Bayside Monarchists 2009 Annual Dinner

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You are cordially invited to the 2009 Bayside Monarchists Annual Dinner. Our annual dinner will be held on:

Saturday the 24th of October 2009

La Notte Restaurant

140 – 146 Lygon Street Carlton

(Mel ways Reference 2 B F10)

(Near the Argyle Place East Bus Stop)

7:00 pm for a 7:30 pm start

Bayside Monarchists Chairman Mr. David Cowling will give the after dinner address entitled: ‘Liberty at its Best Known Best’.

This annual dinner will be a very important function because Mr. Cowling’s speech will highlight the potential dangers of federal and state politicians (from both sides of politics) threatening our freedom by fatally undercutting the viability of Australian states by a process called ‘regionalization’ (sic). This process will actually centralize power with a new oligarchy. Not only will states be eventually eliminated but the important role of local government in servicing people’s needs will be usurped by new regional government.

Australia’s system of federal-state relations has served the people well. It should not be forgotten that politicians are the servants of the people and as such must not be allowed to covertly collude to compromise a system of government and law that has upheld the people’s rights.

The purposes of Bayside Monarchists are to protect Australia’s system of constitutional monarchy and to support our sovereign. Non-monarchists are also welcome to help alert the public of what our politicians are up to.

The annual dinner will be a smorgasbord, which includes dessert and coffee/tea. The cost of the smorgasbord is $45 per person. Please RSVP by Friday the 2nd of October with payment. Cheques can be made payable to Bayside Monarchists and mailed to:

Bayside Monarchists

PO Box 2064

Moorabbin Vic 3189

RSVP Contacts: David Cowling (03) 9584 6247

David Bennett (03) 9898 3629

Klara Doroszlay (03) 9889 6014

Francesca Folc-Scolaro (03) 9387 1194

Andrew Knopfelmacher (03) 9529 7341

Historical and Current Affairs Analysis (http: hcca.wordpress.com)

You are invited to a talk to be given by Dennis de Uray-Ura entitled:

‘The Last Eight Weeks of Nazi Rule in Europe’

Dennis was a Hungarian refugee who fled his homeland in the wake of the Soviet advance. He fled with his parents to Germany in March 1945. The speaker will recount his experiences in a collapsing Germany. These included witnessing mass shootings, public hangings and mistreatment of Prisoners of War (POWs). His personal experiences also included his sojourn in the Mauthausen Concentration Camp.

Having survived his ordeal Dennis appreciates the value of moral courage and freedom. The speaker deliberately came to Australia because it was a stable constitutional monarchy. He is therefore determined that Australia’s system of  government be retained.

Venue -

Details of Dennis’s talk are:

7:30 PM on Wednesday the 30th of September at -

The Golden Triangle Restaurant

123 Park Street South Yarra

(Corner of Park Street and Domain Road)

Mel ways Reference Map 58 B2

By special arrangement with the Golden Triangle Restaurant the function room will be available for HCAA regulars to meet on the night from 6:30 PM onward. Although refreshments will be served the restaurant’s management would be appreciative if guests purchased a drink and/or a meal.

RSVP:

Contacts (Listed in alphabetical order):

David Bennett (03) 9898 3629

David Cowling (03) 9584 6247

Klara Doroszlay (03) 9889 6014

Jim Hewat (03) 9306 4318

Andrew Knopfelmacher (03) 9529 7341

Tom Rigg (03) 9366 6168

The June 2009 announcement by Peter Costello that he would not re-nominate for his seat of Higgins apparently signifies the end of his political career.  (His resignation took effect in October 2009). A comparison of the former Treasurer’s political career with that of former Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies was undertaken by Dr. Bennett. The purpose of this comparative analysis was to argue that a national leader’s legacy should be assessed with reference to the entirety of their political career as opposed to focusing on the senior position(s) that they have held.

A Comparison – Menzies and Costello

The announcement in June (2009) that the former Treasurer and former Liberal deputy leader Peter Costello would not re-nominate for his federal seat of Higgins effectively ends his political career. Whether the axiom of the controversial former British politician Enoch Powell -that all political careers end in failure – is applicable to Peter Costello, is unclear.

The potentially negative consequences of the Costello departure can be illustrated by a comparative analysis of his political career with that of the great Australian statesman and Prime Minister (1939-1941 and 1949-1966), Sir Robert Gordon Menzies (1894 – 1978).

This comparative analysis of Costello’s political career with Menzies’ has been inspired by the uncanny similarities and the glaring differences between the two men with regard to their sense of public service. Particular emphasis has been placed on why Menzies’ career constituted a success by an analysis of where Australia might be now had he not committed himself to serve in a political capacity.

Both Robert Menzies and Peter Costello came from lower middle class backgrounds. Menzies was born in the Victorian country town of Jeparit in 1894. Although his father and grandfather had served as Members of the Victorian Parliament, the family’s circumstances, while comfortable, were relatively modest, as Robert Menzies father supported his family as a storekeeper. Costello was born in 1957 and raised in the eastern Melbourne suburb of Blackburn. His father was a Baptist Minister.

Both men had excellent tertiary educations. Their respective university experiences would be seminal in determining their future political careers. Menzies studied law at Melbourne University between 1913 and 1916. During this period, he served as President of the Student Representative Council and as editor of the student newspaper. His prominence in university affairs was doubtless aided by the absence of many men serving during World War I. (Costello’s university experiences will be analysed later in this article).

The decision of the Menzies family that Robert should not serve in the war was understandable because two other brothers were already fighting on the front. Unfortunately, but predictably, given the at-times mediocre nature of politics, Menzies’ decision not to serve in World War I would be used against him in his political career. Had Menzies served and lost his life in the war, the consequences for Australia would have been very adverse because the impact of his subsequent political career was to have very important and positive outcomes for Australia. Menzies’ sense of duty would later manifest by his decision to forgo a potentially lucrative legal career in order to pursue a political one.

During his time at university, Menzies developed a great respect for the British legal system. As a result, he had a positive approach to being a conservative in that he conceptualized politics as being about supporting the existing social-political system and thereby serving the public good.  Menzies manifested this outlook as a staunch monarchist. He unconditionally supported the British monarchy in response to the British Crown underwriting the viability of the Australian Constitution (which Menzies deeply respected) and also as an institution whose viability is predicated on public service.

Menzies and Costello: Differing Perspectives on Industrial Relations

The future Australian leader practiced as a lawyer following his admission to the Bar in 1918. Menzies demonstrated that he was a positive conservative by winning two landmark cases in the early 1920s representing trade unions. These legal victories of Menzies helped ensure that trade unions could, by invoking the inter-state federal powers of the Australian Constitution, represent their members’ interests. The legal precedents which were set in these two cases were vital to ensuring that Australia’s embryonic system of industrial relations became operative.

Australia’s emerging system of industrial relations was formulated in the early years of federation (Australian federation occurred in January 1901). The passage of the landmark Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904 (the 1904 Act) helped establish an Australian industrial relations system which led the world. Under the 1904 Act, an institutional framework was formulated in which the respective employer interests and the employee interests (as represented by trade unions) could be represented in a fair and even handed manner.

The cornerstone of the 1904 Act was the establishment of an industrial relations tribunal – the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission (the Commission) – which arbitrated between capital and labour. The Commissions’ landmark 1907 Harvester Judgement (delivered by the Commission President, the great Sir Henry Bourne Higgins) guaranteed a minimum wage based on a worker having the capacity to support their family. Australia’s emergent system of industrial relations was one of the great political achievements of the nation’s founding fathers and had the support of both Labor and non- Labor federal politicians.

Costello, similar to Menzies, left his mark on Australian industrial relations in the period between his university graduation and his entry into parliamentary politics. As a barrister in the mid-1980s, Costello represented employers in the land mark cases of Muginberri, Dollar Sweets and Robe River. The key industrial relations issues in these important industrial cases concerned union pickets and work practices. The legal victories that Costello achieved not only challenged union power but, in a broader context, facilitated future employer hostility towards the continuance of the arbitral system of industrial relations established in the early days of federation.

To promote employer hostility to Australia’s arbitral system of industrial relations, Costello helped found the H.R. Nicholls Society in March 1986. This Society was backed by anti-union employers and companies, notably the multi-national Western Mining Corporation. The purpose of the H.R. Nicholls Society was to terminate award protection and centralized wage fixing and ultimately deny the capacity of employees to be represented by unions. (This society was named after a newspaper editor, Henry Richard Nicholls, who had disgracefully attacked the integrity of Justice Higgins).

The Australian union movement’s peak industrial representative body, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), under the leadership of Bill Kelty, supported the Hawke and Keating ALP governments’ industrial relations agenda undertaked in the  1980s and 1990s. This support entailed the union movement endorsing new practices, such as enterprise bargaining, in order to aid economic reform. Nevertheless, prominent members of the H. R. Nicholls Society, such as Peter Costello, still maintained an uncompromisingly hostile stance toward the Australian union movement, which ultimately envisaged its removal from the Australian industrial relations system.

Union endorsement of industrial relations reform (which diluted the institutional arbitral supports that unions had previously utilized) warrants mentioning because it reflected the fact that the Australian union movement, in the main, was prepared to support the continuance of a pluralist industrial relations system which accommodated both employer and employee interests. The H.R. Nicholls Society and supporters of its unitarist philosophy, by contrast, not only rejected unions as a legitimate party to the industrial relations system but also rejected the principle of employees having basic employment and bargaining rights.

The industrial relations policies initially espoused by the H.R. Nicholls Society were vigorously pursued by the Howard government (1996-2007). Given Costello’s major role in Howard’s government and the stridency of ministers such as Peter Reith (Employment and Workplace Relations Minister, 1996 to 2001), this was not surprising. The anti-union stridency of the Howard government was both manifested and crowned by its passage of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 and Work Choices 2006. The latter legislation went so far as to effectively abolish minimum award standards for wages and employee entitlements and specifically placed restrictions on what conditions unions and/or employees could negotiate.

As uncompromising as the Howard government was in industrial relations, Costello stood out for believing that its IR ‘reforms’ did not go far enough! In this regard, Costello’s attitude was similar to that of the post-Menzies Liberal Party which is yet to recognize that its founder (before he commenced his parliamentary career) was one of the key players in consolidating Australia’s pluralist system of industrial relations. Consequently, the capacity of the contemporary Liberal Party to facilitate social action has been severely constrained by its strident anti-union bias. Costello’s failure, or reluctance, to continue with Menzies’ pluralist approach to industrial relations, constitutes a fundamental disconnect between the two men.

The constructive approach which Menzies adopted with regard to industrial relations was evident in his earliest overt involvement in politics. Due to his previous industrial relations successes, Menzies had a thriving law practice and his reputation ensured that he had the opportunity to enter politics if he so chose. In an important milestone in Menzies’ life, he forewent his lucrative legal career to enter parliamentary politics. He was first elected to the Victorian upper house in 1928 and transferred to the lower house of the Victorian parliament in the following year.

The fact that Menzies was prepared to ‘stay the distance’ and endure the ups and downs of a state and then a federal parliamentary career between 1928 and 1966 was signalled by his foundation of the Melbourne based Young Nationalists Organisation (YNO) in 1929. The YNO was a grass roots activist organisation whose members organised public meetings in which issues of concern were raised and viewpoints expressed. Although no-one knew it at the time, the YNO would later fulfil a vital role in preventing Australia from descending into political extremism.

Menzies’ support for the YNO was the first indication of the impact that he would have in ensuring that the non-ALP side had coherently organised political parties. Even before Menzies had founded one of Australia’s two major parties in 1944, the Liberal Party, he had already helped sustain the party he had originally joined, the Nationalist Party, through the YNO. He would also be instrumental in founding in 1931 a successor party to the Nationalists, the United Australia Party (UAP). Indeed, Menzies was unique among non-Labor Party founders in that he had neither a prior trade union or an ALP background!

Australia’s Embryonic Party System 1901-1917

At the time of federation in 1901, the ALP- due to the support it received from trade unions- was the closest approximation to Australia having a coherent political party. The two political groupings that initially dominated Australian politics in the previous century were the rival Free Traders and the Protectionists. Neither of these two groupings were political parties as the non-ALP federal parliamentarians lined up on the then defining issue of free trade versus protection.

A sense of distinction between these two groups was endowed by the titanic leadership tension between George Reid of the Free Traders and Alfred Deakin of the Protectionists. This leadership tension was underpinned by the rivalry between Australia’s two biggest cities, Melbourne and Sydney. (Reid and Deakin were respectively based in Sydney and Melbourne).

The issue of free trade versus protection was essentially fought out over arbitration. The Protectionists prevailed by aligning with the ALP to pass the 1904 Act. Reid’s departure from federal parliament in 1908 saw the leadership of the Free Traders pass to his self-effacing deputy Joseph Cook who took his group into a merger (the ‘Fusion’) with the Protectionists in 1909.

Fusion went into the 1910 election as the ‘Liberal Party’ and was paradoxically strengthened by the ALP election victory. This came about because the embryonic Liberal Party’s defeat facilitated the departure of Alfred Deakin and the ascent of the unassuming Cook to the party leadership. Cook was effectively the founder of the first Liberal Party because his leadership bridged the previous tensions between former supporters of Reid and Deakin. As a former trade unionist, Cook supported Australia’s emerging industrial relations system based on arbitration.

In the early years of federation, the ALP was fortunate to have outstanding leaders in John Watson and Andrew Fisher. During this formative political period, Australia was free from Catholic-Protestant political sectarian rivalry as the ALP was originally an alliance between Catholic and Presbyterian unionists (Cook had originally being one of the latter). This religious unity would be later consciously shattered by ALP Prime Minister, Billy Hughes.

World War I: The Politics of Division

Wars and armed conflicts can be times in which a sense of national emergency fosters national unity. This was not the case with Australia during World War I. Hughes, as Prime Minister, called two divisive referenda (held respectively in 1916 and 1917) on conscription. The prominent opposition of the Irish Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Daniel Mannix, to conscription endowed the referenda with a religious dimension which polarised Australian society on Protestant and Catholic lines. (Both referenda permitting conscription were fortunately defeated).

The sectarian divisions which conscription generated spilled over into the ALP. Hughes and his minority of predominately Protestant supporters split from the ALP to merge with the Liberal Party to form the Australian Nationalist Party in February 1917. Hughes’ political position was strengthened by the sectarian nature of the split because Protestant voters previously with the ALP overwhelmingly passed over to the new Nationalist Party. The strength of the ruling party was initially and unfortunately based on sectarian divisions within  Australian society.

Hughes’ tenure as Prime Minister (1915 to 1923) might have been longer had he not later alienated sections of the Nationalist Party by pursuing interventionist policies. A group of Nationalists previously loyal to Cook broke away in 1920 to form a rural based party which eventually became known as the Country Party. This new party won the balance of power in the 1922 elections and agreed to enter into a coalition with the Nationalists if they replaced Hughes as Australian Prime Minister. This condition was met and Stanley Melbourne Bruce became Australia’s new Prime Minister.

Democracy Safeguarded 1929- 1931

In 1929 Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce moved to abolish the Commission. To their credit, Hughes and his supporters within the Nationalist Party crossed the floor to defeat the legislation. Considering the fact that pro-arbitration tendencies existed within the Nationalists, Bruce may have intended to lose this vote so that he could call an early election which he in turn knew he would probably lose.

Bruce’s actions seemed strange but they were probably undertaken on the basis that he could finally rid himself of Hughes and that he would eventually return to office. The latter assumption was based on the premise that the ALP, under James Scullin, would be unable to cope with the monumental challenges posed by the onset of the Great Depression that year. Bruce’s calculation that he would have returned to the Prime Ministership would probably have been correct had he not lost his own seat in the 1929 federal election.

With the benefit of hindsight, Bruce’s actions were highly irresponsible. The Nationalist Party was decimated and a fascist threat to Australian democracy in the form of the AAL subsequently emerged in the void. This threat to Australian democracy between 1929 and 1931 is still little understood or appreciated.

The Nationalist Party was only a loosely organised political party. It had a negligible branch structure and an over-reliance on big business donations to sustain it. The organisational void within the Nationalist Party allowed the All for Australia League (AAL), a veterans based group, to emerge in 1931 as a potential opposition party or even a potential ruling party. The AAL was a New South Wales/Sydney based political organisation and its impetus resulted from the deep antipathy that many World War I veterans felt toward the then New South Wales Labor Premier, Jack Lang. The AAL had authoritarian tendencies as many of the war veterans who rallied to it considered those who opposed them to be unpatriotic.

The political situation was not helped by chronic divisions within the Scullin ALP government. These divisions centred on the rivalry between the Treasurer, Ted Theodore and the Post Master General, Joseph (‘Joe’) Lyons. Theodore was opposed to undertaking deep budget cuts demanded by British creditors while Lyons reluctantly accepted them.

The problems arising from the Lyons/ Theodore division were compounded by the emergence of the ‘Lang Labor’ group within the federal parliament. This group was loyal to Jack Lang and supportive of his call for the Australian government to repudiate its international credit obligations. The vibrancy of Lang Labor, combined with the organisational weakness of the Nationalist Party, potentially fuelled the rise of the AAL.

The unsung hero who effectively thwarted the AAL’s rise was the then federal opposition leader, John Latham. After Scullin supported Theodore over Lyons, the latter, at Latham’s invitation, crossed over to the Nationalists with a small group of ALP MPs to constitute the United Australia Party (UAP). In terms of the Labor Split of 1931, the number of Lyons’ supporters who crossed over to the UAP was insignificant. The real source of the 1931 ALP split was the departure of Lang supporters to form their own party in federal parliament.

However, the defection of Lyons (who came from Tasmania) to the UAP opposition provided Latham with the necessary momentum to entice war veterans and other possible AAL supporters in New South Wales, who were motivated by a strong hatred of Lang, to join the new UAP instead of the AAL.  The UAP under Lyons won the federal election held at the end of 1931.    

In Victoria, the UAP could not have been viable without the support of Menzies’ YNO. During this period of great socio-economic dislocation, the state of Victoria was fortunate that the YNO existed as a functional grass roots activist organisation. This was particularly important because the Nationalists were organisationally such a weak party whilst extremist groups such as the Communist Party were active.

The YNO effectively became the dominant grouping within the new UAP Victorian government formed by Stanley Argyle in 1932. As a result of the YNO’s influence, Menzies became Deputy Victorian Premier in 1932. In 1934, much to Argyle’s relief, Menzies transferred to the federal parliament after being elected to the blue –ribbon seat of Kooyong.

The Lyon and the Cub 1934 – 1939

In a situation later similar to that of Costello, Menzies entered federal parliament with a strong Victorian power base already in place. As a result of this power base, Menzies was elected UAP deputy leader and appointed Attorney-General on entering federal parliament in 1934. Menzies at this point was naturally tipped as Lyon’s successor. However, even before entering federal parliament, Menzies had already made a positive impact on Australian politics by facilitating the establishment of a viable non-Labor party and government. This was a positive achievement because it countered the extremist threats posed by the AAL and Lang Labor.

The strained political relationship (1934 to 1939) between Menzies and Lyons had uncanny parallels with that of Howard and Costello following the federal coalition’s third consecutive election victory in 2001.

Menzies’ influence within the Lyons government was undermined by the disproportionate power wielded by the Country Party as the junior party in the coalition government. Country Party leader (and founder), Earl Page, held the positions of Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer. (Menzies, as Prime Minister in 1958, transferred the position of Treasurer from the Country Party to his Liberal Party). Furthermore, due to his meteoric rise, there was already a strong anti-Menzies wing within the UAP from the time of his entry into parliament. To compound Menzies’ woes, leadership tension soon arose between him and the seemingly amiable Lyons.

The Lyons UAP government provided a functioning government during a time of profound economic crisis but little else. His government was acceptable to the public primarily because of deep affection toward the Prime Minister who cut a reassuring and emphatic figure as a former union official who had risen from humble circumstances. The Prime Minister’s Roman Catholicism was also another source of popularity because it seemingly put an end to the sectarianism that the conscription split had previously precipitated.

The government’s negligence with regard to defence needs left Australia perilously unprepared for the coming of World War II in September 1939. With the benefit of hindsight, it was fortunate and understandable that Menzies resigned in March 1939 from a decomposing government. Whether Menzies would have ascended to the Prime Ministership had an overwrought Lyons not suddenly died in early April 1939 is an open question. Even with Lyons’ death, Menzies probably would not have succeeded Lyons had the already decaying UAP not closed ranks behind him because of Page’s (who was serving as caretaker Prime Minister) vicious attack on Menzies for not having served in World War I.

The Politics of Decomposition

Menzies first stint as Prime Minister (1939 to 1941) is generally considered a failure and he has been unfairly criticised for having put Britain’s interests before Australia’s. This criticism was given credence by Menzies’s prolonged absences in London and rumours that anti-Churchill elements within the British government were looking to Menzies as an alternative British Prime Minister. However, it should not be forgotten that Menzies was not Prime Minister when Australia came under threat from Japan and his concern for Britain was then shared by most Australians.

As Prime Minister, Menzies did his best with a mediocre cabinet to lead Australia during war time. The Menzies government probably would not have been narrowly returned in the September 1940 election had it not been for internal divisions within the federal ALP. Indeed, the Menzies government was actually returned as a minority government, reliant upon the support of two country independents.

The fatal descent towards which the UAP was seemingly heading Australia became apparent when a majority of the cabinet demanded Menzies’ resignation in August 1941 following his return from a four month period in London. The Country Party then took advantage of this sudden discord to demand that a joint party room elect a new Prime Minister.

Due to UAP’s chronic weakness at this time the ostensibly senior coalition partner ceded the prime ministership to the Country Party leader, Arthur Fadden. The UAP then glaringly confirmed its slide into oncoming oblivion when it elected an aged Billy Hughes as its new leader. (Incredibly, Hughes had almost beaten Menzies in the 1939 UAP parliamentary ballot to choose a successor to Lyons).

The new Fadden government thankfully fell after two months in office when the two independents holding the balance of power shifted their support in October 1941 to the ALP leader John Curtin. Rather then face an early federal election, Fadden wisely allowed the ALP to assume office and allowed the new government to serve out the full parliamentary term which ended in 1943.

Between 1941 and 1943, Fadden served as opposition leader and Hughes was able to hold onto the leadership of the UAP by refusing to convene a federal parliamentary caucus meeting. As a result of Hughes’s grossly ineffective leadership, the UAP’s state branches split and reformulated into a bewildering array of parties and groupings. The UAP entered the August 1943 election more as an umbrella group than as a political party and was only remotely viable because it was attached to the Country Party which was still a coherent political party.

Menzies Supports Curtin at the Crucial Juncture

Prior to his fall from power Menzies had informed Curtin, that his leadership rival, Herbert Vere Evatt, had covertly approached him – Menzies – to support the proposal that an all party national unity government be formed. Such an arrangement probably would have saved Menzies’ faltering Prime Ministership but he refused to enter into it.

This act of political statesmanship on Menzies’ part undoubtedly cleared the way for Curtin to assume the nation’s leadership at a crucial time and to lead it during the dark period when the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in February 1942 seemingly heralded Australia’s imminent fall. As a still prominent politician, Menzies supported Curtin’s forging of an alliance with the United States in 1942 when the UAP, under Hughes’ leadership, was publicly prepared to abandon the northern half of Australia to Japan due to a desire to give first priority to the war in Europe.

The Politics of Survival 1941 -1944

In the meantime, Menzies decided to stay on in parliamentary politics despite being mooted as Britain’s Minister of State in South East or as the Australian Minister (ambassador) in Washington. This latter position was offered to Menzies by a grateful Curtin who may also have been aware of the advantages of having the only potentially viable non-ALP leader abroad. The former Prime Minister also had the opportunity to return to the law and have a potentially lucrative legal career. Menzies’ decision to stay on in public life, despite the probability of failure, was to be the making of him.

Had Menzies abandoned politics following his fall from power, the ALP may have assumed the status of the dominant ruling party, i.e. one which is entrenched in power due to the absence of a viable opposition. (A stand out example of a dominant ruling party in a developed western democracy has been the Social Democrats in Sweden).

In a pattern reminiscent of his role in the YNO, Menzies in effect formed a ‘party within a party’ when he founded the National Service Group in March 1943 among his UAP supporters in federal parliament. Had it not been for the National Service Group -and Menzies conducting a de facto national campaign for the August 1943 election on their behalf- then the UAP may have been wiped out altogether or have been superseded in number by Country Party MPs.

Although the UAP was returned as a rump with only twelve seats, it still came out ahead of the Country Party (which won seven seats) and was therefore able to reclaim the role of senior opposition party, which precipitated a temporary break up of the coalition. Because the UAP’s rules required that a meeting of its parliamentary wing be held following an election, Menzies was able to retake the party leadership from Hughes and become opposition leader.

In assuming the role of opposition leader, Menzies seemed destined for political failure because his party was too divided and discredited and Menzies was himself considered to be a political loser. However, Menzies already had sufficient foresight to realize that a new non-ALP party could reach out to an untapped power base. This foresight had been evident in 1942 when Menzies coined the term, the ‘forgotten people’. The term was more than political spin.

Menzies realised that there was a significant number of people in Australian society, such as housewives and small businessmen, who were neither represented by unions or by big business. It was these ‘forgotten people’ which Menzies would later tap into to found a new political party which would precipitate his Lazarus type of political resurrection.

The Politics of Renewal: Menzies Founds the Liberal Party in 1944

In stark contrast to Costello, Menzies considered opposition to be a golden opportunity for renewal. As such, he utilised the moribund UAP as a launching pad for a new non-ALP alternative party. At Menzies’ instigation, state branches of parties which had once belonged to the UAP such as the New South Wales based Democratic Party and the Queensland based People’s Party were invited to a conference in Canberra in June 1944 to formulate a party constitution for a new party. Grass roots groups such as the National Women’s League and representatives from the Melbourne think tank, the Institute for Public Affairs (IPA), also participated in the Canberra organising conference.

The June 1944 Canberra Conference was successful because Menzies’ insisted that the future party have a coherent and vibrant party branch structure in which the constituent groups would be subsumed into the new political party. This party took the form of the Liberal Party of Australia and was formally launched at its inaugural conference in the New South Wales town of Albury near the Victorian border in December 1944. Menzies was also determined that the new party would not repeat the fatal mistakes of the preceding Nationalists and UAP by having to be over-reliant on big business donations to compensate for having only a weak branch structure and organisation.

Menzies’ achievement of forming a new and viable opposition party seemed destined to be just that, founding a new alternative political party. At this time, there looked to be little prospect that the new Liberal Party could win office for the foreseeable future. This was due to the high regard in which the ALP was held as a result of its astute handling of the war effort. The Liberals also faced a seemingly insurmountable barrier due to the magnitude of the ALP’s 1943 landslide election victory. Furthermore, Ben Chifley, who had succeeded to the Prime Ministership on John Curtin’s death in July 1945, was held in high regard due to his personal integrity.

The belief that Menzies could not win a federal election was apparently borne out by the 1946 federal election results when the Liberals failed to win enough seats to seemingly place them in contention of winning in 1949. (The ALP was returned with a seventeen seat majority). In political circles, it was thought that the Liberals would still fall short in 1949 and that Menzies would be replaced as opposition leader by the then Liberal Party Federal President, Richard Casey.

That the Liberals under Menzies went on to a federal election victory in 1949, (in coalition with the Country Party), was primarily due to Chifley’s determination to nationalize the banks. The ALP government’s policy of retaining war time controls, such as petrol rationing, was also a source of profound public unease. With the war’s end, there was a strong public sentiment to dispense with war time austerities.

Another major problem which confronted the Chifley government was that of communist instigated strikes in essential industries. The federal government went so far in 1949 as to send troops to work in the coal mines to counter communist strike action. Although the Chifley government courageously countered communist inspired industrial unrest, middle class unease was still generated. This unease was substantially compounded by the government’s bank nationalization policy and its refusal to remove rationing controls. This deep unease was sufficient to deliver victory to the Menzies led coalition in the December 1949 federal election.

Menzies’ Return to Power – 1949

From the very outset of his second tenure as Prime Minister, Menzies cleverly asserted his authority. He resisted strong pressure from his party to replace public servants with Liberal Party supporters. This action won Menzies the gratitude of the public service which had previously worked closely with the ALP federal government. Public service support was a considerable source of personal power for Menzies as there was still a hostile sentiment toward him in the Liberal Party which was a carry- over from his previous period as Prime Minister.

While securing the support of the public service, Menzies simultaneously moved Australia to a new policy paradigm. Within twenty-four hours of becoming Prime Minister, he removed petrol rationing. This action, along with the lifting of other rationing controls (which were carry-overs from the war), effectively scuttled the then emerging statist approach to policy which the ALP with the support of the public service had been engineering.

The lifting of rationing controls removed barriers to Australia’s post-war growth. Two substantially positive policies of the Chiefly government,–the massive Snowy Mountain hydroelectric scheme in New South Wales and the post-war immigration program-were continued. These were also drivers of economic growth and prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s.

A policy of industry protection was implemented by the Menzies government. This policy is now, ironically, anathema to the contemporary Liberal Party. However, economics is not an exact science and economic policies need to be formulated and implemented according to the then environment. In the 1950s and 1960s, tariff protection was conducive to attracting foreign investment and, subsequently, to generating and sustaining employment growth. Indeed, from the mid-1950s until the election of the Whitlam ALP federal government in December 1972, there was full employment and low inflation in Australia.

The Menzies government also pursued progressive social policies. The federal government assumed responsibility for higher education which led to the expansion in the 1960s of university education for the baby boomer generation. Due to the influence of women within the Liberal Party (which can be traced back to the pivotal role of the Women’s National League in founding the Liberal Party), pro-women family friendly policies, such as child endowment, were implemented.

Australia’s Place in the Sun: Australian Foreign Policy under Menzies

This new government built on the previous ALP government’s foreign policy accomplishment of forging an alliance with the United States which helped ensure that Australia became an important and respected world player. Contrary to popular myth, Australia during the Menzies era engaged with Asia as European colonialism disintegrated. This was reflected by Australia’s important role in founding the anti-communist South East Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO) in 1955.

Australia also emerged as a major figure in international affairs during the Menzies era due to its role in the Commonwealth of Nations. Menzies fulfilled a conspicuous leadership role in the Commonwealth in the 1950s and 1960s which helped the Commonwealth become the most important inter-continental international organisation after the United Nations.

The importance of the Commonwealth first became apparent in world affairs during the period of confrontation between Indonesia and Malaysia in the years 1963 to 1965. From 1959 onwards, Indonesia’s President Sukarno pursued a pro-Communist China foreign policy which entailed him attempting to destroy the new Malay federation. Australia and India utilized their Commonwealth connections to support Malaysia. Australia’s action in standing with Malaysia created considerable goodwill throughout non-communist Asia.

The military support which Australia provided to Malaysia against irregular Indonesian insurgents in Malaysia during the Confrontation era was a decisive factor in countering them and undermining Sukarno domestically. General Suharto’s rise to power in 1965 ended the threat of a communist takeover. (The Indonesian Communist Party, the PKI, was then the world’s third largest in 1965 after China and the Soviet Union).

Australia also utilized its traditional links with New Zealand to forge a tripartite alliance with the United States in 1951, the Australia, New Zealand and United States Security Treaty (ANZUS). The ANZUS alliance was initially promoted by Australia and New Zealand to keep the United States engaged in Asia following the end of its occupation of Japan in 1951.

This alliance would later be destroyed by the short sightedness of David Lange (New Zealand Labour Prime Minister from 1984 to 1989) in denying the right of American nuclear armed ships to enter New Zealand ports. Former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke observed in his memoirs that one had to be cynical when calls were made to award Lange the Nobel International Peace Prize. Hawke knew that the anti-nuclear policy was pursued by Lange to placate the left wing of the ruling New Zealand Labour Party so that the government could pursue radical free market economic policies.

Critics of the foreign policy of the Menzies era, such as former ALP Prime Ministers Whitlam and Keating, asserted that Australia ignominiously failed to engage in Asia due to non-recognition of Communist China. However, western engagement with Communist China was not a viable option until President Nixon’s 1972 visit to Peking demonstrated that mainland China was prepared to help non-communist countries counter Soviet power.

The focal point of Australian engagement in Asia in the immediate post-war period hinged on Australia forging economic ties with Japan. A stand out achievement of the Menzies government was concluding a trade treaty with Japan in 1957. In contemporary Australia, this accomplishment may not seem unusual because Japan is now a vitally important trading partner. But, in the 1950s, there was still considerable anti-Japanese sentiment and it took considerable courage on Menzies’ part to enter into a trade treaty with Japan. This treaty in turn was invaluable in helping Japan gain trading access to Asian markets. (Contrary to popular opinion, Japan is still Australia’s most important trading partner).

Menzies’ foreign policy achievements were not trumpeted at home by him because he was secure in the fact that his domestic policies were successful. He was able to convert his domestic successes into political capital by developing and harnessing the support of Liberal Party branches. Up until the 1980s, it was not unusual for small businessmen to regularly set aside time to attend their Liberal Party branch meetings and commit to supporting its activities. Women were often elected to party branch positions and gained a considerable degree of power. Eminent members of society, such as research scientists, often joined branches and this reflected the Liberal Party’s then close connection to the community during the Menzies era.

The Merlin Effect: The Importance of Liberal Party Branches

The strength of party branches at this time had a Merlin type of positive impact on the Liberal Party. Instead of the party declining as it continued on in office, the reverse happened. As time progressed, Menzies benefited from the branches injecting new blood into his party and, in the process, letting go of non-performing MPs.

A considerable source of branch effectiveness was that the right to preselect candidates remained the sole preserve of branch members. Consequently, there were instances in which the campaigning commitment of local branch members was the determinant behind sitting MPs in marginal seats (most notably Sir James Killen in 1961) being re-elected.

Due to the fund raising successes of branches, the Liberal Party also avoided the pitfalls of the preceding Nationalist Party and UAP of being unduly beholden to big business. The overall gauge of Liberal Party organisational effectiveness was the absence of party factions due to the primacy of rank and file members. This organisational effectiveness also transferred to the Liberal Party at a federal parliamentary level where there was an absence of inner- party factions. At a state level, with the exception of Queensland where the Country Party was the senior coalition partner, the Liberals up until the 1970s tended to win parliamentary elections.

