Casey 9780195547306

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CASEY

BY THE SAME AUTHOR Australia and the Colonial Question at the United Nations, Sydney, 1970

Billy Hughes in Paris, Melbourne, 1978 Australia and the League of Nations,

Sydney, 1980 with Jane North (eds), My Dear P.M.: R. G. Casey’s letters to S. M. Bruce, 1924-1929, Canberra, 1980

W. J. Hudson

Melbourne OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Auckland Oxford New York

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland

and associates in Beirut Berlin Ibadan Nicosia

© W. J. Hudson 1986 First published 1986

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission. Inquiries to be made to Oxford University Press. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data: Hudson, W. J. (William James), 1934Casey. Includes index. ISBN 0 19 554730 6.

1. Casey, Richard Gardiner Casey, Baron, 1890-1976. 2. Statesmen—Australia—Biography. I. Title. 994.05'092'4

Edited by Dr Elizabeth Wood Ellem Cover design by Guy Mirabella Typeset by Syarikat Seng Teik Sdn. Bhd., Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Printed by Kyodo Shing-Loong Printing, Singapore Published by Oxford University Press, 7 Bowen Crescent, Melbourne OXFORD is a trademark of Oxford University Press

CONTENTS

PREFACE Vil

NoTE xii ABBREVIATIONS XIV

1 BEGINNINGS 1

2 STUDENT 10 3 SOLDIER 26 4 PuBLIC SERVANT 48 5 ‘TREASURER 76

6 DrptomatT 113 7 British MINISTER 137 8 British GOVERNOR 156 9 ParTY CHIEF 180

10 IN THe Desert 205 11 FoREIGN MINISTER 226

12 Suez AND AFTER 262 13. GOVERNOR-GENERAL 289

14 Enpincs 317 REFERENCES 328 NOTES ON SOURCES 350

INDEX 351

for INGRID

PREFACE

Several years ago I was involved in the publication of My Dear P.M.: R. G. Casey’s letters to S. M. Bruce, 1924—1929,' and the present biography stems from that experience. While working on My Dear P.M. I learned that Lord Casey, while not a hoarder of paper quite on the scale of one of his heroes, Sir John Monash, nevertheless left behind diaries, letters and other records of a kind to excite any historian. Work on Casey’s letters to Bruce also led to contact with Lady Casey, who gave her blessing to my initial notion, which was a book on Lord Casey’s contribution as foreign minister in the 1950s. Lady Casey died early in 1983, and it was

her children, Mr Donn Casey of Cambridge and Mrs Jane Macgowan of Sydney, who authorised me to proceed with a full biography of their father. There was another factor. Talking of Lord Casey at my own dinner table, I found that the Anglo-Irish-

Australian culture in which I had grown up in Tasmania and Victoria was an enigma to my own children. They could not conceive easily of Anglo-Australians. Casey was one of the last of

the great Anglo-Australians, one who became less ‘Anglo’ and more Australian as his life progressed. It seemed to me that to write about him might usefully remind Australian readers of their society’s origins and evolution. It seemed, too, that British readers

might be interested to see how the progress of British colonial settlement worked out in the case of one particular Anglo-Irish family.

However, while biography can be valued in terms of light thrown on a subject’s times, it can also be valued for the light it throws on the human condition, and it is hoped that a biography of Lord Casey will be valued for both reasons. As for the former, Casey was a pioneer in intra-imperial diplomacy and in Australia’s

international diplomacy and he held high political office. A biography based on private papers will inevitably add something to our understanding of significant events in which he played a part or of which he was a close spectator. As for the latter, Casey as a man

viii CASEY

was of no greater interest than any other man except that, unlike most men, he left considerable documentation of his life, and it was a life that happened to encompass more diverse activity than is the normal lot.?

Any biographer faces peculiar hazards. One is that, more than

other kinds of historical writing, biography is an exercise in presumption, dependent on a writer resigned never fully to understanding himself while yet claiming substantial understanding of another. The only appropriate course here is reasonable modesty in the writer. Another hazard is that biographers tend to be bookish fellows with very limited experience of public affairs, and Casey

was not of their kind. He managed in one busy lifetime to be a British War Cabinet minister, Governor and peer, as well as an Australian engineer, company director, soldier, public servant, Cabinet minister, diplomat, party chief and Governor-General. Again, a biographer’s only shield can be reasonable modesty. But

a biographer must be modest about his subject as well as about himself, for a third hazard lies in hagiography. If one invests some years of one’s own life in the exploration and presentation of another’s, one tends to justify the investment by exaggerating the qualities of the subject. It is not too difficult to keep Casey’s performance of public functions in perspective, but it happens that for all his life he tried to be a good man. Like all men, Casey could be inconsistent and foolish; he could be vain and self-seeking; in some intimate relationships he could be inept; especially as he aged, he could show lack of proportion in estimates of his own import-

ance. Having said that, it remains that he was a virtuous and a moral man, not only in the sense that if any of the seven deadly sins tempted him, he seems rarely to have succumbed, but in the sense that he tended to look over his own shoulder and deliberately

to opt for good. He was an oddly innocent man, but, of more significance, he was by intent an honourable man. Nor can he be caricatured in this: he was neither conventionally pious (his Anglicanism was a code of decent conduct) nor puritanical. It is perhaps fortunate that his notions of honour belonged to the early twentieth century rather than to the 1980s, and this may make of him a less bland figure for the contemporary reader. For a biographer of Casey, as for many biographers, sources present a problem. Remembering the difficulties surmounted by John Robertson in writing J. H. Scullin, L. F. Crisp in writing Ben Chifley, Lloyd Ross in writing John Curtin and even Kylie Tennant in writing Evatt: Politics and justice, all of whom had to proceed with

PREFACE ix

little documentation available to them, a biographer of Casey might

seem to have no grounds for complaint. After all, Casey had left behind boyhood letters and diary fragments, letters and diaries written while an undergraduate at Melbourne and Cambridge, correspondence with his father in 1913-14, correspondence with his parents and some diaries and notebooks written when he was at war in 1914-18, some letters and diaries for the years 1918-24, engagement diaries and official correspondence for the years 1924-31, various papers and letters for the 1930s, no less than thirty

typed and softly bound diaries for the period 1939-76, various papers and letters for the years 1939-49, and the carbons of many thousands of typed letters for the years 1949-76. For some periods of Lord Casey’s life, especially for his years at secondary school and for the 1930s, when he was federal Treasurer and a potential Prime Minister, documentation is thin. In spite of this wealth of material, a biographer has a major problem, which springs from Lord Casey’s

own attitude towards personal records. In a word, Lord Casey’s attitude was one of ambivalence. He was inclined to hoard, but he was also inclined periodically to cull, and it would seem that as late as the 1960s he culled papers from the 1930s. He seemed unsure himself why he kept diaries, suggesting at times that diary-writing was a family habit passed down from his paternal grandfather and father, and at others that his memory was poor and he needed diaries to remind himself of people and events. In the early 1950s it occurred to him that one day he would write

his autobiography, and from that point his diary entries became very long. While he did not, in fact, ever write his autobiography, he did publish books on his years overseas in the 1940s and as foreign

minister in the 1950s, and these were based almost entirely on his diaries. The massive 1939-76 diaries, it might be noted, were not quite what many might expect. They were typed up by secretaries working from dictation or scribbled notes provided by Lord Casey, and at times they incorporated letters and cables. In the main, they were not intimate diaries. Parts, especially entries for periods spent on overseas travel, were written for circulation among acquaintances and colleagues.

Indeed, with very few exceptions, there is little that is intimate or confessional in any of Lord Casey’s papers. In the millions of words that he left behind, there is not the slightest reference of any kind to his sexual life or to his experience of sexual love; his personal relations with men and women are seldom explored in any detail; the daily reality of politics is rarely described. Lord Casey

x CASEY

was a compulsive writer, but all his life he was unwaveringly discreet in what he wrote, partly for fear of embarrassment, but mainly because he was imbued with the notion that a gentleman maintained decent reserve. In privileged company he was occasionally more candid in verbal recollection, but generally he was uncomfortable with personal revelation. When others wrote books to bare their souls or to explore human experience down to its silty depths, he tended to be at best a little shocked and at worst quite literally sickened by them. In all of this Lord Casey was a child of his class and of his time. He sought to live a highly gregarious life and a very public life,

while yet maintaining privacy. One senses in him, besides, a consciousness of fragility. Without the religious belief that might have encouraged soul-searching, and without the education for, or much disposition towards, the intellectual life, which might have allowed accommodation of the various facets of the human experience and an inclination to explore them and himself, he was left with little besides an Edwardian paradigm of secular gentlemanliness. More than most, he sought all his life to live by that code, but it was a code that did not allow acceptance of much less than an idealised self, and it was a code that, rarely so rigorously applied by others, left him buffeted by experience. Perhaps because of this, he was averse not only to self-revelation at any particular point, but also to retrospective exploration. He seemed almost content that

his life was broken chronologically into very different kinds of segments, and even in old age, when most are to some degree inclined to re-live the past, he was happier still to focus on the present and the future. If there was a person to whom he revealed himself more or less fully, it was his wife, Maie, but from their marriage in 1926 they were rarely separated, and the degree and

kind of their intimacy largely is left undocumented. By all accounts, theirs was a marriage of unusual affection and companionship, but its inner core remains hidden and to that extent a biography of Casey must remain substantially incomplete. Lord Casey engaged in correspondence on a prodigious scale, but as well as being discreet, his letters were marked by his tendency to write in terms thought likely to be acceptable, amusing or inter-

esting to the recipient. Writing to markedly different kinds of people, he could so tailor his writing to their tastes and attitudes as tO present quite contradictory accounts of the same event. It can

be difficult, therefore, to know just what Lord Casey’s views of

PREFACE X1

some people and episodes really were. Sources presented another problem to me. It happens that I am

a public servant with privileged access to official files denied to private or academic historians. Like any historian, I could have sought special access in a private capacity to official archives covered by the thirty-year rule, but it would have been difficult for me as an Official historian to avoid involvement in the processing

of my own application as a private historian. In writing this biography, therefore, I have limited myself to Lord Casey’s papers and to sources available to any historian. This means that the chapters on Lord Casey’s experience as Minister for External Affairs in the 1950s and as Governor-General in the 1960s should be regarded as more than ordinarily tentative. If biography presents various problems to the biographer, these are as nothing beside the problems faced by the surviving family of the subject. To have an outsider delving into the family’s affairs, raising old ghosts in personal relationships and trying to lift veils of privacy from the life of a man whose many functions included those of father and grandfather, can be for family members at best cathartic and at worst profoundly unpleasant. I am greatly obliged, therefore, to Mr Casey and Mrs Macgowan for allowing me to see their father’s papers before their dispersal, to visit the family homes at Berwick and East Melbourne and to talk to family friends—and all this without any attempt to impose censorship. Mr Casey and Mrs Macgowan also very kindly allowed me to use pictures from the family collection for illustrations in this volume. I have been helped at every turn, too, by Miss C. V. Hauser, Lord Casey’s secretary for a quarter of a century and for longer than that the Casey family’s trusted friend. Many people have helped with recollections and information, but

I must mention especially Dr David Day, formerly of the University of Melbourne and lately of Clare College, Cambridge, who with uncommon generosity shared with me the fruits of his

own research, passing on to me references to Casey found in private papers deposited in various institutions in the United Kingdom. Others I must acknowledge include the late Lady (Joan) Lindsay. I will not soon forget a delightful afternoon spent with her at “Mulberry Hill’ in the studio where her husband, Sir Daryl Lindsay, and Lord Casey enjoyed conversation. Also Sir Paul Hasluck, Sir Keith Hancock, Sir Walter Crocker, Sir James and Lady Darling, Sir Cecil Looker, Dr Ronald Zweig, Miss Patricia

Xl CASEY

Jarrett, Mr and Mrs Fred Ward, Mr Peter Henderson, Mr Laurence Halloran, Misses Anna and Tempe Macgowan, together with officers of Trinity College and the University of Melbourne, Trinity College and the University of Cambridge, the Melbourne Church

of England Grammar School, the Barr Smith Library in the University of Adelaide, the National Library of Australia and Australian Archives.

I am indebted, too, to Louise Sweetland of Oxford University Press for her encouragement and to Dr Elizabeth Wood Ellem for her patient and constructive editing of the manuscript. Finally, I must acknowledge the patience and good will of my wife, Wendy, who has shared these several years when I have lived with Richard Casey. W. J. Hudson Canberra

AUTHOR’S NOTE )

Throughout his life Lord Casey was known to his friends and family as Dick Casey and to the world at large as R. G. Casey or Richard Gardiner Casey. He was christened Richard Gavin Gar-

diner Casey, but perhaps to identify more closely with his father in youth he abandoned his second name, and for a time he styled himself Richard Gardiner Casey Junior. For convenience, I have in what follows referred to his father as Richard Gardiner Casey

and to him as Richard Casey or, where there seemed little risk of confusion with his father or brother, Dermot, simply as Casey.

