5

CHAPTER

AUSTRALIA IN THE VIETNAM WAR ERA

In 1945, after the allied powers had defeated Nazi Germany in Europe and Japan in Asia, a new fear emerged in Europe and Asiathe fear of the expansion of communism. By 1949 the Soviet Union had set up communist governments in most eastern European states, and the parts of Germany liberated by the Russians also came under communist control. In Asia a communist government came to power in North Korea, and in 1949 Mao Zedong led the Communist Party to victory in China. Most of the second half of the twentieth century was dominated by what history has called the Cold War, a period of intense suspicion and distrust between the democratic nations of the world, led by the United States, and the communist world, led by the Soviet Union and China.
AWM EKT/67/0046/VN

Australian soldiers are dropped off by helicopter to begin patrol in Vietnam

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TIMELINE
1949 October Mao Zedong led the Communist Party to power in China. December Robert Menzies led the LiberalCountry Party coalition to government. 1950 April The Communist Party Dissolution Bill was introduced into parliament. June The outbreak of the Korean War. July Australian troops joined the United Nations forces in Korea. 1951 March The High Court declared the Communist Party Dissolution Bill unconstitutional. September Australia, New Zealand and the United States signed the ANZUS Pact. A referendum to ban the Australian Communist Party failed. 1953 1954 July The end of the Korean War. February The Petrov spy scandal. May The Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The fall of French power in Indochina. September The formation of the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO). 1955 1957 1962 1964 1965 April Australia committed troops to Malaya. August Malaya gained its independence from Britain. July Australia sent thirty military instructors to South Vietnam. November National Service was reintroduced in Australia. March The rst United States combat troops arrived in South Vietnam. April Australia sent its rst combat troops to South Vietnam. May Save Our Sons (SOS), a movement opposing conscription, was formed. September An opinion poll found that 56 per cent of Australians were in favour of Australias involvement in the Vietnam War. 1966 January Sir Robert Menzies retired as prime minister. Harold Holt became prime minister. March Australia increased the size of its force in South Vietnam to a task force of two battalions. National servicemen were required to serve in the war. May The rst Australian national serviceman was killed in action in the war. July Harold Holts All the Way with LBJ speech in Washington. August An opinion poll in the Australian showed 64 per cent support for the war in Vietnam. October President Lyndon Johnson visited Australia. November Federal elections: the Holt government was returned to power with a large majority. 1967 October Australia increased the size of its force in South Vietnam. December The death of Prime Minister Harold Holt.

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TIMELINE continued
1968 1969 May The government altered the National Service Act to provide for imprisonment for men who refused to register for National Service. January Australian forces in South Vietnam reached their highest level at 8300 men. August An opinion poll found that 55 per cent of Australians wanted Australian forces to withdraw from South Vietnam. October John Zarb became the rst man to go to prison for refusing to obey the National Service law. 1970 May The Vietnam moratorium movement came to Australia. September The second moratorium march in Australia. 1971 August Australia announced the withdrawal of all its forces from South Vietnam. December Most Australian forces left South Vietnam. 1972 1973 1975 1976 December The election of the Whitlam Labor government. National Service was abolished. Australia recognised the Peoples Republic of China. February Australia recognised North Vietnam. April South Vietnam fell to the North Vietnamese army. April The rst Vietnamese boat people arrived in Darwin Harbour. July Vietnam was reunied and became a communist state, called the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. 1987 1992 March The Vietnam veterans nally received their Welcome Home Parade in Sydney. October Dedication of the Australian Vietnam Forces National Memorial in Canberra.

IN THIS CHAPTER YOU WILL LEARN ABOUT:

how communism appeared to be a threat to Australia after World War II how Australia responded to this threat why there was a war in Vietnam and how and why Australia became

part of that war

how the Vietnam War, unlike World War I and World War II, divided

Australian society

the effect of the Vietnam War on people, on Australian life and on

Australias relationship with modern Asia.

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INQUIRY QUESTIONS
How did the Australian government respond to the threat of

communism after World War II?

Why did Australia become involved in the Vietnam War? How did various groups respond to Australias involvement in the

Vietnam War? countries?