The 1955 Evatt Purge

The Liberal Party’s success during this period coincided with cataclysmic self-generated decline of the ALP in organisational terms. On losing office in 1949, the ALP was still in organisationally sound shape. Its comparative strength was due to having an engaged rank and file base among affiliated unions that spilled over into party branches.

This union rank and file activism was the by-product of ALP Industrial Groups (the ‘Groupers’) who effectively countered communist infiltration of trade unions. As a consequence of the 1916 Split the Groupers were overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. From the early 1940s Groupers formed industrial workplace based groups which operated within union branches. The ALP Industrial Groups opposed communist infiltration and promoted social action by fighting to ensure that unions represented their members’ interests.

Grouper union leaders such as Laurie Short and Grouper supporters such as Sir John Kerr (both of whom were Anglican) demonstrated great courage when they successfully wrested control of the Federated Iron Workers (FIA) away from the communists in 1951. These industrial successes were not only important because they were advances for democratic unionism but also because they possibly heralded a return to power of a regenerated ALP that was closer to its support base.

This potential for ALP renewal was reflected in the 1951 federal election results in which the party picked up House of Representatives seats (but lost control of the Senate). However, the ALP took a massive step backwards later that year when Herbert Vere Evatt succeeded to the party’s leadership following Chifley’s sudden death.

Evatt deserves to go down in history as the worst ALP leader. Up until his election as ALP federal leader, Evatt had however served Australia with distinction. As one of Australia’s top lawyers Evatt undoubtedly had a brilliant mind. Furthermore, Evatt had been a very successful External Affairs Minister (i.e. foreign minister) between 1941 and 1949. He fulfilled an important role in founding the United Nations (UN) and was immensely proud of the fact that he had served as president of the UN General Assembly. Ironically, in the light of subsequent events, Evatt as External Affairs Minister gained a reputation as a strong anti-communist.

Intellectually brilliant as he may have been, Evatt was unfortunately prone to paranoia. This was manifested in 1954 when he pre-emptively denounced the decision of the Menzies government’s decision to establish a Royal Commission into espionage in Australia which became known as the ‘Petrov Commission’. The Royal Commission was named after Vladimir Petrov, a Soviet embassy official and spy who defected to Australian authorities in April 1954.

Petrov revealed that there was a Soviet spy ring in Australia. His defection had dramatic public impact when two Soviet embassy officials were filmed forcing his wife, Evdokia, to board a plane departing from Sydney’s Mascot Airport. Crowds of Central and East European refugees dramatically attempted to intervene to save Mrs. Petrov. Thankfully the plane stopped over at Darwin Airport where Northern Territory police overpowered the two Soviet officials, thereby allowing Mrs. Petrov to defect.

The dramatic rescue of Mrs. Petrov was briefly the top international news story. The Petrov affair vividly brought the Cold War home to many Australians. Evatt’s action- in denouncing the Menzies government’s establishment of a Royal Commission into espionage as being politically-motivated consequently alienated much of the electorate.

The terms of reference of the Petrov Royal Commission were such that, for national security reasons, its findings could not be released for thirty years. The only way therefore for the ALP to be negatively implicated was for Evatt to have denounced the Royal Commission as politically motivated. This action resulted in the ALP losing the May 1954 federal election which it had been tipped to win.

If Evatt’s actions in the lead up to the May election were unwise, then his subsequent actions following the ALP’s defeat were catastrophic. The opposition leader scapegoated the ALP Industrial Groups for his loss. At the March 1955 ALP federal conference, a motion was passed proscribing (i.e. banning) the ALP Industrial Groups from their party! This heinous motion passed by a one vote margin due to the non-credentialing of the legitimate Victorian state branch delegation.

The events surrounding the illegitimate 1955 Hobart ALP federal conference are generally known as the ‘Split’. However, the 1955 ALP Split was not so much a ‘split’ as a purge. Evatt took the action of purging loyal anti-communist members and unionists (there were also party members who were not expelled but departed as a matter of principle). This political purge was also a split in that it divided families and communities across Australia.

The ‘rational’ dimension to Evatt’s actions was his belief that a purge of the ALP, similar to the 1916 Split, would arouse sectarian sentiments and that, for every Catholic vote that was lost, the ALP would be compensated by gaining two anti-Catholic votes. This warped scenario thankfully did not come to pass due to a diminution of sectarianism within Australian society. (This was probably the principal beneficial legacy of Joe Lyon’s Prime Ministership).

Evatt’s purge therefore threw the ALP into turmoil without any compensating political dividends. This was evidenced by Menzies calling an early 1955 federal election in which the coalition was returned in a landslide due to division of the Labor vote.

A mythology which arose as a result of the 1955 Evatt purge was that the ALP was consigned to a near generation of opposition until a messianic figure in the person of Edward (‘Gough’) Whitlam came along to redeem the situation. This perspective is incorrect. The federal ALP had recovered electability by 1961 when the party came within one seat of federal election victory. The sharp swing back to the ALP was due to a credit squeeze that year when the government slowed the rate of growth to avoid an inflationary spiral.

Arthur Calwell Almost to the Rescue, 1961 and 1963

The fact that the ALP had been able to harness discontent caused by the credit squeeze was due to the quantum leap that the party took by elevating Arthur Calwell to the leadership in 1960 in place of the discredited Evatt. The Evatt purge could have been irrevocably disastrous for the ALP had Calwell exercised the distinct option of leaving the party in support of the illegally prescribed ALP Industrial Groups. Instead, Calwell opted to stay on as deputy leader and reluctantly support Evatt for which he only earned the latter’s contemptuous ingratitude.

Calwell was then the ALP’s clearest and best link to the Curtin/Chifley era. There were positive legacies of the previous ALP federal government that came from Calwell’s tenure as Labour Minister. In this portfolio, Calwell had initiated and sponsored a massive post-war migration program in which immigration was opened up to non Anglo-Celtic Europeans. This development resulted in greater racial diversity in Australian society without which the long standing racist ‘White Australia’ policy, banning Asian migration, could not have been ended in 1967.

The migration program was partially undertaken to support another Calwell supported initiative, the massive Snowy Mountain Hydro-Electricity Scheme which was constructed in New South Wales in the 1950s. This public works scheme provided an important stimulus for economic growth and the resultant generation of electricity helped underpin a valuable domestic industrial base. As Labour Minister, Calwell had also taken an uncompromising line against communist industrial strike action in 1949 by sending in troops to work in the coal mines. Calwell demonstrated physical courage during the strike period by addressing meetings of workers in which he was heckled by communist agitators.

It was therefore sadly ironic that Calwell inherited an ALP from Evatt that then had a substantial and growing pro-communist component. The mass exodus of disenchanted party members following the Evatt purge facilitated the entry of pro and covert communists into the ALP. A discernable ‘left-wing’ also began to emerge within the ALP as a result of anti-Grouper elements in the union movement, who were often anti-Catholic, teaming up with communists in union elections to form ‘unity tickets’.

The shift which was occurring in the ALP during this time was reflected by a growing opposition within the party to one of its most important platforms, state aid for non-government schools. The non-ALP parties had traditionally opposed state aid for non-government schools as a sectarian carry-over from the 1916 Split. Menzies exploited the trouble that Calwell was having with regard to maintaining the ALP’s traditional state aid policy to appropriate this policy during the November 1963 federal election.

(Menzies went into the 1963 election with a one seat majority. This fact and the suddenness with which the Prime Minister sprung this policy shift enabled him to out manoeuvre anti-Catholic elements within the Liberal Party by adopting the state aid policy for non-government schools).

The Democratic Labor Party 1957 >>>

Menzies’ state aid announcement secured Catholic votes – which had been returning to a Calwell led ALP- back to the Democratic Labor Party (DLP). DLP preferences in turn secured the Liberal Party’s 1963 re-election. With the greatest respect to Sir Robert Menzies, it probably would have been better for Australia had he lost the 1963 federal election. This is because not only would Calwell have been an excellent Prime Minister but an ALP victory in 1963 would have averted the disaster of the ALP Whitlam government (1972 and 1975).

The greatest and most tragic mistake that Calwell made in his political career was his failure to reconcile with the DLP. This party had been formally founded in 1957 by supporters of the ALP Industrial Groups. Despite the polarizing effect that the Evatt purge had on Australian society, the DLP’s viability was problematic from the onset.

The DLP held together between 1962 and 1964 (when the party had no federal parliamentary representation) because its Victorian leader, Frank Mc Manus, worked full-time for the party and applied his considerable organisational skills to win election to the Senate in 1964. Menzies’ action of supporting aid for non-government schools helped revive the DLP vote throughout Australia. The parliamentary skill that Mc Manus and the other DLP senators (who had once been the crème de la crème of the ALP) enhanced the quality of the Senate as a house of review and, between 1970 and 1974, the DLP held the balance of power in the Senate.

The enduring political legacy of the DLP was that its Senate representation facilitated awareness of there being a ‘third force’ in Australian politics. This role is currently being fulfilled by the Australian Greens Party. The Greens are essentially a coalition between genuine environmentalists and extreme leftists who are utilizing the party as a vehicle.

The Greens now exercise a considerable influence in Australian politics despite not having the balance of power in the Senate. This is due to the strategic links that the Greens have with the Socialist Left (SL) faction of the ALP within the federal government.

Twenty percent of the Australian electorate do not vote for either of the two major parties. Yet the Greens have still not won the balance of power in the Senate due to the reticence that many Australian voters have in regard to them. There is still consequently room for and a need for another minor party to counteract the Greens and engage in the contest of constituting the third force in Australian politics.

The DLP has still had an impact on Australian politics since losing federal parliamentary representation in 1974. The major pro-communist influence within the Victorian branch of the ALP was the late John Halfpenny. Had Halfpenny won election to the Senate in 1987 from the third position on the ALP Senate ticket, he could have moved Australia considerably to the hard left due to his superlative political skills.

Halfpenny’s possible election was thwarted by the preferences of the DLP 1987 Victorian Senate candidate, John Mulholland. Mulholland has led the DLP since 1983 as secretary. His commitment to the DLP has helped sustain the party after its loss of parliamentary representation. This loss resulted in most of its members forgoing their DLP membership either by withdrawing from party politics altogether or moving into one of the two major parties. It is a pity that the ALP and the DLP did not re-unite in the 1960s. However, there is still a need for the DLP under John Mulholland to return to the federal parliamentary sphere to counter the Greens on the one hand and the far right of the Liberal Party on the other hand.

It was the great Victorian ALP Senator, Pat Kenneally, who attempted in 1965 to re-unite the two labor parties. The re-unification of these parties was partly thwarted due to Calwell’s opposition. This opposition was unfortunate but understandable on Calwell’s part. He and his wife Mary had been subjected to social ostracism for remaining within the ALP at the time of the Evatt purge. The Calwells were disgracefully forced out of their parish of St. Brendan’s (in the Melbourne suburb of Flemington) and essentially could only attend Catholic Mass at the city church of St. Francis.

It is a tremendous tragedy that Calwell, the man whose motion at the 1937 ALP Victorian Conference authorised the establishment of the ALP Industrial Groups, denied himself the opportunity of winning government by not reconciling with his former stalwart supporters. A reconciliation between Calwell and Mc Manus in 1965 could well have provided the basis for an outstanding future ALP federal government. The tragedy of the Evatt purge was that it divided from each other people who should have been allies.

The Tragic Tradition of B.A. Santamaria

An important figure with regard to the DLP in particular and in Australian politics in general was the social commentator, Bartholomew Augustine (BA) Santamaria (1915-1998).  Although associated with the DLP, Santamaria was never actually a party member.  An overview of his political life is warranted for the sake of establishing contextual clarity concerning the DLP’s historical impact and contemporary role in Australian politics.

Santamaria was a political supporter of the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne Daniel Mannix and with the archbishop’s  support Santamaria founded the Catholic Social Studies Movement in 1941.  This movement was a Catholic  lay organization which encouraged Catholics to apply Catholic social teachings in public life.  Santamaria called this approach the Mannix Tradition. 

The Mannix Tradition was initially very positive because it encouraged Catholics to become involved in public institutions such as trade unions in order to counter communist infilitration.  The Catholic Social Studies Movement therefore gave its unqualified support to the ALP Industrial Groups, which were first formed in the 1930s, by encouraging Catholics to commit to political activities, such as standing in trade union elections. 

Santamaria was a skilled journalist and an impressive public speaker. His political talents were such that he played an important role in helping the  ‘Groupers’ win control of the Victorian branch of the Australian Railways Union in 1943.

 Another very important Grouper victory was achieved when a Grouper ticket led by John Maynes won the Federated Clerks Union (FCU) elections in 1946.  The political and  industrial base that Maynes subsequently established in the Australian union movement (which lasted until the 1980s) underwrote the position of moderate Australian unionism and helped craft based unions, such as the Manufacturing Grocer’s Union and the Hairdresser’s Union, to effectively represent thier members’ interests.  Up until the 1970s Santamaria supported moderate unions.

(However, Santamaria sometimes counter productively funded some of the costs for comparatively moderate left-wing union tickets against far -left union tickets with no apparent apprreciable gain for the overall position of moderate social democratic trade unions). 

At the time of the Evatt Purge in 1954/55 Santamaria demonstrated great courage by unambiguously supporting the ALP Industrial Groups.  Evatt’s vitriolic attack against Santamaria secured his position in Australian political legend and as such he remained a known figure to politically aware Australians until his death in 1998.

 The Evatt Purge of the ALP Industrial Groups enabled Santamaria (with Mannix’s support) to formally separate  the Catholic Social Studies from the auspicies of the Catholic Church in 1957 and continue as the National Civic Council (NCC).

 The NCC was viable due to the support that it received from sections of the Australian union movement which had left the ALP as a result of the Evatt Purge.   A highly effective NCC industrial wing led by John Maynes was formed.  Santamaria was not only politically effective because his organisation had a viable  industrial wing but also because of Santamaria’s skill as a political polemicist.  His televised bulletin ‘Point of View’ probably revived the DLP vote in the 1963 federal election, which ultimately helped deliver a coaliton election victory. 

Santamaria’s position in the DLP was so respected that its federal leadership designated him as the chief go-between in talks with the ALP held in 1965 aimed at re-uniting the two parties.  These talks failed and a belief later emerged held by elements within the DLP that the party should not have utilized Santamaria as its intermidiary.  Tensions between Santamaria and the Victorian branch of the DLP emerged in 1967 when he was prepared to settle for less than what the DLP later secured in relation to government funding  for non-government schools.

Paradoxically the point at which Santamaria began to distance the NCC from the DLP was following the party’s success in the 1970 senate elections when the party almost won a second senate seat in Victoria.   What political influence Santamaria did exercise on the DLP from this point was that of encouraging the party to be a political party whose political base was focused on securing the support of conservative Catholics, as opposed to being a viable centrist political party.

This emergent post-1970 estrangement from the DLP could have reflected a desire on Santamaria’s part to retreat from the nitty-gritty of politics and focus on being a political polemicist and/or a behind the scenes political mentor.  Santamaria was rumoured to have been Fraser’s covert political advisor (under the pseudonym ‘John Williams’) during the 1975 political crisis. 

Fraser’s ascencion to the prime ministership in 1975 bolstered Santamaria’s confidence that he could still fulfill an important political role following the DLP’s loss of  federal parliamentary represetnation in 1974.  ( The DLP’s loss of parliamentary representation raised concerns on  Santamaria’s part that he would not have the continued leverage to secure funding for the NCC).  

The problem for Santamaria forging a meaningful political relationship with the Fraser government was that he was no longer perecieved to be attached to a viable and influential parliamentary based political party.  The NCC was still had an effective industrial wing but this was not conducive to poltical influence on Santamaria’s part because NCC bakced unions had no sense of political connection to the Fraser government.  (Perhaps Santamaria should have exericsed his political skills to have fostered such a connection).

The 1982 Santamaria Purge

In the context of a seeming lack of political relevance Santamaria flagged his intention to retire as NCC president.  Over a two year period between 1980 and 1982 Santamaria ostensibly negotiated with leaders of the NCC industrial wing arrangements whereby he could move into semi-retirement as head of a new Christain Democracy think tank after relinquishing the presidency of the NCC. 

During this two  period,  supposedly  to ‘ease tensions’ the industrial wing of the NCC , at Santamaria’s request, moved into separate offices and attempted to accommodate his changing demands.  However when the NCC National Conference was held in 1982, the Santamaria group, which held the majority of delegates, expelled the industrial wing from the organisation.  The capacity of the former NCC industrial wing to continue under its own steam was substantially challenged when NCC staff occupied the industrial wing’s  Melbourne offices, changed the office locks and refused to turn over  their assets.

This raid was carried out in the early hours of the Melbourne Cup holiday in Melbourne in holiday in November 1982.  Court writs were also taken out by Santamaria against former NCC officials so that they could not go to the press to report what had happened.   A sad and disturbing aspect of this so-called NCC split was that there were former officials who had been purged from the  ALP by Evatt in 1954/55, subsequently felt a sense of loyalty to Santamaria but were purged by him in 1982.   (The Queensland branch of the FCU would not have been lost the branch election to the SL in 1982 if it was not for the distraction of the Santamaria Purge). 

The former NCC industrial wing constituted itself in 1982 / 1983 as Social Action.  A magazine was published under the same name until 2005 under the editorship of Gerald Mercer.  The industrial and union work was undertaken by Social Action’s Industrial Officer Jim Hewat. 

Jim Hewat and Mike Cashman were at the forefront of the campaign to re-take the  Victorian branch of the FCU from the SL.  This campaign probably would have succeeded if one-time Social Action supporters within the federal branch of the FCU had not done a deal with the SL in the 1991 FCU Victorian election which enabled them to consolidate their control over the FCU.  Social Action as an organization was severly weakened by the loss of the FCU and the subsequent shift toward union amalgamation. 

Nonetheless, Social Action,  the magazine which, Gerald Mercer edited, was well received in academic, industrial and political circles.  The publication gained a reputation  for being informative and engaging.  This was an impressive achievement considering the Social Action organization’s slender resources.

Mention should also be made of the fact that Social Action as an organization and publication probably could not have ‘got off the ground’ without  the dedicated work of two of its secretarial staff, Molly Wheeler and Kath Bridgeman.  Due to the 1982 Melbourne Cup raid by NCC staffers the former NCC industrial wing did not have access to its membership files.  The dedication, memory recall and organizational abilty of Molly Wheeler and Kath Bridgeman (the latter could have stayed on with the Santmaria group) enabled a new operation to start and be sustained.   The loyalty of volunteers such as Mary Nelson and Tom Rigg and their friendship groups also ensured Social Action’s continuance. 

The continuing NCC itself was gutted by the purge of its active members in 1982 but  was able to survive and adapt because the Santamaria group held onto the assets and funds of the organisation.  The contemporary NCC has focused on ecclesiatical politics and in contradiction of the avowedly pro-active approach of the Mannix traditon pursued an insular integralist approach toward Catholicism.  The NCC  however still maintains open contact with and supports promient Catholic federal and state MPs in the Liberal and National parties.

Santamaria still had an important platform to forward his view s in Murdoch’s Weekend Australian.  The Santamaria column in later years drew attention for its seemingly anti-capitalist stance.  In fact Satamaria in economic affairs was not so much anti-capitalist as a proponent of a social credit approach to economics matters.  A social credit approach is one in which the state attempts to control and manipulate financial credit to drive economic policy outcomes. 

The major impact that Santamaria had on economic policy as a commentator was with regard to his writing on Japan’s savings based economy.  His success with regard to advocacy of this approach was evident in 1991 and 1992 when Paul Keating and John Hewson sparred over whether the coalition’s Fightback! manifesto promoted national savings. 

As a proponent of a savings based economy Santamaria was an admirer of Singapore’s successful compulsory saving scheme, the Central Provident Fund (CPF).  He subsequently advocated that Australian superannuation funds be utilized as the major source of credit to sustain Australia’s financial viability and prosperity.  This approach was unwise because Australia’s economic viability, in contrast to Singapore’s, is reliant upon successfully selling commodities and governments generating and securing  sufficient levels of goods and services to generate sustainable levels of employment and spending to underwrite Australia’s high standard of living. 

Weighing the Scales: The State of Victoria

A predominately social credit approach to Australian economic policy would be too controlling and lack the necessary reach to undrewrite economic viability.  An essentially social credit approach to economic policy was pursued by the two successive ALP Victorian state governnments which held office between 1982 and 1992. 

Trying to pick winners by providing government credit to private industry turned out to be disastrous and led to near unsustainable public debt levels.   When the ALP was voted out in a landslide in the 1992 Victorian state election there was a papable sense of relief.

 The new Kennett led coalition government slashed government spending, repaid government public debt and revived the private sector.  These seemingly impressive economic achievements were obtained at a high social costs in the form of cuts to education and health services.  The Victorian public may have been prepared to accept the Kennett’s government’s tough economic prescriptions had it not been for the widespread perception that those politically aligned to the state government financially benefited from its policy decisons. Whether this perception was accurate or not, the Kennett government’s image had not been helped by its early action of curbing the powers of  the auditor-general. 

The stunning election of an ALP Victorian government  in 1999 was reflective of public unease with the Kennett-led coalition.  The new ALP government (1999-2007) led by Premier Steve Bracks was careful not to squander the massive surplus it inherited.

The Bracks government (1999-2007 ) was widely criticized for being indolent and too cautious.  However Premier Bracks on coming to office did act quickly and decisively to restore the powers of the auditor-general.  The staunchly republican Bracks may not have realized that this laudable action was in keeping with the monarchist tradition of having impartial  institutions which are free from political interference or compromising  links and therefore protect the common good.

The Victorian public may not have accepted Brack’s innate caution as a virtue had the auditor-general’s powers being curbed following the government’s landslide re-election in 2002.  (This landslide election was due more to inadequacies within the Liberal campaign that are still to be fully investigated).  When rumours circulated that such moves were afoot the then Speaker of the Victorian Legislative Assembly Judy Maddigan voiced her opposition and consequently protected the auditor-general’s position and thereby safeguarded the state from the onset of possible corruption. The truth is that a powerful parliamentary based political party’s orientation toward corruption is often influenced by the political structures that  are in place.

Bracks was succeeded by his Treasurer John Brumby in 2007.  Premier Brumby has assumed a seemingly more proactive approach to governance which might, perversely, alienate the electorate from the ALP.  This is particuarly with regard to rural and regional Victoria (whose alientation from the coalition led to the ALP’s surprise elction victory in 1999).

A resurgent National Party could lead to a possible coaliton government in Victoria.  Such a scenario  is strategically plausible because respective sub-factions within the Liberal and National parties, as well as elements within the SL and Labor Unity factions of the Victorian ALP, are covertly preparing for the onset of regionalization.  In this context the best hope for Victoria would be a re-elected Brumby government with a commitment to maintaining Victoria’s integrity but also having an invigourated Victorian Liberal Party with a similar commitment to state’s rights. 

The danager of the Nationals winning the balance of power in the next Victorian state election is that they could utilize their leverage to dismember Victoria by bringing in ‘regionalization’ (sic).  National Party MPs and senior party officials could be orientated toward such a policy direction to enhance their patrimonial capacity at the expence of their consituents’ actual interests. 

The need for a viable state government to act as an intermediary to safeguard the public interest against a concerntration of power by political hacks was demonstrated by the Brumby government’s courageous action of sacking the ALP controlled Brimbank Council in Melbourne’s outer western surburbs this year (2009).

The Continuing Tragedy of the Santamaria Purge

The current lack of transparency with regard to introducing ‘regionalizaton’ (sic) contrasts with the time when Satamaria was at his best when he was an astute analyst and a whistle blower.  Santamaria’s  action in purging his organisation in 1982 undermined a capacity to affect positive outcomes by autilzing the support of politically orientated people who were initially inspired by him. 

The tragedy of the 1982 Santamaria Purge was that it benefited the pro-communist elements within the SL of the ALP.  Had Santamaria retired as NCC President in 1982 the so-called Grouper unions on subsequently re-affiliating to the ALP could have maintained cordial ties with Santamaria who in turn could have exercised a degree of influence with the new Hawke government without necessarily fore going links with moderate Liberals who had been associated with the Fraser government. 

The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) by contrast capitalized on Santamaria’s actions.  The 1982 Santamaria Purge was such a traumatic diversion for the Maynes group that SL won control of the Queensland branch of the FCU that year.  Without SL control of the Queensland FCU the SL could not have won control of the FCU’s Victorian branch in 1988 and consolidated overall control of the FCU in 1991.  The fall of the FCU facilitated the achievement of the long standing CPA objective of union amalgamation in accordance with the Marxist inspired idea of industrial unionism. 

Santamaria also helped the SL in 1984 when he publicly supported the re-affiliation of the four so-called Grouper unions to the ALP.  As Santamaria well knew, his public endorsement of their re-affiliation to the ALP would make their re-admission all the more difficult. Thank fully Dr. Frank Knophelmacher’s explanation in letters to the press and in radio interviews that there was no continuing connection between the four unions and Santamaria helped clear the way for their re-admission into the ALP.

SL acquiescence of the four unions 1984 re-admission to the ALP was obtained by allowing former members of the Victorian branch of the CPA to enter the ALP en masse.  Former communists entered the mainstream of the SL and steadily built up their influence through inner party organizations such as Socialist Forum, which the current Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard once worked for.  (Socialist Forum closed up in the 1990s and its former members went into the Fabian Society and turned this into an organisation which now brings over moderate members of the ALP over to SL policies).

The SL is now utilizing elements within the Liberal and National parties who have NCC links to support ‘regionalization’ (sic).  Prominent coaliton MPs who are linked to the NCC and support ‘regionalization’ (sic) include Tony Abbott, Kevin Andrews and Barnaby Joyce.  

The NCC supported Sammuel Griffiths Society is an avowedly pro-states rights organization but actually exists to accommodate the non-SL components who wanted to represented in re-configuring Australia’s political and constitutional structures.  Whatever legitmiate criticisms can be levelled against Santamaria it cannot be denied that he fought hard to leave his mark on Australian history.  For the sake of those who wish to continue to honour Santamaria it would be best if they desist from being manipulated by the SL. 

Menzies’ Positive 1966 Bequest

 By contrast Menzies bequeathed a united and vibrant Liberal Party when he voluntarily retired as prime minister in January 1966. Remarkably, for some-one who had been (and still is) Australia’s longest serving prime minister, Menzies retired to genteel poverty. The former Prime Minister’s local party branch had to organise a fund raising appeal to pay off his mortgage. (Parliamentary pensions were far smaller then that what they are now).

Menzies placed more store in social recognition than he did in money. Sir Robert and his wife Dame Pattie (nee Leckie) were proud of their titles and the imperial honours that they had received for their public service. The Menzies were similar to other politicians, public servants and community leaders of the era in that they gained their sense of self-actualization from the social recognition that they received from the monarchy.

Paul Keating, the future ALP prime minister (1991 to 1996), grossly insulted his predecessor (who died in May 1978) when he claimed that Menzies would, in a contemporary context, have supported Australia becoming a republic. This claim, while ridiculous, conveyed an implicit and invalid message that Australia’s system of constitutional monarchy was dated.

As sentimentally attached as Sir Robert was to the monarchy, he was also a rationalist who understood how important it was for Australia to have a Westminster system of government and a federal form of government. The Australian Constitution, in which the Crown is integral, was drawn up by and for Australians, has stood the test of time and provides a guarantee of safeguarding the people’s future liberty.

From a sentimental perspective, it was a source of pride to Sir Robert and Dame Pattie that they enjoyed Elizabeth II’s personal admiration. Appropriately, the royal anthem God Save The Queen was played at Dame Pattie’s funeral in January 1995. As a committed monarchist, Dame Pattie accordingly became the first Patroness of the Australian Monarchist League (AML) upon its foundation in 1993.

Under the leadership of its National Chairman, Philip Benwell, AML has steadfastly pursued the objectives of retaining Australia’s system of constitutional monarchy and of loyally supporting Her Majesty, Elizabeth II. AML is independent from political parties and/or party factions but the League is prepared to support any politician who is sincerely monarchist and committed to defending the integrity of the Australian Constitution and of Australian states.

That the Australian Constitution is now under threat and that the positive legacy of the Menzies era is under challenge can be traced to the election of Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister in December 1972. Whitlam succeeded Arthur Calwell (who always remained a monarchist, in contrast to Whitlam, who shifted to become a republican) as ALP leader in 1967. The new ALP leader seemingly assumed a Menzian mantle when he dismissed the pro-communist Victorian branch of the ALP in 1970. This in turn assisted in endowing enough of the Australian electorate with confidence to cross the Rubicon and return the ALP to federal office in late 1972.

‘Crash or Crash Through’: The Whitlam Diaster 1972 – 1975

For all the hype concerning the Whitlam government’s (1972 -1975) achievements, it was a failed government. Whitlam came across as a man of stature and authority due to his wit and eloquence. However, Whitlam ignominiously failed to rein in ministers such as Rex Connor and Jim Cairns. Consequently, inflation and unemployment soared due to excessive government spending. A wages explosion and sudden and deep tariff cuts also undermined Australia’s economic situation which was already challenged by the stagflation wrought by the 1973 OPEC oil price hikes.

The most reprehensible aspect of the Whitlam government was that it covertly attempted to subvert constitutional process in pursuit of its policy objectives. This was most apparent during the 1975 Khemlani affair when the government commissioned a Pakistani financier, Tirath Khemlani, to raise money (‘petro-dollars’) from Arab Gulf states to finance a takeover of mining resources from multi-national companies.

According to constitutional practice, the Governor General should have chaired the December 1974, Executive Council meeting which authorised the commissioning of Khemlani to raise the funds. The Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, was not invited to the December 1974 council meeting but was compelled to sign the authorisation the following day. This process was also questionable because the regular Treasury channels were not consulted.

Press revelations in 1975 concerning Khemlani’s activities and the government’s lack of transparency as to how it was trying to raise money outside regular channels provided the opposition with the grounds to defer supply (i.e. the funds to run the government). The Liberal led opposition moved in the Senate to defer supply to compel the government to call an early election. According to Westminster convention, a government must resign or call an early election when parliament denies it the necessary funds to govern. As opposition leader in 1970, Whitlam supported this convention with regard to governments either resigning or calling early an election when the Senate refuses supply bills.

The fortitude that the Liberal Party leader Malcolm Fraser showed with regard to deferring supply may have been derived from the influx of new members and donations to Liberal Party branches due to public dissatisfaction with the Whitlam government. Both Fraser and Whitlam seemed unyielding and the country faced financial crisis as the government was about to run out of money unless the Senate passed supply bills at the November 11th 1975 sitting.

 The Courage of Sir John Kerr, 1975-1977

The Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, who had not instigated the dispute, found himself in an invidious position. Prior to the crucial November 11th Senate vote, the Prime Minister had a morning audience with the Governor-General. There was speculation that there were Liberal Party senators who were going to cross the floor and vote to pass the supply bills, but this was not the issue at stake during the audience. The Governor-General asked the Prime Minister (who had come to ask for an early Senate election) if he could guarantee supply and if it was his intention to govern without supply.

The admission by Whitlam that he could not guarantee supply and was prepared to govern without the necessary funds led the Governor-General to inform the Prime Minister that his commission was terminated. Sir John recounted in his memoirs that, had Whitlam asked him to re-consider his intended dismissal action (which had not taken effect because it was still a verbal communication), he would have done so but only on the basis that the Prime Minister committed then and there to hold an early general election.

Whitlam’s immediate reaction that he would seek the Queen’s intervention led the Governor-General to then display his signed papers thereby putting into affect his constitutional action. Following Whitlam’s departure from the room, Fraser (who had been waiting in another room) was then commissioned as caretaker Prime Minister. Fraser was appointed on the basis that he undertook to hold an early election and that he could guarantee supply.

The above stated conditions of appointment warrant being examined because they affirm the legitimacy of Sir John’s dismissal procedure. Whitlam would later claim that the Governor-General undermined the democratic process by refusing to re-appoint him Prime Minister when later that day the House of Representatives passed a vote of no-confidence in Fraser after the Senate had voted to pass the supply bills for the caretaker government. This criticism was invalid because the only prerogative that Fraser had as a caretaker Prime Minister was to advise a double dissolution election which he had committed to hold as a condition of his appointment.

Sir John’s intention was that the political impasse be resolved by having the Australian people decide in a general election. For all the hype that Whitlam generated in the ensuing election campaign, the coalition was elected to power in a landslide on December 13th 1975.

The second condition of Fraser’s caretaker appointment raises an interesting aspect of analysis. Fraser was not necessarily in a position to guarantee Senate supply because the ALP had the numbers to deny him this. The question arises as to why Whitlam did not inform his Senate colleagues of his dismissal which resulted in their unwittingly voting for supply bills for a Fraser government. Whitlam certainly did not hesitate to inform ALP House of Representative MPs of his dismissal once the supply bills were passed by the Senate so that they would pass a vote of no-confidence in Fraser.

Whitlam’s reticence in informing his Senate colleagues could well have reflected his relief that the dismissal had taken affect so that he could re-cast himself as a political martyr. By attacking Sir John’s character, Whitlam was able to obscure his political failures and solidify his base among his supporters. In the long term, Whitlam’s handling of the dismissal supported the maxim that the best hope for a failed politician is to create a myth.

It was in pursuit of the objective of recasting himself that Whitlam pursued a vitriolic vendetta against Sir John. The Governor-General did consider resignation following the December 1975 federal election but, with Fraser’s support, Sir John decided to stay on as Governor-General to affirm the legitimacy of the dismissal. Sir John resolved to undertake extensive public engagements so that, by the time Queen Elizabeth II visited Australia in 1977 for the twenty fifth anniversary celebrations of Her Majesty’s ascension, agitation against the dismissal would be substantially diminished.

Sir John’s objective was met and the 1977 royal tour to Australia was a great success. However, the personal price that the Governor-General paid was a high one as he and his wife, Lady Anne, (who insisted on accompanying her husband) were consistently subjected to taunts and threats of physical violence by demonstrators when they fulfilled their public duties.

Having established the legitimacy of the dismissal, Sir John announced in July 1977 that he would resign as Governor-General in December which he did the day before the December 1977 federal election. In this election, the federal coalition government was returned with its large majority intact. The ALP’s failure to make any headway resulted in Whitlam’s immediate resignation as opposition leader and his subsequent departure from parliament in early 1978.

