ANI at 50: Gough Whitlam
The twelfth article drawn from Davey Jones’ Locker is from the special Seapower 1979 edition of the Journal of Australian Naval Institute. The Seapower conference, replete with international speakers, was held on 2-3 February 1979 at Academy of Sciences, Canberra. The conference dinner speaker was the former Prime Minister, the Honourable Gough Whitlam AC QC. Here is his edited address.
Mr Chairman, Your Excellency, ladies and gentlemen,
It has been made easier for me by being introduced to you as a writer. Whereas at the time last July when I was invited to address you after dinner I was accustomed to giving speeches, I’ve now become more accustomed to writing books. I applaud you for having mounted this seminar and I’m happy to participate in it.
I have to acknowledge right at the outset that I would probably know less about the techniques of the subject than anybody here. You would all think that I knew less than any of you. Obviously as an Australian I have to acknowledge that we live on an island, the biggest in the world; I also have to observe that we have the longest coastline navigable throughout the year of all the nations in the world; I have to acknowledge also that our trade except what can be earned by Qantas or other national airlines has to be by sea. Above all I have to acknowledge that more and more the significance of the sea is impinging on our consciousness in other ways; now we hear as we would never have heard back in the 60s or 50s about smuggling, drug running, refugees and quarantine and with the development of the law of the sea we are becoming more and more aware that all our communications even by air have to take place through or over the most extensive, the most numerous archipelagos in the world. So all these things should bring home to Australians the fact that sea power, maritime commerce and protection of it are quite basic to all our concerns.
When we were in government it was people who were usually branded as the most militant and pacifist and unpatriotic of union leaders were the ones that were most insistent that we would keep the plant going, and we did. The present government has disposed of it. Again, from time to time there is interest in weapons such as the Ikara, or sonar buoys. To what extent can we afford to devote resources to developing very sophisticated weapons instead of just buying them from others? Are they a chauvinist indulgence? The argument is that we could, if we set our minds to it, building Boeing 707s or 747s in Australia (I admire these economy-minded regimes which criticise those who charter an occasional 707 and then buy two themselves). The important point I want to make is this. In all these things I’ve mentioned we are, in the first instance, increasingly becoming aware of new aspects of sea power and, in the second instance, we do from time to time show an interest in shipbuilding, weapons, components.
I propose in general to raise with you some of the difficulties which you have as an Institute in promoting a constant and informed attitude towards affairs of the sea. On occasions like this a layman must produce his credentials: so let me say forthwith that for a quarter of a century I represented more servicemen in the National Parliament than any other member, because I had the Holsworthy army establishment throughout those years and the Ingleburn one until it closed.
Particularly as a former member of Parliament I would realise that from time to time – and I emphasise that it is only spasmodically or even superficially – there is some public interest in industries based upon our maritime commerce or its protection. What is the significance of shipbuilding in Australia? What is the significance in Australia of some of the equipment for ships, such as marine engines? There used to be a government engine plant.
(As a MP,) my Navy responsibilities were limited to the married quarters at East Hills. I recall one domestic problem I had there. There were among the tenants, residents, inhabitants, however they are described. 17 ratings who had contracted tuberculosis through, they alleged, sleeping together in one space in an ex-RN ship in the tropics for which RN ships are notoriously ill-adapted. Those who administered the Commonwealth Employees’ Compensation asserted that their disease bore no connection with their service; it was just an unhappy coincidence I merely mention that as the only parliamentary experience I’ve had with Naval ratings; there were no brass living in my electorate. Not that one gets any gratitude for remedying such injustices. I early learnt that the Services vote Liberal. There used to be a Military Corrective Establishment in my electorate. The prisoners and the guards had a polling booth to themselves. The Liberals always got a majority.