ABBREVIATIONS

ALP Australian Labor Party ANZAC _ Australian and New Zealand Army Corps ANZUS ANZUS Treaty (Pacific Security Pact) ASIO Australian Security Intelligence Organization

BHP Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and

Industrial Research Organization

SEATO South East Asia Treaty Organization

UAP United Australia Party

‘So many biographies are just mechanical noting of the factual side of an individual’s life— whereas the important thing is to see beneath the skin of the man and expose what makes— or made—him tick.’ (Richard Casey to K. A. Laught, 20 December 1954)

ONE

BEGINNINGS

It is a common genealogical conceit to treat men as though the male line is all that matters in labelling them and explaining them, with

only light reference to their maternal inheritance. Richard, Baron Casey of Berwick and of the City of Westminster, Privy Councillor, Knight of the Garter, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George, Companion of Honour, Master of Arts of the University of Cambridge, was not any more a Casey than, to go back only three generations, he was a Harris, a Walton, a Thorn, a Handcock, a Gavin, a Gardiner or an Armstrong. Like his mother, a Harris, in appearance but not in manner, he was like his father in neither. Still, he was identified as a Casey, he thought of himself as a Casey, and in a patriarchal society it was the Casey inheritance that most marked him. The earliest Casey ancestor of whom there is much evidence is Bartholomew Casey, born in Ireland in 1744 and for most of his

life a merchant in Oporto in Portugal. He retired to Liverpool where in 1811 his second wife, Mary (née Gavin), formerly of Limerick, gave birth to a son baptised a Catholic as Cornelius

Gavin Casey. The family was prosperous enough to allow

Cornelius a good education and, despite the death of his father in 1819, to send him on to study medicine at Trinity College, Dublin. It was probably to secure admission to Trinity that he abandoned Catholicism. In 1831 he was admitted to the Royal College of

Surgeons and, after a grim introduction to his profession at a Limerick hospital during a cholera epidemic, and after resisting temptation to see battle in civil war in Portugal, he sailed for the Antipodes in 1833. After a quick look at Sydney, he opted for Van Diemen’s Land, serving briefly on the staff of the Hobart Hospital

before taking up duty as government surgeon, first at the Port Arthur penal settlement and then at New Norfolk. In 1839, while at New Norfolk, Cornelius married Loetitia Gardiner, who had arrived in the colony several years earlier with her father, Captain Arthur Gardiner, formerly of the 8th Foot, and a maternal uncle, Major Richard Armstrong, formerly of the East

2 CASEY

India Company. Their first son among seven children, Richard Gardiner Casey, was born to Cornelius and Loetitia in 1846. In 1848 Cornelius moved his family north to Launceston, leaving government service for private practice there in 1854. Richard Gardiner Casey was sent away to the Hobart High School until he

was old enough to enter the Launceston Church of England Grammar School on a scholarship.

The Casey family thrived until the death of Loetitia in 1863. Then Cornelius sold up, took a trip to New Zealand, and then

moved about Victoria until he settled in the Melbourne suburb of Brighton, where he practised until his death in 1896. A stern and cranky man, Cornelius was much given to litigation, which once cost him a day in jail for contempt of court. Other traits of his are worth noting: he was public spirited, the kind of man who tended to hold office in the bodies with which he was associated; he was financially acquisitive; he was professionally innovative; he took a close interest in his children’s affairs and seemed unable to detach himself in a kindly way when they reached adulthood. These traits were to pass in varying degree to the second and third generation. Not yet seventeen when his mother died, and with his schooling incomplete, Richard Gardiner Casey went as a jackaroo to a station on the Murray near Swan Hill owned by a friend of his father. After six years there learning the pastoral business, he served as an

Overseer on stations farther north, until in 1875, at the age of twenty-nine, he was made manager of a large station at Willandra Creek in the central west of New South Wales. While there, he was presented with an inscribed revolver by the government of New South Wales for his part in the capture of bushrangers. When the

station was sold in 1883, he was earning £2000 a year (perhaps $80,000 in 1980s values), with a considerable parting bonus of £5000 ($200,000). Later that year, after a financially and socially rewarding few months working for Melbourne stock and station agents, Ryan & Hammond, he accepted a minority partnership in, and the running of, three heavily mortaged properties in Queensland: one of 535,000 acres near Blackall; one of 832,000 acres near Clermont; one of 20,000 acres, called Normanby, near Harrisville, forty miles south-west of Brisbane. He revelled in the freedom to run his own places as he thought best, he worked prodigiously hard, and he cultivated contacts in Brisbane as well as among the landed

men on the frontier. The result was the five years later he was sitting in the Queensland Club and in that other club across the road in George Street, Brisbane, the Queensland Parliament, as the

member for Warrego. In 1888, and by then forty-two, Richard

BEGINNINGS 3

Gardiner Casey married Evelyn Jane Harris, a very eligible and beautiful young Brisbane lady of twenty-two.

On her father’s side, Evelyn Harris was descended from John

Harris, a London labourer sentenced to death in 1783 for the theft of silver spoons. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and he was transported to New South Wales with the first fleet in 1787-88. Whether Harris was Jewish is a matter of considerable

dispute among his twentieth-century descendants (though the disputants did not include Richard Casey, who seemed quite

indifferent when he discovered late in life that his ancestors included a convict claimed by some historians to have been Jewish). In New

South Wales Harris was borne three children by a convict woman of uncertain identity: a son, with whom he returned to England in 1803 (he was pardoned in 1796), and two daughters, who were left

behind. One daughter, Elizabeth, was to marry as her second husband a leading Sydney merchant, Joseph Underwood, and the

other, Hannah, was to marry Thomas Ritchie and settle in Tasmania.

The son, also John Harris, married in England and together with his wife, Sarah (née Walton), and their six children returned in 1833 to Sydney, where he preferred life as a suburban publican to his trade as carpenter. Two of their sons moved to Queensland, where

the younger of them, George Harris, prospered as an importer, shipowner, tanner, mining speculator and, during the American Civil War, cotton-grower. He sat in the Queensland Parliament for

eighteen years, and he could afford Newstead House, a mansion on the bank of the Brisbane River at the junction with Breakfast Creek. In 1860 George Harris married Jane Thorn, a daughter of George Thorn, who had come to New South Wales as a senior non-commissioned officer in 1832. In 1838 he bought his discharge,

and with his wife, Jane (née Handcock), moved to Moreton Bay, first to head a penal settlement and then to flourish as a pastoralist and land speculator. He, too, entered the Queensland Parliament. His eldest son, George Henry Thorn (that is, Jane’s brother), also entered Parliament, becoming Queensland Premier in 1876-77. George and Jane Harris had six children, among them Evelyn. Colonial life was chancy. George Harris could afford to give Evelyn and Richard Gardiner Casey a sumptuous wedding break-

fast at Newstead House in 1888, but soon afterwards he lost

Newstead House, and he died a bankrupt in 1891. Casey, too, had his problems. Good seasons and high prices while he was in New South Wales allowed him to accumulate capital and to make the

4. CASEY

jump from employee to pastoralist. Similar luck in Queensland, despite having only a 10 per cent interest in the partnership with Melbourne investor Donald Wallace, would have made of him a very wealthy man. He did not have luck. Wallace applied himself with enthusiasm to drink and to racing—he won a Caulfield Cup and two Melbourne Cups—and utterly ignored his partner in Queensland. Wallace’s indifference, together with poor seasons and

poor prices, and despite immense effort by Casey, saw the partnership’s debt rise from £350,000 in 1883 to £653,000 in 1893.

These were mammoth sums: in present-day values, the latter is equal to something like $26,000,000. In 1893 Casey threw in his hand and moved to Melbourne. Casey was not simply impoverished by his failure in Queensland.

Apparently he was ruined. In 1895, two years after his move to Melbourne, he jotted down on a scrap of paper a list of his assets and liabilities. His assets amounted to very little: a few parcels of shares, a few blocks of land in Tasmania and Queensland, a couple of horses, very little cash in the bank (though his wife’s trust fund

based on a marriage settlement was safe). He put his liabilities down at almost £2,000,000 ($80 million). It is not known just how he escaped this fearful burden. By 1897 his lawyers had extricated him from the Wallace partnership. He tried to restore his fortunes with mining speculation in Western Australia in partnership with the Earl of Fingall, and one Coolgardie mine was for a time a winner before closing down in dubious circumstances. Unkind rumours were to circulate in polite Melbourne society

about Casey’s business methods, but when he itemised his depressing condition in 1895, there were some intangibles unlisted

among his assets, and these were of greater significance than his ways of doing business. Colonial life was chancy, but it was also small, and by the 1890s Richard Gardiner Casey was regarded by the big men of the eastern colonies as hard working, efficient, trustworthy. Their regard carried with it social standing and economic opportunity. Above all, there was the Rockhampton connection. Travelling constantly between his properties in the 1880s, Casey had called frequently at the coastal city of Rockhampton, and there

he had become friendly with the local Queensland National Bank branch manager, Thomas Hall, and a solicitor, William D’Arcy.

Soon after the discovery of gold in 1882 in the Rockhampton hinterland, at what came to be called Mt Morgan, Hall and D’Arcy first provided development capital in return for a share in the mine and then, a couple of years later, bought out the Morgan family, the

BEGINNINGS 5

mine’s discoverers. In 1886, and with several others, including Thomas Hall’s brother, Walter (a partner in Cobb & Co), they formed the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Co. Ltd with a nominal capital of £1,000,000 in a million £1 shares, which peaked two years

later at £17 each. Mt Morgan was extraordinarily rich in ore. In

the first twenty years of operations it produce gold worth

£11,500,000 (perhaps $450 million), returning dividends worth £6,500,000 ($250 million). It seems that Casey had a chance to buy in early, and he realised his holding in 1888 to provide Evelyn with a marriage settlement of £16,000 ($640,000). Quite apart from whatever he made on his investment, the connection gave Casey business and social contacts at the highest level in Australia and Britain. Thus, when Thomas Hall was seeking useful investments for his

Mt Morgan wealth, Casey suggested that a then struggling company called Goldsbrough Mort & Co. could be successful with efficient management. Hall bought shares, and Casey secured the

hiring of a young Queensland friend, James Niall, who became

managing director. Casey himself became a director of the

company in 1899 and chairman in 1912. In 1903 Casey was invited to join the board of Mount Morgan itself, becoming chairman in 1912. This spawned other positions. For example, because Mt Morgan produced a gold-copper mix, which had to be separated, the company in 1907 joined others in establishing the Electrolytic

Refining & Smelting Co., with plant at Port Kembla. Casey became a director of that company in 1909 and chairman in 1912. During the 1914—18 war he was involved in the formation of Metal

Manufactures Ltd, also at Port Kembla, to process the refined copper. To give only one example of the social consequences, these company connections brought Casey into the world of the Baillieus: W. L. Baillieu joined the Mount Morgan board at the same time as Casey.

Links followed overseas. With an immense fortune from Mt

Morgan, D’Arcy retired to England. His tastes being grander even than his income, he decided to speculate on Persian oil. When his own money ran out, he invited Casey to England to help arrange additional backing. Burmah Oil came in, oil was found, D’Arcy

made a second fortune, a great British corporation (now British Petroleum) was born and, presumably, Casey was rewarded appropriately. Richard Gardiner Casey was a striver who accepted competition as part of the natural order of things and hard work as a man’s only proper function. His major opportunities came mainly by invitation

from men who respected his industry, integrity and judgement.

6 CASEY

This was evident, for example, when Thomas Hall retired to Britain in the 1890s and asked Casey to take charge of his affairs in Australia. Both Thomas, who died in 1903, and Walter Hall, who died in 1911, made Casey an executor of their estates, and it is said that it was on Casey’s initiative that £1,000,000 from the estate of the latter went into the foundation of the celebrated Walter and Eliza Hall Trust.

