AUSTRALIA CLUB,. LONDON
Speech by the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Menzies
28TH JUNE, 1965
On the whole I think that what I ought to do is to say
" thank you", to say that I concur with all the bits that didn't
relate to me and to sit down, because I am here in a glittering
company. Hlere is Lord Baillieu, very modest about himself, one
of the great Australians of my lifetime. I see sitting along
here, with characteristic modesty, Alec Douglas-Home. I have
no bias about him at all. All I do is to say that I have
said and I repeat, that I think hie's the greatest man in the
Kingaom and, what is more, a rather tolerant man, because some
of you will recall sitting at an Australia Club Dinner in another
setting when he made a speech about me and I made a speech about
him, and he thought fit on that occasion to make a certain amount
of play about my name remember? Some of you will. He had
discovered that my proper name was " Mingies" and this, of course,
is quite right. I very well remember many years ago being at a big
dinner in London and the gentleman with the red coat, who had
a fine Home Counties accent for public production, vwith a good
Scots burr on his tongue in private, nipped across to me just
before I was to speak and he said " Excuse me, Sir, but am I to
announce you as Menzies or by your proper name?". W~ ord of this
must have reached Alec because on that occasion he made a little
play about the name, and I recalled it with my usual courtesy,
and said that after all we all have a lot to learn and when I
get back home and I am invited by the vicar to go to the concert
of the year, I will expect him to say " And now Miss Flora Smith
will sing for us ' Hume Sweet Huniel". This put a very great
strain on our friendship because three days later he said for
me, " You know, you've made life very troublesome for me. I can't
go to the House of Lords now without being confronted by ' Hume
Sweet Hume'. And I claim some credit, therefore, for the fact
that some time afterwards he left the House of Lords and became
the Prime Minister of this country.
As for Peter Carrington, well he's in the House of Lords.
Hefs the leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords and he's
4. eveloped a line of eloquence which I didn't suspect when he was
in Australia. I remember that after he became the High Commissioner,
I was up at his house for dinner, and after we had
absorbed some frugal provisions and pre-prandial drinks we walked
into the dining-room and on the right as we walked in there was
a portrait of the La~ y Car ing ton with one " Ir" and I said to
him with my usual blushing modesty: " How do you explain this?
Is this a legitimate ancestress of yours~ because you have two
1jr's" He said: " You needn't worry, th name is Smith".
Sdon't need to tell him that he has a great and affectionate
place in the Australian mind.
I'm glad that he referred to Lord Slim and Lord De L'Isle
because I imagine, though I'm constantly being asked questions
about it by the Press, that it's not the easiest business in the
world to be a Governor-General. I've always thought it a
revolting job. You have to be nice to everybody you have to
make a speech but you have t6-Ntake great care that~ it doesn't cut
across the policy of the Goverrimnt, and this I think is a
painful task. o eo o / 2
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I must say that Lord Slim sol~ ved this problem very
easily. He made his own speeches and apologised to me afterwards,
Although Lord De LtIsle, that gallant and distinguished man who
has just ceased to be our Governor-General, didn't quite go so
far as that, I thought he went as near as a man could possibly go,
and I'm delighted that they are both here.
I think it would be a mistake if I didn't say to you that
on all of these occasions I'm delighted to see Lord Bruce. I can
remember him at a time when I was so nervous about even speaking
to him that I found it difficult to speak at all. He's been here
a long time and there are foolish people, I suppose, somewhere in
Australia who still manage to think of him as rather more English
than Australian. I want to take the opportunity of saying in his
presence that so far as I'm concerned, I regard him as one of
the greatest f'rime Ministers that my country has ever had, and
when he ceased to be Prime Minister of Australia, he served
Australia with vigour with force, in this country for years and
years. The name of tanley Melbourne Bruce will never lack a
place, and a high place, in the history of Australia.
Now that we have observed the ol~ d Chinese practice of
meeting each other and exchanging confidence, I wonder if I might
say something to you on my own account because in the last ten
days I've been attending that joyous, jocund thing known as the
Prime Ministerst Conference.
