<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgbfr1 width="1%"></TD><TD><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgF width="1%" noWrap align=right>From: </TD><TD class=msgFname width="68%" noWrap>CPL (kojakbt22) <NOBR>
</NOBR> </TD><TD class=msgDate width="30%" noWrap align=right>5:49 am </TD></TR><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgT height=20 width="1%" noWrap align=right>To: </TD><TD class=msgTname width="68%" noWrap>ALL <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgNum noWrap align=right> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgleft rowSpan=4 width="1%"> </TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>23468.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD>Warm tributes from old friends
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- headline one : end --></TD></TR><TR><TD>Kissinger, Shultz and others recall their encounters with MM going back 40 years </TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Author --></TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Tracy Quek , US Correspondent
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- show image if available --></TD></TR><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>
</TD><TD width=10>
</TD><TD vAlign=bottom>
Officials past and present and senior executives from top US companies paid tribute to MM Lee. At the table with him were (above, from left) Dr Lee, Senator Jim Webb, former US-Asean Business Council chairman George David, Ambassador Chan, Dr Kissinger and Mrs Linda Bond, the wife of Senator Christopher Bond. -- ST PHOTOS: CHUA CHIN HON
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
WASHINGTON: There were standing ovations, warm handshakes and affectionate hugs between old friends, as well as heartfelt speeches that reminisced about first meetings and also cast a critical eye on the future.
Some 450 guests, including many of America's political and business luminaries, attended a gala dinner on Tuesday to honour Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, 86, with a lifetime achievement award.
It was a stormy night, but inside the Mandarin Oriental hotel ballroom, the mood was warm and celebratory, as past and present United States officials and top businessmen took turns to thank and pay tribute to the man they credit with forging closer political and economic ties between the US and South-east Asia over the past four decades. But it was some of the speakers' anecdotes of their personal interactions with Mr Lee that enthralled the audience, their stories offering a rare glimpse into the world of high-powered friendships between leaders who played a role in shaping their countries' bilateral ties and strategic views about global challenges.
Former secretary of state George Shultz, 89, highly-respected for two decades of public service, received a standing ovation as he walked up to the podium to make a speech, which he began by saying he had learned a great deal from Mr Lee.
One of the reasons he visited Singapore in 1973 - when he was Treasury Secretary in the Nixon administration - was to meet Mr Lee, who was then Prime Minister.
Mr Shultz recalled that Mr Lee took him on a tour of Singapore and they wound up on the balcony of a tall building, with a view of public housing flats in the distance.
Those flats were a mistake, Mr Lee told him, as the two men discussed Singapore's lessons in public housing and how the mistake led to policy changes that brought about adequate housing for all citizens.
Mr Shultz added that visits to the Republic made him understand that in Singapore, 'when they say something, they mean it'.
As guests dined on their three-course seafood dinner, Mr Shultz fished out another memorable meeting which took place soon after he became US Secretary of State in July 1982: a three-hour casual pow-wow around his kitchen table involving himself, Mr Helmut Schmidt, the then Chancellor of West Germany, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and Mr Lee.
'It was an intense discussion among that group. Can you imagine a seminar where a new secretary of state is sitting around for three hours listening to Kissinger, Schmidt and Lee Kuan Yew? Man, was that an education,' Mr Shultz quipped.
Another speaker, Dr Kurt Campbell, the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, offered a candid and humorous account of his first meeting with Mr Lee several years ago.
After more than two decades of working in Asia, he was offered an opportunity by the Republic's long-time ambassador to the US, Professor Chan Heng Chee, to meet Mr Lee in Singapore.
Before the meeting took place, Dr Campbell recalled, Ambassador Chan gave him some unexpected advice on what not to do when face-to-face with Mr Lee. The list included not to fidget, cross his legs inappropriately or talk too much.
'She goes, Kurt, just a few points of guidance before you go in. Is that what you're wearing? This shirt and tie? I'd change it if I were you,' Dr Campbell recounted to laughter from the floor.
