The first
hour has gone well, but LKY is obviously still feeling it from
the injury to his leg that requires physical therapy every day and the
application of warm compresses
practically every other minute.
It is time for a break.
We look at one another and agree. We get up together and walk out of the State Room. Immediately outside is a long cool corridor shaded from the sun; beyond that is a large sun-splashed plaza with a super view of the Singapore skyline. We walk down the corridor, chatting, then took to the plaza for a well-lit photo shoot.
The early evening is still thick with heat, but the sunlight is waning. About the same height as me, but thinner and much trimmer looking, dressed in the traditional dark Chinese man’s serious suit, LKY seems to revive almost spiritually in the equatorial sunburst. As the digital cameras begin clicking away, by pre-arrangement, for some casual snapshots for the book, we start joking, about everything, about nothing in particular, aimlessly—a stress relief from the riveting but intense Q and A.
The founder of modern Singapore is ordinarily a solemn, even stern man, with glaring eyes that with a whip of disapproval seemingly could chop a rubber tree down to size.
His lighter side is much less known, but it owns a sharpness of wit and mirth, and of course sports an intellect that drills deep into his character, which is sometimes self-deprecating, and bubbles up sometimes in ways that are often entertainingly blunt.
So I decide to play a silly card—a very silly card. The digital voice recorders are not around, so why not play a bit? I won’t put all the banter back and forth in quotes because, unlike the rest of our conversations, it is not on the record, or recorded; but it is pleasant and even funny—and insightful, not only of LKY, but also about the United Nations.
Only half seriously, I say to him, you would have been selected as UN secretary-general a few years ago, if only you had announced candidacy.
In a light way I am testing the waters of his true ambitions. His achievement in leading the transformation of Singapore to internationally acclaimed success from the floor of a dilapidated former British colony and humiliated Japanese wartime outpost is the stuff of legend, to be sure. But the political canvas on which he painted is rather confining.
Singapore is not greatly more the territorial size and population of, roughly, the city of Los Angeles. In effect Lee could be put down as but perhaps one of the smartest ‘mayors’ in the 20th century. (Wise-cracking Asians from larger countries put down Singapore as that ‘little red dot’.) That itself is something, but could he have run something gigantic like China? Or even Indonesia?
Or even the UN?
Standing next to me, LKY shakes his head and laughs almost hysterically at that one. He shakes his head again. The position of UN secretary-general is in its basic structure problematic, he points out, as if designed mainly for frustration and ineffectiveness. Taking such a post, though a distinct honor (et cetera, et cetera, et cetera), would prove little more than a personal ego trip mounted on the back of Singaporeans. The vanity fling would prove a pointless flirtation and obvious self-aggrandizement on the world stage.
And, he adds frankly, the job was not one for the likes of an LKY. Besides, he says the incumbent—former South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon—is well qualified and is doing a good job under difficult circumstances.
We would surely agree that the position requires of its hapless occupant a polite and patient (and perhaps even reverent) respect for the UN’s many fools, knaves, political poseurs, outright crooks and narrow-minded self-seekers?
Something like that, he laughs, with mirth cracking up a well-organized face otherwise reserved for rectitude, adding that—truth be told—he’d be an absolute disaster in the job.
Because you’d be too blunt, telling everyone off politically, right and left?
That’s right, he responds with merry eye contact. That, he suggests, is the one part of the job he’d be good at!
Then here’s my idea, I respond: just take the job for a few months, during which time you will summon into your 38th floor Secretariat-building office each and every fool, knave, political poseur, outright crook and narrow-minded self-seeker; then sit them down, tell them off, watch their astonished reaction, and then ask them to leave and never darken your door again.
His crackling face suggests he likes the idea, rather very much indeed.
And after you go through everyone who is on your hit list, I suggest you announce your resignation and escape back to your beloved Singapore!
He says (chuckling), three months in that job, max, right?
Max!
I could do that (seriously laughing)!
You’d be very good at that, I said—in fact, exceptional.
If that’s the deal—say exactly what’s on my mind, three months, then out—maybe … heck, sure. Why not?
We both had a good chuckle. We had constructed the perfect job, outside of Singapore, for Singapore’s LKY, who’s not that easy to cast in conventional roles. So we make the UN job into a bit of a joke, only a part of which was a gross exaggeration requiring a major leap of imagination.