Although Sir John was ostracised for doing his duty, he was personally fortified by a personal letter of support he received from Menzies in November 1975 and which he published in his memoirs with the permission of the former Prime Minister. The saddest aspect of the dismissal was that Sir John Kerr’s reputation was unfairly tarnished for resolving a political crisis which he had not instigated.

By contrast, Whitlam, who had put his own interests ahead of the nation’s with his ‘crash or crash through’ approach, successfully re-cast himself as a political legend who had fallen victim to entrenched reactionary forces which were threatened by his visionary reformist agenda.

A Failed Deakin: The Fraser Enigma, 1975 – 1983

The succeeding Fraser governments (1975 to 1983) were enigmatic. The principal achievement of this government was to restore a sense of coherence and stability in the wake of the chaos of the Whitlam government. The principal failure of the Fraser government was that it did not renew or develop the political tradition bequeathed by Alfred Deakin.

The Deakin tradition dating back to the early twentieth century was socially liberal to the point of radical. The Menzies government’s success in operating within this paradigm entrenched the perception that the Deakin legacy was conservative. Malcolm Fraser’s patrician background as a scion of a Western Districts family and member of the Melbourne Establishment bolstered the perception that the Deakin legacy to which Fraser subscribed was right-wing.

Fraser failed to formulate a political strategy which would have renewed Deakin’s legacy because he came across as something which he was not — a free market radical. Although this Prime Minister (an underlying Deakinite liberal) presented himself as a proponent of free trade, smaller government and an opponent of a centralized award system of industrial relations he took no substantial action to implement any neo-liberal reforms with regard to these policy objectives.

As a result, Fraser alienated would-be supporters such as the New South Wales federal MP Jim Carlton who expected free market economic reform. Additionally, Fraser’s espoused policies saw him squander the support of potential allies such as Australian Democrats leader Senator Don Chipp who was a vehement Fraser critic. (Fraser and Chipp were politically reconciled during the Howard era).

The one area in which Fraser was to invoke Deakinite principles in a contemporary context was immigration policy. The Fraser government generously granted refuge to migrants from communist Indo-China. This humanitarian approach was extended to all migrants. The clarity of his government’s anti-racist record gave Fraser the credibility during the Howard era to attack its retention of the policy of mandatory detention (which was introduced by the Keating ALP government in 1992) and distinguish his government from the later Howard government.

The Whitlam government’s policy of multi—culturalism, utilizing the diversity of the different backgrounds of migrants to promote community harmony, was consolidated under the Fraser government. In indigenous affairs, the Fraser government granted Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory. This government’s unqualified opposition to the Apartheid regime in South Africa won international respect and helped the nation (until the Howard era) discard the stigma that the ‘White Australia’ policy had inflicted on Australia’s international reputation.

The Reid Reincarnation: Fraser Mentors John Howard, 1977-1983

Fraser’s failure to bequeath a viable political tradition was compounded by a series of ultimately counter-productive ministerial appointments and power shifts which he made as Prime Minister. Fraser’s most glaring political mistake was his promotion of John Howard to Treasurer in 1977. Howard became the ideological successor to George Reid and, as such, would later relentlessly exploit Fraser’s failure to safeguard Deakin’s legacy.

A counter-productive aspect of the Fraser government was the Prime Minister’s orientation toward dismissing ministers for any hint of impropriety. Superficially, such an approach should be praised. However, the fine line between maintaining high standards of ministerial conduct and exercising tight political control over ministers became blurred during the Fraser government. This was evident when the Prime Minister forced the resignation of his Treasurer Sir Phillip Lynch in November 1977 due to an alleged conflict of interests in relation to his real estate dealings. (Sir Phillip was later cleared of any impropriety).

The Prime Minister’s action of undermining Sir Phillip set the scene for Howard’s ascent and the unravelling of the Deakin legacy. John Winston Howard was thirty-eight at the time of his appointment as Treasurer in November 1977.

The Prime Minister may have considered his protégé malleable due to his relative youth. As Treasurer (1977 to 1983), Howard never challenged the Prime Minister’s authority despite at times intense frustration on his part concerning economic policy direction. Howard probably mastered his frustration in the belief that the experience he gained as Treasurer would enable him to lead a post-Fraser Liberal Party in a new free market direction.

That Howard’s ascendancy did eventuate was due to the on-going rivalry between Fraser and Andrew Peacock. Peacock was considered to be the Liberal Party’s Crown Prince (‘the Colt from Kooyong’). He had been elected at the age of twenty-seven to succeed Menzies as the member for Kooyong and there was a widespread expectation that he would, one day, be Prime Minister or, at the very least, Liberal Party leader.

The Outmanoeuvred Peacock

Fraser outmanoeuvred Peacock to become Liberal leader in March 1975. In contrast to John Howard, Paul Keating and Peter Costello, who eventually chafed in the Treasury portfolio, Peacock usually enjoyed serving as Foreign Minister. The urbane Peacock made a very favourable impression on the international scene and world leaders whom he met often assumed that he would one day lead Australia.

Peacock was better placed than his future arch-rival Howard to position himself for the post-Fraser era because of the general policy ascendancy he had in his portfolio. This potential advantage was squandered by Peacock because the coterie that assembled around him as heir apparent apparent goaded him into challenging Fraser. Peacock foolishly had himself shifted to the portfolio of Industrial Relations Minister following the 1980 election, he resigned that position in 1981 and then unnecessarily challenged Fraser for the Prime Ministership in April 1982.

The ramifications of Peacock’s challenge were to be thoroughly counterproductive. Due to their dissatisfaction with Fraser free market proponents within the Liberal Party (‘dries’) at this point (1982) were the backbone of Peacock’s support base. The problem for Peacock, similar to Fraser, was that he was attempting to be something which he was not. Peacock at heart was not a dry but a pragmatist who was inclined to go with policies which worked in a practical context.

The upshot of the 1982 challenge was that it forced Fraser to support Howard’s election as deputy leader, in place of the still loyal Sir Phillip Lynch, to undercut dry support for Peacock. When Fraser was defeated in the March 1983 federal election, Howard therefore had a cohesive basis of dry support to hold onto the position of deputy leader after Peacock defeated him for the position of Liberal leader.

Another irony of Peacock’s 1983 succession to the Liberal Party leadership was that Fraser supported his one time leadership rival. This was despite the fact that Howard had remained loyal to Fraser until his Prime Ministership ended. (Fraser and Howard’s post -1983 enmity toward each other would obscure the fact that they had been pre-1983 collaborators).

The election of the Hawke ALP federal government in 1983 would amount to considerably more than a change of power from one party to another. In its first year in office, the Hawke government floated the Australian dollar, removed foreign exchange controls and allowed the entry of foreign banks. A program of micro-economic reform was commenced in 1987 and in, the following year, an industrial relations reform program was undertaken which led to a shift to an enterprise bargaining industrial relations framework.

The Australian union movement, through the ACTU, accepted, if not supported, the Hawke/Keating reform program through its adherence to the government’s wage and incomes policy which was known as the ‘Accord’. Under the Accord, the ACTU was granted a role in the formulation of social policy concessions, such as tax cuts, in return for union wage restraint. The provision of ‘social wage’ policies under the Hawke government, such as Medicare (which facilitated universal health care), helped ensure that the ALP federal government maintained its social democratic bearings.

Treasurer Paul Keating was an important driver of the Hawke government’s reforms. Until Keating’s first challenge for Prime Ministership in May 1991, Hawke and Keating seemed to co-operate productively. After a six month leadership struggle, Keating deposed Hawke as Prime Minister in December 1991 in a ballot among ALP federal MPs (Caucus). The succeeding Keating government (1991 to 1996) alienated the ALP’s traditional base because it failed to deliver the social policy dividends that the Hawke government had.

The effectiveness of the Hawke/Keating political partnership up until 1991 (although there had been earlier signs of dissatisfaction on Keating’s part) starkly contrasted with the seeming inability of Peacock and Howard to ever forge a successful political partnership. Due to his under-utilization of the coalition’s Employment and Industrial Relations Spokesman Ian Macphee, Peacock in his first period as Liberal leader (1983 to 1985) failed to match Howard’s seeming mastery of economic and industrial relations policies.

Ian Macphee: The Arthur Calwell of the 1980s.

Ian Macphee was the equivalent 1980s version of Arthur Calwell in that he was the opposition’s link to its most successful legacy in government. As the Fraser government’s Immigration Minister, Macphee had consolidated the policy of multi-culturalism, granted asylum to refugees and initiated the family re-union scheme.

The Hawke/Keating government’s economic liberalization policies precluded the coalition holding onto the Deakin legacy in an undiluted form. But Macphee probably had the capacity to formulate lateral policies to accommodate the need for reform without forsaking the underlying principle of equity associated with the Deakin legacy.

As the coalition’s Industrial Relations Spokesman, Macphee formulated an industrial relations reform policy which facilitated greater flexibility without abandoning an arbitral award safety net. Had Macphee been allocated a senior economic portfolio, Peacock may have had greater policy scope to counter Howard or at least engender greater policy diversity within the Liberal Party. Instead, Peacock opted to categorize himself as ‘damp’: dry in relation to economic/industrial policy and ‘wet’ (i.e. moderate) in relation to coalition social policy.

The Howard/Peacock Rivalry, 1985-1990

Frustration on Peacock’s part concerning Hawke’s high popularity probably led him to make an ill-considered personal attack on the Prime Minister on the eve of the commencement of the 1984 election campaign. (This election was called nearly eighteen months early). Negative re-action to this attack provided senior Liberals with a pretext to abandon Peacock during the six week election campaign. This was done out of fear that the then very popular Hawke would win a landslide. For many political commentators, the interesting aspect of the campaign was that it seemingly heralded the end of Peacock, the golden boy who had been touted as a successor to Menzies.

Peacock however waged a determined one man scare campaign in which he predicted the introduction of an assets tax and means testing of pensions. As shameless as his campaign was, it was all that a near abandoned Peacock could utilize. Nonetheless the Colt from Kooyong won grudging admiration from the public for his coolness under pressure so that he actually (and very unexpectedly) trimmed the ALP’s parliamentary majority.

The opposition leader’s tenacious fight back led to a general re-assessment that he had proved his leadership mettle to the extent that he would continue on as Liberal leader for the next parliamentary term and very possibly defeat Hawke at the next election. That this scenario did not come to pass was due to Peacock’s failure to assert his authority over Howard. The ALP ran a relentless psychological campaign in the new term that played up the latent tensions between Howard and Peacock.

A disconcerted Peacock was so unnerved by the ALP’s campaign that he demanded that Howard pledge that he would never challenge for the Liberal leadership during the parliamentary term. When Howard refused to give such a commitment, Peacock tried to have him removed as deputy leader at a Liberal Party parliamentary meeting in September 1985. The Liberal Party parliamentary room refused to remove Howard for fear of the policy vacuum that would ensue if he moved to the backbench. A stunned Peacock consequently resigned as leader and this paved the way for Howard’s election as the new party leader.

This extraordinary sequence of events further fuelled leadership instability within the federal parliamentary Liberal Party. Despite Howard’s mastery of policy detail, most Liberal MPs probably would have preferred Peacock as leader due to his smoothness. A refusal to recognize Howard’s legitimacy as leader was manifested by constant leaks by MPs of draft policies and confidential material to the press. This discord in turn buttressed a more credible ALP destabilization campaign which maintained that Howard was not sufficiently secure to prevent a probable Peacock return to the leadership.

The weakness of Howard’s leadership position provided the impetus for the Queensland Premier, Sir Johannes (‘Joh’) Bjelke-Petersen, to launch a bid for the Prime Ministership in February 1987. This bid was fanciful from the beginning. In Queensland, Sir Joh’s National Party (the former Country Party) was the dominant non-ALP party instead of the Liberal Party. There was no viable prospect of the National Party displacing the Liberal Party as the major opposition party let alone winning government at a federal level.

As inherently unviable as Sir Joh’s campaign was, it still wreaked havoc on the federal coalition. The Queensland Branch of the National Party’s withdrawal from the federal coalition precipitated the coalition’s collapse in late April 1987 to the chagrin of the Nationals’ tough, but hapless, federal leader, Ian Sinclair. The Joh push had exacerbated Howard/Peacock tensions. In March 1987, Peacock was sacked from the shadow cabinet after a mobile phone conversation between him and Victorian Liberal leader Jeff Kennett was picked up in which Howard was criticized in very colourful language.

There may have been a legitimate reason for Howard to sack Peacock but his dropping of Macphee from shadow cabinet in April 1987 was unprovoked. Macphee’s removal violated the Menzian injunction that an important role of Liberal leaders was to accommodate and utilize different ideological orientations within the Liberal Party.

The upshot of the turmoil on the non-ALP side of politics was that Howard essentially went into the July 1987 federal election without a viable prospect of winning. The improbability of Howard winning was confirmed when the release of his tax policy during the campaign, which promised substantial tax cuts, was found to have a major arithmetical error.

In an eerie replay of Peacock’s 1984 struggle, Howard similarly went into the 1987 campaign as an isolated figure because senior Liberals abandoned him. Howard’s wife and steely confidante, Janette assumed the most prominent public profile that she ever would in her husband’s political career by visibly supporting him during the 1987 campaign.

Incredibly, Howard’s election campaign did have its successes. His campaign launch upstaged the ALP’s glitzy campaign launch at the Sydney Opera House. The embattled Howard also made a strong personal connection with Liberal Party members across Australia. This would later hold Howard in good stead and explain his subsequent political durability despite a failure to strike a wider rapport with the Australian public.

The ALP was returned to power in 1987 but with a swing in the popular vote to the Liberals. Due to poor Liberal Party targeting, the popular vote swing did not translate into the necessary pick up of seats to win office. In a continuing theme of missed potential, Howard’s concession speech on election night was actually the best of his campaign.

The dividend for Howard for waging such a dogged campaign, (similar to Peacock in 1984) was that he secured his re-election as leader by the Liberal Party parliamentary room. Peacock still had a solid base and, after unsuccessfully contesting the leadership against Howard, he was elected to the fall back position of deputy leader.

Forgetting Nothing, Learning Nothing: The Howard/Peacock Rivalry Persists

The new Howard/Peacock leadership team offered the coalition (the Nationals returned to coalition after the 1987 election) with the best hope of winning government if the Liberal Party’s two principal leaders worked co-operatively. The events which subsequently transpired demonstrated that such co-operation would be an impossibility. Furthermore, both Howard and Peacock failed to harness the opportunity which opposition affords for positive re-invention.

In his capacity as Shadow Treasurer and Liberal deputy leader, Peacock sold himself short by not developing alternative economic policies which went beyond dry economic rationalist policy prescriptions. This would later be a fatal shortcoming because it would not only deny Australia the opportunity for alternative economic policies but allow Howard to maintain his unchallenged ideological ascendancy within the Liberal Party.

By way of contrast, Howard did seek to reinvent himself as a strong leader by challenging the previous bi-partisan approach to immigration. In 1988, the opposition leader stated that the level of Asian immigration should be taken into account in relation to its potential impact on racial cohesion. If the intended impact of the policy shift was to promote social harmony, then it proved to be counterproductive. Many Asian Australians (including Vietnamese migrants, who had been staunch Liberal Party supporters), became concerned that race could become a determinant of immigration policy.

The socially divisive ramifications of Howard’s immigration policy cost him dearly in the short to medium term. They would be a factor in his deposition as Liberal leader in May 1989 and an impedient to his future return to the Liberal leadership, which he eventually achieved in January 1995. Howard later gave vigorous re-assurances that race would never again be used as a political factor by emphasising that he would govern for all Australians. Nevertheless, as Prime Minister, Howard used race related issues to harness crucial electoral support. The most notorious instance of Howard doing this would be his refusal to allow imperilled refugees to even temporarily land in Australia.

The political ructions caused by Howard’s immigration policy shift enabled the then Liberal Party Federal President John Elliot to undermine Howard politically. As the Chairman of Elders IXL Elliot was then one of Australia’s leading businessmen. It was widely believed in 1988 that Elliot was attempting to dislodge Howard so that he (Elliot) could become Liberal parliamentary leader. However, Elliot’s destabilization campaign was probably intended to, and ultimately did, have the effect, of winning over dry support from Howard to enable Peacock to return to the Liberal leadership in May 1989.

Ironically, as disdained as Howard was in the 1980s by the public, he was personally very popular with Liberal Party members. This popularity was manifested in May 1989 when Howard – admiring Liberal Party branch members in the Melbourne seat of Goldstein deposed Ian Macphee as the Liberal candidate for the next election. Negative media re-action to Macphee’s deposition helped provide Peacock with the momentum to successfully challenge Howard for the Liberal leadership in the same month.

Figures associated with the Liberal Party’s Melbourne Establishment, such as Peacock, Elliot and Fraser, were alarmed by Macphee’s pre-selection loss. With the benefit of hindsight, Macphee’s political demise can be seen to have heralded more than an end of the political career of a senior Liberal. Macphee had the intellectual and technical skill to have broadened the policy direction of a future Liberal government beyond an economic rationalist paradigm.

There was to be no future Peacock government and such a government may not have been a success. Much was made of the fact that economics was not Peacock’s forte but it had not been Menzies’s strong suit either. However, Menzies was able to maintain his policy ascendancy by drawing on a diversity of opinion within his government.

Peacock, by contrast, probably lacked a sufficiently wide base so that he possibly would have been beholden to economic rationalists from Sydney such as Jim Carlton and Dr. John Hewson. Paradoxically, John Elliot might have been a counter-weight to the economic rationalists in a hypothetical Peacock government. Elliot, in colourful language, had warned against reckless tariff cuts and he had a broad network of contacts which could have served as a conduit to community concerns. The failure of Peacock to win the March 1990 federal election would later cost Elliot dearly and it was only due to Elliot’s tremendous personal courage that he has since survived.

The coalition’s defeat in the March 1990 federal election was primarily due to the public’s scepticism that Peacock had the necessary depth to successfully lead Australia. This election defeat seems to have heralded the end of the pre-eminent influence of the Melbourne Establishment that it had enjoyed within the Liberal Party since Menzies won office in 1949. The capacity of this establishment to survive by re-adapting may have been irrevocably thwarted by Peter Costello’s recently announced retirement. In this context Costello may very well have left his mark on Australian history and a biographical overview of his political life is warranted.

Peter Costello: The Student Politician

Peter Costello first made his political mark in university student politics. His time in university student politics, in contrast to that of Menzies, was turbulent. Costello commenced study for a law/arts degree at Melbourne’s Monash University in 1975. At this time, Monash University student politics was dominated by an extreme Maoist left and is now (2009) controlled by a comparatively more moderate left at the university’s Clayton campus. (The Monash University Democratic Labor Party Club was at the forefront of organising a Student General Meeting, SGM, in 1970 which broke the power of the university’s Maoist student leader, Albert Langer).

The newly enrolled student joined Monash University’s Evangelical Union whose support he utilized to win election in 1975 to the Public Affairs Committee (PAC) of the Monash Association of Students (MAS). At this early stage, Costello probably commenced his alliance with another law student and a Liberal Party supporter, Michael Kroger. With Kroger’s support, a series of front, or ‘feeder’ election tickets, were run for PAC. These tickets cross preferenced each other and enough moderate student representatives won to secure Costello’s election as PAC Chairperson.

Utilizing the position of PAC Chairman, Costello successfully ran for the position of the Chair of Administrative and Executive Committee (AE) of the Monash Association of Students (MAS) in 1976. To be elected as a moderate, and to hold office as the chair of the main student organisation of Australia’s most notoriously left wing university campus for two years (1976 to 1978), was a remarkable feat.

As AE Chair, Costello successfully turned the tables on the far left by outmanoeuvring their attempts to sack him as AE Chair at SGMs and by actually substantially exercising the power of the office to which he had been elected. Surviving and prevailing as a moderate student leader in the hot house environment of Monash student politics was no mean feat. Indeed, Costello was even physically beaten up by a member of the far left and subsequently hospitalized, an event which was reported in Melbourne newspapers.

The Monash student leader came to the forefront in national student politics through his leadership involvement in a nationwide campaign called, ‘The Coalition to Reform AUS’. The Australian Union of Students (AUS) was then an association of Australia’s predominately far left controlled campuses. Due to student compulsory membership fees, AUS had a massive campaign budget. AUS funds were used to fund far left anti-American social movement groups, some of which were virulently anti-Israel.

(The move to having regionalized governments will give far-left groups access to patronage that they would not otherwise have.  It is therefore ironic that there are supporters of ‘regionalization’ (sic) in the Liberal Party who opposed the anti-Israel stance of AUS  who may not appreciate that extreme left will gain access to patronage if viable states are abolished as intermediary which safeguard Australian democracy). 

Politically active moderate students across Australia utilized ‘The Coalition to Reform AUS’ as an umbrella group to initiate and co-ordinate dis-affiliation campaigns of university campuses from AUS. These campaigns were ultimately successful and AUS was wound up in 1984. Controversy would later emerge as to what extent Costello could claim credit for helping bring AUS down. However, Costello’s position as Monash AE Chair gave him a prominence which was very valuable in fatally undermining AUS.

(A successor to AUS, the National Union of Students, NUS, was founded in 1987. NUS is far more representative of student concerns than AUS. This is due to the relatively strong position of the moderate ALP student faction, Student Unity and the National Liaison Committee which represents international students and secures services for them).

Social Democracy or Neo-Liberalism, Mr. Costello?

The networking opportunities which arose for Costello as a student politician led him to become involved with the ALP Right through his friendship with Michael Danby (who is now the ALP federal member for Melbourne Ports). Danby was then a Melbourne University student. He was (and is) an ardent admirer of Australia’s greatest social democrat philosopher, the late Dr. Frank Knopfelmacher.

Through Knopfelmacher’s mentoring role to the moderate Melbourne University ALP Club, (whose arch rival was the SL aligned Melbourne University Labor Club), a generation of activists in the 1960s and 1970s received invaluable political training and formation. Unfortunately, many of these students, such as Ray Evans, later utilized their skills to become involved in the New Right. Danby and Costello by contrast adhered to Dr. Knopfelmacher’s social democratic principles when they helped organise organise university campus and Young Labor clubs called the Social Democratic Students (SDS). (Costello himself later moved over to the New Right).

The SDS was potentially a wonderful opportunity which could have streamed a generation of social democrat activists from student politics and the ALP’s youth wing into the mainstream of Australian politics. The SDS did not sustain itself in the long term because of the previous failure of SDS activists in Young ALP branches and SDS university clubs to win control of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA). The SDS campaign was waged between 1976 and 1977 under the slogan “The Team for a Better Union”.

There was nothing notionally wrong with the SDS, which was supported by the New South Wales ALP Right, wanting to gain control of a major Australian union and, in doing so, promote social democracy. The fundamental problem with the 1976/1977 campaign was that it was morally wrong and counterproductive to have undertaken a campaign in the first place against a union which was, and still is, the bulwark of moderate Australian unionism.

The SDA was one of the two major Grouper unions, the other being the Federated Clerks Union (FCU), which underpinned moderate trade unionism in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s. At the time of the Evatt purge in 1955 these two unions had disaffiliated from the ALP due to their principled support for the Industrial Groups.

During the 1970s, the FCU/SDA assisted the DLP University Clubs (some of which also went by the name of Democratic Clubs) wholeheartedly support moderate students in opposing AUS. DLP/Democratic Club students were at the forefront of defending the SDA in 1976/1977 from an ALP Right takeover. The tragedy of their successful defence was that it had to be directed against a group in which there could have been co-operation and some of whose members the SDA has since staunchly supported. The abortive campaign to take over the SDA was hopefully the last manifestation of the tragedy of the Evatt purge, conflict between inherently natural allies, the ALP Right and Groupers.

The attempted takeover of the SDA fortunately failed. The counterproductive nature of the campaign was borne out when the SDA re-affiliated to the ALP in 1984. Since returning to the ALP, the SDA has fulfilled a conspicuous and invaluable role in supporting the sensible and moderate elements within the party. (The SDA supported Social Action, when it was first founded in 1982).

This union has successfully utilized the institutional supports of the Australian industrial relations system to effectively represent and service its members. The SDA, which predominately represents retail workers, has the largest number of female members of any organisation in Australia and has fulfilled a very important role in formulating the ALP’s family and women’s policies. Social democracy in Australian politics and public policy cannot be effectively sustained without the support of the SDA.

Had the ALP Right’s attempt to take over the SDA in the 1970s succeeded, Peter Costello probably would have assumed a position within this union and pursued a political career with the ALP. It may seem strange that one of the Liberal Party’s most important post-Menzies figures would have been associated with the youth wing of the ALP. However, it should not be forgotten that student politics in the 1970s was virulently left-wing. As such, the ALP Right was an integral component (and still is) of the spectrum which encompasses politically moderate university students.

The negative consequence of Costello’s student political career is that he has since sought to downplay his previous association with the ALP Right. The Australian Liberal Students Federation (ALSF), which is the de facto student wing of the Liberal Party, has generally been hostile to supporting moderates in student politics. (An honourable exception has been the Melbourne University Liberal Club. The ALSF Queensland branch is also moving toward adopting a more positive approach).

ALSF served Costello as a de facto youth wing for the personal faction which he later formed within the Liberal Party. ALSF affiliates have either abstained from student elections or preferenced left wing tickets. This strategy has been pursued by ALSF affiliates in the mistaken belief that student unionism should and will be fatally undermined by bolstering the extreme left.

The negative approach of ALSF to student politics has meant that their mentor, Peter Costello, was deprived of the potential talent which Menzies had harnessed through the YNO. Due to the beneficial legacy of the YNO, Menzies was insistent that the new Liberal Party have a youth wing. For all the problems that the post-Menzies Liberal Party have endured, it has always had a viable youth wing, the Young Liberals.

A contemporary feature of the Liberal Party is the rivalry between the Young Liberals and the ALSF. The latter organisation (ALSF) might find it more beneficial to let go of its hostility to the Young Liberals and expand its capacity for social action by constructively engaging in student politics.

The failure of the ALP Right to win control of the SDA was probably a major blow to Costello but he had a Liberal Party fall back through his continuing connection with Michael Kroger. In June 1980, to the astonishment of Peter Costello watchers, the university graduate surfaced as a Young Liberal!

Utilizing his knowledge of labor law, Costello, as previously mentioned, undertook a series of high profile anti-union cases in the 1980s. His success helped spur the formation of the ‘New Right’ which acted as a catalyst toward moving the Liberal Party to an anti-arbitral approach to industrial relations. There holding this perspective would ultimately refuse to recognise the legitimacy of unions to represent their members or for employees to access basic entitlements.

Wither on the Branch? The Decline of Liberal Party Democracy

The strong anti-union stance that Costello adopted as a successful barrister probably helped endear him to Liberal Party branch members in the 1980s whose support he and Kroger cultivated. Their success in working the branches by travelling round Victoria and meeting with office-holders and key members culminated in the then thirty year old Kroger being elected as Victorian Liberal state president in 1987.

Kroger’s election to the presidency of the Victorian branch of the Liberal Party was an ominous development for party democracy and would lay the foundation for structural changes which would later rebound on Costello. Following the Liberal Party’s third consecutive defeat in the 1988 state election, the Victorian branch voted at its annual conference to allow party head quarters to have a role in pre-selecting candidates.

The precedent which Kroger established in Victoria set a pattern which was duplicated in all the other state branches. By allowing party bigwigs to interfere in, and eventually substantially determine, pre-selections, the Liberal Party’s rank and file squandered their power. A Victorian precedent was set and by the 1990s, each state division of the Liberal Party was riven by two opposing factions as pre-existing personal networks morphed into regimented factions which were still more personal than ideological. This would in turn facilitate a practice in which an opposing faction would so effectively sabotage the dominant faction so that it would lose the state election to the ALP.

The Liberal Party’s subsequent decline has been a result of the erosion of rank and file democracy within the party’s organisational wing. This is somewhat of a paradox. Theory concerning union effectiveness and social mobilization is often, and understandably, left-wing and focused on the need for rank and file support. Paradoxically Australian political history has often indicated that non-Labor parties are more likely to be successful if they harness rank and file support.

The Bjelke-Petersen governments in Queensland (1968 to 1987) were, to say the least, controversial. This government’s longevity and Joh’s dominance of it was, partially, but very importantly, derived from his utilization of a strong National Party branch structure. The support of a rank and file dominated party enabled the Queensland Premier to harness strong support for him and counter the intense opposition to him that existed within the then politically polarized state.

Another polarizing figure in Australian history was the Victorian Premier, Jeff Kennett. His state governments (1992 to 1999) were similarly controversial. However, on coming to office, Kennett singularly refused to return power to the Liberal Party branches. As a result, Kennett was not only disconnected from community sentiment but incapable of effectively harnessing existing support for his government against deep seated opposition.

The Kennett government’s fall in 1999 came as a stunning, but generally unlamented, surprise to most Victorians. Kennett’s refusal to return power to his party’s branches not only helped facilitate his government’s fall but underpinned the fatal factionalization of the Victorian branch of the Liberal Party.

 (The possible role of members of the National Party and anti-Kennett Liberals in advising in the strategic formulation of the ALP’s successful 1999 strategy of supporting country independents to win office is still to be fully investigated.  Such an investigation is now warranted because the same forces may now be attempting to bolster the Victorian Nationals so that they can win the balance of power at the next state election and subsequently introduce regionalization). 

The onset of Liberal Party factionalization was still to take effect when Costello harnessed support amongst party members to win pre-selection in 1989 for the safe Liberal Party seat of Higgins in Melbourne. His pre-selection victory was noteworthy because Costello was then a Howard supporter and his victory was then a rebuke to Peacock who was at that time ascendant in Victoria.

               The Seat of Higgins: May its MP be Worthy of the Name

The seat of Higgins had been held by former Liberal Party Prime Ministers Harold Holt (1966 to 1967) and Sir John Gorton (1968 to 1971). Holt, Menzies anointed successor, disappeared while swimming at the beach. Sir John Gorton, who moved from the Senate to the House of Representatives, was a much under-rated Prime Minister. He was also the only former Australian Prime Minister who publicly advocated a ‘No’ vote in the fortunately unsuccessful November 1999 referendum to make Australia a republic. 

The Liberal Party has nominated the thirty-two old Kelly O’Dwyer as their candidate to succeed Costello.  O’Dwyer is an executive with the National Australia Bank (NAB)  and has been one of the key organisers of the so-called ‘Costello-Kroger’ faction.  She has a reputation for being a very organised and reliable person.  Indeed an argument could be put that there could not have been a ‘Costello’ component of the ‘Costello-Kroger’ faction without O’Dwyer.

If Kelly O’Dwyer is elected as Costello’s successor for Higgins she will enter federal parliament as a key political player in determining if the Liberal Party will, (or will not) endorse regionalization.  As some-one who has an integral knowledge of Liberal Party factional politics O’Dwyer probably realizes the pitfalls of Liberal Party factions becoming vehicles for party powerbrokers pursuing business and patrimonial interests by utilizing regional bulwicks. 

The current Lord Mayor of Melbourne is Robert Doyle who was  metaphorically pulverized in the 2002 Victorian state election as then opposition leader. (The circumstances concerning the cause(s) of  the 2002 Victorian Liberal election rout are still to be  fully investigated). 

Doyle was elected Lord Mayor of Melbourne in 2008 with the backing of both the Kroger component of the Costello-Kroger faction of the Liberal Party and Unity faction of the Victorian ALP.  This combined backing could be indicative of respective ALP and Liberal elements accommodating their interests for the possible onset of regionalization in Victoria.  The interests of the SL ALP faction would probably be accommodated by its ascendancy of the City of Port Phillip in southern Melbourne.  

The Liberal Party has an important role in facilitating industry and commerce in Australian society.  (The ALP, alternatively has the role, or should fulfill the role, of promoting socio-economic equity within a market economy).  The electorate of Higgins is a predominately upper middle class electorate which has bolstered the Liberal Party’s traditional role in Australian society of safeguaring the nation’s economic fundamentals by electing parliamentary members of prime ministerial cailbre. 

As MP for Higgins Costello certainly helped advance the nation’s economic interests as Treasurer.  Costello however never made it to Prime Minister and has left open the prospect of the Liberal Party’s traditional role as the party of capital being undermined by the patrimonial threat of regionalization.  O’Dwyer could address this potential gap by supporting the retention of viable Australian states as intermediaries which counteract against the hard left extending  their tentacles into society and business people possibly utilizing the Liberal Party to promote their financial interests. 

The ‘Young Turk’: Costello Finds his Feet. 1990-1994

Costello entered federal parliament following the Liberal Party’s fourth consecutive defeat in March 1990. The parliamentary party attributed these election defeats to the Peacock/Howard rivalry. Determined to put this rivalry behind it, the Liberal parliamentary party room elected a Sydney economics professor, Dr. John Hewson, as the new leader.

Hewson, who had previously been one of Howard’s principal advisors when he was Treasurer, had only been elected to parliament in 1987. But the Liberal Party was so desperate for unity and authoritive leadership (similar to what Menzies and Fraser had previously provided) that it gave carte blanche to Hewson in relation to policy formulation. The new leader and his deputy Peter Reith set the Liberal Party on such an extreme free market course that they frightened the electorate into returning the ALP to its fifth consecutive federal election victory in March 1993.

Much was made of the fact that the unpopular Paul Keating was able to win the 1993 election for the ALP due to the anti-GST scare campaign he waged. The GST policy was an important part of the polices that were contained in Hewson’s election manifesto Fightback. However, the range of policies contained in Fightback such as the elimination of a minimum wage and deep social security cuts were so extreme that they, in conjunction with the GST, frightened too many Australians.

An elated Keating heralded the ALP’s 1993 election victory as one for the ‘true believers’. This slogan may have been hype but there was (and still is) a section of the electorate which determines who wins Australian elections, the lower middle class. The ‘true believers’ tend to be socially conservative and expectant of state support to help them get by financially. In this context, and with the benefit of hindsight, Hewson always stood a good chance to lose the 1993 federal election.

As honest as Hewson was, he was too much of an ideologue and a government led by him would have been dangerously polarizing. The Liberal Party’s 1993 election defeat was a warning of the dangers inherent to a democracy when a major party becomes too narrow in its focus.