'She said sit still, sit very quietly, try not to move around and just listen to what the MM has to say.
'By the end of this, I was a wreck. I had a wonderful 30-minute meeting with the MM which I don't remember a word of, but I sat very still and stone-like,' he said, chuckling.
Of those who paid tribute, Dr Kissinger, 86, had the earliest encounter with Mr Lee.
It took place in the late 1960s, while the Vietnam War was still raging and soon after Singapore gained independence in 1965. He was then a professor at Harvard university and Mr Lee had come to meet the faculty of the school of public administration.
'He asked the faculty to discuss the Vietnam War, which they violently opposed, and I found myself in the presence of a Singaporean that I had barely heard of, strenuously defending the integrity and purposes of America,' said Dr Kissinger, who was awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in negotiating an end to the Vietnam War.
Mr Lee later noted that his support of America's involvement in the Vietnam War prompted Dr Kissinger to remark that he was 'right-minded and had his head screwed on'.
That meeting started a friendship that has lasted 40 years, said Mr Lee who was accompanied by his daughter, Dr Lee Wei Ling, and grandson Li Hongyi.
Mr Lee, Dr Kissinger noted, had made himself an indispensable friend of the US 'not primarily by the power he represented but by the quality of his thinking, the importance we all attach to what he has to tell us'.
He added that over the past 40 years, whenever Mr Lee visited, he had access to an 'an array of people that almost no foreign leader gets to see in such a grouping... because he does not come as a supplicant, he comes as a comrade... from whom we can learn, who can tell us about the nature of the world that we face'.
The VIPs in the audience on Tuesday night reflected Mr Lee's influence. There were high officials from past and present administrations and senior executives from top US companies such as Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble. Guests included Mr Paul Wolfowitz, former president of the World Bank, and former US deputy secretary of defence, former deputy secretary of state John Negroponte, senators and congressmen.
When it came to building an 'organic relationship' with Asia, said Dr Kissinger, 'there is no one who can teach us more than the Minister Mentor'.
Then, to a thunderous standing ovation, he invited MM Lee to receive the award.
And once on the podium, the two men did what long-time friends do: they reached out and gave each other a hug.
[email protected]
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgVFM colSpan=2 align=middle>View Full Message</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- headline one : end --></TD></TR><TR><TD>Kissinger, Shultz and others recall their encounters with MM going back 40 years </TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Author --></TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Tracy Quek , US Correspondent
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- show image if available --></TD></TR><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>
</TD><TD width=10>
Officials past and present and senior executives from top US companies paid tribute to MM Lee. At the table with him were (above, from left) Dr Lee, Senator Jim Webb, former US-Asean Business Council chairman George David, Ambassador Chan, Dr Kissinger and Mrs Linda Bond, the wife of Senator Christopher Bond. -- ST PHOTOS: CHUA CHIN HON
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
WASHINGTON: There were standing ovations, warm handshakes and affectionate hugs between old friends, as well as heartfelt speeches that reminisced about first meetings and also cast a critical eye on the future.
Some 450 guests, including many of America's political and business luminaries, attended a gala dinner on Tuesday to honour Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, 86, with a lifetime achievement award.
It was a stormy night, but inside the Mandarin Oriental hotel ballroom, the mood was warm and celebratory, as past and present United States officials and top businessmen took turns to thank and pay tribute to the man they credit with forging closer political and economic ties between the US and South-east Asia over the past four decades. But it was some of the speakers' anecdotes of their personal interactions with Mr Lee that enthralled the audience, their stories offering a rare glimpse into the world of high-powered friendships between leaders who played a role in shaping their countries' bilateral ties and strategic views about global challenges.
Former secretary of state George Shultz, 89, highly-respected for two decades of public service, received a standing ovation as he walked up to the podium to make a speech, which he began by saying he had learned a great deal from Mr Lee.
