YOUR reports on the Plen, Mr Fang Chuang Pi, conducting a press interview in Thailand bring to mind the time when he was a Lower Court reporter for the leftist Chinese newspaper, the Nan Chiau Jit Pao. One remembers him as a cavalier, young journalist who, habitually, turned up at the courts on his motorcycle usually at lunchtime, or at the end of the day's proceedings, and with disarming charm, persuaded his more industrious colleagues to pass him their notes. Always smiling and cheerful, he would collate all the "stories" he needed to justify his salary and profession. That done, he would disappear for the rest of the day to go about, as we now belatedly know, his "father's" (Chairman Mao) business. Fang: Seen as a carefree, if not exactly hardworking, journalist. Pic/ Nanyang Siang Pau Certainly, those of us who aided him in his cover-up avocation, had not the faintest notion that he was then engaged in the more serious pursuit of setting up a pernicious political system for Singapore. After all, that pleasant, engaging young man was the very antithesis of what one thought a dedicated communist looked like. Certainly, he did not betray himself with polemics on his espoused beliefs when in the company of his colleagues. When the Criminal Investigation Department raided his newspaper one morning and rounded up some of his co-workers, the mercurial Mr Fang vanished in a puff of smoke. But, when Mr Lee Kuan Yew disclosed publicly how he had been in contact with the anonymous Plen, most who knew Mr Fang guessed the identity of the man behind that name. His press interview and the forceful views he expressed make for an interesting revelation of the other persona that he shielded so astutely behind his pose as a carefree if not exactly hardworking journalist. -- PHILIP GOH SIEW HOCK First published in The Straits Times Forum section, July 22, 1997. Next: SM's message to Plen: Try Malaysia Previous Copyright © 1998 Singapore Press Holdings. All Rights Reserved.