What has been Lee Kuan Yew's secret of good government? Here is an extract from the book, Lee Kuan Yew: The Man And His Ideas
"IN THE Cabinet, I would say there were about five or six strong Ministers with strong views. And you want to get a consensus if you can. If you can't, then you get a majority. And by that, I mean not just a majority in numbers: I would prefer the strong Ministers to back the policy.
"If one or two strong Ministers strongly felt, very fervently, against the policy, I would postpone it because I would take their objections very seriously.
"Supposing on an economic matter, if Dr Goh had very strong views to the contrary, I would postpone it. I would not over-rule him lightly, because I know that he has a deep understanding of the subject. His opposition would not be based on personal considerations.
"But if I had personal knowledge, if I had the expertise on the subject and I felt confident of it, then I would be happy even with a weak majority. And even if some strong Minister objected, I would feel confident that in this area I am more of a specialist than he is.
"In most cases, I would say in 80, or maybe even 85 per cent of the papers that come up, the answer is quite simple. Between A, B, C, D, it's quite obvious you've got to choose A. It's only that 10, 15 per cent where, you know, it could be A, it could be B and it's a toss-up; then you say, 'What's the price if it fails, if A fails; what if B fails? Supposing B costs less after failure, maybe we try B. And then if it fails, we go back to A.'
"But there are some decisions you make which do not allow that kind of simple cutting of losses, then you've got to be extremely careful.
"I'll give you an example. This is where militarily I was wrong, but politically I was right. We had to buy surface-to-air missiles. And the superior missile was the Hawk, American. This was in the '60s as the British were withdrawing. And the British had installed Bloodhounds and they were prepared to let us have it at giveaway prices, but we had to refurbish them. "Now, the Bloodhound is a high-level missile. It can reach up to 30, 40, 50 thousand feet up in the air, long range. So the professionals weighed the comparisons and said the Hawk was a better missile. It's mobile, it's not fixed on the ground, so is not easily targeted. And the aircraft coming in can come in lower and then this Bloodhound cannot reach them.
"But I decided that if we are going to get cooperation from the British and we want them to leave their air bases without denuding them, then we've got to try and go as much as we can with the British so that we do not make them feel they are being discarded for higher American technology, or that we do not take their interests into account.
"So despite the technical superiority arguments, I decided on the Bloodhounds. And I think, politically, it was right decision and we had a very smooth transfer when the Royal Air Force withdrew in '71 and gave up all their bases. We had no trouble. They left most of the hangars and all fixtures. We took over all fixtures."
First published in The Sunday Times, Oct 5,1997
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