That Costello’s relationship with Hewson was originally tense and remained such was ironic. In the light of subsequent events, it was also ironic that Costello on entering parliament unsuccessfully tried to persuade Howard to challenge Hewson for the leadership. The Costello/ Hewson enmity was strange because they both essentially shared the same ideological outlook concerning economics and industrial relations. Nonetheless, due to Costello’s very impressive parliamentary debating skills, Hewson was obliged to appoint him to the position of shadow Attorney General in 1992.

Following the Liberal Party’s devastating 1993 election defeat, Howard and Costello formed a leadership ticket which unsuccessfully challenged Hewson. That Costello would unsuccessfully run for deputy in a ticket supporting Howard for leader would be amazing in the wake of their future spectacular fallout. Hewson was initially able to hold on as leader because of the residual strength of Andrew Peacock’s base.

In the period between Hewson’s re-election as leader and his deposition in May 1994, the inability of the Liberal Party to find a suitable replacement led to a focus on New South Wales Senator Bronwyn Bishop as an alternative leader. (Bishop had won widespread popularity when she publicly sparred with the taxation commissioner at Senate estimates hearings).

The intense focus on Senator Bishop as an alternative leader to Hewson between 1993 and 1994 was reflective of Hewson’s non-viability as leader, of the Liberals seeming inability to come up with a credible leader and of the public’s hope there would be viable opposition to the unpopular Keating. Another Liberal Party federal election defeat following the 1993 debacle would have seriously imperilled this party’s continued viability. The grave state of affairs that the Liberal Party was in between 1993 and 1994 was evident by the steep decline in corporate donations.

The Howard/Peacock division (which had supposedly ended upon Hewson’s election as Liberal leader in 1990) was glaringly apparent when Peacock supported Hewson to prevent Howard’s return to the leadership in the 1993 federal parliamentary leadership ballot. This state of affairs was untenable for the Liberal Party and it was Costello who, in May 1994, moved decisively into the fray to end the impasse. At Costello’s instigation, Alexander Downer was drafted to run against Hewson.

Downer was then forty two and a scion of a prominent family of the Adelaide Establishment. Due to the traditional links between the Adelaide and Melbourne establishments, (the viability of both cities, in contrast to Sydney, is substantially reliant upon their serving as capitals of viable states) Downer at this point was the only federal politician with whom Malcolm Fraser still had any influence. It was therefore with the support of Fraser and Peacock that Downer stood against Hewson for the leadership.

The idea that Downer stand for the leadership was Costello’s and it was he who persuaded Howard to forgo his leadership ambitions to support the South Australian. The degree of support that Downer actually had turned out to be relatively small but was still sufficient when combined with Howard’s support base (to which Costello then belonged) to depose Hewson in May 1994.

The ‘Dream Team’: Downer and Costello, 1994

Peacock supported the Downer/Costello ticket, the ‘dream team’, in which Costello was elected deputy and became the shadow Treasurer. This shift in support by Peacock was possibly reflective of his intention to support Costello as a future leader against Howard. Costello, at this point, was in essence, still a Howard supporter. The narrowness of Downer’s victory over Hewson rebounded badly on Peacock because it indicated that he had not carried his base. When Downer’s leadership began unravelling, Peacock took the opportunity to announce his retirement from parliament in September 1994.

Downer’s elevation as opposition leader in May 1994 was initially very popular due to the public’s desire for a credible alternative to the overbearing Keating. But Downer’s honeymoon was to be one of the shortest in Australian political history. Due to a series of stupid gaffes, including a tasteless joke, Downer’s viability as an alternative Prime Minister accordingly sank. Peacock’s announced departure cleared the way for Howard’s return to the Liberal leadership.

Having essentially facilitated Downer’s rise as Liberal leader, it was Costello who helped persuade his friend to depart and the Liberal Party’s leadership to accept Howard’s return as leader in January 1995. By steadfastly refusing to accept the leadership, Costello left his party with little choice but to accept Howard’s return. (Downer was compensated with the shadow Foreign Affairs portfolio and was subsequently Australia’s longest serving Foreign Minister, 1996 to 2007).

The Howard/Costello team signified that, nearly ten years after Howard’s first seemingly freakish rise to the Liberal leadership, unity and coherence had returned to the Liberal Party. In this respect, Costello had not only made a very important contribution to the Liberal Party’s continued survival but also strengthened its prospects of returning to office.

Costello’s motivations were probably not entirely selfless because he did not forgo his eventual leadership ambitions. In December 1994, a stalwart of the Adelaide Establishment, Ian Mc Lachlan, allegedly brokered a verbal agreement between Costello and Howard in which the latter agreed to step down as Prime Minister in the second term of a future coalition government.

The recycled opposition leader, Howard, did not have a honeymoon because he was then too discredited a political leader. But at this time (1995 to 1996) discontent with Keating’s Prime Ministership was so high that Howard only had to provide a coherent alternative to Keating to win office. Howard, with invaluable support from Costello, provided a feasible alternative to Keating such that the coalition won a landslide federal election victory in March 1996.

For All of Us? : The Howard Governments, 1996-2007

The coalition’s return to power was also assisted by a slick campaign which ran under the slogan ‘For all of Us’. The implicit message was that Howard would not replay race as a power dynamic in seeking to hold onto power. The campaign slogan was also specifically directed at Keating’s ‘true believers’ who were alienated by the ALP leader’s perceived elitism. The 1996 federal Liberal campaign successfully turned Keating’s ‘true believers’ into ‘Howard’s battlers’. This campaign ploy was highly successful but, in a later ironic turn of events, Howard would use race as a dynamic to hold onto the support of Australia’s lower middle class.

The Howard government struggled in its first two terms (from 1996 to 1998 and from 1998 to 2001) because the Prime Minister often came across as weak and duplicitous. In its first term the federal government was often mired in scandal due to too frequent violations of a ministerial code of conduct. The two senior ministers who provided a sense of coherent direction were Reith as Workplace and Employment Relations Minister and Costello as Treasurer.

Reith may have provided a sense of direction for the new government but it was an entirely negative one. Reith, as previously mentioned, introduced the Workplace Relations Act 1996. This legislation (which the Australian Democrats in the Senate helped to moderate) introduced individual employment contracts, called Australian Workplace Agreements, and attempted to undermine the capacity of awards to protect employee rights.

The Workplace and Employment Minister demonstrated his extremism by engineering a dispute with the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) in 1998. The MUA is a union with Communist Party of Australia (CPA) connections. Reith engineered a dispute with the MUA by providing covert training in the Gulf state of Dubai (which belongs to the Arab Emirates) to non union employees and intended to ensure that they took the place of unionised labour on the wharves.

Reith wanted to use the MUA dispute as a launching pad to fatally compromise employee entitlement rights of Australian employees by setting the precedent of destroying the entitlement of MUA members (which at this time were considered by the public to be exorbitant). The broader Reith agenda did not eventuate because the two parties to the dispute, the MUA and the Patricks Corporation, pulled back to negotiate an Enterprise Bargaining Agreement. Nevertheless, the television footage of conflict tension between the police and picketers as well as private security guards on the wharves was unsettling to the general public.

Howard’s political relationship with Reith was a matter of concern. At the very least, the Prime Minister had failed to rein Reith in or he actually (and more probably) shared Reith’s extremist ideological agenda. Revelations in 2000 concerning excessive expenses on his ministerial phone card contributed to Reith retiring at the 2001 election. The aggressive role that Reith fulfilled in the Howard government was an indication of how destructively polarizing a Hewson government may have been as Reith had served as Hewson’s deputy.

Costello was the other major policy driver in the Howard government’s first term. In contrast to Reith, Costello as Treasurer fulfilled a positive role by laying the foundation to eventually eliminate the public debt he inherited and return the budget to surplus. The ALP had had impressive economic achievements with regard to opening up the Australian economy. However, the ALP had bequeathed too high a level of public foreign debt and budget deficit to the new coalition government in 1996.

Australia has nearly always been a debtor nation but debt has been often been from the private sector and serviceable. The most positive accomplishments of the Howard/Costello era were the virtual elimination of public foreign debt and the accumulation of a massive budget surplus. These positive achievements provided the scope for the Rudd ALP federal government’s stimulus package in the wake of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.

Costello’s focus on improving Australia’s financial position was apparent from his first days as Treasurer and he remained consistently focused on this objective until the demise of the eleven year long Howard government. Whatever valid criticisms can be made against Costello during his time in the Howard government, his accomplishments with regard to strengthening Australia’s fiscal position can not be legitimately denied.

The precarious position of Howard’s first term government was apparent when the Prime Minister announced that, if his government was re-elected, it would introduce a Goods and Service Tax (GST). The Prime Minister could have been commended for his honesty in flagging a GST had it not been for the fact that he had gone into the 1996 campaign with a solemn and unequivocal promise that he would never introduce this tax. When accused of breaking his word, Howard would become famous, or infamous, for his distinction between ‘core’ and ‘non-core’ promises. (He asserted that his promise not to introduce a GST fell into the latter category).

The Perils of Pauline, 1996-1998

In his first term the Prime Minister also projected an image of weakness for his failure to repudiate the racist comments of the Queensland federal MP for Oxley, Pauline Hanson. As events were to unfold, this was a shrewd though unethical gambit on Howard’s part.

Hanson had been the endorsed Liberal candidate for the safe ALP seat of Oxley in the Queensland city of Ipswich in the 1996 election. She had been quoted in Brisbane’s Courier Mail newspaper for attacking Aboriginal ‘welfare’. Keen to maintain the coalition’s 1996 campaign message of social inclusiveness, the Liberal Party promptly dis- endorsed Hanson as its candidate for Oxley. The re-action against Hanson’s dis-endorsement in Ipswich was such as to enable her to win the seat in a stunning electoral upset.

Hanson, on unexpectantly winning Oxley, unsuccessfully tried to join the National Party. Inside the tent of a mainstream party, Hanson might have sunk into relative obscurity. Requiring back up and support as an independent MP, Hanson turned to support from the West Australian MP Graeme Campbell. He was the former ALP Member for Kalgoorlie, who had been re-elected as an independent in the 1996 election on an anti-immigration platform. It was thought that, if there was to be a parliamentarian who would be the central figure for far-right political movement, it would be Campbell.

The fact that Hanson would upstage Campbell was due to the saturation publicity that her September 1996 Maiden Speech received in the media. The speech was wooden to the point of incoherent but its brazenly racist assumptions were still clearly apparent. The momentum that Hanson received for her speech was such that she had the impetus to found a viable political party in April 1997 called ‘One Nation’. (This party reached the zenith of its power when it won 11 seats in the June 1998 Queensland state election).

A political consequence of One Nation’s foundation was that it spawned a strong left-wing social movement of  protest groups primarily composed of young people and university students. Demonstrations were organised against Hansonism across Australia. In denouncing Hanson’s anti-immigration stance, these demonstrators drew attention to the fact that Australia had a system of mandatory detention for asylum seekers in which they were held for long periods and in some cases, (too many in fact) for an indeterminate period of time.

An important fact that was overlooked was that mandatory detention had been introduced under the Keating government by the Minister for Immigration Gerry Hand (who came from the SL faction of the ALP) in 1992. This policy shift went by relatively unnoticed until Hanson emerged as a prominent political figure.

Mandatory detention in effect undermined the generous open door immigration policy of the Fraser government. No-one argued that refugees fleeing by boat to Australia should be granted immediate asylum (and this had never occurred anyway). However, it was a reprehensible policy to in effect incarcerate people, including children, in detention centres (some of which were in the outback) for indefinite periods.

Howard was subjected to sustained attack for his maintenance of mandatory detention and for his refusal to offer an apology to Aborigines who had been forcibly taken from their parents as children and placed in orphanages or European foster homes. This barbaric policy was ended in the 1960s. In the 1980s, relatively obscure and under-resourced Aboriginal organisations such as Link Up, attempted to re-unite children (who were now adults) with their parents or surviving relatives.

During the Howard era, those Aboriginal children became known as the ‘stolen generation’. Intense pressure was placed on Howard by a burgeoning left-wing protest movement and the media to offer an apology to the ‘stolen generation’ and to end mandatory detention of refugees. The Prime Minister’s refusal at the time cast him as a weak leader. Future events, however, would reap very positive political dividends for Howard. His refusal to repudiate Hansonism would enable him to win future elections against adverse odds by thwarting the return of lower middle class votes to the ALP.

Costello did not actively oppose Howard’s immigration and indigenous policies but he still managed to convey his unease by announcing that he would place the One Nation Party his last preference on his ‘how to vote’ card for his seat in the 1998 federal election. The Queensland division of the Liberal Party’s refusal to follow the ALP’s example of putting One Nation last on its ‘how to vote’ cards in the June 1998 state election cost the Liberals dearly. In the Queensland capital of Brisbane, once stalwart bloc votes (including Asian votes) went over en masse from the Liberal Party to deliver an unexpected election victory to the ALP.

The only prominent Liberal to unequivocally call on his party to preference One Nation last, to issue an apology to the ‘stolen generation’ and to end mandatory detention was Malcolm Fraser. At the time, Fraser’s opposition was derided as jealousy on his part toward his previous protégé, Howard. This may or may not have been Fraser’s motivation but it could not be denied that the former Prime Minister was standing up for a Liberal Party policy which had once stolen a march on the ALP.

The ‘Howard Battlers’ and the Balance of Power

Despite the coalition’s massive parliamentary majority, it almost lost the October 1998 federal election. Indeed, the ALP won a majority of the popular vote. The massive swing to the ALP reflected a return of ‘Howard battlers’ to the fold of being ALP ‘true believers’. The coalition was saved by the fact that approximately 800,000 ‘Howard battler/true believer’ votes went to One Nation and not to the ALP.

Due to One Nation Party’s total lack of a preferencing strategy in the 1998 federal election, this party thankfully failed to consolidate as Australia’s third force. One Nation was also undercut by Hanson’s failure to win the lower house seat of Blair. (In the 1998 federal election, One Nation only won a single Queensland Senate seat and this poor outcome was due to ALP preferences placing this party last).

Even though the ALP had failed to win the 1998 federal election, it entered the new federal parliament in an ebullient mood under its popular leader Kim Beazley. The former Finance Minister was a respected political figure and his avuncular personality starkly contrasted with the arrogance and hubris that Keating had projected. The returned Howard government between 1998 and 2001 continued to stumble along and the Prime Minister still failed to positively impact on the public.

What coherent direction came from the government was derived from Costello’s disciplined pursuit of implementing a GST. The prospect of a GST being brought in was an understandable source of great anxiety to coalition MPs. When the GST legislation was passed in June 2000, popular dissatisfaction with the tax was such that, in Liberal Party ranks, there was a fear that the party would be near obliterated to a point similar to Canada’s Progressive Conservatives in the 1993 elections in which they were reduced to two seats!

It was also notable that, during the time of the GST legislation’s passage in June 2000, Howard publicly praised Costello in parliament. However, the praise that the Prime Minister offered Costello was subtly duplicitous in that his intention to apportion any unpopularity for the GST to the Treasurer was still apparent. The fact that Howard might have been prepared to undermine Costello was a harbinger that the Prime Minister might not honour his secret December 1994 undertaking to stand down. At this point, the validity of such a deal was academic because the ALP seemed destined to win the next federal election which was due in 2001.

Howard’s Ship comes in: The Tampa Affair, 2001

That the ALP lost the 2001 federal election was one of the great, if most disturbing election upsets in Australian political history. The issue of race, or more specifically refugee asylum, ensured the coalition’s victory in the November 10th 2001 federal election. In late August 2001 a Norwegian freighter the Tampa rescued over 430 refugees in international waters from their sinking, overcrowded, wooden fishing boat. The refugees were rescued 140 kilometres from the Australian territory of Christmas Island. Under international maritime law, Australia was obliged to grant refuge (even if temporary) to imperilled refugees because her territory was the closest land destination.

The crew of the Norwegian Tampa vessel acted honourably and humanely by rescuing the predominately Afghan refugees. The Howard government’s refusal to grant asylum to the refugees was a breach of Australia’s international legal obligations.

This breach was considerably compounded when Australian Special Forces forcibly boarded the Tampa and deported the refugees to the island nation of Nauru, New Zealand and later Papua New Guinea. (The forced entry of special forces personel was justified at the time on the  pretext, later shown to have been a lie, that the refugees were throwing their children overboard). Even though the Federal Court of Australia ruled that the government’s actions were illegal, the Howard government still refused to recoil from them. Legislation was therefore passed on September 12th which retrospectively legally validated the government’s actions.

Howard utilized the adverse international re-action to his handling of the Tampa affair to drum up sufficient nationalist sentiment to win the November election which he had entered as the underdog. The government’s action was essentially an unstated signal (a ‘dog whistle’) to former One Nation supporters to give their votes to the coalition instead of returning to the ALP. The Labor opposition was aware of this and the opposition leader Kim Beazley forfeited the opportunity to honourably lose the election by belatedly (and counterproductively) endorsing the government’s Tampa actions.

Even amongst first generation migrants and their children, there was support for Howard as the refugees were often described by them as ‘queue jumpers’. The only parliamentary parties which acted honourably during the Tampa affair were the Australian Democrats and the Greens Party. Malcolm Fraser also stood out as an isolated  but distinguished figure in condemning the Howard government with regard to the Tampa affair. In this respect, Fraser was acting in a manner similar to Sir John Kerr by placing the national interest ahead of his personal interest.

Any moral qualms that the federal coalition had about its handling of the Tampa affair were not apparent in the jubilation of its election night celebrations. Peter Costello can, (almost), be forgiven for his delight that the government had won re-election against previously overwhelming odds. The other important leader who was understandably jubilant was Howard.

The Howard Ascendancy 2001 to 2007

Following his 2001 election victory, Howard assumed an authoritive confidence, which had been previously and markedly lacking, in his handling of the cabinet, media and in his domination of the parliament which was uncannily similar to Menzies. The usually taciturn Howard also gained a social confidence in his interaction with the public, redolent of Hawke at his most charismatic and engaging. The Prime Minister’s remarkable transformation was, however, to prove very detrimental to Costello.

The returned coalition government also seemed to have a political and economic ascendancy following its 2001 re-election. Utilizing the windfall of GST revenue, the federal government became very astute in its dispersion of largess. The post 2001 minerals boom that Australia enjoyed during this bonanza era was effectively harnessed by Costello as a massive revenue raiser which filled the government’s coffers.

Near full employment was also achieved following the coalition’s 2001 election victory. A caution should be made with regard to heralding the achievement of full employment. Undertaking a minimum of one hour of paid work a week in Australia constitutes been registered as officially being employed. Furthermore, job growth in this period was in the service sector and was predominately part time and casual. (Casual employment is where an employee is hired on an hourly basis).

Employment growth was impressive that there were labour shortages in the service and mining sectors of the Australian economy. Sections of Australian society, such as young people and university students, did experience the ‘problem’ of not knowing what job to take because there were so many to choose from! This seemingly golden economic boom time was not a period of contentment for Costello because Howard refused to step aside as Prime Minister.

Costello’s political frustration first became manifestly apparent in July 2003 at the time of Howard’s sixty-fifth birthday which he had previously mooted as a point at which he might consider retiring as Prime Minister. Howard’s formulaic response, which eventually became a mantra, was that he would stay on as Prime Minister so long as his party wanted him to lead it.

The Treasurer’s re-action in July 2003 to Howard’s desire to hold onto office was to paraphrase Howard’s ambiguous ruling out of a leadership challenge to Peacock in 1985. If Costello thought that clever and cryptic word games were to be a launching pad for a leadership challenge, then he was to be grievously disappointed.

Liberal Party factions were (and are) more fluid than ALP factions. Howard was thereby able to use the patronage and authority of his office to co-opt notional Costello supporters. The federal member for the Melbourne seat of Menzies, Kevin Andrews, was thought to be a Costello supporter but he transferred his allegiance to Howard as did the socially wet South Australian Senator, Amanda Vanstone. Furthermore, Costello’s practice of ensuring that Liberal branches aligned to him were tightly controlled frightened too many sitting Liberal MPs who did not formally belong to the Costello faction. These MPs were anxious that, if Costello succeeded Howard as Prime Minister, they might later be dislodged.

For all Costello’s disquiet, the federal government still functioned very effectively due to Howard’s leadership projection. Liberal Party Head Quarters (HQs) at state and federal levels were very efficiently run and were (then) intensely focused on retaining power at a federal level. (The Liberal desire by 2004 to win at a state level was ambiguous, to say the least, and certainly not as pronounced as with regard to winning in a federal context). The effectiveness of Liberal Party HQs was centrally determined by the ability of paid staff and this compensated for the fundamental erosion of rank and file power that had occurred at a branch level.

The advantages of incumbency, a booming economy and a disciplined political machine with which the Liberals went into the 2004 federal election with were advantages that were enhanced by public unease concerning the then ALP leader Mark Latham. This opposition leader, similar to Evatt, had a destructive streak. This later became manifestly apparent with the publication of his ten year old political diary (‘The Latham Diaries’) following his retirement from Parliament in 2005. Latham criticised nearly everyone cited in his diary entries including previously close supporters.

Public unease with Latham was the central theme of the Liberal Party’s 2004 re-election campaign. The aggressiveness with which Latham shook hands with Howard during a brief encounter during the 2004 campaign seemed to confirm suspicions concerning Latham’s unsuitability to be Prime Minister.

The coalition’s 2004 election victory in contrast to the 2001 result, although a source for Liberal jubilation, seemed anti-climatic. Nonetheless, the government’s re-election did have the profound negative consequence –  the passage of the Work Choices industrial relations legislation. Senate preferencing arrangements between the two major parties in the 2004 election laid the foundation for the Senate’s approval of the Work Choices legislation in late 2005.

No Choices: The Howard Government’s Work Choices  (sic)Legislation

The passage of Work Choices was a fundamental blow against employee rights and Australian industrial democracy which had once led the world. To be fair to Howard, he had never hidden that his industrial relations agenda had been to introduce non-union enterprise bargaining (which the Keating government actually did in 1993), individual contracts and award simplification.

Howard had however always earnestly claimed he sought these industrial ‘reforms’ to boost productivity. He also pledged that a coalition government would never remove an award safety net. At the very least, the Work Choices legislation constituted a departure from Howard’s stated undertakings. (This raises the question of whether Howard’s ostensible shift in industrial relations policy constituted the breaking of a ‘core’ or a ‘non-core’ promise).

The Work Choices legislation was a radical departure in Australian labour law because the interstate powers of the Constitution were abandoned as the source of industrial relations law. In their place, the corporations’ power of the Constitution was invoked. As a consequence, the safety award net was removed and prescriptions against what employees/unions could bargain for and rights they could access were severely compromised to the point of being denied.

Draconian restrictions on union right of entry and union organising came perilously close to violating Australia’s adherence to International Labor Organization (ILO) freedom of association obligations. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Work Choices legislation was that its removal of an award safety net in effect abolished the guarantee of a minimum wage and basic employee entitlements. A pseudo safety net was introduced just before the 2007 federal election but a by now sceptical public (including the ‘Howard battlers’) saw through the charade.

There had been Liberal MPs such as Petro Georgiou (the federal member for Menzies old seat of Kooyong) who bravely spoke out against the mandatory detention of refugees. It is a pity that Liberal moderates such as Georgiou did not also publicly oppose the Howard government’s industrial relations agenda. To have done so would have been a re-affirmation of Menzies legal legacy (which was previously cited in this article) as a barrister as it was he who had secured a court decision which had activated the interstate powers of the Constitution and facilitated Australian industrial relations arbitration.

 The abandonment of arbitration was not to be the only fundamental point of departure of Howard with regard to betraying Menzies legacy. Howard betrayed the Menzies tradition with regard to states’ rights. In this regard, Howard was the ideological successor not to Menzies but to Gough Whitlam! It had been Whitlam’s grand plan to replace Australian states with regional governments. Howard’s pursuit of this agenda and his inability to control it is the key to understanding his seemingly improbable defeat in the November 2007 federal election.

Lemmings Over a Cliff: Howard’s End, 2007

There is a theory that Howard was taken with the notion that he could secure continued political security at a federal level if there were ALP state governments throughout Australia. The logic behind this assumption was that the electorate would always re-elect a federal coalition government as a counterbalance to ALP dominance at a state level. The fatal undermining of Liberal Party local branches through the denial of rank and file power certainly provided the scope for Liberal Party state HQs to potentially sabotage state election campaigns.

The March 2007 New South Wales election campaign is a very interesting point of analysis. New South Wales is Australia’s most populous state and an economic powerhouse. After twelve years in office, the ALP deserved to lose office in New South Wales due to economic mismanagement and glaringly apparent political fatigue. The  2007 New South Wales Liberal election campaign was mind bogglingly inept to the point that one could be forgiven for thinking that the Liberals deliberately lost the state election. 

(The conduct of the Liberal campaigns in the 1999 and 2002 Victorian state election campaigns also warrant investigation because patterns for the conduct of the respective New South Wales state and federal 2007 campaigns may have been set). 

If Howard thought that his power base, the New South Wales Right of the Liberal Party, had done him a favour by losing the 2007 state election, then he would have cause to think again. The bounce that Howard may have expected from his hosting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum of world leaders in September 2007 in Sydney was to be rudely shattered. During the hosting of this very important international event, a delegation of senior ministers met with Howard and called on him to resign!

The delegation consisted of Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, the Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews and Workplace and Employment Minister Joe Hockey (who represented Peter Costello). Two of the ministers (Hockey and Nelson) came from New South Wales but their representation to Howard had the backing of the New South Wales Right faction of the Liberal Party.

The official account of Howard’s fall maintains that Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, at Howard’s request, investigated the sentiment toward him in the federal parliamentary party room and found that consensus was for a leadership change. This in turn precipitated a federal delegation of senior Liberal parliamentarians meeting with Howard in September 2007 and asking him to resign in favour of Costello. This version holds that Howard refused to and that his respected position in the party compelled the delegation to reluctantly accept Howard’s decision.

Another scenario was that the delegation informed Howard that the federal parliamentary wing had withdrawn their support for him in favour of Costello. Howard was able to stave off being replaced by Costello due to the Treasurer’s refusal to accept the Prime Ministership. In return for this important concession from Costello, Howard publicly announced that he would stand down during the course of the next term if his government was returned and would support the Treasurer as his successor.

Costello’s decision not to depose Howard in September 2007 was shrewd. The Treasurer would have realized that he would not have had sufficient support within the Liberal Party to have won an election campaign as Prime Minister. Costello had revealed in July 2006 that he had made a secret agreement with Howard that he would step down as Prime Minister during the second term of a coalition government. This agreement (as previously cited) was witnessed Ian Mc Lachlan, who later served as Defence Minister.

If Costello’s revelation of the 1994 agreement was supposed to provide the impetus for a leadership challenge on his part against Howard, then it spectacularly fizzled. The response of the federal parliamentary wing in 2006 (including members of the September 2007 delegation) had been to rally to Howard. It did not take a rocket fuel scientist to realize that it was logical that those who had denied Costello in 2006 would also have denied him an election victory as Prime Minister in either late 2007 or early 2008.

The public Howard/Costello succession plan, made in the heat of an abortive leadership coup, could have provided them with the necessary latitude to have made necessary changes in state and federal Liberal Party HQs and gone to a federal election in March 2008. However, Mr. Costello made pre-emptive announcements both at the last September sitting of the federal parliament and at the official Australian Football Rules Grand Final Breakfast that there would be a November federal election. These announcements forced Howard to call a November election into which he went without the full support of his party.

Mr. Costello Stays Afloat as Howard Sinks

Mr. Costello may well have calculated that Howard was going down anyway and it was best to allow the man who had consistently thwarted him to sink politically.

Colossal mistakes which beggar belief were made during the October and November of the 2007 election campaign. A series of television and radio commercials were run reminding the electorate of previous interest rates rises under the ALP at the very time when the Reserve Bank of Australia had announced interest rate rises!

Remarkably, despite the ineptitude of the Liberal Party campaign, there was still a chance that Howard could still have won the 2007 election campaign due to a reservoir of good will toward him by parts of the electorate who had prospered under his governments. This scenario was blasted out of the water when, three days before the 24th of November federal election, seven Liberal campaign workers were caught handing out fake pamphlets endorsing the ALP on behalf of a non-existent Islamic extremist group.

Two of the apprehended campaign workers were Gary Clark and Gary Chijoff, the respective husbands of Jackie Kelly, the retiring member for the federal seat of Lindsay and Karen Chijoff, the Liberal candidate for that seat. Jackie Kelly had previously been Howard’s ‘golden girl’ by winning the apparently safe ALP seat of Lindsay in the 1996 election. Lindsay was in western Sydney which was a key battle ground between the ALP and the Liberals for the true believers/ Howard battlers.

Kelly’s previous electoral success had been an indicator that the Liberals were holding the crucial lower middle class swing vote. The impending loss of Lindsay had the knock-on psychological effect of determining the 2007 federal election in the ALP’s favour.

Howard’s shaken demeanour at a subsequent news conference on the eve of the federal election conveyed his despair that he knew he would not only lose the federal election but also his own seat of Bennelong to the prominent former ABC journalist and current affairs host, Maxine Mc Kew. The disappointment which Howard projected at his pre-election news conference contrasted with his composure on election night when he conceded that the coalition had indeed lost the election.  (Howard would also lose his seat of Bennelong to the ALP).

In making his concession, Howard in the ultimate of ironies called on Costello to assume the leadership of the Liberal Party! True to the perverse pattern of tragedy which characterised the political relationship between Howard and Costello, the latter declined.

These two major political figures will probably continue to spar as to which out of the two of them, can claim pre-eminent credit for the economic prosperity that Australia enjoyed after 2001, as reflected by the budget surpluses. (Costello can legitimately claim credit for fine tuning banking prudential controls in 2007 which were vital to Australia weathering the Global Financial Crisis).

Costello’s subsequent refusal to assume the leadership of the federal Liberals in opposition could have been derived from his realization that the underlying cause of Howard’s defeat remains in place: the reluctance of the New South Wales Liberal Party Right to win power at a federal level.

John Howard and the Whitlam Continuum

This reluctance could well reveal the mystery of why Howard lost the 2007 election. Howard was Australia’s second longest serving Prime Minister (after Menzies) and its second worst Prime Minister (after Whitlam). For all Howard’s ostensible admiration of Menzies, he ended up emulating Whitlam due to his determination to replace Australian states with regional governments and to consequently centralize power in Canberra.

Unfortunately for Howard, the New South Wales Right faction of the Liberal Party calculated that it would be in a stronger position to represent Liberal Party/non-ALP interests when the transition to a regionalist system of government is undertaken without there being a  federal coalition government in office. Consequently, the current Liberal Party leader, Malcolm Turnbull, will not be allowed to win the next federal election due to opposition by elements within the New South Wales Right of the Liberal Party. However, the New South Wales Liberals will undoubtedly win the 2011 state election due to the deplorable condition which the state is in, under the ALP.

An analysis of the Howard government’s key decisions shows that they all related back to the objective of centralizing power in Canberra. The revenue raised from the GST since its introduction in 2000 has been passed onto the states. However, a motion passed at the Queensland Nationals 2008 state conference called on GST revenue to be transferred onto local government. (Elements within the Queensland Nationals support regionalization). Such a policy outcome – that of diverting GST revenue from the states to future regional governments probably was the key motivation behind Howard introducing this tax in the first place.

The other area of policy which was driven by Howard’s centralization agenda was with regard to industrial relations. Work Choices was not only reprehensible because it undermined key democratic industrial rights but also because it terminated the inter-state sources of constitutional power that had underpinned the arbitration system.

The centralization of Australian industrial relations power through the use of the corporations’ power of the Australian Constitution has led to a situation which has rebounded on the proponents of Work Choices who wanted to crush employee rights. The corporations’ power is now the source of industrial power for Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s new Forward with Fairness (FWF) industrial legislation (which took effect in July 2009). As a result, a new and potentially very powerful industrial relations tribunal Fair Work Australia (FWA) has been created.

The FWA tribunal could be the determiner and enforcer of whether employers adhere to the FWF legislation’s requirement that EBA’s be negotiated in ‘good faith’ with unions and/or employees. A potentially de-unionising danger of having an all powerful ‘one shop’ industrial relations tribunal is that it could become a means by which employees by-pass unions with regard to fulfilling representative functions on their behalf. The FWF legislation could well spell the end of an arbitral approach to industrial relations and thereby fatally compromise union effectiveness.

The Howard government’s colossal mistake with regard to centralizing industrial relations by utilizing the corporations’ power of the Constitution may well be replicated by the Liberals and Nationals if they sell out Australian states by endorsing ‘regionalization’ (sic).

Predominately left wing industrial amalgamated unions will have a greater capacity to win control of future regions due to financial and industrial resources. Left wing dominance of regional governments will also be facilitated because of the extensive reach of left wing social movements. Their superior collectivist organisation will enable them to gain control of regional governments to utilize as patrimonial sources of control.

A Liberal Party endorsement of regionalization will constitute a massive betrayal of Menzies legacy. This is because Menzies’ great political achievement was to create a viable party which could actually represent the interests of its members and therefore often benefit society.  Contemporary Liberal Party power brokers and business tycoons (including media moguls) may believe that the power of corporations will both safeguard and advance their power within a regionalized Australia.  However as contemporary events in Venezuela under the Hugo Chavez regime are demonstrating, corporate business power cannot effectively counter an organised far left which is underpinned by access to patrimonial resources. 

The political ramifications of ‘regionalization’ (sic) will be such that the non-left elements of Australian society will be perpetually disadvantaged with regard to having their interests represented.  The ‘non-left components’ of Australian society also encompass the moderate elements of the ALP. Moderate Australian unionism was substantially undermined by the onset of the Marxist driven policy of union amalgamation in the 1990s. In a similar vein, social democrats within the ALP will not have the inclination or the resource capacity to run regional governments.

Moderate ALP members who initially become involved in regional governments will ultimately only be able to sustain their position by subordinating themselves to the SL of the ALP.  A potentially fatal consequence of ‘regionalization’ (sic) could be bringing out the worst within non-SL elements within the ALP in relation to pursuing an intensely patrimonial approach to politics as a form of compensation for their lack of ideological intensity. 

