From Third World to First The Singapore Story pdfdrive com

28. America: The Anti-Communist Anchorman
In late August 1965, within days of the trauma of separation from Malaysia, I
was suddenly faced with a personal problem. Choo had a worrying medical
condition that required surgery. Her gynaecologist, Dr Benjamin Sheares,
recommended an American specialist who was the best man in this field. I tried
to get him to come but could not persuade him to do so. He wanted Choo to go
to Switzerland where he was going for some other engagement. I enlisted the
help of the US consul-general and, through him, the US government. They were
unhelpful; either they could not or would not help. I approached the British to
get their top specialist named by Sheares. He agreed and immediately flew to
Singapore, expressing understanding for my not wanting her to travel abroad
when I could not leave Singapore. This incident reinforced my gut feeling that I
would find it difficult to work with the Americans whom I did not know as well
as the British.
I was angry and under stress. In a television interview with foreign
correspondents a few days later, I fired a broadside at the Americans. I expressed
my unhappiness that the US government had not been able to help in persuading
an American medical specialist to come to Singapore to treat someone dear to
me. Then I disclosed publicly for the first time the story of how, four years
earlier, a CIA agent had tried to bribe an officer of our Special Branch (our
internal intelligence agency).
In 1961 the CIA offered this officer a fantastic salary and guaranteed that if
his activities were discovered or he got into trouble, they would remove him and
his family to America and his future was assured. Their proposition was so
attractive that the officer took three days to consider it before deciding he had to
tell his chief, Richard Corridon, about it. Corridon immediately reported to me
and I told him to lay a trap. He did and caught three Americans red-handed in a
flat in Orange Grove Road as they were about to administer a polygraph lie-
detector test on our Special Branch officer to check his honesty. One was a
member of the US consulate here and claimed diplomatic immunity; two were

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CIA officers, one based in Bangkok, the other in Kuala Lumpur. They were
caught with enough evidence to send them to jail for 12 years. The American
consul-general, who knew nothing about it, resigned.
After discussing the matter with Keng Swee, Chin Chye, Raja and Pang
Boon, I told the British commissioner, Lord Selkirk, that we would release these
men and their stupidity would not be made public if the Americans gave a
hundred million US dollars to the Singapore government for economic
development. They offered US$1 million, not to the Singapore government, but
to the PAP – an unbelievable insult. The Americans had been buying and selling
so many leaders in Vietnam and elsewhere that they believed they could buy and
sell leaders everywhere. We had to release the American who had diplomatic
immunity but we held the two CIA officers on detention orders for one year
under Emergency Regulations. At Selkirk’s repeated urgings, we released them a
month later with a warning never to do this again. We hoped the warning would
be heeded, but feared it would not.
In response to this public disclosure, the US State Department denied that
any bribe had been offered, and deplored my statement as “unfortunate,
unhelpful and simply playing into the hands of the Indonesians”. “The
Americans stupidly denied the undeniable,” I replied, releasing details and a
letter dated 15 April 1961 signed by Dean Rusk:
“Dear Prime Minister:
I am deeply distressed to learn that certain officials of the United
States government have been found by your government to have been
engaged in improper activities in Singapore. I want you to know that I
regret very much that this unfortunate incident has occurred to mar the
friendly relations that exist between our governments. The new
administration takes a very serious view of this matter and intends to
review the activities of these officials for disciplinary action.
Sincerely yours,
(Sgd Dean Rusk)”
My attitude in 1961 to America and Americans was summed up in my
instructions to Corridon: “Investigate this matter thoroughly, every aspect of it.
Leave nothing unturned until you get to the heart of the matter. But remember all
the time that we are not dealing with an enemy, but the bloody stupidity of a
friend.”

