U.S. Hopes Singapore Incident Is Closed

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30846, 3 September 1965, Page 15

U.S. Hopes Singapore Incident Is Closed

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, September 1. United States officials tonight voiced hope that the potentially explosive “bribe incident” had been laid to rest as a point of contention in American relations with Singapore.

This expression came after the State Department earlier in the day had backed down from previous denials and, in effect, admitted the accuracy of charges aired publicly by Mr Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s Prime Minister.

Mr Lee said that a Central Intelligence Agency officer had tried to bribe a Singapore official to give information and that Mr Rusk had apologised. The State Department was clearly embarrassed yesterday as its official spokesman acknowledged Mr Rusk’s letter at a press conference but refused to say little more about the incident. Those U.S. Government officials who were consulted about the matter the previous day- “were not fully aware of the background of an incident which occurred four and a half years ago,” a Government spokesman said. The “New York Times” correspondent, Seymour Topping commented from Hong Kong that Mr Lee joined this week the array of South-east Asia leaders who once were good friends of the United States and now were bitter critics. Topping said: “Among the others are President Sukarno of Indonesia, Prince Sihanouk, who is Chief of State of Cambodia, and General Ne Win. military ruler of Burma. “Remarkable Similarity”

There is a remarkable similarity in complaints lodged by all of these leaders as they drifted aw / from the United States. For example, all have charged that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency conducted hostile operations against their Governments during periods of ostensibly correct relations with the U.S. There was no apparent disposition in official circles to criticise Mr Lee for bringing up the case after so long a time, although Washington officials said the incident had been regarded by the United

States as a closed issue. Another common cause of irritation has been alleged slights by Americans. Mr Lee spoke publicly this week of an occasion when he was unable to get a leading American specialist to give treatment to “somebody very dear to me.” General Ne Win has told friends that on a j rivate visit to the United States he was humiliated by Customs officials and at a Washington hospital.

President Sukarno and Prince Sihanouk repeatedly have protested angrily about being ridiculed personally by American publications. While bruised sensitivities may have affected the atti-

tudes of South-east Asian leaders, observers look for a more basic motivation to explain their changed posture towards the United States. It is suggested that these leaders have given first priority to political survival and a search for accommodation with Asian Communists.

They have demonstrated conviction that the U.S. and Britain eventually will be excluded from Southeast Asia and that their Governments must find a place in the Asian order in which the Chinese People’s tiepublic will assume a leading position. These compulsions were manifest in the sudden and dramatic turn of Mr Lee away from the United States.