Singapore’s independence was not inevitable
Key leaders on both sides pushed for Separation: Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the launch of the Albatross File book and exhibition on 7 Dec 2025
By Ng Wei Kai, The Straits Times, 8 Dec 2025
- Lee Kuan Yew was quite torn about Singapore's separation from Malaysia in 1965, preferring greater autonomy within the federation.
- Racial tensions and political pressure led to the separation, and the Albatross File kept by Dr Goh Keng Swee revealed his push for a clean break.
- SM Lee launched a new book and exhibition to share this history, emphasising that trust in leadership has to be won and the importance of racial harmony for Singapore.
Till the final days before Separation, founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew was ambivalent about Singapore leaving Malaysia.
Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong recounted how the Lee family were on holiday in Cameron Highlands on Aug 3, 1965, when his father received a call from Dr Goh Keng Swee, the principal negotiator on the Singapore side.
“I was in the room at Cluny Lodge when my father took a call that afternoon and I heard him tell Dr Goh in Mandarin: ‘This is a huge decision; let me think about it.’,” SM Lee said on Dec 7 at the launch of the Albatross File book and exhibition at the National Library in Victoria Street.
“I didn’t know then what it was about, but it became plain soon enough,” said SM Lee, who became emotional and held back tears as he related this memory.
While Mr Lee had brought enormous political pressure to bear on the federal government in the preceding months, which forced the hand of then Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman on what to do with Singapore, Separation was not the outcome he preferred, said SM Lee.
“His aim was to strengthen Singapore’s position politically, so as to compel the federal government to grant Singapore greater autonomy... Separation was to be an option only if Singapore could not get such a rearrangement.”
Yet, within a few years, all of Singapore’s founding leaders – including Mr Lee and those who had signed the agreement to separate reluctantly – concluded that Separation was the best thing that ever happened to Singapore, said SM Lee.
“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,” he said, choking up with emotion again.
The Albatross File is a collection of previously classified documents that Dr Goh had kept from 1964, such as his handwritten notes about discussions with Malaysian leaders in the months before Separation.
A new book – The Albatross File: Inside Separation – draws on Albatross, alongside oral history interviews with Singapore’s founding leaders. It was launched by SM Lee on Dec 7, and is the basis of a new permanent exhibition at the National Library Building that opens to the public on Dec 8.
Dr Goh, who was finance minister at the time, had named the file Albatross after the large seabird as he felt Malaysia had become an albatross around Singapore’s neck.
After the PAP won all three Malay-majority seats in the general election held days after Merger in 1963, “ultras” (radicals) in UMNO succeeded in sowing deep distrust between the Malays and Chinese in Singapore. This culminated in race riots in July and September 1964.
Mr Lee decided on a political counter-offensive, which included a crucial speech he gave in fluent Malay in the Malaysian Parliament on May 27, 1965, and another speech at the Malaysian Solidarity Convention on June 6. The convention, initiated by PAP leaders, was a united front of non-communal political parties across Malaysia.
Those were tense days – Mr Lee knew his strategy put him at grave peril, and he was aware that the federal authorities were considering arresting him, said SM Lee, recounting a conversation the two had during that period.
“I was 13 years old then. 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 said.
Mr Lee found out only decades later, when he was preparing his memoirs, that contrary to his instructions, Dr Goh had never tried for the looser federation he had preferred, and from the start sought a clean break from Malaysia.
He was so astonished at this discovery that he made a note of the exact time, date and place when he first learnt this in August 1994. He wrote that in the margin of the transcript of Dr Goh’s oral history, next to the passage where Dr Goh confirmed that it was he – and not Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Razak – who wanted Singapore’s “hiving off”.
“Mr Lee told some of the ministers about this, and his great surprise at what had really happened – he also spoke to me about it,” said SM Lee.
The page with Mr Lee’s handwritten note is one of the key items in the exhibition.
SM Lee said the Cabinet papers, records of conversations with Malaysian leaders and British and Australian diplomats, and Dr Goh’s handwritten notes inside Albatross gave a dramatic, blow-by-blow account of how Singapore came to separate from Malaysia.
When he was prime minister, SM Lee said he decided that the file should be declassified and published, together with relevant extracts from the oral histories of key participants in Separation, to put on record a full documented account of this seminal event in Singapore’s independence journey.
“The reader will not only understand the actions and events that led to Separation, but also feel the emotions and passions of our founding leaders,” he added. “It is a history well worth publishing.”