Casey’s rise from the ashes was reflected in his domestic life. After several years in rented city accommodation in Melbourne, he

had to draw on Evelyn’s marriage settlement to buy Shipley House in Caroline Street, South Yarra. The purchase at a time

when his financial situation was bleak showed considerable selfconfidence. South Yarra as a suburb was not quite to be compared with Toorak next door, where Melbourne’s wealthy already were congregating, but there was not a lot to choose between Toorak and the South Yarra hill on which Shipley House stood. Recently used as a school, it was a large brick and stucco house of some thirty-five rooms on several acres of land, complete with tennis court, fountains and aviaries. A few years later Casey could afford to spend £1500 on improvements, and by 1909 he could afford substantial renovation—unfortunately using concrete with abandon, serapping some of the house’s iron work and leaving something of a multi-storey jumble. Casey now could also afford to take up horseracing and became chairman of the Victoria Racing Club, though, apart from success with Sylvanite in a Victoria Derby, his wins were few. Evelyn Casey was delivered of a son in dentists’ rooms in George Street, Brisbane, on 29 August 1890. In keeping with now traditional maintenance of maternal reminders, he was christened in St John’s Anglican Cathedral as Richard Gavin Gardiner Casey. At the time, baby Richard’s was no mean inheritance. His father, maternal grandfather and a maternal great-grandfather were, or had been, members of the Queensland legislature, and a great-uncle had been Premier of the colony. His maternal grandfather died soon afterwards a ruined man, but the Harrises and Thorns were families of consequence, and his own father had standing. The family’s home was made at Normanby, the smallest and greenest of Casey’s properties, and close to Brisbane. In 1893, before the family’s departure for the south, Richard was joined by a sister, Eileen Ruth. Richard was only three at the time of the move, and he remem-

bered nothing of Normanby. He and his mother and little sister were left alone in Melbourne a good deal while his father tried to

BEGINNINGS 7

recoup his fortunes in Western Australia. It was during one of Richard Gardiner Casey’s absences in the West that the infant Eileen

died from the effects of teething complications. With the move to Shipley House and with his father’s rising prosperity, the young Richard Casey stepped into comfortable bourgeois life in a city

that—thanks to gold, a fertile hinterland and virtually postconvict foundation—had a substantial and very comfortable bourgeoisie, even if just then being weeded out by economic depression and a burst real-estate boom. The move to Melbourne cost young Richard Casey his maternal inheritance, and the Harris and Thorn connections—the aunts, the uncles, the cousins—largely were lost to him. The Casey inheritance did not altogether compensate. For three years in Melbourne,

Richard saw something of his grandfather, old Cornelius, but found him frightening. He did not grow up with grandparents to provide happily irresponsible pride and affection. He saw a little of two of his father’s sisters, Theresa, who married Kenric Brodribb, an early director and part owner of the Broken Hill Proprietary Co., but who was widowed early in 1889, and Leta, whose husband, Loftus Peyton Jones, was to die at war in 1915. An uncle, Sydney Casey, a pastoralist in northern New South Wales and Queensland, appeared occasionally. A young brother, Dermot Arm-

strong Casey, was born in 1897. Richard’s was not a life

crowded by family. This mattered the more in that his parents were less than ideal. Richard’s young life scarcely could have been more comfortable in material terms—he had his own nurse, and Shipley House ran to

a butler as well as the ysual cook, maid and gardener—but surviving evidence suggests that he was deprived in other ways.

Admittedly this was the heyday of emphasis on training as the major

parental function, but even those well used in their time to being seen and not heard, to not being spoiled, to being obedient and deferential to their seniors, commented on Richard Gardiner Casey as an extreme case. A niece recalled that the older Casey’s sisters found him ‘bossy’ and ‘dogmatic’ and that ‘as a teenager I found his gruff manner intimidating’.' A kindergarten friend of young Richard found his father ‘reserved and . . . unapproachable to the young’.? An office boy who worked for the older Casey remembered him as ‘interested in people hardly at all . . . never once recall seeing him smile’.’ By all accounts Casey was taciturn, undemon-

Strative, oppressive even to family, with a limited interest in society. Evelyn was much younger, outgoing and _ sociable. Whether this compensated adequately for a father’s reserve is

8 CASEY

unclear. After her death in the 1940s, Richard was to write of his mother with pride and regard, but it seems that as boys Richard and Dermot found embarrassment rather than consolaton in her exuberance. For all her joy in life, Evelyn Casey was sparing with intimacy, more inclined to evoke a response in others than to reveal herself.

Richard Gardiner Casey’s had been a physically hard and socially isolated life on the frontier until his late marriage. After marriage, he came very close to financial ruin. As time passed, he found some

strain in marriage to a much younger and socially busy wife. It is possible that his Irish patrimony contributed to a protective reserve at a time when Catholicism and poverty loaded the Irish as a group

with social stigma. On the other hand, his love letters to Evelyn Harris in the 1880s showed tenderness, concern, excitement. And the mass of telegrams from an anguished father in distant Western Australia to a distraught mother in Melbourne when their daughter sickened and died in 1894 showed no want of feeling. Certainly his health deteriorated with age, and he ran to fat, and this would not have helped him to cope with children. It is very likely that he simply passed on his own experience: Loetitia had been affectionate

and caring; Cornelius had been hard and unemotional with children. Whatever the reasons, Richard Gardiner Casey as a parent was a rigorous taskmaster. Evelyn Casey must have been affected by her father’s financial ruin. Brought up in the best society that Brisbane had to offer, she was a young wife and mother in that society when her family lost Newstead House and her father died a bankrupt. At the same time, her husband was heading into financial trouble. Whether she was aware of her family’s convict origins is not known. Given that she was sent to school in distant Hobart rather than to entirely suitable establishments much closer to home, it is possible that steps were

taken to protect her from that knowledge or from the social consequences of others’ knowledge (though it was not unknown for

affluent young ladies to be educated in Tasmania for the sake of their complexions). Certainly it was common for parents in the nineteenth century so to distance themselves from their children that knowledge of the taint simply did not pass from one generation to

the next. There was nothing romantic then about having a ‘First Fleeter’ in the family tree. Social and school life for Richard and Dermot would have been intolerable had it been known that their mother’s great-grandfather had been sentenced to death at the Old

Bailey for theft, or that one of her great-grandmothers was a

BEGINNINGS 9

unknown convict woman, or even that her grandfather was an illegitimate Sydney publican.

Richard Casey’s inheritance, then, was almost quintessentially Australian: all his forebears were in the colonies well before the gold rush decade of the mid-nineteenth century; his forebears included convicts and ‘currency’ as well as free settlers; the social mix extended from gentlemen to professionals, graziers, merchants and workers; the religious mix was originally partly Catholic but mainly Anglican; the ethnic mix was partly Irish, mostly English. What separated Richard Casey from the majority of the young colonials of his generation was that his father, with ceaseless effort and luck, climbed out of the ruck, fell and climbed again. From the time that he became aware of the world about him, Richard Casey knew only material privilege. Emotionally, he was less privileged.

TWO

STUDENT

Richard Casey did not enjoy his school-days. In later life he rarely

referred to them, and little is known about them. He began his formal education at a small kindergarten run by a Miss Templeton in a corner of the grounds of Shipley House. It catered for about

twenty children of professional men, businessmen and a few pastoralists with town houses in South Yarra. It is recorded that at a speech day in December 1897 Master Dick Casey danced the sailor’s hornpipe with Misses Susie and Nan Grey Smith. One little girl at the kindergarten, Mabel Emmerton (later Dame Mabel Brookes), was to write of Richard: Dick’s matter-of-fact pleasantness disguised an astute intelligence, though in those kindergarten days his propensity to cut a peaceful swathe made him nothing larger than an ordinary boy. In reality he was extremely able, and over the ensuing years I have admired his unconscious camouflage of personality.!

If the young Casey was already engaged in ‘unconscious camouflage of personality’, admiration is not perhaps the first emotion that one might feel for the actor. His primary education came from a similar source, a Miss Turner at a nearby establishment called The Grange. Then he was sent to

Cumloden in Alma Road, St Kilda. Though reputedly more ‘genteel’ than most, Cumloden was fairly typical of the many small

private schools of the time, dependent on the patronage of a few major families (including, in Cumloden’s case, the Fairbairn clan) and the reputation of its head, but too small to survive scandal or poor management. Most of these schools failed eventually, and Cumloden closed at the end of 1905 when Casey was in fourth form. In a small pond he did quite well: he topped fourth form in mathematics, came second in English and classics, and took the senior school prize for writing. Sport was another matter: in the 100-yard dash at the school athletics meeting, he was given the front mark with a start of fourteen yards.

STUDENT 11

Richard rode his bicycle the two miles from Shipley House to Alma Road. With the closure of Cumloden, he was sent to the Melbourne Church of England Grammar School in nearby Domain

Road. The timing of his move was fortunate in that Melbourne Grammar, after financial difficulty and low enrolments in the depression of the 1890s, had blossomed under the dynamic headship of G. E. Blanch, a science man from Oxford and London. In the ten years from Blanch’s appointment until Casey’s final year in 1908, enrolments grew from 160 to 450. The staff was of high calibre: there were two senior masters for mathematics and English

and, of thirteen assistant masters, five were graduates of the University of Melbourne, two of Oxford, one of Cambridge and one of Tasmania. Blanch was a fervent advocate for the status of science in education, and this suited Casey, who was stronger in the sciences and mathematics than in the classics. He performed reasonably well, earning second class honours in physics and chemistry at the Senior Public Examination in 1908, and he won praise for his entry of a steam turbine in the school’s hobbies exhibition in 1907. One of his science masters, C. J. Brown, is supposed to have commented that ‘that boy has brains in his head and in his fingers’.* There was another plus to his experience of Grammar. It is not known to whom he was referring, but in later life he wrote: ‘I’ve collected a handful of “heroes-—men who had an

influence on my life. One of them was a Master at Melbourne Grammar when I was about 15, who gave me the necessary self-confidence and inspiration to make the most of myself’.° Overall, though, Casey did not appreciate his translation to the bigger pond of Grammar, and he was to declare that ‘I detested my school years, and delighted when I was released from the thraldom of school and went on to University’.* He thought himself handicapped in being a day boy at a boarding school. Probably of greater importance was that he was neither exceptionally bright nor much good at sport, and he lacked the strong personality that might have found fulfilment in leadership. Blanch attached great importance to the prefect system, and Casey was not a prefect. The star of his year was Clive (later Lord) Baillieu: school captain, captain of boats,

cadet lieutenant, cricketer and athlete. Trained by his father to compete, Casey found himself in a world where he lacked the elementary qualifications for success. Casey did not enjoy life at Grammar, and there was to be in him

as an adult that touch of bitterness often felt by those who miss distinctions in adolescence but apply themselves with effort and

12 CASEY

success in later life. He did not suggest how masters were to achieve such prescience, but he wanted ‘prizes ... given to the competent people who, while not doing so well at school, give evidence of character and a sense of responsibility . .. a permanent influence on the life of their country’.” In the 1940s Casey was to

serve a term as president of the Old Melburnians, and in his addresses to the school he tended to say what it wanted to hear, that schools like Grammar must be nurseries for the country’s lead-

ership. In private his views were different. He never showed interest in what schools others had attended. Indeed, he was positively hostile to the snobberies attaching to educational institutions:

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Establishment and the Old Boy network wasn’t basically one of the things that is holding the U.K. back . . . What school and university a man was at seems to mean a good deal more than what sort of man he is. At least the Americans don’t fall for that sort of nonsense—or not much. °®

Just as he was disinclined to label others by their school, he was not to categorise himself by school; he did not label himself as a Grammar man. When he became a parent himself, he sent his son to an expensive boarding school, but not to Melbourne Grammar. If his home life was emotionally straitened and his school life largely unrewarding, there was for Richard Casey one source of adventure and stimulation, and that was travel. He was only six when he first visited Britain with his parents, and he remembered little of the trip beyond being held up in a London street to see Queen Victoria driving by. In 1904, when he was thirteen, the family spent eight months in England, with a week on the Riviera and two weeks in Paris on the way. In London, the Caseys lived at Berkeley Square with the family of Thomas Hall, who had died the previous year. They visited the 7000-acre Hall estate, Weeting Hall, near Brandon in Norfolk, and Richard enjoyed exploring the East Anglian countryside. In London, there was the usual sightseeing. At the end of 1905 he spent a fortnight in Tasmania with his father. At the end of 1906 he went to New Zealand, again with his father. There were also holidays in north-eastern Victoria, Gippsland and the Riverina. He kept diaries of all these trips. These diaries are remarkable on two grounds: an almost complete absence of self-revelation, and a developing preoccupation with how things work. They reflect sharp

observation: at thirteen, and travelling by fast train through the French countryside, he noticed if oxen were harnessed with horses

STUDENT 13

and if women worked the fields with men. However, the diaries

convey very little feeling or opinion. His first observation of London in 1904 was that the park tn Berkeley Square was available

only to adjacent residents with keys to its gates, but there is no

comment. He went with Clive Fairbairn, son of Sir George Fairbairn, one of Richard Gardiner Casey’s early mentors and a leading pastoralist, to learn to swim at London baths, but there is nothing on how it felt to be in the presumably glamorous company of an Australian eighteen-year-old preparing for his Cambridge entrance. As he grew older, there was more evidence of feeling, but less for people than for automobiles, mining processes, the working of sheep, livestock vaccination. Certainly these diaries were written on paternal instruction for paternal inspection, and on their trips together his father tended to take him to mines and properties where doubtless technical problem-solving dominated discussion, but it remains that the emotional austerity is marked. For Christmas 1907 his father gave him a fountain pen and £1, but note of the fact is not accompanied by any indication of delight or disappointment. But then Richard Gardiner Casey’s regime was emotionally austere. A few months earlier, on his seventeenth birthday, Richard had received a memorandum from his father: I will make you an allowance of £1 a week to clothe yourself from today (& will keep you to it). You are to make an estimate of clothes required

for summer & winter—I will pay for extra for a start:—two suits for spring & summer to be chosen with your mother’s approval. I will allow you 5/~ a week from this day for Ex® & your own fares. You will keep a proper a/ct book.’

It should not be supposed that the young Casey was treated with physical harshness or that he was frightened of his father. Holidaying alone at Woodend when he was thirteen, he was game to add to one of his obligatory letters to his father: ‘P.S. Will you please send up some lollies’. The year before, he had tried his hand at short letters in French and Latin to ‘Mon cher pere’ and ‘Carus Pater’, signing the former ‘Richard coeur de lion’. The surviving letters reveal a child constantly in search of approval not easily won. While on holiday at Lakes Entrance when he was twelve, each day he did half a dozen Greek exercises and sent them off to his father.

