SINGAPORE: Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong, on Sunday, has shared rare personal recollections of Singapore’s separation from Malaysia, revealing deep tensions between founding leaders Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Keng Swee over the city’s future.
He said his father struggled in the final days before the 1965 split, hoping for a looser federation, while Goh was convinced that only a complete break could resolve the growing contradictions within the union.
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Speaking at the launch of
The Albatross File, Lee said newly declassified documents show Goh pressed for separation alone in negotiations despite being instructed by Lee Kuan Yew to pursue alternative arrangements.
He added that the exhibition and book highlight how Goh, widely regarded as the architect of modern Singapore, had privately code-named Malaysia “Albatross” and strategised for a clean exit.
Lee noted that his father felt torn between the Singaporeans who supported the merger and the wider Malaysian public who had rallied behind the call for a “Malaysian Malaysia”.
He said Goh, meanwhile, sensed Kuala Lumpur’s desire to remove Singapore from the federation and quietly reinforced that position, stiffening Tun Abdul Razak’s resolve when he hesitated.
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Lee recalled learning only in 1994, while preparing his father’s memoirs, that Goh had not acted on any option except separation, a revelation that moved him as he recounted it on Sunday.
He also shared memories from his childhood, including overhearing his father tell him at 13 to look after the family if he were arrested, and witnessing late-night note writing in the tense hours before the formal split.
Lee said these experiences explained his father’s emotional breakdown at the historic 9 August press conference, with his mother Kwa Geok Choo later describing it as the closest he came to a nervous collapse.
He concluded that Singapore’s founding leaders stood firm against pressure then, as its leaders do today, urging Singaporeans to revisit the history through the new exhibition to understand how the republic became an independent nation.
