The Albatross file is a top-secret collection of papers compiled by Goh Keng Swee, one of the chief architects of modern Singapore and the right-hand man of the country’s founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew. In it are lesser-known details of the immediate run-up to Singapore’s dramatic separation from Malaysia on August 9, 1965.
While the file’s contents have been known and studied for some years, a new book and exhibition are generating interest and raising questions about the popular narrative that Singapore was unilaterally “kicked out” of Malaysia.
The creation of Malaysia 62 years ago, in 1963, was unusual. The new nation was a federation, but unlike Australia, Canada and the United States, it was not a straightforward arrangement of semi-autonomous states or provinces under a federal government.
