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Lee Kwan Yew, the prime minister of Singapore, arrived yesterday for a month of study as a Institute of Politics Fellow and pleaded to be treated as "just another anonymous person in Cambridge."
"Anonymity is a theraputic treatment for tired politicians," the 45-year-old leader of one of the world's newest and smallest states told a press conference at Holyoke Center.
Lee is here for one month, at the invitation of Prof. Richard Neustadt, as a Fellow of the Institute of Politics of the Kennedy School of Government. He said he has no plans to teach or lecture, "but I'll give a little bit in return for what I take."
"I am here to rest, to rethink, to reformulate policies, to get fresh ideas, to meet stimulating minds, to go back enriched with a fresh burst of enthusiasm for what I do," he said. "I intend to study all the things I've been doing ad hoc without the proper tutoring the past 10 years."
Lee, a cool and dapper man whose accent combines his Asian birth and his English education at Cambridge, arived here from Canada and lunched at Eliot House, where he will live while here. He expressed no qualms at his prolonged absence from Singapore because "it's fairly tranquil there right now."
Lee was last here in October, 1967, for one day. At that time, Neustadt invited him to come back as a fellow "and I'm glad I was able to get away to take advantage of his hospitality."
The premier indicated he planned to spend most of his time here talking to professors, especially about economics, history, political science, sociology and anthropology--"the things which will enable me to meet problems, the doctrines and theories which will constitute our problems in the coming years.
"There are professors here who are thinking of the theories," he went on. "If people in charge of governments know the principles of why things happen, maybe we can make them happen to the benefit of our region."
Lee, a politician to his fingertips, parried pumping by Boston newsmen on his views on Vietnam. "Holyoke is not a very useful place to comment on Vietnam," he said. "It really would not help the situation."
To Attend Meeting
Lee said he would attend a meeting of the Economics Club in New York next week, but has no plans to go to Washington or meet President Johnson, because "I'm on a completely private visit."
Neustadt cautioned that "we have no illusion that we can give the Prime Minister solutions to Singapore's problems. He knows more about those problems than anybody here does."
But Lee demurred. During his month here, he said, he hoped to gain new insights into "the development of our economy, the security of our area and what that means in terms in development, regional and sub-regional development and the growth of new nation states and how they become modernized communities." far this year, band members agree, Pittenger has turned a benevolent eye toward halftime high-jinks.
But band director Jim Walker acknowledged yesterday there is pressure to keep the shows at the Brown and Yale games reasonably clean. Walker indicated there has been scattered flak, not so much from Pittenger as from other Athletics Department personnel, the Faculty Committee for Athletics and the Dean of Students, who apparently has been mostly relaying the unhappiness of others.
The reason: a series of shows stuffed with college humor, culminating in last Saturday's Princeton performance.
One top university official protested
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