was 'a story of the PAP, warts, blemishes and all'.
Dr Tan, who was Deputy Prime Minister until 2005, said in his speech: 'Whether you are for or against the PAP, knowing the history of the party would mean knowing the political development of Singapore and understanding how Singapore has evolved to what it is today.'
Men In White, he pointed out, captures alternative voices such as those of leftists and communists - some of whom were key players in the founding of the PAP. Many were giving their views for the first time.
'In some ways, belated as it may be, the book has accorded recognition to their roles and contributions in the political development of Singapore,' he said. With their input, the book provides a more 'rounded and balanced' account of Singapore's history.
He added that the book, which was seven years in the making, would not be in vain if it helped a new generation of readers to rethink the Singapore story.
It will also help 'overturn some longstanding assumptions, question some conventional wisdom and debunk some myths and taboos', he said.
To Mr Lim Chin Joo, however, Men In White marks 'just the beginning'.
The younger brother of the late Barisan Sosialis leader Lim Chin Siong believes more can be done. 'I hope more can be written as there are still plenty of stories that remain untold,' he told The Straits Times. 'If they are told, it may change the picture of the Singapore that is known to us. We owe this much to the younger generation. They ought to know everything, the whole story.'
Mr Lim, who was actively involved in left-wing student and trade union movements agitating for independence from the British, was arrested in the 1960s and spent nine years in detention.
He described it as a 'wonderful feeling' to be mingling with the other guests at yesterday's reception. 'After all this while, we can still be, and ought to be, friends. As far as I'm concerned, what we've done is not for personal interests but for the country.'
PAP founder-turned-Barisan leader Fong Swee Suan, who spent more than four years in detention under Operation Cold Store, was equally peaceable: 'I'm happy to have seen old friends. Like Mr Lee Kuan Yew...half a century and we haven't talked face-to-face.
'Today, I asked him how he is.'
sueann@sph.com.sg
3-in-1 History Book Reads like a Thriller - Sept 6
This is a history book that reads like a thriller.
There is a historical puzzle, unresolved.
How did Lee Kuan Yew become prime minister of Singapore?
There is plenty of cloak and dagger plotting.
There is Lee's chief aide - entrusted with the sensitive job of keeping tabs on party branches and the fledgling grassroots movement in the People's Association - who turned out to be a communist mole.
There is the Fort Canning bungalow, commandeered by Goh Keng Swee for the People's Action Party (PAP) legislative assemblymen, which became the hive of left-wing intrigue.
And there is the mystery of what really happened one night on a kelong - who plotted against the PAP leaders?
Unlike conventional history books, this one takes an unabashedly anecdotal approach, telling the story of the PAP through interviews with more than 300 people and 200 oral histories from the National Archives, augmented by published records.
It has no pretensions to be academically objective. Thankfully for the casual reader, it is also devoid of jargon.
But this book is no lightweight either. Instead, it is a serious attempt to add fresh perspectives to the well-told story of how the PAP came to power, in the struggle against colonialism, and after fighting the communists and the communalists.
If history is a dialogue between the present and the past, Men In White adds a collection of valuable voices to that dialogue. For the first time, members of the radical left-wing of the PAP are telling their side of the story.
The writers flew to the 'peace villages' of southern Thailand where former Malayan Communist Party (MCP) members made a life for themselves. They made their way to Malaysia, Hong Kong and China, ferreting out former activists, coaxing them out of their peaceful retirement lives to revisit the past. Thousands of pages of transcript and notes later, the material spanning some 50 years is condensed into a hefty 692-page tome.
This book was conceived to mark the PAP's 50th anniversary in 2004. In the end, the project took seven years, given the voluminous amount of work. From the start, senior PAP leaders Goh Chok Tong and Lee Kuan Yew made it clear they did not want another potted history of the PAP recounting its successes. They wanted a more impartial account.
It is telling that Lee, in his introduction, distances himself from some of the authors' accounts and interpretation. He himself found the accounts of the early years riveting, as he realised for the first time just what his political adversaries were plotting.
Some readers used to a holistic narrative will find this book jarring. For the book is really three- books-in-one. As is common for a jointly authored project, the narrators' voices are quite different. The racy pace of Sonny Yap and Leong Weng Kam's prose match the breathless escapades of political infighting recounted in the first section, while Richard Lim's restrained, elegant style suits the sobriety of a story of a party in power. Part 3 is written in journalistic style, with quotes from interviewees to flesh out an issue, with minimal interpretation.
The first part on the PAP's early years up till independence is especially lively, replete with the passion and pathos of its times in retelling of the fight between the left-wing and the moderates in the PAP.
The most intriguing puzzle unearthed in this book is the question of how Lee became the prime minister of Singapore.
When the PAP swept to power in the May 1959 election, he was its secretary-general.
Ong Pang Boon and Toh Chin Chye told the authors they recalled that there was a meeting of the PAP's central executive committee (CEC) on who should be PM. There were reportedly two candidates - PAP treasurer Ong Eng Guan, who was the former mayor of Singapore, and Lee. The votes were split down the middle: six each. As party chairman presiding over the CEC vote, Toh decided on Lee. Apart from the authors' interviews with the two key players, some reports from that period circulate the story of that CEC vote.
