On the 2nd June, Lee Kuan Yew came personally to the Changi Detention Camp to deliver the news that the 6 detainees will be released the next day.
James and the other 5 detainees were released the next day amid considerable public fanfare. These leaders soon found that they were members of a very different PAP from the one they had helped found in 1954. The rules had changed and there was no longer an election to be held for the Central Executive Committee (“CEC”) of the PAP. Although Lee made much of the fact that he was responsible for their release from detention, he made sure that they would not be allowed to play an important part in decision making in the party or in the government. They found themselves politically marginalized. Except for James who was given an important job as Manager of the Industrial Promotion Board, the rest were given innocuous posts in the government – many of them appointed parliamentary secretaries to Ministers.
