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Chitchat Derek Davies - the man called Intrepid

scroobal

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Singapore and the rubber traders - OCBC, Lee Kong Chian etc made a fortune during both the Korean and Vietnam war as rubber prices rocketed. Some made a fortune on Vietnam war scraps.

There was strings of bars along Orchard Road next to the Thai Embassy and our hookers of multi-racial hue would have made Rajaratnam proud.

Sarong Party girls were aplenty with their trade mark long black hair and mini skirts.

Clifford Pier had staff from Chase Manhattan Bank sitting side by side with US Navy payroll officers to hand over their salary. The GIs would collect their pay, move to a line of hotel agents to book their rooms. Vans would be there to pick senior officer to 5 star hotels.



It was a bygone era that is unknown to most Singaporeans because of the way Singapore history books are written. The following is a good summary of the period. The original PAP team was forged in this crucible. Can you imagine what Singapore would be like if instead of them, we had the current PAP team?

http://thediplomat.com/2017/03/lee-kuan-yews-singapore-bloomed-in-the-shadow-of-the-cold-war/

Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore Bloomed in the Shadow of the Cold War


Singapore’s rise can’t be separated from the context of the Cold War in Southeast Asia.

Vigorous debate over the legacy of Singapore’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, has continued since his death on March 23, 2015. Many credit Lee’s 31-years at the helm of the country (1959-1990) for vaulting Singapore from a “slum-ridden trading post” to a global metropolis. Others criticize what they consider Lee’s authoritarian tendencies, contending that he squashed his political opponents by labeling them communists and detaining them without due process. Indeed, Lee admitted in a 2010 interview that he had done “some nasty things, locking fellows up without trial,” but argued that his was an “honorable purpose” since these “fellows” were communists intent on hijacking the democratic process. Thus, some believe that Lee’s allegedly authoritarian ways brought Singapore wealth and security, and Western observers should question if their political freedoms actually trump the material comforts that Singaporeans enjoy.

These views overstate to extent to which Singapore’s economic boom was a function of Lee’s so-called authoritarian rule. It’s a tempting conclusion to reach — Lee’s presence dominates Singapore’s history as an independent nation, and Singapore got rich while other countries of the global south fell behind despite oodles more natural resources. This prompts some to call the city-state exceptional. But this narrative holds Singapore’s history separate from its Southeast Asian neighbors, from the vortices of decolonization and the Cold War. It presumes that Singapore’s success arose from causes within its boundaries, from the domestic policies of Lee and his colleagues when Singapore exited the Malaysian Federation in 1965.

Analyses of Lee’s tenure typically overlook how much Singapore benefited from the Cold War. In fact, Singapore’s economy enjoyed a running start because Britain clung to its air and naval bases in Singapore for decades after World War II, hoping to buttress Britain’s status as a world power. Britain’s Singapore bases underpinned its Cold War military commitment to the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO). And as the CIA learned in 1967, Britain had been pumping almost $200 million annually into the Singapore economy to maintain its military installations on the island. These bases contributed 20 percent of Singapore’s national income, providing employment for 36,000 Singaporeans. Current Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has stated that Britain’s withdrawal from the bases in the late 1960s actually threatened the livelihoods of 150,000 Singaporeans.

It wasn’t just that Britain refused to leave. Lee and his colleagues valued the bases’ economic contribution. Lee even strove to deflect the criticisms of non-aligned leaders that the British bases made Singapore a neocolonial puppet. In the early 1960s, he visited the major non-aligned leaders of Asia and Africa to convince them that British forces remained in Singapore only at the pleasure of Singaporeans, that he could turn the British out at any time. Most non-aligned nations accepted Lee’s argument because he was persuasive and, anyway, many non-aligned states maintained similar military ties with their former colonial rulers or had forged new ones with one or more of the ascendant Cold War powers. However, Indonesian President Sukarno continued until he was ousted (between 1965 and 1967) to insist that Britain’s Singapore bases served British neocolonial designs. Sukarno remarked in his autobiography: “Colonialism wasn’t retreating in my backyard, just changing shape.” But absent significant resistance from the non-aligned world against Britain’s Singapore bases, the country enjoyed additional years of the fading empire’s bounty.

