The Untold Negotiations Behind Singapore’s Independence in 1965

Janadas
Now we know that though the Tungku had decided on July 1st, Dr Goh had come in on July 15th, and Dr Goh had said when asked by Tun Razak, “Do you have any suggestions?” He says, “Let’s go our separate ways.” And now we know that Dr Goh had not pursued the option of a looser federation.

And we now, I think, can conclude that if not for Dr Goh, if he had in fact pursued the looser federation, there were times in the negotiations when Tun Razak wavered, said, “How about we consider looser federation?” And Dr Goh didn’t pursue that. In fact, he said, “You decide. Whatever you want, we are comfortable. Our position is going to grow stronger.” So he was brilliant in the negotiations. He was single-minded in the negotiations. So I think it is fair to say that if not for Dr Goh, we would not have achieved separation on August 9th.

[Music playing]

Jimmy
You’re listening to BiblioAsia+, a podcast produced by the National Library of Singapore. At BiblioAsia, we tell stories about Singapore’s past, some familiar, others forgotten, all fascinating.

For a long time, the conventional wisdom was that Singapore had been booted out from Malaysia in 1965. This phrase implies that it was a unilateral decision on the part of Malaysia. The real story, however, is more complicated. Goh Keng Swee, Singapore’s finance minister, had done his sums. He concluded that, in his own words, the political cost of being in Malaysia was dreadful and the economic benefits didn’t exist.

As a result, in negotiations with Malaysia’s leaders over Singapore’s future, he worked towards extracting Singapore out of the federation. Naturally, for such a big move, meetings between the two parties had to be held. On these occasions, Goh took copious notes that he kept in a file he named “Albatross”.

This file was kept a secret for decades, until, that is, 2025. That was when the book, The Albatross File: Inside Separation, was published. The book reproduces Goh’s notes from those meetings, cabinet papers and memos, as well as transcripts of Goh’s 1982 oral history interview where he looked back at the whole episode.

In addition, the book also has Lee Kuan Yew’s notes from the period and transcripts of his oral history interviews. Then there are the interviews with key people like S. Rajaratnam, E. W. Barker, Devan Nair and Kwa Geok Choo. Assembled together into one volume, this book provides unparalleled insight into a defining moment in modern Singapore history.

To understand how this book came to be and to learn more about some of the events mentioned, we have Janadas Devan with us. Janadas is the senior advisor to the Ministry of Digital Development and Information. He helped coordinate the project, which includes the book, as well as an exhibition running at the National Library building.

So welcome to the show, Janadas. How are you?

Janadas
Glad to be here.

Jimmy
Very nice of you to come. And first of all, congratulations both on the book. The book recently, I believe, won an award.

Janadas
Yes. Book of the year.

Jimmy
Book of the year, and, certainly well-deserved. And the exhibition is very popular. My office is at the library, and I keep seeing people going up and attending it. And my wife really enjoyed it as well. I think that, overall, everyone really enjoys it.

Janadas
Yeah.

Jimmy
What kind of feedback have you gotten from the book and the exhibition?

Janadas
I think the thing which amazes people when they see the exhibition is how close we came not to be separate and independent. The story is not told as though the outcome were inevitable. And so people get a very keen sense of the contingency of things.

Up to the last minute on August 7th, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, the founding prime minister, asked Tungku if they could go back, if they could unwind separation, which was already in the cards. The negotiation, the agreement had already been negotiated. The key people had signed the document, including key ministers on the Malaysian side, key ministers on the Singapore side, and here was Mr Lee saying “Can we go back?” And it was the Tungku who said no. And people are riveted by a sense that what you have now today, the outcome was not only unforeseen, but not inevitable.

Jimmy
I think it makes the whole issue much more complex than the conventional understanding of what happened, and thus much more interesting. I want to go back to 1963, when Singapore joined Malaysia. To explain to the people who are much, much younger than either of us. What was the reason for the merger?

Janadas
This is something that Singaporeans, young Singaporeans actually middle-aged Singaporeans other than those who are my age or older, would find incomprehensible. Why did our founding leaders believe that the idea of an independent Singapore was a joke? All of them assumed. Mr Lee Kuan Yew, Dr Goh Keng Swee, those who were very much in favour of separation, like Dr Goh; and those who were very reluctant, like Mr Rajaratnam and Dr Toh Chin Chye. All assumed that Singapore was an inextricable part of Malaya geographically, politically, culturally, historically, emotionally. They all thought of themselves as Malayan. The term “Singaporean” didn’t exist either as an adjective or a noun. And when with the PAP, the ruling party was formed in 1954, it was formed with the intention to achieve merger with Malaya.

That was the founding belief of our founding leaders. We’re about to build a founders’ memorial to memorialise our founding leaders, and they were our founding leaders, but our founding leaders began their political lives not intending to found us.

That is the most amazing thing. Nobody of that generation, very few people, there are a few people now who claim that, “Oh, I always thought that.”

Jimmy
Really?

Janadas
Yeah. “Oh, I knew that merger would fail.” There were a few, but both on the extreme left – the communists, Malayan Communist Party – the PAP non-communist leadership all assumed that merger was the right thing to do.

They disagreed on the terms of merger, but they all believed that the notion of a city surviving by itself as a nation is impossible.

Jimmy
It sounds impossible now still.

Janadas
Yeah and even now, when you think about it Singapore is about the only city-state in existence in the world. Hong Kong is no longer a city-state; it’s part of China. The only other city-states are the Vatican City and Monaco, and they’re not really in the same situation as Singapore. So in effect, Singapore is the only city-state in existence in the world. If it were a peculiarly well-fitted political model, there should be many more city-states in the world.

So it is not surprising when you think about it, why Mr Lee Kuan Yew and everyone else in the founding leadership didn’t believe that Singapore could be independent.

Jimmy
Is it just economics?