 Similarly a transition to a ‘regionalization’ could bring out the worst in the Liberal and National parties.  Liberal Party faction leaders within state branches might see apparent benefit in emasculating states to  accrue patronage at a new regional level of government.  Such an approach could well generate corruption and ultimately ensure that the Liberals go the way of the UAP.  Therefore if Malcolm Turnbull blocks regionalization he might go down  in history as one of the great Liberal Party leaders.

Murdoch’s  Australian:  Excessive Advocacy Journalism

The national newspaper, The Australian, as it did when it moved against Howard in 2007,  is now attempting to fatally undermine Turnbull and set the Liberal Party’s future leadership direction.  The Australian newspaper was founded by Rupert Murdoch in 1964 and has been used by him to influence, if not manipulate, Australain national politics and national directions.

 Murdoch fiirst gained an insight into the capacity of the print media to influence political outcomes as editor of his family owned newspaper The Adelaide Advertiser in the 1950s.  The Advertiser’s support for the fledgling South Australian branch of the DLP underwrote its viability.  As such, it was Murdoch who was effectively in a position to offer leadership of the South Australian DLP to an aspiring ALP politician named Don Dunstan.  (Dustan went onto serve as a successful ALP premier of South Australia in the 1960s and 1970s). 

At a national level, Murdoch first attempted to exercise political influence when The Australian in late 1967/early 1968, ran a campaign to make caretaker Prime Minister and Country Party leader John Mc Ewan prime minister on a permanent basis.  This desired scenario was never viable but it did strengthen the capacity of the Country Party to veto the ascension of Liberal Party Deputy Leader and Treasurer Billy (later Sir William Mc Mahon) to the prime ministership.

Mc Mahon did succeed to the prime ministership in March 1971 but Murdoch’s hostility toward him was such that the Murdoch press gave its support to Whitlam in the December 1972 election.  This support was crucial in influencing an inherently conservative electorate to take the plunge and elect the first ALP federal government in over a generation.  Sir William Mc Mahon, was an intelligent and conscientious man (who was always a monarchist) who never recovered from the ridicule to which he was unfairly subjected to by the Murdoch press.  Just prior to his death in 1988 Sir William suffered the ignominy of not been able to find a publisher for his memoirs.

Despite Murdoch’s role in supporting Whitlam’s rise to power the print press he controlled later became a vehment critic of the ALP federal government.  The Murdoch press might not have had the impact in undermining Whitlam that it had, had it not being for the excesses of his government. 

Since the Whitlam era, the Murdoch press has sought to influence political outcomes without aligning to one of the two major parties.  This is not reflective of a non-partisan approach to analysis but rather one in which the two parties are manipulated toward pursuing a common public policy agenda.   

The contemporary manifestation of Murdoch media bias influencing national politics is The Australian’s campaign against the states.  The 24/25th of October 2009 edition of The Weekend Australian had a special feature on the Northern Territory (NT). 

The political component of the Weekend Australian profile advanced the case that the NT self-government should be termintated and regionalization applied.  (The NT is a federal territory which comes under Commonwealth jurisdiction and was granted self-government in 1978).  Due to the NT’s constitutional vulnerability the previous Howard government,could had it been re-elected in 2007,  ended NT self-government as a precursor to applying regionalization on a nationwide basis.  As Machievelli observed political problems were akin to Tuberculous, easy to cure in the early stages, near impossible in the late stages.  For the sake of Australia’s future well-being it is vitally important that the NT never ever loses its self-government so that Australia will never ever know what  ‘regionalization’(sic) is, by having it subsequently applied on a nationwide basis.

 Other areas of focus currently being  undertaken by  The Australian to facilitate the evnetual emasulation of the states are: pressuring Prime Minister Rudd institute a federal takeover of publically owned hospitals from the states (which Howard was attempting in his last day in office) and calls for responsibility for infrastructure to be transferred from the states to the Commonwealth in order to cope with a projected population explosion.   

 The transfer of responsibility for infrastrucuture to the Commonwealth would be a vital component of endowing local government with a capacity to usurpe the role of the states.  Should this transfer occur there will be a massive enhancement of power on the part of SL  federal Minister for Infrastrure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, ( italacis added) Athony Albanese. 

Albanese has previously held senior positions within the New South Wales branch of the ALP and has close ties to the hard left of the Australian union movement.   Due to his political background and current portfolios Albanese is perfectly positioned to bring in ‘regionalization’ (sic) on terms that are advantageous to the hard Left. 

 The Business Council of Australia’s (BCA) call for an overhaul in infrastructure arrangements will ultimately and actually lead to a concerntration of left wing power in Australia.  The Australian and the BCA’s support for infrastructure ‘reform’ are reflective of the belief of the political right within corporate Australia that power can be exercised from on high.

 As Australian history has shown since the great strikes and Great Depression of the 1890s (which was worse than the 1930s Great Depression) Australian social stability has been protected by having intermediary instutions which safeguard the common and provide citizens with a capacity to independently and organically represent their interests.  For this reason the establishment of the Commission in 1907 far from being an ‘IR Club’ actually facilitated meaningful social democracy to those who might otherwise have been denied wage justice while also thwarting the emergence of Marxist controlled industrial unions that were interested in exercising political power within society on a democaratic (sic) centralist basis. 

                                                      Malcolm in the Middle

For the sake of Australian democracy both Rudd and Turnbull must withstand any future attempted political manipulatons by The Australian.  (Both political leaders, with regard to The Australian citing Newspoll findings, should remember Sir Joh Bjlke-Petersen’s dictum that the only poll that matters is the one on election day).   Already The Australian has effectively and unfairly undermined the political position of Turnbull’s capable deputy Julie Bishop.  No nation can be a real democracy (or ultimately maintain its political and economic independence)  if its political direction is  aligned to a pre-determined agenda set by a shadowy would be elite. 

 The current media destabilization campaign against Turnbull may have been precipitated by his rumoured attempts  to impose his authority on Liberal Party HQs.   If Turnbull does succeed in this endeavour it may not guarantee a Liberal Party victory at the next federal election, but will at the very least avoid a pre-ordianed defeat. 

Ironically the destabilization campaign against Turnbull entails a media campaign warning that the Liberals will lose a swag of seats if he leads the coalition into the next federal election.  This campaign is ironic because it is designed to remove a leader who could maintain Liberal Party independence and subsequently help avoid a repeat of the Victorian 2002 and New South Wales 2007 elections in which the Liberals went backwards. 

The Liberal Party’s future survival is predicated on it going into the next federal election with a leader who is actually in control of the party and sincerely dedicated to winning the election.  Such a scenario will, even if the Liberals lose the next federal election, ensure the party’s long-term survival by thwarting the policial dynamics orientating Australia toward ‘regionalization’ (sic).  In this context a Turnbull victory concerning the ETS,  regardless of  the scientific validity of climate change, could have very beneficial ramifications for the Liberal Party. 

The coalition’s Treasury Spokesman Joe Hockey would be a prize idiot if he was to take the Liberal Party’s federal leadership from Turnbull.  This is because Hockey would never have the requisite authority to win a federal election because he would be beholden to forces that do not want the Liberals to win the next federal election.  A political elimination of both Turnbull and Hockey could well pave the way for Tony Abbott (who has already publicly adopted an anti-states position) to become a future opposition leader and provide the necessary bi-partisan support  for a re-elected ALP federal government to bring in ‘regionalization’ (sic). 

Four Corners: Potentially Jeopardizing Australia’s Adoption of an ETS

The November 2009 edition of Channel 2’s Four Corners program hopefully will not have the impact of fatally undermining Turnbull’s political  prospects so that ‘regionalization’ (sic) can be introduced in the wake of a coalition defeat in the 2010 federal election.  The Four Corner November 2009 edition was ostensibly about coaliton sceptics within the federal coalition concerning global warming.  However the ramification of the program could be to undermine the coalition chances of winning the  2010 election by undercutting Turnbull’s authority to undertake good faith bargaining negotiations with the federal government in order to facilitate the passage through the Senate of an ETS.

It was disturbing that the day after the Four Corners program that the Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard gave a press conference in which she attempted to gain political mileage out of potential division within coalition ranks for an ETS.  If the government is serious and sincere about bringing in an ETS it should not attempt to undermine Turnbull’s position with regard to an issue of such national importance. 

Government good will should extend to Turnbull by delaying the passage of an ETS until the Copehagen Conference to be held at the end of 2009.  Such a concession would have the benefit of maximizing the chances of the passage of a well- designed ETS which could have positive economic and ecological impacts.  (Furthermore, such a concession is not beyond the realms of possibility because commencent of an ETS would be undertaken in 2011). 

A non-partisan approach to ETS legislation might  thwart the ALP’s  guaranteed re-election in 2010.  However such a concession  concession should be made in the national interest in relation to both the nation’s environmental interests and constitutional interests by cotinuing to have viable Australian states.  

If the ALP is to win re-election in 2010 let it be on the federal government’s merits as opposed to  sabotaging the coalition’s viability to the extent that ‘regionalization’ (sic) will come  in and fatally undermine Australia’s capacity to re-pay our public foreign debt.  Both Rudd and Turnbull are highly intelligent men who seemingly have the nation’s interests at heart.  The 2010 federal election promises to be one of great historical importance.  It would therefore be wonderful if our two national leaders posed a Disraeli/Gladestone ‘dilemma’ by presenting their respective visions for the nation instead of being manipulated by political forces that have a convert agenda.

The current destabilization campaign against Turnbull is ostensibly based on his support for an ETS.  I confess to having insufficient scientific knowledge concerning global warming.  However I am certain that the National Party’s opposition to an ETS  is not scientifically based.  Rather the Nationals’ opposition is politically motivated to ensure the later introduction of ‘regionalization’ (sic).(This political motivation is probably also shared by avowed climate sceptics in the federal parliamentary wing of the  Liberal Party). 

The Nationals are already promoting themselves as the champions of ‘regional’ Australia.  However ‘regional’ Australia will eventually become ‘patrimonial’ Australia.  The Nations’ endorsement of ‘regionalization’ (sic) is reflective of the fact that their vote is declining and that this party wants to extend its patronage reach to avoid political oblivion. 

 There are already nascent signs in South Australia of the Nationals moving toward a patrimonial approach with its lone state Member of Parliament (MP) holding the vital Water Ministry in coalition with an ALP  state government. (The Water Minstry is very important because water desalination plants are crucial to South Australia).  Hopefully a political future does not emerge in Australia in which SL -led ALP national governments can maintain a political dominance through dispensing patronage to regional governments which are based on various Liberal and National Party factions. 

 In essence Australia has been able since the population influx of the 1850s to maintain its economic viability and political freedom by there being a disconnect between political control and control of natural resources. The Australian colonies came to a cross-roads due to the massive immigration that arose from the 1850s gold rushes. 

Dominant pastoral intersts (‘the squiretocracy’) who had held economic power attempted to perpetuate their political power by utilizing the British Crown as a political tool for their own ends.  Very fortunately, the British Crown in the 1850s, instead became the lynchpin for the Australian colonies becoming Westminister parliamentary democracies with male universal sufferage.  (Australia was the second nation after New Zealand to grant female sufferage in 1902). 

The accumulated wisdom that came from nearly fifty years of  democracy (which was then ahead of its time) was crucial to the Australian colonies electing experienced and knowledgeable constitutional delegates to draft a democratic federal constitution that was approved by popular referendum in 1900.   The achievement of Australian federation was reflective of how the constitutional  links to the British Crown enabled Australians to devise a political system suited to their needs.  The democratic quality of the Australian Constution was also derived from the constitently transparent processes which were undertaken in drawing it up.

By contrast the contemporary moves to facilitate ‘regionalization’ (sic) are being underataken by stealth.  Duplicitously, some so-called Australian monarchists (including John Howard) are calling for the introduction of a so-called ‘Crowned Republic’ (sic).   The oxymoronic concept of a ‘Crowned Republic’ is one in which the constitutional link between the Australian Governor-General and the British Monarch would eventually be severed and the vice-regal representative  become a mere prime ministerial cipher.  A severance of the constitutional connection to the British Monarch will also fatally compromise the viability of the Australian Constitution by eliminating the carriage of constitutional conventions which come from the Crown. 

Contemporary calls for federal legislation to be passed to make the Governor-General Australian Head of State are the beginning of a process, unless stopped, will ultimately concerntrate power with with politicians at the expence of popular sovereignty.

Although Turnbull can never be converted away from his republicanism, he could at least ensure that Australia’s long standing political freedom is safeguarded by opposing regionalization and defending the integrity of his political party from political manipulation.  Because it is absurd to openly dispense with Australia’s excellent Constitution the strategy being pursued by Australia’s new aspiring elite is to quitely eliminate the checks and balances (often guranteed by state rights) which have protected the people’s freed. 

If Malcolm Turnbull is a genuine Australian patriot then he must fight for political transparency.  Standing up to those within his party who have covert agendas (such as ‘regionalization’) would demonstrate that Turnbull (even if he is a republican) is a worthy political leader. 

New South Wales: The Premier State?

The election of a New South Wales Liberal government in 2011 could be the point at which the regionalization process commences in earnest. The question which emerges is that if non-ALP interests within the regionalization process will be primarily represented by the New South Wales Liberal Right faction, who will represent the ALP’s interests? At the moment, it would appear to be the SL faction within the Rudd government led by Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard. (The Rudd government’s announcement that it intends to take control of public hospitals from the states could be an indication that prerequisites for regionalization are already being undertaken).

Even if the New South Wales Liberals win a landslide in the 2011 state election this may not ensure future Liberal dominance.  It should  not be forgotten that the Victorian ALP was routed in the 1992 state election with an expectation that the party would not return to office for a generation.  That the ALP won the 1999 Victorian state election was partly due to the very successful strategy of focusing on winning local government to facilitate party renewal.

Although the New South Wales state ALP are seemingly headed toward being pulverized at the 2011 state election the introduction of regionalization (sic) by a future state Liberal government could precipitate a an incredible stregthening of the left of the labour movement in that state.  Left-wing industrial amalgamated unions in industrial centres, such as New Castle,  could gain dominance of  a future regional government in that area.  Under scenarios such as these  the political power that moderate white collar unions have within the Westminister system of government would eventually evaporate.

Each time the politcal position of the leading member of the New South Wales ALP Right and former senior state minister John Della Bosca has been undercut has seen the SL strengthen in the state.  The undermining of Dellla Bosca’s political position in turn has created the scope for the SL to gain their ascendancy over the New South Wales ALP Right by eroding the state’s viability by transferring important state powers and responsibilites to Canberra.

The Rudd Ascendancy?

It should not be forgotten that Rudd’s ascension to the leadership was facilitated by majority support from the SL faction of the ALP. Julia Gillard had demonstrated great leadership skill in keeping Mark Latham’s inter-factional parliamentary support base together after his departure as ALP leader in 2005. Not only did Gillard hold the support of a majority of SL caucus members but she also made in roads into the moderate Labor Unity faction.

Gillard’s support base within Labor Unity was bolstered due to the support that she gave Simon Crean when it seemed he would lose ALP pre-selection for his federal seat of Hotham in 2005. Crean had served as ALP federal leader between 2001 and 2003. It looked as though Crean would lose pre-selection when senior members of his own Labor Unity faction (including Kim Beazley, who had returned to the ALP leadership in 2005) abandoned him. The former Labor leader unexpectantly won preselection by securing the support of regular ALP branch members.

The support that Gillard gave Crean could be replicated within the current federal government in relation to the SL exercising substantial influence (if not dominace) over the moderate wing of the ALP.  The recent decision (September 2009) by Prime Minister Rudd that printing and airline travel allowances for federal MPs would be curbed could lay the groundwork right wing MPs to link up with the SL to undermine Rudd.  

 There was nothing inherently wrong with the Deputy Prime Minister endorsing  the decision of an independent remuneration  tribuanal granting a three percent pay increase to federal politicians.  However the dissatisfaction that non-SL federal ALP MPs may feel regarding the curbs placed on printing and air travel allowances and Gillard’s implicit endorsement of the parliamentray pay increase  reinforce strategic links her and the Labor Unity faction. 

 A worst case scenario forAustralia would be that of the SL utilizing patronage to undermine a sense of critical direction and purpose on the part of their less ideolically formed associates in Labor Unity.  Whatever the future political ramifications of the recently annouced parliamentary pay increase federal MPs from both sides of politics could voluntarily forgo the increase.  Such an action would be more than a gesture to those who barely on less that $300 a week (such as pensioners) and could help ensure that Australian politics does not to move toward a patrimonial approach which regionalization (sic) would ultimately entail.  (Th massive level of foreign public debt and the fact that Australia is still ‘not out of the woods’ economically in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis makes it imperative that a patromonial approach to politics be avoided at all costs). 

With regard to Gillard’sprevious actions her support for Crean in 2005 was morally commendable but there was a pragmatic dividend for her in that the former leader was sufficiently respected within the ALP federal caucus for him to win over members from Beazley should a viable leadership alternative emerge. That alternative leader who eventually arose was Kevin Rudd.

The future Prime Minister was a former diplomat and a former senior official in an ALP Queensland state government. He had been elected to federal parliament in 1998. He had assumed the Foreign Affairs shadow portfolio in 2001 and drawn attention as an articulate, if at times verbose, parliamentary and media spokesman.

Rudd’s support base within the ALP federal caucus was initially small but he somehow managed to gain the committed support of some SDA parliamentarians. This in turn helped Rudd to expand his base in federal caucus to include members of the New South Wales ALP Right. Although Rudd’s support base within Labor Unity was a minority one, he had still broken into previously impregnable bastions within Beazley’s power base: the SDA and the New South Wales ALP Right.

The support that Rudd had garnered was sufficient enough that by December 2006 he was able to link up with Gillard supporters to depose Beazley. Although Gillard had more supporters within the ALP federal caucus, she cleverly supported Rudd who held the balance of power. Gillard’s support for Rudd was also shrewd because the earnestness he projected was very re-assuring to the public. Furthermore, as a Queenslander, Rudd offered the ALP the best hope of picking up seats in that crucial state. In essence, Rudd was the closest approximation to an ALP version of Howard who could win over swinging voters.

The fundamental question concerning Rudd is whether he (or Australia) will have to pay a price for his political alliance with Gillard. Deputy Prime Minister Gillard, who is Education Minister and Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, has virtually established a government within a government.

The Rudd-Gillard government is currently functioning very well. This effectiveness has been partly attributed by some political insiders to a Rudd/Gillard succession plan. Under this plan, Rudd – after securing the ALP a second term- will hand power over to Gillard and assume a prestigious international post. Such a scenario is viable because the Deputy Prime Minister’s intelligence and affability are sufficiently apparent that most Australians are now prepared to accept her as their first SL Prime Minister!

The Fork in the Road: Which Direction Mr. Rudd?

Regardless of Gillard’s leadership qualities, a caution must still be sounded with regard to her SL affiliation. Leaders of the SL faction of the ALP are dedicated to undertaking fundamental constitutional/structural reform via regionalization. Prominent federal Liberal MPs such as Tony Abbot have already challenged the need to retain viable Australian states. It is therefore plausible that Liberals such as Abbot could provide a future Gillard led government with the necessary bi-partisan support to bring in regionalization.

The recent public airing of rumours that the Prime Minister wanted to be a future Secretary-General of the United Nations may have put pay to the viability of Rudd assuming that diplomatic posting. However, for Rudd to step down in a possible future second term government would be dereliction of duty. Rudd may have initially assumed power on a transitional basis but the ramifications of either him-leaving office to allow regionalization to come in- would be disastrous. The reasons as to why are outlined below.

The outstanding achievements of the Howard-Costello era were paying off Australia’s public foreign debt and accumulating a massive surplus. It will never be known if Costello, holding office as either Prime Minister or Treasurer, could have deftly handled the Global Financial Crisis without plunging Australia into debt and deficit. This is a moot point due to its hypothetical nature but important in the context that Rudd and Swan are responsible for the high levels of foreign debt that have accrued.

Prime Minister Rudd’s deft handling of the Global Financial Crisis has confounded critics who had derided him as a spin doctor. The stimulus packages were manifestations of economic social action because their impact probably avoided the scourge of mass unemployment and generation of widespread poverty.

It is still an open question as to whether Australia will have capacity in the future to service the debt that has been accumulated and which now challenges Australia’s long term financial and political viability.  There may be senior SL federal ministers who promoted the stimulus packages as a means of indebting Australia  so that the viability of future regional governments will be dependant on foreign sources so that those in Australia with international connections will ultimately hold power.  In this context Ministers opposing measures to oppose foreign debt reduction should be treated with suspicion. 

The scenario which must be guarded against at all costs is that of federal and state governments of either party using the massive debt burden as a pretext to facilitate the formation of new regional governments in the place of states. Such a transition has its superficial attractions. For political hacks, regionalization could facilitate a centralization of power and the consolidation of their power at a local level. Foreign financial and political interests could well gain a point of entry as a funding source for future regional governments which would only serve to compound Australia’s foreign debt burden.

The role of federal and state governments is to be responsible to the people whose interests they are supposed to represent. There was a disturbing lack of transparency with regard to the Whitlam and Howard governments which threatened to fatally rupture the interests between the government and the governed. The economic stakes are too high for such a separation of interests to re-occur.

If Rudd is to avoid the scenario of his name (and that of his Treasurer Wayne Swan) being cursed by future generations of Australians then he must not betray the people’s interests. Australia has a wonderful existing system of federal government which was formulated for and by the Australian people. Any future move to use Australia’s massive level of foreign public debt as a pretext to introduce regionalization will constitute a massive betrayal of the Australian people by their political leaders.

The challenge of overcoming Australia’s public foreign debt is one that requires the highest calibre of political leadership. Peter Costello was possibly Australia’s greatest Treasurer. (The other prime candidates are Paul Keating and Sir William Mc Mahon, the latter served as Prime Minister from 1971 to 1972 and put up a sterling fight against Whitlam in the 1972 federal election campaign).

The Menzies Legacy: Worth Fighting For

Sir Robert Menzies was arguably Australia’s greatest Prime Minister and, if this accolade legitimately belongs to some else (Deakin, Curtin or Hawke), then Menzies can legitimately claim to be known as the nation’s most important political leader. This is because Menzies utilized his talents throughout his political career to safeguard Australia’s system of government, regardless of the personal cost to himself.

A prerequisite of Menzies’ outstanding leadership was his preparedness, similar to Sir Winston Churchill’s, of staying the distance by remaining in the political mud pool. In this context, for all his immense talents, Costello ultimately did not measure up to Menzies due to his reluctance to stay the course when his leadership was required. The question remains as to whether the same can and will be said of Kevin Rudd.

Dr. David Bennett is the Convenor of Historical and Current Affairs Analysis (HCAA), the Editor of Social Action Australia Pty Ltd and the International Liaison Officer of the Australian Monarchist League (AML). The interpretations and opinions expressed in this article are those of Dr. Bennett.

You are invited to a talk to be given by Keith Harvey entitled:

‘The Life and Times of John Peter Maynes’

Although not a well-known public figure, John Maynes was a central character on the anti-communist right of the Australian Labour movement for most of the second half of the 20th century. He was National President of the Federated Clerks Union for nearly 40 years and was a leading figure in the anti-Communist National Civic Council, second only to B A Santamaria.

A generation of post-war anti-communist trade union leaders is passing away. John Maynes died in April this year. The previous month, the Ironworkers’ Laurie Short died. Both men were active in the ALP Industrial Groups when they were established by the ALP in the immediate post-war period to fight communist influence and control over the ALP via affiliated trade unions.

Both men led teams who defeated communist control of their respective unions. When the ALP Industrial groups were disbanded and the party split, Short stayed in the ALP along with most ‘Groupers’ in NSW.

John Maynes and colleagues in a small number of unions in Victoria found themselves outside the ALP from the mid 1950s until the four Victorian unions re-affiliated with the ALP in the 1980s.

What led people like John Maynes to take up the fight against communist control in the union movement? What success did they have? What is their legacy to Australia, Australian unions, workers and society?

Keith Harvey worked in the National Office of the Clerks Union from 1979 until 1993. He was a member of the FCU Victorian Branch Executive from 1982 until 1988 during which time John Maynes was Branch [as well as National] President. Keith is the author of an article on John Maynes published in The Recorder, the journal of the Melbourne Branch of the Society for the Study of Labour History.

Venue -

Details of Keith’s talk are:
7:30 PM on Wednesday the 26th August at -
The Golden Triangle Restaurant
123 Park Street South Yarra
(Corner of Park Street and Domain Road)
Mel ways Reference Map 58 B2

By special arrangement with the Golden Triangle Restaurant the function room will be available for HCAA regulars to meet on the night from 6:30 PM onward.  Although refreshments will be served the restaurant’s management would be appreciative if guests purchased a drink and/or a meal.

RSVP:
Contacts (Listed in alphabetical order):
David Bennett   (03) 9898 3629
David Cowling   (03) 9584 6247
Klara Doroszlay   (03) 9889 6014
Jim Hewat   (03) 9306 4318
Andrew Knopfelmacher (03) 9529 7341
Tom Rigg    (03) 9366 6168

HCAA DVD Night

You are cordially invited to the next HCAA dinner in which a DVD of Philip Benwell’s October 2008 interview with Channel 31’s Visions Australia program will be played. Mr. Benwell is the National Chairman of the Australian Monarchist League (AML). The issues which he raised in his interview are very important because they provide a coherent and considered perspective of why Australia’s system of constitutional monarchy should be retained and the inherent dangers of shifting to a republic.

A fundamental purpose of HCAA is to be an independent forum in which guests can provide their own opinions on subjects raised by the speaker. Because this process is often interactive, guests have the opportunity to provide insights which enhance the quality of the meeting. As there will be no actual guest speaker on the night, there will be ample opportunity for discussion amongst the guests.

The DVD will be shown on

7:30 PM on Wednesday the 29^th of July

At: The Golden Triangle Restaurant

123 Park Street South Yarra

Corner of Park Street and Domain Road

(Mel ways Reference Map 58 B2)

By special arrangement with the Golden Triangle Restaurant, the function room will be available for HCAA guests to meet on the night from 6:30 pm onward. Although refreshments will be provided, the restaurant’s management would appreciate guests purchasing a drink and/or a meal.

RSVP: Monday the 27^th of July 2009 Email :- s.a.a.editor@gmail.com

Contacts (Listed in alphabetical order):

David Bennett (03) 9898 3629

David Cowling (03) 9584 6247

Klara Doroszlay (03) 9889 6014

Jim Hewat (03) 9306 4318

Andrew Knopfelmacher (03) 9529 7341

Tom Rigg (03) 9366 6168

]]> http://hcaa.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/hcaa-dvd-night/feed/ 0 hcaa http://hcaa.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/invitation-italy-%e2%80%93-from-monarchy-to-republic/ http://hcaa.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/invitation-italy-%e2%80%93-from-monarchy-to-republic/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:20:36 +0000 hcaa http://hcaa.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/invitation-italy-%e2%80%93-from-monarchy-to-republic/ ]]>

You are cordially invited to a talk to be given by David Bennett entitled ‘Italy – From Monarchy to Republic’. 

David is a key organiser of the HCAA talks and as such gives one talk each year.  As regulars to the HCAA talks would be aware David is a staunch monarchist and is the International Liaison Officer of the Australian Monarchist League (AML).  

The speaker’s belief in monarchy, while sentimental, is also based on the rational premise that constitutional monarchy provides the best system of government as a bulwark to protecting people’s rights against potential abuses by politicians.

David would like to share his knowledge and interpretation of modern Italian history to advance his belief a transition to a democratic constitutional monarchy under King Umberto II and Queen Maria Jose would have been possible in Italy had the June 1946 referendum that abolished the monarchy not been engineered.

Japan and Spain stand out as examples of constitutional monarchies which have fulfilled an invaluable role in facilitating and maintaining democracy despite previous controversy of having been associated with dictatorship.

Italy is now in a transition phase of adapting to a two party political system.  In this context historic justice demands that the role of Italy’s monarchy be analysed so that the missed opportunities and abuses of power which subsequently arose from its abolition are highlighted.  There will be ample opportunity to ask questions and/or make comment at the end of David’s talk.  

David’s talk will be held:

            7:30 PM on Wednesday the Ist of July at:
            The Golden Triangle Restaurant
            123 Park Street South Yarra
            Corner of Park Street and Domain Road
            (Mel ways Reference Map 58 B2)

By special arrangement with the Golden Triangle Restaurant the function room will be available for HCAA regulars to meet on the night from 6:30 PM onward.  Although refreshments will be served the restaurant’s management would be appreciative if guests purchased a drink and/or a meal.

RSVP: Monday the 29th of June 2009
Contacts (Listed in alphabetical order):
      David Bennett   (03) 9898 3629 s.a.a.editor@gmail.com
      David Cowling   (03) 9584 6247
      Klara Doroszlay   (03) 9889 6014
      Jim Hewat   (03) 9306 4318
      Andrew Knopfelmacher (03) 9529 7341
      Tom Rigg    (03) 9366 6168

You are cordially invited to a talk to be given by Mr. Andrew Knopfelmacher entitled ‘The Political Thought of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’. Andrew is a regular at the Historical and Current Affairs (HCAA) talks. He has previously given a talk on his late father’s (Dr. Frank Knopfelmacher) life-long struggle against totalitarianism. Andrew has given a talk to HCAA on totalitarianism.

HCAA is therefore very honoured that Andrew will give a talk on a true giant of the twentieth century and a heroic opponent of totalitarianism, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008). Andrew has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Eastern and Central European émigrés, writers, political leaders and their contribution to resisting totalitarianism.

The speaker will argue that Solzhenitsyn’s importance cannot be overstated because he defied the very source of communist totalitarianism, the USSR at the height of its Marxist dictatorship. It is often overlooked that Solzhenitsyn’s courageous stance was not always universally admired in the West. So-called liberals such as the American writer Arthur Schlesinger (1917- 2008) attacked Solzhenitsyn’s anti-communism.

Note: New Venue -

Andrew’s talk will be held:

7:30 PM on Wednesday the 27th of May at:

The Golden Triangle Restaurant

123 Park Street South Yarra

(Corner of Park Street and Domain Road)

Mel ways Reference Map 58 B2

By special arrangement with the Golden Triangle Restaurant the function room will be available for HCAA regulars to meet on the night from 6:30 PM onward. Although refreshments will be served the restaurant’s management would be appreciative if guests purchased a drink and/or a meal.

Although communism has collapsed, the nihilism which gave rise to it still remains. Andrew will therefore draw attention to how and why Solzhenitsyn’s contribution to opposing the evils of totalitarianism remains relevant.

RSVP: Monday the 25th of May 2009

Contacts (Listed in alphabetical order):

David Bennett (03) 9898 3629

David Cowling (03) 9584 6247

Klara Doroszlay (03) 9889 6014

Jim Hewat (03) 9306 4318

Andrew Knopfelmacher (03) 9529 7341

Tom Rigg (03) 9366 6168

You are cordially invited to the Bayside Monarchists’ dinner celebrating Elizabeth II’s official Australian birthday on Saturday the 6th of June 2009.  Bayside Monarchists’ Chairman David Cowling will give a talk entitled ‘Elizabeth II: Australia’s Head of State’.

Bayside Monarchists as a genuine Australian monarchist organisation is determined that our Queen is honoured as Australia’s Head of State.  As Australia’s Head of State, Queen Elizabeth II has underwritten the ultimate independence of Australian vice-regal representatives, the viability of Australian states and of the Australian Constitution.

Furthermore there is a need to remain vigilant against so-called Australian monarchists denying the Queen’s role as Australian Head of State so that they can eventually re-configure as ‘conservative republicans’ to help overhaul Australia’s constitutional structure.

Her Majesty’s birthday function will be held:

7:30 PM on Saturday the 6th of June at

The Golden Triangle Restaurant

123 Park Street South Yarra

(Corner of Park Street and Domain Road)

Mel ways Reference Map 58 B2

In this relatively quiet time it is imperative that genuine Australian monarchists meet to co-ordinate a defence of our constitutional liberty.  There can be no more appropriate occasion on which monarchists can meet to recognize and proudly proclaim as unique to Australian justice, our system of constitutional monarchy, than Elizabeth II’s official Australian birthday.

The cost of the banquet is $32 per head (or $35 including corkage for those utilising the BYO facilities). Cheques should be made out to Bayside Monarchists and mailed by Monday June 1st to:

Bayside Monarchists

PO Box 2064

Moorabbin Vic, 3189.

Those who wish to have an al carte meal instead of the banquet are asked to advise one of the contacts listed below by Monday, June 1st.

Contacts (Listed in alphabetical order):

David Bennett (03) 9898 3629
David Cowling (03) 9584 6247
Klara Doroszlay (03) 9889 6014
Andrew Knopfelmacher (03) 9529 7341

You are cordially invited to a talk to be given by Mr. Jonathan Grigg of Investors Mutual (IML) and Mr. James Dunn, freelance finance journalist and consultant to IML, entitled “After Sub-Prime and Stimulus: Where to From Here?”

The talk will take us through the historical background of the stockmarket crash of 2007-2009 and the subsequent near-death experience of the global financial system, the response of governments and central banks, the far reaching economic effects and the implications of a changed financial and economic world for Australian investors.

Jonathan’s and James’ talk will be held-

At 7:30 PM on Wednesday the 29^th of April 2009

At The Imperial Hotel

(Corner of Bourke Street and Spring Street)

Mel ways Ref Map 1 E Q 8

As with regular HCAA talks, the hotel management would be appreciative if guests availed themselves of the opportunity to purchase a meal and/or drinks.  By special arrangement with the Imperial Hotel, HCAA guests will be able to order a meal which will be served in the upstairs function room between 6:00 PM and 7:00PM.  The talk, which will be held in the upstairs function room, can be entered by using the stairs opposite the Bourke Street entrance.

Both speakers are eminently qualified to provide an insight into the current Global Financial Crisis.  Jonathan is the State Manager (Victoria and Tasmania) of IML, which he joined in 2001.  This speaker holds a Bachelor of Economics degree, with a Major in Accounting and Finance, from Monash University and has completed a Graduate Certificate in Financial Planning from the Securities Institute. Before joining Investors Mutual, Jonathan worked in the Banking and Financial Services Sector for more than 10 years. 