So did Lee become PM by one vote?
He remembers no such vote. He was the party's secretary-general, leading the election. To him, it was understood and right that he should become PM. In the introduction to the book, he said he did not agree with the account of Toh and Ong Pang Boon.
Whose memory failed? The authors leave it to readers to draw their own conclusion.
One valuable aspect of Men In White is in breathing life and blood into two-dimensional characters relegated into footnotes in The Singapore Story. Which student of Singapore history has not wondered about Chan Sun Wing, whom Lee took as his chief aide and who turned out to be a communist plant?
Chan was instrumental in the left-wing's breakaway from the PAP to form the Barisan Sosialis to challenge the PAP in Parliament.
When interviewed in 2003, Chan did not see his move against the PAP and Lee as disloyalty to a mentor, but as loyalty to a political cause. Poignantly, he considered home to be neither Hat Yai where he worked as a secretary, nor Bang Lang where he had a small rubber holding, but Singapore from which he was in exile.
The authors also deal with a trenchant issue in Singapore's political history: What is a communist? The PAP tended to label the left-wing members communist or pro-communist, but many of those thus labelled strenuously deny it, including the enigmatic Lim Chin Siong, the left-wing leader whose Hokkien oratory helped the PAP win over the Chinese ground.
Shedding new light on Lim, the authors cite Internal Security Department information that Lim admitted he met communist leader Fang Chuang Pi three times. The suggestion in the book is that Lim may not have been a card-carrying member but he took orders from MCP leaders.
The second section brings the story of the PAP up to date, covering ground most readers will find familiar. The PAP had by the 1970s consolidated its power so effectively that challengers were few. The story is thus told largely through PAP eyes, without the kaleidoscopic insights of the first section. Highlights in this section are the accounts of how leadership renewal traumatised older MPs and activists, and insight into the mentoring programme Lee introduced to induct the second-generation leaders. Particularly breathtaking is the way he set about getting systematic feedback on their performance as MPs and as office-holders from veteran MPs and grassroots activists.
This section puts in context the Goh Chok Tong years when he served as prime minister from 1990 to 2004, although a more thorough treatment of this can be found in the recent Institute of Policy Studies publication, Impressions Of The Goh Chok Tong Years In Singapore.
The last section reiterates the PAP's core principles of governance: anti-corruption; commitment to multiracialism; distribution of wealth; and political philosophy. This section appears somewhat hastily done compared to the thorough groundwork for the first two sections. But through the use of anecdotes and apposite examples, the writers manage the difficult feat of breathing life into these well-debated topics. The chapter on race titled, Lee: You are equal to me, should be recommended reading for all students.
Recent years have seen more attempts at telling different versions of the Singapore stories.
Memoirs have been published by former MCP chief Chin Peng and former political detainee Said Zahari and former Barisan Sosialis leader Fong Swee Suan. There are reports of unpublished memoirs by Lee Siew Choh and Chan Sun Wing, among others.
With the passage of time and as Singapore society matures, multifaceted perspectives of its early political history will emerge. This book offers another prism through which to view Singapore's modern history.
History is to a society what poetry is to an individual soul: It creates a structure of story and myth through which we understand one another and our place in this world. Every attempt to write history is flawed. Every history is mutable - till more facts are unearthed, till the next political movement comes about. Once we recognise this, we can get on with the business of trying to understand history, knowing that the accounts we read are at best a sepia-toned faded photograph of the multi-hued, multi-sensorial panorama of the past.
muihoong@sph.com.sg
Fleshing out historical figures
One valuable aspect of Men In White is in breathing life and blood into two-dimensional characters relegated into footnotes in The Singapore Story. Which student of Singapore history has not wondered about Chan Sun Wing (left), whom Lee Kuan Yew took as his chief aide and who turned out to be a communist plant?
There is a historical puzzle, unresolved.
How did Lee Kuan Yew become prime minister of Singapore?
There is plenty of cloak and dagger plotting.
There is Lee's chief aide - entrusted with the sensitive job of keeping tabs on party branches and the fledgling grassroots movement in the People's Association - who turned out to be a communist mole.
There is the Fort Canning bungalow, commandeered by Goh Keng Swee for the People's Action Party (PAP) legislative assemblymen, which became the hive of left-wing intrigue.
And there is the mystery of what really happened one night on a kelong - who plotted against the PAP leaders?
Unlike conventional history books, this one takes an unabashedly anecdotal approach, telling the story of the PAP through interviews with more than 300 people and 200 oral histories from the National Archives, augmented by published records.
It has no pretensions to be academically objective. Thankfully for the casual reader, it is also devoid of jargon.
But this book is no lightweight either. Instead, it is a serious attempt to add fresh perspectives to the well-told story of how the PAP came to power, in the struggle against colonialism, and after fighting the communists and the communalists.
If history is a dialogue between the present and the past, Men In White adds a collection of valuable voices to that dialogue. For the first time, members of the radical left-wing of the PAP are telling their side of the story.
