SINGAPORE: Singapore’s founding fathers won the right to govern the nation because Singaporeans were convinced that founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and his team could not be intimidated into compromising Singapore’s interests.
This was one important lesson from Singapore’s merger and eventual separation from Malaysia, said Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the launch of the Albatross File exhibition and publication on Sunday (Dec 7) at the National Library.
He noted that Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his team could not be cowed or suppressed by federal leaders, especially by the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) radicals, also known as the "ultras".
"(Singaporeans) realised that he was prepared to risk all, including his life, to secure their future. It was through this experience of merger followed by separation that Mr Lee (Kuan Yew) and the PAP (People’s Action Party) solidified their support among our pioneer generation," said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.
He added that Mr Lee Kuan Yew's successors have not forgotten this lesson and that no Singapore prime minister "has ever allowed any force or power, whether foreign or domestic, to intimidate us into compromising our national interest or sovereignty".
In 2023, the government agreed to declassify and release documents in Dr Goh Keng Swee’s “Albatross File”.
Dr Goh was the minister who negotiated the separation of Singapore from Malaysia in 1965. The Albatross File is a collection of documents, handwritten notes and Cabinet papers that the late Dr Goh kept in the run-up to the separation.
It was named as such because Dr Goh felt Malaysia had become an albatross around Singapore's neck - a reference to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
The file was initially lost before being found in a Ministry of Defence storeroom in the 1980s, and the public first learnt of the file in 1996.
Mr Lee said that when he was prime minister, he decided that the file should be declassified and published, along with relevant extracts from the oral histories of key participants involved in the separation.
This is to “bring together and put on the public record a full documented account of this seminal event in our independence journey”.
A cameraman films a display during a media preview of The Albatross File exhibition in the National Library, Nov 26, 2025. (Photo: CNA/Wallace Woon)
Also present at the launch was Mr Ong Pang Boon, one of the 10 Singapore ministers who signed the Separation Agreement, and Mr Ng Kah Ting, who with Mr Ong, are the two surviving members of Singapore’s first parliament that sat in December 1965.
Family members of the other signatories who have died were also present.
Mr Lee highlighted another lesson from the separation: to never take Singapore’s racial and religious harmony for granted.
From September 1963, when the PAP won all three Malay-majority seats in the general elections, UMNO radicals succeeded in sowing “deep distrust between the Malays and Chinese”. This culminated in the race riots in 1964.
Mr Lee Kuan Yew had noted "with despair and dismay" that the work to bring the races together over many years could be wrecked in such a short time.
“So when I look at the new housing estates where we’ve mixed them all up, I have never allowed myself to forget that this air of inter-racial harmony and trust is very fragile,” said the founding prime minister then.
“It can be snapped, broken, smashed … the dynamics of communal politics or communal politicking will override reason and logic.”
Mr Lee Hsien Loong said on Sunday that Singapore separated from Malaysia because of identity politics based on race and religion.
“We will never allow race or religion to break up Singapore,” he added.
One key question about the separation was whether Singapore was kicked out by Malaysia, or whether it sought separation.
Mr Lee noted that the prevailing view was that Singapore was kicked out.
Tunku Abdul Rahman, the Malaysian prime minister then, said at the time that the decision to kick Singapore out of Malaysia had been taken by him solely, noted Mr Lee Hsien Loong.
But this was not the only reason for the separation. There were “many factors” that forced his hand and led the Tunku to conclude that letting Singapore go was the best option for him and Malaysia.
This included Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s political campaign for a “Malaysian Malaysia”, among other episodes.
He noted the crucial speech in the Malaysian parliament on May 27, 1965, where Mr Lee Kuan Yew spoke in fluent Malay. The Tunku later described the speech as "the straw that broke the camel's back".
“Those were very tense days,” said Mr Lee Hsien Loong. “Mr Lee (Kuan Yew) was aware that the federal authorities were considering arresting him, and that he was in grave peril.”
At that time, Mr Lee Hsien Loong was 13 years old.
“One day, on the Istana golf course, he told me that if anything were to happen to him, I should look after my mother and younger siblings,” he recalled.
Fortunately, then-British Prime Minister Harold Wilson had warned the Tunku that the UK would have to reconsider its relations with Malaysia if he arrested Mr Lee Kuan Yew.
