The Albatross File Inside Separation edited by Susan Sim, 2025.
Late last year, in Dec 2025, a trove of secret documents on the negotiations between LKY and Goh Keng Swee with Tunku and Tun Abdul Razak for a looser form of federation and, in default, separation, was released in book form.
The memos and notes were kept in a file called the Albatross File by its keeper, Goh Keng Swee, in homage to the famous poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Having read the relevant parts of these documents and reread the relevant parts of The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew, 1998, I believe on the issue of whether Singapore was booted out of Malaysia unilaterally, there is at the end of the day no real contradiction between what was said by Tunku Abdul Rahman to the press (p. 6 Albatross) and by Lee Kuan Yew in his Memoirs at pages 17 to 21 and by Goh Keng Swee in his notes kept in the Albatross File.
As LKY recounted in his memoirs, he wanted a looser federation, which was not agreed to by Tunku. (P 21)
LKY said for 3 weeks prior to the announcement, he had secret negotiations on separation with Tun Abdul Razak, Tunku’s deputy. He felt remorseful for deceiving the prime ministers of Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. (P 17).
A separation requires the consent of Tunku. Not agreeing to revising the agreed terms to a looser federation, Tunku and LKY thus agreed that Singapore would be expelled (from Tunku’s perspective)/separated (from LKY’s perspective).
The book Albatross File also contains excerpts of oral history interviews, recorded between 1981 and 2010 by past Singapore leaders on the issue of separation, except for the then Deputy PM Toh Chin Chye, who refused to participate.
The introduction by Susan Lim and the essays accompanying this book are excellent. This is a book to savour over the New Year 2026 holidays.
