Tun Dr. Ismail

Tan Sri Michael Chen

If Tun Dr. Ismail is still living today, he would be 93. But unfortunately he left us in 1973, when he was only 57. Now, what sort of a man was he? What sort of a politician was he? He was classified to be a reluctant politician. I believe that. Those days not many professionals were not reluctant politicians because they earn more (from their professions) than what politics could give them.

Datuk P.G. Lim could confirm that even as a young lawyer at that time, you could earn much more than the pay of Deputy Minister or Parliamentary Secretary. I was also one of the reluctant politicians.  But nowadays, everybody thinks in politics you can make money but not those days. Those days you want to be poor, join politics. I used to advise young people who wanted to join politics but today, people think politics provides you wish the shortcut to be rich.

When you read about Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Dr. Ismail, none of them were rich. And Tun Dr. Ismail, he had only one house, which he bought from Datuk P.G. Lim. Am I right? That was the only house he had. In his book, he said, he was lucky to buy that house. And he said, came from his own pocket. Even if money was given to him, I don’t think he would accept. That was the kind of politician we had.

Now, many stories have been told about him. He was a very punctual man. There was no doubt about it. Don’t be late. Today I don’t know anybody like him.

I had an appointment with him on one occasion at 9.30 am. But I was there at 9 o’clock sharp. There was another Minister whose name shouldn’t disclose otherwise he will not be able to stand for election anymore. He was late probably by about a few minutes, two, three minutes. But (when he went in) I heard Tun Dr. Ismail shouting at him at the top of his voice, “You get out!” “You’re wasting my time, you’re late!”. With Tun Dr Ismail, if you were ten minutes late, five minutes late, two minutes late, you’d be in trouble. He explained that, “I could have given this time to somebody else. But you are wasting my time!” He chased out the Minister from his office.

But to sum up, I would like to use John Kennedy’s benchmark for a good leader. I think Kennedy said that to be a good leader, you must be dedicated, far sighted, and courageous and also wise. I think Tun Dr Ismail had all these qualities.

Tan Sri Zainal Abidin Sulong

I was a junior officer in a foreign service when Tun was very active in politics. So I cannot claim to know him a lot. First, I came to know him in the early days when we were in University of Malaya, Singapore. Once in a while we went to Johor Bahru. There was one occasion where Rahman Hamidon brought us to rumah Datuk Taib Andak. That was Rahman’s uncle. And in that house it was my first occasion where I met Tun Ismail. Tun Razak was there too. And they tried to plan something. But we do not know what since I was a student, I just listened on to what they were talking about.

Eventually, the next stage of my experience, I think, was as permanent representative at the United Nation. I joined the Foreign Service in 1957. I trained in London for a year, I was assigned to New York. So, I went to New York and reported to his office. One day, while sitting there in the lounge, he came in from the UN. He looked at me, so I stood up and bowed, then he called me to his office. He said I thought you were a student, and of course I looked like a student then. So I served under him when he was in the UN. Eventually when he came back to Malaysia, I was back in a ministry, so that was another occasion where I had the privilege of serving under him.

So, my experience with Tun Ismail is not as extensive as Tan Sri Michael Chen’s. I have been reading quite a lot about Tun, a lot of articles from all over including a book called ‘The Reluctant Politician’.I wonder why he is called the reluctant politician. To me, he was a consummate politician. Reluctant just gives a negative impression. Certainly Tun Ismail is not a reluctant politician, he was a hundred percent involved in politics right from the start. So I disagree with the title of the book.

Secondly, I wonder why an institute from Singapore has been involved in this; we have our own institute as well. So my quarrel with this, the book called The Reluctant Politician is why it was printed by an Institute in Singapore?  From time to time, my collegues I receive scholars from all over the world like United States, United Kingdom and Australia. These visitors come asking questions on certain historical events, which they know about through their embassies. Most of the classified documents in these countries are already declassified. They are available for research scholars but we in Malaysia are not. We have not declassified our documents. They are still somewhere in the archives perhaps still secret, and not available for scholars to look at.

So, here is the strange situation where we have foreigners coming to us to say that according to the documents released by Washington or Australia, this and this, happened. And they want us to verify. And in the case of verification we are all getting old so we don’t remember certain things of that we did and what we said. And therefore, we only remember what we want to remember.

So, it’s a pity that we talk about a prominent personality like Tun Ismail, but the articles written are based on secondary sources. We don’t have primary sources.  These I think are related to what personal impressions one has about him that is not documented. So, I think there’s a missing gap, through I do not know what archives can do. Most of these stories are in our files. And our files are still secret and not available for scholars and research. And books that are already are written on the basis of secondary sources not on primary sources. I think it is a pity that we have a situation like this.

Datuk P.G Lim

My own personal experience of Tun Ismail is a personal one. He was a very good friend of my brother (Lim Ken Chong) at Melbourne University. Now when I saw Tun Ismail here (in Malaysia), he asked what happened to my brother and he told me very nice stories about my brother. But I must say, my own of experience people like him and Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak and all those people that went before us was that they were very accessible to people. You could ask for appointments to see them, they were very accessible. They listened, they did not have to agree with you but they listened. And if you were not in the same category or group or political belief because I was a member of the Labour Party and I took part in the party election and lost, that was not held against me by the government.

And that shows the open mindedness and the liberality and the atmosphere they propagated. And the message that they have left behind that we must not forget is that irrespective of what has gone before, what you did before, we still have to work hard to move as one people instead of in separate water-tight compartments.

Tan Sri Abdullah Ayub

Saya selalu berjumpa dengan beliau (Tun Dr. Ismail) di rumah UMNO Johor Bahru pada tahun 1953. Pada masa itu saya dalam my last year of my Honours study dan beliau baru masuk UMNO. Dia masuk UMNO ini lambat, dia tidak bersetuju dengan Dato Onn. Jadi dia masuk dalam UMNO setelah Dato’ Onn keluar daripada UMNO.

Pada masa itu terdapat ura-ura untuk kemerdekaan. Jadi saya bertanya dengan dia bagaimana kalau-kalau sultan-sultan negeri kita ini tak bersetuju untuk adakan kemerdekaan kerana ini boleh mengenepikan mereka? Jawapan Tun Ismail, saya ingat sampai ke hari ini. Dia kata, “It’s very simple, Abdullah. When we control the country, we control the money. And what we do, we promise the Rulers that we’ll give them more income, and also higher positions and prestige. True enough, the Sultans agreed. Saya teringat perkara ini semasa saya berkhidmat di Treasury. Whoever control money, controls everything.”

Transcripts by: Abdul Haliim Ismail, Mariatul Qibtiah Isa and Suhana Mat Tehor.