[Tlc] FW: The legendary Fred Riggs 1918 - 2008

Thu Feb 28 12:27:05 PST 2008

Biff,

I am copying below the note from my colleague, the former Curator of the SE Asia collection at Yale, Charlie Bryant.  I hope that Charlie does not mind sharing his recollection of Fred Rigg's contribution to the establishment of Southeast Asia collecting as a professional activity within US research libraries.

Best

Judith Henchy
UW Libraries

I was saddened to receive Virginia Shih's forwarded message about the death of Fred Riggs.  He, more than anyone else, was the father of CORMOSEA and the inspiration for the role CORMOSEA tried to play in its first decade or so in the world of Southeast Asian Studies and in the library world in the U. S. and in Southeast Asia.  I remember well and admire still the vision he brought to the Committee and the management skill, political insight and personal charm with which he guided the Committee through the clashing interests that swirled around the AAS as it tried to absorb the Inter-university Southeast Asia Committee.   He established our mandate and marked out the territory which CORMOSEA claimed, a claim that was not unchallenged in the early 1970s as it is today.  I am also reminded of the cultural sensitivity, unusual in those post-colonial times, which he brought to our institutional and personal relations in Southeast Asia. 
    For those of us who knew him and worked with him he seemed somewhat larger than life, a person who acted on a much larger stage than the rest of us knew.  He knew personally directors of national and university libraries and archives and individual scholars in Southeast Asia, but also in Australia, Japan and Europe.  He was an active member of a wide range of international associations and it was this vast network which CORMOSEA became tied with through him.  I remember meeting him in a hotel lobby in Washington, D.C. on the eve of a CORMOSEA meeting.  He looked haggard and a bit lost;  he had just arrived from a conference in Beirut and was on his way before the AAS Conference ended to a meeting in London.  But the next day he gave his full attention to CORMOSEA as if it was the most important of his commitments, and we all had our assignments to complete before the fall meeting in Chicago.   He seemed always to be on the move, and I used to wonder if his family and colleagues in Hawaii saw him often enough to recognize him when he appeared in their midst.  But memos and letters addressed to him at his office at the University of Hawaii always got a response, and sometimes a lengthy and thoughtful one.
    A couple of decades after his three year term as Chairman of CORMOSEA ended I ran into him at an AAS conference, I think in San Francisco, and we had breakfast together.  He wanted to be brought up-to-date on what the Committee was doing and on structural issues.   I was surprised that he remembered all our names and the issues which were on the Committee's agenda long ago.  I was also heartened that he seemed to approve of CORMOSEA's  progress on those issues and its current direction at that time, though he did have a few suggestions.
    I suspect that no current members of CORMOSEA knew Fred Riggs; I fear many may not even know his name. I hope these random reminiscences will help to rectify that.  I think it important to recognize that many of the Committee's past achievements and present organizational strengths are due to the larger vision and strong leadership of its founder and first chairman, and the example he set for his fellows.  It might be appropriate for CORMOSEA at its forthcoming meeting in Atlanta to pay some kind of tribute to its founder, but at the moment I have no idea what form such a tribute should take.
                                                                                                   Charles Bryant 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Charles Keyes 
  To: tlc at lists.ucr.edu 
  Cc: jirawat saengthong ; Duncan McCargo ; Yoshinori Nishizaki 
  Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 11:30 AM
  Subject: Re: [Tlc] FW: The legendary Fred Riggs 1918 - 2008

  I hope that someone will write a more extended intellectual biography about Fred. I want to note here that while Fred's contributions to political theory are perhaps not as significant as he would want to be remembered for, there is no question but that his contribution to the study of Thai government and politics remain seminal. I have found myself over the years constantly referring to Thailand: The Modernization of a Bureaucratic Polity (East-West Press, 1967) as a basic source work. The appendices alone remain very valuable and his analysis of the development of Thailand's bureaucratic polity remains fundamental for any scholar who wishes to understand why the Thai bureaucracy still retains a central role in Thai politics. Although his analysis was shaped by an older structural-functionalism, Fred was one of very social scientists writing about Thai politics in the 1960s who attempted to understand the historical processes that were at work in the Thai polity.

  Biff (Charles Keyes)
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Michael Montesano 
    To: tlc at lists.ucr.edu ; Duncan McCargo ; jirawat saengthong ; patrick ; Yoshinori Nishizaki ; Erick White 
    Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 6:54 PM
    Subject: [Tlc] FW: The legendary Fred Riggs 1918 - 2008

    International Public Management Network Listserv 
    ---
    Dear IPMN Colleagues:

    We are deeply saddened to report that the distinguished and legendary comparative administration scholar Fred W. Riggs has passed away after a major stroke. Fred was 90 and died a week after the stroke in a hospital near his home in Honolulu, Hawaii, as reported to us by his daughter Wendy. A celebration of his life will be held in Hawaii (Oahu) on the 9th of March.

    There are no words to adequately express how much Fred Riggs contributed to the field of comparative public administration. He was the paterfamilias of CPA. And Fred Riggs was a giant not just in CPA but in PA, an amazing scholar whose quest for knowledge knew no bounds. Visit his website to gain some insight into his incredible curiosity, the vastness of his knowledge and the range of his accomplishments. 

    As a teacher, scholar and colleague Fred did so much for so many. Riggs was an intellectual colossus and personally, in every way, he was a gracious and great man. He lived a long and full life and was a productive thinker and scholar to the end of his days. Fred Riggs was one of a kind and although he has passed from this mortal coil he will not be forgotten. His legacy will live on.

    Respectfully,

    L. R. Jones
    for IPMN

    Lawrence R. Jones, Ph.D.
    George F. A. Wagner Professor of Public Management
    Graduate School of Business and Public Policy, NPS
    Monterey, CA 
    dukedmb at aol.com 

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