America Looks to Australia: Richard Casey's Campaign in the United States, 1940-1942
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University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 1954-2016 University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 2015 America looks to Australia: Richard Casey's campaign in the United States, 1940-1942 James Anthony Prior University of Wollongong, Australia Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses University of Wollongong Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorise you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this work may be reproduced by any process, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the permission of the author. 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For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] 1 America Looks To Australia: Richard Casey’s Campaign in the United States, 1940-1942. A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree Doctor of Philosophy University of Wollongong By James Anthony Prior, BA(Com), UTS MA UNSW. 2 I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of a university or other institute of higher learning except where due acknowledgment is made in the text. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, even though I may have received assistance from others on style, presentation and language expression. James Prior 3 Acknowledgments I have had an interest in Richard Casey and John Curtin over many decades. I must first of all offer my heartfelt thanks to my wife Jan and the support that I have had from my children. My grandchildren provided 24/7 service maintaining my computer in working order, a task quite beyond me. I have also appreciated the advice, suppport and encouragement of my supervisor, Dr. Stephen Brown. 4 Table of Contents Abstract 5 Chapter 1 An Examination of the Literature 36 Chapter 2 Casey. Australian Diplomacy and The American Challenge. 83 Chapter 3 Casey in the United States. Roosevelt: The Washing of the Hands. 113 Chapter 4 Spring 1940. From the Phoney War to the Fall of France. 138 Chapter 5 Summer 1940. Casey’s Battle For Britain. 188 Chapter 6 Autumn and Winter 1940-1941: Preparing for the Pacific War. 232 Chapter 7 From the Menzies Visit to Pearl Harbor. 265 Chapter 8 Curtin and Casey. 289 Chapter 9 Pearl Harbor and its Aftermath. 314 Chapter 10 Conclusion 338 Appendix A “The Task Ahead” by John Curtin. 346 Bibliography 353 5 ABSTRACT This thesis is based on the belief that Richard Casey played a greater role than has been attributed to him in the foundation of the wartime alliance between Australia and the United States. Throughout his distinguished political career, Casey lived in the shadow of the Prime Ministers Robert Menzies and John Curtin. Casey was widely praised by contemporaries and scholars for his tireless efforts as Australia’s first ambassador to the United States in 1940- 42, yet there is little public recognition of his role in laying the foundation for the alliance between Australia and the United States. Bridge and other academic historians have rehabilitated Casey; this has not, however, flowed through to popular culture and writers of popular histories. Instead, most accounts misleadingly credit Prime Minister John Curtin with the fact that Australia successfully ‘looked to America’ for its salvation in World War Two. It will be argued here that one reason for the neglect of Casey is that, while he is often credited as a superb publicist and networker in Washington, he is not normally given much credit in the American decision in December 1941 to turn Australia into its Pacific base. It will be argued here that there needs to be greater recognition of Casey as a strategic thinker who, more than Curtin or any other Australian, facilitated the transformation of Australia into a key American ally. 6 Introduction Richard Gardiner Casey was, by any standard, a distinguished Australian. Trained as an engineer, he became , in turn, a decorated soldier, diplomat, parliamentarian, member of both the British War Cabinet and the Australian Cabinet and Australian War Cabinet, company director, party chief, peer, Privy Councillor and twice, vice-regal envoy. His efforts were usually attended by success and encomium. For the most part, his abilities were recognised by his peers. The Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra is today housed in a building named in Casey’s honour. Australia’s Antarctic base also carries Casey’s name. Yet, in the eyes of many of his fellow countrymen, he was not, and is not, held in the high regard that his accomplishments would suggest is warranted. His devotion to his country, even his patriotism has been seen as qualified by self-interest. Moreover, within the confines of his political reference groups, his limitations robbed him of the political reward that he most coveted – the prime ministership. Thus, the perception of Casey in Australian history accords him a minor role. Because of his failure to achieve any kind of domestic political eminence, he has been relegated to that large band of political identities who had the misfortune to reach near the top, but never the top itself, 7 of the political plum tree during the long period of what has become known as ‘the Menzies years’. This thesis is an attempt to conduct a closer examination of Casey in one specific period in his career, 1940 to 1942, when he represented Australia in Washington. This period has been chosen because his responsibilities as Australian Minister in Washington could be regarded as the most important responsibilities he ever undertook. In the years immediately leading up to the outbreak of the war in the Pacific, the government and the people of Australia realised, with increasing dismay, that the nation would be virtually defenceless in the event of attack by the forces of Japan, an attack long feared and expected. With Britain fighting for its very survival and unable to offer any kind of military or naval aid and much of the Australian defence forces engaged in the Middle East and the European theatres, Australia increasingly perceived the United States as the only power capable of bestowing assistance. It is not an original observation to argue that the years 1940 to 1942 included the most significant events of the twentieth century. The historian, Ian Kershaw, claimed that 1941 was the most momentous year in modern history. 1According to Kershaw: ‘That year, the most awful 1 Ian Kershaw. Fateful Choices. Ten Decisions That Changed The World. 1940- 1941, (London: Penguin, 2007), p. xv. 8 in history…took its shape largely from a number of fateful choices made by the leaders of the world’s major powers.’ This was certainly true of Australia’s situation too. As Harry Gelber described Casey’s mission to the United States: ‘never before and never since has any Australian Ambassador been called upon to serve in so vital a post at such a critical turning point not only in Australian but world history’. 2 While ever the United States remained the focus of Australia’s endeavours to enlist massive military aid in the feared conflict with Japan, Casey’s role as Australia’s chief representative in the United States carried grave responsibilities. It was he who would argue the justification for American participation in the defence of Australia, not only with the Roosevelt Administration but with the American people, who were deeply committed to an isolationist stance, as the rest of the world erupted into war. When Casey first arrived in the United States, he received the worst possible news from the American President. Roosevelt confirmed to Casey that his Cabinet had decided that assistance in the event of war breaking out in the 2 Harry Gelber, ‘Turning Points. Richard Casey and the Development of An Australian Foreign Service’ , Quadrant , April 2009, Vol. 53, pp 74-79, p. 79. 9 Pacific could not be offered to Australia, which was so distant from where the United States’ principal strategic interests lay. Casey was quickly made aware that one reason for the Roosevelt Administration’s view was that public opinion would not allow any offers of help to Australia. For the entirety of his term in the United States, Casey strove to turn around public opinion, Administration thinking and American naval and military strategy.