Book takes mildly irreverent look at MM Lee

US journalist shares candid insights on MM's private thoughts and beliefs
By Zakir Hussain

AMERICAN journalist Tom Plate, a fan of Singapore and the way the country works, has written a book that gives a personal, mildly irreverent, insight into Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and his thinking.

The book, Conversations With Lee Kuan Yew, was launched at the Shangri-La Hotel yesterday, with Mr Lee and some 40 guests present.


Mr Lee, who spoke briefly off the cuff, hoped the 216-page book makes for interesting reading.

'I don't agree with all of it, but that is to be expected - the Western journalist's exaggeration of eccentricity,' he said.

'But on the whole, he got my point of view across,' he added.

Mr Plate, 66, a veteran journalist and former journalism professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said he wanted to take a 'fresh, unique approach' that people will remember 50 years from now.

Over two days last July, he interviewed Mr Lee at length at the Istana.

The result is a scintillating insight into the private - and brutally candid - beliefs and thoughts of the 86-year-old Minister Mentor on a wide range of topics, from his temper and children to various countries and his 'authoritarian' ways.

These are captured in a writing style that is fast-paced and conversational over 24 chapters that are peppered with Mr Plate's views.

Although Mr Lee had asked for the book 'to have critical and negative stuff in it', and to 'tell the true story of me, as you see it', Mr Plate said the 'warts' in the Lee Kuan Yew story are well known and not that interesting to him.

Far more engaging are the insights of this 'iconic and fashionably authoritarian director' of the blockbuster that is Singapore, the man he describes as 'the Clint Eastwood of Asia'.

The reader, whether local or foreign, will find much that is novel in what Mr Plate describes as his 'screenplay'.

Take Mr Lee on how well Singaporeans know him: 'They think they know me, but they only know the public me.'

Or his temper, which he resolved to keep in check, having seen how his father's nasty temper created unhappiness for his mother and family.

'I never try to lose my temper. Maybe I have occasionally, but I try to control it,' he said in the book.

As for his faults, he lists them as 'impatience in getting things done, pressing his associates and aides in putting in their best to get the job done, or fairly quickly replacing them when they are not making the effort well'.

'I tend to blow up when my secretaries are dilatory and I am under pressure,' he said, adding that this was not an exhaustive list.

'I cannot see myself,' he added.

'My faults are many and numerous. You will have to ask my opponents and enemies, and there are many in Singapore.'

In the book, Mr Lee is also asked about some of the other great men he has met.

The greatest, he says, is China's late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, who admitted he had been wrong and broke away from communist economics, enabling China to grow rapidly.

Asked whether he is really an 'authoritarian', he replies: 'Authoritarian means one has not got the consent of the people to your policies.

'My policies have been endorsed by the electorate every four to five years by a clear majority, never below 60 per cent. I do not consider myself authoritarian.'

Mr Plate sums up Mr Lee as someone who knows utopia does not exist, but believes 'we cannot stop trying to get there'.

The book is published by Marshall Cavendish, and is the first in its Giants of Asia series.

Next is a book on former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, whom Mr Plate interviewed recently.

One on United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, a former South Korean foreign minister, is on the way too.

Tun Dr Mahathir, who has been critical of Mr Lee, also gave Mr Plate a comment on Mr Lee's legacy for the book on the MM.

He said: 'He is a big frog in a small pond. He is not satisfied with what he has... But I think he will go down in history as a very remarkable intellectual and politician at the same time, which is not a very often thing.'

The book costs $32.62 (before GST) and is available at major bookstores.

zakirh@sph.com.sg

Originally published May 27, 2010 in the Straits Times.