AUSTRALIA AND VIETNAM

Introduction

On the 29^th of April 1965, Australia Prime Minister Menzies formally announced Australia’s participation in the Vietnam War and explained it in the following terms:

Furthermore, Menzies highlighted that Australia’s commitment was a direct response to the request of South Vietnam Government. Although, Menzies took trouble to emphasize the independence of Australia’s decision and commitment, he flourished President’s Johnson’s letter of appreciation rather ostentatiously. But, political statements being political contain only shades of truth.

Since then historians have debated on factors leading to Australia’s involvement. Peter Edwards views the Vietnam commitment as a ‘culmination of twenty years of Australian involvement in Southeast Asia.’ As such, he feels that the Indonesia Confrontation had sizeable ramifications on Australia’s Vietnam decision. While other historians certainly do not discount Australia’s long involvement with Southeast Asia and its associated effects, Glen St J. Barclay gives a new twist to the question in suggesting that Australia’s commitment might have momentous effect on the American decision. Gregory Pemberton disagrees because he feels that ‘Australia’s support was not the decisive factor…but it was an important reassurance.’ Nevertheless, Pemberton dismisses Australia’s contribution as ‘nothing more than political hyperbole.’

Suffice to say, most historians’concerns can be summarized into the following questions. How important were long term factors (Australia’s experiences with Southeast Asia) as opposed to immediate factors (the urgency in gaining political clout with United States)? Next, how viable were concepts such as ‘insurance policy’ and ‘mighty friends’ in explaining Australia’s foreign policy? Finally, why were dogmatic arguments such as the ‘domino theory’ waved as the proverbial bloody shirt? Therefore, it is the purpose of this paper to explore the genesis of Australia’s involvement in Vietnam and to assess the relative merits of the above arguments.

Australia’s strategic outlook

The process of historical events certainly heightened Australia’s concern over the Southeast Asia. Darwin was bombed by the Japanese during WWII and the hordes of PLA soldiers swarming over Korea in the 50s lent credibility to the myth of the yellow peril. Communism was perceived as riding on the Asian wave that could lap on Australia’s shores. Two pragmatic initiatives emerged to address these fears; one was the ANZUS treaty (1951) and the other was the SEATO(1954). However, it was the relative failure of these two alliances, which Australia attached so much importance to that led to Australia’s active change of stance.

That the ANZUS, as the foundation stone of Australia strategic outlook, received initially only lukewarm response from Menzies was ironic. Menzies would subsequently, to the irritation of Washington, sought to stretch the implied coverage of ANZUS’s protective umbrella. Similarly, SEATO, which arose after the fall of Dien Bien Phu, was generally eagerly received by Australia as additional coverage and was intimately connected to Australia’s concept of ‘forward defense’. It was seen as additional coverage because where ANZUS covered Australia and New Zealand’s territories, SEATO now attempted to cover the mainland of Southeast Asia.

These two pro-American foreign policies must not deny the existence of ANZAM (1948) a defense agreement with Britain. The Old country was however, besieged with extensive economic problems coupled with the loss of the India Jewel and Suez Canal. As early as 1956, Casey, Australia External Minister voiced out that in view of the above reasons, Australia should attempt ‘everything possible’ to ‘attract American interest down to the South West pacific and Australia.’

These strategic developments served to underline the dependency of Australia on United States military patronage. Frank Frost believes that this environment of ‘extensive security concerns, low defense expenditures and dependence on alliance relations’ colored much of Australia’s subsequent decision on Vietnam. It was no small wonder that impact of the West Irian incident and the Laos crises which showed up the bankruptcy of ANZUS and SEATO provoked Australia to move closer to America in terms of foreign policy especially with regards to Vietnam.

Australia gave strong rhetoric support for SEATO, unfortunately its members reacted in very much the same way. The Laos crises exposed the pathetic degree of unity within the allies. Britain was only interested in negotiations and aid. Subsequent events in Thailand (1962) showed that America was the only member capable of substantial military effort. More importantly, SEATO exhibited its frailness as a protection for non-communist countries in Southeast Asia. John Murphy believes that this crisis was a turning point because ‘Vietnam came to be regarded as a test of the free world’s will to counter communism’ to the decision makers in Canberra.