By the end of June 1965, the Tunku had decided that it would be best to “return Singapore to Lee Kuan Yew” instead.
It was this decision that led to talks between the Tunku's deputy, Tun Razak, and Dr Goh from mid-July.
Mr Lee Kuan Yew directed Mr E W Barker to draft the separation documents soon after that first meeting, and his aim was to strengthen Singapore's position politically and compel the federal government to grant Singapore greater autonomy.
He instructed Dr Goh to press for a looser constitutional rearrangement within Malaysia, and that separation would be an option only if Singapore could not get an agreement.
But Dr Goh reported that Tun Razak wanted a "total hiving off".
Until the very end, Mr Lee Kuan Yew was "ambivalent" and "quite torn" about the separation, said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.
He recalled that on Aug 3, six days before Singapore’s independence, he had been on holiday with his family at Cameron Highlands when his father received a call from Dr Goh.
"In those days, calls to Cameron Highlands had to go through operators, who mostly did not speak Chinese. So Dr Goh and Mr Lee spoke in Mandarin," said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.
"I heard him tell Dr Goh in Mandarin: ‘This is a huge decision; let me think about it’. I didn’t know then what it was about, but it became plain soon enough ... it was less than a week before separation day."
And even on Aug 7, after the agreement was settled, Mr Lee saw the Tunku again to ask if there could be a looser federation instead, or even a confederation, but the proposal was rejected.
"I remember sleeping that night on the floor in the corner of my parents’ bedroom at Temasek House in Kuala Lumpur, before the family drove back to Singapore the next day," said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.
"My father got up repeatedly throughout the night to write notes to himself.
"This explains Mr Lee’s state of mind at separation, and why at the press conference on Aug 9 he broke down, and spoke about ‘a moment of anguish’.
"My mother said in her oral history that that was the closest he came to a nervous breakdown."
Singapore was on its own, and the albatross had “finally loosed off our neck,” said Mr Lee.
“As many historians have since characterised it, separation was a mutually negotiated outcome.”
And while separation was not Mr Lee’s preferred outcome, he had gone to great lengths to persuade all his ministers to sign the Separation Agreement, so there was no Cabinet split, and independent Singapore started out with a strong, united leadership team, noted Mr Lee.
“At the strategic level, it was the political pressure that Mr Lee orchestrated, the international stature that he had built up, and the courage and leadership that he showed, which compelled the Tunku to let Singapore go,” he added.
Singapore's first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and deputy Prime Minister Toh Chin Chye on a display seen during a media preview of The Albatross File: Singapore’s Independence Declassified exhibition in the National Library Building. (Photo: CNA/Wallace Woon)
It was only decades later, in 1994, when Mr Lee Kuan Yew obtained permission to read Dr Goh’s oral history, that he found out that contrary to his instructions, Dr Goh had gone for a clean break from the start, and never tried for a looser federation.
It showed that it was Dr Goh, not Tun Razak, who had suggested the separation.
This was so astonishing to Mr Lee Kuan Yew that he marked down the exact time and date that he first learned this.
While the separation weighed heavily on the founding prime minister, Dr Goh was convinced that the merger was doomed and that the Malaysian leaders "wanted us out".
Within a few years of separation, all of Singapore's founding leaders concluded that the separation was the best thing that had happened to Singapore.
"In this SG60 year, we are very glad that Dr Goh did what he did. Singapore has thrived and progressed far beyond anything the founding fathers imagined," said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.
"But it was far from inevitable that events would turn out this way.
"In all likelihood, had separation not been achieved on Aug 9, 1965, sooner or later the breakup would somehow have occurred, but most probably not as peacefully.
“The contradictions between the two societies were so profound that they could not have been resolved without a parting of ways."
It was "far from obvious" that Singapore should be independent, and neither Singapore's founding leaders nor the people could be certain that Singapore would survive or thrive as such.
“As Mr Lee once said, he was glad he did not have to live through again the 23 months from merger to separation,” said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.
“He wasn’t sure we would be so lucky as to emerge intact again from those terrifying times.”
The declassified contents of the Albatross File have been published in a book.
Mr Lee Hsien Loong encouraged all Singaporeans to pick up the book and visit the exhibition to find out how Singapore came to be “forever a sovereign democratic and independent nation”.
“You will realise it was hardly foreordained. It was, and still is, a miracle,” he said.