The writers flew to the 'peace villages' of southern Thailand where former Malayan Communist Party (MCP) members made a life for themselves. They made their way to Malaysia, Hong Kong and China, ferreting out former activists, coaxing them out of their peaceful retirement lives to revisit the past. Thousands of pages of transcript and notes later, the material spanning some 50 years is condensed into a hefty 692-page tome.
This book was conceived to mark the PAP's 50th anniversary in 2004. In the end, the project took seven years, given the voluminous amount of work. From the start, senior PAP leaders Goh Chok Tong and Lee Kuan Yew made it clear they did not want another potted history of the PAP recounting its successes. They wanted a more impartial account.
It is telling that Lee, in his introduction, distances himself from some of the authors' accounts and interpretation. He himself found the accounts of the early years riveting, as he realised for the first time just what his political adversaries were plotting.
Some readers used to a holistic narrative will find this book jarring. For the book is really three- books-in-one. As is common for a jointly authored project, the narrators' voices are quite different. The racy pace of Sonny Yap and Leong Weng Kam's prose match the breathless escapades of political infighting recounted in the first section, while Richard Lim's restrained, elegant style suits the sobriety of a story of a party in power. Part 3 is written in journalistic style, with quotes from interviewees to flesh out an issue, with minimal interpretation.
The first part on the PAP's early years up till independence is especially lively, replete with the passion and pathos of its times in retelling of the fight between the left-wing and the moderates in the PAP.
The most intriguing puzzle unearthed in this book is the question of how Lee became the prime minister of Singapore.
When the PAP swept to power in the May 1959 election, he was its secretary-general.
Ong Pang Boon and Toh Chin Chye told the authors they recalled that there was a meeting of the PAP's central executive committee (CEC) on who should be PM. There were reportedly two candidates - PAP treasurer Ong Eng Guan, who was the former mayor of Singapore, and Lee. The votes were split down the middle: six each. As party chairman presiding over the CEC vote, Toh decided on Lee. Apart from the authors' interviews with the two key players, some reports from that period circulate the story of that CEC vote.
So did Lee become PM by one vote?
He remembers no such vote. He was the party's secretary-general, leading the election. To him, it was understood and right that he should become PM. In the introduction to the book, he said he did not agree with the account of Toh and Ong Pang Boon.
Whose memory failed? The authors leave it to readers to draw their own conclusion.
One valuable aspect of Men In White is in breathing life and blood into two-dimensional characters relegated into footnotes in The Singapore Story. Which student of Singapore history has not wondered about Chan Sun Wing, whom Lee took as his chief aide and who turned out to be a communist plant?
Chan was instrumental in the left-wing's breakaway from the PAP to form the Barisan Sosialis to challenge the PAP in Parliament.
When interviewed in 2003, Chan did not see his move against the PAP and Lee as disloyalty to a mentor, but as loyalty to a political cause. Poignantly, he considered home to be neither Hat Yai where he worked as a secretary, nor Bang Lang where he had a small rubber holding, but Singapore from which he was in exile.
The authors also deal with a trenchant issue in Singapore's political history: What is a communist? The PAP tended to label the left-wing members communist or pro-communist, but many of those thus labelled strenuously deny it, including the enigmatic Lim Chin Siong, the left-wing leader whose Hokkien oratory helped the PAP win over the Chinese ground.
Shedding new light on Lim, the authors cite Internal Security Department information that Lim admitted he met communist leader Fang Chuang Pi three times. The suggestion in the book is that Lim may not have been a card-carrying member but he took orders from MCP leaders.
The second section brings the story of the PAP up to date, covering ground most readers will find familiar. The PAP had by the 1970s consolidated its power so effectively that challengers were few. The story is thus told largely through PAP eyes, without the kaleidoscopic insights of the first section. Highlights in this section are the accounts of how leadership renewal traumatised older MPs and activists, and insight into the mentoring programme Lee introduced to induct the second-generation leaders. Particularly breathtaking is the way he set about getting systematic feedback on their performance as MPs and as office-holders from veteran MPs and grassroots activists.
This section puts in context the Goh Chok Tong years when he served as prime minister from 1990 to 2004, although a more thorough treatment of this can be found in the recent Institute of Policy Studies publication, Impressions Of The Goh Chok Tong Years In Singapore.
The last section reiterates the PAP's core principles of governance: anti-corruption; commitment to multiracialism; distribution of wealth; and political philosophy. This section appears somewhat hastily done compared to the thorough groundwork for the first two sections. But through the use of anecdotes and apposite examples, the writers manage the difficult feat of breathing life into these well-debated topics. The chapter on race titled, Lee: You are equal to me, should be recommended reading for all students.
Recent years have seen more attempts at telling different versions of the Singapore stories.
Memoirs have been published by former MCP chief Chin Peng and former political detainee Said Zahari and former Barisan Sosialis leader Fong Swee Suan. There are reports of unpublished memoirs by Lee Siew Choh and Chan Sun Wing, among others.
With the passage of time and as Singapore society matures, multifaceted perspectives of its early political history will emerge. This book offers another prism through which to view Singapore's modern history.