Australia’s strategic safety net suffered a second blow in the West Irian incident. The weakness of Australia’s hand in dealing with the West Irian incident was due to her military weakness. Australia only had one conventional battalion that was ready against Indonesia’s 60, 000. In terms of sea power, Indonesia’s ‘W’ class submarines and her heavy cruiser were better and more numerous than Australia’s Navy. Air power wise, Indonesia too had an upper hand in bombers and fighters. What Australia could not achieve by arms it sought by alliances, specifically using the ANZUS. But it was unsuccessful primarily because Kennedy was determined to pressure Dutch to give up West Irian. He was sure that ‘the Dutch …would hardly go to war over this last barren fragment of their pacific empire…’ Barwick bitterly pointed out that United States was not ‘at any relevant time’ interested, regardless of Australia’s strategic commitments.

These two incidents had demonstrated that expectations for ANZUS and SEATO proved excessive. In a clear case of ‘If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain’, Australia had decided to go to America. At least one historian puts it succinctly:

Linkage between Konfrontasi and Vietnam

At this juncture, it might be useful to reiterate Edwards’s gripe that few historians grappled with the perceive threat of Indonesia. Although, Barclay was cited as one of those culprits in his A Very Small Insurance Policy (1988), a cursory survey of his earlier book, Friends in High Places (1985) will prove otherwise. Pemberton’s perception of the Indonesian threat in All The Way (1987) was deemed as unsatisfactory. Edwards believes that the perception of the Indonesia threat did not stop after the Sunda Straits crises. Did it? All in all, Edwards rightly points out the importance of the Indonesia element. One, it was the potential of ‘linkage’ between Konfrontasi and Vietnam that allowed Australia and US to move towards each other . Two, this exposes the hollowness of Menzies’ argument on the perceived Chinese Communist threat. Pemberton concurs:

The Konfrontasi (1963) strongly suggested to Australia that the only hope to involve US in the Indonesia problem was by supporting the US in Vietnam. Australia felt that US ‘policy towards Indonesia…remains by no means as clear-cut and as firm as would be desirable from Australia’s standpoint.’ The solution suggested by Alan Renouf, Australia minister –counsellor in Washington, was to ‘achieve such an habitual closeness of relations with the United States…that in our time of need…the United States would have little option but to respond as we would want.’ This reciprocal relationship was explicitly stated in Under-Secretary of State Harriman’s statement to Australia Cabinet in June 1963. Subsequent FAD’s conclusion was that Australia’s commitment in Vietnam in the future would be a small price to pay for greater US commitment in the ANZUS.

Harriman’s statement should not be seen as the first of its kind of request from the United States, nor should it be seen that the begging was wholly from the Australians’ side. United States’ Vietnam solution had no support from the United Nations especially with the presence of U Thant who was unsympathetic to US cause. SEATO could not be used as an excuse because Vietnam did not invoked it not withstanding the fact that other major signatories (especially France) were opposed to the SEATO being used as an umbrella. Even if there were supporters, they were politically sensitive. For example, Chiang Kai-shek and his commanders came up with a harebrain scheme to attack communist Hainan island in the Gulf of Tonkin. Koreans, on the other hand proposed a combat battalion even before US had formally committed troops. Rusk saw limited role for the Taiwanese and the Koreans due to political reasons. They ‘should confine the nature of their contributions to efforts other than those of an expressly combat-type military nature.’ Efforts from other quarters of the world were equally pathetic; Philippines expected US to foot the bill and at the other extreme countries such as Switzerland only offered microscopes. Support from Australia, which has a democratic parliamentary system, became increasingly important.