When Britain finally relinquished its Singapore bases in 1971, Singapore did not lack for a new, powerful and rich patron. Singapore thrived as a something of a war economy as America, the USSR, and China engaged in their proxy war in Indochina. In 1967, a full 15 percent of Singapore’s national income derived from U.S. military procurements for Vietnam. Furthermore, Singapore served as Southeast Asia’s regional petroleum-refining center, crucial to the U.S. war machine. Lockheed Corporation had set up shop on the island for commercial reasons as well as to repair and maintain aircraft being deployed for the U.S. intervention in Vietnam. More American monies flowed into Singapore as the Vietnam War ground on. In 1971, U.S. officials found in that American private investment in Singapore had begun to grow at a phenomenal $100 million a year.

Here, too, Lee played an important role. He repeatedly cajoled U.S. leaders to support the Saigon government. After his first official visit to America as Singapore’s prime minister in October 1967, Lee wrote President Lyndon Johnson that his support for the U.S. war in Vietnam was “unequivocal,” that it bought time for states to stabilize their governments and economies. Traveling throughout the United States that October, Lee continually told the American press that Southeast Asia would accommodate to communism if America abandoned Vietnam. Johnson valued Lee’s support and promised to “keep on a steady course in Vietnam.” Lee later cultivated relations with the Nixon administration, promising to persuade the American public not to “sell out” Saigon. American troops would fight in Vietnam till 1973. Several extra years of U.S. military procurements (and rising numbers of American companies setting up in Singapore) certainly helped the Singaporean economy, too.

Lee’s strategy for Singapore in the Cold War was not exceptional. Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman also cleaved to America as British power waned; he supported the U.S. war in Vietnam and tried to win more American investment. Thai military elites resolutely aligned their country with America from 1950 onward and reaped many rewards. For his part, Sukarno claimed he was non-aligned but strung all the Cold War powers along to access their war chests. Likewise, while Lee and his colleagues toiled over domestic policies to drive Singapore’s economic development, they readily exploited the transnational conflict that buffeted all newly independent nations. Most non-aligned nations tried their hands at this game during the Cold War; Lee and his lieutenants happened to play it quite well.
 

scroobal

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You truly missed a chance to get the signature of Bloodworth. He was pivotal to many things in the early years - good, bad and ugly.

Dennis Bloodworth & his wife, lived near to where I was staying when I was young...use to run into him or them at the market and the eateries around that area. I recognised him, for I used to buy his books to read & actually wanted him to autograph of of his I have...but never did.:wink:
 

scroobal

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The domino theory resulted in the Kiwi's placing half their army in Singapore and Aussies their Air Force in Butterworth. Interesting time. We also operated the largest antenna farm in the southern hemisphere at Kranji. Half the time we had no clue what these forces were doing in our own backyard but the Old Man and GKS knew that it brought big money. We should have awarded our hookers national day honours for their role in these investments similar to EDB.

@aruvandil:

When LKY expressed gratitude to the US for buying time for us by holding back communism in the region, he was almost right. We should really be grateful to the hundreds of thousands of maimed and dead GIs in this war. What a horrible experience.
 

yinyang

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On Derek Davies, I recall our very own political caricaturist Morgan Chua making his mark in FEER. Knew his old man who told us that his son's moves were closely followed by our local intelligence, whenever he returned from HK. Interesting, the MI6 intrigues mentioned here for this outpost :cool:

2efnrfb.jpg


2hf0shy.jpg
 
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halsey02

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You truly missed a chance to get the signature of Bloodworth. He was pivotal to many things in the early years - good, bad and ugly.