What was the impact of the war on Australia and neighbouring

KEY WORDS
Asian nationalism The desire of Asian people to be free of their colonial masters and

to establish their own independent nation.

battalion A military unit of the Australian Army. A battalion can vary in size from about

800 to 1500 or more.

civil war A war between people of the same country. Cold War A period from 1945 to 1991 during which there was great hostility and

tension between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. It was a period of global rivalry between the communist world and the non-communist world, and was made more dangerous by the production of nuclear weapons.
colony A territory or region ruled by another nation. The region of Indochina, for

example, was once a colony of France.

communism A system of rule in which the state controls most of the wealth of the

nation and where the ownership of private property can be limited. In a communist state there is only one political party, which restricts the freedoms and rights of the individual. China became a communist state in 1949 after the Chinese Communist Party came to power.
decolonisation The name given to the process by which a colonial power allows its

colonies to become independent nations in their own right. Decolonisation was a feature of international history from the mid-twentieth century.
foreign policy The name given to the policies that one nation follows in relation to

other nations of the world. Australias foreign policy is its diplomatic and political dealings with other nations.
forward defence The policy followed by the Menzies government in the 1950s and

1960s that Australia should have the capacity to defend its vital interests by taking action away from the Australian mainland.
guerilla warfare The type of ghting or warfare in which small military groups

(guerillas) avoid major battles but operate instead with surprise attacks and ambushes. Much of the ghting in the Vietnam War was guerilla warfare.
moratorium A word meaning to suspend or defer something. The moratorium

protests in Australia in the 1970s were aimed at ending Australias involvement in the Vietnam War.
national servicemen Young men who were conscripted into the army. They were often

called nashos.

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EXPERIENCE OF NATIONHOOD

KEY WORDS continued

political asylum The process by which a government grants protection and support

for people from another country who, for political reasons, do not wish to return to their own country.
post-traumatic stress disorder A medical condition which affected many soldiers

who fought in the Vietnam War.

Reds Another name for communists. Royal Commission An inquiry set up by the government to investigate a particular

issue or problem. A Royal Commission has authority similar to that of a court of law.
totalitarian A system of government in which total power is in the hands of one

political party which tolerates no opposition.

The adventurous Australian has been obliged to look elsewhere for the great adventures that is why his wars must be fought for other causes than his own and always in a faraway place.
George Johnson, My Brother Jack, Collins, London, 1967.

5.1 REDS UNDER THE BEDS

INQUIRY QUESTION

How did the Australian government respond to the threat of communism in Australia after World War II?

The coming of the Cold War

At the end of World War II in 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the worlds superpowers. During World War II the United States and the Soviet Union, with their allies, had worked together to defeat Nazi Germany and Japan, but once the common enemy had been defeated the dierences between these two great powers became apparent. They were very dierent. The United States was the worlds greatest capitalist democracy. This was a system that promoted the belief in the private ownership of property and where the basic rights of the individual were protected in free, regular elections. In democratic countries the people had the right to elect and change their government. The Soviet Union was a communist state with an economic system in which the state controlled most of the wealth of the nation and where the ownership of private property was limited. In a communist state there is only one political party, which restricts the freedom and rights of the individual. The rst communist state was set up in Russia in 1917 after the Russian Revolution. During the 1920s Russia was renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or the Soviet Union.

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229

In the closing years of World War II, as the armies of the Soviet Union advanced across much of eastern Europe and nally into Germany itself, many eastern European countries which had been occupied by the Nazis fell under the control of the Soviet Union. The armies of the United States, Britain and their allies advanced into Europe from the west and liberated the western parts of Europe. At the end of the war the Soviet forces stayed in most of the areas they had taken, and by 1949 the Soviet Union had set up communist governments in these eastern European states. Winston Churchill, the wartime prime minister of Britain, spoke of an iron curtain across Europe. The United States could not allow the rest of Europe to fall under communist control. The threat of communism had to be confronted and the United States was the only nation with the power to do it. The end of World War II, the hot war, marked the start of the Cold War. The Soviet Union and the states under its control were known as the Mao Zedong (18931976). He led the Communists to Eastern bloc, while the United States and its allies power in China in 1949 were usually referred to as the Western bloc. This was a time of great tension, rivalry and distrust between the United States and the Soviet Union, which would last until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. In Asia, communism also appeared to be on the march. A communist government came to power in North Korea, and there were communist movements in other Asian states, such as Indochina (Vietnam) and Malaya. In 1949 China, the largest nation on earth, fell to the communists when Mao Zedong led the Chinese communist party to victory in that country. The communists were often called the Reds after the red ag that was the colour of revolution. People spoke of Red China and of the red menace that was expanding. In 1945 there was one communist nation in the world; by the end of 1949 there were eleven. The age of the Cold War had begun.