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Besides venting my anger on the Americans for being unhelpful, my
objective in exposing this incident that August 1965 was to signal to the West
that if the British pulled out, there would be no American bases in Singapore, but
we would “go along with Australia and New Zealand”. I wanted the British to
remain. I was fearful that after our sudden separation from Malaysia, Britain
would want to withdraw as soon as Indonesian Confrontation ended.
I viewed Americans with mixed feelings. I admired their can-do approach
but shared the view of the British establishment of the time that the Americans
were bright and brash, that they had enormous wealth but often misused it. It
was not true that all it needed to fix a problem was to bring resources to bear on
it. Many American leaders believed that racial, religious and linguistic hatreds,
rivalries, hostilities and feuds down the millennia could be solved if sufficient
resources were expended on them. (Some still do. Hence their efforts to build
peaceful, multiracial, multireligious societies in Bosnia and Kosovo.)
Their methods of countering communism in Asia did not impress me. They
were unprincipled in their dealings with Ngo Dinh Diem, South Vietnam’s
nationalist leader, backing him until he refused to do America’s bidding, then
looking the other way when Diem’s generals assassinated him. They meant well
but were heavy-handed and lacked a sense of history. I also feared they would
consider all ethnic Chinese likely communist supporters because China was
communist.
But America was the only country with the strength and determination to
stem this relentless tide of history and reverse the erosion of people’s will to
resist the communists. So I wanted the British, Australians and New Zealanders
to be a buffer. Life would be difficult if Singapore were to become like Saigon
or Manila. By themselves, the British in Malaysia and Singapore could not have
blocked the communist advance into Southeast Asia. It was the Americans who
stopped the Chinese and Vietnamese communists from spreading guerrilla
insurgency into Cambodia and Thailand. The United States supported President
Sukarno in Indonesia until the communists attempted a coup in September 1965.
It was an irreplaceable backstop against further communist expansion.
I was relieved the Americans were prepared to oppose communists wherever
they threatened and whatever the cost. Because Americans were resolutely anti-
communist and prepared to confront them, Nehru, Nasser and Sukarno could
afford to be non-aligned. This was a comfortable posture and one I had adopted
without at first realising that it was a luxury paid for by Americans. Without
them out front, together with the British, Europeans, Australians and New

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Zealanders, checking the Russian and Chinese communists, Singapore could not
have been critical of China or Russia.
I had made clear my support of American intervention in Vietnam. In May
1965, while Singapore was still in Malaysia, I spoke to a left-wing audience at
an Asian Socialist Leaders’ Conference in Bombay. At a time when Indians
were neutral and critical of American action in Vietnam, I told them that “As
Asians we must uphold the right of the Vietnamese people to self-determination
and to be free from any hint of European domination. As democratic socialists
we must insist that the South Vietnamese have the right not to be pressured
through armed might and organised terror and finally overwhelmed by
communism. So we must seek a formula that will first make it possible for the
South Vietnamese to recover their freedom of choice, which at the moment is
limited to either communist capture or perpetual American military operations.”
In many speeches I had emphasised that the governments of Southeast Asia
must use the time the Americans were buying for us by their intervention in
Vietnam to solve the problems of poverty, unemployment and inequity in our
societies. Unknown to me, the US assistant secretary for East Asia, William
Bundy, had read my speeches. We met for the first time in my office in March
1966. He assured me that the United States intended to play a quiet role and did
not wish to maintain a military presence in Malaysia. They had been drawn into
Vietnam deeper than intended and were not anxious to get involved elsewhere in
East Asia.
The Americans wanted the British to stay in Malaysia for historical reasons,
and because of a “division of labour”. They would leave the major running of
policy to the British, who were the only European power able to do it. If
Malaysia turned to them for economic help, they would be happy to help but
would take a low posture.
I asked about US reactions to a hypothetical communist-inspired communal
conflict between Singapore and Malaysia. He insisted that they would not like to
get involved. I stressed that they should not view the entire Chinese diaspora as
some monolithic group steered by the communists on the mainland. If American
policy treated all Chinese in Southeast Asia as potential mainland Chinese
agents, they would have no alternative but to become Chinese chauvinists.
Asked about Vietnam, I said the will to resist was the critical factor. This was
absent. The people of South Vietnam must be persuaded that there was a
reasonable prospect that they could win the fight.
Early in 1966 we agreed that American troops serving in Vietnam could