When he was fourteen and boarding at Cumloden during the absence from Melbourne of both his parents, he noted that ‘I was 5th in class this week .. . I was 6th last week’.? At Woodend he stressed improbable success with gun and rod: fifteen birds one day, sixty-eight fish the next. It would seem, too, that he did not spend

14. CASEY

much time mucking about with other children. Even on school holidays he seems often to have been alone, with the Nialls (whose

son, Kenneth, was seven years older—a generation at that age) or with his father. Had Richard been a hearty extrovert, his father’s imposition, with constant vigilance, of a regime in which performance was taken for granted and praise given sparingly might not have mattered, though the conflicts might have been momentous. But he was emerging as something of an introvert, a slim, shy boy. (Perhaps it was in line with the Australian liking for nicknames conveying precisely the opposite of a person’s qualities or appearance that he was known at Grammar as ‘Nugget’.) He was not broken by his father’s treatment, but neither did he ever feel it proper to rebel against it: a sense of filial obligation and responsibility was instilled, and nothing supplanted it. The bonding was between father and son, not mother and son. For example, whereas

young children away from home tend to write to their mothers, Richard wrote as a rule to his father; whereas when their fathers are away from home, young children tend to leave correspondence to their mothers, perhaps with juvenile addenda, Richard wrote on

his own account to report on his doings. His young brother, Dermot, more relaxed and less responsive to paternal dictates, tended to irritate their father. In such a case, usually it is the mother

who tries to justify son to father, but with the Caseys it was Richard who early shouldered this role and went on playing it until

his father’s death. Little survives to suggest that Evelyn Casey much softened the regime under which her sons grew up or, indeed, that she had much impact on them at all. She was a strong

woman and, later on, when her sons won public recognition, a proud mother, but it would seem that her maternal impact on them was slight. For the rest of his life Richard Casey was frequently to refer to his father, to his attitudes, to his ways of doing things, but scarcely at all to his mother. Of what might be called the ideological influences on the young Casey, little is known. He was raised as an Anglican, but there is nothing to suggest that he experienced a phase of religious fervour known by many during adolescence or that he was ever actually

a believer. He seemed to retain an interest in religion only as a social phenomenon. During his formative years the Australian colonies were scarred by sectarianism, and he hankered for a society without grievous denominational divisions. But he did not escape his upbringing entirely unscathed, and for many years he despised

the ritualistic pomp and what he saw as the intellectual sophistry

STUDENT 15

and amorality of Rome. Although his headmaster at Grammar, Blanch, came from nonconformist stock, the evangelical stream in Anglicanism and the wider English dissenting tradition seem not to have touched him at all. From his father and from his schooling he imbibed a firm individualism, socially softened by contemporary

public school notions of decent, manly behaviour, which were shown in honesty, constancy, clean living, respect for women, physical courage, playing the game, modesty and so on.

Growing up in affluent South Yarra, Casey cannot have been unaware of the awful slums on the other side of the nearby Yarra River or of the rather bleak flats on the other side of St Kilda Road from Melbourne Grammar. Nor in a politically aware household

(as a boy he was introduced by his father to George Reid, Prime Minister in 1904-5) can he have been unaware of trade union agitation and the current impact of the Labor Party. For his class at that time, response to social inequality and poverty might take the form of radicalism, philanthropy or indifference. Casey’s

response was to be none of these, and fortunately he left an

indication of what influenced his particular response—and what seems to have influenced the way he lived the rest of his life. In his old age Casey met in Washington an even older Mrs Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, and he recorded telling her that ‘I’d been brought up on her father’s book ‘‘The Strenuous Life’’’.’° Published in 1902, The Strenuous Life was a collection of essays and addresses, and, as one might

expect from the title and from Teddy Roosevelt’s exuberant approach to life, the tone of the book was heroic: bloodshed in good causes was preferable to cowardly compromise, life was

strife, each man must fight mightily to achieve material success for himself and his family. Of more significance than this, the title of the book was taken from the title of its opening address, which had been delivered in 1899 to an audience of wealthy men in Chicago. Facing that audience, Roosevelt had to take up the issue of inherited wealth. To them he could preach ‘not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife’.‘t And what of their sons who would inherit their wealth and for whom further striving for yet further success might

well seem absurd? Roosevelt’s answer was not novel but it was expressed in terms comprehensible to the men of Chicago—and Melbourne:

If you are rich and worth your salt, you will teach your sons that though

they may have leisure, it is not to be spent in idleness, for wisely used leisure merely means that those who possess it, being free from the

16 CASEY necessity of working for their livelihood, are all the more bound to carry on some kind of non-remunerative work in science, in letters, in art, in exploration, in historical research. . . A man can be freed from the necessity of work only by the fact that he or his fathers before him have worked to good purpose. If the freedom thus purchased is used aright, and the man still does actual work, though of a different kind, whether as a writer or as a general, whether in the field

of politics or in the field of exploration and adventure, he shows he deserves his good fortune... A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life. !¢

Whether or not Casey really was “brought up’ on The Strenuous Life (he would have been thirteen or fourteen when it reached the

colonies), it remains that he was to live his life by Roosevelt’s prescriptions. Never inclined to abrogate his own wealth or to denounce private wealth in general or, except for a short period in

youth delayed by war, to make the pursuit of further wealth his major goal, he was to abhor idleness and to use the freedom allowed by private means to seek adventure and to work for the state, to show, in Roosevelt’s words, that he deserved his good fortune. This approach was to become an accepted aspect of American life, with scions of wealthy East Coast families in each generation devoting at least some years to public life, whether in politics or diplomacy. A harsher rural environment, more difficult trading circumstances, and different political and social mores limited the development in Australia of dynasties on the American pattern. The more modest Australian versions seldom lasted more than a generation or two and, where they did survive, few of their members opted for public service, or were encouraged by their society to exercise that option. In the Australian context a tall poppy, a silver-tail, Richard Casey was to choose a difficult path. Richard Gardiner Casey wanted his sons raised as gentlemen, but he did not anticipate them avoiding idleness in service to the State. Less sanguine than’ Roosevelt, who seemed to assume that at some

point the pursuit of further wealth lost its point, or perhaps not yet in sight of what in a turbulent colonial milieu he regarded as adequate wealth (his own became substantial but not on the scale of some colonial contemporaries, let alone of men of substance overseas), he saw his sons becoming businessmen of the financier kind, sitting on company boards, speculating, amassing property. He also saw his family as a unit, and Richard was raised as the elder son to assume responsibility for the family. This conditioning was

successful, and in later life Casey was rarely to consider his own finances separately, tending rather to think of a collective com-

STUDENT 17

prising his mother, brother, wife and, later, children, and with a clannish concern for the needs of cousins, some of whom he scarcely knew. In Casey’s youth the best money even in the colonies was landed money, and he showed snobbery by usually referring to his father as a grazier, even though Richard Gardiner Casey had left the land as a financial failure in 1893 and found success in boardrooms and stock exchanges. This was where he saw Richard’s future, initially at his side, then as family head. To give

him intimate knowledge of the affairs of at least some of the companies with which presumably he would be associated, to give

him an education of a practical and applicable kind, and to take advantage of his natural talents, it was decided that Richard should become a mining engineer, not as a practising professional, but as

a step on the way to becoming a financier with special expertise in mineral exploration and extraction in particular and heavy industry in general. At the beginning of 1909 Richard entered Trinity College in the University of Melbourne and enrolled for a degree in engineering.

Trinity was an Anglican foundation, then still under the extraordinary wardenship (1876-1918) of Alexander Leeper, public scourge of Melbourne Catholics and an autocrat against whom undergraduates had rebelled in 1890, almost emptying the college in expulsions and resignations. In Casey’s time, college and university were quiet. He led a busy, if apparently decorous, social

life of parties, dances and theatre visits. He applied himself to rowing with enthusiasm but no obvious physical effect (he was a lean six feet all his life); he made close friends of Randolph Creswell, also an engineering student and son of Captain (later Vice-Admiral Sir William) Creswell, and Douglas Fraser, a law student and a son of Sir Simon Fraser. (He also became friendly with Neville Fraser, another of Sir Simon’s sons, who was to father Malcolm Fraser.) He took an interest in politics and on at least one occasion visited federal Parliament, then in Melbourne, where he ‘heard a wild debate in which Lyne, Hughes & Deakin had many

things to say’.’> (In 1925 a later and more radical generation of Trinity men, including Brian Fitzpatrick, R. B. Fraser and Ralph Gibson, was to found the Melbourne University Labour Club in what had been Casey’s room.) College residence did not loosen the bond with his father. When his father was in Sydney on business in mid-year, he did not report that his brother was behaving well for his mother but that ‘Dermie is well and does whatever I tell him when you are away’.'* Nothing suggests that in his first year partly away from home Casey experi-

18 CASEY

mented with fast women, hard liquor or slow horses. On the contrary, one’s impression is still of innocent boyishness—oddly

innocent by today’s standards, but not by those of the strictly segregated, sexually ignorant and socially stratified standards of that

day. As a student, Casey was no more than able and industrious, achieving at the end of first year passes in surveying, mechanical

drawing, pure mathematics, mixed mathematics, natural philosophy and chemistry. During the Christmas vacation at the end of the year he accompanied other engineering students on an excursion to Tasmania. In the New Year he travelled in New South Wales and Queensland, and wrote a paper on the metallurgy of Mt Morgan. In 1910, too, he had his first sight of an aeroplane, when he motored to Diggers Rest, north of Melbourne, to see Harry Houdini take very briefly to the air. He was fascinated. In 1910, when Richard was in his second year at Melbourne,

Richard Gardiner Casey and Evelyn took young Dermot to

England to enrol him at Eton. It was not unknown then, and for many years to come, for affluent Australians to send their children to English schools, but a more common practice was to top off a public school education in Australia with university attendance at Oxford or Cambridge. William D’Arcy, who enjoyed access to Edward VII’s ‘set’, had introduced the Caseys to high society, and their links with the Halls remained strong, but for all his faults Richard Gardiner Casey was not a snob. Perhaps it was Evelyn who sought to take advantage of her husband’s rising prosperity by having her younger son not just at any English school but at Eton. Whatever their motives, Richard was not happy to be left behind, with James Niall in loco parentis, and he pleaded to be allowed to leave Melbourne and to start university life afresh at Cambridge. At first his father was dismissive, and Richard was surprised and happy in mid-year when his father changed his mind: Mr Niall told me he had received a cable from Father saying that I was to go home to England on 10th August by the Otranto. Was naturally very surprised. Asked Mr Niall to cable back and ask if Greek and Latin were compulsory and if I was to go to Cambridge. Got reply some days later ‘Yes, Yes’. !°

He arrived in London on 11 September and, after a short preparation with a crammer, sat a series of examinations at Cambridge from 29 September to 5 October. When he found that he had survived a first series in Latin, Greek and mathematics for Trinity College entry, he went ‘straight away and bought a gown,

STUDENT 19

cap and surplice’.'® Except for Latin and Greek unseens and a scrip-

ture paper, he did not find the examinations difficult. This move, of course, in a sense put Richard behind his contem-

poraries: he was twenty when he became a Cambridge fresher. More important, it contributed to a kind of rootlessness, which was to mark much of his life. Born in Brisbane, he retained only a slight sense of himself as a Queenslander; raised in Melbourne, he never felt

himself entirely a Victorian; after four years at Cumloden, and just when he was coming into his own as a senior, he had to move; three years at Melbourne Grammar did not make of him quite a Grammar man; eighteen months at the University of Melbourne left him with no ‘old boy’ feelings towards it; Cambridge was to give him much

but not a sense of being a Cambridge man—he entered as an outsider and retained few links with it when, on graduation, he

returned to Australia. Richard Casey’s two visits to England as a boy, his wish to go to Cambridge, Dermot’s attendance at Eton, and Richard himself going ‘home’, all raise the Anglo-Australian issue, an issue clouded by nationalists and radicals uncomfortable with Australia’s slow and

easy evolution. It is a simple fact that, as each decade’s British migrants settled down, they tended to develop local territorial loyalties, but not usually of an exclusive kind. In Casey’s youth a man might be a loyal Victorian, an assertive Australian and a proud

Briton, just as his cousins at home might be loyal at once to the North Riding, to Yorkshire, to England and to the United Kingdom. Australians continued to see themselves as part of a British world, even if a new and, in some ways, a better part. Some Australians, though, the Anglo—Australians, kept a foot physically

in both societies, and here the key was money. Literate migrants might for a time maintain correspondence with friends and family at home, but travel between Britain and Australia was expensive

or very uncomfortable, and time-consuming, so that if they remained poor or achieved only modest prosperity, personal links

with home gradually were lost. If, on the other hand, a colonist prospered, he was not forced so quickly or so firmly to put down fast roots and, depending on temperament or calling, he could for longer maintain personal connections with home. Having opted freely for colonial life, Cornelius Casey seems not to have kept up links with Britain—perhaps a matter of tempera-

ment, perhaps from a sense of religious separation from family,

perhaps from lack of attachment to the Irish community in Liverpool. Richard Gardiner Casey was entirely a colonial, and he

20 CASEY

might never have established links with Britain had he not prospered, had the Halls and D’Arcy not returned there, had business not drawn him. He did not visit Britain until he was thirty-eight and then, not untypically, to negotiate with impatient holders of mortgages on the Queensland properties he ran in partnership with Wallace. Still, Anglo—Australians or not, Australians of the Caseys’

generation, and for a generation or two yet, referred to Britain as ‘home’, not because they were ambivalent about Australia, but because, with continuing and almost exclusively British immigration and with only limited local self-government, there remained a consciousness of Britain as the home society. In one sense they went home to Britain from Australia; in another they went home to Australia from Britain. Again, it should not need stressing, though probably it does, that Richard Casey did not grow up in a nation-state. He was born in the colony of Queensland, and he moved to the colony of Victoria.