Janadas
No. It was economic, yes.

Jimmy
Market and all that.

Janadas
They all believed that you needed a hinterland, and the hinterland at that time was Malaya. The notion that you could transcend your region and hook up with the rest of the world and if your hinterland should not be just Malaya or Malaysia, 10 million people, but it should be the entire world, three billion and counting, did not occur to them. It all that came much later. And I know it is what exists now seems so incredibly solid that people find it impossible to imagine any other political construction. But there you have it, the inconvenient truth: your founders never intended to found you.

Jimmy
I really like that line, actually. If we go back again to the initial merger, there was an agreement between Lee Kuan Yew – Mr Lee – and the Tungku that the PAP would keep out of Malaysian politics. And that obviously didn’t work out.

Janadas
It wasn’t a written agreement. It was a gentleman’s agreement, and the Tungku and Mr Lee had different interpretations, obviously, about what the agreement meant. In Mr Lee’s telling, or in the Singapore view, the view of others in the PAP, Dr Toh Chin Chye and so on. He was at that time deputy prime minister, very senior and he was also chairman of the PAP at that time. They felt that there was no necessity for Singapore to keep to the gentleman’s agreement between our leader, their leader at that time – Mr Lee Kuan Yew and the Tungku – because the Malaysians had reneged on the pledge by participating in Singapore’s general election. Five days later, we had the general elections in Singapore, and the Malaysian Alliance and the Malaysian leaders came down to participate in the elections in Singapore. The Tungku himself came down to campaign for UMNO Singapore. And so they felt, not Mr Lee, actually, the decision to participate in the Malaysian general election in ’64 was evidently taken by the PAP Central Committee when Mr Lee was not there.

They took the decisions, and he was told about the decision after he returned from an overseas visit, and then he went along with the decision. Because the other Singapore leaders felt that they didn’t keep their word, so why should we not participate and take part in the life of the Malaysia as a whole, the political life of Malaysia as a whole?

In any case, the people who took the decisions were all born in Malaya. Dr Toh was born in Taiping, Perak. Mr Rajaratnam was born in Ceylon but was raised in Seremban. And Mr Ong Pang Boon. These were the three key people who took the decision to participate in the Malaysian general elections. He was born in Kuala Lumpur.

Jimmy
If you had to explain to someone: the PAP took part in Malaysia’s general elections and did very badly, except for your father.

Janadas
The sequence of events is this. The Malaysians came down here, UMNO. Tungku campaigned on behalf of UMNO, and to their utter surprise and shock, they lost. All the seats they contested, the Malaysian Coalition Alliance: UMNO, [the] Malay party; [the] Indian party, MIC and then MCA, the Chinese party.

They contested 42 seats, and they didn’t win a single seat. And to rub salt in the wound, they lost the seats they had in the Malay majority constituencies. At that time, we had three Malay-majority constituencies, and the incumbent was in fact UMNO Singapore. They won those seats in 1959. In the ’63 elections, the UMNO candidates in the Malay majority seats were defeated by PAP Malay leaders. And that came as a huge shock to them.

And the Tungku, generally a mild-mannered person himself accused Singapore Malays of having betrayed the race or UMNO. And that’s when they decided to begin agitating through the Malay media and on the ground in Singapore.

Their leaders came down to strengthen the UMNO party and to appeal directly to the UMNO Malays. They did not, could not accept that another party, a multiracial party at that, should appeal to Malays, never mind it’s in Singapore, not Malaya.

And then when the PAP decided to participate in the Malaysian general election, that further raised tensions, because it was a new political presence and it was an energetic political presence. Mr Lee himself campaigned up and down the peninsula, and there were huge crowds. They’d never seen crowds like that in Malaysian general elections. It was largely because of Mr Lee, and he was something like a folk figure. And huge numbers gathered to hear him in all the urban centres.

And actually the PAP was very confident they would win, if not all, at least seven or eight of the nine seats they contested. In the event, they lost all but one. And even the one they won very narrowly.

Jimmy
Even though the PAP lost most of the seats that they contested in the ’64 elections, the fact that they were able to gather this crowd proved or showed to the Tungku that they were –

Janadas
The potential was there. In any case, they weren’t used to a political entity that so openly and so brazenly challenged their supremacy. They could not accept that Mr Lee presented himself as the loyal opposition, what he called crossbenchers. In the British parliamentary system, you have the government on one side, the opposition on the other side, and then cross-benches are people who sit across in between.

So the Tungku initially allowed Mr Lee and the PAP to sit on the government side of the house. But after the election in ‘64, he refused. And so Mr Lee began to sit on the opposition side. He was offered the position of leader of the opposition. He refused. He declined, quite correctly.

Because, Singapore had about – [I] can’t remember how many seats we were given in the federal parliament – 16 seats? So I think the PAP had about 13-odd seats in addition to the one seat they won in the Malaya in Bangsar in Malaysia. And the rest were occupied by Barisan Socialist representatives from Singapore.

The main issue was [one], they weren’t going to allow anyone, any party other than themselves, a Malay party, to hold sway over Malays, whether in Singapore or Malaya.

And two, the fact that Singapore, the PAP had decided to organise in Malaya, in the urban centres, set up branches in Malaya, up and down the peninsula, posed another political challenge.

Jimmy
Absolutely.

Janadas
That was outside parliament. And then inside parliament, there were fierce debates, many fierce debates. And as the British High Commissioner at that time observed, every time there was a debate in parliament, the PAP Singapore leaders seemed to win.

Jimmy 
So you were present at the rally?

Janadas
Yeah, I was present at at least one rally. I was 10 years old in 1964.

Jimmy 
Okay, so your dad brought you along?

Janadas
They brought us along and I think we only stayed there for a bit because they thought it was a bit too dangerous, because it was very, you know…

Jimmy
Rowdy.

Janadas
People would throw stones and so on.

