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SEP 18 1998
Not a simple battle between good and evil
"A GRIPPING narrative which compels you to keep turning the pages. The set-pieces are so vivid they seem like a movie: you can experience the heat, the dark, the bare electric bulbs and the stir of an election crowd; watch the quiet but deadly serious battle of wits with the Plen over warm Anchor beer; or hear the distinctive Anglo-Malay mannerisms of the Tunku.
Behind the detail, though, are two great themes which resonate more widely. The first is the Singapore story itself, how an island without natural resources and in a distinctly unpromising neighbourhood became a successful state whose citizens are as prosperous as any in the world.
The opening stages of how this was done make enthralling reading. I had not grasped the full significance of the divide between Chinese- and English-educated -- that it was not so much a matter of language as of two quite separate value systems.
The other theme is of equal significance. The narrative describes a key battle in the long and melancholic struggle which has taken up most of this century -- that between the communist and pluralist visions of society. The story conveys why this was a real struggle, with strong attractions on both sides, and not a simple battle between good and evil.
The battle in Singapore was a near-run thing, to borrow the Duke of Wellington's phrase, and your first-hand account of popular front tactics, the underground behind them and the cool head needed to defeat them is of great historical importance. Many people in the United States and elsewhere will still find it useful to be reminded that the secret of success lay in sound policies and not in ideological fervour.
There is a third theme: why and how the Singapore voters were willing to support commonsense development policies over the time needed to show results when so many other former British colonies went into a spiral of fashionable theories and progressive impoverishment. Despite their benevolent aims, Harold Laski (professor of political science at the London School of Economics) and the LSE have much to answer for and I am glad for all our sakes that you moved to Cambridge."
[ Mr Gerald Hensley, New Zealand's Secretary of Defence, was the New Zealand High Commissioner here in the 1970s and became friends with Mr Lee, who sent him drafts of his memoirs to check statements about New Zealand, Australia and the Commonwealth. He sent this to Mr Lee after reading the draft.]
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