History is to a society what poetry is to an individual soul: It creates a structure of story and myth through which we understand one another and our place in this world. Every attempt to write history is flawed. Every history is mutable - till more facts are unearthed, till the next political movement comes about. Once we recognise this, we can get on with the business of trying to understand history, knowing that the accounts we read are at best a sepia-toned faded photograph of the multi-hued, multi-sensorial panorama of the past.
muihoong@sph.com.sg
Fleshing out historical figures
One valuable aspect of Men In White is in breathing life and blood into two-dimensional characters relegated into footnotes in The Singapore Story. Which student of Singapore history has not wondered about Chan Sun Wing (left), whom Lee Kuan Yew took as his chief aide and who turned out to be a communist plant?
Why Dhana left Cabinet in 1992
Former National Development Minister S Dhanabalan left the Cabinet in September 1992. His reason for quitting, as he put it some 12 years later, was one of conviction.
'My philosophy is one where I need to have complete conviction about some key policies and if I have differences, it doesn't mean that I'm against the group. I still want to make sure the group succeeds, but I have to try and live with myself if I have some disagreements on some things,' he said.
He had different views on some government policies and although 'they were not so sharp that I wanted to leave immediately... I could see for myself it could pose problems in the future for the group and me'.
Then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong did not wish to go into the specifics, but in his interviews for this book, he revealed for the first time that Mr Dhanabalan was not comfortable with the way the PAP government had dealt with the Marxist group in 1987.
'At that time, given the information, he was not fully comfortable with the action which we took... His make-up is that of a very strong Christian so he felt uncomfortable and thought there could be more of such episodes in future. So he thought since he was uncomfortable, he'd better leave the Cabinet. I respected him for his view,' Mr Goh said.
'My philosophy is one where I need to have complete conviction about some key policies and if I have differences, it doesn't mean that I'm against the group. I still want to make sure the group succeeds, but I have to try and live with myself if I have some disagreements on some things,' he said.
He had different views on some government policies and although 'they were not so sharp that I wanted to leave immediately... I could see for myself it could pose problems in the future for the group and me'.
Then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong did not wish to go into the specifics, but in his interviews for this book, he revealed for the first time that Mr Dhanabalan was not comfortable with the way the PAP government had dealt with the Marxist group in 1987.
'At that time, given the information, he was not fully comfortable with the action which we took... His make-up is that of a very strong Christian so he felt uncomfortable and thought there could be more of such episodes in future. So he thought since he was uncomfortable, he'd better leave the Cabinet. I respected him for his view,' Mr Goh said.
'I was a block of wood So? It was the truth'
'I was a block of wood So? It was the truth'
In 1988, then PM Lee Kuan Yew said that his first choice as successor was Tony Tan not Goh Chok Tong. Later, he described Goh as 'wooden' and that he might have to see a psychiatrist about it. Singaporeans were stunned. So were Goh and his associates. Why did Lee make such a blunt public assessment? How did Goh feel about it?
Lee Kuan Yew might have accepted the second-generation leaders' choice of Goh Chok Tong as their leader in 1984 but he unsettled both them and the public four years later, at the National Day rally in August, when he made public his 1980 assessment of the five key men.
His blunt statement on how he thought Goh tried to please too many people when he should not and that his first choice as successor was Tony Tan, although he had known by 1984 that the latter was not interested in the job, shook the people.
Goh, who was 'puzzled and stunned' by the speech, remembered the awkwardness at the reception after the event. 'How would the people come and greet me? It was very awkward. They looked at me...they didn't know whether to smile or to sympathise with me,' he said.
His good friend Ahmad Mattar was furious, he said. He told Ahmad in jest: 'If the prime minister does this to me again next year, I'll walk out.'
'I'll walk out with you,' Ahmad said to him.
Goh's wife, equally puzzled, asked: 'Why did he say that?'
Lee caused yet another stir among the people a few days later - at a session with students from the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological Institute, now Nanyang Technological University - when he described Goh as 'wooden' and said that he might have to see a psychiatrist about it.
In pointing out how Goh could not convey through television and mass meetings what he could in individual face-to-face or small group discussions, he said: 'I have suggested to him (to seek) perhaps a bit of psychological adjustment, maybe (see) a psychiatrist...something holds him back. He is...before a mass audience...he gets wooden - which he is not. When you speak to him one-to-one, he has strong feelings. Get him on television, it's difficult (to see that). He has improved, I will say, about 20 per cent. He needs to improve by more than 100 per cent.'
Someone differently constituted from Goh could have been thrown on the mat by so harsh a public judgement and not get up after the count of 10 but not Goh. Looking back, he said simply: 'It did not hurt...I knew Mr Lee well. He's not a man to slam you for nothing. He was never personal. So I did not feel he wanted to insult me...He had his purpose in saying what he said. I think he was disappointed with me for my inability to mobilise the ground. So he wanted to get me to do something about it.'