Jimmy 
Oh, really?

Janadas
Yeah, it wasn’t like rallies in Singapore.

Jimmy
Okay.

Janadas
And occasionally you would hear sounds that sounded like a gun.

Jimmy
Oh, that is worrying.

Janadas
But I did witness one rally, must have been in Kuala Lumpur. And as far as the eye could see, the streets were just filled with people.

Jimmy
Wow.

Janadas
It was at a junction. And the rally, the platform was at that junction, and as far as the eye could see, the roads were filled with people. And all sides, there were shophouses, and people were just hanging out of the shophouses.

Jimmy
Wow.

Janadas
People talk about the size of some opposition rallies in Singapore. That was the largest crowd of people I’ve ever seen. It was huge. Kuala Lumpur, Bangsar, in those days, Bangsar was not what it is now. Bangsar nowadays looks like Holland Village.

Jimmy
It does. It didn’t used to before?

Janadas
No, it didn’t. At the edges, there were rubber estates. And so there were rubber estate workers, mostly Indians. And then parts of it looked like Chinatown. And it was a very large constituency. In fact, it was probably one of the largest constituencies in Malaysia. Because they had large urban constituencies, and then the rural constituencies were much smaller. That’s how they arranged their electoral system.

Jimmy
So to go back, was there a last straw on either side? That point of no return where one or the other party says, “This can’t go on anymore. Separation is the only way out.”

Janadas
The crucial figure in the story is in fact the Malaysian Prime Minister, Tungku Abdul Rahman. Everyone on both the Singapore side as well as the Malaysian side saw him as the key decisive figure, and that’s quite plain when you read the oral history, Mr Lee’s oral history, Dr Goh’s oral history. They all looked to him as a decisive figure. What the Tungku felt, what the Tungku decided was decisive. And the record seems to be clear that it was the Tungku who first came to decide that separation was inevitable.

Jimmy
He flip-flopped though, right?

Janadas
No, he didn’t.

Jimmy
He didn’t? He was undecided for a long time.

Janadas
He seemed to have made a decision. In fact, he raised the possibility of separation as early as December 1964 in a public speech.

Jimmy
Oh.

Janadas
He came down to Singapore. He spoke to, I think it was the medical society, Singapore Medical Association or Society or whatever it was called. And he gave a speech, a public speech. He said, “Look, things are quite bad.” There were all these political contests, parties of all stripes, and then he said, “If we cannot resolve our differences, the breakaway is the solution.”

He mentioned it publicly in December 1964. And then privately, he’s told Dr Goh. He said, “Perhaps we should think of hiving off.” That was the term he used, hiving off. And then in conversation with Mr Lee in December 1964, he made clearer what he meant by hiving off. He was thinking of a looser federation.

In fact, what he was proposing was more like a confederation. To be fair to the Tungku, that was what he’d always wanted. His idea of merger was Singapore continues to have autonomy in everything except foreign policy and defence, which is what we had when we became self-governing in 1959.

Between 1959 and 1963 the British gave us self-government, so we had a prime minister instead of a chief minister. We ran everything, housing, finance ports, everything except for foreign policy and defense, which came under the British, and internal security came under an internal security council with both the British and us represented, and the Federation of Malaya having the decisive vote as chairman.

And actually that was what the Tungku wanted. Unfortunately, his finance minister at that time, Mr Tun Tan Siew Sin, insisted on financial oversight. And so in the very tense negotiations that led up to merger, we ended up with autonomy in only two areas, labour and education, and then a few other minor things like, provision of healthcare services, broadcasting and so on. But everything else was a federal responsibility. Between ‘59 and ’63, we had a minister of home affairs. Police came under the Singapore government. Mr Ong Pang Boon was the minister of home affairs. When we were in Malaysia, ’63 and ’65, we didn’t have a minister of home affairs, because police became a federal responsibility.

So when the riots occurred in July 1964, the Singapore leadership had no control over the police. They were powerless. So the Tungku in 1964 proposed hiving off or what turned out to be a looser federation. Go back to the status quo ante as it existed, while Singapore was a self-governing state under the British. Kuala Lumpur replaces Britain. It takes care only defence and foreign policy; everything else Singapore takes care. And that negotiation collapsed largely because the British learned about it and put a stop to it. History would have been very different if they had not intervened. Perhaps the two sides would have come to some kind of agreement, and we would have gotten two countries, two systems long before Hong Kong.

But in the event that collapsed and agitation continued, because Mr Lee had decided on a counter-strategy following the riots in July 1964. The riots were instigated. It was all sides: the British, the Americans, the Australians, the New Zealanders, the Singapore leadership and quite a few of the Malaysians admitted privately that the riots were instigated by their people, in the main a man named Jaffar Albar, who was secretary-general of UMNO, who agitated, gave very incendiary speeches in Singapore, and probably instigated the riots.

And after that, Mr Lee decided on a counter-strategy. You try this with us, we will organise up and down the Malaysian Peninsula and we would strengthen our political sinews and so that, the next time you tried this, you couldn’t be sure that the reaction would not be intense and overwhelming, and the riots would spread.

Jimmy
It was like creating a sort of a Mexican standoff.

Janadas
Yes. That was the strategy. At the same time he was gaining international reputation. Fortunately for us, the British Labour Party won the British general elections in October 1964, and so they knew the Singapore leadership. The British prime minister, in particular, Harold Wilson knew got to know and respected Mr Lee Kuan Yew. And they were a restraint on the Malaysian leadership. There were real moves on the part of the Malaysian leadership, which even the Tungku contemplated however briefly, the possibility of arresting Mr Lee Kuan Yew and possibly ruling Singapore directly. And then in parliament, there were intense debates, and again they came out on the losing side.