Continue reading...
This was one important lesson from Singapore’s merger and eventual separation from Malaysia, said Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the launch of the Albatross File exhibition and publication on Sunday (Dec 7) at the National Library.
He noted that Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his team could not be cowed or suppressed by federal leaders, especially by the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) radicals, also known as the "ultras".
"(Singaporeans) realised that he was prepared to risk all, including his life, to secure their future. It was through this experience of merger followed by separation that Mr Lee (Kuan Yew) and the PAP (People’s Action Party) solidified their support among our pioneer generation," said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.
He added that Mr Lee Kuan Yew's successors have not forgotten this lesson and that no Singapore prime minister "has ever allowed any force or power, whether foreign or domestic, to intimidate us into compromising our national interest or sovereignty".
In 2023, the government agreed to declassify and release documents in Dr Goh Keng Swee’s “Albatross File”.
Dr Goh was the minister who negotiated the separation of Singapore from Malaysia in 1965. The Albatross File is a collection of documents, handwritten notes and Cabinet papers that the late Dr Goh kept in the run-up to the separation.
It was named as such because Dr Goh felt Malaysia had become an albatross around Singapore's neck - a reference to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
The file was initially lost before being found in a Ministry of Defence storeroom in the 1980s, and the public first learnt of the file in 1996.
Mr Lee said that when he was prime minister, he decided that the file should be declassified and published, along with relevant extracts from the oral histories of key participants involved in the separation.
This is to “bring together and put on the public record a full documented account of this seminal event in our independence journey”.
A cameraman films a display during a media preview of The Albatross File exhibition in the National Library, Nov 26, 2025. (Photo: CNA/Wallace Woon)
Also present at the launch was Mr Ong Pang Boon, one of the 10 Singapore ministers who signed the Separation Agreement, and Mr Ng Kah Ting, who with Mr Ong, are the two surviving members of Singapore’s first parliament that sat in December 1965.
Family members of the other signatories who have died were also present.
Mr Lee highlighted another lesson from the separation: to never take Singapore’s racial and religious harmony for granted.
From September 1963, when the PAP won all three Malay-majority seats in the general elections, UMNO radicals succeeded in sowing “deep distrust between the Malays and Chinese”. This culminated in the race riots in 1964.
Mr Lee Kuan Yew had noted "with despair and dismay" that the work to bring the races together over many years could be wrecked in such a short time.
“So when I look at the new housing estates where we’ve mixed them all up, I have never allowed myself to forget that this air of inter-racial harmony and trust is very fragile,” said the founding prime minister then.
“It can be snapped, broken, smashed … the dynamics of communal politics or communal politicking will override reason and logic.”
Mr Lee Hsien Loong said on Sunday that Singapore separated from Malaysia because of identity politics based on race and religion.
“We will never allow race or religion to break up Singapore,” he added.
Related:
WAS SINGAPORE KICKED OUT?
One key question about the separation was whether Singapore was kicked out by Malaysia, or whether it sought separation.
Mr Lee noted that the prevailing view was that Singapore was kicked out.
Tunku Abdul Rahman, the Malaysian prime minister then, said at the time that the decision to kick Singapore out of Malaysia had been taken by him solely, noted Mr Lee Hsien Loong.
But this was not the only reason for the separation. There were “many factors” that forced his hand and led the Tunku to conclude that letting Singapore go was the best option for him and Malaysia.
This included Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s political campaign for a “Malaysian Malaysia”, among other episodes.
He noted the crucial speech in the Malaysian parliament on May 27, 1965, where Mr Lee Kuan Yew spoke in fluent Malay. The Tunku later described the speech as "the straw that broke the camel's back".
“Those were very tense days,” said Mr Lee Hsien Loong. “Mr Lee (Kuan Yew) was aware that the federal authorities were considering arresting him, and that he was in grave peril.”
At that time, Mr Lee Hsien Loong was 13 years old.
“One day, on the Istana golf course, he told me that if anything were to happen to him, I should look after my mother and younger siblings,” he recalled.
Fortunately, then-British Prime Minister Harold Wilson had warned the Tunku that the UK would have to reconsider its relations with Malaysia if he arrested Mr Lee Kuan Yew.
By the end of June 1965, the Tunku had decided that it would be best to “return Singapore to Lee Kuan Yew” instead.