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come to Singapore for their rest and recreation. The first batch of 100 arrived in
March 1966 and stayed for five days in a rental apartment block in a suburban
area. They flew in from Saigon three times a week in civilian chartered Pan
American flights. About 20,000 came in a year, 7 per cent of the total number of
tourists of that time. The financial benefits were small. It was a quiet way of
showing support for America’s effort in Vietnam.
Bundy saw me again in March 1967. I felt I could trust him; he was open and
straight-talking. He was not out to impress anyone and was careless about his
clothes – I noticed that he wore torn socks. But he had an air of quiet confidence.
He knew I had been pressing the British to stay. That was also American policy.
He assured me that the United States would continue to slog it out in Vietnam,
that the results were heartening: 20,000 Vietcong had defected. He was
confident that the Republicans, then out of government, had no alternative. The
problems might become messy but President Johnson was very determined and
would not give up because the United States was convinced their action in
Vietnam was a major contribution to stability in Southeast Asia.
Bundy invited me for an informal visit to Washington in the late autumn,
away from the crush of visitors around the annual opening of the UN session. I
would have a chance to meet and talk with the people who made their policies,
and those in the wider circle who were part of their establishment. I said that
while the British were running down their bases in Singapore, my visit to
America would look like I was scared.
In July 1967 he wrote to me and referred to reports from London that I might
have made “a real dent amongst the Labour Party MPs who did not have an
adequate understanding of the facts of life in Southeast Asia”. He also welcomed
my brief but forthright reference in a BBC television interview to the critical
importance of what the Americans were doing in Vietnam. America was getting
such bad press that they were relieved when someone not a client state stood up
to voice support for their unpopular policy. He proposed an official visit. Raja
was unhappy at having to announce so soon after the British defence White
Paper had been published that I would visit Washington. It would show that we
were nervous. I decided to go. Bill Bundy must have had a reason for wanting
me to go to Washington that year.
I had not been to America except in 1962, to appear before the UN
decolonisation committee in New York. Singapore did not have a mission in
Washington until that year, 1967. So I cast around for a crash course on the
thinking and mood in Washington and the major personalities. I drew on the

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British, Australian and New Zealand high commissioners. I wrote to Louis
Heren, a good friend since the 1950s who was then the London 
Times
correspondent in Washington. Of all the briefings, his was the most valuable. He
wrote, “For a superpower such as the United States, all countries except the
Soviet Union and China are small. You will not mind my saying that in
comparison Singapore is a tiddler. Outside the State Department’s bureau for
East Asian and Pacific affairs, very little attention is paid to it.” He was
reassuring, however, that I had a “reputation for being a sane, rational and steady
sort of bloke”, mainly because of my position on Vietnam. The fuss over the
CIA incident had been largely forgotten. “The problem in America was three-
dimensional: the administration, Congress, and the press. The latter two tend to
react in simple East-West terms. Are you a Commie or are you with the US? The
administration is very different. Heaven knows there are enough simpletons in it,
but there are also first-rate men. The obvious ones below cabinet level are
William Bundy and Robert Barnett, one of Bundy’s deputies, an acknowledged
China expert, Walt Rostow, the president’s special assistant for national security
affairs.” Other people I should look out for were Averell Harriman, ambassador-
at large, and Mike Mansfield, the majority leader in the senate, “well-informed
and quietly influential”.
He gave a thumbnail sketch of Johnson, the best I read before seeing the
president. “A strange man, devious, manipulating, and occasionally ruthless.
Having said that, I must admit to being one of his few if qualified admirers. He
has fire in his belly, in the old Biblical sense. He wants to do well by his country,
especially the poor and the Negroes. … Rusk and McNamara you can trust. Both
are honest and rather nice men, good in the old-fashioned sense of the word.”
In October 1967 I flew to Kennedy Airport, New York, and then on to
Williamsburg, where I stayed in one of those restored homes with antique
furniture of the time when Williamsburg was the capital of Virginia. Choo and I
were taken on a sightseeing tour of Williamsburg in a horse carriage with a black
coachman dressed in period costume. It was historical Disneyland. The
following day, we flew by helicopter to the White House. The protocol officer
had asked me to shake President Johnson’s left hand because his right hand was
bandaged. When I landed on the White House lawn for a full state welcome with
guard of honour, I shook Johnson’s left hand like a good Boy Scout.
Johnson used superlatives, describing me as “a patriot, a brilliant political