There was one famous debate May 27th, 1965, when Mr Lee broke into Malay and spoke fluent Malay, and the Malaysians felt that he was appealing directly to their ground. And soon after that famous speech, the Tungku met the British High Commissioner, and when the British High Commissioner asked him whether it was true that they were preparing a case for Mr Lee’s arrest, Tungku said yes. And later in his memoirs looking back in 1977, he said that speech was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Soon after that, June 5th, he was in London to attend the Commonwealth Prime Minister’s Conference. I think he got a very clear signal. The evidence is that he got a very clear signal from the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, “You cannot arrest Lee Kuan Yew. And if you did, then the British would have to reconsider their defense relations with Malaysia.”

And he came down with shingles while he was in London, ended up in hospital, and he wrote a letter to his deputy prime minister, Tun Razak, on July 1st saying Singapore has become a gangrene. The best thing to do when you have gangrene is to cut it off. So it was him, July 1st. And then he asked Tun Razak to initiate conversations. And Tun Razak, this is July 1st, called up Dr Goh on July 15th and said, “What do you suggest?”

Dr Goh at that time didn’t know that Tungku had himself come to this decision, and at that conversation, Dr Goh did say to Razak, “Perhaps we go our separate ways.” So yes, Dr Goh did, was the first Singapore leader to mention possibility of separation, but by then the Tungku had decided.

Jimmy
Two things occur to me as you were speaking. One, maybe for the benefit of people who don’t understand, why were the British opposed to a confederation or a looser federation? The second question is, [from] reading Dr Goh’s oral history interview, it’s very clear Lee Kuan Yew was not popular. Was this a personality clash?

Janadas
I’m sure there was an element of that.

Jimmy
But everybody wanted to speak with Goh Keng Swee. Nobody wanted to speak with Mr Lee.

Janadas
There’s a number of reasons for that. Number one it wasn’t only Mr Lee they didn’t like. They didn’t like Dr Toh or Mr Rajaratnam, because all these were the agitators, right?

Jimmy
Okay.

Janadas
These were the people who were on the ground, forming PAP branches up and down the peninsula and issuing statements, campaigning and fighting for Malaysian Malaysia. That term “Malaysian Malaysia” was coined by Rajaratnam. And Dr Goh did not participate in any of these activities. So he had opposed the PAP’s participation in the general election. And he never appeared at any of the rallies. He didn’t campaign, unlike all the rest. And they were quite fierce in their campaigning.

Mr Rajaratnam was a natural agitator. He was a pamphleteer, and they would issue all sorts of documents and pamphlets, and they had programmes on Radio Singapore. Television broadcasting came under Singapore government, so they had all these programmes.

They devised a programme called “What Others Say”. It was brilliantly conceived. They just quoting what people were saying in Utusan Melayu, Berita Harian, and then quoting other things, the foreign papers and so on, and it was really, very extremely well done, and those things were broadcast on radio and television, and you could get to hear the signal up to Muar, I think, in Johor. So the Malaysians were very unhappy with that. So the rest of the Singapore leadership, not only Mr Lee who was of course the main figure, who was the person who got under their skin, but there were others, as they found Dr Goh more congenial, simply because they didn’t see him as part of the political apparatus.

And it was only later that Dr Goh came to admit that participating in the Malaysian general election, forming the Malaysian Solidarity Convention, and taking the fight to their side was the right thing to do, because it forced them to come to a settlement. Either you agree on a looser federation or you just let us go.

So he came in with saying best thing is separation, but all the things that produce or rather set the conditions when they were forced to consider separation, the Tungku in particular, was as a result of the agitation of Mr Lee Kuan Yew and the others in the PAP, right? So when you say yes, Dr Goh was the person who first proposed it, but if not for the agitation that was masterminded by Mr Lee, the counter-strategy, what he calls the counter-strategy and what Dr Goh calls the counter-strategy, which Mr Lee undertook at great risk to himself, the arrest was a real possibility. And it was because of that counter-strategy that the Tungku was compelled to consider separation.

Jimmy
So to go back to the first question, can you explain to our listeners why the British were opposed to a looser federation?

Janadas
Yeah. They learned about it in February ’65. And they stopped it because they felt that a looser federation was but a step to Singapore just leaving. And they wanted very much Singapore to be part of Malaysia for a number of reasons. Number one, they weren’t certain that Singapore by itself... in fact, they were convinced that Singapore by itself was not viable, right? And at that time, there was still a possibility of Singapore falling into the hands of the extreme left, if not the communists. The Barisan Sosialis was still there, was very much a factor, and the British were fearful of that possibility.

Jimmy
Because of the bases.

Janadas
And at that time, they had not decided on withdrawing east of the Suez. They were still very much a world power, great power, whatever they call themselves. They still had pretensions to being a great power.

Jimmy
At the time.

Janadas
Yes and so the bases were very important. The fact of the matter is, the people who were most convincing on the score of Singapore being not in the least bit viable as an independent country was Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his colleagues. They made the case in the battle for merger. Mr Lee’s famous talks explained very clearly why independent Singapore could not survive. The notion of an independent Singapore is a joke. So the British were convinced of that too. That’s number one.

Number two, they wanted Singapore in Malaysia because they thought Singapore in Malaysia would better protect Sabah and Sarawak. Without Singapore, they feared Sabah and Sarawak being bullied within Malaysia.

So for those reasons, they opposed, and they were very skilful in opposing. They just dismantled whatever agreement that Tungku and Mr Lee had come to, and just took it apart piecemeal, as Mr Lee says. Which is the reason why when Dr Goh embarked on the separation negotiations from July 15th, 1965, and then the agreement was signed early hours of the 7th of August. Mr Eddie Barker drafted the separation agreement. It was encompassed in three weeks, and he had insisted on absolute secrecy because they didn’t want the British to know. They didn’t want the others in Malaysia to know, because if they had known, there would have been opposition.

