TELEVISION INTERVIEW GIVEN BY THE PRIME
MINISTER, MR JOHN GORTON, AT THE LODGE,
SCAINBERRA, FOR GTV9 MELBOURNE,.
po 3RD JUNE, 1968
13 JPAInterviewer: Mr Alan Reid-
Mr Michael Schildberger This is the first time on Australian television
that we have been able to bring you a direct telecast from the Prime
Minister's Lodge in Canberra. The Prime Minister, Mr Gorton, has
agreed to speak to us tonight about the significance of his recent,
just completed tour of America. Sydney " Daily Telegraph's" Alan
Reid travelled with the Prime Minister in America. He is here
tonight to interview the Prime Minister.
Q. Mr Gorton, President Johnson gave you more time, in my
experience, than any other Australian Prime Minister has received.
You also had contact with three out of the five Presidential candidates.
I know you have to allow for the unforeseeable, but is your impression
now that the U. S. will remain interested in Asia?
PM: Let's taike this in stages. We don't have to have an
impression up until January next year because the present President,
who will be in office up until January next year has unequivocally stated
in the speech he made to the White House Dinner that there would be no
diminution in the U. S. interest in Asia, and although he couldn't speak
for hs successors, he could speak completely for himself. And * this
carries us through for the next six or seven months. We don't have
to form an impression. That's a definite statement. For possible
successors, we do have to form impressions and the impressions that
I have formed are that the man who is most likely, so I am told, o be
the Democratic nominee for President at the next Presidential election,
Mr ' Humphrey, will be at least as strong, if not stronger than President
Johnson on the necessity for involvement in Asia by the United States.
On the Republican side, I believe from the soundings I have been able
to make from my direct talks with Governor Rockefeller, my telephone
talk with Mr Nixon and from talks with significant backers of the
Republican Party, that there will also be likely to be very likely
to be continuing interest in Asia by the U. S.
Q. Is this interest, in your view, based on their realisation
of their self-interest or is it altruistic or a mixture of both?
PM: I think it is a mi xture of both. I think it is a realisation
of their self-interest. I think it is a desire which has been quite
evident in what the U. S. has done in many fields over the last dec ' ade
or two that their self-interest is served by the advancement of the
interests of other countries, just aq in a sense, ours is. It's a
mixture of self-interest and altruism, because altruism, if it is to
be regarded as trying to build up other countries, will have the effect
of having the self-interest also served.
Q. President Johnson at his White House Dinner went to great
lengths to answer your speech on the Lawn. He committed himself
very deeply to it. He took a line that could possibly influence his
successor. What influence do you think President Johnson will have
upon a future Democrat Administration and a Republican
AdIrtinistration? 2
-2
PM: I think he will have considerable influence on any future
Democrat Administration, although I don't know that that influence
would be needed if in fact Mr Humphrey were to be the Democrat
nominee and were to be elected as President. But even if that weren't so,
he would be a past President, a past President who had relinquished the
chance of office for an endeavour to bring peace and prosperit y to
Asia. He would have reliquinshed an almost certain I think this is
true an almost certain chance of being re-elected as President, for
this purpose. This, together with his long experience as majority
leader in the Senate would, I think, lead him to have a great effect on
any future Administration, a Democrat Administration. Now, his
effect on a future Republican Administration would not, of course, be
so great, but I would think that even a future Republican Administration,
if it were in fact needed, would be affected by the influence which
President Johnson could bring to bear in the country generally. But
I don't know that a future Republican Administration would need to
have any of this kind
Q. Senior Administration officials in Washington, as I
understand it, expressed the desirability of Australia maintaining its
defence associations with both Malaysia and Singapore and the
desirability of us maintaining a presence there. Did you in fact put
what seems to be the realistic viewpoint that we could maintain a
presence there only in the light of them taking a certain line of action?
PM Well, I'm fascinated to hear this question.... The Senior
Administration, as you understand it, expressed a particular point of
view. Well, I've no doubt that you have methods of assessing these
things, but all I can say is that your understanding must be based on
something other than any public statement that I have made or am going
to make on this matter. You asked me did they have this view. That
is for them to make public or not make public, and I'm not going to
comment on whatever impression it may be that you have received from
whoever it may be that you have talked to. What was the second part of
that question?
Q. Did you emphasise to them that our attitude in Singapore and
Malaysia, our presence there, would be governed by attitudes that they
might possibly take?
PM: Well, I think in answer to that, all I would say would be to
refer you to what I said when I arrived, and we were going to make, the
speech on the Lawn, but made it inside instead, and that speech*
indicated Australia's abiding interest in South-East Asia, abiding desire
to see that its standards of living were raised and said that we had a
present and a future in that area and we had a part to play in that qrea
in trying to achieve the results that we wanted to achieve but that we
could not effectively play it alone.