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leader, and a statesman of the new Asia”, and Singapore as “a bright example of
what can be accomplished, not only in Asia but in Africa and Latin America –
wherever men work for a life of freedom and dignity”. I was embarrassed by the
extravagant praise, most un-British. In response, I obliquely endorsed what he
was doing in Vietnam but asked whether Americans believed that their progeny
would inherit the brave new world if they did not persevere (in Vietnam).
Immediately after the welcoming ceremony, Johnson had a one-on-one
session with me. He was a tall, huge Texan with a booming voice. I felt dwarfed
standing by his side. He was moody and troubled, but wanted to hear my views.
He was relieved to find someone from Southeast Asia and near Vietnam who
understood, sympathised and quietly supported what he was doing to contain the
communists and prevent them capturing South Vietnam and causing more
mischief beyond Vietnam.
Johnson was very direct. Was the war winnable? Was he doing right? I told
him he was doing right but the war was not winnable in a military sense. He
could prevent the communists from winning. This would allow a Vietnamese
leadership to emerge around which the people would rally. It would be a victory
because that government would have the support of the people and it would be
non-communist. I had no doubts that in a free vote the people would vote against
the communists. He was cheered, if momentarily.
At dinner in the White House that night Johnson replied to my question on
American staying power, “Yes, America has the resolution and the restraint to
see this struggle through in Vietnam. … I cannot put it more clearly or with
more confidence. You have a phrase in your part of the world that puts our
determination well. You call it ‘riding the tiger’. You rode the tiger. We shall.”
After dinner, a few senators took me out to the upstairs porch overlooking
the White House lawn. A tall, pale, lean Mike Mansfield, a Democrat from
Montana and senate majority leader, asked me a direct question: did I think the
assassination of Diem did good or harm? It did harm, I said. There was no one to
replace him who was more able to lead. There could have been other ways to get
Diem to change his policy or his method of ruling. Bumping him off had
produced instability, and worse, uncertainty as to whether any leader who stood
up for Vietnam and refused to follow American advice could survive. He pursed
his lips and said, yes, it was bad. He asked what the solutions were. I told him
there were no easy ones, no quick shoot-outs at high noon. It was going to be a
long, hard slog, unglamorous. Just to slog it out and prevent the communists
from winning while a South Vietnamese leadership emerged – that would be

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victory enough. It meant a long stay. I could see from his face that Americans
would find that difficult.
Dean Rusk, the secretary of state, was a quiet, thoughtful man, looking more
an academic than a politician. I told him I hoped the next American president
would win his election in a way that would convince Hanoi that the American
people had the patience and resolve to see the war through. If America
disengaged, the tide would go against all non-communist countries. Thailand
would change sides and Malaysia would be put through the mincing machine of
guerrilla insurgency. After that, with fraternal communist parties in control, the
communists would cut our throats in Singapore. The Chinese army would not
have to march into Southeast Asia.
Vice-President Hubert Humphrey spoke with little reservation. He was
convinced that apart from a minority who were either hawks or doves, 70–80 per
cent of the senate supported the president’s Vietnam policy. The opposition was
from a generation of Americans who had grown up 22 years after the Second
World War. They had not known war or real economic hardship. They were the
hard core of opposition in the universities. It was important that people like me,
who were non-aligned and known to be politically independent, should speak up
and stop the erosion of public opinion in the United States. His fear was that
unless people like me could help keep the carpet under Johnson’s feet, he would
be beaten in America, not Vietnam. Humphrey was a likeable man and
politically shrewd, but I doubted his toughness.
Robert McNamara, the defence secretary, was bright-eyed, eager and full of
energy. He thought American and Singapore objectives were exactly the same;
we both wanted the British to stay in Singapore. The American people did not
want to see the United States standing alone. He said Britain’s purchase of F-
111s showed its very strong ties with the United States and its intention to fulfil
British commitments in Southeast Asia. This was October 1967, one month
before Britain devalued the pound and decided to abandon east of Suez.
With both the House foreign affairs committee and the senate foreign
relations committee, the main topic was Vietnam. I gave them answers which
brought little relief to their concerns. They wanted to hear answers which could
be executed within a year or less, before the next presidential election. I offered
no such solutions.
At Harvard I spoke to some students and also met Professor Richard
Neustadt, director of the Institute of Politics in Harvard and a specialist on the
American presidency. I had asked Bill Bundy if it was possible for me to spend a

