Lee Kuan Yew: The Crucial Years

764 Pages·2012·10.52 MB·English

by  Alex Josey

Lee Kuan Yew
The Crucial Years

© 1968 Alex Josey Cased edition first published in 1980 by Times Books International, reprinted 1984,
1986, 1987, 1989, 1993 (five times), 1994 (three times), 1996, 1997
This paperback edition published in 2012, reprinted 2013 by Marshall Cavendish Editions An imprint of
Marshall Cavendish International 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196
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Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Josey, Alex.
Lee Kuan Yew : the crucial years / Alex Josey. – Singapore : Marshall Cavendish,
2012.
p. cm.
Includes index.
eISBN : 978 981 4435 49 9
1. Lee, Kuan Yew, 1923-2. Prime ministers – Singapore - Biography. 3. Singapore – Politics and
government – 1945-1963. I. Title.
DS610.73.L45
959.5705092 — dc23 OCN797908607
Printed in Singapore by Markono Print Media Pte Ltd
For
Rosa Lilian Jane Josey
“Political problems do not primarily concern truth or falsehood: they relate to
good or evil. What in the result is likely to produce evil is politically false; that
which is productive of good, politically true.”
Burke
“We, the developing nations, are determined to bring happiness and prosperity to
our people and to discard the age-old shackles that have tied us not only
politically but economically—the shackles of colonialism and other shackles of
our own making.”
Nehru at the Bandung Conference, 1955
“Lee Kuan Yew is one of the most outstanding dynamic minds in world
statesmanship today. . .”
Fenner Brockway, M.P. in the House of Commons, 1963
“Mr Lee Kuan Yew is too clever by half. . .”
Tunku Abdul Rahman Prime Minister of Malaysia, 1966
Introduction
In the Introduction to the first edition I said that this was a book about Lee Kuan
Yew, Prime Minister of Singapore, told in part by Lee himself. Most of the book
consists of direct quotations from speeches he made since 1950.
The second edition contains most of the earlier speeches, as well as the major
speeches Lee gave in 1968, 1969 and 1970, and his speeches at the 1971
Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference held in Singapore. There are also
many more pages of illustrations in this edition.
More than a political biography, this is a book of value to politicians in other
developing states. Most of their problems are the kind of problems that Lee
Kuan Yew has had to contend with. His thinking on these matters has made
Singapore unique as a rapidly progressing developing nation.
Alex Josey
Singapore, 1971
Contents

Introduction
PART ONE
1 Early Days
2 The People’s Action Party
3 Lee’s Basic Beliefs
4 Men in Gaol
5 Ambition
6 Vietnam and The United States
7 Asian Socialism
8 The English Language
9 Leadership and Religion
10 Can Democracy Survive?
11 The Malays and the Chinese
12 Was Multiracial Malaysia Ever Possible?
PART TWO
13 The Year of Power 1959
14 The Year of Power 1960