Now I give my credentials as a practising politician. Perhaps I will be pardoned for saying that during the period I was head of government that I did derive a great deal of national satisfaction from some association with the Navy. I quote a few instances. There was a meeting of the South Pacific Commission, the first attended by the Australian head of government, in Vila in April 1973. We had an RAN ship for communications. The ship and its hospitality made a very good impression. Again in September 1975 there were the Independence celebrations in Port Moresby. One of the most beautiful nights in my memory was when the RAN ships in the harbour at midnight put on a splendid display. The weather was perfect, everything went beautifully.
Also, not everyone will approve of this, but I still think it was satisfactory that we were able to be co-operative with HMNZS Canterbury, which didn’t have much range, in monitoring the French nuclear tests in Tahiti. An abiding recollection of gratitude that I have for the Navy from the time when I was head of government is the association with (Admiral) VAT Smith, truly a gentleman and a scholar, an ornament to his own Service and to the Services which he headed. VAT Smith is one of the most competent and honourable people with whom I had the privilege to work in public life.
Having tendered the necessary personal references, I might be able to be of use to you in describing some public attitudes as I see them. There has been a very great change of attitude among the Australian population since we first had our own Navy or since the RN was first stationed here. I wouldn’t expect that we shall ever recapture the public fascination and enthusiasm which attended the arrival of the Great White Fleet from the United States, or our First Squadron headed by the first HMAS Australia. Nowadays the public is much more sceptical. Some people say it is better educated and therefore less patriotic. It’s not instinctively inclined to heed calls, such as people did in such amazing numbers, speed and enthusiasm in Australia in, say, World War I. It is extraordinary that so huge a percentage of our population volunteered to serve on the other side of the world. You wouldn’t get that readily now. The public needs to be persuaded.
However much we may be convinced that Australia does need good maritime communications and needs to be able to guarantee them, however, much we may believe that Australia should own her own merchant ships or own her own tankers, we need to be aware of the very great scepticism in the community about some of the things which are said on defence. The way it works is this. If the newspapers or the radio – TVs not so interested – want a story on defence they immediately go to the RSL, which is in the same category as the Housewives Association or the Dean of Sydney. They can rely on the response. Everyone knows what they’II say. I’m not suggesting that the people in this Institute are responsible for such responses. The whole defence debate in Australia is made ridiculous in the eyes of most readers and listeners by the views which are sought and published from those guaranteed sources.
On the other hand there has been in the last couple of years an admirably expert journal as far as I am able to check it, The Pacific Defence Reporter. Nevertheless even their readers react to well-informed, topical articles by cynically saying: “Look at the advertisers, they’re the people who want the contracts from the Services”. There is also a certain cynicism among politicians because the Services – and probably this applies to the Navy even more than to the Air Force – are thought to want to be too much in the big time. Few would now expect our Navy to be integrated in the RN as it was automatically in World War I and initially in World War II or be an auxiliary to the United States Navy as in the latter part of World War II and more recently. It is still sometimes said about some top Naval men that they have been mesmerised by RN traditions and by US equipment. If I may repeat, without offence I hope, it is claimed that there are top people in the Navy who would rather be two foot up a great power’s six foot dung hill than on top of a two foot dung hill of our own.
When I was first in public life it used to be said that the top men had only known one occupation, man and boy, that they had never lived outside the RAN. There was a certain stratification in the Navy, particularly on the big ships, which made them less effective in lobbying with public servants or with politicians than, say, the Army or the Air Force.
Now that no longer applies but there is a new ground of scepticism about the Navy. It may be a factor of the scepticism on all public issues and about all public men. Everybody in government or in Parliament or in private management or in the Services now lacks credibility to some extent. I must illustrate and not generalise. Congressional inquiries into the Tonkin Gulf episode of 14 years ago have made people not only in America very sceptical about reports from the Navy or about reports which governments assert they get from the Navy.
Again there are the recent revelations about the British blockade of Beira; I must confess I don’t feel particularly pleased about this, because I feel I was conned occasionally. Governments from both sides of politics in Britain were using the RN for the blockade of Mozambique and they were not telling the truth; the blockade was not effective, not because of the Navy but because of what governments knew was happening and allowed to happen elsewhere.