What do do?....could see his smile....& hear that ' Hi's, how are you'?...was a fan of his books...at that age was certainly thrill to meet the author of the books, you read...I was, very, young then to be reading that kind of books. I got started while I stumbled upon Han Suyin " The Crippled Tree" in a friend's dad home library & borrowed the book...that got me to read her trilogy plus others...& hence into Dennis B...Han Suyin husband was in the intelligence too & she was living in this part of the world for a long time too, wonder if they were connected to Jim Thomson?
 

aurvandil

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With the opening of old files, we now know that the domino theory was about as correct as the WMD theory that the US used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/09/world/mcnamara-recalls-and-regrets-vietnam.html

.... Mr. McNamara says he belatedly concluded that the domino theory enunciated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and subscribed to by his three successors was wrong: The loss of South Vietnam never threatened to undermine the entire American position in Asia or to undercut United States credibility elsewhere.

"On the contrary," he writes, "it is possible we would have improved our credibility by withdrawing from Vietnam and saving our strength for more defensible stands elsewhere."

Others in Government reached similar conclusions but did not share them widely. Mr. McNamara discloses that Richard Helms, at that time the Director of Central Intelligence, sent President Johnson an eyes-only memo in September 1967 that the President showed to no one and that Mr. McNamara only recently read. Based on a detailed agency study, it said that, contrary to what was then established American doctrine, the effects of "an unfavorable outcome in Vietnam" -- a United States defeat or withdrawal -- "would not be permanently damaging to this country's capacity to play its part as a world power working for order and security in many areas."

Mr. McNamara writes that he believes President Kennedy would have eventually decided to withdraw from Vietnam, had he lived, but he offers no details to support the assertion.

The domino theory resulted in the Kiwi's placing half their army in Singapore and Aussies their Air Force in Butterworth.
 
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aurvandil

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While the senior officers went to 5 star hotels, the poorer enlisted men went to cheaper digs. A popular hotel was the Ambassador Hotel at Meyer Road mentioned by the GI in his memoir. The following is a posting from someone who remembered the hotel well.

On the GI and his memory of his companion, he was after all a soldier and not an historian. He probably mixed up between the many girls he had liaisons with.

223593


http://www.singaporememory.sg/contents/SMA-2f268d93-1499-49a6-b679-85f430c433bb

Katong Park Hotel, now closed, was one of Singapore's oldest hotel. It used to be located along Meyer Road. According to Singapore Infopedia, It was owned by several people since it was built in the early 1960s, the hotel was known by two other names, Ambassador Hotel and Duke Hotel, before getting its latest name, Katong Park Hotel, in 1992. It was sold to make way for a residential project in the late 1990s.

But on the other hand, according to an advertisement in the Singapore Constitution Exposition Jan-Feb 1959, the hotel was known as Embassy Hotel Ltd. Its address was 46 Meyer Road, Singapore 15 (Opp. Katong Park).

According to Singapore Infopedia, Katong Park Hotel was built in early 1960s. But then the advertisement was found in the souvenir magazine the Singapore Constitution Exposition in the Jan-Feb 1959 issue. From the picture above, the hotel looked full-fledge with all the hotel facilities and function rooms in place. It could be built in the later part of1950s.

Later it was known as the Ambassador Hotel. No body could throw light on why there was a change of names. From what I conjecture, it could be the confusion of the word ‘Embassy’. Travellers might think that was an embassy of a country. Thus it was changed to Ambassador Hotel. The Ambassador Hotel was acquired in 1982 by Teo Lay Swee, a hotelier, for S$ 29.5 million.

According of some of my older colleagues, they say that they used to frequent the Niteclub to drink and to dance. This place was strategically located many nearby schools such as Tanjong Rhu Boys’ and Girls’ Schools, Tanjong Rhu Primary School, Haig Girls’ and Boy’s School, Tanjong Katong Girls’ School, Tanjong Katong Technical School, Dunman Secondary School, Duman Government Secondary School, Broadrick Primary and Secondary Schools, Tun Seri Lanang Secondary School, Maju Secondary School, Kallang Primary School and a few mission schools around, it was very convenient to hold their annual dinners in this hotel.

