Skip to main content

CIA Declassified: The Political Outlook in Malaya Through 1960



The attached validity study of NIE 64-56, "The Political Outlook in Malaya Through 1960," published 24 January 1956, was noted by the IAC on 14 January 1958 (IAC-M-324).

IAC-D-100/56
15 January 1958

Validity Study of NIE 64-56: 

The Political Outlook in Malaya Through 1960, published 24 January 1956

1. NIE 64-56 estimated that the UK would "probably grant some form of independence within the Commonwealth by 1960." In fact, independence was granted 31 August 1957. The pace of events leading toward independence was more rapid than the British had anticipated. As a result of the growth of Malay nationalism, the smooth working relationship established among the Alliance leaders, and the rise of moderate, responsible Malaya leadership, the British took a policy decision to grant Federation independence as quickly as possible.

2. However, the estimate pointed out, correctly in our view, that Malay-Chinese tensions were merely "relatively quiescent" and that they would continue as a major source of political instability and, over the long run, become more serious.

3. With respect to Singapore, NIE 64-56 correctly pointed out that the Labor Front government of Chief Minister David Marshall might be forced out of office and estimated that non-Communist elements would continue in control of the government for the next year or two. The estimate did not foresee the rise of a substantially more effective government under vigorous non-Communist leadership, such as that of Lim Yew Hock. It was correct, however, in pointing out that the left-wing People's Action Party would "almost certainly continue to make substantial popular gains." This has proven to be the case even though the Lim Yew Hock government has taken effective measures to disrupt the Communist movement in Singapore and has arrested nearly all of the Communist leaders of PAP.



CIA Declassified: Current Situation in Malaya

CIA Declassified: UMNO and Malaya Left Wing Movement


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Laugh and the world laughs with you

  Image created by ChatGPT Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone. - Anthony Burgess To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep. - Joan Klempner If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep. - Dale Carnegie Determine never to be idle...It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing. - Thomas Jefferson Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good. - Soren Kierkegaard Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy. - Mahatma Gandhi Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired. - Jules Renard Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything. - Floyd Dell Idleness and lack of occupation tend - nay are dragged - towards evil. - Hippocrates, Decorum I don't think necessity is the mother of invention - invention, in my opinio...

The world is a tragedy

  Horace Walpole The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think. - Horace Walpole I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. - Mark Twain A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing. - Alexander Hamilton To play it safe is not to play. - Robert Altman There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up. - Booker T. Washington The world is round; it has no point. - Adrienne E. Gusoff I think the world is run by 'C' students. - Al McGuire The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible. - Albert Einstein All the world's a cage. - Jeanne Phillips All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. - Sean O'Casey READ MORE

We are an impossibility

  We are an impossibility in an impossible universe. - Ray Bradbury The higher the buildings, the lower the morals. - Noel Coward Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. - Benjamin Franklin Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love. - Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown in "Peanuts" Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide. - Cicero Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't. - Mark Twain What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. - Thomas Paine Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. - Oscar Wilde Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash. - George S. Patton On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time. - George Orwell READ MORE