There are two enduring lessons for Singapore from its two years in Malaysia, said SM Lee.
The first is that trust in government – in the political leadership, in particular – is founded on the people knowing their leaders will always have their backs.
Singaporeans saw Mr Lee stand up to the ultras and knew he could not be cowed. A week before Dr Goh’s first meeting with Tun Razak, other PAP ministers such as Dr Toh Chin Chye and Dr Goh held a press conference to declare that they would not quietly acquiesce if Mr Lee was detained, noted SM Lee.
The Republic’s founding leaders therefore won the right to govern because Singaporeans were convinced that Mr Lee and his team could not be intimidated into compromising Singapore’s interest, he added.
“His successors have not forgotten this lesson – no Singapore PM has ever allowed any force or power, whether foreign or domestic, to intimidate us into compromising our national interest or sovereignty,” said SM Lee.
The other lesson is to never take Singapore’s racial and religious harmony for granted.
In his oral history, Mr Lee said one of his most vivid memories from those two years was how easy it was to arouse communal passions and undo years of work trying to bring the races together.
Even in HDB estates, where the norm is for Singaporeans of different races to live together, Mr Lee said he never allowed himself to forget how fragile interracial harmony and trust is.
“It can be snapped, broken, smashed – the dynamics of communal politics or communal politicking will override reason and logic.”
SM Lee said: “We separated from Malaysia because of racial and religious politics. We will not allow race or religion to break up Singapore.”
The launch was attended by an audience that included Mr Ong Pang Boon, one of the 10 ministers who signed the Separation Agreement. Also present were Mr Ng Kah Ting – he and Mr Ong are the two surviving members of Singapore’s first Parliament that sat in December 1965 – and Mr Lai Tha Chai, one of the nine candidates the PAP fielded in the 1964 Malaysian General Election.
Joining them were family members of first-generation leaders, including the daughters of former law minister E.W. Barker – who drafted the Separation Agreement – and the daughter of Mr Othman Wok, who was also part of Mr Lee’s Cabinet during that period.
Other political figures who attended the launch included former president Halimah Yacob, Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and former senior minister Teo Chee Hean.
Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo said at the event that the team behind the exhibition had strived to make the story “almost touchable”, stitching together oral history interviews to tell it first-hand from the people directly involved.
Visitors can experience the founding leaders’ anxiety and anguish, but also their clarity of purpose and conviction, Mrs Teo added.
“Our hope is that they will feel history as the key personalities did, the dynamics of the times, the tensions of the negotiations, the weight on their shoulders in those months before Aug 9, 1965,” she said.
In his speech, SM Lee said many Singaporeans today look at Separation as a distant memory, and wonder why the founding leaders were so conflicted about leaving Malaysia.
“Isn’t it obvious that what happened was inevitable and right? Why the tears?” he asked.
But at that time, when the issue was live and the stakes were huge, it was far from obvious that Singapore should be independent, said SM Lee.
He noted that Mr Lee had once said he was glad he did not have to live through once more the 23 months from Merger to Separation, as he was not sure Singapore would be so lucky as to emerge intact again from “those terrifying times”.
SM Lee urged Singaporeans to experience the book and exhibition, and see how Singapore came to be a sovereign, democratic and independent nation.
“They will realise it was hardly foreordained. It was − and still is – a miracle.”
The Albatross File: Inside Separation
New book sheds light on Singapore’s secret negotiations for independence
By Chin Soo Fang, The Straits Times, 8 Dec 2025
- Singapore's separation from Malaysia was a "bloodless coup" orchestrated by Dr Goh Keng Swee and Tun Abdul Razak in 25 days, detailed in a new book, *The Albatross File*.
- Dr Goh's suggestion of separation on July 15, 1965, led to secret negotiations and the drafting of legal instruments by E.W. Barker for Singapore's independence.
- Despite Lee Kuan Yew's last-minute attempt for a looser confederation, the Tunku's firm decision led to Singapore's independence proclamation on August 9, 1965.
Singapore’s separation from Malaysia in August 1965 was the result of a “bloodless coup” orchestrated by then Finance Minister Goh Keng Swee and then Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Tun Abdul Razak, over just 25 days.
A new book, The Albatross File: Inside Separation, shows how an off-the-cuff remark by Dr Goh on July 15, 1965, set off a chain of moves that led to the proclamation, at 10am on Aug 9, that “Singapore shall be forever a sovereign democratic and independent nation”.