And actually, truth be told, they didn’t want others in the Singapore leadership to know because if Mr Rajaratnam, Dr Toh, Mr Ong Pang Boon and the others had learned about it, they would have opposed it. They opposed the idea of a looser federation.

Jimmy
Oh, they had opposed?

Janadas
Dr Toh and Mr Rajaratnam were very forceful in their opposition to a looser federation. Mr Rajaratnam wrote a long cabinet paper, which is in the book, Albatross File. It was in the file, so we included the long document saying, “No, we should carry on, not looser federation. We should not give up. Carry on.” Mr Lee also emphasised the necessity of separation, and he must have decided, he doesn’t articulate it very clearly in those precise terms, doesn’t say so explicitly, but wanted to achieve a separation agreement and then present it to both the Malaysian side. Tungku presents it [to] the Malaysian side, and he presents it to our side as fait accompli.

Jimmy
Although it’s not quite right, because he still has to persuade his ministers.

Janadas
He had to persuade them. And then Dr Goh says that’s his problem. But they knew there was going to be a problem, right? So I’m convinced in retrospect that if it wouldn’t have come to pass.

Jimmy
What amazed me was reading about how they got Mr Rajaratnam and Dr Toh to come separately so that they couldn’t collude.

Janadas
It was revealed many years ago. It was in his memoirs, right? but yeah. And actually it was, it came out even before that. I think Eddie Barker gave some interview. Mr Lee says it was a bloodless coup. He says he meant bloodless coup under the noses of the British. But actually it was a bloodless coup in many other respects. It was a bloodless coup on the Malaysian side, because the Tungku was able to present it as fait accompli to all of them and force a vote in the Malaysian parliament. And then there was also a bloodless coup on the Singapore side because it was presented as a fait accompli to the Singapore cabinet.

Jimmy
But it was also very interesting that Mr Lee had to persuade them.

Janadas
He had to persuade them.

Jimmy
He couldn’t just lay down the law.

Janadas
And actually, he couldn’t persuade Dr Toh in particular, and Mr Rajaratnam also, and then of course, people like Mr Ong Pang Boon without the Tungku’s help. Because he told the Tungku they were very reluctant, and he said, “Can you please write to them?” And Tungku wrote a letter addressed to Dr Toh Chin Chye saying, “Look, I’m powerless to prevent bloodshed. The alternative to separation is bloodshed, so please agree.” So after that letter Dr Toh in particular felt he could no longer refuse to sign.

Jimmy
I think that – and correct me if I’m wrong – but I think that for a long time, the narrative has always been Singapore was kicked out. It was very much presented as a one-sided decision.

Janadas
Yes.

Jimmy
But clearly it wasn’t. Because right from the very beginning, Dr Goh himself had been involved in negotiating the terms and all that, and, pushing for separation. So why do you think that, you know, for all those decades, that was the narrative that they wanted to push.

Janadas
Look at it from the point of view of how they were situated at that point. Mr Lee authorised the negotiations, which was Mr Lee who instructed Mr Eddie Barker to draft the separation agreement, and Eddie Barker ended up drafting not only the separation agreement, but drafting the amendments to the Malaysian constitution that would allow for separation. All that was done on the Singapore side.

And it had to be kept secret, not only from the British, but also from the rest of the leadership on both sides. The team on the Malaysian side was also very small. Razak did not include any of his officials. The attorney general was not involved until the last minute when the separation agreement had already been drafted, and then he was brought in.

No officials on that side was involved simply because they didn’t want a leak, and the ministers who were involved were actually very small in number, only the key leaders. On the Singapore side, it was essentially Dr Goh, and then of course, he took instructions from Mr Lee informed every step of the way about what was going on, and then Mr Lee instructed Eddie Barker to draft the thing, and the only other minister in the cabinet who knew something was going on was Lim Kim San. That’s it. So they had to keep it secret. If it had been leaked, if all kinds of people had been involved as they were in the earlier negotiations on a looser federation, this thing would have been torpedoed. So that was number one reason.

Number two reason: when the Tungku in announcing the separation said, “It was my idea.”

Jimmy
I remember that.

Janadas
“It was my idea.” Main headline: “Singapore out”. Underneath that headline, there was a small story quoting Tungku, “It was my idea.” He was the decisive figure. If he hadn’t decided, if he had said no, no amount of skilful negotiations on the part of Singapore would have achieved separation. So he was decisive.

Number three, Mr Lee clearly preferred a looser federation, and he said so in his oral history. As we now know, and actually he revealed even then that he asked the Tungku on August 7th, “Can we reconsider?” And it was the Tungku who said no. He actually said that. That is not new. It was then, it was already there. He retold all this after August 9th. And it is not untrue; it is not the full truth, but it isn’t untrue that he would have preferred a looser federation.

It was the Tungku who said no. The full truth as we now know it is: number one, the Tungku was compelled to come to this decision as a result of the conscious strategy, the counter-strategy that Mr Lee and his team had adopted, which is “I bring pressure to bear on you, to force you to settle on our terms, Malaysian Malaysia, or you consider letting us go as a looser federation or extremist separation.”

Secondly, now we know that though the Tungku had decided on July 1st, Dr Goh had come in on July 15th, and Dr Goh had said when asked by Tun Razak, “Do you have any suggestions?” He said, “Let’s go our separate ways.” And now we know that Dr Goh had not pursued the option of a looser federation. And we now, I think, can conclude that if not for Dr Goh, if he had in fact pursued the looser federation – there were times in the negotiations when Tun Razak wavered, said, “How about we consider looser federation?” And Dr Goh didn’t pursue that. In fact, he said, “You decide. Whatever you want, we are comfortable. Our position is going to grow stronger.” So he was brilliant in the negotiations. He was single-minded in the negotiations. So I think it is fair to say that if not for Dr Goh, we would not have achieved separation on August 9th.