Australia Ambassador Sir Howard Beale had as early as 17^th November 1961 been queried by the US on Australia’s ‘willingness to assist’. Again on 5^th December, Beale was urged that Australia’s contribution would make a ‘favorable impression.’ Dean Rusk was to actively intervene to force MACV accepting Ambassador Anderson’s offer in December 1961 and twisted Admiral Felt’s arm into accepting Menzies’s offer in 1962. Australia’s political importance to the US effort in Vietnam was of paramount importance. It was all too clear in Rusk’s instruction to Lodge in 4^th June1964 to advert another MACV affront, "Short term operational or administrative difficulties must not RPT not stand in the way of realizing this important political objective." Another set of explicit instructions, dated 8^th June 1964, was sent off to Ambassador McGhee in Canberra, "Actual value or utility of any aid contributions is not RPT not primary object of this appeal…Main idea behind this multilateral effort is to show the Free World solidarity with Vietnamese in their struggle against Communist aggression from the North…"

While Australia fulfilled it side of the bargain, America was not slow in responding. Sukarno was alarmed to find parts of the Seventh Fleet cruising the Indian Ocean just off Indonesia during December 1963. Rusk warned Sukarno ‘of possible invocation ANZUS pact if Australian or New Zealand Troops involved.’ Forrestal held the similar opinion that ‘ our obligations under ANZUS Treaty would be called to play…’ This climaxed in the most weighty warning given by US on January 1964 that ‘ …hostilities between Australian and Indonesian Forces in Borneo would enable the Australians to invoke the ANZUS pact and call upon us for direct intervention against Indonesia."

Against all the bravado, the reality was starkly different. US had only agreed to react in the case of overt aggression from Indonesia. This ignored ‘subversion, guerrilla warfare or indirect aggression.’ Moreover, the support given in the case of an overt attack would only be in the form of air, sea and logistic support. This meant no US ground troops. The implications was all too clear when Barwick was kicked ‘upstairs’ in April 1964 for airily concluding that US involvement would extend to Australia’s combat engineers operating in Borneo. In any case, what was the likelihood that US would really be involved, should matters come to the crux ? Almost nil might be an understatement. This is precisely the key in understanding Rusk’s magnanimity in granting Barwick that paper assurance, an assurance given in the spirit that it would not be invoked.

This difference in perception of the Indonesia threat was instrumental in pushing Australia deeper into the Vietnam quagmire. On one hand, US received reliable feedback on 24^th Oct 1964 from the CIA that the Indonesia General Staff gloomily concluded that they, despite all the flag waving, could not effectively repulse a British amphibious invasion.. Pemberton is correct in a sense that tangible threats did not exist after the Sunda Straits crisis. Australia was in no mortal danger and this was reinforced by CINCPAC report that the British had ‘sufficient forces to discourage overt aggression by the Indonesians…Adm Begg, the British CINCFE, has consistently stated that he can handle the Far east situation with forces at his disposal.’ These, of course, for the Australians were totally beside the point. It was the matter who could pay a higher premium. The mothering of the Malaysia formation was the last act of Britain. US was the only available ally left. Thus, when Menzies reluctantly conceded 3 RAR to Borneo (Jan 1965), the urge to insure this act had never been greater. Hasluck’s instructions to Defense Minister Paltridge were ‘to remove any hesitation on the part of the Americans (to commit in Vietnam and hopefully in Southeast Asia)…to go with them but not to rush out in front.’

Conscription

In the midst of Barwick’s political blunder, Menzies (April 1964) sought to shore up defenses by negating the charges that Australia was ‘trying to in a rather cheap way to involve the United States in something.’ But this was exactly the case. However, Menzies’ rebuttal signaled a bigger issue. It was no good to sound the drum roll loudly, there had to be credit in the bank. Australia was chided twice for her inability to match up to her rhetoric. The first disconcerting incident involved Barwick’s interrogation about US’s commitment in South Vietnam during the ANZUS meeting in May 1962. Rusk rather dryly pointed out the discrepancy between the 8, 000 US troops already in South Vietnam as compared to nil on Australia side. Edwards believes that that rebuttal was directly responsible for the commitment of the ‘Team’ in 1962. The second awkward episode showed Bundy’s impatience with Waller’s enquiries about possible US actions from January 1965 onwards. Bundy shot off a rhetoric question about Australia’s promise of 30 additional instructors that seemed now where coming.

