The Old man held himself out to be a moderatist, so the Brits found in him the least harmful of the other two, who were then david marshall and Lim Yew Hock. LKY said it so himself in his 12 radio talks Battle for Merger. Marshall wore his heart on his sleeves so was perceived to be soft on the Communists, whereas Lim Yew Hock was perceived to be too hard, which antagonised the Communists even more and provoked more trouble. So the Brits had to settle for LKY. So by playing favourites and playing games with the Brits, LKY ingratiated himself with the Brits. What's so hard abt being a slimy opportunist playing both sides?
Before entering into merger with Malaysia, he again jumped into bed with the British and the Tengku and backstabbed his comrades in PAP by manipulating the British and Tengku into using the ISC to put them away in Op Cold store, and then making it looked as if he was outvoted in the ISC, so that he could grab power all for himself. He knew that he was no match for Lim Chin Siong and his mass popular support in the Chinese middle schools, the unions and the clan associations.
Mostly LKY was a manipulating scheming coward, cowering behind the British and the Tengku, and had said things in 1955-59 which he would backtracked after getting into power. After the communists pulled the rug from under him in 1961, when they sacked every branch office, and over 60% of his branch leaders defected to the Barisan Sosialis, he was totally shattered. He was recorded as staring at the ceiling at a loss of what to do next and was all going to throw in the towel. Only Dr Toh and Goh KS had the gumption and gall to fight on and told him to stop whinging and start rebuilding. Without the resoluteness and toughness of his comrades, he would long have keeled over and gave up.
So when faced with competition, he was not unbeatable. In fact he actually lost in 1961 to the powerful Chin Siong gang. Only when the Brits and Tengku locked them up did he have any hope in the 1963 GE and thereafter. And always by eliminating his rivals thru his many manouvres to capture all the state apparatus for his own total control.
The bastard has got no heart, no humanity. He called it pragmatism. But it was opportunism, coldbloodedness, calculating and being ever chamelion-like. How he manipulated and often criticising the Americans in the 1970s but yet begging them to stay in Asia to counter the Viets and the Chinese. The bastard is an unashamed maggot.
Remember when he was on the steamship going to Cambridge as a student, there was water rationing on board, but he sneakily woke up an hr earlier and took the other people's ration to bathe and wash. What do you tihnk of such a man?
During the Jap occupation, he worked for the Kempetai by translating the messages from English to Japanese and betrayed the Allies cause, causing the loss of many people's lives by his action. And his rationale: it was the only work he could find. What a shmuck!
Why is it so hard to hate him? No, not hate. But despise is the better word.
Without LKY's knuckleduster politics in the early 60s, law and order and stability would not have been achieved and the industrialisation phase would never have come to pass.
LKY had the mongrel in him that no other politician in his team had. The rest were technocrats not leaders. His foes were formidable. The rest of the founding members would never had defeated the BS without his leadership.
Singapore without LKY would have been like Apple computer without Steve J. Wozniak was the brains but it was Jobs that started the revolution.