The book, edited by Ms Susan Sim and published by The Straits Times Press and the National Archives of Singapore, drew on papers that Dr Goh kept in a file he code-named “Albatross”, alongside extensive oral history interviews with Singapore’s founding leaders.
Albatross, which contained Cabinet papers, memorandums and Dr Goh’s handwritten notes of his discussions with Malaysian leaders in the months before separation, had until now largely been kept classified. A subset of the documents were exhibited in 2015 to commemorate the Republic’s 50th year of independence.
Dr Goh had considered Malaysia an “albatross round our necks” because the promise of shared prosperity and partnership through merger had quickly given way to fraught debates over race and clashing ideas about the country’s future.
These tensions hardened following two major communal riots in 1964, which exposed how fragile the new federation was.
The book was launched by Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Dec 7, alongside a new permanent exhibition at the National Library Building.
Here are four of its key revelations:
Off-the-cuff trigger
Following the race riots in July and September 1964, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew concluded that extremist elements in Malaysia could use communal politics and riots as a weapon in Singapore, and that the island had to seek a rearrangement with Kuala Lumpur.
Talks between Mr Lee, Dr Goh and Malaysia’s top leaders – including then Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tun Razak – were held, and they swung between proposals for cooperation and constitutional rearrangements.
As the Tunku began signalling that he wanted to “hive off” Singapore, quarrels over parliamentary seats, tax revenues, internal security and the PAP’s role in federal politics repeatedly derailed any deal.
The British, which were defending Malaysia against Indonesia’s Konfrontasi, also worked to stymie any constitutional rearrangements within Malaysia.
The PAP then launched a counter-offensive to bring political pressure to bear on Kuala Lumpur, so that Singapore could get good terms from the federal government.
This included reaching out for a united front with all non-communal parties in Sabah, Sarawak and Malaya, which resulted in the Malaysian Solidarity Convention.
By May 1965, diplomatic cables to London were warning that Mr Lee could be arrested. This prompted the British to make clear that they would reassess support for Malaysia in that event, and that such a move would also result in international repercussions.
By June, the Tunku decided it was better to let Singapore go, and in a July 1 letter told Tun Razak they may “have no choice but to cut out Singapore from Malaysia in order to save the rest of the body from gangrene”.
The turning point came on July 15, 1965.
Dr Goh, who was summoned to Tun Razak’s home in Kuala Lumpur, was asked for ideas to tackle the strained relationship. He said the best thing would be to call it quits, and that both sides should go their separate ways.
Tun Razak then asked what he meant by going their separate ways.
Dr Goh said: “Well, we leave Malaysia, become an independent state, and you’ll be relieved of all these troubles, and we would have also been relieved of troubles from you. All these tensions that built up, communal tensions, will all be over. We’re on our own, you’re on your own.”
Tun Razak asked Dr Goh to sound out Mr Lee.
On July 20, in a follow-up meeting with Tun Razak and Malaysian Home Affairs Minister Ismail Abdul Rahman, Dr Goh confirmed that Mr Lee would accept secession if it was done swiftly, quietly and without leaks to the British or the public.
The two sides agreed on an Aug 9 deadline, which was when the federal Parliament reconvened.
To maintain absolute secrecy, they entrusted then Law Minister E.W. Barker to draft the legal instruments that would dismantle the federation for Singapore while preserving vital interests such as water and defence ties.
Mr Barker produced three key texts: an Agreement to Separate, amendments to the Malaysian Constitution – which allowed states to join but not leave – and a Proclamation of Independence for Singapore.
No to looser rearrangement
One of the most striking revelations in the book was that Dr Goh never proposed a looser federation or confederation to Tun Razak. This was even as Mr Lee considered this as a way to reduce friction without a complete break.
In his memoirs, The Singapore Story, Mr Lee said he realised this only in 1994, when he read Dr Goh’s oral history interview – recorded between 1980 and 1982 – and discovered that Dr Goh “never pressed Razak for a looser rearrangement as I had asked him to”.
Instead, Dr Goh had gone “along with their (the Malaysians’) desire to have us hived off”.
In his oral history interview, Dr Goh said he was unsure at the time whether Mr Lee would go along with Separation, but that he had “had enough of Malaysia”.
“I just wanted to get out. I could see no future in it, that the political cost was dreadful and the economic benefits, well, didn’t exist. So it was an exercise in futility.”