I can remember the time when there were a few of us, and
we sat at the table and there it was, and at the end of a day or
two, we finished our discussion but this year because of the
advance of independence and sell'-government, there were 21 of
us you are only entertaining one Prime Minister, one out of
21 and as each Prime Minister is allowed to have three acolytes
sitting with him, that's a total of 84+ and then there are other
necessary people connected with the Secretariat and so on so that
we sit in Marlborough House with 100 people in the room.
I don't know how you chaps feel but I find it very
difficult to conduct an intimate discussion in the presence of
100 people. This problem is solved by some who give their
speeches to the Press it's a very private meeting you understand,
but in some strange way a number of speeches reach the Press,
sometimes before they are delivered. Therefore, some of the old
intimacy has disappeared and yet it is essential that in a Prime
Ministers' Conference we should endeavour to get to the point
and to register with each other some views about some of the
great problems of the world.
' dell, on this occasion we of course had something to
say about South Vietnam and I want to say something about it to
you myself, because as it turned out we had no time to discuss
the merits of the South Vietnam position. W'e were concerned to
discuss whether we ought, as a Commonwealth to appoint a mission
to go around to the contending parties and lind out whether there
might be some basis for a conference which might lead to peace.
Now that's a modest ambition but still we all thought it was
one worth trying to give effect to but at no time did we discuss
the merits of this matter.
Now, on my way here, I came through the United States of
America where the merits about South Vietnam are hotly contested. 0 1e93
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I come from my own country where the merits are hotly contested.
I come here where I have no doubt, though I wouldn't be dogmatic,
tile merits are hohy contested. But you are not to suppose that
the Prime Ministers' Conference sat in judgment on these matters
or formed an opinion on the merits, but as I happen to have strong
opinions on the merits, I wonder if you would allow me to give
some expression to them here.
Now start with Australia. I don't thing logically that's
the right order but tonight let's start with Australia. We have
the strongest views on this matter, Wde are committed in our public
views and we are committed by a thousand fighting men and a number
of Air Force people in South Vietnam. Now why are we committed?
The answer is one that deserves a little thought.
Unless you are completely theoretical, unless you become
bemused by academic considerations, you must understand that in the
long run the future of freedom depends on defending freedom where
it's attacked. And in South-East Asia we have this position.
We had all the troubles about Vietnam, North Vietnam, South Vietnam,
we had a borderline drawn, we had a demilitarised zone a little on
each side of it, we had undertakings that nobody would cross that
frontier in order to attack on the other wide, and before we were
very much older, the Government of North Vietnam which if I may
say so I think is not unrelated to the Government of k~ king,
found It desirable to incite in South Vietnam the activities of
what we call the Viet Cong rebels armed from the north, not
armed by themselves because they have no resources from which to
arm themselves, but armed from the north, supplied from the north,,
And they began to conduct with all the advantages of a guerrilla
outfit, to attack South Vietnam and the government of South
Vietnam, and, of course, at this time with the monsoons blowing
from north-east and from the north-west, they are able to pursue
their attacks under cover of the cloud and the rain and with all
the elements of surprise.
Now it's perfectly clear to me, and I hope it is to you,
that if this were allowed to go on uninterrupted, the effect would
be that South\ Vietnam would become a communist country just as
North Vietnam is, and if it did, then what would become of Thailand?
What would happen in Laos? What would happen on the flanks of
Malaysia to which not only Australia is committed by her arms but
Great Britain in a very large measure? What would become of these
c2ountries? Theso are practical consideration;;. And because we
realise that the abandonment of South Vietnam in that sense, and
because the Americans realise that the abandonment of South Vietnam
in that sense would mean that the communist tide would sweep right
down to the Timor Sea, we thought we ware not without interest in
it. It's not funny to have a country, a great country as
Peter Carrington has described it, a country with great energy
and great achievement and great hope and a great sense of
independent freedom it's not funny to have it exposed over a
few miles of water to a victorious, onward movement of the
communists, These are the simple facts and the Americans looked
at in the same way. So, you know, I ge~ a little worried about
the misunderstandings that exist between this country and the
United States of America.
