9 - Cold War General (March 1964 to February 1967)

Summary

Sympathy for the favourite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation of the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.

President George Washington's Farewell Address

Two years after seizing power, Ne Win had settled into the job he had created for himself. There was no going back to the old parliamentary system. The die was cast. National unity and preservation of the state depended upon him, he concluded, and the tools he had available to him, primarily the army. But Ne Win saw himself as a political figure, not just a military leader, and therefore developing the Party became part of his plans for building a new, socialist, secure Myanmar in a hostile environment. That hostile environment included not only foreign states with, if not designs on Myanmar, at least a keen interest in what happened in the country. It also included personal enemies that he had made not only as the general who led the army in the civil war but also as the political figure who had decided his old colleagues were not up to the tasks they were given.

Ne Win and Daw Khin May Than had taken no medical treatment or foreign trip in 1963, but in 1964 they were able to take a two-month holiday. Busy as he was with governmental affairs, his life, while hectic, began to settle to a routine. He called fewer and fewer meetings of the Revolutionary Council, often deciding matters directly with the relevant ministers or officials on his own. He encouraged ministers not to interfere in the work of other ministers but to stick to their own affairs. Mired in much detail, he was unable to keep track of the activities of some of his colleagues, particularly Brigadier Tin Pe and Colonel Than Sein, who were responsible for economic affairs. When he was in Yangon, his day normally began at about 6:30 in the morning. Daw Khin May Than rose before him to read the newspapers and listen to the English and Burmese services of the BBC as well as Myanmar Athan. He also read the Burmese newspapers before they met for breakfast at 8:15 Daw Khin May Than would then brief him on world news.