COMMENT Most deputy premiers and vice-presidents would want to succeed to the No 1 post - most, save Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, Ghafar Baba and Dick Cheney.

The three were content being No 2. That was why their No 1s were happy to have them as second-in-command: they could sleep unperturbed that no conspiracies were being hatched to oust them.

Prime Minister Abdul Razak Hussein was reported to have mused forlornly, “Now whom can I trust?” when Ismail died rather suddenly in August 1973...