Dr Goh was decisive in that instance. If he had wavered, other voices would have come in, and then the negotiations would have gone awry, and we wouldn’t have met the August 9th deadline. All this is in retrospect. It’s impossible to rerun the experiment but I think it is to remember that this was complex. It isn’t an either/or. It’s not like we [got] booted out, or we schemed our way out. It’s not like that, right?

I think we can, in summary, number one, if the Tungku had not decided, it wouldn’t have happened. Number two, why was the Tungku compelled? It was because of the pressure that was brought to bear, and that pressure was led by Mr Lee. And very consciously, he did this knowing that looser federation or separation were possibilities. He would’ve preferred looser federation, but he was prepared to accept separation, which is why he ordered, he asked Mr Barker to draft the separation agreement. It was his decision. It wasn’t forced on him.

And then finally, if Dr Goh had not led the negotiations, I think there’s a very high chance it would have failed, and all sorts of things would have, all kinds of voices would have come in, and that wasn’t that single-minded direction that enabled him, Mr Lee, Eddie Barker to accomplish this in three weeks.

Jimmy
It’s a tremendous achievement. We’re not taking away anything from that. I’m just trying to understand all that said, we still have for many decades post-separation had the idea that, we…

Janadas
So because we began with this impression.

Jimmy
That from the Tungku…

Janadas
And it’s very difficult even now for people to grasp this because what is the iconic image of separation?

Jimmy
Mr Lee at a press conference breaking down.

Janadas
It is not standing on the steps of City Hall saying merdeka. It was Mr Lee crying.

Jimmy
I think that’s right.

Janadas
Against our will, against his will, and as I said, it is not without truth. He preferred, he himself preferred, and many others in the Singapore cabinet preferred. So it is not the full truth, but it is not untrue. As the story became available, we had a much more complex and nuanced picture beginning in the 1990s, because the British archives began to be declassified, Australian archives began to declassify.

Historians went in and looked at the documents, and then we got the fuller story. On the Singapore side, you have Albert Lau’s Moment of Anguish, which appeared in 1998, which gives a very full picture of what happened. And then of course, Mr Lee’s memoirs appeared in 1998. And a lot of the story, in fact, most of the story, if not all, of what now appears in Albatross is in Mr Lee’s memoirs in gist.

Jimmy
Okay, so I think that, that’s a good point. So all these things about, as you say, in Mr Lee’s memoirs especially. I’m not sure how many people have read Mr Lee’s memoirs. And it would have been publicly known, widely known.

Janadas
Yeah, the talks on looser federation are there. How Dr Goh, ignored his instructions is there. And his counter-strategy is there. Extensive quotations from British archives of how they were considering arresting him, all that is there.

Jimmy
So I was actually going to ask you whether or not you think that a looser confederation would have worked.

Janadas
It’s impossible to run this thing.

Jimmy
Of course.

Janadas
Hong Kong, I suppose now has a looser federation . It’s the SAR, special administrative region. I think in retrospect, it is clear that Singapore would not have developed as rapidly, would not have become the society that we are now, what’s an all multiracial country regardless of race, language or religion. It would not have happened. Would not have happened if we had remained in Malaysia, either as a looser federation or as a constituent state. I think that’s fair to say.

And significantly, in the Albatross File, all those who opposed or reluctant to separate, as well as those like Dr Goh who were very much in favour of separation, said in their oral histories it was the best thing that ever happened to Singapore. But that was 17 years later, the best thing that ever happened to Singapore.

Jimmy
We spoke earlier before the interview started about Dr Goh’s amazing contributions to Singapore. He was an economist, obviously. And I think the primary argument for Singapore not being able to survive as a city-state is economic. It doesn’t have a hinterland. It’s a small market. But yet it was Dr Goh, his vision. He was able to see that Singapore was able to overcome it?

Janadas
No, not in ’65.

Jimmy
But he was willing to say, you know –

Janadas
No, he just got fed up being in Malaysia. He says, “Look, the economic benefits are nonexistent.”

Jimmy
In that particular –

Janadas
He said, “We didn’t have a common market. They didn’t give us a common market, so what’s the use of Malaysia?” So yes, okay, hinterland, but we didn’t get a common market, so where are the economic arguments? And he said the political costs were horrendous. And so I don’t know when he decided this, sometime between February, March ’65, and he was away in June. Much of June, he had a medical problem, so he went off to Germany to get it looked at. And he wasn’t here in June. Returned in early July, and then the process started. But he didn’t know how Singapore would survive. The insight that Singapore could leapfrog the region and hook up with the world came later.

Jimmy
Amazing. Flying by the skin of their teeth really.

Janadas
They didn’t even know how they were going to defend themselves. He said in the oral history, we quote that, day after separation, he volunteered to be defence minister, so he’s made defense minister, and then Mr Lee said, “How are you going to go about it?” He says, “I don’t know. I have this friend, this Israeli chap in Bangkok. I’ll ask him to come down.” That’s how provisional it was. So I think that is the most revealing part of the book Albatross, as well as the exhibition.

Singaporeans go there, and then they suddenly realise that we are what we are not because it was obvious from the very beginning that these are the things we should do. It took a lot of daring. They embarked on separation without knowing how they were going to survive.

Jimmy
That’s very scary.

Janadas
And one of the most poignant statements in the book is Mr Rajaratnam, and remember, he was very reluctant. In fact, it took Mr Rajaratnam months to accept that separation was permanent. As late as February 1966, he was saying publicly, reunion, remerger was inevitable. And then here he is 16 years later, saying in his oral history, “We had to spend the rest of our lives proving ourselves wrong.”

Jimmy
Which came first? And how did all this idea for the book or the exhibition come about?

Janadas
Actually, a number of things. Number one, all the founding leaders who gave oral history interviews roughly ’81, ’82 some a bit later, most of them signed the same agreement with the NAS precursor. The archives were already there, but it was called an oral history unit that conducted the oral histories. The agreement was we could do this interview, the cabinet secretary or the government can consider their release five years after they died.