He added: 'I knew myself. I was a block of wood. So? It was the truth. But I was prepared to take on the job. If I could not do the job, then so be it. That was my strength. I was not chasing after the job. If I were, if my ambition was to be prime minister, then I'd be furious that my chances had diminished.'
This did not prevent him from speculating that Lee could still have wanted Tan to be the successor although Tan and his peers had plumped for him. Lee could have made his less than favourable public assessment of Goh to see if the PAP cadres and MPs would reject him as a result.
If they did, then Tan, however reluctant he was, would have to take his place. Tan was well liked by the people, Goh said, but he believed he was more popular among the cadres than Tan since he had worked closely with them for many years.
As it turned out, it was Tony Tan and Lee Hsien Loong who led the cadres and the people to rally round Goh. At a PAP rally at the Singapore Conference Hall on Aug 21, Lee Hsien Loong made it clear that all the cabinet ministers and all the members of the party's central executive committee (CEC), except Lee Kuan Yew, worked for Goh Chok Tong.
'We acknowledged him as our leader and in factwe - that means the younger ministers - discussed it among ourselves and have decided that he'll be the next prime minister,' he said to loud applause from the party cadres.
'He brought many of us into politics, including me. If comrade Goh had not invited me to stand, I would not be in politics because I cannot volunteer,' he added.
At a community event in Sembawang on the same day, Tony Tan told reporters that the second-generation leaders had met after the 1984 general election and decided unanimously that Goh should lead them and take over from Lee eventually. 'I see no reason at all why that decision should be changed, and the task for all of us is to support Goh Chok Tong in his very difficult job,' he stressed.
Goh himself did not remain silent. At a National Day dinner at his Marine Parade ward a week after Lee's rally speech, he said to his constituents: 'I told the prime minister many times...I will not change my style. It is part of my temperament and personality, and I cannot change my personality or my temperament.
'But habits, if they are not so good habits and if they can be improved upon, certainly, I should change those habits. But style is part of my temperament. It cannot be changed.'
On Lee's point about his desire to please people, he said: 'I would not use the word 'please' to describe my attitude. I would use the word 'accommodate'. In other words, I listen, I talk, I try to persuade and try to bring as many people on board as possible...
'I regard this style of mine as a strength, not a weakness. Karate chops have to be executed when necessary. But I like to use them only sparingly.'
At the National Day rally speech, Lee had said that getting people to perform was not a matter of smiling and kissing babies and patting people on the back all the time. 'There are times when a very good, firm karate chop is necessary. And deliver it cleanly. Don't have two chops where one would do.'
Ong Keng Yong - who was Goh's press secretary from 1998 to 2002 when he left for Jakarta to head the Asean Secretariat, the central administrative organ for the group of Southeast Asian countries - observed that Goh would not reject any suggestion or idea outright, whether in the Cabinet, in community work or interacting with his staff.
'He would listen to the pros and cons, work out a balance and match it with his own opinion. In this disarming way, he would bring people around to a particular idea,' Ong said.
'He might be patient but no issue was left to stew for too long. If something had to be left on the burner for a slow boil, it would have been a deliberate decision...His style was (that) he would get into the deep end of the swimming pool with you and knock around a particular idea. Once you got out of the pool, you actually wanted to deliver results as quickly as possible. Because he had indulged you, he had listened to you, given you some ideas, polished some rough edges and then asked for action to be taken. He didn't need to give you a deadline. You knew you had failed him if he had to remind you of the task.'
Integrity and dedication
When Lee spoke to the students, he did elaborate on Goh's qualities.
He had no doubts about the latter's integrity and dedication, he said. Goh had shown that he could not be bought when he was head of the Neptune Orient Lines. He had to do business with very wealthy people, like shipping magnate Y.K. Pao, but he was not seduced by their way of life.
Since 1980, Goh had found 30 of the 61 candidates that PAP fielded in 1981 and 1984, and would field in the 1988 election. Most importantly, he was not afraid to pick able men, men who could be his contenders. Lee cited, in particular, his son Lee Hsien Loong and the Cambridge-trained biochemist Yeo Ning Hong.
Goh had first-class interpersonal skills but he was no softie. He was not afraid to make tough decisions and push them through in parliament after he had worked the ground, selling them to the people. In the case of the CPF cut and wage restraint during the 1985 recession, for instance, he and his peers spent three months talking to all the unions.
'They pulled it off. The workers accepted not only a 15 percentage point cut in the employers' contribution but also two years of wage restraint, which is a major triumph, not attempted anywhere else in the world,' Lee told the students.
But reading the newspaper reports on the event the following day, most people were drawn only to the sensational bit - that Goh was wooden and needed to see a psychiatrist.
For the many Singaporeans who wondered what Lee was up to in assessing his successor Goh in so public and blunt a fashion, he cleared the air a month later, at the PAP's lunchtime rally at Fullerton Square for the 1988 general election. He told the crowd that his recent candid assessment of Goh was 'not a bad gambit'.
Since he 'put up that balloon', Goh had become more natural on television and in front of mass audiences, he said. It was his duty to tell Singaporeans his honest assessment of Goh. At the same time, he wanted to decide, from the way Goh reacted, whether he could be his own man.