“So (as) far as I’m concerned, you know, it’s a project that should be abandoned once you see that it’s worthless,” he added.
“Taking into account that Malay leaders were (also) quite fed up with it and were seeking some relief from pain which they found unbearable, this looked to me as something which they would have accepted.”
Dr Goh said that even if the Singaporean leaders had not proposed Separation, the Tunku would eventually have done so. But the Malaysian Prime Minister might have done it in a way that the British “would have smelt a rat... and then would have put a stop to it”.
Before meeting Tun Razak again on July 26, 1965, Dr Goh asked Mr Lee for a written authorisation to continue the discussions, in case the Malaysian leader wanted proof of Mr Lee’s agreement to secession.
But Dr Goh also had another more tactical reason for obtaining this letter: He wanted Mr Lee to commit himself to Separation.
“For both these reasons, I felt it prudent to have this written undertaking,” he said.
Throughout the negotiations, Dr Goh was decisive and refused to be baited into considering any other option. Every time Tun Razak wavered, he reminded him of all the pain that Mr Lee and the PAP could cause if they remained in Malaysia.
Negotiated by the lieutenants
While Mr Lee and the Tunku were the final decision-makers, both the negotiation and signing of the Separation Agreement were first carried out by Dr Goh and Tun Razak before the two prime ministers came into the picture on Aug 7.
Events following Merger, such as the two race riots in Singapore in 1964, had led to mutual suspicion between leaders in Kuala Lumpur and Mr Lee, which added to the instinctive distrust that the Central Government had of a non-communally-aligned PAP.
In his oral history interview, Mr Lee noted that on the negotiations, “the Tunku did not speak to me, I did not speak to him”.
“He got Razak to speak to Goh, and it was settled between them,” he said.
Fortunately, Dr Goh and Tun Razak were friendly, having known each other when they were both students in London. In 1949, both men had co-founded the Malayan Forum, a political discussion group for university students to discuss independence for British Malaya.
Following the July 21, 1964, race riots, Dr Goh proposed going to Kuala Lumpur, and Tun Razak invited him to stay at his home for several days. The two men had a meeting on July 28.
Mr Barker also knew Tun Razak and then Malaysian Attorney-General Abdul Kadir Yusof from their days studying in Raffles College before World War II.
On Aug 6, Dr Goh, Mr Barker and senior Malaysian leaders waited at Tun Razak’s house while the Separation documents were being prepared. They eventually signed the documents in the wee hours of Aug 7.
But Tun Razak had a nagging concern, and confided in Mr Barker: “Eddie, as an old friend, can you assure me that Harry will sign?”
Mr Barker replied: “Of course, he will sign. I assure you that he will sign.”
Last-ditch attempt at confederation
On Aug 7, after the Separation Agreement was already signed by the negotiating ministers at Tun Razak’s home, Mr Lee drove to the Tunku’s residency at noon to explore whether some “looser” form of association might be acceptable.
Mr Lee felt that if the Tunku was agreeable, the two sides could go through with Separation and immediately bring about a confederation, with a joint council for defence and external affairs. This could be done by adding a few paragraphs to the documents, Mr Lee said in his oral history.
“I put it to him, ‘Look, we have spent years to bring about Malaysia. The best part of my adult life was to work towards Malaysia... Do you really want to break it up?’” recalled Mr Lee. “Don’t you think it’s wiser to go back to our original plan, which the British stopped?”
But the Tunku replied: “No, I’m past that. There is no other way now. I’ve made up my mind. You go your own way, we go our own way. We can be friends again.”
The finality conveyed by the Tunku was so conclusive that Mr Lee dropped the matter altogether.
On Aug 8, Mr Lee and the Tunku met again to sign a document Mr Lee had prepared, summarising the points they had agreed. They also confirmed various matters, including the handling of the parliamentary timetable for Separation, and rapid deployment of multiracial troops to the island should trouble flare in Singapore.
Mr Lee then flew home to secure the remaining signatures from his Cabinet.
On the morning of Aug 9, 1965, Singapore’s independence was proclaimed over radio, completing a process that had begun, less than a month earlier, as a suggestion by Dr Goh in Tun Razak’s living room.
Mr Lee said: “We did something quite remarkable – a constitutional coup right under the noses of the British, the Australians and New Zealanders who were defending Malaysia with their blood and treasure.
“I did not want to do it. The Tunku forced us into a position where we either acquiesced in his policies, or we took a stand. We took a stand.”
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