COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
SPEECH BYv
The Rt. Hon. SIR ROBERT MENZIES,
M. P.,
ON
VIETNAM
MINISTERIAL STATEI ~' 1 C i3Cf~ I"~
l1
rVIENTd
[ Fromn the " Parliamentary Debates," 4th May 1965]
Sir ROBERT MENZIES ( Kooyong-
Prime Minister) Speaker, I have
listened to the speech of the Leader of the
Opposition ( Mr. Caiwell) with acute depression.
' It seemed to me to demonstrate
an approach to these great and vital
problems that I would hardly ' have expected
to hear described in this place. Indeed, he
summed it all up in the second last paragraph
of his speech. May I remind the
House'that he said-
Let me sum up. We believe that America must
not be humiliated and must not be forced to
withdraw. Having said that by way of summary, he
has said that in the clear view of ' his party
America should be required to go it alone
with no assistance from us. That, really,
is a pretty neat, short summary of the speech
that he has made. I will come back to it
because there are a few things that should
, be put straight on the record, if they need
to be put straight.
The first thing that I want to mention,
as briefly as may be, is ; the grievance with
which he began. It is quite true ' that he
did not elaborate it today. I am supposed
to have concealed from the Leader of the
Opposition and the Deputy Leader of ' the
Opposition ( Mr. Whitlam) the fact that I
161/ 65 was going to make a statement on Thursday
night. He did not say much about it today
but has been very vocal about it in other
places; so there is a widespread belief
entertained ' by some people who are
apparently willing to believe anything that
this was, for some low cunning political
-reason, concealed from them and that I
sprang it on Thursday at 8 o'clock. I just
want to say something about that because
it will be useful for honorable members to
become aware of the basis of discussions
* between governments, because ' these allegations
display a woeful ignorance of how
things are done between governments and
between nations. The announcement of the
provision of fighting forces by us for South
Vietnam was not one that could be made
without a great deal of preparatory discussion,
not only on ' the military level but
also on the political level where ' the last
responsible decisions have to be made. It
has to be remembered that Australia has
commitments as a member of the South
East Asia Treaty Organisation and that one
of the protocol nations under S. E.* A. T. O.
is South Vietnam. We have commitments in
respect of Malaysia which have been fully
stated and debated in this House. We have
joint interests with the United States of
America and with New Zealand under the
Security Treaty between Australia, New
Zealand ' and the United States of America,
and we : have, of course, a responsibility
for the defence of Australia, including
Papua and New Guinea. So we have a
variety of responsibilities, each of them
importing some contingency that may or
may not arise.
1 had some exchanges with President
Johnson towards the end of last year in
which the possibility of increased military
activity was envisaged and in the course of
which we agreed that there should be, at a
suitable time, discussions on the military
level. These took place, in fact, in March
and the result of the talks was available
to us early in April. We made our formal
decision in principle on 7th April, that
decision being that we would be willing to
provide a battalion, should it be requested
and should all the circumstances render its
employment useful, fitting in with the
general pattern of what was being done. So
it was a decision in principle. But that was
not the end of the matter. Before an actual
decision could be announced, discussions
had to occur with the various governments
with which we are associated and, in particular,
with the Government of the United
Kingdom, the Government of the United
States and the Government of South Vietnam.
A great number of broad details had
to be considered and certain more detailed
arrangements made at the government level.
Very properly, I wanted to have all these
matters quite clearly established before
making any announcement to the House.
I need not elaborate. All of us who are
familiar with this kind of international discussion
will realise that not one of us is
entirely his own master in respect of the
timetable. Statements have to be synchronised
very frequently in one country and
another, and any statement made would
need to be made with the concurrence
of Sou'th Vietnam, as the nation
requesting our help, with the United States,
with whose troops ours would be associated
in South Vietnam, and with the United
Kingdom, which has accepted great responsibilities
in relation to Malaysia where we
have already made a substantial contribution.
So we have the three governments.
When on Wednesday of last week a story
about the battalion broke in sections of the
Press, I felt a great deal of embarrassment because the time -had not quite arrived
when I could feel that our relevant discussions
had concluded. On Wednesday a
rumour was circulated ' that I would be
making a statement on Thursday night and
that that statement would relate to the provision
of an Australian battalion. At that
time I literally did not know whether I
could be ready -by Thursday night. The
Leader of the Opposition inquired at my
office on Thursday morning at a time when
I was heavily engaged on a matter of some
urgency. He said he would like , to know
what was happening. That was a very
reasonable request, I thought. He said that
he had plans to go to Sydney in connection
with the election campaign and could hardly
change them. He added that he thought
t'h't any statement might be made or could
be made on Tuesday night, that is, tonight.
