Dr Wee Kim Wee
Some short facts:
Dr Wee Kim Wee was elected President of the Republic of Singapore
by Parliament on 30 August 1985.
Except for 3.5 years during the Japanese occupation of Singapore
and 10.5 years as High Commissioner to Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur and
Ambassador to Japan and the Republic of Korea in Tokyo, Mr Wee has
worked in the news media.
Born in Singapore on 4 November 1915, he received his early
education at Pearl's Hill School. In January 1930, at the age of
15, he left Raffles Institution after only two years to join the
Straits Times as a clerk in the circulation department, later
moving to advertising and reporting. Eight months before the
outbreak of the Pacific War (1941), he resigned from the Straits
Times and joined the United Press Association, an American news
agency, which set up its office in Singapore for the first
time.
During the attack on Malaya and Singapore, he served in the ARP
(air raid precautions). During the occupation of Singapore, he
worked as a clerk in Japanese military establishments. When the war
ended, he was supervisor and cashier of a large canteen catering to
Asian seamen of Japanese merchant ships.
When Singapore was liberated in 1945, Mr Wee rejoined the United
Press Association. In 1959 he joined the Straits Times as Deputy
Editor (Singapore), heading the editorial department in Singapore.
The other editorial executives had moved to Kuala Lumpur.
While at the Straits Times, Mr Wee covered the civil war in the
Belgian Congo (now Zaire) at the time when Malaysia sent a special
force to join the United Nations Command's peace-keeping force. He
also covered the official visits of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew to
Indonesia and to several countries in Eastern Europe.
In 1966, he was the first Singaporean journalist to enter Jakarta
during Confrontation and interview Lieutenant-General Suharto and
Foreign Minister Mr Adam Malik when President Sukarno was still
confined to the palace in Bogor. Through reports of his exclusive
interviews Singaporeans and Malaysians learned for the first time
that Indonesia was keen to end Confrontation.
In 1973, two years before he was due to retire from the Straits
Times, the Singapore Government offered him the post of High
Commissioner to Malaysia. It was to have been a three-year term,
but Mr Wee stayed at the post for seven years, the last two years
as dean of the diplomatic corps in Kuala Lumpur. Mr Wee also served
as a member of the Singapore delegation to the United Nations
General Assembly in 1977.
He was appointed Ambassador to Japan in September 1980 and
concurrently Ambassador to the Republic of Korea in February 1981.
He returned to Singapore at the end of April 1984 and assumed the
chairmanship of the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation.
In his younger days, Mr Wee was an active sportsman. He played
badminton, table tennis, basketball and soccer. In 1937, he was
junior singles badminton champion of Singapore. He spent many years
serving various badminton bodies of Singapore and Malaya (later
Malaysia), and ended up as president of the Singapore Badminton
Association and vice-president of the Badminton Association of
Malaya.
He had also been active in social services serving in various clubs
and associations. For several years, he was chairman of SATA
(Singapore Anti-Tuberculosis Association).
Mr Wee served on six statutory boards: Rent Control Board; Film
Appeal Committee; Land Acquisition Board; Board of Visiting
Justices; National Theatre Trust; and Singapore Broadcasting
Corporation.
In 1966, he was appointed a Justice of the Peace. In 1963, he was
awarded the Public Service Star for his public work and in 1979,
the Meritorious Service Medal for his diplomatic services.
Mr Wee was married in 1936 to Koh Sok Hiong. They have seven
children, one son and six daughters.