While he was in primary school, the colonies, with Britain’s blessing and legislative authority, formed a self-governing colonial federation, comprising units that were now called states, but which

continued to operate under their colonial constitutions and with governors still representing British governments. When, at the Melbourne Grammar speech day early in 1909, Blanch referred to ‘the increasing influence of our institution in this part of the Empire’, he was not engaging in fatuous rhetoric. The Australian federation, however grand its title of Commonwealth, was part of an empire. National status was to come during Richard Casey’s lifetime, and he was to play a part in its achievement. It is not known why Casey sought entry to Trinity College at Cambridge. There were no other Australians there at the time, and for a callow Antipodean it was an intimidating place. The largest of the colleges, with some six hundred undergraduate members, Trinity was well patronised by the aristocracy and the gentry. As a student, Casey had no direct contact with them, but the college lecturer in logic was Bertrand Russell, the director of studies in economics was John Maynard Keynes of King’s, and the Fellows included A. N. Whitehead. The master was Henry Butler, whose son, James, a contemporary of Casey at Trinity, was to become Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge. Casey’s moral tutor was an historian, Reginald Vere Laurence, with whom he got on well. Casey was fortunate to be given rooms in college, but during his

first term at Cambridge he was desperately lonely: ‘All the local lads had been at various schools together and clustered into groups

STUDENT 21

of school friends, leaving me out.’!’ After the first month, he wrote in his diary: ‘I have not met many men or made many friends.’!® Fortunately there were a few Americans in similar straits, and he

turned first to them for company: Malcolm Peabody, son of a Groton headmaster and later in life to become an Episcopalian bishop; James Boyd, later a successful writer; and Frederick Osborn, later a banker and a trustee of the Carnegie Corporation. Their friendliness had a marked effect on him, and for the rest of his life he was to like Americans and to feel at ease with them. Snapshots taken in his first months at Cambridge show Casey as an uncommonly handsome young man, slight and with still an

adolescent softness to his small features (he was very like his mother when she was young). After first term he grew a mous-

tache and took to sucking a pipe, and that changed his appearance considerably.

Then, and for the rest of his life, Casey suffered from shyness. His response to that, and to loneliness, was to throw himself into social activity, and in later life he tended to be impatient with those who showed less courage in coping with what can be a dreadful disability. By the end of the year he had joined a regiment (King Edward’s Horse), the Trinity College Boat Club (where his mentor was L. J. Cadbury, in later life a director of the Bank of England), and the Magpie and Stump, the college debating society. He had also taken up the study of German and French and boomerang throwing (a fad at the time), and he had had an article on Port Kembla accepted by the Engineering and Mining Journal of New York—for which he was paid £6. Cambridge did not loosen parental apron strings. His parents remained in England for a time, and they saw a good deal of him. Shown his quarters at Trinity, ‘they were not pleased with the way the rooms were kept, and told me so’.’’ He sought his father’s permission to join King Edward’s Horse and the college Boat Club. Nor did his parents’ return to Australia see cords cut. His father insisted on frequent and full letters, and complained if they were late or thin. After one paternal complaint late in his Cambridge days, Richard replied: ‘I’m sorry you have had to remark about my letters—I have taken particular care about the regularity of my writing to you and I think I am right in saying that I have never missed a mail . . . However, I shall endeavour to write you more fully.’ He took an affectionate interest in Dermot and visited him frequently at Eton. Mainly through the Halls at Weeting, he was provided with social contacts outside Cambridge, and it was at Weeting that he once met W. G. Grace. He also became an earnest

22 CASEY

cultivator of contacts of his own at Cambridge, meeting people in

others’ rooms and inviting them to his. He threw himself into rowing with immense enthusiasm, rowing for Trinity at Henley, and there joining the Leander Club. As a student, he was most interested in geology and industrial engineering. He enjoyed the informality of teaching at Cambridge.

He was quick to decide that a course of science lectures recommended to him was worthless, and he stayed away. He persuaded a don to give lectures on economic geology just for himself and an American student. He went to lectures on European history. Judging by press cuttings pasted into his diaries, he took an interest in debates at home in Australia on political and economic issues.

To help with his French and German, he went to the Continent each year, and Germany especially pleased him—‘a delightful place’.*! On one visit to France, he spent £5 on a ten-minute flight

in a bi-plane. His reflections on some aspects of German life showed nice anticipation: About the open air Cafes and ‘beer gardens’ in Germany ... much has been written, but it impresses itself on one very strongly how suitable this healthy and pleasant form of taking the minor meals of the day would be

to the Australian conditions. And as a minor consideration the paper covering the lump sugar in the restaurants to protect it from the summer ravages of flies . . . would indeed be a blessing in the antipodes.”2

His life seems still to have been very innocent. There had been girls

at Melbourne and there were girls at Cambridge, but as L. E. Jones, a near-contemporary of Casey’s at Oxford, has noted, the undergraduates’ lives largely were ‘women-free’.*? The respectable girls were inviolate, however necessary as dancing partners (not that Casey enjoyed dancing), and Casey seems not to have pursued the other kind. Towards the end of his Cambridge days, Casey showed some dissatisfaction. The university was not as stimulating intellectually

as he had anticipated, and at Trinity the talk was of sport rather than politics or religion. Given the pace of his social life, the time he gave to rowing (he also played football, tried golf and enjoyed shooting weekends), his devotion to Gilbert and Sullivan, and his apparent tendency to stop at the surface of things except in the sphere of engineering, it is difficult to know whether he really lusted for heavier intellectual fare or whether he wished simply to

add to his experience of life some exposure to the learned

discussion, which he had supposed would mark an institution such as Cambridge. An undergraduate who in his second year could find

STUDENT 23

A Picture of Dorian Gray ‘interesting’, but complain of its “mighty

unhealthy atmosphere’, or in Germany find the Catholic Mass a ‘theatrical performance’, a ‘puppet show’, without apparent awareness that liturgical theatre was part and parcel of it, would not seem altogether a frustrated intellectual. Nor does mourning that ‘one begins to judge people a little by appearance at Cambridge’ sit easily with triumph in ‘a big day. Breakfasted with the richest man of his age in the world’ (Averell Harriman).** It seems likely that dissatisfaction with his peers’ philistinism masked some other strain

beyond what any youth suffers in the quasi-adult world of the university, where childish dependence and manly sophistication are

meant to co-exist. After the first few months he indicated no loneliness; if he met aristocratic reserve in the face of colonial gaucherie, he did not mention it. But he did suffer from bad bouts of hay fever, which was to afflict him throughout the coming war, though not in the subsequent peace. And, after a visit to a Harley Street physician late in his Cambridge days, he wrote: ‘I told him that I tried to keep cheerful but it was a difficult matter at times.’ In politics, he saw himself as a Liberal Conservative, but it seems

likely that he would have strayed farther to the left had he not feared paternal disapproval. Richard Gardiner Casey for some reason feared for his son’s orthodoxy at Trinity, and Richard took pains to assure him that at heart the college was conservative, that,

for example, ‘rabid socialists’ had to be imported for a college debate on the House of Lords (and even one of these, he stressed, really was ‘a very decent chap’), and that his own Liberalism ‘contained enough Conservatism to please—even you’.*° It would

be rash to assume conviction in a debater’s remarks, but in the Lords debate he thought he had a clever answer to the objection that the Lords prevented legislative power passing to the eightninths of the population who possessed only five per cent of the country’s wealth: those who provided the government’s revenue should have at least a proportionate say in ‘the spending of what amounts to their own money. (Cheers)!’?’ By the end of 1912 Casey was secretary of the college’s first boat and helped to coach junior crews, but in the New Year of 1913 he

abandoned these chores and settled down to study. In March he reported to his father that he was now working eight hours a day ‘and shall have to do more than that all thro’ next term’.“® As a precaution, he warned his father that ‘the Engineering Tripos is

supposed to be the hardest at Cambridge’.*? He sat for the

Mechanical Sciences Tripos in Easter term of 1913, and obtained second class honours. This was a good result: of 44 candidates, four

24 CASEY

won firsts, ten won seconds, twenty were given thirds, and ten went down with ordinary degrees. Still, there was in his report to

his father a touch of defensiveness:

Well its all over and personally I am very pleased. I could not have hoped to get better than a second . . . it was a ‘second’ that I aspired to. Please don’t think it was lack of ambition . . . But I knew that if one rowed & took an interest in other things that it was out of the question.*°

The family was in Cambridge for his graduation as Bachelor of Arts in June, and over the next three months he toured central Europe, for part of the trip with his parents. In Germany Casey achieved admission to a students’ duel, and he was greatly impressed: After seeing one of these Duels one cordially agrees with Mark Twain that

it is impossible to belittle the proceedings, impossible not to look on a ‘schmiss’ on a man’s face with a little more respect than formerly. I can understand now that to stand up and go through the Duel requires ‘some sand’. The feelings and expressions of the two men sitting for 20 minutes or so facing each other, bound up and watching their swords being filed to the requisite keenness, bears a great resemblance to those of an Eight before a race; yawning and ill-concealed restlessness.>!

His account of the trip was, as ever, almost entirely factual and descriptive, though written now with an attempt at wit. Only German farmers stirred him to lengthy comment: ‘they do not look keen’. It seemed to him that, while German towns were run efficiently, the countryside was baffling: ‘I have seen and met farmers who own their own motor cars and yet store manure outside their bedroom windows and plant their vines in dots and patches on the hillside.’3 Richard was now almost twenty-three and a graduate, but in his father’s eyes his education was not yet complete, judging by a note written to his father from Freiburg, where he was to meet Richard and Evelyn: ‘My diary and notes are open for your inspection and possibly destructive criticism when you arrive.” Much has been written about the decade or two before 1914 as the last flowering of British aristocratic culture, and so many of the best young men of that culture soon were to die that a romantic veil fell over the whole generation, the best and the worst, with some of the survivors inclined to see themselves as second rate in having survived at all. Casey came down from Cambridge in 1913, and he did not venture back for thirty-five years. In those years he rarely came across Cambridge men of his time. He was to write that ‘the first war was a Great Wall of China that seemed to cut off the Cambridge episode from my life since’.** Whether he meant

STUDENT 25

that war casualties removed the human connections or that the war was SO gross an experience as to reduce the significance of what had

gone before is not clear. It may well be that life in the golden autumn of Cambridge in 1910-13, followed by the scarcely describable winter of 1914-18, and then the deceptive spring of the 1920s led Casey early into a pattern of chronological compartments

in his view of his own life. Whatever the reason, the Cambridge experience rested lightly on him. When Richard Casey left England to take his place in the world, he was at twenty-three an urbane and personable young man, perhaps a little precious, quite mad about cars (the one subject on which his father welcomed his views), untouched by ideology beyond the polite forms of Anglicanism, not in Oxbridge terms a blood, but happier to act than to reflect, very sociable and yet shy. In Australian terms he was very well educated, but not as education then was understood overseas or even in the more cultivated sectors of Australian life. Without doubt he was proficient in some of the applied sciences, he could address an audience, he attended to some of the public issues of his day, he had learned the rules of society, he had travelled. But he was not an intellectual. More to the point, he did not have the grounding in the classics, literature, history or

philosophy that an educated man then was assumed to have. This at times in his life was to tell against him, in terms both of other men’s estimates of him and of his capacity to cope with some situations in which he was to find himself. It also left him a little unsure of himself and prone to inverted snobbery, so that, for example, he was to be for all his days almost a compulsive reader while

damning bookishness in others; taking some pride in his own

university experience, while tending to belittle the value of university education generally; prone to revere practical experience in meeting practical problems. This allowed him the more readily

to identify with the run of his countrymen whose frontier values marked the national character throughout his lifetime, but there was a personal cost. Richard Casey was an engineer, no less and no more, and if he is not to be measured against irrelevant criteria, this always must be remembered. At twenty-three, Richard Casey also remained a dutiful son. With such a father, he might have rebelled, or at least have passed through a rebellious phase, in seeking autonomy as an adult. On the contrary, he sought always his father’s approval. Approval was his need; courtesy, deference and industry were his means.

