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konfrontasi
, an undeclared war against Malaysia and Singapore. The Philippines
was claiming Sabah in East Malaysia. Standards of living were low and
economic growth slow. America’s action enabled non-communist Southeast
Asia to put their own houses in order. By 1975 they were in better shape to stand
up to the communists. Had there been no US intervention, the will of these
countries to resist them would have melted and Southeast Asia would most
likely have gone communist. The prosperous emerging market economies of
Asean were nurtured during the Vietnam War years.
In the weeks before Saigon fell, a huge armada of small boats and ships
packed with refugees set out across the South China Sea, many headed for
Singapore. Quite a few of them were armed. Keng Swee, acting as prime
minister, sent an urgent report to me in Washington that the number of refugees
had reached several thousands in nearly a hundred boats. He wanted an
immediate policy decision. I signalled that we should refuse them landing and
get them to move on to countries with more space to receive them. A massive
exercise started on 6 May. The Singapore Armed Forces repaired, refitted,
refuelled, reprovisioned and sent out to sea a total of 64 vessels carrying more
than 8,000 refugees. Many of the captains of these vessels had deliberately
disabled their engines to avoid being sent off.
As this operation was taking place, I called on President Gerald Ford at noon
on 8 May 1975, eight days after the fall of Saigon. Kissinger, as secretary of
state, was with him. Ford looked troubled but not despondent. He asked for the
region’s reaction to the fall of Vietnam. I had been in Bangkok in April, just
before Saigon fell. The Thais were nervous, as were people in Indonesia.
Suharto was quietly and firmly in control. I said congressional intervention to
stop the bombing of the communists had contributed to the fall of South
Vietnam. If Watergate had not happened and the bombing had continued, the
South Vietnamese forces would not have lost heart and the outcome could have
been different. Once the bombings stopped and aid was significantly reduced,
the fate of the South Vietnamese government was sealed.
Ford asked where America should go from there. I said it was best to let the
dust settle and watch how events unfolded in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. I
believed the Pathet Lao would take over Laos and come under Vietnamese
control. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge was engaged in killing thousands of
anti-communists. (I did not know then how indiscriminately they would kill,
including all who were educated or were not part of their peasant revolution.)
Thailand would get the People’s Republic of China on its side as an insurance
against invasion by the Vietnamese communists. Kissinger asked whether the
PRC would help the Thais. I thought it would. I suggested it was best to keep
cool and watch how events evolved. If at the next election a president like
McGovern were to be elected and gave in to the communists, the situation could
become hopeless.
Ford had been portrayed as a bumbler and stumbler, an American football
player who had injured his head too many times. I found him a shrewd man with
common sense who knew how to size up the people he had to deal with. He was
genuinely friendly with an easy informality. After dinner, when I asked to be
excused to go to the toilet, he insisted on bringing me to his private quarters. So
up the lift we went, followed by his Secret Service bodyguards. There, in a vast
private bathroom, was a whole array of exercise equipment, the latest of body-
building and keep-fit instruments, and all his toiletries and shaving gadgets
spread over the washbasins. I could not imagine any European, Japanese or
Third World leader bringing me to his private bathroom to freshen up. He was
just a friendly man, happy to have me as his guest and grateful that there was
one person from Southeast Asia who spoke up for America as its stocks went
down with the hasty evacuation of Saigon. He was not out to impress me, but he
did – as a solid, dependable man.
May 1999. President Jacques Chirac greeting me at the door of the Elysée
Palace, Paris.
(Reuters)
November 1990. President Francois Mitterand at the door of the Elysée
Palace, Paris.
(SPH)
Welcoming German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in October 1978.
(SPH)
May 1990. With German Chancellor Kohl at welcoming ceremony in Bonn.
(LKY)
September 1990. Goh Chok Tong, Wong Kan Seng and me meeting a
harassed President Mikhail Gorbachev in the Kremlin.
(SPH/Straits Times)
1969. In the white House with President Richard Nixon and his National
Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. Accompanying me is our ambassador E.S.
Monteiro.
(LKY)
August 1982. Meeting with friends President Ronald Reagan and US
Secretary of State George Shultz.
(White House)
April 1989. Visiting US aircraft carrier USS
Ranger
in Singapore harbour.
(SPH)
October 1985. Addressing joint session of US Congress on free trade. Behind
me, Vice-President George Bush and Speaker Tip O’Neill.
(SPH/Straits Times)
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