RECORDER RecorderOfficial organ of the Melbourne Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History Issue No. 283—July 2015 ; IN THIS EDITION: • Vale Jack Simpson, by Brian Smiddy, p.6 • Arthur’s last hurrah: Calwell, Whitlam and the Ky visit • The archbishop WAS for burning, by Paul Ormonde, pp. to Australia, by Phillip Deery, pp. 1-2 6-7 • Vale Joan Kirner, by Brian Smiddy, p. 3 • Amirah Inglis, by Sarah Dowse, pp. 8-9 • The Vietnam peace movement made a difference, by • Vale Lorna Cameron, p. 9 Val Noone, pp. 3-5 • Three new research scholarships & NoZceboard, p. 10 • Colin Clark and the Movement, by Lyle Allan, pp. 5-6 • Peter Love's retirement from Swinburne, p. 10 • George Seitz MLA, by Kevin Davis, p. 6 • Branch contacts, p. 10 Arthur’s last hurrah: Calwell, Whitlam and the Ky visit to Australia* By Phillip Deery In the torrent of tributes for Gough Whitlam after his On 23 December 1966, Prime Minister Harold Holt death in October 2014, it is easy to forget the rancour announced that he had invited Nguyen Cao Ky, South and bitterness surrounding his ascent to the leadership Vietnam’s tenth premier in twenty months and part of a of the federal parliamentary Labor Party. He was elected military duumvirate (with General Nguyen Van Thieu) leader at a caucus meeting in February 1967 after Arthur that took power following a cycle of coups after Ngo Dinh Calwell, having lost three federal elections and now aged Diem’s assassination in November 1963. Calwell 70, decided he would step down. The electoral disaster immediately launched a series of vitriolic attacks on Ky. three months earlier, on 26 November 1966, was On 23 December he had stated that the visit of Ky, a especially cruel for Calwell, who – against Whitlam’s “power-hungry opportunist”, would shock every wishes – had campaigned strongly on the issues of Australian except those who “condoned and tolerated conscription and the Vietnam war. Both Calwell’s murder, brutality and injustice”. His invective went memoirs and Whitlam’s biographer highlight the policy further: in a separate statement, Calwell called Ky a “little differences and personal antagonisms between the two Quisling gangster”, a “miserable little butcher” and a in the run-up to that election.[1] But neither mention a “moral and social leper”.[2] On 26 December he crucial event sandwiched between the November defeat announced his intention to march at the head of any and the Whitlam victory: the state visit to Australia of the demonstration against the visit since “[i]f we are to fete Premier of South Vietnam, Air Vice-Marshall Ky, in military dictators it will be done in the face of my January 1967. That visit, which has largely been strongest opposition”. He added that the day Ky stepped overlooked by historians but which then received on Australian shores “should be declared a day of extensive national press and television coverage, threw a national mourning”.[3] Calwell’s strong reaction may sharp spotlight on the divisions within the ALP and, have been influenced by a 1965 report that Ky admired especially, between the leader and his deputy. Focusing Adolf Hitler. Ky was interviewed by a British journalist, on the Ky visit also illuminates Calwell’s principled stand, Brian Moynahan, who he told, in a remarkable display of opposed by the pragmatic Whitlam and ridiculed in the naïveté: “People ask me who my heroes are. I have only media. one – Hitler.”[4] The Jewish News commended Calwell for his “timely and penetrating opinion” about this “unwelcome guest”.[5] Calwell’s deputy was “not available for comment”.[6] As government preparations for Ky’s visit firmed up in the first two weeks of 1967, invitations to State functions were issued. Customarily, the Opposition leader and his deputy would be invited and Whitlam was in an embarrassing position, since he had visited South Vietnam in 1966, met with Ky and was his official dinner guest in Saigon.[7] But Calwell’s stated intention to boycott any official meeting or dinner with Ky sank any ;1 Recorder no. 283 RECORDER chance of ALP leaders attending. “They couldn’t very well Participation in, or absence from, the Melbourne march have the dinner if they didn’t have me present … And so on Sunday 22 January, became a litmus test of leadership it was all cancelled. And Whitlam disappeared from the credentials. Both Cairns and Frank Crean, who intended scene.”[8] When Whitlam returned from a nine-day to contest the party leadership, announced their family holiday on Lord Howe Island on 9 January, he intention to join the march; Whitlam, the front-runner, refused to be drawn into discussion about Calwell’s anti- remained silent. The Victorian executive, despised by Ky remarks or whether he would protest against the Whitlam, hoped his absence would “prejudice” his bid for visit: “Speak to my secretary [John Menadue], he’ll leadership.