by Anne Summers
I visited Chip several times during the two years he lived in China working on his language proficiency, first in Beijing and, here in 2005, in Shanghai.
My interview with Julia Gillard at the Sydney Opera House on 30 September 2013 was her first public appearance after she was dumped as Prime Minister and was a highly emotional and engaging event.
Julia Gillard and I shared the honours on the Financial Review’s 2013 cultural power list. The citation read: ‘Gillard made the speech. Summers prosecuted the case. And their live talk shows sold out within hours’.
In 2014 actor Cate Blanchett did me the tremendous honour of agreeing to do a conversation event with me, as well as an extended interview and a rare Australian photoshoot for the cover of Anne Summers Reports. Peter Brew-Bevan’s image was perfect.
I was unaccountably nervous before my talk with footballer Adam Goodes in April 2015, but he calmed me and we went on to have an inspiring and memorable conversation.
Chip and I at the launch in 2009 of The Lost Mother, my book that tells the complex story about the artist who painted my mother as a child, the Russian émigré who bought the portraits and the mother I never really knew.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book simply would not have happened without Foong Ling Kong. Not only did she nag me (ever so gently, as is her style) that I needed to write it, but she found a publisher and hovered until a contract was signed. That was five years ago but finally I can, with a lot of pride and even more amazement, formally thank her for her persistence.
Even though this book is principally about my life, I needed plenty of help to research and recollect events and people. I am indebted to the staff at the Australian National Library, especially Catriona Anderson, Sarah Cowan, Emma Jolley, Nicola Mackay-Sim and Bronwyn Ryan, as well as to Michael Duffy, Peter Duncan, the Fairfax Library, the Media Library at Greenpeace International, Susan Grusovin, David Hay, Rowena Johns, Tom Kelly, Mary Murnane, Barbara Riley-Smith, Chris Ronalds, Tegan Sadlier at Fairfax Magazines, Michael Stutchbury, Max Suich, Sue Wills and Sandra Yates who all helped me in various ways. I very much appreciated the assistance of my brothers Tony Cooper, Greg Cooper and Paul Cooper and my cousin Pam Kelly in helping me with details of the story of our grandfather.
I am grateful to the following people who provided a quiet place for me to write when I was unable to work at home: Sally Irwin and Roger Simpson, Mary Murnane, Nell Wheeler and The Writers Room in New York where executive director Donna Brodie and Liz Sherman, assistant director, came to my rescue at very short notice when a flooded apartment left me with nowhere to work as the final deadline loomed.
And I am especially indebted to Quentin Bryce, Anne de Salis, Anne Dingwall, Roger Foley, Phillip Frazer, Bruce Haigh, Foong Ling Kong, Wendy McCarthy, Mary Murnane, Mary Ann O’Loughlin, Chris Ronalds, Max Suich, Carol Treloar and Sandra Yates who read all or parts of the manuscript and provided valuable comments and feedback. If, despite their assistance, I have got anything wrong, the fault is entirely mine.
I have been blessed to have a great publisher in Patrick Gallagher and I thank him for his forebearance over the years it took for me deliver the final words, and I am very fortunate to have been able to work with his excellent team: publisher Elizabeth Weiss, editorial director Rebecca Kaiser and publicity manager Christine Farmer. And it was such a pleasure to work again with Clare O’Brien on the final edit of the manuscript.
I am very lucky to have Chip Rolley as my partner and I can’t thank him enough for the way he sustained me during the writing of this book. He read every draft, helped with ideas and recollections and always had the right words whenever my enthusiasm flagged. Chip is my soul-mate, phrase-maker and my intellectual sparring partner. My life, and work, are enriched by being with him.
NOTES
Introduction
1 Madeleine Gobeil, ‘Simone de Beauvoir, The Art of Fiction No. 35’, Paris Review, No. 34, Spring–Summer, 1965, https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4444/simone-de-beauvoir-the-art-of-fiction-no-35-simone-de-beauvoir
Chapter 1 ‘What’s the Story, Morning Glory?’