The intervention in Vietnam has alienated the whole generation which would have to participate in any war. The new fighting between Vietnam and Kampuchea and between China and Vietnam make nonsense of the arguments which were used not so long ago. My immediate predecessor once warned of the red lava flowing down over Vietnam, down our way. His contemporary on the other side of politics then warned of the spread of Chinese communism down between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Now we seem to support the Chinese. When the Americans asked the Vietnamese to invade Cambodia in 1970, that presumably was good. Now that the Russians have asked Vietnam to invade Cambodia, that’s bad. The Americans have been too heavy-handed; in 1971, when Bangladesh was being born, they sent the Enterprise, not just a gunboat, into the Bay of Bengal and in September 1973, during the Middle East war. North West Cape was put on full alert without consulting Australia. Such things do grate a bit, and I think we all have to learn from them. We’re not always as frank as we should be, our allies with us or maybe we with our allies.
For the last half dozen years Diego Garcia has been quite a controversial issue. Few realise why America suddenly became interested in Diego Garcia. Such outposts have various purposes and uses but the main one there has been an air one, not a Navy one, and it has not been to combat the Soviet Navy in the Indian Ocean but to provide a secure victualling point or resupplying point for Israel in case of another war there. It was found in 1973 that America couldn’t supply Israel through the NATO countries. Even the Azores were not available. So the west about route was developed for the future. Diego Garcia was accepted for that purpose, but there was little explanation of that reason. With the change of government in Iran it may at least acquire a predominant naval purpose.
The scepticism on defence is, however, not just the fault of the Americans. The Australian government has exploited and diminished the RAN. There have been Royal Commissions which have held our Navy up to a certain amount of ridicule. There was an inquiry in the Philippines (following theHMAS Melbourne– USS Frank E. Evan collision) where our allies were allowed to overbear us. Thank God it didn’t happen in our time; we would never have heard the end of it. I have mentioned those matters to you because if you want to get across your story to the public, to the taxpayer, to the recruit, you’ve got to face up to the fact that the public is better educated, if you like to put it that way. It is much more sceptical. You’ve got to make out a rational case for any form of expenditure on any activity or any equipment. No politician or former politician is helping you if he overlooks that fact.
If there was to be another war, a case would have to be made out for our participation much more convincingly than it has ever been made out in the World Wars I and II, or Korea or Vietnam. Above all, we must learn to put arguments on defence and foreign affairs in a calm, consistent, factual, rational way. I don’t say you can only put arguments which are unanswerable; then everybody would say, yes of course that’s true, we knew that. People don’t follow all the developments and it’s very difficult to find out about them from the newspapers. Most people might 15 years ago, even 10 years ago, have perceived Vietnam as a threat to Australia. They don’t believe it now.
The only country which it is easy to depict as a threat is Indonesia, and there our media have done a thoroughly inadequate and, I think, irresponsible job. It’s not easy to find out the facts and it’s not made any easier because the media have not undertaken the expense of the responsibility which they should undertake of having professional journalists regularly stationed in those places. The ABC can no longer afford them – and the others never tried to. If the newspapers tried to do it in any country they could do it; it’s not good enough relying on stories on West Irian or East Timor from adventurous stringers or freelances; you’ve got to have professionals on the job, such as the women the Sydney Morning Herald has sent to China.
It is possible to inform the Australian public if you commit yourself to doing it consistently, and regularly, and competently. I suppose there is still a tendency in Australia to fall into the polarisation between the US and the USSR; not as easy as it used to be. You couldn’t believe what it was like in the early 50s. Some of the Admirals might remember but most of this audience would not believe the garbage which was accepted in those days. I still see some signs of it now. You get this same phobia about Soviet bases and pacts. Just because the British last century and the Americans after World War II decided that they needed bases and because our allies had such a mania for having pacts all round the world, some people still accept that the Soviet Union is going to be seeking bases and pacts. The Americans don’t bother about them now.
I’m not passing any assertions or answers on ANZUS but the prudent course is to let sleeping dogs lie. If conservatives now tried to raise a political issue about that, who would be at risk? If you are going to have pacts, you must keep them as non-political as you can. Once a pact becomes a matter of political controversy it is doomed. Once any institution becomes a subject upon which political parties are polarised in Australia, it loses its usefulness.
I specify in particular two pieces of speculation which are still read and heard. One is that the Soviet Union will be getting a base in Taiwan, another that it will be getting a base in Cam Ranh Bay. I would think both are extremely unlikely. Whatever attitude one might have had towards the regimes in Peking and Taipei, one must acknowledge that each has been insistent that it alone is the sole legitimate government of all China, including the province of Taiwan. It is quite inconceivable that Taiwan would accept Soviet installations or the Soviet seek them.
I suppose if China were to invade Vietnam, then Vietnam would accept assistance from the Soviet including, say, bases in Cam Ranh Bay. But a country which for not just the last 20 years against the Americans, or for the previous 80 years against the French, or for some centuries before against the Chinese suzerainty has fought for its own identity and independence to my mind is in the highest degree unlikely to accept bases from any other country, including the Soviet Union. I know we’re doing our best officially in Australia now to ensure that the only friend Vietnam should have in the world should be the Soviet Union. If you only have one friend, you become more dependent on that friend. That is just one of the follies of thinking you can just snub people and ignore them and bring them to heel. It is not as easy as that. It’s counterproductive.
When I come now to what I think are some of the issues which will arise in our part of the world. I’m not being parochial or merely regional. I do mention them because I think it is unlikely that you will ever again see, say, RAN ships fighting in the North Atlantic or the Mediterranean. I mentioned Vietnam. One of the issues there is refugees. There are in fact more refugees who have gone into Vietnam in the last year or couple of years than have come out of Vietnam. You’d never believe that, but it is a fact. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Committee of the Red Cross, will both tell you that there have been about a third of a million refugees into Vietnam, much more than have come out of it. I suggest that when one looks at that question, one should recall that there has been quite a number of national minorities established in the Indian and South Pacific Oceans and on the shores thereon by European imperialists. The British took Indians to East Africa, including the Republic of South Africa, and they took Indians to Fiji; the French took Vietnamese to New Caledonia and to Tahiti; and Chinese were attracted to peninsular Malaya, Borneo and Singapore under the British, to Rabaul and Kavieng under the Germans and to Indonesia under the Dutch. They have mostly gone there in the last hundred years. I would expect that many of those ethnic minorities in our region will now want to go home to the lands of their ancestors. They may want to go to some other countries in the meantime. You will note that I’ve not mentioned the Chinese in Manila or Bangkok. They’ve been there much longer and there’s very little tension between people of Chinese origin and people of longer local origin in places like Bangkok and Manila. Actually all the important people of both places have Chinese ancestors among others The Indians, the Vietnamese and the other Chinese that have gone abroad one could expect to go back whence their grandfathers or great grandfather came. The same will happen in Rhodesia. Most of the Europeans in Rhodesia have gone there since the Unilateral Declaration of Independence. This is a political issue which has not caused trouble in my party but causes heartburning amongst our opponents. Refugees are not going to be a temporary problem and not going to concern one country alone. For the rest of this century I would guess there will be a repatriation, more or less harmoniously, of ethnic minorities to the lands of their ancestors.
I mentioned Korea also. Things are moving in the north-west Pacific much more rapidly than anyone would have dreamt a little while ago. On some issues like Korea we in Australia just give no attention at all. America and China are now quite enthusiastically talking to each other. Only about three months ago China and Japan made a pact. These are momentous events – and yet on Korea, Australians still go on as we have since the war there. Australia did not have a massive role in Korea but we did in fact participate there. We still have some official responsibilities and locus standi there. Over a couple of months ago if anybody was asked what he thought was the biggest, most likely flashpoint in the world, he would have said “Korea”. For the first time in history all the neighbouring countries are significant military powers, the United States, Soviet Union, China and Japan. I’m not suggesting Japan could wage an aggressive war. but she could look after herself pretty well. This absurd situation has gone on for thirty years now in Korea.