THREE

SOLDIER

With his formal education completed, Richard Casey in 1913 was ready to take his place at his father’s side in the Australian business world. However, while his father was devoted to the work ethic, he did not insist that Richard begin quite at the bottom, and he was

not averse to using his own position to help him. Thus it was arranged that the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Co. Ltd commission Richard to return to Australia via the United States of America, where he would visit ore smelting and refining plants and

report on them. Armed with introductions from his father, he arrived in New York in November 1913, and, after a preliminary week, he managed in less than two months to visit twenty-four plants in New Jersey, Michigan, Utah, Arizona and California, and across the border in Mexico. Nor was this at all a pleasure jaunt for the chairman’s son: Richard Gardiner Casey warned Richard

that “you will have a tremendous lot to do ... so mind you do not devote too much of your time to sight-seeing or theatregoing’.’ The result of the trip was a 139-page report of severe technicality and apparent authority, for which he was paid 200 guineas in addition to his expenses.’

Richard had taken advantage of opportunities to visit British industrial plants during his Cambridge years, so that the industrial world was not unfamiliar. Still, this American trip was a hard test: without any escort, he had to organise his own schedules, introduce himself and persuade very tough industrialists and plant managers to take seriously a twenty-three-year-old young gentleman who could talk their technical language but not in tones familiar to them (at Cambridge, he had adopted the ‘county’ mode of speech and this was to stick for the better part of twenty years). Doubtless he was helped in his dealings with Americans by his evident regard

for their dynamism. Utterly agog at New York, and especially with residence at the then ultra-modern Hotel McAlpin, he wrote soberly to his father that ‘I should not like to live here forever. It is a stimulant but taken continually would have rather a ravaging effect on the constitution.’? There was dissimulation in this, and his

SOLDIER 27

real feelings of excitement were better conveyed, even if with an extravagance tailored to the entertainment of an Eton schoolboy, in a letter to Dermot: ‘My dear child—you’ve never seen anything like it! It’s the most wonderful place that ever existed—Noise! .. . Don’t expect many letters from me as I’ve sure got a heap to perform.” This American tour had two significant effects on the young

Casey. First, it reinforced in him the pro-American attitudes sparked by the friendliness of American students at Cambridge, and, while he was to come to dislike some of the more vulgar aspects of American life, he was to retain a liking for the social informality, the technical inventiveness and the respect for material achievement of Americans. Second, it seemed to set a pattern in which he was to be less disposed to read up on a subject than to

seek out experts and talk to them, preferably on their own

geographical ground. In the mining industry of the time, with reports of developments slow to circulate and with each plant overcoming technical problems daily or going under, this approach made sense, but in later years he was to make of it almost a fetish, as though a process of constant touring and talk must have some inherent value almost irrespective of what was discussed and with whom.

At home in Melbourne in the New Year of 1914, Richard was brought down to earth. His father allowed him a month to get his bearings, and to enjoy election to the Melbourne Club, before sending him to Queensland to join Colin Fraser, a New Zealand consultant, who had been commissioned to make a geological survey of Mt Morgan. Whatever freedom he had known from close paternal supervision at Cambridge was over, and in 1914 he was subjected to superintendence of such a kind that he seemed to lose his spirit and to surrender himself to his father’s will utterly. It was a regime not only of general dictation as to goals but of unremitting

nagging. In Sydney, where he stopped for a few days on his way north to visit friends of the family, he received a telegram from his father: “You are not travelling for amusement advise me closely your movements.” In Mt Morgan, he was to write to his father twice weekly and to ‘keep regular diary, writing it up daily, not spasmodically’.° No sooner had Casey arrived in Mt Morgan than he was told to accompany Fraser to Papua to survey the Laloki copper mine over which the Mount Morgan company held an option. Before setting out, he was told by his father to ‘remember that anything you see or learn is the Coy’s property . . . Avoid all kinds of stimulants.’’ After his arrival in Papua, he was counselled:

28 CASEY I am inclined to think the ‘Local Club’ is probably a Drinking Shop, in which case the less you see of it the better . . . You are not there to amuse yourself, but to keep in good nick so that you can do useful work for the Company ... Mind you keep your Diary fully written up.®

After two arduous months at Laloki, which was judged to be unsuit-

able at the time for mining, Casey went down with malaria, and he had to be carried into Port Moresby by native stretcher-bearers. The bearers enjoyed the trip no more than Casey: ‘I vomited all over the ones at my north end of the stretcher . . . which resulted

in groans of disapproval ... They had very fuzzy heads and I expect carried my aroma for some months in consequence.” Back in Mt Morgan, the paternal campaign continued. He was told by his father’s clerk not to worry his head about approaching federal elections: “Your father will write to you later, who to vote

for.!° This was not a happy time for him: the work was exhausting; he continued to suffer from fever; apart from bush shooting, there was little recreation; there were few of his kind to provide society, and being the chairman’s son cannot have helped;

he was studying accountancy at night by himself. Fatigue and depression reached such a point in June 1914 that he wrote plaintively to his father: ‘I am very interested in this work . . . However I will be glad to get on to something which you & everyone else

seem to think of greater importance... I don’t know... if you

have any ... scheme for me.’!! In reply, he was assured that his father gave his future ‘my continual thought and attention. When I arrange any plan for you, I will let you know at once.’!? A week or two later, his father put him in the picture: It is in my mind to put you to work in an office here when your job with

Mr Colin Fraser is done & when you pass the necessary exam as an

a/ctant—& fix some career that will satisfy you—(apart from Engineering) & in which I would be able to assist you to make a start.!4

Since returning to Australia, Richard had done exactly as he was told (for 14s 6d a day) and he cannot have found it easy to accommodate a sting in the tail of his father’s letter: ‘You are getting on in years & it is time you were doing something to make money & relieve me of the necessity to continue working.’ Richard had enough spark left to suggest that an accountant’s office in Sydney might be the place for him, but his father at once squashed that schismatic thought. It is a familiar enough notion that men rally to arms as an escape from domestic boredom or from fear of missing high adventure as

SOLDIER 29

well as with patriotic motives. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that Richard Casey might well have seen war in 1914 as offering deliverance from his father, but this can be no more than suspicion.

As war approached in late July, and even after the European empires had gone to war early in August, Richard’s initial reaction was merely to marvel at the impact on local stock-markets. By the

end of August, though, he had heard that Harold Hall, one of Thomas Hall’s sons, and the one he knew best, was at the front and that his old regiment, King Edward’s Horse, was in Belgium. This did affect him and he wrote to his mother: ‘I feel very guilty at having got away before the trouble. I know a very great number of men who will be fighting by now.’'* He joined the local rifle

club at Mt Morgan, but as late as 5 September he seemed less concerned about the war than to complain to his father that the company was cheating prospectors, paying them only one-third of the value of the copper in the ore it bought from them. Presumably there was then an exchange of telegrams between Mt Morgan and

Melbourne—telegrams that have not survived. At all events, within nine days he had resigned from the company, returned to Melbourne, enlisted and received a commission.

The circumstances of Richard Casey’s enlistment remain a mystery. Years later, it was claimed by Frank Anstey, a Labor politician not always hindered by scruple, that Richard Gardiner Casey offered to present the federal Government with a car for war

use provided his son drove it or was otherwise protected from front-line exposure.'> It is a fact that on enlisting Richard joined a curious little auxiliary outfit called the Australian Volunteer Auto-

mobile Corps, which had been established in 1908, which was bracketed in Defence Department lists with the Army Nursing Service outside permanent army and militia categories, which comprised thirty officers and no other ranks, and which was disbanded during the war. It is also a fact that, just as he had provided a horse when he had joined King Edward’s Horse, now he provided a car paid for by his father, a 20 hp Metallurgique. Further, it is the case that he was not posted to the Light Horse, where his English regimental experience might have been relevant, nor to the sappers, where his engineering qualifications might have been relevant, let alone to the infantry. He went straight to a junior

staff job. And it is the case that in Egypt he had a chance

occasionally to drive the car, that for a year or two he kept his father informed of the car’s fate, and that he kept track of the car’s

driver—mechanic, a corporal. On the other hand, Richard was

30 CASEY

never to serve as a chauffeur, as Anstey seemed to suggest, and his movements during the war were in no way tied to the car’s deploy-

ment. For lack of evidence, one can only speculate that, given Richard’s keen interest in cars and his mechanical competence in maintaining them, it might well have seemed proper and reasonable

that he join a corps reflecting his interest and expertise at a time when the possibilities for motorised warfare could well have seemed exciting and adventurous. Equally, it is difficult to avoid the speculation that it would have been in character for Richard Gardiner Casey to approve his son’s wish to serve in what was

expected to be a short war while using his own influence to minimise the dangers to be faced by his son. Just as Richard Gardiner Casey was not a snob, he was not the kind to see glory in death for the colours; he was not a romantic. It should be borne in mind, too, that this was a time when patronage still was taken for granted, when without the faintest obloquy gentlemen could consider the social and career merits of this or that branch of the

services, when educated men expected to receive commissions (more than in Britain, some middle-class Australians preferred initially the camaraderie of life in the ranks, but, as time passed,

many of these were to jockey for commissions). In effect,

commissioned rank was the mark of a gentleman, and gentlemen were entitled, according to temperament and influence, to seek to serve where they wished. Finally, it has to be remembered that, whatever steps might or might not have been taken to keep Richard

from becoming cannon fodder, his enlistment was early and voluntary, and before conscription had been considered or white feathers had been posted. Still, while in the 1980s it might seem a matter of indifference whether a young man in 1914 wanted to don uniform or not, to go overseas as an infantryman or as a correspondent, to opt for staff work or ambulance service, events after 1914 were so awful and

so many families suffered loss that for most of Casey’s own generation it was not a matter of indifference. Just as John Curtin’s record as a conscientious objector in 1914-18 was remembered, and

just as Robert Menzies’s acceptance of a family decision that he remain at home while his brothers served overseas was used against

him, so Anstey’s allegation that Richard Casey had been bought a soft war was to lurk in the corners of political gossip, at times disfiguring election campaigns. Casey was hurt by it. Many years later, when he was almost eighty, the Australian Broadcasting Commission made a television film about him: deletion of reference

to the Automobile Corps was the only cut he requested. Oddly

SOLDIER 31

enough, Casey came across Anstey during the war. In September 1918 Anstey, then working for the Labour Call, visited the front in France with a party of journalists. Richard Casey marvelled: ‘My hat, he was a funny one. A bit of a rough Bolshevist I shd say.’!® The First Division of the Australian Imperial Force was raised and

trained during August and September 1914, with Major-General William Bridges as commander and Colonel Brudenell White as his chief of staff. Casey was made orderly officer to Bridges and sailed

from Melbourne with him on 21 October on the Orient liner Orvieto to join a convoy off Albany in Western Australia. On 1 November the Orvieto led out a convoy of twenty-six Australian and

New Zealand transports under escort and bound for the United Kingdom.

Casey escaped the monotony of shipboard drill and lectures when, a week out from the Australian coast, one of the convoy’s escorts, HMAS Sydney, moved off to engage a German raider, the Emden, near the Cocos Islands. The Emden was forced to surrender, and, of her complement, the captain, four other officers and forty-

eight other ranks were put on the Orvieto in Casey’s charge. He found the job taxing but enjoyable. He was especially taken with one of the young officers, Prince Franz Joseph von Hohenzollern, whose sister had married a King of Portugal and whose cousin was King of Romania: ‘a very nice youngster’.'’ In those early days of innocence, before time and carnage had eroded chivalry, he found the Emden’s captain, Karl von Muller, ‘a charming man to talk to’."®

Taking Red Cross clothing for his charges, Casey feared that ‘the ladies of Melbourne would perhaps not be pleased if they knew how

the product of their work was being used’.'? The Germans were taken off at Port Said, where Casey found them civilian suits to spare them the indignity of being photographed as captives in uniform. By then, Casey knew that the division was to be trained

in Egypt, not England. On 3 December the division reached Alexandria and proceeded to camp at Mena, near Cairo.

In Egypt, Casey found himself subsumed into a larger entity. Late in December Lieutenant-General W. R. Birdwood arrived from India to take command of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, comprising the First Australian Division under Bridges, a mixed Australian and New Zealand division under

Major-General Sir A.J. Godley, and corps troops of mainly Australian Light Horse. Casey underwent machine-gun and signals training, and by the end of January 1915 he was anxious to get to the front in France. Not that he was romantic about war:

32 CASEY

It seems to me that from now onwards the world’s nations will be so bound together and against each other—with treaties and agreements and ententes—that for 50 or 100 years the world will trade, work & play—Then they will lay aside their tools for a space and fight for a year or so until another balance is struck. Peace will with difficulty be proclaimed—the

world will shudder at the horror for a year or so and after another half century diplomacy will again assert itself and we'll be at it again.*”

Mostly in the company of senior officers, some of Casey’s rough edges were perhaps smoothed a little. Many would have shared his

surprise at finding an Egyptian mechanic who was a ‘good solid workman’, but social snobbery in Australian company could be hazardous. He was reduced to ‘exit . . . in a maze of explanations’ when, in the company of Colonel N. R. (later Sir Neville) Howse, VC, he ‘suggested how impossible it wld seem for a man to marry a nurse’.*! Howse had married one. His ideas at that point on

proper relations between officers and men were orthodox by British canons, if a little pompously put by one who had yet to command men:

The ‘officering’ of a force such as ours is the great problem. The men are there, and they are amenable to proper discipline but the majority of the officers both junior & senior have little notion of the proper attitude to take towards the men—to be known to the men and know them, to have their confidence, to be firm and not familiar. The officer who is a ‘good fellow’ to his men is a pitiable sight.??