1 Tom Wolfe, ‘The Birth of “The New Journalism”: Eyewitness Report by Tom Wolfe’, New York Magazine, 14 February 1972, http://nymag.com/news/media/47353/
2 Its full title was: ‘Radical chic: that party at Lenny’s’, New York Magazine, 8 June 1970, http://nymag.com/news/features/46170/
3 Evan Whitton, ‘VJ Carroll and the essence of journalism’, 22 April 2013, http://netk.net.au/Whitton/Whitton1.pdf
4 Gavin Souter, Company of Heralds. A Century and a half of Australian Publishing, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1981, p. 473
5 Anne Summers, ‘The day the screws were turned loose’, The National Times, 19–24 April 1976, pp. 4–5, 17; Anne Summers, ‘If prison is purgatory, then Grafton is hell’, The National Times, 26 April–1 May 1976, pp. 8–9; Anne Summers, ‘Life at Supermac’s. Is the new Grafton just one more prison problem’, The National Times, 3–8 May 1976, pp. 12–13; Anne Summers, ‘For women. Prison is enforced “femininity” ’, The National Times, 10–15 May 1976, pp. 12–13; Anne Summers, ‘NSW prison officers declare: “we won’t be the scapegoats” ’, The National Times, 31 May–5 June 1976, pp. 8–9; Anne Summers, ‘How prisoners were bashed’, The National Times, 12–17 July 1976, pp. 8–9 There were also several subsequent follow-up articles published in 1977
6 Report of the Commission (Royal Commission into New South Wales Prisons), 1978, p. 108, https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/series/1604
7 Anne Summers, ‘Rumbles from the concrete blockhouse’, The National Times, 31 October–5 November 1977, pp. 14–15
8 Bernie Matthews, Intractable, Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 2006
9 David Brown, ‘The Nagle Royal Commission 25 years on: Gaining perspective on two and a half decades of NSW prison reform’, Alternative Law Journal, 37 (2004), http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AltLawJl/2004/37.html
10 For an account of Jamie’s final days, death and the aftermath see Anne Summers, Ducks on the Pond, Penguin, Ringwood, Vic., 1999, pp. 392–411
11 David Marr and Anne Summers, ‘How women are used: the animal act of the year’, The National Times, 21–26 November 1977, pp. 8–9, 11–12, 14
12 Kelsey Munro, ‘St Paul’s College boycotting Elizabeth Broderick review into college culture’, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 November 2016, http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/st-pauls-college-boycotting-elizabeth-broderick-review-into-college-culture-20161117-gsrfq7.html
13 Naaman Zhou, ‘St. Paul’s College joins University of Sydney’s review of “culture of sexism” ’, The Guardian, 2 June 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jun/02/st-pauls-college-joins-university-of-sydneys-review-of-culture-of-sexism
14 For a fuller account of the end of Brifman’s relationship with Krahe and her subsequent escape to Brisbane and her death, see: Michael Duffy and Nick Hordern, Sydney Noir, The Golden Years, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2017, pp. 186, 189–90, 204–05, 216–19, 254–55
15 no byline [Anne Summers], ‘Police corruption allegations’, The National Times, 13–18 March 1978, pp. 8–9
16 Telephone interview with Peter Duncan, 22 May 2017
Chapter 2 Home of the Brave
1 Hazel Rowley, Tete-a-Tete. The Lives and Loves of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, Chatto & Windus, London, 2006, p. 71
2 Editorial, ‘On Wounded Knee’, New York Times, 23 October 2012
3 Marlon Brando, ‘That Unfinished Oscar Speech’, New York Times, 30 March 1973
4 Brando, ‘That Unfinished Oscar Speech’
5 A.A. Phillips, ‘The Cultural Cringe’, Meanjin, vol. 9 no. 4, Summer 1950, pp. 299–302
6 Simone de Beauvoir, excerpt from Preface of Crimes Against Women. Proceedings of the International Tribunal, Compiled and edited by Diana E.H. Russell and Nicole Van de Ven, Les Femmes, Millbrae, California, 1976
7 For a detailed account of Jane Alpert’s time on the run, see Luci
nda Franks, ‘The Four Year Odyssey of Jane Alpert, from revolutionary bomber to feminist’, New York Times, 14 January 1975. And for an account of how Alpert’s essay, and her cooperation with the FBI, split the women’s movement, see: Alice Echols, Daring to be Bad. Radical Feminism in America, 1967–1975, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1989, pp. 247–62
Chapter 3 The Press Gallery
1 Andrew Clark, ‘Max Walsh’, Biography for Australian Media Hall of Fame induction n.d.[2017], http://halloffame.melbournepressclub.com/article/max-walsh
2 For the record. Gough Whitlam’s mission to China, 1971, https://www.whitlam.org/gough_whitlam/china/fortherecord. The full transcript, which was described as ‘extraordinary’ and ‘powerful’ by Eric Sidoti, Director of the Whitlam Institute, can be found in this document: https://www.whitlam.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/493279/For_the_Record_-_Gough_Whitlams_mission_to_China,_1971.pdf
3 An account of this can be found in Anne Summers, Ducks on the Pond, p. 335
4 Anne Summers, ‘Number C/57/61: What ASIO knew’ in Meredith Burgmann (ed.), Dirty Secrets. Our ASIO Files, NewSouth Books, Sydney, 2014
Chapter 4 Foreign Correspondence
1 Samora Machel was killed in a plane crash in 1986 that the Soviet Union alleged had been caused by a technology provided by the South African government. His widow, Gracha Machel, married Nelson Mandela in 1998 and became the First Lady of South Africa
2 I discovered only while I was writing this, from Bruce Haigh, that Zwelakhe Sisulu had been arrested and charged, and subsequently imprisoned, under the Terrorism Act for activities that had no connection with me. But I did not know this at the time and could only blame myself for his being detained
3 Pakistan left the Commonwealth between 1972 and 1989 in protest at Bangladesh being given membership; during that period other Commonwealth nations such as Australia were represented by Ambassadors—not the usual High Commissioners
4 Anne Summers, Gamble for Power. How Bob Hawke beat Malcolm Fraser. The 1983 federal election, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1983
Chapter 5 Mandarins versus Missionaries
1 Anne Summers, ‘Mandarins or Missionaries: Women in the Federal Bureaucracy’ in Norma Grieve and Ailsa Burns (eds). Australian Women New Feminist Perspectives, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1986, p. 64
2 R.J.L. Hawke, Foreword to Susan Ryan and Gareth Evans, Affirmative Action for Women. A Policy Discussion paper, Volume 1, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1984
3 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, The Integration of Women into the Economy, Paris, 1985, p. 76
4 ABC News, ‘Women earn 23 per cent less than men’, 15 November 2016, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-16/australian-women-earn-23-per-cent-less-than-men/8028802
5 Subsequently other Prime Ministers have introduced legislation that was especially important to them. In November 2012 Julia Gillard introduced the National Disability Insurance Scheme legislation, for instance
6 Peter Walsh, Confessions of a Failed Finance Minister, Random House, Sydney, 1995, p. 224
7 Australian Government. Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Child Care in Australia, August 2013, p. 15
8 Marian Sawer, Sisters in Suits: Women and Public Policy in Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1990, p. 80
9 Senator Don Grimes, Child Care Amendment Bill 1985, Second Reading Speech Australian Senate, 14 November 1985
10 Sawer, Sisters in Suits, p. 81
11 Angelique Chrisafis, ‘Just call me Nell’, The Guardian, 22 November 2004, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/nov/22/biography.gayrights (accessed 30 October 2014)
12 Anne Summers, Ducks on the Pond, Penguin, Ringwood, Vic., 1999
Chapter 6 ‘The Times Will Suit Me’
1 F. Scott Fitzgerald, My Lost City, typescript, 1935–36, http://fitzgerald.narod.ru/crackup/068e-city.html
2 Bruno Bertuccioli, The Level Club. A New York City story of the twenties splendor, decadence and resurgence of a monument to human ambition, Watermark Press, Maryland, 1991
3 Anne Summers, ‘The times will suit me, says John Howard’, Australian Financial Review, 7 July 1986, p. 1
4 Anne Summers, ‘Smut reigns in new TV network of “Dirty Digger” ’, Australian Financial Review, 7 April 1987
5 Anne Summers, ‘Murdoch’s News group pays $428m for Harper & Row’, Australian Financial Review, 1 April 1987
6 Anne Summers, ‘Hollywood mogul gazumps the President’, Australian Financial Review, 18 August 1986, p. 1
7 Anne Summers, ‘Malcolm Fraser’s Memphis Blues’, Australian Financial Review, 31 October 1986, p. 1
Chapter 7 ‘Real Feminists With Real Money’
1 Anne Summers, ‘Packer in personal talks on Ms. deal’, Australian Financial Review, 23 March 1987, p. 1
2 Carolyn G. Heilbrun, The Education of a Woman: The Life of Gloria Steinem, Dial Press, New York, 1995, p. 23
3 Heilbrun, The Education of a Woman, p. 381
4 Heilbrun, The Education of a Woman, p. 389
5 Kurt Anderson, ‘Felkerisim’, New York, 1 July 2008, http://nymag.com/news/features/48013/
6 Peggy Orenstein, ‘Ms. fights for its life’, Mother Jones, November/December 1990, http://www.maryellenmark.com/text/magazines/mother%20jones/904Y-000-005.html