Opposite this hotel is the famous Katong Park – a lover’s haunt in the 50s, 60s and 70s. At weekends, swimmers used to swim there, parents with children tow patronised the facilities there as well as to enjoy the sea breeze and the scenery of the sea and ships that parked out there. During curriculum time, teachers and pupils from nearby schools brought their pupils there for their Nature Study lessons. At night, the cafeteria served mouth watering, satay and fried Hokkien mee.

Teo Lay Swee who also owned the Cockpit Hotel from 1983 to 1997, renamed the Ambassaor Hotel to Duke Hotel.

After he purchased the Ambassador Hotel, he renamed it as Duke Hotel. The hotel went into a rough patch due to stiff competition from newer hotels that sprung up in the eighties. Despite undergoing revamp of the management style, the hotel patronage continued to decline. In 1992, Mr Teo sold the Duke Hotel for S$30 million to a Macau-based Chui family.



Clifford Pier had staff from Chase Manhattan Bank sitting side by side with US Navy payroll officers to hand over their salary. The GIs would collect their pay, move to a line of hotel agents to book their rooms. Vans would be there to pick senior officer to 5 star hotels.
 
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scroobal

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Bro, old man was paranoid after Davies hired Ho Kwong Ping as his father was an ambassador and he knew background. So everyone was watched.


On Derek Davies, I recall our very own political caricaturist Morgan Chua making his mark in FEER. Knew his old man who told us that his son's moves were closely followed by our local intelligence, whenever he returned from HK. Interesting, the MI6 intrigues mentioned here for this outpost :cool:

2efnrfb.jpg


2hf0shy.jpg
 

scroobal

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You touched on a very interesting subject- Han SuYin - will fill in the blanks when I fly back. I hope I can recall the details.

What do do?....could see his smile....& hear that ' Hi's, how are you'?...was a fan of his books...at that age was certainly thrill to meet the author of the books, you read...I was, very, young then to be reading that kind of books. I got started while I stumbled upon Han Suyin " The Crippled Tree" in a friend's dad home library & borrowed the book...that got me to read her trilogy plus others...& hence into Dennis B...Han Suyin husband was in the intelligence too & she was living in this part of the world for a long time too, wonder if they were connected to Jim Thomson?
 

scroobal

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Han Suyin home was in Johor where she stayed with her British husband who was ranking Special Branch Officer for Southern Malaysia. The hubby was in the thick of fighting the CPM.

Han was also the designated medical doctor for Nantah with another local doctor. Han's clinic was in Chinatown and was too far away for Nantah students and over time it was 3rd doctor residing closer to Nantah who was not designated by Nantah that ended up treating the students. Yet Han and the other designated doctor ended with award for helping the University.

Now is the more interesting part is that the Han's hubby would identify and pick out CPM couriers that they arrested as those likely acting for the CPM leadership. The courier would be brought home and both husband and wife would be involved in turning them around. They would stay with the Hans for months. It is believed that it not only destroyed the Southern Johor Command but also affected the Singapore lot as well.

Interesting lady.


You touched on a very interesting subject- Han SuYin - will fill in the blanks when I fly back. I hope I can recall the details.
 

halsey02

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Han Suyin home was in Johor where she stayed with her British husband who was ranking Special Branch Officer for Southern Malaysia. The hubby was in the thick of fighting the CPM.

Han was also the designated medical doctor for Nantah with another local doctor. Han's clinic was in Chinatown and was too far away for Nantah students and over time it was 3rd doctor residing closer to Nantah who was not designated by Nantah that ended up treating the students. Yet Han and the other designated doctor ended with award for helping the University.

Now is the more interesting part is that the Han's hubby would identify and pick out CPM couriers that they arrested as those likely acting for the CPM leadership. The courier would be brought home and both husband and wife would be involved in turning them around. They would stay with the Hans for months. It is believed that it not only destroyed the Southern Johor Command but also affected the Singapore lot as well.

Interesting lady.