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short sabbatical to get to know Americans and their system. I felt I had to
understand them. They had different strengths and weaknesses from the British.
Theirs was a vast continent. They had no single tightly knit group of decision-
makers all clustered around either Washington or New York as the British had in
London. American decision-makers were scattered over 50 states, each with
differing interests and different pulls. Bundy arranged for me to meet Neustadt,
who promised to tailor a course for me at the Institute of Politics for one term in
the fall of 1968.
I was on the go every day, talking endlessly to the media and to different
groups – the Asia Society, the Council of Foreign Relations in New York,
students in Harvard and in St Louis, the Foreign Relations Council in Chicago,
and the press and television in Los Angeles. Even in Honolulu, where I stayed as
the house guest of the commander-in-chief, Pacific, I had to talk. Only at the
resort of Mauna Kea on the big island of Hawaii could I relax, play golf the
whole day and watch the manta ray at night after dinner.
Reports from our missions in Washington, Canberra and Wellington were
good, but Keng Swee and Raja were disturbed that I sounded too pro-American,
defending Johnson’s intervention in Vietnam. This might alienate our grass-roots
Chinese-speaking base. They advised me to move back to a more neutral
position. When I returned to Singapore, I discussed this with them and changed
my language to a more critical stance, but still gave clear support to the
American presence in Vietnam. I was convinced that to knock US policy in
Vietnam would hurt President Johnson and cause damage to his position in
America. I was not prepared to do what was against Singapore’s interest.
My 10-day visit left me with some strong impressions. As I told my cabinet
colleagues, our relationship with the United States was superficial, unlike our
relationship with Britain. The Americans thought in terms of numbers and size.
In Southeast Asia, Malaysians and Singaporeans were nothing compared to the
Indonesians.
Events moved unexpectedly and decisively after my return. The British
devalued the pound and in January 1968 announced early withdrawal – by 1971.
Two weeks later, the North Vietnamese launched their Tet (New Year)
offensive. They surged into more than a hundred cities and towns, including
Saigon. The American public was shaken by television reports of this offensive.
In fact, the Vietnamese offensive was a failure, but the media convinced
Americans that it was an unmitigated disaster for them and that the war was lost.
Two months later, on 31 March, Johnson announced, “I shall not seek and I will

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not accept the nomination of my party as president.” From then on it was a
despondent America hanging on grimly, waiting for a new president to seek a
not dishonourable withdrawal from Vietnam.
From October to December 1968, as planned, I took a short sabbatical in the
University of British Columbia (UBC) and Harvard and left Goh Keng Swee in
charge. I spent several weeks at UBC. From their faculty club, where I was a
guest, I watched the US presidential election campaign on television. After
Nixon won, I flew from Vancouver to Ottawa to meet Pierre Trudeau, who had
become prime minister earlier that year. Then on to Boston and Harvard where I
was a visiting fellow at the Institute of Politics, which was attached to the John
F. Kennedy School of Government.
At Harvard’s Eliot House, where I stayed with some 200 students and 10
fellows, I had an immersion course on American culture. Neustadt had arranged
for me a wide exposure to American scholars in various fields, mainly American
government and politics, development economics, motivation and productivity.
It was a full programme of morning discussions with one group, a working lunch
with another, an afternoon seminar, and social dinners at night with
distinguished scholars. At the annual Harvard vs Yale football match I had a
taste of American youthful exuberance complete with pom-pom waving
cheerleaders. The efficiency of the arrangements was impressive. A graduate
student attached to me chased up materials or arranged any meetings I wanted in
addition to what had been fixed. The Secret Service caused quite a disruption to
the normal life of Eliot House, parking their centre of operations in the senior
common room to give me 24-hour security. I dined in hall with the students,
fellows and the Master, Alan Heimert. I was struck by the easy informality
between teachers and students. The students were extremely bright; one teacher
confessed that it could be quite unnerving to argue with some of them.
The academics in Cambridge, Massachusetts were different from those in
Cambridge, England. British dons of the 1940s to ’60s were happy to be in their
ivory tower, separated from the hurly-burly of London and Westminster.
American professors, on the other hand, increased their stature by being
associated with the government. In the Kennedy administration many of the
professors would take the Boston-New York-Washington shuttle. The forte of
British academics of that period was in rigorous study of the past, not of the
present or the future, which involved conjecture. They did not have the direct
interaction with business and industry which the Harvard Business School
provided. The Americans, unlike the British, did not confine themselves to a

