Tiberius with a Telephone

by Patrick Mullins

  Whether or not it stemmed from McMahon’s desire to shine in a field he knew well, the intervention appeared to be one hint of McMahon’s willingness to work for the government. Gorton had come back from Singapore grudgingly admitting to Hasluck that McMahon had ‘behaved well’ at the conference; though he continued to have ‘no illusions’ about the foreign minister, he nonetheless wondered whether McMahon had given up on supplanting him.17 By the end of the month, it seems, that view had settled: his regard for McMahon was benign, if still derisory. ‘Don’t worry, Billy big ears isn’t trying anymore!’ Gorton told the Young Liberal federal president.18

  Gorton had reasons to feel confident. His critics within the party were quietening down. Plainly, his willingness to confront them, as he had in the party room following the half-Senate election, had worked. They were muting their public disapproval, in part because of their own need to survive preselection committees. Kevin Cairns, the Queensland member for Lilley, was talking of giving up on destabilisation, ‘if only because of his large family and his need for economic security’ as Peter Howson put it.19 Dealing with issues in his own electorate, Howson was writing late in February that he and his band had ‘done as much’ as they could. Events would have to play out.20

  Others were less sanguine about the state of affairs. Still working by McMahon’s side, Kim Jones had no doubts about McMahon’s ambitions: ‘I think he had been ambitious to be PM for the past 25 years.’ Much of what McMahon did as minister for foreign affairs emanated from his desire to build on his status within the party, the media, and the country. McMahon, said Jones, ‘believed it was his destiny to become prime minister’.21 Tom Hughes concurred. He had no doubts about McMahon. ‘I don’t think he ever gave up,’ he said later. He also had no doubts about the number of the Gorton critics and their potential to cause harm. ‘There were lots of white ants,’ he said. ‘Howson, Cramer, and people of no account like Leslie Irwin.’22 Faraway observers also thought Gorton should not let his guard down, and were happy to point towards McMahon. ‘You must promise me one thing, Mr Brown,’ Sir Alexander Downer, Australia’s high commissioner to London, told Victorian MP Neil Brown, in January: ‘Never let the prime ministership fall into vulgar, Sydney commercial hands.’23

  Whatever the level of vigilance these sentiments speak to, whatever the caution these warnings must have caused, the protection offered by Gorton’s supporters and Gorton’s own defences self-evidently failed. The eventual attack on Gorton came from an unexpected source, on an unexpected issue. But it also came through a wholly predictable cloud of intrigue at a time when the government was near breaking point. Was it inevitable? Potentially. ‘Something,’ Malcolm Fraser said later, ‘was bound to be the last straw.’24

  In May 1970, cabinet had approved a three-year civic-aid package to South Vietnam.25 To fund construction of basic infrastructure — including homes, a hospital, and stable, safe supplies of electricity and water — the package was large-scale and intended to facilitate ‘Vietnamisation’, the policy whereby the South Vietnamese government and military would assume greater responsibilities as foreign troops were withdrawn.26

  Fraser thought highly of the policy, but its noble intentions complicated the tasks of troops on the ground in Vietnam. Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Daly, the army’s chief of general staff, worried that civic-action teams would be vulnerable to attack from North Vietnamese and Vietcong guerillas if they were without the protection of troops. Therefore, as the government prevaricated over how best to extricate itself from a war that it now recognised was a liability, and how best to co-ordinate its withdrawal with an American administration that was secretive and distant about its intentions while itself moving to get out of the country, Daly counselled his commanders in Vietnam to be cautious about new, large-scale aid projects. His view, widely shared within the army, was that Australia should avoid beginning projects that might have to be abandoned should a sudden withdrawal take place. It was with this background that new guidelines on budget planning for civic action for 1971–72 were issued on 3 February. The guidelines were unintentionally blunt and easily misinterpreted: according to them, projects were to be ‘expedited’, efforts in the medical and educational fields were to be ‘vacated’, agricultural activities were to be transferred, and there were to be no entries into ‘new areas of military civic action’.27