Never knew Han Su Yin was into the intelligence thing. I was very young, when I spotted her book, still can remember the cover, it was black with a withered tree & the title was " The Cripple Tree"...in a friend's dad home library, borrowed that & read it. That got me interested, so I went to MPH bought her trilogy ( which include Cripple Tree) & later..whatever books she had written & I can find. I was interested in East Asia Civilisation, specialising in CHINA. I still have John King Fairbank, Albert M Craig, Edwin O' Reischaeyr " " A History Of East Asia Civilization" in Hardcover..

Now back to Han Suyin....later I researched that she spent years in this part of the world, especially in JB & Singapore, even had a medical practice here, read that her husband was a British Intelligence chief...but really did not know, she was involved in his work. Anyway, reading her books, got me reading up....Edgar Snow....& Dennis Bloodsworth,...& etc.

Interesting....
 

scroobal

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Forgot to add the couriers were all women.

Han Suyin home was in Johor where she stayed with her British husband who was ranking Special Branch Officer for Southern Malaysia. The hubby was in the thick of fighting the CPM.

Han was also the designated medical doctor for Nantah with another local doctor. Han's clinic was in Chinatown and was too far away for Nantah students and over time it was 3rd doctor residing closer to Nantah who was not designated by Nantah that ended up treating the students. Yet Han and the other designated doctor ended with award for helping the University.

Now is the more interesting part is that the Han's hubby would identify and pick out CPM couriers that they arrested as those likely acting for the CPM leadership. The courier would be brought home and both husband and wife would be involved in turning them around. They would stay with the Hans for months. It is believed that it not only destroyed the Southern Johor Command but also affected the Singapore lot as well.

Interesting lady.
 

scroobal

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I am sure it will be interesting. Her husband went on to do research into CPM and got his PHD from Monash after his retirement and he also wrote a book.

Husband now works for former MHA Perm Sec at ISEAS in Singapore.


Never knew Han Su Yin was into the intelligence thing. I was very young, when I spotted her book, still can remember the cover, it was black with a withered tree & the title was " The Cripple Tree"...in a friend's dad home library, borrowed that & read it. That got me interested, so I went to MPH bought her trilogy ( which include Cripple Tree) & later..whatever books she had written & I can find. I was interested in East Asia Civilisation, specialising in CHINA. I still have John King Fairbank, Albert M Craig, Edwin O' Reischaeyr " " A History Of East Asia Civilization" in Hardcover..

Now back to Han Suyin....later I researched that she spent years in this part of the world, especially in JB & Singapore, even had a medical practice here, read that her husband was a British Intelligence chief...but really did not know, she was involved in his work. Anyway, reading her books, got me reading up....Edgar Snow....& Dennis Bloodsworth,...& etc.

Interesting....
 

halsey02

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I am sure it will be interesting. Her husband went on to do research into CPM and got his PHD from Monash after his retirement and he also wrote a book.

Husband now works for former MHA Perm Sec at ISEAS in Singapore.

I am aware that Han Suyin passed away in 2012.....Leon F. Comber is still alive....wow!...must be in his late 80's or 90's...
 

scroobal

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Amazing isn't it. And still working and of all places in Singapore. He is the last remaining member of the intelligence services from that era.

I always wondered what Han Suyin's real role was in Singapore / Malaya.

I am aware that Han Suyin passed away in 2012.....Leon F. Comber is still alive....wow!...must be in his late 80's or 90's...
 

halsey02

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Amazing isn't it. And still working and of all places in Singapore. He is the last remaining member of the intelligence services from that era.

I always wondered what Han Suyin's real role was in Singapore / Malaya.

A relic from the cold war era....it was the communists issue in the past....now?
 

halsey02

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She had a total of 4 husbands -one Chinese, two Caucasians and an Indian. Even by today's more liberal standards, that would raise some eyebrows

Two died...Indian one died too...only one still alive...maybe be caucasian blood made her liberal....more Chinese, it would be much more conservative...:wink:
 
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