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critical examination of the past. Investigating the present to predict the future is a
strength of American scholarship. Their think-tanks have made futurology a
respectable subject under the title “futuristic studies”.
My greatest benefit was not more knowledge but the contacts and friendships
I made with scholars who were not only knowledgeable about contemporary
affairs but also had access to the nerve centres of American government and
business. I was a curiosity in Harvard, an Asian politician taking time off to
recharge his batteries and seek knowledge in academia at the age of 45, after ten
years in office. They readily hosted dinners for me to meet interesting people
including economist John Kenneth Galbraith, Japan specialist and former US
ambassador to Japan Edwin Reischauer, China specialist John Fairbank, MIT
political science teacher Lucien Pye, who had done research on guerrilla
communism in Malaya in the 1950s, and MIT’s Paul Samuelson, famous for his
economics textbook, who explained to me why Americans still kept low value-
added industries like textiles. My most valuable discussions were with Ray
Vernon of the Harvard Business School. He gave me such practical insights into
the workings of the contemporary economies of Hong Kong and Taiwan that I
returned every few years to learn more from him.
I found many other fresh ideas and picked the brains of other highly
intelligent people who were not always right. They were too politically correct.
Harvard was determinedly liberal. No scholar was prepared to say or admit that
there were any inherent differences between races or cultures or religions. They
held that human beings were equal and a society only needed correct economic
policies and institutions of government to succeed. They were so bright I found
it difficult to believe that they sincerely held these views they felt compelled to
espouse.
Harvard faculty members I met across a dinner table were sharp, witty and
stimulating, even though I did not always agree with them. Galbraith had the
most acerbic tongue of all. At one dinner, I met Henry Kissinger. It was pure
serendipity that at that dinner where many liberal Americans voiced strong
criticisms of the Vietnam War, I took the contrary view and explained that
America’s stand was crucial for the future of a non-communist Southeast Asia.
Kissinger was circumspect in his choice of words to justify American
intervention. Surrounded by doves, he was careful not to appear a hawk.
Speaking slowly in his heavy German-accented English, he gave me the
impression of a man who was not going to be swept along by the mood of the
moment. Shortly afterwards Nixon’s office announced that Kissinger would be

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the national security adviser. By then he had left Harvard. Before I flew home
that December, I met him in New York to encourage him to stay the course in
Vietnam, and said that preventing the communists from winning was within
America’s capability.
I wanted to call on President Johnson. Bill Bundy was surprised that I
wanted to see a lame duck president and not the president-elect. I said Nixon
needed time to sort out his staff and agenda and I could come back after he had
settled into his job. It was a forlorn and melancholy Johnson I met. He said he
had put everything he had into Vietnam. His two sons-in-law were in the armed
forces and both had served in Vietnam. No man could do more. I left a
disconsolate Lyndon Johnson.
My next visit to America was in 1969. I called on President Nixon on 12
May. He had met me in Singapore in April 1967 when on a tour of Southeast
Asia to prepare himself for the presidential election the following year. He was a
serious thinker, knowledgeable about Asia and the world. He always wanted the
big picture. For over an hour in my office, I answered his questions. The
Cultural Revolution was then at its height. He asked me what I thought was
going on. I said that the only direct knowledge we had was from debriefing our
older folk whom we allowed to visit their relatives in Guangdong and Fujian
provinces in southeast coastal China. As far as we could make out, Mao wanted
to remake China. Like the first Chinese emperor, Qinshihuang, who had burnt all
the books of the time to wipe out what had gone before, Mao wanted to erase the
old China and paint a new one. But Mao was painting on an old Chinese picture
imbedded in mosaic; the rains would come, Mao’s paint would be washed off,
and the mosaic would reappear. Mao had only one lifetime and did not have the
time or power to erase over 4,000 years of Chinese history, tradition, culture and
literature. Even if all the books were burnt, the proverbs and sayings would
survive in the folk memory of the people. Mao was doomed to fail. (Years later,
in his retirement, Nixon quoted what I had said in a book. He also quoted me on
the Japanese, that they had the drive and the ability to be more than just makers
and sellers of transistor radios. Only then did I learn that, like me, Nixon had the
habit of making notes after a serious discussion.)
Asked about US-China enmity, I said there was no natural or abiding source
of enmity between China and the United States. China’s natural enemy was the
Soviet Union with whom it shared a 4,000-mile boundary which had been

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shifted to China’s disadvantage only in the last 100 years. There were old scores
to settle. The boundary between America and China was an artificial one drawn
on water across the Straits of Taiwan. It was ephemeral and would pass with
time.
When we met in Washington in 1969, Nixon again questioned me on China.
I gave him basically the same replies. I did not know then that his mind was
already focused on China to improve America’s position vis-à-vis the Soviet
Union.
The subject which took the most time was Vietnam. America, he said, was a
large, rich, powerful nation engaged in a guerrilla war with Vietnam, a poor
country, underdeveloped and with practically no technology. Billions of
American dollars had been spent on the war which had cost 32,600 American
dead and 200,000 casualties. This had nearly exhausted the patience of the
American people and members of Congress. Pressures were mounting daily for
an American pull-out as soon as possible. But he had to consider the effects of
the pull-out on the South Vietnamese people, government and military, on
Vietnam’s neighbours in Southeast Asia, on America’s allies, including
Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand, and on the
world in general. The issue was the credibility of American promises. Despite
pressure from American public opinion in Congress, he had to ensure the best
solution to the problem. I sensed that he wanted to end the Vietnam War because
of domestic opposition, but was not about to be the first American president to
lose a war. He wanted an honourable exit.
I expressed my amazement at the Americans’ loss of confidence. A
precipitate ending of the Vietnam War would have dangerous and unpredictable
consequences not just in Vietnam but also in neighbouring countries, especially
Thailand, which had totally committed itself in support of the United States. Any
withdrawal should be purposeful and gradual so that South Vietnamese soldiers
could take on more of the war – they must be pushed to take on their share of the
fighting. The solution was to get a group of committed South Vietnamese
leaders to tackle their problems with the dedication and sense of purpose the
Vietcong displayed. The aim should be for South Vietnam to be like South
Korea, where some 30,000 to 50,000 American soldiers were stationed to enable
the South Korean armed forces to increase their capability year by year. For such
a withdrawal to succeed, Hanoi and the Vietcong had to get the message that
America had all the time in the world for a slow, deliberate withdrawal and the
president would not be pressured into a hasty and calamitous pull-out. Hanoi

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was fighting the war in Washington and was helped unwittingly by many in
Congress, egged on by the media. The US role should be to help the South
Vietnamese fight for themselves, so that if they fought and lost the United States
could not be held responsible, provided they had been given enough time and
equipment; in other words, to Vietnamise the war. He showed interest. The
scheduled half-hour meeting went on for one and a quarter hours. He wanted
reasons to believe that he could get out in a way that would not mean a defeat. I
believed it was possible. That cheered him.
When I next met Nixon on 5 November 1970, he appeared fatigued after a
strenuous mid-term election campaign. He went over the Vietnam options. Then
he turned to China. I suggested that he open America’s doors and windows to
China and begin trade on non-strategic goods. When two-thirds of the UN
members supported China’s admission, the United States should not be seen to
be blocking it. America should not be discouraged by Mao’s negative attitude. I
repeated, the United States had no common frontier with China as the Russians
had.
At a separate meeting in the White House annexe, Henry Kissinger asked me
about the proposed Russian use of the dockyard at the naval base in Singapore.
As I expected, he had heard from Ted Heath of Kosygin’s interest in the use of
the naval base after the British left. I had earlier told Heath this to encourage him
not to leave the naval base in a hurry. I assured Kissinger that I would not take a
decision without first informing the British and him. The Russian move had
given me a card to play. I hoped the Americans would encourage the Australians
to remain in Singapore. I was comfortable with Britain, Australia, New Zealand
and Malaysia in the Five-Power Defence Arrangement. I orbited around
Australia and New Zealand and they orbited around the United States – a happy
situation for Singapore. “And for the US,” Kissinger added. I said that because
Singapore did not receive US aid, I could speak as an objective, non-aligned
voice from Southeast Asia. Kissinger agreed that this was best for both of us.
Meanwhile, Kissinger had contacted the leaders in Beijing through the
Pakistanis. He secretly visited Beijing in 1971 to prepare for Nixon’s visit in
February 1972. When Nixon announced it in January 1972, it astonished the
world. I was uneasy that he should have done this without first telling any of his
Asian allies, neither the Japanese nor the government of the Republic of China,
their other ally in Taiwan. That visit was indeed “a week that changed the
world”, as Nixon said.