  Within two weeks, a copy of the guidelines had been leaked to a journalist, who published it on 19 February. Newsworthy because it appeared to contravene oft-stated government policy that civic aid was continuing, the press reports that followed scratched at the suspicions of Fraser, who had thought the army intransigent, and had believed for some time that it was not keeping him wholly informed. He made an attempt to correct the reports by reaffirming that it was still government policy for the Australian army to maintain its civic-action activities. If there were any order suggesting it should be reduced or wound up, he said in a press statement, it was ‘contrary to government policy’.28 A subsequent statement suggested, correctly, that the guidelines had been misunderstood.29

  These efforts, however, seemed to be in vain. Two days later, amid continuing press stories that suggested he was not in control of the army’s activities, Fraser decided to brief several journalists from the Press Gallery about his frustrations with the army and its progress on Vietnamisation. One of them was David Solomon, who, on 22 February, published a story suggesting the army was sabotaging the government’s efforts on civic aid.30 On 24 February, amid parliamentary attacks from Labor about his handling of civic aid and the Australian presence in Vietnam, Fraser also briefed Peter Samuel, a journalist for The Bulletin who was known within government circles for his support of Australia’s presence in Vietnam.31 The defence minister also arranged for people within the army and the Department of Defence to speak with Samuel for the story he would publish in The Bulletin the next week.

  Then something unexpected happened: the head of The Daily Telegraph’s bureau in the gallery, Robert Baudino, caught wind of the story — and not from Fraser. What he heard was similar to what Fraser had told Solomon and Samuel, but there were some differences and additional snippets that the two others had not been briefed on. Wondering what to do, Baudino spoke with Alan Reid on 25 February. Suspecting that the story could not be held over the weekend, as Fraser was briefing other journalists, and not querying whether Baudino himself had been briefed by Fraser, Reid advised that Baudino should check what he had heard with Gorton.32

  Meanwhile, Fraser continued with his briefings, speaking with Australian journalist Alan Ramsey. In the main, Fraser’s briefings had been the same for Solomon, Samuel, and Ramsey. His complaints centred on his belief that he was not receiving all the information necessary for making decisions, and that this affected his ability, as minister, to control the armed services. Given on background, whereby journalists could publish information without identifying its source, Fraser’s view animated the article that Ramsey published on Sunday 28 February.

  When he read Ramsey’s article, Daly decided that he needed to speak with the press himself. He invited two other journalists to meet him the next afternoon for a briefing. But, late that night, Daly received a phone call — from the prime minister.

  Baudino had followed Reid’s advice and checked in with Gorton about what he had heard. He had revealed that he planned to publish an article of much the same ilk as Ramsey’s, but with some important differences. He intended to claim that the Joint Intelligence Organisation (JIO) was reporting on the army’s activities in Vietnam, and that Fraser had told colleagues he did not trust the reports he was receiving. Moreover, Baudino had told Gorton that the stories about civic aid were being fuelled by leaks and unofficial briefings from the Department of Defence. Gorton had made no comment on the allegations when they were put to him, but he did tell Baudino that if there were any attacks on the army or on Daly, he would come to their defence. After writing his story, Baud
ino had sent proof copies of it to Gorton’s office. They had been returned, in Baudino’s judgement, ‘seen by the Prime Minister and photostated’.33 Now, over the phone, Gorton asked if Daly was aware of the rumours flying around. When Daly said he was not, Gorton asked to meet him at his office at Parliament House at four o’clock the next day.

  Gorton had already tried to speak with Fraser: he had called at the Melbourne Club, but had been unable to reach the defence minister, as Fraser had left for a meeting. Aware that Baudino’s article was to be published on 2 March, wishing to clarify what was happening, and wishing also to let Daly know of his support, Gorton met with Daly on 1 March. The meeting lasted fifteen minutes. According to Daly:

  John Gorton said to me, ‘I don’t even know whether the rumours are correct. But,’ he said, ‘they are emanating from the Press Gallery. Selected journalists are being briefed by somebody in the Defence Department.’ I mentioned the article in The Sunday Australian the previous day by Alan Ramsey, and he [Gorton] said, ‘Well, if these attacks continue, the army and its leaders will have my fullest support.’34

  Fraser’s name, according to both Daly and Gorton, was not mentioned in this portion of the discussion; they did, however, discuss Daly’s difficult and contentious relationship with Fraser. Daly left, assured of Gorton’s confidence in the army and of Gorton’s support.