So Dr Goh died in 2010, and his interview, his oral history became eligible for release in 2015. Dr Goh’s oral history quotes from the Albatross extensively, because when he had lost the file, then just before the interview was conducted the interviewer, Tan Kee Chi, discovered the file to his relief. And so finding the file, he read a lot of the documents, including his notes of his conversations into the record. So which is why then Prime Minister, PM Lee, said “If you’re going to release Dr Goh’s oral history, [it] makes sense to declassify and release Albatross.” So that was the decision [made in] 2014, 2015.

And then we then began the process of looking at the Albatross file. The Albatross file was kept by Dr Goh, so it was a rather very messy file. It had all these documents, cabinet papers, but it also had newspaper clippings. It had transcripts of speeches, Mr Lee’s speeches. It had documentation, public documentation from Malaysian Solidarity Convention manifesto, this, that, the other, and so on. And so we had to decide what to declassify and what need not be declassified. We explained in the book why we didn’t include those things and describe what they were we weren’t including. I think just list all the things next time. The next edition, just list all this stuff. There’s no reason [not to], there’s no other secret there. So we release everything that was pertinent to the separation.

Then sometime in 2018 or so, PM Lee decided that, the government decided that, “Look, it’s no use just releasing Albatross plus Dr Goh’s oral history. Actually, you should release also Mr Lee’s oral history, the excerpts from Mr Lee’s oral history pertaining to this period, because he was the major player.” Mr Lee passed away in 2015. His oral history did not become eligible for release till after 2020, and that was the reason why it took such a long time.

And of course, we had to go through all the material. The editorial team had to not only look at our archives, our documents, our oral history, edit them, provide the context. They describe, they name all sorts of people. The modern reader needs to be told who these people are. And then we had to go to the British archives, the Australian archives, the New Zealand archives, and then quote as much as we could that was relevant to the material that we were releasing. So it took a lot of time. It was about, I suppose all in all, because of the various delays, Mr Lee’s oral history in particular, 10 years.

Jimmy
It’s obviously a monumental work. The book is amazing because as you say, it’s much more valuable when you put in all these transcripts from all these other people. To me, however, the, some major things that are missing are maybe, stuff from actually the Tungku.

Janadas
We quoted as much as we could because Tungku did in fact say, write quite a bit about the separation in looking back. In fact, Tungku [in] 1977, mentioned that Dr Goh had proposed separation.

Jimmy
He did?

Janadas
He did. He said Tungku Razak wrote back to him, wrote back to say that, when he raised the subject, Dr Goh also proposed that we go our separate ways. It’s there. We quoted quite extensively, and then he gave interviews to various people, and we quoted as much as we could. We don’t have access to the Malaysian government files obviously, because they have not released it. But whatever was been released by other jurisdictions, especially the British, the Australians, and the New Zealanders, because they did play a role, and their files were very revealing in many instances. The British files in particular, because the High Commissioner, Anthony Head, was a major figure and had close relations not only with the Singapore side, but also with the Malaysian side, and he gave very detailed reports of his conversations with all parties to the British government.

Jimmy
Talking about that, this whole process of excavating all these documents. For you personally, was there anything that you came across that suddenly made you sit up? Like “Wow, I didn’t really know this,” or “This is interesting.”

Janadas
When first reading Dr Goh’s oral history – that was the revealing thing, because he detailed it in graphic details as to what happened. So Dr Goh’s oral history was the decisive game changer, so to speak. And then when I looked at the files and looked at the documents, I was amazed at how much this generation of leaders thought by writing. They communicated with each other in writing. It’s not WhatsApp. It’s fully detailed, worked out arguments, pros and cons. And one of the most amazing documents in the Albatross File is actually the oldest document there, which is Mr Lee’s cabinet memorandum from July 1964, and it was written before the riots, because he doesn’t mention the riots. And one year or close to one year into Malaysia merger, he wrote a long cabinet paper assessing the state of play and then working out all the possibilities, and it is a remarkably prescient document, because all the possibilities he listed, including going our separate ways, are there.

Jimmy
Wow.

Janadas
And it was a very long thing, really detailed. Pros and cons. What if we did this, and what if they did that? What if we took that course of action? What would be the outcome? What might be the outcome? Very detailed analysis, really deep planning and deep thinking through writing. And it’s a very long paper. It’s 18 pages. Nowadays you can’t write a cabinet paper more than five pages. So it’s it’s amazing. Yeah. So I knew that about the earlier generation, that many of them were writers. They wrote their own speeches. Dr Goh, Mr Lee, they all wrote their own speeches, but the degree to which they pondered, they considered, they contemplated, they debated through writing. We knew that it was going to be a huge, massive thing, 500 pages, because it’s not just the documents from Albatross or the excerpts from the oral histories. It’s also the editorial apparatus, the long critical introductions by two eminent historians. Put it all together, 500 pages. Who’s going to go through it?

Jimmy
488, from cover to cover.

Janadas
So we and it was actually SM Lee who said, “How about exhibition?”

Jimmy
Okay.

Janadas
And then we got a team led by Gene Tan from the National Library, and Gene got Beatrice Chia and Michael Chiang. And Michael Chiang is a playwright. He’s also my age and an old friend. He had memories of some of these things, and he was the one who together with the rest of the team, came up with the narrative. And the narrative is all important. The story is very important. And I think the major decision that we made is tell it as it is. What is most surprising about our history is the truth. The truth is better than fiction. You couldn’t make it up. Which account of independence movements ends with the leader crying? Not in joy. But from grief, and describe it memorably as a moment of anguish that shall never pass.

And when you read his oral history 17 years later, it’s an amazing document because it’s like him reliving all this, all the contradictory passions and emotions are all there.