You might say that in Germany there was a history of division; the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs were still there in 1918 and there were lesser monarchies too throughout the old German Empire. You might say that it was not historically inevitable that all German-speaking people should be in the one country. In Vietnam and Korea, however, there was no basis for having a separate north and south. The people of Korea historically were always one people. We did it. They didn’t ask for it. We collaborated in it. At least one ought to take what opportunities there are to get them talking together. It looks as if they may be doing so at last. At the last UN General Assembly, Mr Gromyko omitted his ritual condemnation of the south. Mr Deng Xiaoping a few months ago visited Mr Kim II Sung and his visits usually have some emollient effect on those he visits, whatever he may say about the Russians while he is there. You’ve now got the situation where China which talks only to one Korea and Japan and America which only talk to the other Korea, are now having very good relations with each other.
I heard to my astonishment, at the University where I am at the moment, one of the respected academics – admittedly he is as old as I am, so I suppose you can make some allowances – say: “Isn’t it to our advantage that Korea should remain divided?” Who’s going to sell that idea? The Koreans won’t sell it. I’m not so sure that the Japanese or the Chinese or the Americans will sell it very much longer. The American forces are still there under the guise which we know to be spurious that they’re representing the UN. The UN would never endorse their presence there now. We must now ask the basic question: to whose advantage is it that Korea should be divided?
Iran is one of the clearest examples we have ever seen of how we just haven’t examined our basic assumptions. Everybody’s been caught by surprise. The Shah was far from being the least enlightened autocrat in the world, but everything crumbled under him. Two aspects at least were overlooked; of all the oil-producing countries in the Moslem world, Iran was the only one which was prepared to supply oil to Israel, and of all the developing countries Iran was the only one which had trade relations with South Africa. The Shah had had until quite recently good relations with the successive heads, specifically the Labor Prime Ministers, in Israel. Because his father was hijacked by the British during World War II and died in Johannesburg, the Shah has been sympathetic to South Africa. One cannot defy national sentiment in that way. The People’s Liberation Army (PLO) got into the oil fields and Savak (Shah’s secret police) didn’t. The strike on the oil fields just crippled the country. Iran had by far the biggest and best equipped army and navy in the extraordinarily important region of the Gulf. The Straits of Hormuz are the most significant cul-de-sac in the world, much more important than the Makassar Straits or the Straits of Gibraltar or the Panama Canal have ever been. Now everything is adrift, how many of the Arab dynasties are safe? Whether we Christians like it or not, there is and for a millennium and a half has been a strong Moslem consciousness. There may still be remnants of it on the northern border of Iran in Uzbekistan; these things don’t cut one way only. Some people in this country might have thought that the Ayatollah Khomeyni was some sort of B.A. Santamaria; he was at least a St Thomas a Becket.
The South Pacific Ocean is going to be even more in the minds of Australians than the Indian Ocean. The Latin American idea of a 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zone has swept across the Pacific. Neither the Soviets nor the United States liked it but they’ve accepted it, they’ve adopted it. The two biggest fishing countries in the world, the Soviet Union and Japan, don’t like it but they’ve accepted it. The South Pacific will, with very few interstices, be completely covered by such zones around all its archipelagos. Look at a map of the South Pacific and note that there are very few islands which are not within 400 miles of the next one. This has very serious consequences. Naval historians will remember how important the freedom of the seas has been for naval powers, Britain first of all when our ancestors ruled the seas and the Americans who ruled the seas more recently and still do largely The high seas were a highway. Everybody could use them, and if you had the biggest fleet you ruled them. You will remember disputes between Britain and America during the Civil War over the hijacking of Confederate envoys and again in World War I. All that has now gone into discard. Even the most miniscule mini-state can rule as big a part of the sea as the largest power Tonga will have as big a sea domain as Japan.
I conclude with the French possessions in the South Pacific. In Australia we never worry about such matters until a crisis is upon us. If one thing is certain it is that New Caledonia and the New Hebrides – which is virtually a French possession since the British have dropped their bundle – and the Society Islands (Tahiti, etc.) will be seeking independence. There is also no doubt that there will be some tension or even turmoil in the process. The same sort of thing could happen in Bougainville.
In our own vicinity as a result of the 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zones, the inevitable movement to independence in the French possessions, and such mundane occurrences as refugees and smuggling and drug running, there is going to be a great deal of interest in what happens in our seas. Much as it may hurt the pride of our Navy, there is going to be an increasing demand for some sort of coast guard force in Australia. Due to our coastline, our location and the problems in our area, our people will want to see that our seas and the approaches to our island continent are adequately policed. That really will have to be done by ships, not just by air. That will require, the public will believe, activity by the RAN. Many people in the Navy will regard it as a terrible comedown. I do put it to you very seriously that it is one of the facts which one has to recognise. The public needs to be persuaded of the usefulness of the things which it pays for. The public will expect some governmental service to do these jobs and I would guess that the RAN is the one which they would expect to do them. I don’t say that this looks chauvinistic but it does look parochial.
Inevitably in the Services, and in the diplomatic services as well as the armed services, there is a preoccupation with the super powers. It is, however, not going too far to say – I might have been wary of saying it ten years ago or even five years ago, but not now – that the US alliance with Australia is just as valuable for the protection of the US as it is for the protection of Australia and involves more risks for Australia than for the US. I put it furthermore to you that many people fear that the US can no longer have her way everywhere as she was able to do even twenty years ago. I recognise that. They also should recognise that the USSR can no longer have her way anywhere either. Imagine what the position of the USSR Pacific provinces would be – they have a European population the same as Australia’s – in the case of a world war. The communications between them and Russia’s industrial and military heart in the west in Europe would be horrific.
I put it to this gathering that the sea is going to become much more important in the eyes of Australians, even if not all the time and not always at the top of their consciousness. It is going to be the subject of increasing interest. The interest will be of a different kind to what it was before World War I when the British looked after us, or after World War II when the Americans looked after us. Unavoidable issues will arise, such as refugees and smuggling and independence movements and fisheries and peaceful transits through and over archipelagos. The public will become interested in them. We shall have to tackle these issues very much more ourselves.
An Institute like this can play a very significant role in letting the public know the implications in no alarmist way. I don’t think the public these days get very readily alarmed about military things. They don’t really think that others are going to attack us. The misunderstandings with Indonesia were the making of the Dutch and the British and the Portuguese rather than the Indonesians; with that exception I don’t believe it will be easy to arouse people to a great expenditure on the Services. You won’t get governments now feeling that they’re at risk. In keeping financial commitments for Services within modest limits. I can now say these things because I no longer have responsibility for them. I know that the RAN and the RN whose traditions it has inherited are by contrast to the US Navy a silent Service. I also know that academics in this field are usually silent and the ones that are least silent are the ones that should be most. The important matter is that there are very real issues which are of increasing concern to Australia in maritime affairs, in commerce and in the protection of it. I welcome the creation of this Institution. I’m very happy as a layman to have had the opportunity to participate in its first seminar.
The Author
The Honourable E G Whitlam served in the RAAF on air-crew duties during World War II, reaching the rank of Flight-Lieutenant and, in 1947 was admitted to the NSW and Federal Bar. He entered the Federal Parliament in 1952 as the Australian Labor Party member for Werriwa, NSW. He was Deputy Leader of the Federal Labor Party in 1960-67 and Federal Leader in the period 1967-75. He led his party to power in 1972 and served as Prime Minister until 1975. He was subsequently a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University. He died in 2014.