These two separate incidents partly helped to explain the political decision for conscription and to increase the defense budget on 10^th November 1964. However, Edwards believes otherwise. The issue at hand was the imminent invasion of New Guinea by Indonesia, certainly not Vietnam. This view is borne out by the fact that the findings of the Defense Committee. Edwards further pointed out that the decision to commit troops to Vietnam was one month after the decision to conscript.

While the Indonesian connection was certainly visible in the conscription decision, but to argue that conscription was entirely free of political desire to entice American acknowledgement was to give too much credit to the independence of Canberra. T. B. Millar believes that US pressure was not unlikely. Terry Burstall even thinks that such an argument might even be naïve. Firstly, Waller waved this positive development two days later to Rusk who received it with ‘pleasure…and promised to forward the budget message to the President.’ Secondly, on the 24 November, Hasluck and Howson delivered in person the parliament’s legislation for conscription to Washington. The implications could not be clearer. Thirdly, Rusk’s affected concern over Australia’s small defense expenditure in February 1963, ironically strengthened Defense Committee’s push for bigger defense budget. This resulted a 5-year plan, which involved a 41million pound increase in defense expenditure. This plan addressed the major problem of recruitment, which certainly foreshadowed the need for conscription. Lastly, Hasluck explicitly informed reporters that the comparative situation in Laos and Vietnam was more critical than Konfrontasi. Therefore, the conscription announcement displayed that Canberra had one eye on America’s approval and in no way was it only a unilateral concern with Konfrontasi.

A display of tenacity with the US Vietnam solution had also economic benefits although Australia did not need economic incentives to join in the affray, it certainly added to the attraction of holding the line with the US. Official US State Department statement (March 1965) found it necessary to ‘find mutually acceptable formulae on the meat, wool and dairy products trade’ while at the same time ‘stressing particularly our growing defense relationships.’ True enough, exports for the above-mentioned products, after a gut from 1962-1965, undergone an improvement in trade figures. This state of affairs had their precedence when Spender committed Australia troops in the Korea conflict and was subsequently rewarded with a sizeable loan. Similarly capital loans was not short in the coming following the Vietnam commitments.

While the conscription decision was scoring points with the United States, the domestic benefits were even greater. Labor was so nettled that Calwell claimed it was a Senate election ‘stratagem’. The way Menzies used it did not preclude this categorization. As it stood, there was already grave dissent among the Labor ranks. Apparently there existed three groups within Labor. Whitlam, Beazley and Benson represented views quite similar to the government; while Calwell, Cairns and Fraser stood in the middle and the extreme leftists such as Uren, Clyde, Cameron and Johnson who totally opposed any conscription. It was a field day for Menzies as he maintained that there were ambiguities and division in Labor. This caused severe restriction as overt opposition to conscription which was popular among electorate, would invite cries of treason or other derogatory labels such as Pro-Hanoi or Pro-Beijing. Opposition was effectively non-existence. That such a situation had come to pass could be attributed to Menzies and Hasluck’s ‘doctrinaire bloodymindness’ on the issue of Communism.

