The assassination of Premadasa

(Excerpted from Rendering unto Caesar, autobiography of Bradman Weerakoon)

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Premadasa's Fascination with New Technology Premadasa was fascinated by the new technology available at the time. The mobile telephone was not yet around but he got himself a computer very early. He did not actually learn to use it. He thought it would provide a convenient memory bank for the many speeches he would have to make and keep referring back to it. But it was actually not used much for that purpose. He would yet continue to write his thoughts on little pads of paper each morning.

What he found extremely useful was the teleprompter. He saw this first being used very effectively in Manila, by Ferdinand Marcos who used to make long, and what appeared to be extempore speeches, without a single note of paper in sight.

Premadasa promptly got down the equipment from Singapore and made use of it on several occasions to very good effect. Apparently, once you master the art of reading what appears on a transparent glass pane in front of the rostrum, nobody in the audience would guess that you were being assisted by an invisible prompter. His press officers - Evans Cooray, Anthony Fernando and Nimal Senaratne were soon experts at setting the machine to the speed that Premadasa was used to. The effect was very impressive. I thought it strange that he used one because he was a naturally gifted orator in both Sinhala and English. Also, the teleprompter could not be used everywhere. It needed time to set up and physical adjustments had to be done around the rostrum.