It was this decision that led to talks between the Tunku's deputy, Tun Razak, and Dr Goh from mid-July.
Mr Lee Kuan Yew directed Mr E W Barker to draft the separation documents soon after that first meeting, and his aim was to strengthen Singapore's position politically and compel the federal government to grant Singapore greater autonomy.
He instructed Dr Goh to press for a looser constitutional rearrangement within Malaysia, and that separation would be an option only if Singapore could not get an agreement.
But Dr Goh reported that Tun Razak wanted a "total hiving off".
Until the very end, Mr Lee Kuan Yew was "ambivalent" and "quite torn" about the separation, said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.
He recalled that on Aug 3, six days before Singapore’s independence, he had been on holiday with his family at Cameron Highlands when his father received a call from Dr Goh.
"In those days, calls to Cameron Highlands had to go through operators, who mostly did not speak Chinese. So Dr Goh and Mr Lee spoke in Mandarin," said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.
"I heard him tell Dr Goh in Mandarin: ‘This is a huge decision; let me think about it’. I didn’t know then what it was about, but it became plain soon enough ... it was less than a week before separation day."
And even on Aug 7, after the agreement was settled, Mr Lee saw the Tunku again to ask if there could be a looser federation instead, or even a confederation, but the proposal was rejected.
"I remember sleeping that night on the floor in the corner of my parents’ bedroom at Temasek House in Kuala Lumpur, before the family drove back to Singapore the next day," said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.
"My father got up repeatedly throughout the night to write notes to himself.
"This explains Mr Lee’s state of mind at separation, and why at the press conference on Aug 9 he broke down, and spoke about ‘a moment of anguish’.
"My mother said in her oral history that that was the closest he came to a nervous breakdown."
Singapore was on its own, and the albatross had “finally loosed off our neck,” said Mr Lee.
“As many historians have since characterised it, separation was a mutually negotiated outcome.”
And while separation was not Mr Lee’s preferred outcome, he had gone to great lengths to persuade all his ministers to sign the Separation Agreement, so there was no Cabinet split, and independent Singapore started out with a strong, united leadership team, noted Mr Lee.
“At the strategic level, it was the political pressure that Mr Lee orchestrated, the international stature that he had built up, and the courage and leadership that he showed, which compelled the Tunku to let Singapore go,” he added.
Singapore's first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and deputy Prime Minister Toh Chin Chye on a display seen during a media preview of The Albatross File: Singapore’s Independence Declassified exhibition in the National Library Building. (Photo: CNA/Wallace Woon)
INDEPENDENCE "HARDLY FOREORDAINED"
It was only decades later, in 1994, when Mr Lee Kuan Yew obtained permission to read Dr Goh’s oral history, that he found out that contrary to his instructions, Dr Goh had gone for a clean break from the start, and never tried for a looser federation.
It showed that it was Dr Goh, not Tun Razak, who had suggested the separation.
This was so astonishing to Mr Lee Kuan Yew that he marked down the exact time and date that he first learned this.
While the separation weighed heavily on the founding prime minister, Dr Goh was convinced that the merger was doomed and that the Malaysian leaders "wanted us out".
Within a few years of separation, all of Singapore's founding leaders concluded that the separation was the best thing that had happened to Singapore.
"In this SG60 year, we are very glad that Dr Goh did what he did. Singapore has thrived and progressed far beyond anything the founding fathers imagined," said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.
"But it was far from inevitable that events would turn out this way.
"In all likelihood, had separation not been achieved on Aug 9, 1965, sooner or later the breakup would somehow have occurred, but most probably not as peacefully.
“The contradictions between the two societies were so profound that they could not have been resolved without a parting of ways."
It was "far from obvious" that Singapore should be independent, and neither Singapore's founding leaders nor the people could be certain that Singapore would survive or thrive as such.
“As Mr Lee once said, he was glad he did not have to live through again the 23 months from merger to separation,” said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.
“He wasn’t sure we would be so lucky as to emerge intact again from those terrifying times.”
The declassified contents of the Albatross File have been published in a book.
Mr Lee Hsien Loong encouraged all Singaporeans to pick up the book and visit the exhibition to find out how Singapore came to be “forever a sovereign democratic and independent nation”.
“You will realise it was hardly foreordained. It was, and still is, a miracle,” he said.
Continue reading...