Kumar Ramakrishna - Emergency Propaganda: The Winning of Malayan Hearts and Minds 1948-1958

EMERGENCY PROPAGANDA

The Winning of Malayan Hearts and Minds 19481958

Kumar Ramakrishna

CURZON

First Published in 2002

by Curzon Press

Richmond, Surrey

http://www.curzonpress.co.uk

2002 Kumar Ramakrishna

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

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ISBN 070071510X

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to my supervisor, Tony Stockwell, for his incisive comments and unstinting support throughout the preparation of the thesis on which this hook is based. I have learned a great deal from him. I am also grateful to many other people for their help, advice and encouragement, in particular W.P. Coughlan, J.L.M. Gorrie, John Gullick, Datin Jean Marshall, Tony Short, Richard Stubbs, C.M. Turnbull and Dato Khoo Kay Kim. I would also like to record my appreciation for the help afforded me by three scholars who have since passed on: Ralph Smith, Richard Clutterbuck, and O.W. Wolters. Many have contributed positively to this book; any mistakes or omissions therein are entirely my own.

I must also thank Ian Pringle and Malcolm Campbell for giving me the confidence that my thesis on propaganda in the Emergency could become a useful book. Thanks also go out to Rachel Saunders and David McCarthy for expertly and gently shepherding the manuscript towards publication and to Rachel Choo for providing a useful index. I would also like to record my gratitude to Frank Cass Publishers for permission to use material from my article Content, Credibility and Context: Propaganda, Government Surrender Policy and the Malayan Communist Terrorist Mass Surrenders of 1958, published in Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Winter 1999). In addition, I would like to acknowledge the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society for permission to cite from my article entitled The Making of a Malayan Propagandist: The Communists, the British and C.C. Too, which appears in Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, published in June 2000. Finally, I would also like to thank the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies for permission to cite from my article Transmogrifying Malaya: the impact of Sir Gerald Templer (195254), which was published in February 2001. I am also grateful to the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, Kings College London, for permission to cite from documents lodged in their excellent collection.

I would also like to record my appreciation for the valuable help provided by the librarians and archivists at the Public Record Office, Arkib Negara Malaysia, Rhodes House Library (Oxford), Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, National Army Museum, Imperial War Museum, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Library, the School of Oriental and African Studies Library, Royal Holloway College Bedford Library, Senate House Library, the Colindale Newspaper Library, the National Archives of Singapore, the National Library of Singapore and the SAFTI Military Institute Library. Particular thanks also go to Mr S.R. Nathan, President of the Republic of Singapore, for much-needed assistance in gaining access to documents on the late C.C. Too, and for his more general encouragement and support. I would also like to thank the Ministry of Defence, Singapore for graciously funding my studies in the United Kingdom, as well as Ong Chit Chung, Kwa Chong Guan and Sng Seow Lian for helping make my sponsorship possible. I am also grateful to Ang Cheng Guan, Khong Yuen Foong and Barry Desker, for encouraging and motivating me to continue with my research work.

I extend my enduring thanks to Fdwin Thumboo and Lau Teik Soon for their advice and support at a crucial time in my career, as well as to my family and close friends for their love and encouragement down the years. To my dear wife Rosemary and sons Joshua and Jonathan, I dedicate this piece of work. Last but by no means least, I give thanks to God, who has always kept me steadfast in times of trial.

List of Abbreviations