There are misunderstandings. There's a bit of a
disposition here to criticise the United States of America. There
always has been in smaller countries a disposition to criticise
great countries. Loet me remind you as I have reminded the
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Congress of the United States and the present President's allies
in the White House that in the nineteenth century which we look
back uponapart from one or two incidents, as a century of
industrial progress and peace and happiness, Great Britain wa$
the great power of the world. How many friends did she have?
How deeply was she loved on the continent of Europe? You've
only to put your mind back to realise that great power which
involves great responsibility has never in our lifetime or our
recorded history involved great popularity.
There's so much nonsense talked about popularity. In
the long run people don't vote for popularity, they vote for
quality and strength and purpose, and in the whole of the nineteenth
century, Great Britain was in that position, and the remarkable
thing in this century is that after the first fifteen or sixteen
years of it, the United States has found itself the greatest
physical power in the world, and I am happy to say has shown a
great willingness to accept the responsibilities ol~ that power.
Let nobody speak cheaply about them. Everybody here
knows my view I am as British as a man could be. Nothing that
I say detracts one whit from my feeling about this country and
its people and its history and its destiny. But don't let us
overlook the fact that in this century the United States, having
come to immense power, having enormous resources, might have been
tempted to say, " Very well, we can live in our own country. We
are st rong we have our resources. Why should we worry about
other people?" 1
And the glorious truth has been that they have not taken
that view. The glorious truth is that, just as Great Britain
did in the nineteenth century, so in ths century they have
accepted the responsibilities of power, and we do ourselves no
good if we fail to realise that profound truth, indeed that most
encouraging truth, most encouraging for all of us.
Now in South Vietnam anyone could say in a cynical
way " Of course Australia would want to take a hand in South
Vietnam because South Vietnam is on the outer perimeter of
Australian defence." 1 I accept that comment. But why are the
Americans there? Now this is a question that all these university
lecturers ought to ask themselves. Why are the Americans there?
I put this question in rather a rhetorical fashion at
a meeting in the Sydney Town Hall. You know what we politicians
are like, we like to put out a rhetorical question, saying to
ourselves, " I hope no-one answers that". I said, " Why are the
Americans there?" and there was, as usual a character up in the
gallery who said, " For profit" and I had to point out that it was
a strange and new definition of profit to be in a country that
cost you millions and from which you got nothing. I couldn't allow
it to be resolved on a commercial basis.
Whiy are they there? Do you know that this is one of
the wonderful things about our time that this country whose
friendship with Great Britain whose friendship with the rest of
us is vital to the future of the world, this country is in South
Vietnam not because South Vietnam as South Vietnam means much to
it but because it believes, as I believe, that freedom, liberty,
call it what you like, is neither divisible nor expendable, but
wherever it's attacked there is the frontier and you either
defend it on that frontier or you engage in the worst kind of
appeasement. Appeasement from weakness was understandable, * a 0 0 1
appeasement from strength is unpardonable**
It's not so many years ago that the best kind of
American opinion was: Never put troops onto the Asian mainland.
Strategically it's wrong. Tactically it would be disastrous.
But they put them there and they're putting more there and
then having put their troops in and we having agreed that we
would put troops of ours in, somebody pops up at the Prime
Miites Conference and says: " I appeal to the Prime Minister
of Australia to withdraw his battalions"* In other words, " I
invite him to perform the most shameful act in Australian history.,"
And, " I think we all ought to invite the United States not to
bomb north of the border."
Not to bomb? To concede to the enemy all the rights
of uninhibited supply down the route which keeps putting in
material, trained men, and all the time to think: " You stop
doing that and you Australians walk out on them" and this will
be a contribution to pea cet
Look, gentlemen, we're at war. Don't let's make any
mistake about it Welve got into the habit now of using that
strange vocabulary you're not at war until something else
has happened -but there's a war going on in South Vietnam.
