I got my numbers of a Lee Kuan Yew speech back in the 1980's, which may or may not still be on the interwebs. He graduated with two Firsts (the equivalent of summa cum laude with a double major), one of them in History, from Cambridge (the UK's Yale or Harvard, depending on who you ask). While I'm inclined to believe Lee's numbers without a second look, Wikipedia shows that in 1960, Japan's per capita number was $469 compared to the US number of $2881, meaning Japan had 1/6 the US GDP per capita after 15 years of breakneck growth goosed by (1) the Korean War, from which Japanese industry benefited greatly and (2) US government-organized tours of American plants, after which the Japanese adapted American-style mass production techniques to create the industrial juggernaut that, in the 1980's, was dubbed Japan Inc.
Perhaps Professor Lee overlooked Edwards Deming’s contributions...