After this ' had ' been conveyed to me, the
Leader of the Opposition was -told that it
was possible that I would ' be making a
statement on Thursday night ' but : that it was
not certain and : that when I knew definitely
I would -let ' him know. He was told that if
I found myself in a position ' to make a
statement I would hope to be in a position
to give him the ' text of it -by 5.30 p. m. I
' follow these rules, if I may say so, very
strictly. At 4.45 p. m. the Leader of the
Opposition -inquired again as to whether
there were any further developments as ' he
and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition
were about to leave for Sydney. He was
told that ' it was still not certain ' that I would
be in a position ' to make a statement-it
was possible, even probable, but not yet
certain. The Leader of the Opposition said
that he was leaving the honorable member
for Melbourne Ports ( Mr. Crean) in
charge and -asked if I would let the honorable
member for Melbourne Ports know
of any further development. This I agreed
to do. I think the Leader of the Opposition
would agree that that is a straightforward
narrative of what occurred.
The final international messages which I
thought I should have before making a
statement arrived at something after 5.30
and I then decided that I would make
the statement at 8 o'clock. The honorable
member for Melbourne ' Ports, who was leading
the Opposition in the absence of -the
Leader, was informed of this as soon as
possible and was told : that ' the text ' would be
available ' to him at 7 o'clock, and this was
done. The result of all this was that when I
made my statement I was in a position to do
so with the approval of the President of the
United States, the Prime Minister of Great
Britain and the Prime Minister of South Vietnam.
I will not need to say to honorable
members that, in view of the spread of newspaper
headlines on this matter, I simply
could not defer my statement until today,
without acute embarrassment to myself and
to the other governments concerned. Clearly,
I could not have made my statement over
the weekend because it is in this Parliament
that such a statement ought to be made.
This Parliament is entitled to hear all of
these matters direct and to have the opportunity
of debating them. Therefore, the
choice was to make the statement on Thursday
or -to let all the rumours flourish, to
let the news go on breaking all around the
world and then come along today and make
the statement.
Mr. Clyde Camnieron.--How did the
Press get the news?
Sir ROBERT MENZIES.-I wish I knew,
but I do not. The Press certainly did not get
it from me or from the Government. For all
those reasons I made the statement. The
notion that either the Leader of the Opposition
or the Deputy Leader of the Opposition
was deceived or that something was
concealed from them is really shown to be
completely without foundation. Each of
them ' knew that if I did make a statement
it would be related to this question, because
the dogs were barking it around the
premises. The newspaper stories had made
that quite clear. Perhaps I have mixed up
two notions in saying that. Notwithstanding
these circumstances, the two honorable
gentlemen opposite left the House-no
doubt for very good political reasons-and
they were competently represented by the
honorable member for Melbourne Ports
who had a copy of the statement and heard
it. Therefore, the grievance to which the
Leader of the Opposition made a faint reference
at the beginning of his speech, is without
foundation.
I now turn, as he did, to the merits of
this matter. Where does the Labour Party
stand? I have been asking myself this question
for some time. We heard the answer
today. The Labour Party is against us on the
merits. This is a clear cut issue of whether or not we should provide forces in South
Vietnam. The Opposition says You should
not do it for a variety of reasons which
I invite honorable members to study and to
understand, if they can. I turn to the
merits for three reasons. One is to establish
the rightness of our position under all the
circumstances that exist. I do not propose
to repeat what I said in my statement to
the House on Thursday, because I dealt
with the substance of the matter and the
merits of the case on that occasion. But
I do want, once more, to remind the House
that, when the 1954 Geneva Agreements had
been entered into and they were reported
in statements to the House, I myself made
a statement relating to this matter right here.
I said that the Government of Australia
would view aggression in violation of the
Indo-China settlement as a threat to international
peace and security. That was a perfectly
explicit statement. It is because we
believe that there has been a breach of
international law and a violation of the
Charter of the United Nations that we have,
in relation to the present matter, notified
the President of the Security Council of our
decision, adding these words-
This decision has been made at the request of
the Government of the Republic of Vietnam and
it is in accordance with Australia's international
obligations. That is the formal ground on which we
stand. But this is not a matter that lends
itself to decision with reference to formalities
only. Therefore, it is necessary to continue
an examination of the merits of the
matter. I must say that the Leader of the
Opposition rather puzzled me because in
the course of his speech-he was courteous
enough to give me a copy of it when he
came into the House-he made two statements
of really splendid simplicity. One
was-That there has long been, and still is, aggression
from the North and subversion inspired by the
North, I do not for one moment deny.