[19] “This is expected”, reported the Sun’s Jack answer any questions for me.”[9] Allsopp, “to have some influence on the Caucus ballot”. [20] The Melbourne march was a triumph for Calwell. He Just as the ALP was divided over Vietnam,[10] so it was led a two-mile march of over 8000 people stretching for divided over Calwell’s position on Ky. Despite the left- five city blocks from the Trades Hall to the Domain, close wing executive of the Victorian branch instructing all to the heavily guarded Government House, at which Ky Victorian federal and state Labor parliamentarians to was staying. A clergyman described how he was “deeply participate in anti-Ky marches and demonstrations, and stirred” by Calwell’s speech: Calwell threatening censure from the Party if they did not,[11] they were thin on the ground. At the first of “one of the finest bursts of oratory I have yet heard from three protests, in Canberra on 18 January, Calwell led a a politician. … Press reports had convinced me that march (dubbed “Arthur’s Long March”) of 700 protestors Arthur was more than a little mad, but his ‘Sunday to Parliament House where, inside, Ky was being sermon’ suggested to me that he is more than ever a welcomed. Only four members of the parliamentary noble leader.”[21] Labor Party participated. One, the MHR for Reid, Tom Uren, prevented photographs of Calwell being taken with On the other hand, mainstream press opinion on demonstrators holding Vietcong flags, while Calwell Calwell’s anti-Ky position was near-unanimous. Calwell lashed out at a pro-Ky youth who carried a placard, was “stooping to factionalism”;[22] was “obstinately “Calwell the Crumbling Cretin”.[12] Calwell, “looking fit perpetuating the divisions in his party”;[23] was and in vigorous speaking form”, claimed this was “a black resorting to “hysteria”;[24] and with his “wild day in Australian history” and reiterated his epithets: “Ky harangues” against Ky had “reached the end of the road is a Fascist. I repeat it – he is a murderer, a miserable … But now he has overstayed his welcome. He is a little butcher, a gangster Quisling.”[13] Later, Calwell Hamlet who will not leave the stage.”[25] criticised his colleagues who “went fishing or did something else.”[14] At the caucus meeting of the federal parliamentary Labor Party on 8 February, Calwell did leave the stage. Whitlam After the demonstration, a Bulletin journalist, Peter won the party leadership by a clear margin: 39 votes to Samuel, asked Calwell if he was frightened the ALP may Cairns’ 15 and Crean’s 14. But the battle did not end. The not “stick to its principles” on Vietnam, to which Calwell new leader stated on television that the former leader replied: “Well, I’m frightened it might not if one man gets had “debauched the Vietnam debate”, which “appalled control.”[15] Alan Reid, in the same issue of the Bulletin, and staggered” Calwell, who indicated he would report remarked that Whitlam had “disappeared wraithlike and Whitlam to the party’s Federal Executive.[26] But Calwell mute as a Sydney rock oyster … though he had eaten would have taken heart, had he known of it, from this Premier Ky’s food and drunk his liquor during a recent private letter to the Prime Minister. Part of it read: “It is Vietnam visit.”[16] The Australian suggested that “some” Mr Calwell who is fighting the forces of evil in Australia – of Calwell’s attacks on Ky were in fact directed at thank goodness we have someone fearless and good to Whitlam,[17] while Dr Jim Cairns criticised Labor MPs help us – otherwise we would be in despair.”[27] for absenting themselves from the Canberra demonstration; it was, he said, their “active political duty” to do so.[18] ;2 Recorder no. 283 RECORDER REFERENCES Vale Joan Kirner * The title is drawn from Bob Gould, “Arthur Calwell’s o last hurrah, Vietnamese dictator Ky and Kirribilli House in the stinking hot Sydney summer of 1967”, Honi Soit, March 2004. 1. A.A. Calwell, Be Just and Fear Not (Melbourne: Lloyd O’Neill, 1972), 230-2; Jenny Hocking, Gough Whitlam: A Moment in History. Volume 1 (Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 2008), 267-71. Strangio writes of their “damaging rift” just prior to the election when Whitlam deliberately distanced himself from Calwell’s policy on the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. Paul Strangio, Keeper of the Faith: a biography of Jim Cairns (Melbourne: Melbourne Photo by Scott McNaughton University Press, 2002), 164. 2. Age, 24 December 1966. By Brian Smiddy 3. Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December 1966. 4. Sunday Mirror (London), 4 July 1965.