'I said: 'Speak up! Be yourself. If you are angry, say so!' The result? He's no longer inhibited. He can talk about his inability to react naturally with crowds and in the process, he has come through.'
He urged the people to give Goh and his team 'a ringing endorsement'.
In his interviews for this book, Lee elaborated on the reasons he made public his assessment of Goh. He said: 'I knew it would cause some discomfort. But this was a very critical question...it was choosing the right man for the job. I laid down my cards. They (the second-generation leaders) chose Goh Chok Tong. Well, he had got to make the effort.
'And because I said all those things, he felt uncomfortable. But I said to him: 'Look, you may not be a natural speaker but you've got to start learning, because you can't be a leader when you can't communicate.'
'I told him when I was doing my campaigning in 1960 and 1961, every lunchtime I was eating and learning Hokkien from scratch. And by the end of the campaign, I was able to make some speeches in Hokkien. So he was willing to do it. He knew he had to make the effort. And he made the effort. As the years progressed, he improved.'
The majority of the ethnic Chinese population in Singapore are descendants of immigrants who had come from the southern Chinese province of Fujian, where Hokkien is the principal dialect. In the 1960s, most of the people were uneducated, hence Lee's need to master Hokkien.
After Goh Keng Swee introduced national service in 1967, he found he had to form separate Hokkien-speaking platoons because many of the 18-year-olds could not understand the English and Malay instructions of their officers. It would take another two decades before the need for such platoons was made redundant, thanks to universal education.
'PUZZLED AND STUNNED'
Goh, who was 'puzzled and stunned' by the speech, remembered the awkwardness at the reception after the event. 'How would the people come and greet me? It was very awkward. They looked at me...they didn't know whether to smile or to sympathise with me,' he said.
'NOT A BAD GAMBIT'
For the many Singaporeans who wondered what Lee was up to in assessing his successor Goh in so public and blunt a fashion, he cleared the air a month later, at the PAP's lunchtime rally at Fullerton Square for the 1988 general election. He told the crowd that his recent candid assessment of Goh was 'not a bad gambit'.
In 1988, then PM Lee Kuan Yew said that his first choice as successor was Tony Tan not Goh Chok Tong. Later, he described Goh as 'wooden' and that he might have to see a psychiatrist about it. Singaporeans were stunned. So were Goh and his associates. Why did Lee make such a blunt public assessment? How did Goh feel about it?
Lee Kuan Yew might have accepted the second-generation leaders' choice of Goh Chok Tong as their leader in 1984 but he unsettled both them and the public four years later, at the National Day rally in August, when he made public his 1980 assessment of the five key men.
His blunt statement on how he thought Goh tried to please too many people when he should not and that his first choice as successor was Tony Tan, although he had known by 1984 that the latter was not interested in the job, shook the people.
Goh, who was 'puzzled and stunned' by the speech, remembered the awkwardness at the reception after the event. 'How would the people come and greet me? It was very awkward. They looked at me...they didn't know whether to smile or to sympathise with me,' he said.
His good friend Ahmad Mattar was furious, he said. He told Ahmad in jest: 'If the prime minister does this to me again next year, I'll walk out.'
'I'll walk out with you,' Ahmad said to him.
Goh's wife, equally puzzled, asked: 'Why did he say that?'
Lee caused yet another stir among the people a few days later - at a session with students from the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological Institute, now Nanyang Technological University - when he described Goh as 'wooden' and said that he might have to see a psychiatrist about it.
In pointing out how Goh could not convey through television and mass meetings what he could in individual face-to-face or small group discussions, he said: 'I have suggested to him (to seek) perhaps a bit of psychological adjustment, maybe (see) a psychiatrist...something holds him back. He is...before a mass audience...he gets wooden - which he is not. When you speak to him one-to-one, he has strong feelings. Get him on television, it's difficult (to see that). He has improved, I will say, about 20 per cent. He needs to improve by more than 100 per cent.'
Someone differently constituted from Goh could have been thrown on the mat by so harsh a public judgement and not get up after the count of 10 but not Goh. Looking back, he said simply: 'It did not hurt...I knew Mr Lee well. He's not a man to slam you for nothing. He was never personal. So I did not feel he wanted to insult me...He had his purpose in saying what he said. I think he was disappointed with me for my inability to mobilise the ground. So he wanted to get me to do something about it.'
He added: 'I knew myself. I was a block of wood. So? It was the truth. But I was prepared to take on the job. If I could not do the job, then so be it. That was my strength. I was not chasing after the job. If I were, if my ambition was to be prime minister, then I'd be furious that my chances had diminished.'
This did not prevent him from speculating that Lee could still have wanted Tan to be the successor although Tan and his peers had plumped for him. Lee could have made his less than favourable public assessment of Goh to see if the PAP cadres and MPs would reject him as a result.
If they did, then Tan, however reluctant he was, would have to take his place. Tan was well liked by the people, Goh said, but he believed he was more popular among the cadres than Tan since he had worked closely with them for many years.
