In the tumultuous days before Singapore’s separation from Malaysia in 1965, founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew clung to the hope that the city could still be part of the federal government under a looser arrangement, but his deputy had no desire to pursue this ideal.
While Lee was conflicted and even wavered at the eleventh hour when he asked then Malaysian prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman if he was certain there was no alternative, Goh Keng Swee, widely regarded as the architect of modern Singapore, was convinced a clean break was needed.
The differences between both men were recounted by Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong, son of the older Lee, on Sunday in an emotional speech at the launch of “The Albatross File” exhibition and publication.
The Albatross File: Inside Separation book and a permanent exhibition, developed by Singapore’s National Library Board and the Ministry of Digital Development and Information, contrasts the pair’s preferences through newly declassified documents from Goh’s personal notes in which he code-named Malaysia as Albatross.
The book also carries interviews with several of Singapore’s founders, with some of the documents made public for the first time.
“On the one hand, [Lee] felt deeply his responsibility to the Singaporeans whom he had persuaded to merge with Malaysia. On the other hand, he felt keenly his obligation to all those in the rest of the Federation, whom he and the Malaysian Solidarity Convention had mobilised to fight for a Malaysian Malaysia. It weighed heavily on him that he was abandoning and letting down the millions left behind when Singapore separated,” Lee Hsien Loong said.