Australia and the fear of communism

In 1949, the same year that Mao Zedong led the communists to power in China, Robert Menzies became Prime Minister of Australia when he led the newly formed Liberal Party to oce in the election of that year. As a loyal ally of both the United States and Britain, Australia was part of the Cold War rivalry, and the fear of communism was a constant issue in Australian life through the 1950s and 1960s. It was believed that if communism spread in Asia Australia and its security would be threatened.

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EXPERIENCE OF NATIONHOOD

The spread of communism in Europe and Asia by 1949

Australias foreign policy from 1949 was based on four important beliefs: That communism, particularly in Asia, was a threat to Australia. That, given the experience of World War II, Australia could never adequately defend itself. It had to look to what Prime Minister Menzies called our great and powerful friends for support. The Australian government after 1949 sought to strengthen Australias relationship with Britain and in particular with the United States. That Australia had to prove its loyalty as an ally. In 1950 Australia became the rst nation to support the United States in the Korean War against communism. In the 1950s Australia supported the British in Malaya as they fought communist activity there, and in the 1960s Australia actively supported the United States against communism in the Vietnam War. That it was in Australias best interest to meet any threats to Australia as far away from the mainland as possible. This was known as forward defencea policy that would see Australia set up military bases outside Australia and send Australian troops to Korea, Malaya and nally Vietnam to ght the menace of Asian communism.

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USING HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

1 2 3 4 Who is the gure in this cartoon intended to represent? Explain the name of this cartoon: Nearer, clearer, deadlier. Find out what the symbol on the shield is intended to mean. What region of the world is this cartoon intended to represent? Explain why you came to this conclusion. What point of view is the cartoonist making by drawing this cartoon? The emotion or feeling the cartoonist is seeking to create is one of: A B C D anger fear isolation uncertainty

SOURCE

5.1

5 6

A Norman Lindsay cartoon from the Bulletin, 1950

SOURCE
The Minister for External Affairs denes Australian foreign policy, 1950 Our rst and constant interest must be the security of our own homeland and the maintenance of peace in the area in which our country is geographically placed. Up to the present the main focus of the conict between democracy and communism has been Europe. But a situation not different from that in Europe is now developing throughout Asia and the Pacic. The dominating fact is that China, with the largest population of any country in the world, has come in recent months almost completely under the control of a government which is communist in form. Should the forces of communism prevail and Vietnam come under the heel of Communist China, Malaya is in danger of being outanked and it, together with Thailand, Burma and Indonesia, will become the next direct object of further communist activities ... I have emphasised how essential it is for Australia to maintain the closest links with the United States of America for vital security reasons.
Percy Spender, House of Representatives, Debates, 1950, vol. HR206, p. 623

5.2

1 2 3

What, according to Spender, is the aim of Australias foreign policy? Describe how Spender explains the potential danger to Australia. Why should Spenders views appear realistic to people in the 1950s?

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EXPERIENCE OF NATIONHOOD

ict

As a journalist watching Mr Spender make his speech to parliament in 1950, write an article for your newspaper. You should use your computer and the appropriate software to create a newspaper page complete with headlines and images. In your article you should also include:

the main points made by the Minister for External Affairs how the points he made tted in with your overall understanding of Australian foreign policy at the time your own viewpoint about what Mr Spender had to say.

CHECK YOUR HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE

1 2 3 4 5

What do you understand by the term Cold War? Explain why the Cold War began after 1945. What happened in Asia in 1949 which increased Australias fear of communism? Who became Prime Minister of Australia in 1949? What position did Percy Spender hold in the government in 1950?

Australia and the Korean War

In June 1950 war broke out in Korea when the army of communist North Korea invaded non-communist South Korea. President Truman of the United States saw the invasion as a clear example of communist aggression, and, with the backing of the United States, the United Nations sent an international force to support South Korea. Sixteen United Nations members sent troops, but the bulk of the force was from the United States. Australia was the rst nation to support the United Nations call and immediately dispatched one aircraft carrier, two destroyers and a squadron of the RAAF. In July 1950 Australia announced that troops would be sent as well, and there was a call for volunteers to join the United Nations army under General Douglas MacArthur. Two Australian battalions arrived in Korea and Australian troops took part in heavy ghting, battles made more dicult by the extreme cold of the Korean winter. The war ended in a ceasere in 1953 with the loss of some 118 000 United Nations troops. Three hundred Australians had been killed in the war. Today Korea remains a divided country with the communists still in power in North Korea. The Korean War seemed to justify all the beliefs of the Australian government about aggressive communism in Asia. Australia had opposed communism, and Australia had gone into Korea to prove its support as a loyal ally of the United States and to strengthen the bonds between the two nations. It was an example of forward defence and proof that Australia was prepared to ght to oppose the spread of communism.

The ANZUS Treaty and SEATO

An important part of the thinking of the Menzies governments of the 1950s was to create a closer link between Australia and the United States.

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South-East Asia in the 1950s and 1960s

In September 1951, with the Korean War still raging, Australia, New Zealand and the United States signed the ANZUS Treaty. It suited Australia to have this treaty with the United States, while the United States saw Australia as another ally in its worldwide struggle against communism. Although the ANZUS Treaty does not say that the United States must come to Australias aid if it is attacked, it is generally understood that the ANZUS Treaty binds each of the three powers by a sense of obligation to assist each other in the event of an attack. Korea was not the only trouble spot in Asia. The French were ghting against the communists in their colony of Indochina. Here the communists, led by Ho Chi Minh, were ghting for independence from French rule. In 1954 the French were defeated by the communists in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and France decided to leave Indochina altogether. Against this background, the United States proposed the formation of the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO), an alliance of powers opposed to communist activity in South-East Asia. The organisation was set up in September 1954, and its members included the United States, Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Pakistan and the Philippines. Australia was prepared to join SEATO because again it linked Australia to allies, particularly the United States and Britain, in South-East Asia.

The Domino Theory

There was a widely held belief in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly in the Unites States and Australia, that if communism was not stopped it would spread throughout the rest of South-East Asia. This belief was called the Domino Theory: if one Asian state fell to

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EXPERIENCE OF NATIONHOOD

communism then, like falling dominoes, all of Asia would soon fall to communism. The belief in the Domino Theory inuenced Australias actions in South-East Asia in the 1950s and in particular the decision to send Australian troops to the Vietnam War in the 1960s.

The Malayan Emergency

Another part of Asia facing a communist threat was Malaya (today, the independent country of Malaysia). After World War II the British re-established their authority in Malaya, but a communist movement had begun to operate in the Malay jungles from 1948. By 1950 the situation had become known as the Malayan Emergency and an increased number of British troops were sent to oppose the communists. In 1955 the Menzies government decided to send Australian ground troops as well as naval and air power to assist the British ghting in Malaya. Australian troops remained in Malaya until the communist threat was defeated in 1960.

SOURCE

USING HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

Mr Menzies speaking in parliament, 1955 We are proud to be a member of the British Commonwealth and will ever continue to be so. But we would be strangely blind if we did not see that, on the world scene, the rise of the United States to supremacy such that she has become vital to the existence of the free world We either commit ourselves with our great friends and allies or we do not. If we do not then we must attend to our own defence without calling on the aid of anybody else. If communist forces again come on the march and a great war ensues, the farther north the lines of defence are drawn the better for those communities in Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia and Thailand and Burma and Malaya and the Philippines and Indonesia and all the rest of us If there is a war for our existence, it should be carried out as far from our soil as possible.
Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 1955, vol. HR6, p. 45.

5.3

1 2 3 4

Which two great powers does Menzies refer to in his speech? Explain the meaning of the term free world. Explain why Menzies felt that Australia needed to support these great friends and allies. Is there any evidence in this speech that Menzies believed in the idea of forward defence?