Even closer intimacy with the great came when, at the end of February, Lieutenant (later Major-General) E. C. P. Plant transferred to a fighting unit, and Casey was invited to replace him as Bridges’s junior aide-de-camp. He found the change exciting (‘very

similar to getting into the Ist Boat for the first time’),*’ and life became more entertaining. He accompanied Bridges on a trip to Luxor, which he liked: ‘a well-moulded, bellied pillar or column with a sound base and discreetly ornamented Capital is a very sound thing of beauty to me’.** He climbed the pyramids with the great Birdwood, who congratulated him on his new appointment. He obtained a horse. Even his senior officers’ humour now seemed to him sparkling: Brudenell White’s opinion that eating veal was

like kissing one’s sister—rather insipid; Bridges’s fear that after the war a lot of old maids would die wondering. By the end of March he suspected that the corps would go to the Dardenelles rather than France, and on Good Friday, 2 April, he was jubilant: the troops were marching out.

SOLDIER 33

Casey sailed with Bridges from Alexandria on 10 April, passing

Rhodes the next day and anchoring in Mudros harbour the day after that. Waiting there for a fortight while the full invasion force gathered, Casey ran errands, studied maps and wondered how he would cope. The plan for the invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula by Sir Ian Hamilton’s Mediterranean Expeditionary Force was wonderfully simple: the British regular 29th Division and a French force would land at Cape Helles on the southern tip of the peninsula

and on the first day would move forward to take high ground

called Achi Baba; the ANZAC force under Birdwood would land thirteen miles to the north on the peninsula’s Mediterranean coast and on the first day would move foward to take the thousand-foothigh Hill 971 (Koja Chemen Tepe, to the defending Turks) and then, a little farther on, another hill, Mal Tepe, which overlooked the Narrows. Subsequently, the British and French would move northwards and the ANZACs southwards to take the Kilid Bahr Plateau lying between them. The Dardenelles would be exposed, Turkey would fall and the Allies would sweep into south-eastern Europe. The plan was not fulfilled. The ANZACs landed in the dark of the early morning of 25 April a mile north of the correct site, a spot dismissed earlier by Birdwood as impossible for a landing. The Turks were waiting with machine-guns, and the country beyond the beach comprised a series of ridges and valleys much deeper and

steeper than anticipated. On that first day of chaos and hard

fighting, some 16,000 men landed, but by night 2000 of them were dead or badly wounded and the survivors were not one and a half miles inland holding a four-mile front, as planned, but half a mile

inland on a one-mile front. Bridges was so appalled that on that first night he urged evacuation, but this was held not to be possible.

Eight months later it was held to be possible. During those eight months the invaders found it impossible to break through; the Turks could not force them back into the sea; 7600 Australians were killed and 19,000 were wounded. Bridges made his headquarters on the slope by the beach where the ANZACs landed. On most days Casey accompanied Bridges,

Brudenell White and other senior officers on visits to units in the line. It cannot be claimed that as a young lieutenant Casey suffered as platoon commanders in the line suffered, but even at headquarters none was safe, and soon after landing he was bruised by shrapnel. While daily visits to the line were not to be compared in danger with going over the top into raking Turkish machine-gun

34. CASEY

fire, the danger was real, and Casey was close enough to the action

occasionally to take a pot shot at Turkish heads. He was happy enough with his own response to this baptism of fire. He adjusted quickly to the constant danger, to the endless sound of guns, to seeing acquaintances fall. He acquired a necessary callousness, and the stench of the enemy dead became “Turkish Eau de Cologne’.

He even took some pride in devising a method whereby, with careful use of a razor blade, clothing could be removed from bloated Turkish corpses without rotten flesh exploding in one’s face

so that the contents of pockets could be examined by intelligence officers. He commented during the first few weeks on Gallipoli on the fact that, despite dreadful casualty rates and fighting conditions, Australian ranks seemed to be permeated with a spirit of jocularity. The same jocularity marked his own reaction to battle. Jocularity came to an end for Casey on 15 May: The General was out with Colonel White and I about half past nine this morning—we had to go up a rather bad bit of gully as the Turks hold the head of it with a small party & have been doing some fairly regular sniping from concealed positions lately. A good number of bullets came thro the bushes and on to the track but thinking it was nothing more than the usual wild firing and unaimed shots we went on—taking as much cover as was possible—We got to a corner where the track went around & where there was a small field dressing station for casualties from the fire trenches & were warned that the sniping was particularly hot just there. However we made a dash and before five yards the General was down & Bleeding rather badly from the thigh . .. We got him back to the beach on a stretcher at once & took him to the hospital ship Gascon.

Bridges died on the ship. Ironically, since the landing Casey had warned Bridges several times daily of a need to hurry, to take shelter or to drop low to avoid bullets or shrapnel. Bridges invariably had ignored such advice, while urging Casey to take care. On that morning, Bridges actually took Casey’s advice, hurried and was

shot, the bullet severing a thigh artery. The medical officer who treated Bridges on the Gascon, Colonel (later Major-General Sir Charles) Ryan, was to become Casey's father-in-law a decade later. He told Casey that had Bridges agreed to amputation his life probably could have been saved. Bridges’s place as commander of the First Division went tem-

porarily to Birdwood’s chief of staff, Brigadier-General H. B. Walker, and Casey stayed on as his aide. Like many soldiers, Casey retained a chirpy tone in his letters home: he was ‘well and healthy’; the weather was ‘ideal’; the Australians were ‘in good fettle’; the Turks were ‘rotten bad shots’. But the reality now was

SOLDIER 35

very different: “This game gets very sickening. I get fits of rather severe depression at times. It all seems so hopeless and endless and sordid ... no freedom of manoeuvre and us getting out.’*° A day-long armistice to allow each side to recover and bury its dead on 24 May set him to thinking in detached terms about the whole bloody business: The way our men make friends with the wily Turk under conditions such

as todays shows that there is no personal animosity about war—men merely do their duty in fighting their Governments quarrel, and when that

is done—or a halt is temporarily called—they would just as soon give their enemy their last cigarette as give it to their friend.?’

And there were regrets: if only more men could have been landed more quickly in the first place; if only there had been more effective

bombardment by the navy in the meantime. By mid-June the trivial and the important were running together and Casey was at his lowest: “Out all day . . . We didnt cover as much ground as we meant to—I had some ideals shattered—and I swallowed a fly

... I didnt have a good day.’

With the arrival of Major-General J. G. Legge from Australia to take over the First Division, Walker stepped down to take over the

division’s first infantry brigade and, after a weeks’s leave in

Alexandria for treatment for gastric trouble, Casey joined him as his orderly officer. Though plagued by diarrhoea, Casey was glad to be busier and closer to the action. He was even more pleased when Brigadier-General E. G. Sinclair-MacLagan, commander of the division’s third brigade, obtained his services as staff captain. Now very busy and involved, he settled down to a daily round of

the tunnelling, shelling and ‘stunts’ that made up the Gallipoli world. Emotional swings and questioning were past: One day is rather like another now. Up at 5.45. Bkfst at 7. Usually in all morning either glued to telephone or sending or receiving messages.

Out & about after lunch till about 4.30 ... Engr. Depot, Ordnance or bombs till dinner at 9.15. Then to my 4’ X 7’ dug out with a blanket and the skies o’ heaven over me.??

Casey’s Gallipoli experience came to an end on 7 October, when

he was evacuated to Mudros and then back to England with suspected enteric fever. Though he took a poor view of ‘fellows who got to England and you can’t get them back to their jobs for 4 months’,°? his convalescence in hospital in London and with the Halls at Weeting was prolonged: he had arrived back in England two stone under his normal twelve stone. In late December, by

which time Gallipoli had been evacuated and the ANZACs

36 CASEY

returned to Egypt, he was worried that he might be seen as slacking, but a medical board extended his leave until the end of January 1916. He was well enough, though, to attend courses on grenades at Clapham and on the machine-gun at Bisley and at the Vickers establishment at Erith, where he looked up the managing director, Sir Trevor Dawson. It might be noted that at no time did Casey’s diaries or letters from Gallipoli indicate any awareness of the strategic point of the Dardenelles campaign. He was to write later: “We had no idea why we were there, but as war was an unaccustomed exercise anyhow we didn’t spend much time thinking about things that were beyond our ken.’*! At Gallipoli he learned to cope with the ugliness of death in battle and the arbitrariness of slaughter (a slight error in intelligence perceptions or a commander’s miscalculation could send dozens, even hundreds, of men virtually to execution by machine-gun), passing from boyish bravado to depression to detached busyness. As he was to recall later, he learned that, while he was frightened of the Turk, he was more frightened of showing fear. He was coarsened: that an acquaintance, unfamiliar with grenades, should blow off part of a foot seemed droll rather than

tragic. At Gallipoli, too, and after he had joined Sinclair-

MacLagan’s brigade, he had his first real experience of intimacy with men of all kinds and conditions, and not just with seniors. Although he seems not to have recognised it, the rest of his life was to be affected by two changes in his situation in early 1916, changes that diminished his freedom to become his own person and which removed him from enforced intimacy with ordinary men. The first change was the renewed proximity of his father. With Richard convalescing in England, and with Dermot soon to leave Eton and try for entry to Woolwich and an artillery commission, the Caseys Senior moved to London for the duration, arriving at the end of January 1916, in time to have a fortnight with Richard before he returned to Egypt. Quite simply, his parents revived the boy in him. As he set off, he expressed his gratitude to them: It is hard to thank you for all you have done for me both since you have

been at home & all through—but I can assure you that I appreciate it all very much & realise that you are giving me chances that do not come to many people of my age.”

The reference to ‘chances’ put in his way is not clarified in his

correspondence. He might have been referring generally to Cambridge, the North American tour and life at Mt Morgan, but it is possible that he was referring to his father’s determination that,

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even in war, he should be known to eminent men. In London, certainly, Richard Gardiner Casey was to wine and dine Richard’s

seniors, and Evelyn was to entertain their wives, and there 1s evidence that on occasion officers of rarefied rank were pressed to

keep an eye on young Captain Casey. In any event the battletoughened survivor of Gallipoli was again a dependant, keen to amuse in juvenile terms: on the ship out to Egypt he was glad that the officers used the ship’s pool early in the morning rather than later in the day when hundreds of troops left it ‘rather muddy’; he

was anxious that his father get him into a good club (he was admitted to the Oxford and Cambridge Club); he reported more in jest than mourning that during unloading in Egypt the ship’s crane dropped its load on a man, ‘squashing him rather flat’. Casey arrived in Cairo on 29 February to find all in flux. Gallipoli survivors and reinforcements from Australia were being organised

into new formations, providing four Australian divisions where there had been two. In the process, young officers were receiving rare Opportunities for promotion, with men of Casey’s age and experience aspiring to battalion commands. In London, Casey had thought of moving to a line unit, preferably the 9th Battalion, a Queensland unit, and in his view ‘the best regiment we’ve got’. Even in Cairo, his first notion was to seek a machine-gun or mortar

command. Of course, he could simply have reported to the Base

Depot and waited for orders, but that was not his way, or his father’s, and, after looking in on First Division headquarters, the young captain looked up General Birdwood and General White, had dinner with them, and accepted an appointment with the First Division as General Staff Officer, III, responsible for intelligence. Captains do not as a rule dine with corps commanders, and Richard was a trifle ingenuous in ascribing his appointment to his knowledge of maps and languages; of probably greater significance was his father’s friendship with Brudenell White. Richard was delighted, the only fly in his ointment being his restriction to one horse, and at that an army mount. In the event, this was not much to matter: he was about to go to France.