As it turned out, it was Tony Tan and Lee Hsien Loong who led the cadres and the people to rally round Goh. At a PAP rally at the Singapore Conference Hall on Aug 21, Lee Hsien Loong made it clear that all the cabinet ministers and all the members of the party's central executive committee (CEC), except Lee Kuan Yew, worked for Goh Chok Tong.
'We acknowledged him as our leader and in factwe - that means the younger ministers - discussed it among ourselves and have decided that he'll be the next prime minister,' he said to loud applause from the party cadres.
'He brought many of us into politics, including me. If comrade Goh had not invited me to stand, I would not be in politics because I cannot volunteer,' he added.
At a community event in Sembawang on the same day, Tony Tan told reporters that the second-generation leaders had met after the 1984 general election and decided unanimously that Goh should lead them and take over from Lee eventually. 'I see no reason at all why that decision should be changed, and the task for all of us is to support Goh Chok Tong in his very difficult job,' he stressed.
Goh himself did not remain silent. At a National Day dinner at his Marine Parade ward a week after Lee's rally speech, he said to his constituents: 'I told the prime minister many times...I will not change my style. It is part of my temperament and personality, and I cannot change my personality or my temperament.
'But habits, if they are not so good habits and if they can be improved upon, certainly, I should change those habits. But style is part of my temperament. It cannot be changed.'
On Lee's point about his desire to please people, he said: 'I would not use the word 'please' to describe my attitude. I would use the word 'accommodate'. In other words, I listen, I talk, I try to persuade and try to bring as many people on board as possible...
'I regard this style of mine as a strength, not a weakness. Karate chops have to be executed when necessary. But I like to use them only sparingly.'
At the National Day rally speech, Lee had said that getting people to perform was not a matter of smiling and kissing babies and patting people on the back all the time. 'There are times when a very good, firm karate chop is necessary. And deliver it cleanly. Don't have two chops where one would do.'
Ong Keng Yong - who was Goh's press secretary from 1998 to 2002 when he left for Jakarta to head the Asean Secretariat, the central administrative organ for the group of Southeast Asian countries - observed that Goh would not reject any suggestion or idea outright, whether in the Cabinet, in community work or interacting with his staff.
'He would listen to the pros and cons, work out a balance and match it with his own opinion. In this disarming way, he would bring people around to a particular idea,' Ong said.
'He might be patient but no issue was left to stew for too long. If something had to be left on the burner for a slow boil, it would have been a deliberate decision...His style was (that) he would get into the deep end of the swimming pool with you and knock around a particular idea. Once you got out of the pool, you actually wanted to deliver results as quickly as possible. Because he had indulged you, he had listened to you, given you some ideas, polished some rough edges and then asked for action to be taken. He didn't need to give you a deadline. You knew you had failed him if he had to remind you of the task.'
Integrity and dedication
When Lee spoke to the students, he did elaborate on Goh's qualities.
He had no doubts about the latter's integrity and dedication, he said. Goh had shown that he could not be bought when he was head of the Neptune Orient Lines. He had to do business with very wealthy people, like shipping magnate Y.K. Pao, but he was not seduced by their way of life.
Since 1980, Goh had found 30 of the 61 candidates that PAP fielded in 1981 and 1984, and would field in the 1988 election. Most importantly, he was not afraid to pick able men, men who could be his contenders. Lee cited, in particular, his son Lee Hsien Loong and the Cambridge-trained biochemist Yeo Ning Hong.
Goh had first-class interpersonal skills but he was no softie. He was not afraid to make tough decisions and push them through in parliament after he had worked the ground, selling them to the people. In the case of the CPF cut and wage restraint during the 1985 recession, for instance, he and his peers spent three months talking to all the unions.
'They pulled it off. The workers accepted not only a 15 percentage point cut in the employers' contribution but also two years of wage restraint, which is a major triumph, not attempted anywhere else in the world,' Lee told the students.
But reading the newspaper reports on the event the following day, most people were drawn only to the sensational bit - that Goh was wooden and needed to see a psychiatrist.
For the many Singaporeans who wondered what Lee was up to in assessing his successor Goh in so public and blunt a fashion, he cleared the air a month later, at the PAP's lunchtime rally at Fullerton Square for the 1988 general election. He told the crowd that his recent candid assessment of Goh was 'not a bad gambit'.
Since he 'put up that balloon', Goh had become more natural on television and in front of mass audiences, he said. It was his duty to tell Singaporeans his honest assessment of Goh. At the same time, he wanted to decide, from the way Goh reacted, whether he could be his own man.
'I said: 'Speak up! Be yourself. If you are angry, say so!' The result? He's no longer inhibited. He can talk about his inability to react naturally with crowds and in the process, he has come through.'
He urged the people to give Goh and his team 'a ringing endorsement'.
In his interviews for this book, Lee elaborated on the reasons he made public his assessment of Goh. He said: 'I knew it would cause some discomfort. But this was a very critical question...it was choosing the right man for the job. I laid down my cards. They (the second-generation leaders) chose Goh Chok Tong. Well, he had got to make the effort.
'And because I said all those things, he felt uncomfortable. But I said to him: 'Look, you may not be a natural speaker but you've got to start learning, because you can't be a leader when you can't communicate.'