Night after night under cover of the clouds and the rain, the
Viet Cong are coming in blasting villages and cutting the
throats of innocent citizens, and the forces opposed to them
are counter-attacking them. If this isn't war what is it?
But if it is a war, then who are we to say to the
United States, the most formidable factor in the defence of
South Vietnam, who are we to say to them: " You are not to
attack the enemy's lines of communication, you are to allow him
to have it all for free, and you must remain on a rather doubtful,
difficult defensive". e
Gentlemen, these problems which, as I say, we didn't
discuss ontthoirmerits in the Prime Ministers' Conference, are
the greatest problems you and I have had to think about, whether
we've thought about them or not in the last four or five years.
This is a tremendous issue.
If the United States of America paid attention to the
theoretical people and said; " Yes, you've persuaded us. W'e'll
leave," and if we said: " All right, we'll leave too" and we
leave South Vietnam to its own resources, what do you suppose
will happen? I had a correspondence in Australia with some extraoprdinarily
learned gentlemen who were bishops and they wrote letters
to me about this matter and I wrote a couple back, and th&~ y
didn't seem to me to understand the truth of the issue at alL-.
You can't solve this by sitting back and saying: " We all hope
for peace," because that's what the communists are always saying.
There hasn't been a peace rally in my own country for years that
has not been organised by the communists, and when they establish
a set of cut-throats in groups running into many thousands in
South Vietnam and they are called the Viet Cong by us, it turns
out that by the communists they are known as the National
Liberation Front. But this is the technique.
If we succumb to that and keep out and if we all keep
out including the United States, South Vietnam will be in the
hanas of North Vietnam before we are very much older. And if
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it is, theni what the bishops were saying to me about free elections
will prove to be the sorry nonsense that it was. You can't have
a free election in North Vietnam. It's a communist state.
Any of you ever hear of a free election in a communist state?
OfP course not. How can you have a free election when you're
being bemused and battered all the time by guerrillas, by rioters,
by people who come in under cover of the rain and the cloud ' and
murder your citizens. I've been through a few noisy election
campaigns in Australia, but never through one conducted on that
principle. We must get out of this habit of thinking that because
you, and therefore we, are on one side of the Atlantic and the
Americans are on the other, that there is some difference,
Fundamentally there can't be any difference, Fundamentally, the
future of the world for the next ten years will depend on how
far we understand them and they understand us, how far we are on
the same lines of communication, how far we share their information,
how far we share their plans and their objectives, because
unless we do, then we'll reach a state of affairs in which too
many people here in Great Britain will think it is not their
business the Americans are in that and some people in
Australia not too many while I'm alive, will be saying that we
should Jaave it to the Americans.
You can't leave the peace of the world to the greatest
power in the world unless you are prepared to abandon your own
share of responsibility. We're all in this together, It is
just because to me, venerable as I am, but still in a sense, as
you might say, a modern Prime Minister, it's just because to me
the greatest events in the last twenty years in world history have
been the events associated with the outlook of the United States
of America, with the willingness of their people to come in and do
what they can, with the willingness of their Presidents one after
the other to come in and give leadership and accept responsibility.
This is a tremendous event in modern history. All I can say is
that I hope without becoming blind people, without abandoning
our rights to criticise our rights to suggest, that we will always
do that. I do hope that we won't fall into the fatal error of
thinking that all this tremendous emergence of American
responsibility is merely some form of imperialism, I hope you
will always remember that this has nothing to do with imperialism,
This is counter-imperialism. I'm sick and tired of hearing these
words about imperialism and neo-colonialism. They rattle round
the room at any conference we have.
The fact is that the new imperialism will be resisted
and defeated and kept only if all of us on both sides of the
Atlantic, and on my side of the Pacific realise that, in the
words of William Pitt spoken a century and a half earlier about
different circumstances: " We are one people", and itts because
we are one people that what has been going on in South Vietnam
on the merits has had support not only of the United States but
of my own fair country.