Communist thrust

The threat of Asian communism did not suddenly surface with the problem of Vietnam. Edwards takes the long perspective and underscores the ‘mental baggage’ that Menzies brought along into the Vietnam from the Malaya Emergency. The point is Menzies treated Vietnam didactically without due allowance for situational uniqueness. As opposed to this gentle apologetic view of the Menzies government , Greg Lockhart finds that Canberra’s concerns had a eurocentric view of the prevailing tension. Concerns in Europe spilled over in Asia hotbed. Sudden manifestations of Communist-inspired uprising almost everywhere could only be externally supported and directed. The ugly assumption was that Asians could not have the ability to launch an uprising unless backed by external forces. This reflected a ‘colonial fears in excelsis rather than any serious analysis of the Vietnamese revolution, or the Chinese and Indonesian revolutions…’

While Menzies carried the ‘mental baggage’ of past campaigns, whether it had any tinge of colonial trappings is debatable, Hasluck injected into the Cold War mentality with the conviction of a zealot. Thus, insurgency in Vietnam became:

This narrow interpretation of events in RVN was based on a few core assumptions. One, the conflict in RVN was imported. Two, The exporters were North Vietnam with the strong patronage of Red China. Three, the conflict had no strong base in RVN. This set of core assumptions, therefore, gave a false sense of ‘victory is in sight’ kind of mentality. Westmoreland’s ‘give me more’ comes vividly into the picture. After all, one just had to stop the source with firepower and the conflict would die off as it presumably had no local support.

Ironically, the precarious existence of RVN could also be explained by the above assumptions. RVN’s system of government was imported from Western democracies. It was supported by the US. Finally, it had no strong base of popular support. Pemberton and Frost, applying quantitative analysis of the RVN situation, exposed the hollowness of Menzies and Hasluck’s rhetoric. In terms of aid, Diem received $US 1393.1 million as compared to DRV’s modest $US 578.5 million. RVN’s foreign policy was effectively made in the American Embassy, whereas DRV’s degree of autonomy was unprecedented. Villages in RVN even set up local militia to ward off marauding ARVN troops! Moreover, real pressure for agitation came mainly from the Southern Branch of the VWP which numbered at around 80-90 000. The line of argument that insurgency was externally inspired could not be more off the mark. Considering the composition of NLF, where more than 97% hailed outside VWP, any monolithic view of external Communist aggression simply could not hold water.

Nevertheless, the point about ‘doctrinaire bloodymindness’ was not to compete with factual evidence, but to obtain faddish approbation for the eventual commitment in Vietnam. . One, it helped to derail the entire debate about Vietnam accentuating on China rather than real-time significance of revolution in Vietnam. Nothing was more important. Two, as mention earlier, the threat from Indonesia with Sukarno dallying with PKI multiplied the Fear factor and made it convenient to slap the communist label on almost anything that was hostile to Australia strategic interest. Political opposition at home was effectively silenced. Three, singing the same anti-Communist tune as the US had the added advantage of extending the military umbrella and the US gratitude that followed. This necessarily meant sending a battalion despite the wishes of RVN. Four, in a feat of self deception following the assumption that the Vietnam conflict had no local support, it was the cardinal belief that the insurgency would die out naturally, hence Australia’s involvement would be surgically clean and short. The Malayan Emergency had displayed such pattern, there was no reason why the Vietnam insurgency would not be so.

The beauty of the communist rhetoric was that it could be ingeniously used both ways, justifying eventual involvement (forward Defence) but at the same time, in face of disintegration of RVN government, prompt involvement (communist thrust). As Coral Bell puts it aptly ‘…that concept had a simplicity about it that made it attractive and ideologically inspiring…’ Interestingly, the whole rhetoric about communist ‘thrust’ was an attempt by Hasluck and Menzies to obscure their concern about Johnson’s wavering commitments during the months prior to Pleiku attack (February 1965) By reiterating the danger of communism, it served to enforce US commitment. This sense of urgency was taken up by Rusk on March 1965, who verbalized in what must be music to Canberra, ‘…Many countries believe, however, that the pace of US actions must be further stepped up and our goals further spelled out if our policy is to be clearly understood by both our enemies and our friends.’ Actually, ‘most countries’ only referred to Australia, Korea and Taiwan, but it did not hurt to exaggerate.

