Photo -- Young and Old Magnolia Grandiflora -- copyright Kyi M. KaungBy Kyi May Kaung – written in 2001
Louis Wallinsky, Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of the Union of Burma under the late U Nu between 1952 and 1958, one of U Nu's closest friends and longtime friend of Burma died on Christmas Eve at his home in Washington DC.
At the time of his death Louis was still active as an advisor on things to do with Burma, especially with regard to the Institute for Community and Institutional Development which brings Burmese students whose education has been disrupted to study at international universities. ICID was set up by prominant activist Dr. Zarni who also founded the well-known Free Burma Coalition.
Zarni was very close to Louis Wallinsky who served on the board of ICID from its founding until the time of his death. It was natural therefore that I should first hear that we had lost Louis through an email that he sent.
Even if I had not heard of Louis Wallinsky many years before I first met him, I would still have thought him remarkable. He was a tall, thin man, with silver grey hair falling down the back of his head almost to his shoulders. His hair contrasted favorably with his black coat and he usually wore a black beret, that made him look vaguely French and "left bankish." He used a walking stick and even though at some meetings he asked to be driven home around midday as the business-at-hand had been addressed, he was usually alert and would give his opinions in careful, well-considered, succinct words. He also tended to be very direct.
At that time he was 92 or 93. It seemed to me Lou used words and thoughts with great economy and effectiveness. Whether that was due to natural inclination, his early training as an economist or to age I never found out. I did find out though that he had been in Berlin when the Nazis came into power. He had also written a play called "Heil Hitler!" At a private interview in his home in 1999, I asked him whether he still wrote plays. He said he stopped as he had had no success.
I had first heard of Lou in Burma in the mid-sixties when his book Economic Development in Burma, 1951-60, New York, Twentieth Century Fund was published in 1962. At that time the story at the Institute of Economics in Rangoon, Burma was that Than Nyun, later Dr. Than Nyun, had had to re-orient his dissertation topic because he had initially been focused on economic planning in Burma but then Wallinsky's book, which was very comprehensive, had "beaten him to the punch." The conventional wisdom at the time was that whatever research was done on that period was bound to be eclipsed by Wallinsky's work as Louis had the advantage of being a hands on economic planner with access to statistical records and documents, as well as to the democratic leadership.
In the relatively few years that I knew him, I did not have the good fortune to be one of Wallinsky's close friends. As Zarni wrote recently in an informal obituary, "His house was a hospitable stop for many prominent Burmese expatriates and exiles, including U Kyaw Nyein, Bo Set Kyar, Wendy and Marjolaine Law Yone," and others.
I saw Lou usually at annual ICID board meetings and once when Zarni moved away to work in Chicago. The farewell at Marjolaine's house was on another cold December evening, in rooms decorated with poinsettia and red berries.
Zarni was inaugurating ICID brochures, which I learned had been printed with seed money donated by Lou. I remarked on the design of the pamphlets and asked who wrote it and Zarni replied, "Uncle Lou and I."
As we said our goodbyes and started to leave, Lou wrapped his navy blue scarf around his neck and said, "We're going to miss our Zarni aren't we." I thought there was a hint of wistfullness in his voice.
Maybe because of this remark I got the idea in my head that I should like to interview Lou and ask him about the Burma he had known and so I made an appointment.
One brisk winter morning, I walked from Ward Circle near American University about a mile to the building on Massachusetts Avenue where Lou lived. (Before Lou died whenever someone gave me a ride and we went around Ward Circle it was always on the tip of my tongue to tell whichever Burma activists were with me that Louis Wallinsky lived "near here," but I was always worried that Lou living alone, somehow the information might leak and someone might harm him. Now that Lou is beyond all pain and hurt it is safe to say "he lived alone at his home on Massachusetts Avenue.")
I walked past a church, a synagogue and a stand of scant leaved beech trees on my way to see Lou.
I called up from the reception desk. Lou answered the phone and came down to the lobby. He looked clean and tidily dressed in trousers and a red and white checked flannel shirt. He said he'd tell me about the time he and General Ne Win, "bumped heads with each other."
