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I found a very basic error in page 709 of “From Third World to First.” It says; “Dick Cheney, the former US secretary of defence under Reagan until 1992…” Ha, Reagan’s defence secretary was Casper Weinberger throughout his presidency.Two nights ago, I found a nice-sounding position advertised on a job-search website. I bookmarked it then and returned there tonight. I saw the message, "Employer has closed the position." Ohhhhh...
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… I called on President Gerald Ford at noon on 8 May 1975, eight days after the fall of Saigon… Ford looked troubled but not despondent. He asked for the region’s reaction to the fall of Vietnam. I had been in Bangkok, just before Saigon fell. The Thais were nervous, as were people in Indonesia. Suharto was quietly and firmly in control. I said congressional intervention to stop the bombing of the communists had contributed to the fall of South Vietnam. If Watergate had not happened and the bombing had continued, the South Vietnamese forces would not have lost heart and the outcome could have been different. Once the bombings stopped and aid was significantly reduced, the fate of the South Vietnamese government was sealed.Ford had been portrayed as a bumbler and stumbler, and American football player who had injured his head too many times. I found him a shrewd man with common sense who knew how to size up the people he had to deal with. (pp. 521-522)
[Jimmy Carter’s] emphasis was on human rights, not defence and security. Asean leaders braced themselves for four difficult years as they waited to see what he would actually do.
When I met him in October 1977… he kept to [the] schedule to the second. What astonished me was the subject he raised during the 10-minute tête-à-tête – why did Singapore want high-tech weapons like I-Hawk (Improve Hawk) ground-to-missiles? It was not an item in my brief. No previous president had ever queried me on our modest purchases of weapons, let alone defensive ones. High on Carter’s agenda was the stopping of arms proliferation… I said that Singapore was a very compact urban target which had to be thickly defended… To cut the matter short, I said we would not apply to buy them…
The official delegations met for 45 minutes and finished to the second. He had a laundry list which he pulled out from his shirt-pocket. Without re-reading the minutes of the meeting, I would have had no recollection of what we discussed. They were all inconsequential matters. His predecessors… had always covered the broad picture: how did Asia look – Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, then the communist countries of China and Vietnam, then US allies Thailand and the Philippines.
Carter did not raise these subjects. Nonetheless I decided to give him a broad-brush picture of how important America was for the stability and growth of the region… I am not sure I made any impression…
I met him again briefly in October 1978. Vice-President Walter Mondale received me and Carter dropped by for a photo opportunity. We did not have much of an exchange; he was still not interested in Asia. It was fortunate that his advisers persuaded him not to withdraw US troops from Korea.
[On] 24 December [in 1979], the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan… Carter was so shocked that he said, “The scales fell off my eyes.” He had not seen the Soviet regime for what it was. He… had believed that the Soviet leaders were reasonable people who would respond to sincere gestures of peace.
Carter was a good, God-fearing man, perhaps too good to be president… (pp. 523-526)
Reagan was a man of simple, straight-forward ideas, a strong and successful leader. He turned out to be good for America and the world. It was as well that in November 1980 Americans voted for a Hollywood actor instead of a peanut farmer.
… When I arrived at the White House about noon on June 19 [1981]… he wanted to talk about Taiwan and China.
I told Reagan that it was in America’s interest to have a Taiwan which was successful to provide a contrast to conditions on the mainland… He then asked me whether President Chiang Ching-kuo needed new generation aircraft… I gave him my opinion that there was no immediate threat to Taiwan from the mainland and that Taiwan’s present F-5s were adequate. Taiwan’s aircraft would need to be upgraded later, not immediately.
Referring to the unrest in Poland, Reagan said the Russians must be worried about being overextended. I said they were prepared to let the economy to go down to preserve their “empire.” He told [his national security adviser] Richard Allen to use that word more frequently when describing the Soviet domain. Reagan’s next speech referred to the “evil empire” of the Soviets.
[In] April 1982, Vice-President George Bush saw me in Singapore before going to China.
… [As] a presidential candidate Reagan had made strong statements in support of Taiwan. And he had repeated them even after George Bush went to Beijing in August 1980 to tell the Chinese they should understand and respect the US position, that it had to move gradually on Taiwan.
I suggested that the United States invite Premier Zhao Ziyang to visit Washington and then President Reagan visit Beijing to put his position in the way Bush expressed it. The Americans should convince Beijing of their one China policy… There was much common ground between China and the United States, Bush added. Reagan was “paranoid and uptight about the Soviet Union” and events in Poland and Afghanistan had reinforced this. Reagan did not like communism but saw strategic value of a relationship with China. (pp. 526-531)
By my next visit to Washington in July 1982, George Shultz had succeeded Al Haig as secretary of state… Haig had gone all out to forge a “strategic consensus” against the Soviet Union and had agreed to reduce arms sales to Taiwan gradually. Shultz had to settle the form of words that would spell out this promise… I said there was little value in leaving Taiwan militarily naked and at China’s mercy in order to use China’s weight against the Soviet Union….
I said [to Reagan] he did not have to sell out the Taiwanese, even though he needed China against the Soviet Union. The two objectives were not irreconcilable. They could be managed and contained.
In early 1984 Premier Zhao visited Washington and stressed that China wanted closer relations. In May Reagan visited China. Soon after that, Paul Wolfowitz, assistant to Shultz, came to Singapore to brief me on Reagan’s visit… Reagan had not yielded on global issues when the Chinese disagreed with him. Deng [Xiaoping] had emphasised that Taiwan was a knot in US-PRC relations that had to be untied.
… The eight years of the Reagan presidency were good years for America and the world. His “Star Wars” programme confronted President Gorbachev and the Soviet Union with a challenge they could not hope to meet. That helped to dismantle the Soviet Union.
[During my] official visit to Washington in early October 1985… [as] before, he sought my views on China and Taiwan. He said he had been walking a careful line between the PRC and Taiwan. He had made clear to the PRC that the United States would not walk away from Taiwan: “The US was a friend of both and would remain in that position.”
Another problem Reagan raised during our discussions was the Philippines… Marcos had been Reagan’s good friend and political supporter… I described to Reagan how Marcos had changed from the young anti-communist crusader of the 1960 to become a self-indulgent ageing ruler who allowed his wife and cronies to clean out the country through ingenious monopolies and put the government heavily in debt… I suggested the problem was how to find a neat and graceful way for Marcos to leave and have a new government installed which could begin to clean up the mess. [Reagan] decided to send an emissary to express US concern to Marcos at the deteriorating situation. (pp. 526-535)
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