James Dunn is a freelance journalist and media consultant.  He writes for the Weekend Australian and the Sunday Mail and gives a daily sharemarket report on Radio 3AW, Melbourne.  Born and raised in Ararat, western Victoria, James graduated from the University of Melbourne as Bachelor of Letters and Bachelor of Arts. 

James was founding editor of Shares magazine, and oversaw one of the most successful magazine launches in Australia.  He has also written for BRW, Personal Investor, The Age, Management Today, and was subsequently personal investment editor at The Australian.  On television, he has appeared on The Panel, Four Corners and Today Tonight and is a regular commentator on SBS News and Sky News. 

His first book, Share Investing for Dummies, was published in September 2002.  In 1984 James won two BMWs on Sale of the Century.  Selling the cars financed a year of overseas travel and also a share portfolio – which did not survive the 1987 crash, the event that inspired James to become a finance journalist.

At this time of grave financial uncertainty the guest speakers can provide a perspective of how the current financial crisis arose and what its possible consequences could be.  Due to the importance of this topic there will also be ample opportunity to ask questions and/or make comment at the conclusion of the speakers’ talks. 

RSVP:  Monday the 27th of April 2009

Contacts (Listed in alphabetical order):

David Bennett (03) 9898 3629

David Cowling (03) 9584 6247

Klara Doroszlay (03) 9889 6014

Jim Hewat             (03) 9306 4318

Andrew Knopfelmacher            (03) 9529 7341

Tom Rigg                 (03) 9366 6168

The release in late 2008 of Ron Howard’s well directed but cleverly biased anti-Nixon film Frost Nixon is testament to the on-going campaign to ensure that President Nixon is unfairly vilified. The purpose of this article by Dr. David Bennett is to provide a broader historical context in which to analyse Richard Nixon’s political life and highlight his very important historical achievements

RN’s Historical Linkage to Woodrow Wilson

Richard Nixon (RN) had a keen sense of history, particularly with regard to American presidential history. It was therefore ironic that he ended up emulating his political hero, President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921). RN’s admiration of Wilson was ironic not only because Wilson was a Democrat (RN was a staunch Republican) but also because Wilson’s historical legacy would also be later redeemed by his successors adopting his internationalist principles and ideals. In the case of Wilson, these ideals and principles were redeemed by the United States engaging in international affairs to promote democracy by entering World War II (1941).

The United States entry into World War I in 1917 ensured the victory of the Entente (led by Britain and France) over the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey) in 1918. The hope that democracy and self-determination in Europe would immediately result from Allied victory was a forlorn one due to the disconnect between President Wilson’s idealism and a continuing sense of Realpolitik and short sightedness on the part of the recently victorious Entente.

Such short sightedness was also manifested by British Prime Minister Lloyd George’s (1916-1922) refusal to intervene in the Russian Civil War (1918 to 1920) to assist the Whites against the Communists. The ensuing communist victory resulted in the emergence of a new anti-democratic force in the world which could have engulfed Europe had it not being for the amazing Polish victory in the Battle of Warsaw in 1920.

That the principle of self-determination which Wilson held dear would not be consistently adhered to was apparent from the Treaty of Trianon (1920) which deprived Hungary (which had only gained full independence in 1918) of two-thirds of her territory and population. This treaty was drawn up without any regard for the rights of Hungarians who lived in the territories which were awarded to the successor states.

The precedent of re-drawing national boundaries according to the interests of victorious powers at the expense of desires for national self-determination was set by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. This treaty did have its beneficial aspects in that the interests of previously suppressed peoples, such as the Italians and Poles, were redressed. However the refusal to accredit Burmese, Egyptian and Vietnamese delegations to the Versailles Conference was reflective of the predominance of Anglo-French interests.

The Disastrous Consequences of American Isolationism

The greatest tragedy of the Versailles Conference was that a golden opportunity to bring in a new democratic world order was discarded and the groundwork for the outbreak of World War II in 1939 was thereby set. An immediate negative consequence of the Versailles Conference was that the political career of the courageous leader of the German conference delegation, Matthias Erzberger, was destroyed. (Erzberger, who was later assassinated, had reluctantly accepted the abolition of the German monarchy in 1918 on the basis that a German republic would receive more favourable treatment as part of a post-war democratic world order).

The bloody mindedness of Lloyd George (1916-1922) and the French Prime Minister George Clemenceau’s (1917 -1920) determination to punish Germany was an affront to Wilson who had risked his political career to take the United States into the war to help bring about a new world order. The only substantial concession which was granted to President Wilson was establishment of the League of Nations.

The League was envisaged by Wilson as a multilateral organisation which would conduct international affairs on a transparent basis according to the international rule of law. However, the British and French cynically used the establishment of the League to legitimize their control over new territories in the Middle East which they had gained from the previous Ottoman Empire on the basis that they were League of Nations ‘mandates’ as opposed to being new colonial territories.

The capacity of the League to mature from being a victor’s club to being a genuine multilateral force for international good as envisaged by President Wilson was tragically undermined by the refusal of the American Congress to ratify the United States admission to the League. This refusal resulted from the rise of isolationism in the United States due to Wilson’s failure to rein in the British and French at the Versailles Conference.

The failure of President Wilson’s foreign policy helped lead to a negative domestic reaction which resulted in the successive election of the administrations of Warren G Harding, John C Coolidge and Herbert C Hoover between 1921 and 1933. These three failed Republican administrations reflected the American people’s desire for an isolationist foreign policy and minimalist government in domestic and economic affairs.

The New Deal

The inadequacy of a laissez faire approach to economic affairs during this period was borne out by the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. The resulting election of Franklin D Roosevelt (FDR) to the presidency in 1932 was the beginning of the rehabilitation of Wilson’s historical legacy. FDR had been the undersecretary of the navy in the Wilson administration. The policies which FDR pursued to alleviate the ill-effects of the Great Depression during his administration (1933-1945) were known as the New Deal.

New Deal programs were essentially government activist policies aimed at stimulating employment growth or at the very least providing social services for a substantial proportion of the population which was threatened with destitution. The New Deal era was one characterised by idealism in which government bureaucrats (including a young RN) worked for relatively low salaries. The New Deal did not get the United States out of Depression as this came with the stimulus in war production which resulted from the United State’s entry into World War II in 1941. In the interim however the New Deal helped sustain the United States on a socio-economic basis.

The political ramifications of the New Deal were profound because an electoral coalition was assembled in the 1930s which ranged from negroes to southern conservative whites who gave their allegiance to the Democratic Party. Roosevelt was accordingly re-elected president in 1936 with the highest vote which had been achieved to date. FDR’s prestige was such that in 1940 he was able to break the precedent established by President George Washington that a president only serve to two terms by successfully seeking a third term.

World War II: The United States Breaks with Isolationism

For all FDR’s prestige, he was not able to overcome the predominant isolationism of the American people until the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941. Indeed, the President would have been hard pressed to have gained congressional approval for a Declaration of War against Germany had Hitler not pre-emptively declared war on the United States.

Just as the American public had united behind President Roosevelt to support his domestic policies they similarly rallied to support the war effort. The Republican Party did not make the mistake of again falling behind the times by continuing with its traditional post World War I isolationism. This was evidenced by the 1944 nomination of New York Governor and staunch internationalist Thomas E Dewey as the Republican presidential candidate.

Dewey’s nomination was due to the support of the most successful Republican politician during the New Deal era, the Italian American Mayor of New York (1933 to 1945), Fiorello La Guardia. La Guardia was a staunch opponent of Mussolini’s fascist Italian regime and a vocal critic of Hitler’s anti-Semitism after his rise to power in 1933. Because of La Guardia’s support key New Deal constituencies of Jewish and Italian votes transferred to elect the Republican candidate, Thomas E Dewey as New York Governor in 1942.

Dewey’s election was the first key defection of New Deal bloc votes to the Republican Party which raised the prospect of the Republicans eventually returning to power. This prospect was seemingly bolstered when the Republicans won the 1946 congressional elections. The potential shift to the Republicans was due to public wariness that President Harry S Truman was not up to the task of being president following his ascension to office on the death of President Roosevelt in April 1945.

The United States and the Cold War

Truman, however was to be one of the great presidents of the twentieth century. In contrast to FDR, who as a carry over from the Versailles Conference, had an irrational fear of continuing British imperial designs, Truman followed Winston Churchill’s counsel, that with the demise of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union now threatened the world. Had President Truman not heeded the warning that Churchill gave in his famous 1946 ‘Iron Curtain’ speech in Fulton Missouri, then the United States may well have relapsed into isolationism.

Such a relapse may have been fatal because in all likelihood Soviet backed communism would have emerged as the dominant force in the world. Truman’s commitment to oppose communist totalitarianism was initially manifested by the unveiling of the Truman Doctrine in 1947 in which military aid was sent to Greece and Turkey. The formulation of the Marshall Plan in 1947 also provided crucial economic aid without which Western Europe may have succumbed to communism. These important policy initiatives received crucial bi-partisan support.

Although Truman had gained crucial Republican support in foreign affairs, this did not dampen the Republican Party’s desire to return to power. In the 1948 presidential election, Dewey again ran as the Republican Party presidential standard bearer but this time on a widespread assumption that he would inevitably win. President Truman’s chances of winning election were seemingly further undercut by an apparent break up of the New Deal coalition.

The split in the New Deal coalition was manifested by the respective presidential candidacies of the Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond representing southern conservative whites and of former Vice-President Henry A Wallace of the newly formed left-wing Progressive Party. It was very fortunate that FDR removed Wallace as his running mate in 1944 because his ludicrously naïve attitude toward the Soviet Union probably would have allowed the Soviets to have gained control of all of Europe in the immediate post-war period. For all of Henry Wallace’s initial naiveté he would later become a staunch anti-communist and he endorsed RN’s 1960 presidential candidacy. Furthermore, it should also be mentioned that Wallace was a staunch anti-racist who was ahead of his time by taking a principled stand against racial segregation.

President Truman won his re-election due to his amazingly energetic and famous ‘whistle stop’ train tour in which he reached out to millions of Americans. The crux of the president’s message was that the Republican Congress, elected in 1946, was a ‘do-nothing Congress’ and as such the Republican victory would result in the New Deal legacy being dismantled. Public wariness with regard to letting go of the New Deal was such that President Truman won the greatest upset election victory in American history and a Democratic Congress was returned.

The Republican Party’s Resurgence

Despite President Truman’s incredible 1948 victory his capacity to win re-election in 1952 was fatally undermined by political decomposition within his administration. However, Dewey’s 1948 defeat was a warning to the Republicans that they could not take victory in 1952 for granted. In fact, the Republicans faced probable defeat in the 1952 presidential race because the front runner for the Republican presidential nomination was Senator Robert A Taft of Ohio. Taft had been the principal opponent of the New Deal and was a strident isolationist.

Dewey was able to thwart Taft’s presidential party nomination by drafting the immensely popular former Allied Supreme Commander, General D Eisenhower, as the 1952 Republican presidential nominee. To placate the Taft old guard, Dewey helped engineer RN’s selection as the Republican vice-presidential nominee. Although much of Taft’s base was isolationist, it was still anti-communist and RN’s selection therefore helped mollify Taft supporters. Furthermore, because RN was gaining a reputation as a Republican Party stalwart, his selection helped endow the ticket with a degree of needed partisan support from party regulars.

Even before his 1952 vice-presidential selection, RN had made an impact on national politics as a congressman during the Alger Hiss case and for the publicity concerning his acrimonious but successful run for the Senate in 1950. The attributes of courage and tenacity which RN demonstrated up until his 1952 selection would be in abundance throughout his subsequent political career as vice-president, president and the periods in between and after. To gain insight into the character as RN, it is necessary to review his early life and rise to political prominence.

RN’s Early Life

Richard Milhouse Nixon was born in January 1913 in Yorba Linda, southern California. RN was the son of Hannah Nixon (nee Milhouse) and Frank Nixon. His mother Hannah was a Quaker and his father Frank (who converted to Quakerism) ran a lemon orchard in Yorba Linda before moving his family in 1922 to Whittier, California, to run a grocery store. In his painful August 1974 farewell speech as president, RN made reference to his father’s struggles as a small businessman. A particularly poignant aspect of RN’s farewell speech was his tribute to his mother’s kindness in nursing his twenty four year old brother Harold who died (in 1934) from tuberculosis. RN also spoke of how his mother deeply mourned the two boys that she was paid to nurse after they too died from tuberculosis.

The Nixon family usually voted Republican due to their Quakerism and admiration of President Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865), although Frank’s voting patterns varied. (Quakers up until the American Civil War stood out for their opposition to slavery. Furthermore, American blacks up until 1932, if they were not prevented from exercising their democratic franchise, tended to vote Republican). RN’s parents, however, voted for FDR’s re-election in 1936.

Up until the United State’s entry into World War II in 1941, RN’s major political conviction was his strong detestation of Adolf Hitler. Illogically, RN voted for the Republican presidential nominee in the 1940 election, the isolationist Wendell Wilkie. RN admired FDR but voted for Wilkie on the basis that a president should not breach the then convention that presidents not serve more than two terms. (The American Constitution was amended in 1951 to ensure that presidents can only serve a maximum of two terms).

RN as a young man was hard working both as a student and in assisting with the family grocery. A top achieving High School student, RN was admitted to Whittier College in 1930. In 1934 he went to Duke Law School on a scholarship and graduated in 1937, near the top of his class. (RN had also shown potential as a promising musician).The young lawyer worked in private law practice until he moved to Washington D.C. in January 1942 to take up a bureaucratic position with the Office of Price Administration (OPA) which was charged with combating inflation and consumer shortages.

RN Serves in World War II

Although RN as a Quaker was exempt from military service, he joined the navy in May 1942 and after undertaking administrative duties in the Pacific islands of New Caledonia and Bougainville, saw military action in the Green Island campaign of April 1944. During his time in the navy, Nixon unwound by playing poker. An astute poker player, RN reputedly not only made a considerable amount of money but also gained a psychological insight into people. RN observed that those who did the most talking were bluffing because they had a weak hand. In his 1971 State of the Union Address, RN used a poker analogy to explain his historic decision to take the US dollar off the gold standard.

Before being discharged from the military, RN received a wire in October 1945 from a Whittier businessman and family friend, Herman Perry, enquiring if he would like to stand as a Republican congressional candidate in the 1946 elections. RN’s eventual decision to run had the support of his wife Pat.

Pat Nixon

Pat Nixon, nee Ryan (who changed her first name from Thelma to Patricia) was a stalwart supporter of her husband and it is possible that RN might not have endured the ups and downs of his public life without his wife’s support. RN and Pat met in January 1938 and after more than two years of courtship by RN; they were married in June 1940.

The couple had two daughters Patricia and Julie who were born respectively in 1946 and 1948. Julie Nixon married David Eisenhower (the grandson of Dwight Eisenhower) in 1968 and Patricia married Edward Cox in 1971. The support that RN received from his family, particularly during the Watergate trauma, would be impressive and moving. Pat’s devotion to her husband was manifested when she helped him rally following a near fatal thrombosis attack in October 1974. RN in turn provided devoted support for his wife after she was partially paralysed by a stroke in July 1976.

RN was incorrect when he lamented in his 1978 memoirs that his wife’s achievements would be forgotten in the wake of his departure from office. According to Gallop opinion polls, even after her husband’s resignation, Pat Nixon remained one of the most admired first ladies in American history despite the fact that she did not crave either publicity or public acclaim. The depth of feeling toward Pat Nixon was demonstrated by the tumultuous reception she received when she addressed the Republican National Convention in Miami in August 1972. While political couples often flaunt their affection for each other for public consumption, no one could plausibly deny the depth of Pat and RN’s love and commitment to each other. Within a year of Pat’s death in June 1993, (she had suffered another stroke in 1983), RN died in April 1994.

RN’s Political Career Begins

The turbulent public career which lay before RN can be dated from his endorsement in April 1946 from the Committee of 100. This committee was made up of one hundred California local businessmen and their endorsement was crucial to RN winning the June 1946 primary to be the Republican congressional candidate. RN was able to win the Committee’s endorsement by articulating his perspective that it was time to move beyond the maintenance of war-time controls and that a free market economy would be the driver of post-war prosperity. RN’s victory over Democrat New Deal congressman of ten years, Jerry Voorhis, was due partly because of his debating skills and because of the immediate post-war swing to the Republicans in 1946.

As a freshman congressman, RN distinguished himself from the isolationists in Republican congressional ranks who had been part of the America First Movement. RN did this in 1947 by resisting strong pressure not to vote for military aid to Greece and Turkey and by voting to appropriate funds for the Marshall Plan.

RN’s resolution to support American involvement abroad had been bolstered by his 1947 tour of Western Europe. In Greece (which underwent a civil war between 1946 and 1949) RN came face to face with victims of communist abuses of human rights. RN was also disturbed by the emerging pro-communist political culture in Italy and his visits to Britain and France led him to the conclusion that these two exhausted nations lacked the resources to withstand the communist threat in Europe.

The Alger Hiss Affair

RN began to make his name both as an anti-communist and as an up and coming Republican leader because of his central involvement in the Alger Hiss affair. In hearings in August 1948 before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), a senior editor with Time magazine Whittaker Chambers alleged that he had once belonged to a communist spy ring in the 1930s along with Alger Hiss. Hiss had been a senior official with the State Department, had been an aide of FDR’s at the February 1945 Yalta Conference of Allied leaders and had been one of the organisers of the June 1945 San Francisco Conference at which the United Nations was launched.

The suave Hiss appeared before the HUAC to deny that he had ever been a communist or that he had ever known Chambers. Hiss came across as the more credible witness rather than the dishevelled Chambers and there was pressure on the HUAC, to discard Chamber’s testimony. However, RN instinctively believed Chambers and through his incisive cross examination of Hiss before the HUAC RN was able to show that Hiss had known Chambers. Despite having exposed Hiss as a liar, RN was taken back by the Justice Department’s reluctance to charge Hiss with perjury.

Wearing a mantle of innocence, Hiss challenged Chambers to repeat his allegations in public so that they could be contested in a court of law. In the pre-trial exchange of papers, Chambers alleged that he had incriminating rolls of micro-film of State Department papers (‘the Pumpkin Papers’) passed onto him by Hiss in the 1930s which were on his farm in hollowed out pumpkins. Scientific testing indicated that these documents had been typed on Mrs. Hiss’s type writer and that the hand-written annotated comments on them came from Hiss.

The retrieval of the pumpkin papers led to a Grand Jury in the libel case to vote to indict Hiss as opposed to charges being laid by the pro- New Deal Justice Department. Furthermore, due to a statute of limitations, Hiss was tried for perjury, as opposed to espionage. In January 1950, Hiss was found guilty and sentenced to five years imprisonment. (Following Hiss’s death in 1996, Soviet archival material was released which confirmed that he had been a Soviet spy who had operated under the alias of ‘Ales’).

As Alger Hiss’s chief antagonist during the congressional hearings RN, had been negatively portrayed by the press which generally sympathised with Hiss who subliminally represented the New Deal legacy. Ironically the HUAC’s success in helping expose Hiss laid the groundwork for Senator Joseph, ‘Joe’, Mc Carthy, to discredit the anti-communist cause by making unsubstantiated allegations in the 1950s of high levels communist infiltration. The disrepute which Mc Carthy generated is still to be fully expunged as wariness of anti-communist vigilance in the 1950s is now caricatured as paranoia.

Although Chambers must be accorded chief credit for exposing Hiss, he could not have prevailed without RN’s support. The national exposure which RN gained from the Alger Hiss Affair provided him with the momentum to run for a national Senate seat representing his home state of California in 1950. The publicity that arose from RN’s successful run for Senate, much of it fuelled by a hostile press, would help lay the groundwork for his vice-presidential nomination in 1952.

RN Gains a National Profile

RN’s Senate campaign was coloured by the ferocity of his competition with his Democratic opponent Helen Douglas. She was a three term congresswoman and a strong New Deal supporter. As a Democrat, Douglas had strongly supported the United State’s commitment to winning World War II. While isolationism was not a problem within the Democratic Party during the struggle against Nazi Germany and militarist Japan, a division amongst Democrats arose in the immediate post-war period as to what the appropriate attitude should be toward the Soviet Union.

Douglas was a Democrat who was initially prepared to give the Soviet Union the benefit of the doubt and this was reflected by her 1947 vote against sending military aid to Greece and Turkey. While Douglas was to shift to an anti-communist stance, she took the strange and untenable position of maintaining that RN was soft on communism!

To bolster her anti-communist bona fides, Douglas took the amazing step of refusing campaign support from the then president of the Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG), Ronald Reagan! Even though Reagan had taken a strong stand against communism as SAG president and had enunciated his anti-communism before the HUAC, the Douglas campaign was wary that Reagan’s reputation as a ‘New Dealer’ would hinder their candidate’s attempts to recast herself.

The exclusion of Reagan from the Douglas campaign was the first step in bringing the man into the Republican camp who would in turn eventually bring over millions of one-time Democrats to the Republican side. A scorned Reagan therefore campaigned for RN during the 1950 Senate race and he would support the three succeeding Republican national tickets and became a registered Republican in 1962. In the light of the tribulations which were to later come in RN’s political life, Reagan’s cross-over to the Republican side had profound ramifications.

Eisenhower’s Running Mate

As previously mentioned RN was selected as Eisenhower’s running mate. The 1952 presidential race was noteworthy because there was a prospect of electing a Republican president for the first time in twenty years. Eisenhower, however, had little sentimental attachment to the Republican Party. It was Eisenhower’s ambiguous feelings toward his adopted party and general contempt toward professional politicians which probably underpinned his ambivalent attitude toward RN as his running mate. This ambivalence became apparent during the so-called fund crisis which emerged during the 1952 presidential campaign.

The fund crisis arose from the revelation that RN had a campaign fund which was financed by California businessmen. Such a fund was legitimate so long as it was only used for campaign purposes and no convincing evidence was ever produced that this was not the case. However, a campaign was initiated in the press which cast aspersions about the fund and intimated that RN was corrupt. Had Eisenhower given way to pressure to drop RN, than the Republican presidential campaign may well have unravelled.

That Eisenhower did not drop his running mate from the ticket was not due to internal fortitude on his part but the tenacity of RN. During the fund crisis, Eisenhower intimated to RN that he should withdraw from the ticket. RN responded with a televised address (which was paid for by the Republican National Committee, the RNC) which became known as the ‘checkers speech’. In this speech, in which Pat sat with her husband, RN conceded that the only personal gain that his family had made from his political activities was the acquisition of a dog called ‘Checkers’ which had been donated by a supporter and that he intended to keep for his daughters.

The chequers speech resulted in an avalanche of telegrams and phone calls to the RNC which compelled Eisenhower to keep RN on the ticket. Although the Democrat presidential candidate, Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson was unable to match Eisenhower’s popularity he did establish himself as the guardian of the New Deal legacy which would result in him being re-nominated in 1956. Stevenson, was able to secure his political base because of his intense partisan attacks on RN during the 1952 campaign.

RN as Vice-President

RN’s political legacy as vice-president (1953 to 1961) was to transform this previously relatively unimportant political position (unless one succeeded to the presidency due to unforseen circumstances) into the second most important position in American politics. This was achieved by RN filling in for the much older Eisenhower during periods of presidential ill-health and by undertaking official, and at times, dangerous overseas trips.

Another important reason why the role of vice-president was transformed was due to the impact of having a partisan vice-president, such as RN, serving with an essentially non-partisan president. As a retired army general, Eisenhower was contemptuous of professional party politicians which RN seemingly embodied. There were also cabinet secretaries and presidential advisors in the Eisenhower administration, such as the president’s brother Milton, who had similarly contemptuous attitudes toward partisan Republicans.

From President Eisenhower’s perspective, his role was to competently administer the government and safeguard national security interests as opposed to making political waves. The political gap which ensued was therefore filled by RN. In the November 1954 mid-term congressional elections, RN courageously campaigned for the Republican Party in the face of probable electoral defeat.

Although the Democrats regained control of Congress in 1954, thereby reversing the Republican congressional majority gained in 1952, the scale of the Republican defeat was mitigated by RN’s vigorous campaigning for Republican Party candidates. The base which RN subsequently gained within the Republican Party effectively thwarted Eisenhower’s subtle attempt in 1956 to remove him from their victorious presidential ticket.

The political courage which RN had demonstrated in 1954 was replicated in the 1958 congressional elections when he again campaigned for the Republican Party. The election reverses for the Republican Party were adverse to the extent that they helped ensure that a Democratic Party congressional majority would be entrenched until 1994. The results of the 1958 congressional elections demonstrated that, even with a Republican incumbent in the White House, the Democratic Party was clearly the majority party. Indeed, during this period, for every registered Republican voter there were two registered Democrats.

RN’s decision to campaign for his party in the 1958 congressional elections had mixed results for him. The positive consequence for RN was that the gratitude he secured from party regulars ensured his lock on the 1960 Republican presidential nomination. However, as a partisan political figure from a minority party, RN seemed destined for political defeat in the 1960 presidential election.

RN’s political fortunes were turned round by the positive publicity which he gained from his famous ‘kitchen debate’ with the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, in July 1959. This impromptu and animated debate between RN and Khrushchev occurred at the American trade pavilion in Moscow. The debate concerned the question whether the capitalist system or the communist system would prevail over the other in the future. The strength which RN displayed in standing up to Khrushchev ensured that he entered the 1960 presidential race as the front runner and that foreign policy and national security would be the key issues in that presidential race.

The 1960 Presidential Election

The 1960 presidential election in which RN faced off against the Democrat presidential nominee, John Fitzpatrick Kennedy (JFK), is now regarded as one of the most exciting elections in American history. RN was to lose the 1960 race due to the slickness and ruthlessness of the Kennedy machine. Utilizing funds raised by his father, Joseph ‘Joe’, JFK assembled a very talented political team which helped him secure the Democratic presidential nomination over the seemingly more politically entrenched Senators, Lyndon B Johnson (LBJ), Hubert H Humphrey and Adlai Stevenson.

Because foreign policy and national security were the key issues in the presidential election, JFK took a strong line against international communism and warned that the United States was falling behind the Soviet Union. The novel aspect of a Democrat presidential candidate blasting a Republican administration for apparently being soft on communism was manifested by JFK’s repeated references to the Eisenhower administration’s failure to thwart Fidel Castro’s establishment of a communist dictatorship in Cuba. Despite JFK’s impassioned rhetoric concerning Cuba, his administration would doom Brigade 2506 which was composed of Cuban exiles when it landed in the Bay of Pigs in April 1961 by denying crucial American air support.

The Kennedy strategy of undermining RN’s key advantage in foreign affairs and national security while drawing in the Democratic base seemed to be working. To consolidate the Democratic Party base, JFK shrewdly recruited LBJ as his running mate in order to secure crucial southern bloc votes.

By contrast, RN blundered by selecting Henry Cabot Lodge as his running mate. Lodge was a former senator and diplomat who, as a key Republican Party operative, had helped engineer Eisenhower’s 1952 presidential nomination and had since maintained cordial relations with the outgoing president. The Republican vice-presidential nominee however could not match LBJ’s campaigning capacity and had no voting base which he could harness.

Lodge’s much vaunted foreign policy expertise was being neutralized by the Kennedy campaign’s focus on foreign and national security issues. As American ambassador to South Vietnam, Lodge would be complicit in supporting the Kennedy endorsed coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem in November 1963 in which the South Vietnamese president and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu were murdered.

Whatever the merits of supporting the coup against the Diem regime, the Ngo brothers’ lives could and should have been protected by the United States. As American ambassador to South Vietnam, Lodge could have arranged the safe passage of the Ngo brothers into exile. Lodge’s singular failure to safeguard the lives of the Ngo brothers contrasted with the actions of the last American ambassador to Saigon, Graham Martin. Ambassador Martin, a registered Democrat and RN admirer, arranged the escape of South Vietnamese leaders and officials in April 1975.

‘Nixonburgers’: The Vilification Begins

The Vietnam trauma however lay in the future and the American public was generally riveted by the 1960 presidential race, such as the televised presidential debates in which Kennedy’s style triumphed over RN’s policy substance. Such is the continuing mystique of the Kennedy campaign that one of its key myths, derived from a dirty trick, is still being used. In the recent Frost Nixon movie, one of Frost’s staff (Bob Zelnick) makes a passing and insulting reference to RN’s brother, Donald.

The movie’s brief mention of the apolitical Donald Nixon (who died in 1987) could well refer to the story which was raised in the press in the last two weeks of the 1960 campaign that Donald had received an interest free loan in early 1957 of $ 205,000 from the multi-millionaire Howard Hughes. This loan was technically lent to RN’s mother Hannah and was provided to expand Donald Nixon’s grocery business. This loan was unsolicited by Donald Nixon, who naively accepted it.

The Frost Nixon film also has a scene in which RN supposedly rings Frost before the crucial interview on Watergate. In the discussion, Frost makes reference to cheese burgers. This reference to cheeseburgers could have been an allusion to the ‘Nixonburgers’ that Donald sold.

The practical political upshot of news of the Hughes loan was to discredit RN both in the 1960 presidential race and during his 1962 California gubernatorial race by implying that he had compromising illicit financial political ties to Hughes. Even after RN departed from office as vice-president in 1961, JFK’s brother, Robert, as Attorney-General, ordered an investigation into the Hughes loan and a review of the finances of Donald and Hannah Nixon. This harassment was aimed at undermining RN who in the immediate post-election period was still the most important partisan Republican figure.

The pressure of the election campaign was apparent when RN publicly and prematurely conceded the election, to Pat’s obvious distress, despite the fact the narrowness of JFK’s lead and that all the votes were still to come in. The premature concession resulted in the withdrawal of Republican scrutineers in Chicago and Texas where there were subsequent reports that the vote count had been tampered with. Local Republican leaders launched legal challenges against alleged instances of electoral fraud across the country but these were not sustained due to opposition from RN at the instigation of Eisenhower.

Eisenhower feared that a recount would dangerously divide the nation and RN consequently did not press the issue. Unusually, for an out-going president, Eisenhower was still immensely popular. Had Eisenhower consistently campaigned for the Nixon-Lodge ticket, instead of only in the last week, the Republican ticket may well have prevailed.

Controversy concerning the Bush-Cheney ticket’s election victory in November 2000 may add to the negative portrayal of George W Bush’s presidency. However it is improbable that controversy concerning the 1960 election result will ever be a reference point in popular culture as an egregious abuse of democracy.

RN’s Wilderness Years: 1962-1968

Whatever the legitimacy concerning JFK’s electoral victory, his January 1961 inauguration speech (‘Ask not what your country can do for you but what can you do for your country’) was inspirational and an indicator that his administration would be an internationalist one. RN however was faced the difficult challenge of returning to private life after nearly twenty years of either being in the military or in public office. The former vice-president moved to Los Angeles to practice as a lawyer. Due to RN’s political prominence, he was prevailed upon by Californian Republicans to run for governor in 1962 against Democrat incumbent Edmund (‘Pat’) G Brown.

The 1962 election was lost because it did not seem credible that a national figure such as RN would honour his pledge to serve a full term as governor and that he would have the necessary interest to commit himself to the seemingly parochial nature of the office. The bitterness of RN’s ‘last press conference’ in which he conceded defeat in the California election seemingly heralded the end of his career.

The ramifications of RN’s defeat in the 1962 California election were profound. The seeming political demise of the nation’s leading Republican paved the way for the stridently conservative Senator Barry M Goldwater of Arizona to win the 1964 Republican presidential nomination. Goldwater refused to conciliate with his liberal rival for the party nomination New York Governor Nelson A Rockefeller despite the fact that he too was staunchly anti-communist.

Goldwater’s bellicose victory speech at the 1964 San Francisco Republican Party Convention helped legitimize President Johnson’s (LBJ succeeded Kennedy following his November 1963 assassination) portrayal of Goldwater as a dangerous fanatic who could not be trusted with his finger on the nuclear button. The Republican rout in the presidential popular vote was also replicated in the Congress with the party losing thirty eight House of Representatives seats.

Nonetheless, out of the Republican debacle, Ronald Reagan emerged as a political figure to be watched. At the San Francisco Convention, Reagan delivered a stirring speech (entitled ‘Rendezvous with Destiny’) in which he warned against the dangers of an encroaching state. With this speech Reagan began to assume Goldwater’s leadership mantle as the leader of the American conservative movement.

With his election to a presidential term in his own right, LBJ embarked upon the most ambitious legislative agenda since the New Deal which was dubbed the ‘Great Society’. Under the Great Society civil rights and Medicare legislation was passed and funds were allocated to address urban and rural poverty.

LBJ’s liberal domestic agenda was also matched by an internationalist foreign policy in which the United States committed troops to save South Vietnam from a communist takeover. Unfortunately strains emerged for LBJ with regard to his balancing respective domestic and foreign policy commitments. A vocal and growing ‘anti-war’ protest movement, primarily among university students, began to emerge which attacked the American commitment in Vietnam. Public unease concerning American involvement in Vietnam was driven by a lack of clarity as to the purpose concerning the commitment and by hostility toward the military draft.

President Johnson’s political position was severely undermined by the adverse results from the 1966 midterm elections in which the Republicans picked up forty-eight congressional seats. These advances were primarily a pendulum swing in which traditionally Republican seats returned to the fold. RN contributed to this swing by vigorously campaigning to the point where he virtually fulfilled a role approximating that of the ‘leader of the opposition’. Due to his central role in the 1966 Republican campaign, RN gained a political base which comfortably delivered him his party’s presidential nomination in 1968.

A particularly important 1966 election result was that of Ronald Reagan’s election as governor of California. Reagan’s election victory was newsworthy because he defeated Governor Pat Brown whom RN had lost to four years earlier. The pattern of Reagan reversing RN’s political defeats was manifested and commenced with his 1966 victory.

American Isolationism Re-Emerges

The flawed analysis that the 1966 elections were a repudiation of LBJ’s Vietnam commitment helped fuel an ‘anti-war’ backlash in the Democratic Party. Accordingly, Senator Eugene (‘Gene’) J Mc Carthy of Minnesota announced his candidacy for the Democratic Party nomination against LBJ in 1967. Mc McCarthy’s nomination campaign was strongly supported by ‘anti-war’ university student volunteers.

Mc Carthy garnered an impressive 42% of the vote in the March 1968 New Hampshire primary against LBJ’s 49%. The senator’s strong showing was due to the momentum he received from media misreporting of the communist Tet offensive of the preceding month which made the military situation in South Vietnam look hopeless.