The apartment must have been a big one as it had bookshelves, paintings and normal sized furniture in it and seemed to wind backwards into other rooms beyond the immediately visible living-dining room and kitchenette. A big bank of windows on the wall opposite the door we entered by looked down on the part of the building built into the slope. The dark polished wood dining table had place mats, a couple of pots with blooming white narcissi in them and a complete set of chinaware all stacked up on it. Lou said the widow of a close friend of his had just brought the flowers. They looked like they had been lovingly forced indoors to bloom early, but there hadn't been enough light and so the flower stems were long, lank and pale, and now soft and bent over. The china looked like it must be the set Lou had before he lost Mrs. Wallinsky. It looked like it was all stacked up ready to use so Lou would not have to bother with reaching up to shelves or opening and closing cabinet doors.
A big framed pencil drawing of former Prime Minister U Nu hung on the wall on the left. Lou said his sister Anna Wallinska, who was an artist, had made it. The drawing, which was about 36 by 70 inches, and quite large for a pencil sketch, was a rather good likeness. In the portrait U Nu looked fresh and round-faced as he did in photographs of him from the fifties. Lou said his sister was a painter and had painted in many different styles. The two abstracts flanking the portrait were collages made after she "fell in love with Shan handmade paper. After a time though her fascination faded and she made other things." The collages looked very modern although they must have been made in the fifties or early sixties.
Lou asked if I would like a cup of tea. He boiled some water on the gas stove in a small sauce pan which had a few pieces of dried noodle in it. I asked how he managed and he said he "managed fine," there was a woman who came to do the cooking. I asked if he was writing his memoirs and he said no, he was putting his papers in order, "besides I look after myself, and it takes longer you know." He gestured cavalierly towards his books and confided, "I've forgotten everything I've read in those books," and laughed. I laughed too, envying him his vantage point of age, which allowed him to value the real things of life versus the stuff in books.
He sat down in the brown leather chair that he said was his favorite. I sat down on the sofa across from him, facing the window. He wanted to know why I wished to interview him. I said because I wanted to ask him about his impressions of Burma.
We talked first of the Pyidawtha Plans with which Lou Wallinsky, as a member of the firm of Knappen, Tibbets, Abbot and later McCarthy, had been intimately involved.
I asked if it was true as we had been taught in our economics class at Rangoon University that the Pyidawtha Plans had to be abandoned because the Korean War boom ended and the price of Burma's rice exports fell. Wallinsky said that was true but also the government was able to find other sources of foreign exchange and about 80 % of the projects were completed.
He talked about the Burma Pharmaceutical Industry, which he said was "U Nu's baby." He said that at first U Nu was not too happy with him, as an economic advisor he "was younger than the PM (U Nu)" "But he got used to me later," Lou said. I told Lou that at the time the Rangoon wags used to call BPI the "Burma packing industry" because everything was bought from overseas and then the pills were stamped in the factory in Rangoon; that it was such a pity but Myanmar was now becoming known for other kinds of pills; speed pills not vitamins. Lou said U Nu once gave an order that a piece of land be cleared of "junk" that was lying on it so that the land could be used for a project and was "mad when he drove by a few days later and the land had still not been cleared."
From this I gathered that attention to detail, in other words micro-management, was not unique to the present military rulers of Burma, though of course U Nu's administration was much more humane.
Lou said that U Nu had struck him as an extremely intelligent man. When I asked if he could reflect on the characteristics of the civilian leadership of democratic Burma in contrast to the present rulers, Lou replied that he really could not as he had no knowledge of the military. He said as economic planners for the U Nu administration, their firm had concentrated only on economic matters and had not advised on military matters at all.
A reliable source told me that KTA(M) had been kept on after what Wallinsky called "the first coup of 1958" (the Caretaker Government) and also after "the second coup of 1962." According to this source, Fritz Werner, notorious for connections to Ne Win and his regime, which are purported to continue on a warm footing to this day, was "advisor on military matters" in the early sixties at the same time Wallinsky was economic advisor.
