[LKY]: I wanna be quite frank with you here.
[LKY with certainty]: If the British withdraw, I’m prepared to go on with the Australians and the New Zealanders, but I’m not prepared to go on with the Americans.
[Reporter]: Why not Mr. Prime Minister? Why do you think the Americans…
[LKY interrupts]: Well, can I put it this way?
[LKY]: I think they are a highly intelligent, well meaning often, people, and some of their leaders like Kennedy, the late president, had signs of growing greatness, depth.
[LKY]: But you know by and large the administration lacks depth and judgement, or wisdom, [shakes head] which comes out of an accumulation of knowledge of human beings and human situations over a long period of time.
[LKY]: That’s lacking.
[LKY]: And it’s not their fault. What have they got? Three, four hundred years of history? And they have become a nation just recently.
[LKY]: You know I’ll tell you this. I have had three experiences, only three experiences with the Americans; and they did not intend any harm in each on of them. But the tragedy was they did real harm.
[LKY recounting]: First, this is old stuff now:
[LKY]: We caught an American CIA agent trying to subvert our intelligence, special branch officer, bribe him! So that the special branch officer will feed the CIA, because the CIA wants to know what is happening.
[LKY]: I mean [in disbelief], subverting a Singapore officer. The man might have succeeded. But I’m proud to say that the officer [who was] offered large sums of money, and continuing sums of money [with emphasis], this was in 1960. . . refused, and reported the matter to his chief, who reported it to me.
[LKY]: [The] Man [CIA] was caught, locked up, and it was on razor’s edge whether we charged him in open court or not.
[LKY in anticipated of a reporter’s interruption]: No, no, let me explain this. When I told the American government, alright, we keep quiet, you take this man away, 100 million dollars to the Singapore government for economic development. You know? [in explanation of what a government with finesse would do i.e. give / donate money to make up for the issue, to the government rather than attempt to give the money to the prime minister directly as LKY explains later]
[LKY again in reaction to a reporter’s interruption]: No, no, no, listen to me. I didn’t tell, you know, I never spoke to the Americans direct, because, you know, it’s, they’re a, they lack the finesse, and you know some, they, they may say yes, they give it to you [as in give the money to the prime minister directly rather than to the government as a whole], why not? why to the Singapore government, just give to you! [in great disbelief]. To me! [with disgust and dismay] which would have ruined me!
[LKY]: But through an intermediary they offered me and my party 10 million dollars. I mean the insult, you know.
[LKY]: I told them keep it.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=142FbTYeK7
Lee Kuan Yew Interview | Reveals the American CIA Tried to Bribe a Singaporean Official | Aug 1965