7 Michael Kelly, ‘Ted Kennedy on the Rocks’, GQ, 14 April 2016 (Originally published in GQ in 1990), https://www.gq.com/story/kennedy-ted-senator-profile
8 The first was Linda Wachner who in 1986 had raised $550 million to buy the lingerie company Warnaco; when she took over she was, at the time, the only female CEO of a Fortune 500 company
9 The Magazinist ‘Stolley’s Laws’ http://themagazinist.com/Stolley_s_Laws.html
Chapter 8 Media Mogulettes in New York City
1 After Marjory Stoneman Douglas died, in 1998 at the age of 108, a local high school was named for her. The school became famous after a mass shooting there in 2018, resulting in seventeen deaths. This led a number of its students to become nationally known and celebrated activists for gun control and against the National Rifle Association
2 Ronald Sullivan, ‘Steinberg is Guilty of First-Degree Manslaughter’, The New York Times, 31 January 1989, http://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/31/nyregion/steinberg-is-guilty-of-first-degree-manslaughter.html
3 Orenstein, ‘Ms. fights for its life’
4 Susan Brownmiller, In our Time. Memoir of a Revolution, The Dial Press, New York, 1999, p. 278
5 Interview with Hedda Nussbaum, Larry King Live, 16 June 2003, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0306/16/lkl.00.html
6 Ronald Sullivan, ‘Jurors see Graphic Tape of Nussbaum’, New York Times, 4 November 1988, http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/04/nyregion/jurors-see-graphic-tape-of-nussbaum.html
7 Ronald Sullivan, ‘Steinberg is Guilty of First-Degree Manslaughter’, New York Times, 31 January 1989, http://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/31/nyregion/steinberg-is-guilty-offirst-degree-manslaughter.html?pagewanted=all
8 Brownmiller, In Our Time, p. 278
9 Brownmiller, In Our Time, p. 278
10 Jonathan Mahler, ‘Bodice-ripper in New Hands’, New York Times, 2 May 2014, http://newsdiffs.org/article-history/www.nytimes.com/2014/05/03/business/media/news-corp-to-acquire-harlequin-enterprises.html
11 The Associated Press, ‘Stakes sold in magazines’, The New York Times, 17 October 1989
12 Orenstein, ‘Ms. fights for its life’
13 Brennan Nardi, ‘Tracing Our Roots. How our founder became a nationally known magazine maverick’, Madison Magazine, 15 January 2013, https://www.channel3000.com/madison-magazine/opinion/tracing-our-roots/158720523
14 Orenstein, ‘Ms. fights for its life’
15 Jane Kramer, ‘After Fifty Years, Gloria Steinem is Still at the Forefront of the Feminist Cause’, The New Yorker, 19 October 2015
16 Lang continued to publish Sassy until 1994, when he sold it to the Pedersen Publishing Company which
in 1996 folded it into its Teen magazine and Sassy was no more, although it continues to have an almost cult-like following in some media, fashion and cultural circles. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/08/business/the-media-business-petersen-will-restart-sassy-with-push-for-older-readers.html
17 Emma Brockes, ‘Gloria Steinem, If Men Could Get Pregnant Abortion Would be a Sacrament’, The Guardian, 17 October 2015
18 Susan Faludi, Backlash. The Undeclared War Against American Women, Random House, New York, 1991, p. 108
19 Faludi, Backlash, p. 109
20 Faludi, Backlash, p. 110
Chapter 9 Paul Keating and the Laminar Flow
1 Nikki Barrowclough, ‘Keating goes a-wooing’, Good Weekend, 6 June 1992, pp. 12–17
2 Walsh, Confessions of a Failed Finance Minister, 1995, p. 248
3 Patricia Edgar, Bloodbath. A Memoir of Australian Television, Melbourne University Publishing, Melbourne, 2006, p. 364
4 ‘PM finds words of praise for the pop singer’, The Canberra Times, 24 April 1993, p. 7
5 Laurie Oakes, ‘Interview with the Prime Minister one year after the election’, Sunday, 13 March 1994. http://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/original/00009157.pdf
6 Paul Keating, Eulogy on the death of Bill Bradshaw, Woollahra, Sydney, 25 November 2009, http://www.keating.org.au/shop/item/funeral-of-bill-bradshaw---25-november-2009
7 Hon P.J. Keating, Launch of Anne Summers’ book ‘Damned Whores and God’s Police’, Sydney, 24 January 1994, typescript copy held by author
8 John Edwards, Keating. The Inside Story, Penguin, Ringwood, Vic., 1996, p. 494
9 Neal Blewett, ACabinet Diary. A personal record of the first Keating government, Wakefield Press, Kent Town, SA 1999, p. 220
10 Blewett, A Cabinet Diary, p. 301
11 Cited in Anne Summers, The End of Equality. Work, Babies and Women’s Choices in 21st century Australia, Random House, Sydney, 2003, p. 111