This source said "Dr. Wallinsky and Dr. Werner" were known as the two foreigners advising the Revolutionary Council, though on completely different matters. They had separate briefs and no connection with each other.
In Burma as a student I had attended briefings by U Thet Tun of the CSED (the central statistical organization) in which U Thet Tun had told us an anecdote about going in a helicopter to see if there were enough bamboo forests as raw material for the paper factory. I had heard that a few years later all the bamboo bloomed and then died and there had been a pulp shortage. But Lou did not talk to me about the paper mill.
I asked Lou if it was true that U Ne Win was extremely charismatic. "He wasn't charismatic, only a few women found him so," Lou muttered. He continued thoughtfully, "Anybody with a certain level of power is bound to be charismatic, the question is whether it is true charisma or emanating from power." He then told me of the three occasions in which he had observed Ne Win at close quarters.
The first time was at a dinner party. General Ne Win came with his wife Kitty but was very quiet, Lou said. He appeared affable and courteous. Wallinsky said he thought Ne Win was unsure of himself and his social skills.
The second time he saw Gen. Ne Win was at the golf course. Lou said he used to go to play golf with another American who was a Fulbright professor and this time they went in his friend's car with his friend's driver at the wheel rather than in his car.
"The driver pulled up rather quietly in front of the building. There was a man standing there, bending down with his foot on the railing, tying his shoelaces. He was startled by the car pulling up silently behind him. I saw it was Ne Win. He was livid. He yanked open the front door, pulled out the Burmese driver, and started to punch him. My friend wanted to go to the driver's aid but I prevented him. I knew that when Ne Win came to play golf he had a full security contingent with him and anything could have happened."
Having in a way grown up on Rangoon stories about the general's violent temper; how he had hit a Chinese man on the golf course with a golf club because the man was obstructing his path; how he had pummeled a scholar who had imbibed too much at the annual research conference dinner for insulting Kitty and so on, I was not really surprised by what Lou told me. I was in fact expecting to hear something like that. I asked whether the attack was pretty vicious and if the victim had fallen to the ground.
Lou replied that by that time he and his friend had hastily gotten out of the car and the driver had not fallen to the ground because he was up against the car.
Lou also told me of the time that Gen. Ne Win kicked the butt (literally) of the foreign diplomat who was ahead of him in a reception line. I asked if Gen. Ne Win was Chief of Staff at that time and Lou said "No, he was head of state. It was after the coup."
I asked Lou why he thought Gen. Ne Win did things like that, and Lou said he thought it was because he was insecure and was afraid of things he did not understand, like foreigners.
Lou also told me about the time they went to a formal ball in connection with some charity or other. "Mrs. Gore Booth (the wife of the British Embassador) was there, and she was just a lovely lady. I stood in line to dance with her and so did Ne Win. Mrs. Gore Booth had a dance card on which all her dances were lined up. As she stood near us she dropped her card on the floor. I stooped down to retrieve her card for her and Ne Win bent down also. We bumped our heads against each other and from the impact, I gather he must have been quite stunned too." I couldn't help thinking that there was something metaphorical about Lou's recollections.
Of U Nu, Lou said how much he admired him and how intelligent U Nu was. He said, "He might not have been the best person to be Prime Minister, but he was certainly the best there was around. Certainly his colleagues and associates respected him enormously and deferred to him."
Of Wallinsky himself, Zarni wrote:
"Of Russian Jewish immigrant parents who later immigrated, Lou was born in London in 1908. His father was active in the US Labor Movement in New York, from whom Lou seemed to have picked up his strong social conscience. He studied economics at Cornell, City College of New York, The New School, and Berlin, served as consultant to the United States War Production Board, then became Financial Director of the World ORT Union where he supervised its chain of some 80 vocational training schools for Jewish displaced persons in the D.P. camps of Germany."
I asked Lou whether his Jewish background had made him more empathetic towards the plight of oppressed people like the Burmese. Lou said it certainly made him more sensitive to such issues.