LBJ’s announcement at the end of March 1968 that he would not seek his party’s presidential nomination was a terrible political mistake because it considerably strengthened the ‘anti-war’ movement by making it look as though it was in the political ascendancy. This movement was not interested in genuine social reform, as President Johnson was, but rather in perpetuating angst. Therefore, the ‘anti-war’ movement could only measure success in terms of American foreign policy failure in which people in Third World nations fell under communist rule.

The Johnson withdrawal led to New York Senator Robert F Kennedy announcing his candidacy for the Democratic Party nomination which he seemed to be on track to winning after his victory in the June California Democratic primary. Senator Kennedy’s assassination at his victory speech helped endow the political year of 1968 with a feeling of trauma which would bolster the conclusion that the Vietnam commitment was a mistake.

The ‘anti-war’ stance that Senator Robert Kennedy assumed was at odds with his late brother’s internationalism which had led to America’s involvement in Vietnam. The shift to an isolationist position by Robert Kennedy was reminiscent of his father’s support for British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s policy of Appeasement in 1938 when Joe Kennedy was ambassador to the United Kingdom. The Kennedy family’s reversion to isolationism was consolidated by Senator Edward (‘Ted’) Kennedy’s role in blocking aid after 1973 to South Vietnam following the final withdrawal of American troops and this ensured this nation’s military collapse in 1975.

Robert Kennedy’s assassination left the Democratic presidential nomination wide open at the party’s July 1968 Chicago Convention. Although he had not entered any primaries, Vice-President Hubert Humphrey was still able to still win the Democratic nomination because party state leaders at the convention swung their delegations behind Humphrey. The vehement opposition of ‘anti-war’ delegates and the violence of the demonstrators outside the convention seemed to destroy party unity and with it the prospects of a Humphrey victory in November.

The 1968 Presidential Election

By contrast, RN’s nomination at the Republican Party’s Convention in Miami was orderly but enthusiastic. An aura of party unity was conveyed after RN fended off half-hearted but amiable presidential challenges, chiefly from Ronald Reagan and Nelson Rockefeller. The only real drama surrounding the convention concerned speculation of who would be selected as RN’s running mate.

The choice of Maryland Governor Spiro T Agnew as RN’s running mate was surprising and shrewd. Agnew’s selection was a surprise because he had been a strong supporter of Nelson Rockefeller. The selection was shrewd because Agnew’s home state was strategically located in electoral terms as a southern border state. Agnew, a Greek American and one-time Democrat, had prevailed as a Republican in a traditionally Democrat state. As a state official, Agnew had demonstrated courage in opposing racial segregation.

Due to his vocal attacks on ‘anti-war’ demonstrators and the media, Agnew as vice president became the darling of the Republican Party’s right wing. It was due to Agnew’s newly acquired right wing base in the Republican Party that RN dared not drop him as his running mate in 1972. RN came to believe that Agnew did not have the qualities to succeed to the presidency and he shut the vice-president out of policy making. Agnew however was compelled to resign as vice president in October 1973 after pleading no contest to tax fraud during his time as governor of Maryland. Although Agnew was not drawn into the Watergate quagmire, the circumstances surrounding his departure helped tarnish RN’s presidency.

The Nixon-Agnew ticket seemed destined for an easy victory in November 1968 and the major unpredictable factor was speculation of what impact the third party candidacy of pro-segregation southern based George C Wallace would have. Wallace’s candidacy was a threat to both RN and Humphrey but could only have affected the election result had Wallace gained the balance of power in terms of Electoral College votes – a possibility which was narrowly averted.

The eventual narrowness of the presidential race was due to the determination with which Humphrey doggedly fought back. Displaying tremendous courage, akin to President Truman’s, Humphrey stared down ‘anti-war’ demonstrators and in the process began to harness the Democratic Party’s national base which was still broader than the Republican Party’s. The integrity which Humphrey demonstrated in 1968 was similar to that he had previously displayed in opposing segregation at the 1948 Democratic Convention and in fighting the communist infiltration of his Minnesota based Democratic Farmer Labor Party.

Countering North Vietnamese Manipulation

Humphrey proved to be a worthy opponent of RN and may have been elected in 1968 had it not been President Johnson’s very unfortunate attempt to swing the election in his vice-president’s favour due to North Vietnamese manipulation. In October 1968, the Soviets relayed a North Vietnamese offer to the Johnson administration of their preparedness to commence direct negotiations in return for a bombing halt.

A bombing halt was announced in late October 1968 and subsequent expectations of negotiations seemed to have swung the election in Humphrey’s favour. Had Humphrey been elected president in such circumstances, it is difficult to envisage how it could have been politically feasible for him not to have sold South Vietnam out in proposed negotiations to be held in Paris in 1969.

An American betrayal of South Vietnam in 1969 could well have precipitated a collapse of the American position in the Third World and therefore enabled the Soviets to avoid the collapse of their position in Eastern Europe twenty years later. The maintenance of the United States’ position in the Third World following the fall of Saigon in April 1975 was due to RN’s foreign policy accomplishments. These accomplishments included saving Israel in 1973, clinching Egypt’s de facto re-alignment to the United States in 1974 and exploiting the Sino-Soviet split following an historic presidential visit to mainland China in February 1972.

The heroine who saved the situation in 1968 was Anna Chennault, chairwoman of the campaign group Republican Women for Nixon. (Chennault was the Chinese widow of Claire Chennault who had been the commander of the Flying Tigers, an air squadron of American volunteers which had fought in the Chinese Nationalist air force between 1941 and 1942.)

Although Mrs. Chennault suspected that she was being bugged by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), she held her nerve and sent through a communication to President Nguyen Van Thieu of South Vietnam in late October 1968 that he should announce his government’s boycott of any proposed Paris negotiations. President Thieu’s announcement that his government would boycott any proposed international negotiations in Paris in 1969 probably swung the presidential election in RN’s favour who was elected by a victory margin of just over one percent of the popular vote.

Although the South Vietnamese boycott announcement probably swung the election in RN’s favour, the momentum was such that negotiations still went ahead in Paris in 1969. The new Nixon administration, which assumed office in January 1969, did have the option of selling South Vietnam out at Paris in 1969. This would have been facilitated by acquiescing to the North Vietnamese push of forcing the South Vietnamese government into a coalition with the communist dominated National Liberation Front (NLF) as a prelude to an American military withdrawal.

Peace with Honour: RN Refuses to Abandon South Vietnam

RN’s decision not to opt for the dishonourable and strategically stupid course of betraying South Vietnam in Paris 1969 was foreshadowed by his appointment of Dr. Henry Kissinger as the new administration’s National Security Adviser. Kissinger (who also assumed the post of Secretary of State in 1973) was originally a German Jewish refugee who had fled Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s. A respected Harvard University academic in foreign policy and national security matters, Kissinger was originally an advisor to the Rockefeller camp.

At this time, to be a ‘liberal’ Republican was to be a staunch anti-communist internationalist which Rockefeller was, as some one who came from the La Guardia- Dewey stream. RN and Kissinger’s attempts to facilitate an American military withdrawal from Indo-China while attempting to avoid an ensuing communist takeover – ‘peace with honour’- resulted in their being maliciously maligned. The vitriol which RN and Kissinger encountered would be a reflection of the phenomenon which occurred during the Vietnam War: initial liberal internationalists, such as Democratic Senator Frank F Church of Idaho, transforming into rabid opponents to the extent of callously negating the fatal consequences for human rights and democracy in the case of communist victory.

The essence of RN’s Vietnam strategy was to withdraw American troops from South Vietnam by the end of 1972 while ensuring that the South Vietnamese army was trained and equipped to fill the vacuum. This strategy was known as ‘Vietnamization’ and was part of the Nixon Doctrine. The new doctrine was unveiled by RN at his 1969 Guam Summit with President Thieu. This doctrine was intended to ensure that allied countries would assume responsibility for military affairs in countering communist aggression while the United States fulfilled a supporting role by providing economic and military aid as opposed to sending troops.

For all the ‘anti-war’ protest movement’s strident intensity against RN during his first term, there seemed to be an absence of the realization that his administration was withdrawing American troops from Vietnam. The protest movement was essentially the vehicle to generate an extreme left-wing social movement whose primary objective was to undermine American national security. The effectiveness of this movement was due to widespread public unease regarding the draft and the residual strength of traditional American isolationism.

America’s Vietnam Commitment under RN

Between 1969 and 1972, RN’s administration committed substantial resources to ensuring South Vietnam’s ultimate survival. In this period American aid was provided in training and equipping the South Vietnamese army. American technical advice and finance supported a very successful land reform program. The American directed counter insurgency Phoenix program was also successful in breaking the communist guerrilla insurgency. As part of the Phoenix program, South Vietnamese village militias, the ‘Popular Forces’, were established. These forces were effective in securing villages against the communist infiltration.

Unfortunately, RN’s administration fell into a communist trap by undertaking secret negotiations with North Vietnam between 1970 and 1972. Kissinger was the chief American negotiator and he undertook secret negotiations with senior North Vietnamese Politburo member Le Duc Tho. The Kissinger/Tho talks were ostensibly concerned with reaching a political settlement. While Kissinger was sincere in attempting to find a political solution Tho would skilfully use the talks to place a wedge between the United States and South Vietnam.

Believing that Tho might be serious about arriving at a political solution to the conflict, Kissinger engaged in these talks for over two years. The central issue which Tho focused on was Thieu’s removal from office and the formation of a coalition government in Saigon which included the NLF.

Due to the success of the Vietnamization program the North Vietnamese changed military strategy and launched a conventional invasion of South Vietnam in March 1972. North Vietnamese troops and military hardware were sent into South Vietnam through the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This ‘trail’ was in fact a series of thousands of trails and tunnels which meandered through Cambodia and Laos into South Vietnam.

American combat troops were not involved in countering North Vietnamese aggression and the South Vietnamese army, with American air support, held its own against the 1972 invasion. The invasion was undertaken in an American election year to place more pressure on the United States to dessert South Vietnam.

With the military advantage seemingly with South Vietnam, Tho dropped his strident demand for Thieu’s removal and the formation of a coalition government. Furthermore, Tho agreed that international elections would be held in South Vietnam under the supervision of a tripartite national council composed of representatives of the Thieu regime, the NLF and an ill-defined ‘third force’.

The snag however was that once a cease-fire took effect, North Vietnamese troops would be allowed to remain in their jungle sanctuaries. Despite a proposed ban on sending more troops and equipment down the Ho Chi Minh Trail only, the most naïve would have believed that Hanoi would honour such a stipulation. Therefore at the point at which the Americans were to disengage, North Vietnam would be militarily well positioned.

President Thieu understandably balked at acquiescing to an agreement which did not also facilitate the withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops. Having engineered a rapture between Washington and Saigon, the North Vietnamese badly miscalculated by breaking off the talks with the United States. RN responded by ordering massive bombings of North Vietnamese military and industrial facilities. Because this bombing campaign was undertaken in December 1972, it became known as the ‘Christmas bombings’.

The effects of the bombing campaign were to compel Hanoi and to re-assure Saigon to sign the Paris Accords of January 1973 which formally brought the Vietnam War to an end. But this formal cessation of hostilities was just that, a formality. The reality was that the Paris Accords were an expedient by which the principal participants could obtain their respective immediate objectives. For the United States the Paris Accords facilitated the final withdrawal of its troops and the repatriation of its prisoners, both of which were achieved by March 1973.

US Congressional Sabotage Dooms South Vietnam

In the case of the Thieu regime, which had the most to lose and the least to gain from the negotiating process, the Paris Accords left it in place because it did not facilitate the establishment of a coalition government which included the NLF. From Hanoi’s perspective, the fundamental concession which it gained was the continued stationing of its troops in jungle sanctuaries along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The real issue for South Vietnam was therefore whether the United States would continue to provide adequate levels of military aid and/or provide needed air support in the event of a military crisis.

No sooner had the Paris Accords been signed then regular North Vietnamese troops re-commenced coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The massive – and congested – influx of NVA military conveys streaming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail provided the United States with a golden opportunity to fatally incapacitate North Vietnam’s military capacity by undertaking a short and sharp bombing campaign.

RN would later regret his failure to order the bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in April 1973. This was because by the end of that month, his political authority to protect South Vietnam had been fatally undermined because of the onslaught of the Watergate scandal (sic). The US Congress’s slashing of military aid to South Vietnam in November 1973 effectively denied that country the capacity to effectively resist the North Vietnamese influx of new troops from this point on. Denied needed American aid, South Vietnam was overun at the end of April 1975 following the communist Spring Offensive of March 1975.

Also distressing was the conversion of Laos at the end of 1975 from being a constitutional monarchy, under the prime ministership of the decent Prince Souvanna Phouma, into a repressive communist republic. Communist consolidation of power in Laos was followed by the persecution of the Hmong minorty hill tribes who were subjected to chemical warefare. Furthermore, the regicide of members the deeply loved captive Loation Royal Family between 1977 and 1982, including  King Savang Vatthana and Queen Khamphoui, due to willful neglect while imprisoned  in a labour camp alienated the communist regime from the Loatian people to the extent that political reform could never be undertaken.

The Avoidable Genocide: The Tragedy of Cambodia

The fall of South Vietnam and Laos to communism in 1975 was calamitous but the suffering of Cambodia under the communist Pol Pot regime between 1975 and 1978 was catastrophic. In this period, up to two million people died, having being either killed or starved to death. This was out of a population of seven million!

In late April 1970, a joint American/South Vietnamese force undertook a military incursion into the North Vietnamese occupied parts of eastern Cambodia to take out military sancturies. Even though the objective of the incursion was to help facilitate an American withdrawal from South Vietnam, there was an outpouring of protest across the United States. The question arises, if the 1970 American ‘invasion’ of Cambodia could precipitate massive demonstrations, why weren’t there any substantial demonstrations in the United States against the genocide which took place in Cambodia between 1975 and late 1978?

The answer to the above rhetorical question is that condemnation of communist genocide during the period of Pol Pot’ s rule would have been tantamount to an admission by opponents of American involvement in Indo-China that they were wrong about the adverse consequences of a communist victory. During the Cambodian genocide, the ‘right wing’Readers Digest conspicuously stood out among the media for alerting the world as to what was happening. The limited mainstream American media coverage of the Cambodian genocide, during this period, such as it was, focused on scapegoating RN or Kissinger for being responsible.

A disturbing part of the Frost Nixon film (which is set in 1977) was the clear attempt to aportion blame to RN for the communist Khmer Rouge’s brutality. This misappropriation of blame became a propaganda art form after 1979 with the release of documentaries by John Pilger and Noam Chomsky. (Pilger at least acknowledged the extent of the genocide while Chomsky’s Orwellian Manufacturing Consent actually revised down the number of people who died). While David Puttnam’s 1984 film The Killing Fields highlighted the Cambodian genocide to the western world this film also attempted to misappropriate responsibility to RN.

It is outrageous that RN and Kissinger are attacked for culpability for the Cambodian genocide when they attempted to prevent a communist takeover. The following overview of Cambodian history and politics provides an analysis of the injustice of misappropriating blame to RN and Kissinger and as a warning against abandoning countries to brutal insurgencies.

Modern Khmer Political History

The seminal figure in modern Cambodian history is undoubtedly Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Sihanouk was installed by the Vichy French in 1941 as King of Cambodia. The canny Sihanouk gained great personal presitige when he manoevred the French into granting de jure independence in 1953 ( actual Cambodian independence came with the collapse of the French position in Vietnam in 1954). Utilizing the presitige he had gained, Sihanouk abdicated in 1955 (and was succeeded by his father as king!) and formed an avowedly left-wing populist party called the Buddist Socialist Community, the Sangkum, which was accredited with winning all the seats in the 1955 parliamentary elections.

Sihanouk ruled Cambodia as a one party state between 1955 and 1970. Between 1955 and 1960, Sihanouk served intermittently as prime minister. Following the death of his father King Nordom Suramarit in 1960, Sihanouk succeeded to the newly created position of Chief of State. Following the 1963 overthrow of Diem of South Vietnam in an American backed coup, Sihanouk terminated American aid to deny the Americans the possible leverage to overthrow him. Believing that a communist victory in South Vietnam was inevitable due to the chaos that Diem’s overthrow had generated, Sihanouk informally ceded substantial swathes of territory in eastern Cambodia to the North Vietnamese who established supply bases along the border with South Vietnam.

The adverse Khmer nationalist re-action to the North Vietnamese encroachment on Cambodian sovereignty led to the right wing faction of the Sangkum Party winning all the parliamentaty seats in the 1966 parliamentary elections. This faction of the Sangkum was primarily descended from the Democratic Party which had dominated Cambodian politics between 1947 and 1953 and which Sihanouk had pulverized in the 1955 elections and then absorbed into the Sangkum.

To prevent a threat to his power emerging, Sihanouk appointed General Non Nol prime minister following the 1966 elections. Non Nol’s anti-communism placated the new National Assembly while his loyalty to Sihanouk ensured that the prince’s power would not be undermined. Having steadied Sihanouk’s political position, Non Nol loyally resigned as prime minister in 1967 while remaining as army commander.

RN’s annoucement that American troops would be withdrawn at the end of his first term resulted in Sihanouk seeking to secure the withdrawal of North Vitnamese troops from Cambodia. To place pressure on the North Vietnamese, Sihanouk re-appointed Lon Nol prime minister in August 1969 in addition to the posts he already held as defence minister and army commander. The new government promptly re-established diplomatic relations with the United States and continue to turn a blind eye to the American bombing of North Vietnamese sancturies in eastern Cambodia.

The ‘secret bombing’ of Cambodia has been portrayed as the beginning of the sinister American enterprise which laid the groundwork for the Khmer Rouge takeover. This bombing campaign commenced in March 1969 and was permitted by Sihanouk to put pressure on the North Vietnamese to leave. Sihanouk also permitted the bombing campaign against North Vietnamese dominated jungle sancturies on the basis that no Cambodians would be hit and this condition was met. The bombings were also ‘secret’ because the North Vietnamese did not denounce the campaign for to have done so would have constituted an admission that they had troops in Cambodia.

Sihanouk departed Cambodia in early 1970 as part of his discreet international campaign to secure a North Vietnamese withdrawal from his country. While he was away, the Lol Nol government encouraged demonstrations outside the North Vietnamese and NLF embassies in Phnom Penh to place pressure on the Vietnamese communists to withdraw their troops from eastern Cambodia. Fearing that Sihanouk would dismiss the government as part of a deal to secure a North Vietnamese withdrawal (Sihanouk was on an official visit to the Soviet Union at the time) and with rumours that a pro-Sihanouk military coup was going to be staged, Sihanouk’s cousin and then Interior Minister, Prince Sirik Matak, forced a reluctant Lon Nol to depose Sihanouk.

Sihanouk’s deposition was not so much a ‘military coup’ but as Kissinger put it, a case of the Sihanouk government deposing Sihanouk. A vote was taken by the National Assembly on the 18^th of March 1970 which removed Sihanouk as Chief of State and replaced him with Cheng Heng, the Speaker of the National Assembly. (Unfortunately, the National Assembly also declared Cambodia a republic in October 1970 and the nation became officially known as the ‘Khmer Republic’). The circumstances concerning Sihanouk’s removal were reflective of the fact that his fall was not part of an American backed military coup but rather that it was due to the intricacies of Cambodian politics.

Cambodia was plunged into war by the decision of the Lon Nol government to align with the United States. Lon Nol refused to allow weapons to continue to be unloaded from the port city of Sihanoukville to supply the communist Vietnamese. The Cambodian premier also desptached troops, many of whom were enthusiastic young and untrained volunteers, to evict the North Vietnamese from Cambodia. Notionally, it was not unreasonable for the Cambodian government to desire to re-occupy its own territory. However, in the case of Cambodia, it was strategically stupid to take on the North Vietnamese army (the NVA) who Laos’s ‘Red Prince’ Souphanouvong dubbed ‘the Prussians of South East Asia’.

By mid April 1970, the NVA had wiped the floor with the Cambodian army and was on the brink of taking the Cambodian capital Phnom Penn. A North Vietnamese takeover of Cambodia would have thwarted the Vietnamization program and resulted in the Khmer people falling under foreign rule. The joint American-South Vietnamese incursion into Cambodia in late April 1970 not only prevented a North Vietnamese takeover of Cambodia but also ensured the success of the Vietnamization program. American and South Vietnamese troops were withdrawn from Cambodia by the end of June 1970.

Between April 1970 and March 1972 the NVA provided crucial support to the armed forces of the Khmer Rouge dominated FUNK with a military edge over the Cambodian army. (FUNK was the French acronym for the National Front of Kampuchea). FUNK was originally composed of genuine Sihanouk loyalists, the Khmer Rouge and the Hanoi controlled Khmer communists, the Khmer Minh.

Substantial North Vietnamese military involvement in Cambodia ended following North Vietnam’s conventional invasion of South Vietnam in March 1972. Due to direct Chinese military aid, the Chinese backed Khmer Rouge emerged as the dominant component within FUNK. This dominance was consolidated by Khmer Rouge purges within FUNK to which the North Vietnamese turned a blind eye so as to avoid losing Chinese military aid. FUNK orginally had widespread support in the countryside where Sihanouk was revered while support for the ‘Khmer Republic’ initially came from the cites where Sihanouk had been detested for his corruption.

The ‘Khmer Republic’: RN Tries to Save Cambodia

One of the reasons that the Cambodian diaster occurred was because American politicians took their eye off the ball with regard to that country’s internal situation. RN did not display similar negligence and indeed he almost prevented the rise of Pol Pot. An analysis of the ‘Khmer Republic’s’politics supports this conclusion. The central figure in the ‘republic’s’ politics was Lon Nol. What was ironic about Nol Nol was that he had essentially been a creation of Sihanouk’s. The Prince however failed to realize that although Lon Nol was an empty vessel he could manipulate, his political opponents could do the same.

During his first two years of nomimal power Lon Nol was essentially a frontman for the new ‘republic’s’ two most powerful politicians, Sirik Matak and In Tam. Lon Nol, who was promoted to the rank of Marshal by the National Assembly in 1971, did undertake disastrous military campaigns which were respectively known as Chenla I and Chenla II. In the main however, Lon Nol was predominatly dependant upon the key politicians who had instigated Sihanouk’s deposition and what leverage he had was derived from internal division within their ranks.

The National Assembly was converted in October 1971 into a constituent assembly and charged with the task of drawing up a new republican consitution. It was expected that Sirik Matak and In Tam would thrash it out in presidential elections to be held on 1972 under a new republican constitution.

However, on March 10^th 1972, Lon Nol’s younger brother Colonel Lon Non essentially seized power (a type of coup in which Lon Non overthrew the Lon Nol government) when he had his older brother assume the position of Chief of State and dissolve the cabinet. The proposed republican constitution was discarded and another one was submitted and approved in a dubious referendum held in April and a subsequent presidential election was conducted in June.

Although Lon Non had Sirik Matak placed under house arrest, this prince still maintained covert communication with Lon Nol who essentially appropriated his political base. Even with Sirik Matak’s support base, Lon Nol could not have won the June 1972 presidential elelctions against In Tam and Keo An had his brother not tampered with the vote count. All the seats in the ensuing September legislative elections were then won by Lon Non’s Socio-Republican Party due to a boycott by In Tam’s revived Democratic Party and Sirik Matak’s Republican Party (sic). (The Republican Party was really a covert monarchist party which secretly supported Sirik Matak’s ambition to one day become king, having been passed over by the French in 1941).

As intriguing as the above political machinations were they could not obscure the fact that by March 1973 the Khmer Rouge were on the brink of taking Phnom Penn. Despite strong congressional pressure to disengage from Indo-China altogether following the January 1973 Paris Accords, RN refused to allow Cambodia to fall into the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

RN’s resolution was demonstrated by American aerial bombing of Khmer Rouge positions around the Cambodian capital. Due to its military leverage, the United States was able to compel Lon Non to depart into exile in April 1973 and the ensuing political vaccum was filled by ‘President’ Lon Nol appointing In Tam prime minister of a cabinet composed of the new prime minister’s able supporters and those of Sirik Matak. The effect of American air support in stifling a determined communist attempt to take the capital in May 1973 provided the United States with the leverage to ensure that legislative and executive power was ‘temporarily’vested in a new High Political Council.

This council was composed of Lon Nol, Sirik Matak, In Tam and Cheng Heng. Due to the leverage that came from American air power, the United States was in a position in June 1973 to potentially engineer Lon Nol’s departure into exile and help establish a new coalition government between Sihanouk and the remaining members of the High Political Council.

Had such a government being established it would have had the support of Hanoi which was now weary of the Khmer Rouge, China which staunchly supported Sihanouk because of his friendship with Chinese Premier Chou En Lai and the Soviet Union which had strategic links with Lon Non (whose political interests were represented during his exile by Senate President Saukum Khoy). This foreign backing combined with the threat of American bombing provided the scope to forestall a Khmer Rouge takeover.

Cambodia 1973: Defeat Snatched from the Jaws of Victory

At this crucial stage, however, Democrat Senate Majority Leader Mike J Mansfield of Montana intervened. Mansfield threatened to prevent the American government from functioning by placing riders on all government legislation unless the bombing campaign in Cambodia was halted. In 1971, Mansfield had tried to set dates by which time American troops were to be withdrawn from South Vietnam and he had also attempted to slash American troop numbers in Western Europe.

Due to Mansfield’s blackmail, RN was forced to accede to an August 15^th 1973 deadline by which time funding for American air support in Cambodia would be cut off. Until the bombing cut off, Pol Pot had the Khmer Rouge launch near suicidal attacks on Phnom Penn to prevent even a possibility of there being a negotiated settlement. These attacks severely undermined the Khmer Rouge’s military strength due to the exercise of American air power. But with the cessation of the bombing campaign and due to steep cuts in American military aid by the US Congress, it would be only a matter of time before the Khmer Rouge recovered to take Phnom Penn which they did in April 1975.

Ignorance of the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal intentions could not be legitmately invoked to justify not taking steps to prevent their coming to power. A report by a US State Department expert on Cambodia, Kenneth Quinn, was available from February 1974. This report alerted the world to the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal intentions as Quinn’s analysis was based on credible reports of refugees from Khmer Rouge occupied territory.

Despite congressional induced impotence, the American ambassador to Cambodia, John Gunther Dean, who took up his position in 1974, attempted through his friendship with Sirik Matak to promote internal government reform. A political vaccum had been created following Lon Nol’s dissolution of the High National Council in November 1973 and the appointment of a loyalist cabinet headed by Long Boret the following month.

These unusually prompt and forceful actions by Lon Nol were precipitated by an air force pilot trying to kill him by bombing the ‘Presidential Palace’ in November 1973. This attack was undertaken to facilitate Prince Sihanouk’s restoration before the Khmer Rouge took the capital. In the time remaining until Phnom Penn’s fall, ‘Khmer Republic’ politics essentially became a struggle between Ambassador Gunther Dean and Lon Non, who had returned in 1974.

For all Gunther Dean’s struggles with Lon Non, he still offered to evacuate him and other senior ‘Khmer Republic’ officials when he left Cambodia on the 12^th of April 1975. Most of these officials and politicians, including Lon Non, courageously refused, knowing what their fates would be after the capital fell. The most poignant and graceful refusal came from Sirik Matak. Feeling a sense of responsibility for having compelled him to depose Sihanouk, Sirik Matak took Lon Nol to Indonesia before returning to Cambodia of his own accord. All in all, the Cambodian diaster was a tragedy because it was so avoidable.

A Twentieth Century Commodore Perry: RN Goes to China:

The pressures wrought by the Vietnam War meant that, in foreign relations, RN and Kissinger forewent any ideas of challenging Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe. Instead, they concerntrated on the United States winning the Cold War in the Third World or at least holding its own. However, the pressures and complications precipitated by the Vietnam War motivated RN and Kissinger to initiate contact with mainland China to exploit the Sino-Soviet split.

The historical importance of RN’s journey to mainland China in February 1972 was something which even his most strident critics do not deny. However, there is a tendency to overlook the historical ramifications of RN’s trip on Chinese domestic politics and recent political history. China at this time was in the ideological grip of Chairman Mao Tse Tung’s ‘Cultural Revolution’ (sic).

In the early 1970s, it was not certain if China would throw off the shackles of Mao’s diastrous policies. By establishing a link between China and the United States, RN helped lay the groundwork for China’ s post Mao leaders to appreciate the strategic utility of opening up to the outside world and of consequently undertaking fundamental socio-economic reforms. In this respect, RN’s 1972 visit, and subsequent visits to China as a private citizen, had an historical impact similar to that of US Commodore Matthew Perry’s visits (albiet initially forced) to Japan in the 1850s.

RN and Détente

A geopolitical consequence of RN’s 1972 China visit was that the Soviet Union sought political accommodation with the United States despite the Vietnam challenge. RN’s May 1972 Moscow Summit was the beginning of the policy of Détente. Under this policy, the artificial division of Europe was unfortuantely recognized and scientific and cultural contacts between the Soviet bloc and the West were encouraged.

It is to be hoped that a ‘spheres of influence’ approach will not be followed by the Obama administration in which the United States allows powerful nations such as China and Russia to dominate geographical areas in return for the United States to do the same. All nations, regardless of their size have a right to have their sovereignty respected. Interference by one nation in another’s affairs is only acceptable in the pursuit of democracy and human rights. The Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (1969 to 1974) observed that peace is not achieved by sacrificing small nations.

The major ramification of Détente was the negotiation of the Stategic Arms Limitation (SALT) treaties concerning the levels at which nuclear weapons would be deployed. The conservative Right in the United States was critical of RN’s and Kissinger’s Détente policy. This policy was pursued by the United States because it did not seem plausible then that Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe could ever be reversed.

The advantages which the Soviets reaped from Détente, such as manipulating the SALT agreements, were a result of American weakness which arose as a disastrous consequence of Watergate. Nonetheless Détente helped lead to Soviet bloc nations signing the Helsinki human rights accords in 1975 which in turn generated Helsinki Watch dissident groups in Eastern Europe who helped bring down communism in the late 1980s.

For all the criticism to which RN and Kissinger were subjected to concerning Detente, both were always staunchly anti-communist. This was demonstrated by their strong support after leaving office for the Reagan administration’s foreign policies which fatally undermined Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. Indeed RN’s initiation of Détente combined with his anti-communism helped make him a revered figure in post-communist Russia.

RN’s First Term

Despite his foreign policy triumphs and his administration’s competent economic management, RN’s 1972 re-election was dependant upon whom the Democrats nominated for president. This was because the Democrats were still the dominant political party as FDR’s New Deal coalition was still essentially intact. RN therefore did not undertake any substantially ‘right wing’ domestic policies during his first term. The possible exception to this policy approach was RN’s decision to take the American dollar off the gold standard in 1971 to promote international free trade.

In RN’s first term, there was no major reversal of LBJ’s Great Society programs. The Enviromental Protection Agency (EPA), established in 1968, was consolidated and the civil rights reforms of the Great Society were maintained. The Nixon administration promoted the rights and interests of Native American Indians and court decisions facilitating ‘busing’, i.e. the racial integration of schools were faithfully adhered to. Relatively cordial relations between the Nixon administration and organised labour were also maintained, in part because of the strong anti-communism of George Meaney, who was president of the American Federation of Labor –Congress of Central Organisations (AFL-CIO) at this time.

For all RN’s domestic policy moderation, substantial opposition to his administration emerged during his first term. This opposition was due to RN’s frequent vetoes of congressional spending programs which he considered to be inflationary. Rancorous disputes between RN and Congress concerning presidential Supreme Court nominations also undermined possible bi-partisan unity during the first term.

RN’s first term was also characterised by stained relations with the press. The most prominent dispute between the administration and the press was RN’s unsuccessful attempt in 1971 to prevent the New York Times  from publishing the leaked ‘Pentagon Papers’ (which concerned Vietnam policy making by previous administrations). This dispute set the tone of press’s hostility and bias againist the Nixon administration during the Watergate crisis.

The 1972 Presidential Election

Even without the emergence of Watergate, the 1972 election would still be interesting. The political year of 1972 commenced with RN’s re-election being uncertain and ended on a note of uncertainity despite his massive re-election. Although RN won an overwhelming re-election as president, Americans still returned a Democratic Congress which was orientated toward taking the United States toward the left due the impact of the failed Democrat presidential candidacy of Senator George Mc Govern of South Dakota. The possible political direction of the United States vis a vis a struggle between the president or Congress would be determined by Watergate.

That the 1972 presidential election was still competitive regardless of RN’s first term record was reflected by the fact that there were eleven prospective nominees for the Democratic Party nomination. (One of the those candidates was my American political hero, the late Senator Henry (‘Scoop’) M Jackson of Washington state). In early 1972, RN’s re-election seemed problematic due to continued Democratic Party dominance and widespread respect for the Democrat front runner for the party presidential nomination, Senator Edmund S Muskie of Maine.

Senator Muskie had been Senator Humphrey’s running mate in the 1968 presidential election and he was widely respected for his intelligence, integirity and calm demeanour. However, just before the first presidential primary in New Hampshire in February Senator Muskie was teary eyed as he denouced William Loeb, the editor of the far right and subsequently ludicrously misnamed New Hampshire newspaper the Manchester Union Leader. Senator Muskie’s emotional reaction to an article in this paper that his wife had a drinking problem fatally undercut his reputation for calmness and he lost his front runner status.

The two candidates who moved into the void were polar opposites, Senator George Mc Govern and Alabama Governor George Wallace. The viability of Senator Mc Govern’s candidacy was that he had a tight and committed campaign team and the advantage he had in selecting delegates in non primary states. In these states, delgates were selected by caucuses according to the recommendations of the 1971 Mc Govern Commission. This commission was established as a response to the debacle of the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention.

The strength of Governor Wallace’s campaign was derived from his populist skill in running on local issues where primaries were being held which enabled him to considerably expand beyond his ‘Deep South’ political base. Governor Wallace emerged as a viable contender by exploiting anti-busing sentiment to win the important Florida primary. However, the governor was paralyzed after being shot in May while campaigning in Maryland. Governor Wallace’s withdrawal would help RN gain the allegiance of millions of voters who might not have otherwise have voted for him.

