Above all, Nathan was an LKY loyalist and believer
From a lowly clerk in Malaysia to the lofty presidency in Singapore. From a mid-level labour officer to the trusted chief of security intelligence. From a top civil servant to the chief of Singapore’s biggest media company.
Above all these, Sellapan Ramanathan, who passed away on Monday night (22 August) at 92 was a Lee Kuan Yew loyalist and believer. He trusted the former prime minister to make the right decisions for the greater good of Singapore. For him, LKY could do no wrong.
The trust and belief was mutual. LKY trusted him to the hilt, having tested and trusted him with key jobs in security, diplomacy, media and finally, presidential politics.
From these various vantage points, Nathan had a close-up view of a Singapore trying to survive and succeed. Those two words cropped up a number of times in a speech he gave at his confidante’s first death anniversary last year.
“Our young have not known failure. They have grown up amid success so they think this state of affairs should go on forever,” he said, evoking a consistent sentiment in LKY’s speeches.
Both men had a deep bond for each other and for their country. Nathan stepped in at critical milestones throughout Singapore’s rocky journey, sometimes even putting his life at stake.
As director of the Security Intelligence Department, he offered to be the official hostage for a group of hijackers who threatened to kill passengers in a boat called Laju in the waters off Singapore in 1974. He flew with them to Kuwait where he and other Singaporeans were freed.
For many years after that, he hardly spoke about it. “We didn’t want to aggravate it by publicising it, how we handled it…it would be like a show-off, you know,” he said in an interview with The New Paper in 2011.
Singapore’s consummate diplomat
Nathan understood that a word here, another there could just be the spark for a war of words to erupt. Even worse, it could be a sure-fire way of planting the seeds of violence against Singaporeans and Singapore.
In 1988, another important assignment came knocking. LKY wanted him to go to Kuala Lumpur as Singapore’s high commissioner at a time when then Malaysian prime minster Mahathir Mohamad and Lee were at each other’s throats as relations worsened over a host of issues, the prime one being Malaysia seeing Singapore as an upstart, arrogant and recalcitrant younger brother.
The KL assignment lasted just two years with Dr M wanting Nathan out of Malaysia because of what he believed was an increase in spying activities by Singapore. LKY responded coolly and nonchalantly and told his bitter foe: Ok, we will send him to the plum post of ambassador of the US.
That was in 1990, but unknown to even the keenest observers, a diplomatic crisis was to blow up. American teenager Michael Fay was convicted of vandalising cars in Singapore and sentenced to four months in jail and six strokes of the cane in 1994.
A human rights-driven American system and a Singapore establishment obsessed with keeping its shores crime-free clashed — with President Clinton intervening to get the government to lift the caning punishment. The prime minister at that time, Goh Chok Tong, gave in a little by reducing the strokes from six to four.
Nathan put himself up for grilling by CNN celebrity host Larry King on his highly popular TV show. The Singapore diplomat ended the show smelling of roses as he answered King’s questions with a coolness and skill that is, even today, used as part of a training programme for civil servants.
I remember King asking Nathan: If one of your citizens was given a similar punishment here, will your government accept it? His answer was short and unequivocal: Yes. That kind of confidence could have only come from his standing with LKY. Instinctively, Nathan must have known that even if the interview went wrong, he would not be in LKY’s dog house.
A gracious president of the people
The high point of his career was to come much later when he breezed into the Istana without an electoral fight as the President of Singapore in 1999 and repeated that performance six years later to be the longest serving head of state.
LKY needed a safe pair of hands as the previous President, Ong Teng Cheong, had got into a fight with the government over his inability to get information from civil servants. As President, Nathan set out to charm Singaporeans.
I asked Kelven Tan, formerly with the Sentosa Development Corporation, about his experience with Nathan.
Tan said, “It was a hot day. I drove him in a golf buggy. He greeted staff graciously, paid attention to what was presented and gladly and patiently agreed with to do photo sessions with our various crews.”
Nathan was not all smiles all the time. I have heard stories of the tough and strong-willed way he went out about his business. But none who told me these stories was prepared to go on record.
I can relate one instance, though, because it involved me. I was with the Today newspaper and was invited to have lunch with Nathan at the Istana. As I was led to the dining room, his aide whispered that the President might raise a Page One report that the paper had published.
The lunch went very well. As we finished, Nathan took out a copy of the paper and thrust it onto the table. The smiles were gone as he admonished me for publishing an article on his ailing friend, former Foreign Minister S Rajaratnam, which documented his life on his sick bed.
Nathan was upset that we had intruded into Rajaratnam’s personal space for a story. Minutes later, he got up, shook my hand, flashed a smile and walked away.
That day in 2000, I learned why LKY trusted him so much.
Related links:
Former Singapore president S R Nathan dies