Zarni continued:
"Lou's later work concentrated on problems of economic development, culminating in his Associateship with Robert Nathan, the capacity in which he led an economic advisory team to Burma for six years. As economic consultant he worked in 18 countries. In retirement he served as Director of a special International Commission of the World Jewish Congress studying issues facing world Jewry. In addition to professional publications which include "Economic Development in Burma" and "The Planning and Execution of Development," Lou (also) wrote a play. Lou had set up a scholarship/research trust fund at Cornell Economics Department and donated, to the Southeast Asia Collection at Cornell Library, his correspondence with prominent Burmese nationalist and ethnic leaders, as well as Burma papers.
"Lou had this trademark -- no nonsense social attitude, while being proper. He had his own personal shortcomings, as we all do, but he lived a very rich and full life. Three of the most memorable stories Lou shared with me include his experience seeing, with his wife Dorothy, a ghost going through their bedroom in the residence in Rangoon, his sitting on Emma Goldman's lap during an organizers' meeting at his parents' place in New York, and his having to walk backward after an audience with the Shah of Iran in Teheran!
"I will miss him deeply. Lou is survived by a son and two daughters. The memorial service for Lou is scheduled to be held in New York on March 23, 2002."
The last time I saw Lou was this summer. Another board meeting. That morning I just happened to pick the taxi driver from hell, who drove me in circles for 45 minutes until finally I recognized the house where the meeting was usually held. Late. The meeting was already in progress. New members, exciting new developments. Lou was sitting at the head of the table, his back to the windows. He was in shirt sleeves and as neat as ever.
Outside the trees had a young green color on them. The azaleas were ablaze and someone had brought in a big branch of pink frilly ones and stuck it in a vase on the sideboard. We had coffee and cheesecake.
I once wrote a poem in which all my favorite people, all my favorite things were all together in one room at the same time.
Among the people in this poem were Burmese democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her husband, the late Professor Michael Aris.
I realize now that must have been how I felt that morning.
In November FBC had a conference at American University. I decided to read some family oriented poems of loss on the last day. There were so many panels to attend, there was hardly time to talk to Zarni. He said he would sit by me at dinner. Even then, time has now grown very short. Zarni pulled some family pictures out of his wallet and slid them towards me. I took a look, and then nudged his arm and passed them back. He carefully tucked them in his billfold. The speeches had started.
After dinner he got up and said he had to go, he had to see Uncle Lou. Would I be reading the poem about the death of the father that I had translated. I said I would if I had time. Zarni had also lost his father in the previous year. I thought how many people there must be like that.
"Go, go," I said to Zarni, sounding like my grandmother, "it's much more important that you see Uncle Lou." I wondered how Lou was doing this winter. Zarni hurried off.
*
As our interview of 1999 drew to a close the winter light outside Lou's windows faded softly. The room inside seemed to have an inner light of its own. I got up and got ready to leave, thanking Lou and apologizing for taking his time, for perhaps tiring him. Asking too many questions. Lou smiled and protested, "I'm never tired by something like that, it invigorates me."
Louis Wallinsky, Rest in Peace.
Kyi May Kaung (Ph.D.) currently works for The Burma Fund as Sr. Research Associate. She is writing a book on Economic Transitions in a Democratic Burma for the Fund. The views expressed here are her own and do not reflect the views of The Burma Fund.
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(Author’s Note: I wrote this in 2001. As I was not able to publish this obituary anywhere at the time of Louis Wallinsky’s death, despite repeated attempts, I am publishing it now on my Blog. I did the interview of Wallinsky described above under duress at “the workplace from hell.” The manager in charge then did not allow me to broadcast the interview – no reason given, but he implied that Wallinsky was “senile already,” something patently not true. I did the interview on my own time, on my day off.
After Louis’ death, two other Burmese broadcasters from 2 different radio stations asked me for sound bites of Louis’ voice, which only I had. I gave them to these 2 friends, who mentioned my interview on air.)
* All Words and Images on this Blog copyright Kyi May Kaung. All rights reserved, including in media not yet invented. This article may not be mirrored, copied, disseminated or reproduced.
