Close aides to President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) have been deserting him in quick succession; all but one of those who served Lee when he was president have left. The sole survivor, Lee Wu-nan (李武男), has served Lee for more than 20 years.
Lee Wu-nan's relationship to the former first family is like that of Mrs Lo's (羅), who has been pushing first lady Wu Shu-chen's (吳淑珍) wheelchair for about 10 years.
"Who but Wu-nan could serve you so well?" the former first lady Tzeng Wen-hui (
Perhaps best known among Lee Teng-hui's staffers was Su Chih-cheng (蘇志誠), once refer-red to by the media as "the top policy-making official in the Presidential Office." During Lee's 12 years in power, whatever Su said was usually taken to be what the president thought.
By contrast, there are few men quieter than Lee Wu-nan.
Long before Su rose to become the former president's closest aide, Lee Wu-nan had already become Lee's top security guard.
Lee Wu-nan was captain of Taiwan's team at the 1968 Mexico Olympic games. During the games, however, Lee, a boxer, fell in love with Tsai Chiu-hsiang (
Lee took an exam to enter the now defunct special forces police and became a bodyguard for then Taipei City mayor Chang Feng-shu (
Lee Wu-nan served three mayors: Chang, Lin Yang-kang (林洋港) and Lee Teng-hui, the latter being greatly impressed with his performance. He served Lee throughout his vice presidency and presidency.
Dedication was one of qualities that made Lee Wu-nan the most trusted man in the entourage of a political colossus. Lee I-hsien (
"He had almost no holidays for the whole year and did not spend weekends with the family. Even on Chinese New Year's Day, he had to go to the residence early in the morning because there were more visitors than usual. He came home to have Chinese New Year's dinner with us when there were fewer visitors in the evening," Lee said. "My father is just like a member of Lee Teng-hui's family."
The dedicated staffer got on particularly well with Lee Ching-long (
Indeed, so trusted was Lee Wu-nan by the former president's family that he became a sort of chief of staff of the presidential residence, looking after the gardening, feeding Lee's beloved pets, maintaining the utilities and overseeing arrangements for Lee's security guards. Yet he remained "a man without a voice" during Lee Teng-hui's 12 years in power.
But the silence surrounding Lee Wu-nan has been disturbed by the Jin-Wen scandal, over which many former high-ranking officials have been indicted.
Lee Wu-nan and his family bought two houses in the villa community of Ta Hsueh Shih Hsiang (
As the scandal, in which Chang allegedly bribed former education ministry officials with cut-price villas, came to light, the relationship between Lee Wu-nan and Chang has aroused suspicion. Prosecutors have identified Lee Wu-nan as a subject for investigation in the case.
Lee I-hsien said his father rejected Chang when Chang said he wanted to "give" them a villa.
But after years of hard work the Lees hoped to buy a bigger house for their increasingly large family. They saw two houses at Ta Hsueh Shih Hsiang and liked the environment.
"Chang Wan-li said he would sell us those two houses at half price because they were located next to high-voltage power supplies. We bought two houses for NT$19 million each, and now we are under investigation," Lee I-hsien said.
After Chang fled to Canada, he telephoned and faxed Lee Wu-nan to ask him to serve as acting president of the sports federation. Lee still had many connections in sports circles because of his Olympic experience. He also attended the 2000 Sydney Olympics Games as one of Taiwan's officials.
Later, he accepted the post as acting president of the sports federation because he didn't want to work at the Taiwan Research Institute (
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