  Daly told only three people of his conversation with Gorton: the secretary of the Department of the Army; his minister, Andrew Peacock; and Peacock’s wife, Susan, whom he had telephoned because Peacock was convalescing in hospital with a serious sinus infection. However, word of Daly’s and Gorton’s meeting was hardly a secret. Daly had entered Parliament House through King’s Hall, and he had been observed going to the prime minister’s office.

  The next day, 2 March, saw publication of Baudino’s article. Fraser immediately prepared a response, denying that the JIO was specifically reporting on the army’s activities, and also denying that he did not trust the army’s briefings. The story was ‘wrong and a nonsense,’ he said later.35 Gorton, who was consulted on Fraser’s response, insisted that the statements to the press go out under Fraser’s name — but he did not inform Fraser that he had spoken with Daly. He then departed Canberra for Shepparton, in Victoria, to campaign in the by-election being held to replace McEwen. ‘Throughout the Shepparton trip,’ Alan Reid wrote later, ‘Gorton showed signs of being pleased with himself and life in general.’36 To the press accompanying Gorton on the plane, the inference was clear: the prime minister had decided to use the incident for his own ends — as a rebuke to Fraser. Certainly, this was the view of Tony Eggleton, Gorton’s press secretary:

  I think there were people around John Gorton at that time who thought that Malcolm Fraser was getting too big for his boots and needed cutting down to size. And it may well be that it was felt that an article of the kind that Alan Ramsey was writing might contribute to that. I think that what they had in mind was some sort of a controlled burning-off exercise which unfortunately became a bushfire.37

  The smoke from that bushfire now attracted McMahon’s attention. In an unusual telephone call the next day to Jim Killen — unusual because Killen was an avid Gorton supporter who made no secret of his disdain for McMahon’s undermining — McMahon dismissed the reports about Fraser and the army. ‘There’s nothing in it,’ he said.

  Killen was not convinced. He thought the reports had the potential to cause ‘enormous fuss’, and said as much. ‘It’ll be over in a day — it’s a matter of personalities,’ McMahon told him. ‘There is nothing political involved … This is just a little conflict of no consequence.’

  But McMahon, thought Killen, did not seem completely transparent. Before he rang off, the foreign minister asked him, out of the blue, ‘Did you see the report on Fraser and the Army in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph?’38

  That day, the new issue of The Bulletin, carrying Peter Samuel’s article, ‘The Australian Army’s “Revolt” in Vietnam’, went on sale. Drawing on briefings from the defence department, the article retailed how ‘senior ministers’ were concerned about the observance of cabinet decisions by army personnel in Vietnam.39 The implications of Samuel’s article were sufficiently serious that Daly went to Fraser and told him that the press attacks had to be stopped. He wanted Fraser to issue a joint statement refuting the suggestion of a revolt and the suggestion that the Joint Intelligence Organisation had been ordered to report on the army’s activies in Vietnam. Fraser complied.

  In the meantime, however, Alan Ramsey had heard about Daly’s meeting with Gorton. Telephoning Susan Peacock on 1 March to see how her husband was, Ramsey heard that Daly had accused Fraser of disloyalty to both the army and to Peacock. Having only spoken to Daly within the last hour, Susan Peacock, according to Ramsey, was angry, believing Fraser was ‘doing a number’ on her husband.40

  Ramsey thus requested a meeting with Gorton to get a confirmation or denial of what he had heard. ‘Oh no, not you, too,’ Tony Eggleton said, when Ramsey approached him. Eggleton advised Gorton to refuse the meeting, but Gorton overrode him. The best Eggleton could do was get Ramsey to submit his questions in advance. The questions were on Gorton’s desk at two o’clock on 3 March, when the journalist arrived. Reading through the five questions, Gorton answered some of them, but told Ramsey that he could not comment on what had been a private conversation with a third party. He was willing to tell Ramsey what he, Gorton, had said. He would not, however, speak for Daly. Ramsey decided that silence was an implicit confirmation that Daly had said it. He wrote his story for the next day’s Australian. It was the front-page story, and its opening paragraph was incendiary:

  The chief of the army general staff, Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Daly, has accused the defence minister, Mr Fraser, of extreme disloyalty to the army and its junior minister, Mr Peacock. He has told the Prime Minister, Mr Gorton, he believes the army, its department, and its minister are being discredited by Defence sources as part of a political campaign against Mr Peacock.41

  By now, the press coverage and implications were becoming troubling. What had been a story of crossed wires now took on a far more significant weight; what had seemed innocuous now seemed to be deliberate; what seemed to be about chains of command was now all about politics. Fraser was being disloyal to the army and to a colleague: ‘That, essentially, was the story,’ said Ramsey later.42 In Melbourne, Howson heard of it, and snickered: ‘This could be quite an excitement for the weekend.’43 Fraser was in Hobart when Ramsey’s report was published. He phoned Daly, in Canberra, who told him that the story was untrue. ‘Now, this is absolute rubbish,’ Daly said later of the allegation. ‘Complete nonsense. In my interview with the prime minister, Malcolm Fraser’s name did not come up. Nor did Andrew Peacock’s.’44 Then Daly was asked to see Gorton again, this time at the Lodge. Daly’s arrival, midway through a sitting for Gorton’s prime ministerial portrait, caused a stir. The Lodge ‘exploded into activity’ as Gorton and Daly worked on a statement denying that Daly had said anything about Fraser being disloyal in the course of their meeting on 1 March.45

  Denying that charge, however, was also an attack on Ramsey’s work as a journalist. On Friday 5 March, Ramsey fought back. In The Australian that day, he outlined how he had come to write the story. He disclosed that he and Gorton had a meeting, and that the prime minister had had the opportunity to deny the central allegation — that Daly had said Fraser was being disloyal — before it went to press. Gorton had not attempted to ‘discourage’ him from publishing it, Ramsey wrote.

  Fraser, who had not known of the meeting between Daly and Gorton, was now profoundly unimpressed. He believed that Daly had accused him of disloyalty; he believed that Gorton did not support him; and he believed that the army was following its own whims and desires on civic action, irrespective of what he might order. Most concerning of all, to Fraser, was that all this enjoyed the apparent imprimatur of a prime minister who had
committed — before consultation of any kind with the responsible minister — his unqualified support to the army. He spoke with his wife, who agreed with his tentative belief that he should resign. He spoke with Menzies, whom he saw on a semi-regular basis, and told the aged patriarch of the Liberal Party that his position was ‘intolerable’.46 By Saturday, Fraser had made up his mind: he began drafting a resignation speech.

  Telephones were ringing everywhere. From Sydney, Sir Frank Packer decided that Gorton’s failure to back his minister for defence provided grounds for intervention. It was time to come out and call for Gorton to be deposed and replaced. To that end, he telephoned his trusted lieutenant David McNicoll, and ordered him to break his holiday on the south coast and return to Sydney, where he would write an editorial for the Sunday Telegraph calling for Gorton to go. ‘After sticking with him through times of mounting and sustained criticism,’ McNicoll wrote later, ‘we abandoned our support.’47 In Melbourne, Howson was taking calls from Bert Kelly and John Jess, the latter having also received a call from Fraser. ‘It’s obvious that he’s having to make a decision over the weekend’, Howson wrote.

  But the most important call Howson took that Saturday was from Sydney. McMahon, as usual, was on the line. Wanting to discuss the row, but also wishing to be kept ‘as far removed from it as he possibly can’, the minister for foreign affairs was ‘most cagey’ about it all, though he could have been forgiven for feeling some sense of being proved right. ‘He’d warned me that this row could possibly be brewing,’ Howson wrote afterward.48

  In Yarralumla on Sunday afternoon, governor-general Hasluck was alarmed by developments and what he was hearing in the press. In a conversation with Gorton, after discussing what might happen in the Parliament, the governor-general ventured the opinion that McMahon was ‘still at work’: