Fear Of Peace? Australian Government Responses to the Peace Movement 1949-1959 Craig McLean This thesis is submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of IMaster of Arts Department of Asian and International Studies, Faculty of Arts, Victoria University August 2001 STA THESIS 327.1720994 MACL 30001007573472 McLean, Craig Fear of peace? : Australian government responses to the peace movement, 1949-1959 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abbreviations ii. Acknowledgments iii. Synopsis iv. Introduction In the Shadow ofPetrov - Menzies, ASIO and the Peace Movement in Historical Study. 1. Chapter One Watershed, 1949: The Establishment of ASIO, the A ustralian Peace Council and the Menzies Government. 15. Chapter Two The Gathering Storm: Passport and Travel Restrictions: 1949-1952. 34. Chapter Three The Eye of the Storm: Passport and Travel Restrictions: 1952-1955. 76. Chapter Four 'Peace, Peace, Where There is No Peace': ASIO Surveillance of the Peace Movement in the 1950s. 124. Chapter Five Cutting Across the Pattern - Barwick, Spry and the 1959 ANZ Congress for International Co­ operation and Disarmament. 158. Conclusion 198. Bibliography 204. ABBREVIATIONS ALP Australian Labor Party ANZCICD Australian and New Zealand Congress for Intemational Co-operation and Disarmament APC Australian Peace Council ASIO Australian Security Intelligence Organisation CIS Commonwealth Investigation Service CPA Communist Party of Australia CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union NAA National Archives of Australia NLA NationalLibrary of Australia SEATO South East Asian Treaty Organisation UK United Kingdom UN United Nations USA United States of America WPC Worid Peace Council ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Firstly I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor. Dr. Phillip Deery, for his time and effort in aiding the compilation of this thesis. His enthusiasm and availability throughout has been greatly appreciated. Thanks also to my fellow 'Cold Warriors'; Diaime, Rachael and Geoff, for their support. My gratitude must also be extended to Liz Agostino, Sue Fairbanks and the staff of the Melbourne University Archives; the staff of the Manuscript Reading Room at the National Library of Australia, Canberra; the staff of the State Library of Victoria; and Mark Armstrong-Roper, Arts Librarian, Victoria University. Thanks also to the staff of the Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney offices of the National Archives of Australia, particularly Carolyn Connor, Merilyn Minell and Mark Breiman. Finally, I wish to thank Michelle Fenech for her support, encouragement and assistance in the compilation of this thesis. Ill SYNOPSIS This thesis is concerned with the Menzies Government and ASIO's responses to the threat posed by the Communist inspired peace movement during the early Cold War period, between 1949 and 1959. The thesis wiU particularly focus on the Government's efforts to restrict the movements of peace activists through the imposition of travel controls, most notably passport bans. The first chapter will focus on the background to the establishment of the Menzies Government, ASIO and the Australian Peace Council during 1949. It will look at the forces and circumstances which led to the establishment of these vastly different reactions to the prevailing Cold War climate. Chapter two will commence discussion about the Menzies Government's travel policy during the first three years of the administration. The Government's actions in regard to peace initiatives such as the Second World Peace Congress in Warsaw in 1950 and the Berlin Youth Festival in 1951 will be looked at in an effort to determine the Government's attitude toward travel abroad by peace activists. The Government's response to proposed visits to Australia by foreign peace activists for peace conferences, most notably the Melbourne Peace Congress in 1950 and the Sydney Youth Carnival for Peace and Friendship in early 1952, will also be discussed in an effort to establish the Government's attitude toward travel policy. It is the aim of this chapter to illustrate the birth and early development of the Menzies Govenmient's travel policy in relation to the intense Cold War atmosphere. Chapter three will focus on the Government's travel policy between 1952 and 1955. The most controversial event of the period, the 1952 Peking Peace Conference will be discussed in this chapter. The Government's decision to implement passport bans against the Australian delegation will be looked at, as will the efforts of the Australian delegation to subvert the ban. This chapter will highlight the evolution of the Menzies Government's travel policy, and will show how this policy affected the peace movement throughout the period. Discussion will also revolve around how the changing Cold War climate affected IV the Government's activities in the sphere of travel controls. The influence of events such as the Korean War and the Petrov affair will demonstrate how the Government was influenced by external circumstances. The discussion in chapter four v^U revolve around ASIO's role in monitoring and hampering the efforts of the peace movement. ASIO's understanding of the threat posed by the peace movement and its response to this threat will be the focus of this chapter. Of particular interest will be the security organisation's response to the various peace conferences which were held at regular intervals throughout the period. The way in which ASIO's understanding of the peace movement evolved over time, and the ways in which the Government actions were influenced by the work of the security organisation will also be discussed. Chapter five will look at the controversy surrounding the Australian and New Zealand Congress for Intemational Co-operation and Disarmament. This chapter will disclose the Government's activities in regard to this Congress, with particular emphasis being placed on the roles played by acting Minister for External Affairs Garfield Barwick, and the Director-General of Security, Charles Spry, in relation to the Congress. This aspect of the Government's 'war on Communism' has largely been ignored. INTRODUCTION IN THE SHADOW OF PETROV: MENZIES, ASIO AND THE PEACE MOVEMENTINHISTORICAL STUDY. In the historiography of the 1950s little attention has been given to the relationship between the peace movement and the forces of the Government during the 1950s. As David Lowe suggests '[h]istorians have...found it difficult to discuss any aspect of the 1950s without getting caught up in the Petrov affair - often at the expense of other prominent features of Australia's Cold War.'' One aspect, often neglected, is the role played by the peace movement and, in particular, the Australian Peace Council [APC]. The purpose of this chapter is threefold. First, to examine the available literature on the peace movement, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation [ASIO] and the Menzies Government during the 1950s in an attempt to illustrate how these aspects of the period have been represented. Second, the predominant themes in the existing literature will be addressed in order to demonstrate the location of the thesis in an historiographical context. Third, this chapter will detail the ways in vsiiich the thesis will contribute to, and in some important respects challenge, the commonly-held perceptions of the peace movement, ASIO, and the Menzies Government. The peace movement The literature on the Australian peace movement, especially in the 1950s, is limited. It does not really concera itself with the degree to which the movement was stifled by the actions of the Menzies Government. The main concem of writers has been to identify the degree of Communist involvement and control of the peace movement during the 1950s. One of the most widely-used sources is The Australian Peace Movement: A Short History, co-authored by two of the more prolific writers in the field, Malcolm Saunders and Ralph ' David Lowe, Menzies and the Great World Struggle: Australia's Cold War 1948-1954, UNSW Press, Sydney, 1999, p. 126 Summy. This work provides a striking example of the extent to which the peace movement in the 1950s has been neglected. As its title suggests, this is a short history of the movement. However, even when this is taken into account, it seems a gross oversight that the crucial period in question, the early Cold War era, receives an account of only two and a half pages. A brief outline of the development of the APC is given with fleeting reference made to the accusations of Communist control. The impact of the Menzies Government and ASIO on the peace movement is entirely ignored except for a passing reference to problems surrounding the peace conference in Peking in 1952'* - problems that will be extensively discussed in chapter three of the thesis. This work must be looked upon as being a very limited review of the period in question vdiich underlines the need for a more substantial analysis of the peace movement in the 1950s. Summy and Saunders also co-authored 'Disarmament and the Australian Peace Movement: A Brief History'.^ This article is similar to their previous effort, and similarly provides little substance to its discussion of the peace movement in the 1950s. A more expansive study of the peace movement in the period is provided by Summy in his chapter 'The Australian Peace Council and the Anti-Communist Milieu, 1949-1965'.^ The title of the chapter accurately depicts its content and illustrates the degree to which studies of the peace movement at the time revolve around the question of Communist infiltration and control, to the exclusion of other areas. In these various works, Summy and Saunders give insufficient attention to the impact of accusations of Conmiunist infiltration upon the peace movement and they neglect to examine the degree to which the peace movement was monitored and stifled by the Menzies Government and ASIO. ASIO is rarely mentioned in relation to the peace movement something that this thesis intends to rectify.