---

The war situation in Vietnam appeared unpromising when I next visited
America, in April 1973. Casualties continued with no victory in sight, and the
US Congress was pressing the administration to disengage totally from
Southeast Asia. Choo and I had lunch with Robert McNamara, then World Bank
president, and his wife at their home in Georgetown. Looking grave, McNamara
said there were disturbing reports that Nixon was involved in the cover-up of
Watergate and things might get very difficult. I had a premonition of trouble
ahead, both for Nixon and for Southeast Asia.
When I arrived at the White House on the morning of 10 April, the president
was at the front porch to greet me. He was warm and friendly and went out of his
way to show his appreciation for my consistent public backing of his lonely
position on Vietnam and Cambodia. For photo opportunities, he strolled with me
in the White House rose garden and talked of the roses and the crab-apple trees
in full bloom. Inside the White House, Nixon said he did not see China as an
immediate threat; it would be a force to reckon with only in 10 or 15 years when
its nuclear programme had matured. He asked about Vietnam and the ceasefire
terms under which the United States had promised aid to reconstruct North
Vietnam. I replied that it was the best possible arrangement in the circumstances.
It was right to woo the North Vietnamese away from dependence on Russia and
China. If America did not give any aid for reconstruction, the North Vietnamese
would become more dependent on Russia and China.
In spite of his many preoccupations so soon after his re-election as president
and with Watergate brewing, Nixon gave a White House dinner in my honour.
There is a ritual at White House dinners which makes for presidential grandeur.
Choo and I walked down the staircase of the White House with the president and
his wife accompanied by several ADCs resplendent in bemedalled uniforms and
gold aiguillettes. We paused at the landing as a fanfare of trumpets drew
everyone’s attention. A hush fell as we walked down the final flight of stairs
with the assembled guests looking up at us. Then we lined up – the president,
Mrs Nixon, myself and Choo – to receive the guests. It was the same ritual as
when Lyndon Johnson gave me dinner in 1967. But Nixon’s style was different.
He shook every hand with enthusiasm and the appropriate greeting: “Glad to see
you again.” “How nice to see you.” “How good of you.” In between he would
insert a few words of praise or comment on a particular guest as I shook hands
with him. In the midst of all this he said in an aside, “Never use the wrong
expression, like ‘How do you do.’ You may have met the man before. It will
show you did not recognise him and he will be offended. Always use a neutral

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phrase like ‘How nice to see you.’ ‘How good to see you.’ ‘It is good to see
you.’ And if you recognise him, ‘Ah, it is a long time since we last met. How
good to see you again.’ ” He was a professional but had little small talk and
never told jokes, unlike Ronald Reagan whose conversation was rich with such
social lubricants.
Marshall Green, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs,
asked for my views on America’s China initiatives, meaning Nixon’s visit to
China in February 1972. I said they could not be faulted except for the element
of surprise. If it had been done with less surprise, the favourable results would
have been even better. The surprise factor had planted apprehension in Japanese
and Southeast Asian minds that big powers were prone to sudden policy
switches which could leave them on the wrong side.
Green explained that the Japanese had great difficulty in keeping secrets;
they said so themselves. He stressed that the new relationship with China had not
changed America’s policy towards any other nation in the area. Taiwan had been
concerned at the outset. But it was now clear that the United States was
maintaining its treaty commitments. South Korea had also been worried but now
realised that their relationship with the United States had not been altered at all.
In short, normalisation of relations with the People’s Republic of China had been
taken at no one’s expense. The end result was more stability for all in Asia.
Increased contact with Western civilisation and technology, I said, was
bound to have an effect on China. Its present isolation could not be sustained.
For example, because of the total insulation of the Chinese people from the
outside world, their ping-pong team that visited Singapore was unwilling to talk
of anything but ping-pong. I believed once the Chinese economy was past the
“line of barest necessities”, they would face the problems the Soviets now had.
The Chinese people would want choices in the products available to them, and
with choices they would lose their egalitarian fervour.
Green assured me that the United States fully intended to continue to play an
important stabilising role in Asia. “We will keep our forces in the area and we
will meet our treaty commitments.” I was reminded of Harold Wilson and Denis
Healey’s earlier assurances that Britain would stay in Singapore. I consoled
myself with the thought that because America, unlike Britain, had never
depended on a colonial empire to be a world power, it would not be under the
same economic pressure to withdraw from Asia.
When Nixon resigned on 9 August 1974 to avoid impeachment for
Watergate, I feared for South Vietnam. As one of his last acts as president,

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Nixon had signed into law a bill that imposed a ceiling of US$1 billion on
American military aid to South Vietnam for the next 11 months. Within days of
his resignation, the House of Representatives voted to trim it to US$700 million.
The axe was falling and the neck on the chopping block was President Thieu’s.
On 25 April 1975 Thieu left Saigon. On 29 April, as North Vietnamese
troops were advancing into the city, an American helicopter took off from the
embassy roof, a moment captured in that indelible photograph of panic-stricken
South Vietnamese scrambling to get to the departing helicopter. The next day,
North Vietnamese tanks drove up to the presidential palace and ceremonially
knocked its gates down.
Although American intervention failed in Vietnam, it bought time for the rest
of Southeast Asia. In 1965, when the US military moved massively into South
Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines faced internal threats from
armed communist insurgencies and the communist underground was still active
in Singapore. Indonesia, in the throes of a failed communist coup, was waging