The use of communism as a punching bag also underlined the fact that Vietnam’s problems was not really important to Canberra. The fear of China aggression, paradoxically held by Hanoi, betrayed the fact that nobody was really concerned about RVN’s destiny. The real concern was about Australia’s strategic security and American alliance. Any alternative view about Vietnam and communism was unsolicited. This goes a long way in explaining why countries like Switzerland sent microscopes. Ambassador Anderson in pleading for sensitivity in dealing with RVN, unwittingly depicted the exact situation in Canberra:

Conclusion

In the final analysis, Australia’s commitment was indeed prompted by its long term strategic interests. But the onus must not be placed on Down Under alone. The United States through its various diplomatic encouragement contributed no small sum to Australia’s involvement.

The irony was that US feeble verbal support only served to whet Australia’s desire to bind US interest more closely to herself. Thus, it is inaccurate to state that only the Indonesia factor prompted conscription and defense budget increments. Australia sought through these two ways to encourage US’s interest in Australia’s strategic concerns.

In the scenario of "you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours" this paper have shown that US had a strong interest in latter stages with Australia’s involvement to camouflage its unilateral Indochina concerns. Rusk’s antics gave hard proof to this assertion. This worked perfectly well for Menzies and he used excessive Communist rhetoric to hush up opposition. Willy-nilly, be it ‘forward defense’ or prompt involvement, anti-Communist rhetoric could be used. But all these exactly highlighted the crux of the situation. RVN was never the real concern. Self interest was at the end of the day paramount.

Bibliography

Books

Barclay, Glen St J. A Very Small Insurance Policy. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1988.

_______ Friends in High Places: Australia – America Relations since 1945. Melbourne: OUP, 1985.

Bell,Coral. Dependent Ally: A Study in Australia Foreign Policy (2^nd ed). NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1988.

Burstall, Terry. Vietnam: The Australian Dilemma. Queesland: University of Queensland Press, 1993.

Edwards, Peter. Crises and Commitments. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992.

Frost, Frank. Australia’s War in Vietnam. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1987.

Grey, Jeffrey. A military history of Australia. Cambridge: CUP, 1990.

Murphy,John. Harvest of Fear. NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1993.

Articles

Ang, Cheng Guan. ‘Decision-making Leading to the Tet Offensive (1968)- The Vietnamese Communist Perspective.’ Journal of Contemporary History. 33:3 (1998), pp. 341-353.

Edwards, Peter. ‘Some reflections on the Australian Government’s commitment to the Vietnam War.’ In Vietnam: War, Myth and Memory, pp. 1-13. Edited by Jeffrey Grey and Jeff Doyle. NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1992.

Greenwood, Gordon. ‘Australia Foreign Policy in Action.’ In Australia in World Affairs, 1961-1965. pp. . Edited by Gordon Greenwood & Norman Harper. Melbourne: F. W. Cheshire, 1968.

Harper, Norman. ‘Australia and the United States’ In Australia in World Affairs, 1961-1965. pp. 313-376. Edited by Gordon Greenwood & Norman Harper. Melbourne: F. W. Cheshire, 1968.

Lockhart, Greg. ‘Fear and Dependence: Australia’s Vietnam Policy, 1965 – 1985’ In War: Australia & Vietnam pp.11-36. Edited by Kenneth Maddock & Barry Wright. Sydney: Harper & Row Publisher, 1987.

McNeill, Ian. ‘Australian Army and the Vietnam War’ In Vietnam Days: Australia and the impact of Vietnam. pp. 11-61. Edited by Peter Pierce, Jeffrey Grey & Jeff Doyle. Victoria: Penguin Books, 1991.

Miller, T. B. ‘Australian Defence, 1945-1965’ In Australia in World Affairs. pp. 251-312. Edited by Gordon Greenwood & Norman Harper. Melbourne: F. W. Cheshire, 1968.

______‘Vietnam’ In Munich to Vietnam. pp. 174-193. Edited by Carl Bridge. Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 1991.

Pemberton,Gregory. ‘Australia’s Road to Vietnam, 1945-1965’ In Vietnam Remembered. pp.10-37. Edited by Gregory Pemberton. Sydney: Lansdowne, 1990.

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