Here is a proposition of fact which I
thought would represent common ground
on both sides of the House. I am very glad
to have it stated by the Leader of the Opposition.
I have said it in my statement and
on other occasions. That there is aggression
from the Communist North is not denied,
and that there is subversion from within,
fostered by the Communists of the North,
is not denied now by the Leader of the
Opposition. 1 have ' heard it denied in a
sense, but it was not denied today. This is
a very significant fact. It describes the
origin of the whole of this business in which
we find ourselves involved.
A little later in his speech the Leader
of the Opposition made another statement
which I will read. He said-
I agree that the pace of North Vietnamese
aggression-and that is the only term for it-has
increased, though estimates as to its extent vary
considerably. So, here is the admission that while all
this is going on the pace of aggression
from the North, the pace of the positive
action by the Communist North, has increased.
That is the state of affairs-it is
now common ground between the Government
and the Opposition-in which we have
had to consider whether we should withdraw
from the scene, whether we should
make our contribution by words, whether
we should leave the United States to go
it alone, or whether we should, with all
our partnerships and involvements and all
our risks in this part of the world, determine
that we will play our part, although it may
be a small one, in positive action. Broadly,
that is what we have done and why we
have done it.
I do not understand how my friend, the
Leader of the Opposition, can delude himself
on this matter. He used some fine words,
some rather emotional words, towards the
end of his speech. But does he really believe
that Australia should walk out on this
matter? This is the question. Does he really
believe that the United States of America,
of whose actions he has approved and reapproved,
ought to be allowed to continue
to carry this burden and that we, as one of
the S. E. A. T. O. powers, with South Vietnam
requesting our help, should say: " Sorry;
there is nothing we can do about it"? This
is a very serious position, I venture to say,
for the Leader of the Opposition to get into.
It certainly is not a position that we want
to get into.
It is in the continuing interest of this
country-to put it on no higher ground
than that-to be regarded and to remain as
a valued ally of the United States, which is,
in this part of the world, our own most powerful ally. 1 would hate to be the head
of a government which had to say to the
United States on an occasion like this:
Sorry; we can do nothing about it. We will
help you with debate in the United Nations.
We will offer some fine words and some
good sentiments. -But, as for practical action,
no; that is for you. American soldiers from
the Middle West can go and fight and die in
South Vietnam, but that is not for us". I
think that is a disastrous proposition for
any opposition to put forward.
I do not want to prolong this speech. The
whole essence of this matter seems to me
to be clear. The Leader of the Opposition
may be right; perhaps I oversimplify it. I
am a great believer, when it comes to determining
international obligations, in simpliiing
a proposition so that it stands out
stark and clear and so that we all know
what it is we are deciding, what we are
debating, and what we are to do about it.
From things that have been said one would
think that this decision by the Government
was not entirely consistent with statements
repeatedly made by us in this House. Indeed,
an attempt has been made here and there
to suggest that this decision came rather as
a surprise, a little bit out of the blue. May
I remind the House-I am sure the Leader
of the Opposition needs no reminding-that
this approach of ours has been stated
repeatedly in this place and from this table.
, I have just quoted what was said after
the Geneva Agreements were entered into.
Without labouring the matter, everybody
knows that announcements have been made
from time to time about sending military
instructbiors to South Vietnam. The number
has grown from a small 30 to a substantial
100-very substantial, considering our own
requirements in this field. We have provided
aircraft: Caribou aircraft have gone
there. We have provided a substantial
amount of economic aid. We have supplied
much appreciated groups of people of a
military order, and equipment of a military
order-not large in numbers, but very significant
from their moral effects not only
on the problem itself but on the opinion
and feeling of the United States of America.
Therefore. it is idle to say that this is something
new and that we have a new approach.
The Minister for External Affairs ( Mr.
Hasluck) made an extraordinarily able
statement in this House comparatively
recently in which he outlined the whole of
our policies in these matters in the clearest
possible terms. I have, in my own fashion.
though not as well, tried to say very much
the same kind of thing. I do not think anybody
has any ambiguity in his mind as to
where we stand. Certainly nobody in the
American Administration has any; certainly
nobody in the United Kingdom Government
has any; certainly none of our friends
and allies in these various places have any:
Why should there be any existing in this
place? It has all been completely clear.
And now the Leader of the Opposition
criticises. I would say to him that he had
better look at himself, at his colleagues and
at his Party. He has really, of course,
disclosed their approach. He has not, I am
happy to say, got down to the level of one
or two of his supporters by suggesting that
this was an indecent bargain for dollars,
which I thought was a monstrosity of a
proposal and which, as I have said, reveals
only the murky recesses of the minds of
the people who make it. The Leader of the
Opposition has not said this: He would not
dream for a moment of saying it. But he
has put his case in the curious, evasive and
defeatist terms to which we have listened
-today. I say defeatist, inactive. He says in
effect: Kind hearts are more than coronets.
Do not let us have actual forces used to
repel force-to repel open Communist
attack, to repel Communist aggression and
subversion from the Vietcong. No, do not
let us use force to meet force, because that
is wrong." I noticed that the Labour Party-I suppose
it is permissible to describe it in that
phrase-issued a policy statement not long
ago, on 18th February. I have been enriched
with a copy of it and it has one or two
interesting things to say. It states-
In its statement to the Security Council on
February 7th, reporting the air strikes against
military installations in the south of North Vietnam,
America insisted that its object in South
Vietnam, while resisting aggression, is to achieve
a peaceful settlement maintained by the presence
of international peacekeeping machinery and that
it would not allow the situation to be changed
by terror and violence.
Then it goes on-
This statement of American purposes is
uinexceptionable. Thg Australian Labour Party starts by
saying: " Yes, that is right. You say this is
what you are doing. This is the object of the
exercise. You are going ! to repel the
aggressors. You are going to attack their
lines of communication. You are going to
do everything you can to produce stability
and get rid of civil war in South Vietnam
Then it says: It is all right if the Americans
do it, but it is no good to us. God made
the United States our protectors and we
ought to leave it to the United States
Now Sir, : this is a matter which, I venture
to say, is unarguable, but the last point
that the Leader of the Opposition undertook
to make was that in South Vietnam there
was a poor government-a corrupt government.
This word " corrupt" comes -trippingly
to the tongue. Every government of
this kind is corrupt or it is "' Fascist".
I know of no evidence that the Quat Government
in South Vietnam is corrupt. I
certainly have had no evidence that the government
of Ngo Dinh Diem was corrupt.
I thought he was a brave and honest little
man, and a patriot. But to say, " They are
corrupt. They do not have ordinary elections
in South Vietnam what sort of nonsense
is this? On the honorable gentleman's own
showing, South Vietnam is torn apart, torn
to pieces, by the activities of the Vietcong
in all their little pockets around the country.
In those circumstances there cannot be the
peaceable processes of election, there cannot
be what we call a democratic self govering
system if people are in that position.
Why are they in that position? It is
through no fault of their own, and no-one
suggests it is. They are in that position because
the Communists have set about two
tasks. One is to make life intolerable for
the South Vietnamese along their northern
frontier and to cross over thousands of
people to : help the Communist forces, and
the other is to maintain a system of Communist
subversion which is designed -to overthrow,
by force, the Government of South
Vietnam and to substitute for it a government
which will never be elected by the
people but which will be a simple Conmmunist
dictatorship corresponding to that of
Ho Chi Minh in North Vietnam.
Therefore, I venture to say there is a
good deal of humbug in talking of South
Vietnam as though it -were exposed to criticism
because of the manifold difficulties it
has had in securing stability, just as there
is more than a shade of humbug in saying
that what we ought to be doing is getting
on with the work in the Mekong Valley.
I ask members opposite to get on with it;
to go along pretending that there is no
fighting going on-pretending that the
Vietcong are not there and pretending that
there is no North Vietnam. Really, Sir, this
is the height of absurdity.
I recognised -the somewhat pathetic note
in the honorable member's speech when he
turned to his own people and said, metaphorically
and literally: " We will be unpopular but we will stick to it. You must
remember that we are ready to suffer in an
unpopular cause". All I can say is that I
wish he were willing to suffer in a good
cause of his own, because I have not the
slightest doubt that on the merits not only
we in Australia, but also all those governments
and people with whom we are associated
in this tremendously important exercise
which is so significant for the security
of our own country, are on the side of the
great majority. If 1 may end on a horribly
political note, it is a good thing occasionally
to be in a big majority.
UY AU I OIITI: I A. AR I IUR. COMMONWEAILTIH GOVERNMLI4Ir I'KINFILER, CANIItRKA