Jimmy
I have to say the exhibition is remarkable. All you have are a bunch of documents, which are very hard to bring to life. And the exhibition and honestly, I’m not sure that many people would read [the book] cover to cover.

Janadas
No, historians would, you know.

Jimmy
It’s valuable as a resource, and some people would. But the man on the street is not going to read this.

Janadas
If you want to read the book, I’d begin with the oral histories.

Jimmy
It’s much more accessible.

Janadas
Yeah, because they are very human documents, and they are actually very engrossing because you get involved in their emotions. And all of them are very emotional.

Jimmy
Yes. But what’s wonderful is that the exhibition allows you to take in the key points.

Janadas
Yeah.

Jimmy
But the book is obviously very valuable, because it allows researchers to go back.

Janadas
It’s a resource. These are your founding documents.

Jimmy
Absolutely.

Janadas
The heart of the book is very much the oral histories, and the heart of the exhibition is very much the voices. It’s they themselves telling the story.

Jimmy
Do you think having done all this – what questions still linger?

Janadas
Second edition, I think we need to include certain things, including some documents that after the event how Mr Lee discovered Dr Goh’s oral history.

Jimmy
I’d love to read that.

Janadas
We had; we released it in the exhibition, the notation and so on. It’s not in the book, but it’s in the exhibition. And then a few other documents, like for example, the transcripts, which is in the Albatross File, a transcript of Mr Lee’s speech in the federal parliament, this famous speech, May 27th. It’s public, but at least release it and put it, complete the picture. One thing that I would dearly have liked, but it’s impossible to fill the gap, is Dr Toh Chin Chye did not give an oral history. And actually his is the key missing account. But he said some things in an interview with Dr Melanie Chew in the book Leaders of Singapore, and perhaps we can do more to highlight some of those things. He gives another point of view. But it won’t be substantially different from this. It’ll be additional.

Jimmy
When do you have…

Janadas
I don’t know. People just bought this book, maybe the second edition will come in, 5, 10 years or so, in a reasonable amount of time.

Jimmy
And I think we’ve mainly covered most of [the topics], but if you had to do it differently, either the book or the exhibition, how do you think you would’ve done it differently?

Janadas
I can’t imagine doing it differently. I didn’t visualise the exhibition as it turned out. I was involved in going over the material and so on, but,

Jimmy
It was Michael’s vision.

Janadas
It was very much Gene’s conceptualisation. Harry Potter, this, that, and the other, and so on. Yeah. All that was his idea. But the book, it’s already 500 pages. If we were to add more voices, add more material from the British archives, or whatever we could get from the Malaysian sources, it’ll be just huge and unmanageable. Yeah. But it’s out there. People, historians, scholars can look at this, and then they can go and check their own sources.

The interpretation of what happened will continue to be made. I don’t think we’ve settled it for all time. Different people with different views have produced different things, and that is the nature of historical, historiography, if you like. People will come with their own interpretations. But here’s the material, and we set it out in good faith, and there is nothing of significance that has not been included. All the files, all the documents in the Albatross file are out there. There are other documents, I suppose, surfaced in the archives all kinds of other stuff that maybe one day they will come out. I don’t know. But what’s in the Albatross is out there. And as important, the oral history accounts are all out there.

Jimmy
So my last question to you is actually I hear you’re writing a book.

Janadas
I’m writing a book. Yes. I’m writing a short account of separation. It’s for the IPS Chronicle series.

Jimmy
Yes, but you’re also working on a book, a biography.

Janadas
I’m working on a biography of my father at some point, and I suppose I get it done before I expire.

Jimmy
We certainly look forward to [that biography]. The Albatross File exhibition is still running at the National Library. It’s very popular.

Janadas
It’s supposed to be a permanent exhibition.

Jimmy
Lots of people are showing up, especially in groups. And of course, the book is available in good bookstores everywhere, and I urge you to buy it.

Janadas
Please get it. And go to the exhibition.

Jimmy
But if you feel it’s so expensive, the library has copies that you can borrow.

Janadas
It’s a book that you may not want to read through cover to cover, but you certainly would want to dip into it. And, if I were to advise someone how to read the book, I would begin with the oral histories, in particular Mr Lee’s and Dr Goh’s, and then dip into the documents after that, because they provide the human frame.

Jimmy
And indeed, to give you a taste of what the book is all about, BiblioAsia has extracted two oral histories, one from Dr Goh and one from Mr Lee, that have run in BiblioAsia, and they’re available online at BiblioAsia.nlb.gov.sg. Read that. If you’re really interested, go buy or borrow the book, preferably buy, but also borrow from the National Library. And it really is, I think, a book that needs to be on the shelf of every Singaporean just because it is such an integral part of our history.

Janadas, thank you for coming, and I really enjoyed it. And thank you for coming.

Janadas
My pleasure. Thank you.

[Music playing]

Jimmy
If you’ve enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast and the BiblioAsia newsletter. Thanks for joining us on BiblioAsia+.

Susan Lim, ed., The Albatross File: Inside Separation (Singapore: National Archives of Singapore and Straits Times Press, 2025).

“The Architect of Separation,” BiblioAsia 22, no. 1 (April–June 2026).

“The Days Leading to Separation in Lee Kuan Yew’s Own Words,” BiblioAsia 22, no. 2 (July–September 2026).

Albert Lau, A Moment of Anguish: Singapore in Malaysia and the Politics of Disengagement (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 2003).

Lee Kuan Yew, Speech during the Debate in the Federal Parliament, on the Motion of Thanks to the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong for His Speech from the Throne, 27 May 1965, transcript, National Archives of Singapore (document no. lky19650527).

This episode of BiblioAsia Podcast was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by Red Ink Media. The background music "Di Tanjong Katong" was composed by Ahmad Patek and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Janadas for coming on the show.

The BiblioAsia Podcast by the National Library Singapore tells stories about Singapore history.