Q. Your approach in this seems to me to have been somewhat
different from both Sir Robert Menzies and Mv-r Holt who, so far as I
understood their emphasis, it was that we should do everything possible
to encourage America to stay in Asia. Now, as I interpret your
approach, maybe incorrectly, it was that we would not be staying in
Asia unless they were there. Was this in fact your approach? ./ 3
-3
PM: Well, this is a very wide question. I think we can't divorce
ourselves from Asia. I think we can't say we won't have an interest
in Asia no matter what other powers may do. We would because we
are contiguous to the area. B ecause we are interested in the area,: we
would do what we could to try and underpin the economies, to provide the
technological requirements of the area, even if we had to try and do it
alone. But I don't think that alone we could do it with sufficient
effectiveness, with sufficient force, to achieve the results that would
need to be achieved in the next few years in that area. There are others
who would need to come in, and of these ct hers, I think the U. S. is the
most significant.
Q. There seems to be some confusion about your Israeli-type
defence statement to the Washington Press Club. My interpretation of
the thing was that this was one of many options that you were keeping
open against future defence needs for Australia. Is that interpretat ion
correct?
PM: Yes, well, I think you were there at the time . the question
was answered, and I think your interpretation is relatively cotktect,
except that we were asked, you will remember, the question did we
believe iA an Israell-iype defence force. I said on this matter I wouldn't
comment the actual Israeli-type defence force but that I would seek
to define what we in Australia would regard as an Israeli-type. That is
a force which has a Regular Army component but which has a back-up
force, well equipped, proped. yequipped, properly trained, quickly
able to go into action and a growing capacity to do it and a growing
amount of numbers to do it of the citizen forces type of military capacity,
where in order to back up your regular forces you have a capacity to
quickly get into action military forces, although the people of whom those
back-up forces are composed are citizens for most of the time but who
are trained to be able to take their place quickly in an emergency.
Q. Basically you were not announcing any proposed policy. You
were dealing with a contingency which might arise in extreme circumstances?
PM: I wasn't announcing any new policy at all, or indeed a
contingency which might arise in extreme circumstances, but rather
seeking to define, to give a definition of what could be loosely described
as an Israeli type very loosely described as an Israeli-type polic~ y,
which is indeed the sort of policy we now have that is Regular Forces
backed up by Citizen Military Forces, but suggesting that one of thle
options and in this you would be quite correct one of the options for
the future could be not a diminution in any way of our Regular Forces
ready for action at a m en's notice but rather a strengthening of the
back-up Citizens Military Forces who would come in behind those
Regular Forces. This is one of the options, one of the objectives, and
one of the ones that we have always had.
Q. President Johnson had you there when General Westmoreland
gave his analysis of the present situation in South Viet Nam. Basically,
he said that this could be a desperate throw on the part of the Viet Cong
and the North Vietnamese which could run out. Did you accept that
analysis, or did you ' have any reservations about it in the light of events
there? / 4
-4
PM: No, this was an assessment which was made on the ba~ iis of
the Intelligence information available to General Wiestmoreland that the
Tet offensive for a start, and the present attack on Saigon was in some
sense almost a suicidal operation in order to try and have a political
effect on the peace talks which were at present going on. Now, I have
no way of checking the basic infallibility of the Intelligence on which
General Westmoreland based his report, but it does seem tha the
original Tet offensive was, from a military point of view as concerns
the North Vietnamese, unsuccessful; from a political point of view
overseas, far more successful than it was in the country itself.
It is not therefore unreasonable to suppose that this assessment of
General Westmnoreland's is reasonably accurate.
Q. In the military but not in the political sense?
PM: In the military sense accurate in that it was unlikely to
lead to any decisive military result. In the p olitical sense accurate
in that it might overseas lead to some political advantage to the North
Vietnamese which the military results of their present operations
would not justify.
Q. just two more questions, if I may. Do the Americans
ascribe the same importance to ANZUS as we do, and is the general
interpretation that it extends to our forces in the Malayan, Singapore
area?
PM: They, I am convinced, do ascribe the same importance to
ANZUS as we do, and particularly to the defence of Australia and of
New Zealand. As to the particular areas in which ANZUS might apply,
this is something which I think I couldn't properly accurately comment
upon in answer to your question.
Q. You leave on Wednesday lookidng very fresh, if I may say so,
after the exhausting tour you have had for another tour, this time of
South-East Asia. What are your intenrbnsthere? Are you planning
any substantive talks or what are you after there?
PM: No. Mostly as far as Viet Nam is concerned, I want to see
our own troops up there. I want to taka-e what opportunities I can to
visit them, and I suppose I'd be too much of a nuisance if I went too
far forward, so they may not allow me to do that, and I understand.
But I want to see them wherever they are so far as I can do it without
upsetting them or causing too much trouble to them. As far as Singapore,
Malaya and Indonesia are concerned, the main objective of this visit
is to show that there is from a new Prime Minister of Australia the
same interest in the area, the same desire to meet the leading figures
in the area as was evinced by my predecessor, Mr Holt, that there has
been no changre in Australia's continuing and abiding interest, up
change in Australia's desire that the leaders of each of the countries
in our region should know each other, and I would hope that this visit
would show that, and would help to show the peoples of the region
concerned that there is this continuing, neighbourly, friendly interest,
this desire to help and to be a part of the area in which we all live.
Q. Are you considering laying the groundwork for any say,
formal non-aggression pact or something like that with Indonesia?
PM: If Indonesia were happy to have a non-aggression pact with
ourselves, with Malaya and Singapore, we would be happy to do all we
could to see that such a non-aggression pact did becon-e a reality
Q. Thank you, Mr Prime Minister.