'I told him when I was doing my campaigning in 1960 and 1961, every lunchtime I was eating and learning Hokkien from scratch. And by the end of the campaign, I was able to make some speeches in Hokkien. So he was willing to do it. He knew he had to make the effort. And he made the effort. As the years progressed, he improved.'
The majority of the ethnic Chinese population in Singapore are descendants of immigrants who had come from the southern Chinese province of Fujian, where Hokkien is the principal dialect. In the 1960s, most of the people were uneducated, hence Lee's need to master Hokkien.
After Goh Keng Swee introduced national service in 1967, he found he had to form separate Hokkien-speaking platoons because many of the 18-year-olds could not understand the English and Malay instructions of their officers. It would take another two decades before the need for such platoons was made redundant, thanks to universal education.
'PUZZLED AND STUNNED'
Goh, who was 'puzzled and stunned' by the speech, remembered the awkwardness at the reception after the event. 'How would the people come and greet me? It was very awkward. They looked at me...they didn't know whether to smile or to sympathise with me,' he said.
'NOT A BAD GAMBIT'
For the many Singaporeans who wondered what Lee was up to in assessing his successor Goh in so public and blunt a fashion, he cleared the air a month later, at the PAP's lunchtime rally at Fullerton Square for the 1988 general election. He told the crowd that his recent candid assessment of Goh was 'not a bad gambit'.
Mobocracy
'I would much rather Harry got unseated and stayed out of politics'
While gangsters might be giving PAP cause for concern in Farrer Park in the 1955 election, the sight of Chinese students campaigning aggressively for Devan Nair was raising more than eyebrows.
In her letters to Goh Keng Swee in London, Mrs Lee expressed her reservations about the 'kids' and 'brats'. She complained about how they came to see Lee at all hours for advice, demanding for one statement or another to be issued to the press. When Lee refused to be pushed, they hinted that they could not help in the elections.
'I am not sorry Devan Nair lost in Farrer Park,' she told Goh, who was then involved in a tussle with pro-communist elements in the Malayan Forum. 'With Nair in legislative assembly, you would have far more trouble than you are having in the forum, and the PAP would become just an apologist for the 'freedom forces'.'
Referring to the Farrer Park defeat, she wrote: 'They had masses of socialist club boys there and masses of kids and their whole organisation collapsed on polling day. Now I hear they are waiting for Harry to be unseated on petition and then they will put Devan in Tanjong Pagar. They've got a ruddy hope.'
Two days after Lee won Tanjong Pagar in a landslide victory, his Democratic Party opponent Lam Thian challenged Lee's eligibility to sit in the assembly on the grounds that he had not lived in Singapore for the last 10 years, a Rendel requirement.
In London, Goh lobbied British MPs to sort out Lee's eligibility problem - Lee had spent three out of 10 years in Cambridge so technically he was not qualified. Eventually, the government declared that Malayan students studying abroad should be treated as eligible to stand as candidates. The petition was dropped and Lee went on to represent Tanjong Pagar for the next five decades.
All the politicking, however, was beginning to grate on Mrs Lee.
Evoking a tinge of despair, she said: 'Sometimes I would much rather Harry got unseated and stayed out of politics and lived quietly on the law. What's the use of it all?'
While gangsters might be giving PAP cause for concern in Farrer Park in the 1955 election, the sight of Chinese students campaigning aggressively for Devan Nair was raising more than eyebrows.
In her letters to Goh Keng Swee in London, Mrs Lee expressed her reservations about the 'kids' and 'brats'. She complained about how they came to see Lee at all hours for advice, demanding for one statement or another to be issued to the press. When Lee refused to be pushed, they hinted that they could not help in the elections.
'I am not sorry Devan Nair lost in Farrer Park,' she told Goh, who was then involved in a tussle with pro-communist elements in the Malayan Forum. 'With Nair in legislative assembly, you would have far more trouble than you are having in the forum, and the PAP would become just an apologist for the 'freedom forces'.'
Referring to the Farrer Park defeat, she wrote: 'They had masses of socialist club boys there and masses of kids and their whole organisation collapsed on polling day. Now I hear they are waiting for Harry to be unseated on petition and then they will put Devan in Tanjong Pagar. They've got a ruddy hope.'
Two days after Lee won Tanjong Pagar in a landslide victory, his Democratic Party opponent Lam Thian challenged Lee's eligibility to sit in the assembly on the grounds that he had not lived in Singapore for the last 10 years, a Rendel requirement.
In London, Goh lobbied British MPs to sort out Lee's eligibility problem - Lee had spent three out of 10 years in Cambridge so technically he was not qualified. Eventually, the government declared that Malayan students studying abroad should be treated as eligible to stand as candidates. The petition was dropped and Lee went on to represent Tanjong Pagar for the next five decades.
All the politicking, however, was beginning to grate on Mrs Lee.
Evoking a tinge of despair, she said: 'Sometimes I would much rather Harry got unseated and stayed out of politics and lived quietly on the law. What's the use of it all?'
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