Senator Mc Govern’s quest for the Democratic nomination was almost thwarted by Senator Humphrey who assembled an essentially ‘anybody but Mc Govern’ coalition. Senator Humphrey’s narrow loss to Senator Mc Govern at the deciding June California primary unfortunately delivered the latter’s presidential nomination. The bitterness of the Democratic nomination campaign however provided RN’s campaign with the capacity to gain millions of traditional Democratic votes in the November presidential election.

Due to the strengh of the Democratic Party base, RN pursued a strategy of being a president above the partisan fray. RN’s re-election committee was therefore known as the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP). The Nixon campaign focused on Mc Govern’s radical left –wing agenda to isolate him from the political mainstream. Senator Mc Govern’s chief political asset was his perceived personal integrity. The duplitious way in which Senator Mc Govern removed his respected running mate, Senator Thomas F Eagleton of Missouri, after it was revealed that he had once undergone psychiatric treatment for depression and exhaustion, severely undermined Mc Govern’s credibility.

Denial of a Mandate: Watergate Unleashed

Although RN was re-elected in a landslide with 60% of the vote the Democrats increased their majority in the Congress. The disparity in the respective presidential and congressional votes was due to RN’s decision to project a non-partisan image. With the advent of Watergate and in the wake of subsequent events this was an unfortunate strategy because RN would have been better served in his second term by a stronger Republican base in the Congress.

It should also be pointed out, that contray to popular myth, Watergate was not exposed by two intrepid investigative reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of the Washington Post . Bernstein’s and Woodward’s successive ‘revelations’ and those of their mysterious, if not fictional mole, ‘Deep Throat’, obscured the fact that the American Congress drove the dynamics of the Watergate affair.

The Watergate affair and the connection of staff from the CRP was a major story from the beginning of news of the Watergate bugulary breaking in June 1972. The Washington Post in 1972 ran with the issue of supposed White House invovlement in the Watergate bugulary right up until election day. Indeed Watergate was the major issue that Mc Govern used against RN in the 1972 election campaign. The potency of Watergate to destroy RN in his second term would be driven by Congress with the aid of media bias.

RN had won an overwhelming presidential election victory and had a reformist second term agenda, the New American Revolution, which threatened the New Deal legacy that had underpinned Democratic national dominance. Therefore, in RN’s second term, Democtatic congressional leaders ran with Watergate to politically cripple and ultimately destroy him.

The Watergate affair commenced on the 17^th of June 1972 after five burglars were apprehended breaking into and trying to bug the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) at the Watergate Office Building in Washington D.C. The five burgalars in addition to other men who were involved in wiretapping were convicted in January 1973. Because these men were either directly or indirectly employed by CRP, suspicion arose that administration figures or even RN were involved in the bugulary.

The Democratic Party Congressional majority voted in January 1973 to establish a special investigative committee into the Watergate break in. The subsequent Senate Select Committee to investigate Watergate was established in May 1973 and was chaired by Democratic North Carolina Senator Sam J Ervin. At the end of the preceding month, the Watergate affair began to paralyze the administration when RN was forced to accept the resignations of White House Chief of Staff, Harry R Haldeman and White House Assistant on Domestic Affairs, John D Ehrlichman.

Paralysis Sets In

The resignations of Ehrlichman and Haldeman on April 30^th 1973 were precipitated by the admission of one of the Watergate burglars, James Mc Cord, that it was due to political pressure that he had pleaded guility and remained silent concerning CRP involvement in the Watergate burgulary. On the same day that Haldeman and Ehrlichman resigned, the Senate confirmed Elliot L Richardson as the new Attorney General. He in turn appointed Archibald Cox to the new position of Special Prosecutor into the Watergate enquiry.

The departures of Ehrlichman and Haldeman were bitter blows to RN and his deep reluctance to let them go was one of the reasons why Watergate became such a disaster. The powerful and presitigous position of White House Chief of Staff was created by RN when he became president in 1969. Wearied by ‘anti-war’ protesters and immersed in foreign policy issues, RN delegated considerable leeway to Ehrlichman and Haldeman. Ehrlichman by the end of RN’s first term was even been touted as the Henry Kissinger of domestic policy.

RN’s attachment to Ehrlichman and Haldeman was also derived from his determination to stop leaks and ‘run a tight ship’ from the White House. This determination was reinforced by the 1971 Pentagon Papers furore which probably led to RN’s decsion that year to have conversations in the Oval Office tape recorded. The tightness with which the White House was run under Ehrlichman and Haldeman was dubbed by some White House staffers as the ‘Berlin Wall’. This internal discord help shatter the unity which was needed with the onset of the Watergate investigations conducted by the Ervin Committee and the Special Prosecutor’s Office.

The major rupture with regard to White House staff unity was the June 1973 televised testimony of former White House Counsel John W Dean – who RN had sacked on April 30^{th _} that the president was involved in the Watergate cover up.

The revelation by White House aide Alexander Butterfield in testimony in July 1973 before the Ervin Committee that there was a taping system in the White House led to an almost year long battle with the two successive special prosecutors (Cox and his successor Leon Jaworski) to gain access to the White House tapes.

The Wolves Descend

The Watergate affair reached apocalytic proportions on the 20^th of October 1973 when Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy William Ruckelshaus resigned rather than acede to RN’s request that Cox be dismissed as Special Prosecutor after Cox demanded that the White House tapes be handed over to him. (Solicitor General Robert Bork, the third ranking official in the Justice Department carried out the dismissal). This incident became known as the ‘Saturday Night Massacare’.

Mention should be made that during the time of the ‘Saturday Night Massacare’ (October 1973), RN delivered vital emergency aid to Israel which had just come under attack from Egypt and Syria. The shuttle diplomacy which Secretary of State Henry Kissinger undertook between the combatants facilitated a cease fire. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s courageous decision to agree to a a cease-fire and allow the Egyptians to hold some of the territory which they had gained provided Egyptian President Anwar Sadat with the flexibility to make his historic visit to Israel in 1977.

The 1977 Sadat visit in turn set the scene for President James (‘Jimmy’) E Carter to mediate the Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1979 which was the major positive foreign policy achievement of his presidency. Egypt, on a de facto basis, moved into an alliance with the United States following RN’s June 1974 visit to Cairo which was his major achievement for that difficult year. Despite RN and Kissinger’s seminal role in laying the ground work for the Middle East peace process, neither were invited to the White House lawns for the signing of the agreement between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in September 1993.

The impact of Watergate in detracting from RN’s forign policy achievements was dramatically embedded by memories of related events such as the ‘Saturday Night Massacre’. This incident has been potrayed as a stark example of RN obstructing justice. However, the creation of the new position of Special Prosecutor had been instigated by Senator Senator Ted Kennedy who had also strongly backed Cox’s appointment. Cox himself had previously worked for Senator Ted Kennedy’s two brothers and some of his staff had also worked for Senator Robert Kennedy. The uproar which ensued following the ‘Saturday Night Massacre’ obscured the partisan political influences which had precipitated the formation of investigations into Watergate.

The credibility or otherwise of the Watergate enquires essentially rested on the infamous ‘smoking gun’ tape of June 23^rd 1972 in which RN discussed with Haldeman how to ensure that either the White House or the CRP was not linked to the Watergate burgulary. The tragedy of the ‘smoking gun’ tape is that it became the hook by which RN became ensnared in Watergate and made other unsubstantiated allegations against him appear credible.

The Supreme Court unamimously decided on the July 24^th 1974 that the White House tapes, including the incriminating ‘smoking gun’ tape be handed over to the special prosecutor. The playing of the smoking gun tape on August the 5^th 1974 ensured that RN had no choice but to resign to avoid impeachment which he unfortunately did on August the 9^th 1974. (RN resigned despite determined and loving opposition from his daughter Julie). To save RN from on-going persection, President Gerald R Ford mercifully pardoned him the following month.

Misconstruing Contexts: The ‘Smoking Gun’ Tape

The ‘smoking gun tape’ was the incriminating tape because in it RN discussed with Haldeman the option of paying hush money to the burglars and the mechanics of how this could be arranged without the money being traced. RN also discussed stopping the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from pursuing leads which might incriminate the CRP. As reprehensible as the discussion matter was in the ‘smoking gun’ tape, RN’s involvement in a ‘Watergate cover up’ did not actually extend beyond canvassing the aforementioned options.

The broader perspective which the ‘smoking gun’ tape and other White House tapes established was that RN did not instigate the Watergate burglary or have prior knowledge of it. Ironically, RN’s attempt to show that his administration and campaign was not involved in the Watergate burglary actually led to him being engulfed by the affair in his second term.

The morally dubious aspect of RN’s involvement in Watergate was that he canvassed options of covering up potentially illegal actions undertaken by people connected with his re-election campaign. RN’s determination to prevent the release of the ‘smoking gun’ tape subsequently provided credence to allegations that RN had detailed knowledge of other activities, such as the ‘Plumbers’ unit.

Had RN released all the tapes, including the ‘smoking gun tape’ shortly after Butterfield revealed their existence in July 1973, the political ramifications would have been very adverse but the momentum for impeachment might have been stifled. As important as impeachment is as a check and balance within the American constitutional system, this process is still inherently political because it involves a legislative house acting as a jury and court.

Calculated Passion: The Politics of Impeachment

The stirring speech that Texas Congresswoman Barbara C Jordan made before the House Judiciary Committee in July 1974 obscured the political dimension of the impeachment proces. The respected Time magazine correspondent Hugh Sidey’s conclusion that the Watergate trauma constituted a triumph of the American system by checking a presidential abuse of power similarly undermined the value of retrospectively analysing the partisan dynamics which had initiated and driven the Watergate affair.

President Bill Clinton was found by a court in 1998 to have committted perjury with regard to the case of Paula Jones concerning his denial of having had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. President Clinton was impeached in December 1998 but the political dynamics were such that the Senate trial was brief and the attempt to remove the president failed on party lines.

This outcome was positive in that the United States could not afford to have a sitting president consumed by a politically motivated trial, let alone be removed. President Clinton’s lawyers tried to have the matters raised by Paula Jones adjourned until Clinton became a private citizen. There was however no ensuing uproar that President Clinton was obstructing justice. Indeed, the Democrats position in the Congress slightly improved in the November 1998 congressional elections.

By contrast the political momentum which had forced RN from office was bolstered following President Ford’s presidential pardon of his predecessor. The ensuing uproar provided the Democrats with a landslide win in the 1974 mid term congressional elections.

The Decline of American Power: Watergate’s Negative Ramifications

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger later catergorized the new Congress as ‘Mc Governite’ and this was confirmed by its denial of aid to South Vietnam and the ‘Khmer Republic’ which ensured that both nations fell to communism in April 1975. Congressional denial of aid to anti-communist guerillas in the former Portuguese colony of Angola also allowed Cuban backed communists to prevail in 1976.

The disastrous ramification of Watergate was the undermining in American faith to engage in world affair to counter Soviet power. This change in approach was manifested by Jimmy Carter’s election in 1976. The Carter administration’s emphasis on human rights turned out to be tragically counter productive. By distancing the United States from the Shah of Iran and the Somoza family dictatorship in Nicaragua, the Carter administration in 1979 helped ensure that both nations went from being authoritarian dictatorships to entrenched autocracies determined to do harm to the United States.

The American Ambassador to the United Nations from 1981 to 1985, Dr Jeane Kirkpatrick (who had been a staunch supporter of Hubert Humphrey), observed that authoritarian regimes, which were often American backed, could be reformed and eased out of power. By contrast, Soviet backed communist regimes were almost impossible to remove. The sound distinction that the Reagan admininistration made between different catagories of regimes helped ensure a transition from authoritarian governments to democratic governments during this period, particuarly in South America in the 1980s.

While Kirkpatrick’s analysis now seems dated, it should not be forgotton that, at this time, it did not seem possible that the Soviet empire would collapse. Indeed, Soviet power would not have collapsed without the exercise of American power in opposing the Soviet Union. Under President Carter, there seemed little prospect that the Soviets would be effectively resisted.

The 1976 election of Jimmy Carter was a very negative consequence of Watergate. Carter came across as a political outsider, a ‘Mr. Smith’ goes to Washington type of figure who would consistently be politically transparent. By contrast, President Ford was considered a good caretaker president but just that, a caretaker. Post election analysis indicated that, had President Ford taken RN’s unsolicited advice, given through intermediaries, of what states to focus on and which Republican Party operatives to utilize, then he would have won election to the 1976 presidential election.

RN: Behind the Scenes But Still in the Fray

Except for undertaking a private trip to China in February 1976, RN maintained a low profile up until after the 1976 presidential election. RN did this to help President Ford’s election bid. Nonetheless RN still ‘worked the phones’ in 1976 to secure the selection of the former Democrat governor of Texas John B Connally as President Ford’s running mate. Connally had served as RN’s Treasury Secretary and had headed the ‘Democrats for Nixon’ organisation in the 1972 election.

RN would have selected Connally as his running mate in 1972 if it had been politically feasible. Following Agnew’s resignation RN in October 1973 wanted to nominate Connally to fill the vice-presidencial vacancy but this was not an option due to opposition from the Democrats. (The position went to Gerald R Ford of Michigan who had been the Republican House Minority Leader).

Having joined the Republicans in May 1973, Connally almost won the election for Ford by coming close to delivering Texas to him. (Carter as a southner was the first Democrat to win all of the South since 1944. Without this he could not have won the 1976 presidential election). RN’s determination to secure Connally’s political future was not only based on his political admiration for him but on his belief that Connally could bring over millions of Democrat voters to the Republican side. In actual fact, this outcome was to be achieved by another former Democrat and life long admirer of FDR, Ronald Reagan.

Reagan to the Rescue

Having almost beaten Ford for the 1976 Republican presidential nomination, Reagan entered the race for the Republican nomination in 1980 as the front runner and he subsequently won the presidential election that year. This chain of events could not have occurred had it been for RN’s previous political defeats.

The Reagan presidency (1981 to 1989) was historically significant in precipitating the collapse of the Soviet empire. This was ultimately achieved by consistently challenging Soviet power. Under the Reagan administration Soviet resources were strained by funding anti-communist insurgencies in the Third World, (which was known as the Reagan Doctrine) and pursuing the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) which became known as ‘Star Wars’. The deployment of Cruise missiles in Europe also challenged the resource capability of the Soviets to keep up.

The military aid that the Reagan administration provided to the Mujadeen in Afghanistan in the 1980s was very important in undermining Soviet strength. Similarly, covert American support for the free Polish union movement Solidarnosc (Solidarity) was crucial to undermining Soviet power. By assisting Solidarity the Reagan administration was actually challenging the post –war assumption that Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe could not be realistically challenged.

American support for Solidarity was facilitated through the AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO president at this time was Lane Kirkland. He still worked with the Reagan administration by supporting Solidarity despite this administraton being unfortunately stridently anti-union. The major right –wing domestic policy undertaking of the Reagan administration were tax cuts as part of a move toward supply side economics and budget cuts to welfare programs. Despite these constant battles between the Reagan administration and Congress over welfare spending programs, the ‘Reagan Revolution’ did not undo the domestic legacies and programs of the New Deal and Roosevelt’s electoral coalition remained intact.

The need for the Soviets to respond to the Reagan challenge gave rise to the elevation of Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in March 1985. Gorbachev’s intention on coming to power was not to end communism but to reform it so that the Soviets could match and ultimately overcome the West. Gorbachev’s rise to power allowed the western media to pursue an ‘anti-anti-communist’ line which ranged from a perspective that the Soviet Union should be accommodated to a position that Soviet communism was a positive force in the world. The media’s anti –anti –communism was often manifested by ridiculing Reagan as an out of his depth former actor as opposed to a brillant Gorbachev.

The historical importance of the Reagan presidency in winning the Cold War was vividly demonstrated by the superpower leadership summit in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik in October 1986. During this summit, Gorbachev offered President Reagan major cuts in nuclear weapon stockpiles in Europe. At the point at which President Reagan was about to agree, the Soviet leader then made an arms deal conditional on the Americans scrapping SDI. Had President Reagan agreed, the Soviet Union would have gained the crucial breathing space it needed for its empire to survive.

Gorbachev’s failure to thwart SDI led to his decision to attempt to change the political leadership in Eastern Europe in 1989, or in the case of Hungary and Poland, support the reformist leaderships in those countries. Confidence to initiate reform leadership changes in Eastern Europe was bolstered by the security the Soviets derived from the intermediate-range nuclear forces agreement signed at the Reagan/Gorbachev Summit in Washington in December 1987. The Soviet attempts to manipulate leadership changes in Czechoslovakia and East Germany in November 1989 went awry and the Soviet position in all Eastern Europe consequently collapsed.

Iran-Contra:Watergate II Averted

It should not be forgotten however that had President Reagan not successfully ridden out the Iran-Contra affair which broke out in November 1986 just after the Reykjavik Summit, the Soviet position in Eastern Europe may not have collapsed. The mistakes that the RN made with regard to Watergate were thankfully not repeated and may have served as a guide with respect to the handling of the Iran-Contra affair.

The Iran-Contra affair broke when the Iranian leadership leaked that the United States was secretly selling arms to Iran to fight with in its war with Iraq (the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988). The Reagan administration’s policy of secretly selling weapons to a regime as dangerous as Iran’s was strategically stupid and morally wrong. However, the situation threatened to reach Watergate proportions when it was revealed that the profits of the arms sales had been secretly and illegally diverted to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels.

The diversion of the arms sales profits was the equivalent ‘smoking gun’ in this affair. Had the Reagan administration delayed and stonewalled the momentum could have developed for the affair to have degenerated into another Watergate. A crucial circuit breaker was the revelation by Attorney General Edwin Meese at a press conference in late 1986 that the profits from the armed sales had gone to the Contras. It is too frightening to contemplate the adverse ramifications and mythology which would have ensued had the diversion of profits to the Contras been revealed as a result of a politically motivated enquiry.

The forced resignation in early December 1986 of then White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan was another circuit breaker which helped avoid a potential disaster. The acerbic Regan was the equivalent of Erlichmand and Haldeman and had he stayed on, a disruptive and fatal dynamic may have developed. Tennessee Senator Howard H Baker’s appointment as Regan’s successor as Chief of Staff may have been an indication that Watergate was used as a guide to avoid the Iran-Contra affair blowing out.

It had been Baker’s famous question of ‘What did the President know and when did he know it?’ in 1973 in reference to RN which had been the signal to Republicans that they could defect with regard to Watergate. Baker’s appointment as the new Chief of Staff was shrewd because he was deeply respected by Senate Democrats.

The deciding factor with regard to the Iran-Contra affair which not only helped avoid disaster but delivered a degree of success was the July 1987 Senate testimony of Lt. Colonel Oliver L North. Colonel North refused to play the role of John Dean. In his testimony Colonel North defended his actions in the name of national security and in doing so demolished the attempt of committee investigative chairman, Senator Daniel K Inouye of Hawaii to emulate Senator Sam Ervin.

For all Colonel North’s eloquence the tribute for exceptional bravery should have gone to Vice-Admiral John Poindexter’s unambiguous 1987 Senate testimony that he deliberately withheld information from President Reagan about the diversion of arms profits. Vice-Admiral Poindexter explained that he did this to provide the president with plausible deniability. It was amazing that the vice-admiral’s testimony was essentially ignored by the media so that they could persist with the news tone that there was an Iran-Contra ‘crisis’.

In contrast to Watergate not only was political disaster avoided with regard to the Iran-Contra affair but a degree of political success emerged. The momentum generated by Colonel North’s testimony helped set the scene for the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representative Jim C Wright in November 1987 to threaten to support aid to the Contras unless Nicaragua Sandinista’s government agreed to internationally monitored elections, which they did and lost in February 1990.

The fact that the Iran-Contra was an averted disaster was reflected by the 1988 presidential elections in which Iran-Contra failed to register as a major political issue. Vice-President George HW Bush was able to win the 1988 presidential election by winning the support of blue-collar Democrats who were prepared to vote for a Republican presidential candidate based on issues related to foreign policy, national security and law and order.

Bush’s election helped ensure that Reagan’s political legacy in immediate terms ended on a positive note and ensured that the United State’s advantages in foreign policy would not be squandered following Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

RN and the 1988 Presidential Election

It is often overlooked that Ronald Reagan’s greatest political frustration and political defeat had been the reversal of his legacy as governor of California (1967 to 1975) by his Democratic successor Jerry Brown (the son of Pat Brown). Accordingly the new White House Chief of Staff Kenneth M Duberstein, who succeeded Howard Baker in 1988, gave as much support to Bush in the 1988 presidential campaign as was ethically possible. Reagan’s support for Bush stood in contrast to Eisenhower’s lukewarm endorsement of RN in 1960.

RN himself strongly supported the Bush-Qualye ticket in the 1988 election in newspaper colunms. His most helpful commentary was to debunk Democrat presidential nominee Michael Dukakis’s attempt to historically connect to the Kennedy –Johnson 1960 ticket. Dukakis invoked an historical parallel with the 1960 election by referring to the fact that he and his running mate Senator Lloyd M Bentsen respectively came from the same states as Kennedy and Johnson, Massachusetts and Texas. RN pointed out that such a comparison was invalid because  Dukakis was not as staunch an anti-communist as Kennedy and Johnson had been.

RN Stays in the Public Policy Areana

RN had returned to public life as a commentator, firstly on foreign affairs and then on domestic politics, with a natural partisan orientation toward the Republican Party. However, his partisan allegiance was reinforced by his genuine belief that his party was better equipped to advance the national security interests of the United States and, by extension, of the non-communist world.

Pat Nixon pointed out that RN remained passionately concerned about the United States’s well being. For this reason RN drew strength by speaking out on issues relevant to foreign policy and domestic affairs following his resignation as president. This was reflective of RN’s strong desire to overcome the negative consequences generated by Watergate.

Many of RN’s critics conceded that he was brillant but flawed. This qualified but still damming assessment maintains that RN’s drive was derived from personal inadequacy, ego and a consequent desire for self-advancement. In fact, RN’s lateral grasp of policy was reflective not only of a brillant mind but of a person who was dedicated to advancing the public good. RN in his retirement wrote about what he considered to be the causes of urban poverty and policies which could be pursued to redress them.

RN’s lucity was also demonstrated in his post-presidential vocation as a writer. His nine post-presidential books, including his 1978 memoirs, are very readable. The issues that these books covered encompassed foreign affairs, the United States place in the world, domestic policy and the quality of leadership. The former president had a unique ability to link historical and political analysis to lateral policy positions. RN’s recollections of world leaders were also uniquely illuminating and often moving because his personal insights were often interwoven with strategic analysis and explanation of historical outcomes.

RN: Post-Presidential Statesman

RN’s role as an international statesman thankfully did not terminate with his resignation. Having been a mentor to President George H W Bush (1989-1993), RN was often an informal but important emissary for the first Bush president. RN’s trip to China following the June 1989 Tinnanmen Square massacre helped steady the position of the nation’s paramount leader Deng Xiao Ping. Having sided with party hardliners by supporting the crackdown against student demonstators and Chinese calling for political reform Deng was left in a potentially perlious political position.

Chinese Prime Minister Li Peng was an advocate of Soviet style bureacratic controls and he was subsequently in a position to orientate China away from Deng’s economic reformist agenda. RN’s visit four months after the Tinnanmen Massacre accentuated the point that China still had a valuable relationship with the United States which should not be squandered. The first Bush administration’s maintenance of China’s Most Favoured Nation status, coupled with the implosion of the Soviet model during this period, helped Deng maintain his ascendancy following the Tinnanmen Square massacre.

The ageing China’s leader’s highly publicised tour of the coastal provinces in February 1992 helped him relaunch his previously stalled economic reform agenda. Today, China is an integral and vital part of the world economy. While China has yet to become a democracy, (which it was moving toward until the sudden fall of the Chinese monarchy in 1912) Deng’s reform agenda at least helped spawn a civil society which may become the basis of a future Chinese democracy. It is arguable that RN’s 1972 visit was the point from which China commenced on its reformist path and that his continued involvement following his departure from office has helped China remain on that path.

The other former major communist country on which RN had an impact on was Russia. Even after Eastern Europe broke free from communism in 1989 the orientation of most world leaders was to favour Gorbachev over Boris Yeltsin, the maverick Russian politician and later Russian President (1991 to 2000). It was RN who staunchly supported Yeltsin before the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991 and it was only fitting that RN was the first foreigner to address a new, more or less freely elected Russian Parliament in March 1994 when he appeared before its foreign relations committee. (Which begs the rhetorical question of who was the ultimate victor of the 1959 ‘Kitchen Debate’, RN or Khrushchev?).

Before sounding too triumphant a note concerning Russia’s break from communism, it should be pointed out that RN prophetically warned that Russia might not make a transition to democracy. RN’s death in 1994 was prematurely tragic because he had established a rapport with some of Russia’s new politicians and he could have fulfilled a mentoring role. The failure of Russian democracy to consolidate is one of the great missed opportunities of the late twentieth century.

State of Flux: Bush makes way for Clinton

Another missed opportunity to advance democracy in the Middle East was the American failure to take out Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq in 1991. The grave difficulties which have arisen since the United States led intervention in 2003 to remove Saddam’s regime have been cited as a justification of the decision not to assist the Iraqi peole in 1991. However, it should not be forgotten that in 1991 various Iraqi opposition groups were prepared to come together and that it is relatively easier (as Eastern Europe in 1989 demonstrated) to support a transition to democracy when the people within the country substantially bring about change themselves.

The first Bush administration’s action in liberating Kuwait in 1991 did however have positive ramifications. Yasser Arafat’s refusal to condemn Saddam’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait between 1990 and 1991 led to important oil rich Gulf states cutting money off to Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). As a result, the PLO was compelled to attend the Madrid talks in late 1991 to regain its standing in the Arab world in the wake of Iraq’s expulsion from Kuwait. This development was a paradigm shift because the PLO was compelled to enter into meaningful public negotiations with Israel. However, Arafat’s re-location to the West Bank in 1994 did not constitute a concession on his part concerning Israel’s right to exist.

The euphoria which followed the United State led coalition’s limited victory in the First Gulf War led to an expectation that President Bush would win an easy re-election in 1992. President Bush failed to win re-election because some conservative blue-collar Democrats, the Reagan Democrats, and enough independent voters opted for the independent third party candidate Ross Perot.

The first Bush administration failed to hold onto the allegiance of sufficient ‘Reagan Democrats’ because national security issues had declined in importance due to the end of the Cold War. President George WH Bush’s decision to raise taxes in 1990 as part of budget deal was courageous and beneificial because it began to rein in the massive budget deficit bequeathed by the Reagan administration. However, the raising of taxes despite a seemingly unambiguous 1988 campaign pledge of not to, fatally undermined President Bush’s credibility. Furthermore, the first Bush administration offered no compelling theme as to why it should be re-elected. Clinton therefore won in 1992 due to a combination of holding the Democtratic base and Perot siphoning votes from Bush.

An important factor which also contributed to Bill Clinton winning the 1992 presidential election was his catch cry of ‘it’s the economy, stupid’! This slogan suggested a neo-isolationist agenda on the part of the new president. President Clinton and his wife Hilliary (who had served as a staff member to the United States House Committee on the Judiciary which responsible for impeachment matters against RN) had both been strong supporters of Senator George Mc Govern in 1972. The Clinton 1992 election seemingly brought American politics full-circle with a new presidential couple whose political formation was anti- RN.

However, it was RN who took the opportunity to meet with the new president in 1993 and to urge that the United States not forgo the opportunities and responsibilities of being the world’s remaining super power. As a highly intelligent man, President Clinton was shrewd enough not to allow previous possible prejudices to obstruct him from listening to RN’s opinions and advice. The precedent was therefore set for President Clinton working in concert with the Republicans.

Reversing Watergate?

President Clinton’s strained collaboration with the Republican Party was necessitated by their victory in the midterm congressional elections in 1994. This amazing political turn round was due to the leadership of the Republican Congress House Minority Leader Newton (Newt) L Gingrich of Georgia and the failure of the Clinton administration’s ‘big ticket items’ during its first two years in office. The most notable Clinton failure in this period was was First Lady Hilliary Clinton’s health care reform plan, of which RN was a perceptive critic. Gingrich harnessed disappointment arising from fizzed Clinton initiatives and middle class fear concerning possible future tax increases to win fifty four congressional seats and Republican control of the House.

Over the next four years (1995- 1999) a strange pattern of governance emerged in which President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich bitterly opposed each other on a political level while simultaneously balancing each other out to achieve beneficial legislative reform. Clinton had a very detailed understanding of legislation which along with fine tuning helped facilitate its passage.

President Clinton was clever enough to aid ultimately successful and worthwhile legislative initiatives which included a balanced budget while opposing unpopular cuts to specific programs such as health care. A paradox emerged in which the 1994 Republican Congressional victory moved the United States to the right politically but over the following four years, there was a bitter fight for the political centre. President Clinton won re-election in 1996 with a strong Democratic base still intact while facing off against a revitalized Republican Party whose base of support was expanding to match the Democrats in terms of national reach.

(Perot’s 1996 presidential candidacy and the political weakness of the seventy three year old Republican presidential nominee and RN friend, Robert ‘Bob’ J Dole, helped secure Clinton’s re-election).

The Danger Zone: Second Term Presidents in Mid Term

With the future ideological direction of the United States at stake , partisan rivalry during the Clinton-Gingrich era was intense and bitter. President Clinton’s 1996 re-election was akin to RN’s 1972 re-election in that the nation’s future potential voting patterns and party strength could be determined for a generation depending upon political developments in the period up to the next mid-term congressional elections.

In the above context, the Republicans unfortunately impeached President Clinton in 1998 as they attempted to secure a potential long term political dominance. However, in contrast to the equivalent Democrat political manoeuvre of the 1970s, i.e. Watergate, the Repubublicans failed to generate sufficient political momentum to destroy the Clinton presidency. This was due to media bias toward Clinton, an absence of ideological polarization and because the charges against the president did not have sinister undertones. The unsuccessful attempt to politically destroy President Clinton left the Democratic-Republican equilibrium essentially unchanged and this set the scene for the very close 2000 presidential election.

It is ironic that RN died in April 1994 before the Republicans won control of Congress in November that year. RN had been devastated by the 1974 congressional election results and probably never believed that the Democratic majority and political dominance would ever be reversed. It seemed that RN’s worst fears, particurly during the Carter presidency (1977-1981), concerning Watergate induced Democrat dominance came to be realized as the United State’s position as the leader of the more or less free world went into free fall.

RN’s Long Term Positive Legacy

Fortuantely for RN, his short term political failures laid the ground work for the Reagan presidency which in turn not only reversed the decline of American power in the world but utlimately helped bring down the Soviet empire. The fact that China is now a part of the world economy and there is something approximating a Middle East peace process can be traced back to RN’s presidency.

In the area of domestic policy, the adverse ramifications of RN’s fall are still being felt. RN had competently administered the programs inherited from the Great Society and in some cases (such as the EPA) consolidated them. RN’s second term domestic agenda might have shifted the United States to the right but his approach to public policy was lateral and considered. (In his retirement, RN publicly called for gun control).

The destruction of RN’s presidency precipitated the rise of a more virulent form of American neo-liberalism which survives and thrives by pandering to a partisan base. The role of so-called ‘liberal-democrats’ in destroying RN’s presidency and thereby laying the groundwork for a more right wing approach to policy making is an outcome with which they are still to come to terms with.

The overwheliming national unity which was generated during George W Bush’s presidency (2001-2009) following the September 11 attacks was not sustained because underlying ideological fissures within American society came to the fore. These societal divisions can be traced back to the political ‘success’ of destroying RN’s presidency and to the entrenched mythologies concerning Watergate. These disastrous ramifications of RN’s political demise as president, evident during the Carter presidency, were reversed in foreign policy and national security terms by the Reagan presidency.

In foreign policy and national policy formation policy the second Bush presidency was essentially a coalition between American oil interests and neo-conservatives (‘neo-cons’), the latter being overtly concerned with advancing democracy around the world. Due to their foreign policy expertise it would be politically astute if President Obama utilized the talents of neo-cons who are prepared to serve in his administration in pursuit of promoting democracy around the world.

The drawn out nature of the American commitment to Iraq and Afghanistan weakened ‘neo-con’influence in policy formation with regard to American military strategy in those countries. The lack of neo-con of influence over military strategy was reflected by abuses at Abu Ghraid in Iraq, the Guatanamo Bay detentions and the use of water boarding, i.e. torture. These abuses, which Senator John S Mc Cain of Arizona spoke out against, were not only counterproductive but they were morally wrong.

Keeping RN’s Positive Legacy Alive

It is a pity therefore that Senator John Mc Cain did not win the Republican presidential nomination in 2000 and the presidency that year because he would not have permitted these human rights abuses under his watch. Although definitely on the political right of centre, Mc Cain demonstrated that he was a maverick by supporting immigrant rights in the United States despite the steep political risks involved. Senator Mc Cain’s support for campaign finance reform also reflected his principled approach to politics. In this regard, Senator Mc Cain’s public life is similar to RN in that his political career has been guided by a determination to put the public good first.

As a new era begins under Barck Obama as the first president born in the 1960s, it is to be hoped that the myths associated with RN and Watergate will not detract from the United States willingness and capacity to continue to engage in world affairs. For this to occur there should be a re-assessment of RN’s political career and legacy, including Watergate.

RN was a very important political figure who was caught up in an historical transition. Having won an overwheliming re-election in 1972, RN was thwarted from staying on as president until the 1974 congressional elections. This denied him the opportunity to transform American politics. Whether this transformation would have been for the better is irrelevant to the point that RN was premediatively denied his mandate and that the costs of the Watergate ‘scandal’ were too high.

The really scandalous dimension of the Watergate affair was that the political machinations of RN’s opponents brought him down and in the process severely undermined America’s standing in the world. If the United States is to face the challenges and responsibilities of the world today, then it should have a clearer sense of its own history. In this regard, the continuing vilification of one of the principal political figures of the twentieth century is unfortunate and a closer analysis of RN’s life and legacy would indicate that such vilification is unfounded.

Dr. David Bennett is the Convenor of Historical and Current Affairs Analysis (HCAA), editor of Socail Action Australia Pty Ltd and the International Liaison Officer of the Australian Monarchist League (AML).

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