One of the reasons he visited Singapore in 1973 - when he was Treasury Secretary in the Nixon administration - was to meet Mr Lee, who was then Prime Minister.
Mr Shultz recalled that Mr Lee took him on a tour of Singapore and they wound up on the balcony of a tall building, with a view of public housing flats in the distance.
Those flats were a mistake, Mr Lee told him, as the two men discussed Singapore's lessons in public housing and how the mistake led to policy changes that brought about adequate housing for all citizens.
Mr Shultz added that visits to the Republic made him understand that in Singapore, 'when they say something, they mean it'.
As guests dined on their three-course seafood dinner, Mr Shultz fished out another memorable meeting which took place soon after he became US Secretary of State in July 1982: a three-hour casual pow-wow around his kitchen table involving himself, Mr Helmut Schmidt, the then Chancellor of West Germany, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and Mr Lee.
'It was an intense discussion among that group. Can you imagine a seminar where a new secretary of state is sitting around for three hours listening to Kissinger, Schmidt and Lee Kuan Yew? Man, was that an education,' Mr Shultz quipped.
Another speaker, Dr Kurt Campbell, the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, offered a candid and humorous account of his first meeting with Mr Lee several years ago.
After more than two decades of working in Asia, he was offered an opportunity by the Republic's long-time ambassador to the US, Professor Chan Heng Chee, to meet Mr Lee in Singapore.
Before the meeting took place, Dr Campbell recalled, Ambassador Chan gave him some unexpected advice on what not to do when face-to-face with Mr Lee. The list included not to fidget, cross his legs inappropriately or talk too much.
'She goes, Kurt, just a few points of guidance before you go in. Is that what you're wearing? This shirt and tie? I'd change it if I were you,' Dr Campbell recounted to laughter from the floor.
'She said sit still, sit very quietly, try not to move around and just listen to what the MM has to say.
'By the end of this, I was a wreck. I had a wonderful 30-minute meeting with the MM which I don't remember a word of, but I sat very still and stone-like,' he said, chuckling.
Of those who paid tribute, Dr Kissinger, 86, had the earliest encounter with Mr Lee.
It took place in the late 1960s, while the Vietnam War was still raging and soon after Singapore gained independence in 1965. He was then a professor at Harvard university and Mr Lee had come to meet the faculty of the school of public administration.
'He asked the faculty to discuss the Vietnam War, which they violently opposed, and I found myself in the presence of a Singaporean that I had barely heard of, strenuously defending the integrity and purposes of America,' said Dr Kissinger, who was awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in negotiating an end to the Vietnam War.
Mr Lee later noted that his support of America's involvement in the Vietnam War prompted Dr Kissinger to remark that he was 'right-minded and had his head screwed on'.
That meeting started a friendship that has lasted 40 years, said Mr Lee who was accompanied by his daughter, Dr Lee Wei Ling, and grandson Li Hongyi.
Mr Lee, Dr Kissinger noted, had made himself an indispensable friend of the US 'not primarily by the power he represented but by the quality of his thinking, the importance we all attach to what he has to tell us'.
He added that over the past 40 years, whenever Mr Lee visited, he had access to an 'an array of people that almost no foreign leader gets to see in such a grouping... because he does not come as a supplicant, he comes as a comrade... from whom we can learn, who can tell us about the nature of the world that we face'.
The VIPs in the audience on Tuesday night reflected Mr Lee's influence. There were high officials from past and present administrations and senior executives from top US companies such as Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble. Guests included Mr Paul Wolfowitz, former president of the World Bank, and former US deputy secretary of defence, former deputy secretary of state John Negroponte, senators and congressmen.
When it came to building an 'organic relationship' with Asia, said Dr Kissinger, 'there is no one who can teach us more than the Minister Mentor'.
Then, to a thunderous standing ovation, he invited MM Lee to receive the award.
And once on the podium, the two men did what long-time friends do: they reached out and gave each other a hug.
[email protected]
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgVFM colSpan=2 align=middle>View Full Message</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
