Alleged Plot to assassinate Lee Kuan Yew is revealed by newly examined UK Records

Alleged Plot to assassinate Lee Kuan Yew is revealed by newly examined UK Records


7 Sep 2025 • 10:00 AM MYT


TheRealNehruism
Writer. Seeker. Teacher

Image credit: Al Jazeera


The birth of modern Singapore was neither preordained nor bloodless in spirit. In the tumultuous summer of 1965, Lee Kuan Yew lived under the shadow of a chilling possibility: that his political adversaries in Kuala Lumpur might not merely strip him of office but extinguish him altogether. Newly examined British diplomatic records reveal how close Southeast Asia came to witnessing political violence at the highest level.


Lee himself was candid about his fears. In one private exchange with British officials, he admitted: “I am much more fearful that one day a Malay will show me a parang rather than a handshake than I am that the police will arrive at my house at three o’clock in the morning.” For him, assassination seemed a neater, more decisive tool than imprisonment.


These worries were not groundless. British diplomats noted the incendiary mood within sections of UMNO during the mid-1960s. Philip Moore, the Deputy High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur, reported that calls for Lee’s arrest and even death were heard at party gatherings. Placards demanding action against the Singapore leader surfaced at UMNO events, while parliamentary debates turned venomous. Lee’s insistence on a multiracial politics in Singapore was seen as an affront to Malay primacy, a principle UMNO was not prepared to compromise.


The flashpoint came in May 1965, when Lee delivered a provocative speech in the Malaysian Parliament. Switching partly into Malay, he defended Singapore’s model of racial equality and openly challenged the logic of Malay political supremacy. British observers later described it as “the speech that broke the camel’s back.” UMNO hardliners read it as a direct attack on their identity and legitimacy.


As tensions escalated, the British found themselves in a quandary. Their military presence in the region made them potential guarantors of Lee’s safety. One confidential note observed that Lee might exercise “less incentive to restraint” if he believed London would ultimately shield him. Yet the British were deeply reluctant to be drawn into an intra-Malaysian showdown.


Meanwhile, Lee acted to secure himself. His Oxley Road residence was reinforced with steel plates and fitted with bulletproof glass. For a period, he and his wife retreated to Changi Cottage near a Royal Air Force base, though their children remained in school in Singapore. These precautions underscore the atmosphere of palpable danger surrounding him.


Behind the scenes, Singapore’s leaders began contemplating a radical solution. In July 1965, Finance Minister Goh Keng Swee discreetly floated the idea of separation to Deputy Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak. Negotiations advanced quickly and secretly. So secret, in fact, that the British themselves were excluded. Lord Head, the British High Commissioner, only learned of the plan on 8 August 1965—just one day before separation—when a Malaysian minister let slip the decision. Lee would later describe it as “a bloodless coup” carried out beneath the noses of Britain’s representatives.


For Tunku Abdul Rahman, the choice to expel Singapore was agonising but necessary. He likened it to an operation: “We must rid ourselves of the island of Singapore as we would amputate a gangrenous limb to save the rest of the body.” His words reveal the degree to which Singapore was seen not as a partner but as a mortal threat to Malaysia’s communal balance.


Ironically, the first genuine assassination plot did not come from UMNO circles but from pro-communist forces. In late August 1965, Singapore police foiled a conspiracy by the People’s Revolutionary Party, backed from Jakarta, to assassinate ministers, police officers, and possibly Lee himself. Twenty operatives were arrested, averting what historian Shashi Jayakumar later described as an existential moment: “The entire enterprise of what we now call Singapore could’ve been taken down or taken out by assassination. That would’ve been curtains for Singapore.”


Almost sixty years later, the episode reminds us that Singapore’s independence was forged in contingency and fear. For Malaysia, it exposed the dangers of political brinkmanship and the volatility of racial rhetoric. For Singapore, it underscored how survival depended as much on protecting its leaders as on shaping its institutions.


History often turns on narrow margins. In 1965, the margin between a handshake and a parang was razor thin.

***

One reader EagleEye wrote:

Nothing much has changed we will rember sime umno leaders who pride themselves in being seen with a kris, while another with a sword…this scenes does not aungur well for our nation’s future prosperity, harmony and integrity ! What to say of the alternative party which had paraded their green soldiers?. Unless there is real and sincere change our Madani will be ‘only in name’..!

***

Regarding Tunku Abdul Rahman - while Nehru matey pointed out the late PM mentioned the choice to expel Singapore was agonising but necessary - Tunku had what he thought was the eventual outcome, that of an outcaste, cowed and frightened Singapore, unable to survive by itself, returning to Malaysia with her tail between her hind legs begging to be readmitted into her fold and with greater humility.

But LKY was courageous, brilliant and competent enough to lead Singapore on her own - the rest is history. Yes, you could say Singapore has the last laugh.