Three months after the war began in 1914, the front line in western Europe became virtually static: a line of trenches stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss border, with British forces holding

most of the northern third of the line. Hoping to draw the French into a one-sided conflict between German artillery and French infantry, the Germans broke the stalemate in February 1916 with an onslaught on Verdun, almost due east of Paris. The Germans, too, were drawn into mass infantry battles and the slaughter on

38 CASEY

both sides was extraordinary, though it presaged what was to become the ordinary. Partly to take pressure off the French and partly because Britain’s so-called New Army was ready to take the

field (the cream of the old army having been destroyed), it was decided to launch a massive offensive against the German line in the north. As part of the effort to concentrate maximum force for the offensive, the First ANZAC Corps (First and Second Australian

Divisions and a New Zealand division) under Birdwood was ordered to the Western front. The Second ANZAC Corps (includ-

ing the Fourth and Fifth Australian Divisions) was to follow under Godley. Casey was in a small advance party sent ahead to learn something of conditions at the Front. For a week he was attached to the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers commanded by Winston Churchill, serving a brief penance in the field after the failure of the Dardenelles campaign, which he had urged while First Lord of

the Admiralty. Of Churchill, Casey was to write: ‘He was very civil to me and ensured that I was given all the help I needed in absorbing what was to me then an unusual situation . .. trench warfare. *°

From the time of their arrival at the front near Armentiéres in mid-April, the Australians engaged in the sniping and patrolling that had become customary on a relatively quiet part of the front. This lasted until 1 July, when the great Somme offensive was launched, the first phase lasting through July and August and petering out in

September. There are no adjectives with which to describe the outcome on the Somme, not so much because in our own time journalists have debased the currency of language, but because there

are things the mind cannot really accommodate, let alone reduce to words. Poets, novelists and painters have tried for more than half a century to achieve through art what cannot be conveyed in literal description, but they too have failed. One is left with figures. Casey’s division, the First, had lost 5285 officers and men by the

end of July; in August it was reinforced to about two-thirds strength, thrown back into the line, and lost another 2650. In one night in early July the Fifth Division suffered 5533 casualties. On

the mile-long Poziéres ridge, three Australian divisions lost 23 000 men in just seven weeks. In September, when the ANZAC

Corps was on the quieter Ypres front, it was decided that a last pre-winter effort should be made to get some triumph from the Somme, if only to encourage the French population. By the time battle was joined in November, rain had reduced the front to a hideous swamp. After yet more losses, both sides dug in for the

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winter. In less than six months, on a small sector of the front, more than a million men were lost to the antagonists.

This, then, was Casey’s environment in 1916. Judging by his correspondence with his parents, he was not grievously affected by the carnage about him, and his letters read as though he was on little more than an unusually tiring mining survey, with a father at home to smooth his way with company executives. Probably, though, not too much should be made of this correspondence: he addressed his parents jointly, and what he wrote had to be suited to the eyes of a gently born mother. He would have wished to shield them from worry about him and Dermot, now at Woolwich and hoping that the war would last long enough for him to see service. And, of course, his letters were subject to censorship, and a warning that he would be ‘busy’ was his way of conveying that his division was going into action. Above all, the letters were compulsory. In the dreadful months of July-August, Casey did not write once or twice to his parents; he managed somehow to get off no less than twenty letters to them. His father’s response was not | gratitude, but remonstrance. He wanted letters “every day if possible’, and he wanted longer letters: ‘even a Staff Officer might find

a little more to write about than you do.” If ever Richard Casey was to react with anger to his father’s outrageous behavior, this would have been the occasion, but he did not: ‘I accept the mild

reproof ... I have been rather wrapped up in the work.’ In Richard Gardiner Casey’s defence, one can only repeat that his son’s

letters did not describe the kind of war that engulfed him, being comprised mainly of requests for favours or acknowledgement of things received: clothing from his London tailor, boots from his bootmaker, tobacco, chocolate, wrist watches, telescopes, cocaine

for his hay fever, hospitality to his friends on leave (Richard Gardiner Casey was prepared to be ‘civil’ to anyone sponsored by his son). On the other hand, the appalling casualty lists of that year were published daily in the Press and one would suppose that they alone might have given the old man pause. Fascinated as he was by flight, Richard was glad in June to make his first ascent in an observation balloon and then on occasion to act as an observer in planes. This also helped to justify decorations.

During the Somme offensive, Walker, again commander of the First Division, put him up for both the Military Cross and the Distinguished Service Order. In each case the grounds were that he had performed ‘admirable service in collecting, piecing together and sifting information’ and that as an observer he was ‘fearless and

40 CASEY

did valuable liaison work between Divisional and Brigade Headquarters’.°° He was awarded the Military Cross at the end of the year.

In October 1916 Casey was sent on a staff course behind the lines in France, and in December he took leave in London at his father’s earnest request: ‘it is absolutely and vitally necessary for you to see

me... in order to arrange with you as to your business and financial affairs’.°’ Shortly before returning to France at the end of December, Casey received substantial promotion, leaving the First Division to become brigade major in Brigadier-General E. Tivey’s 8th Brigade in the Fifth Division. In March 1917 he was promoted to the rank of major. The status of a brigade major was a little curious in that, while outranked by leutenant-colonels commanding the brigade’s several battalions, he was virtually the brigade’s executive officer and the position was one of consequence. In world history 1917 was of some significance: Russia became the USSR, the Austro-Hungarian Empire weakened to a point of no return, and the USA entered the conflict in Europe. For Casey, and for all those in the Australian divisions in France, 1917 was just another long year of war. The major British offensives of the year

were in the Arras region in April-May, in the Messines region in May-June and in the Ypres—Passchendaele sector in July—October. They were more or less successful campaigns for that kind of war:

the German front was pushed back a few miles, objectives were taken, and the German army was sapped. It was a war now of primitive simplicity: to see which side would bleed to death first. In those battles of 1917 the five Australian divisions (the Third was now in the field under John Monash) suffered 55 000 casualties. During one offensive on the Hindenburg Line in the Arras sector, one depleted Australian brigade of about 3000 men suffered 2339 casualties.

For much of the year Casey was positively buoyant. Dermot was

now at the front with the Royal Horse Artillery and ‘as usual thirsting for the blood of the beastly Bosch’.*® During the Arras offensive Casey reported: ‘Everything going well—we are strafing the Bosch no end.’*? He was delighted with a new batman, ‘a game

old fowl and thinks of nothing but looking after me—real unspoiled son of the soil’.*° For a time before the Ypres offensive he was quartered at a chateau and found pleasure in speaking French

with ‘the charming daughter of the house’.*’ In June a small Morane Saulnier in which he was flying as observer turned over on landing, leaving him belted to his seat and drenched in petrol, but he was rescued by an artillery officer, who galloped over to cut

SOLDIER 41

him free (this was Claude Austin, a future president of the Melbourne Club). On his next leave in Paris, Casey looked up the

plane’s manufacturer and told him with some emphasis how he might improve its design. Above all, Casey enjoyed his job as brigade major: I’m more interested in my job now than I have been since the war started.

The whole thing is really most absorbingly interesting ... The last six months have been, I think, the most interesting of my life... one will

certainly have something to look back on ... for the rest of one’s existence.

As brigade major, Casey made it his habit to visit all forward battalion and company headquarters at dawn, ‘taking some cocoa

and rum (in some cases, rum and cocoa)... which produced a warm and comfortable feeling of bravery which was rather neces-

sary at that time of day’.*° His descriptions of the enemy seem to have owed a good deal to the cocaine he was taking supposedly for hay fever (the cocaine was taken in pill form, mixed with aspirin): I was all over the battlefield this morning, and the number of cold Boches is perfectly extraordinary . . . I am afraid our fellows are a little lacking in the quality of mercy, at any rate towards Huns. I’ve never seen so many ‘stiffs’ in my life. . . it is a good sight to see what one has been working for for a long time materialise in good cold Hun in wholesale lots.*4

Casey, it might be noted, was not alone in resorting to cocaine, and some soldiers were to return to Australia as addicts. Just as it is very likely that he was given laudanum (opium) as a child, cocaine in these years did not carry the stigma later attached to it, but his mother had to bustle about various London pharmacies to keep him adequately supplied.

At Gallipoli, Casey’s perkiness disappeared with the death of Bridges. After that, there followed a period during which the whole enterprise seemed sordid and hopeless. Finally, there was retreat into preoccupation with the day-by-day work of war. During the Passchendaele offensive in 1917, Casey was at last affected by the slaughter around him and raged against the British generalship responsible for it, but the man he chose as his confidant, Thomas Blamey (later Field-Marshal Sir Thomas Blamey, but then on the First Division staff), virtually told him to shut up about things beyond his control, and he was reasonably settled until late

in October, when personal connection with just one man’s death changed everything. It was a simple enough incident: Casey sent

42 CASEY

a young officer on an errand and he was killed. Casey was severely depressed by the incident: ‘I suppose it is all on the game, but its a very unsatisfactory game and theres not much in it for anybody. Its beyond my comprehension, the whole thing. There seems so little

sense or reason in it’. This was expressed to his father, who for once did not adopt an admonishing tone. The old man confessed that he could not offer much comfort, and he agreed that war was beyond comprehension. He supposed that war stemmed from rulers’ lust for

conquest: ‘the mass of the people never want War, but once the microbe is in men they follow it up to the bitter end’.“° By the end of

1917, and despite having been Mentioned in Despatches,*’ Casey was utterly disenchanted: ‘We raid the Bosch & shell him & French mortar him—he gets a few of us and we confidently hope we get a

good many of him... But it all seems a rather endless

business . . . Two years of the Western Front is enough’.*° Even the award of the Distinguished Service Order on 1 January 1918 did not change his mood. After Christmas leave in London he returned to the Front for the first time embarrassed by display, asking his parents not to put the initials of his decorations after his

name on envelopes. He told his parents that ‘I often think that | haven’t done enough in this war’.*? Had Casey struck this attitude earlier, one would suppose that he was playing up to his father, but at this point his self-doubt clearly was genuine. Father and son at last had begun to come together in something approaching mutual understanding during Richard’s London leaves, and his father now was comforting: ‘I like the feeling that you have, that you have not

done enough in the War. All the same, I think you have ‘‘made good” and we are all very satisfied and proud of what you have done.’°?

For the rest of the war Casey was prone to restlessness, selfdoubt and boredom; he had had enough, and increasingly he seemed just to be sitting it out. His reaction, for example, to gossip

that Birdwood wanted him on the staff of the just integrated Australian Army Corps was uncharacteristically blank: ‘It is not a

young man’s job.”°! He wanted now to go into the line as a battalion commander after gaining experience as a company commander. He approached Walker and White, but they were unresponsive. He explained his new-found aversion to staff work in terms of not wanting a military career after the war, and in terms showing alienation and retreat into familial security:

... [ should make it clear that my full & only intention is to quit soldiering and go out to Australia with you immediately the war is over.

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I have no idea but to help you in every way I can and learn myself... the elements of the ways of business, from you, in order that I may try & keep things together for Mother & Dermot in later years. This is my first duty.>¢

In part at least, Richard was concerned here to reassure his father, who was coming to fear for his health and, if he should die, for the

fate of his much younger wife and still inexperienced sons. Unfortunately Richard accompanied his reassurance and his expla-

nation for his current dissatisfaction with military life with the admission that ‘I am, I am afraid, a very restless person’. This left his father fearful that his restlessness might encompass, too, the post-war prospect: You may find it irksome to come out to Australia and settle down for a year or so, to quietly take on office work and learn .. . I will do my very best to make you well acquainted with the whole position, and what my views of life are, as far as the care of money is concerned. I will make it as little irksome to you as possible, but the first necessity is, to be content to take on the rather trying job of learning, after you have been in the habit of commanding and teaching for so long.*°

In February 1918 Casey finally was induced to accept Birdwood’s offer of appointment as General Staff Officer, II (Training), on the

corps staff under first Brudenell White and then Blamey. He

remained unenthusiastic: ‘I don’t know if I'll make a success of this

job—I have my “metier’’ and I don’t think it is suited to office work pure & simple.’* His father, of course, was glad that his

mind was more valued than his muscle and that he would be farther

away from the shells, and he wrote to White asking him to give Richard ‘fatherly protection’.

Having diverted a million men from the Eastern Front after the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from the war, Germany and her Allies made a final attempt in the spring and summer of 1918 to break through in the west: in March, near Amiens; in April, in Flanders;

in May, on the Marne. The Germans enjoyed some territorial success, but nothing of great value was taken, and the cost in lives at last was beyond payment. In July a German offensive near Reims petered out, a counter-attack succeeded, and thereafter the Germans were in slow retreat. For Casey the year went in hard work at his

desk, keeping in in touch with Dermot (now, too, holder of the Military Cross), mourning the the deaths of friends, enjoying leave in Paris, keeping his parents busy with small requests. In August

he was made chief staff officer to a temporary composite force

about the size of a division and under Brigadier-General

44 CASEY

E. A. Wisdom. In October his father was keen to visit the front. Richard promised to enlist Brudenell White’s assistance, but suggested that his father obtain the approval of the Australian Prime Minister, W. M. Hughes, who was then in London. His father lunched with Hughes the following month, but by then the war was over. With hopes for an armistice having been dashed on previous occasions, and not yet sure that the war really was at an end, Casey took the events of 11 November calmly. Ten days later, indeed, he complained that ‘it’s getting very boring here and personally I’m sick to death of war that isn’t war’.°° His intention then was to stay

in the army until he had seen something of Germany in an occupation force, then to seek his discharge and to return to Australia via the USA, ‘putting in about six weeks in the States to look at

their oil fields, use of water power ... tobacco growing and manufacture—& to have a second look round some of the big copper shows to see how they have developed’.*° His father thought a quick tour of the USA a good idea, promising him wider introductions than to the “German—Jew crowd’ he had met on his previous visit in 1913-14. A certain misanthropy was now surfacing in Casey. He wrote to his parents:

Iam becoming more and more convinced (I am 28 now) that the number of honest people in the world & the number of people whose first thought is not their own gain—is very limited indeed—and the majority of the limited number are fools.>’

He shared this thought with Blamey, who felt, on the contrary, that ‘there are more decent people about than one thinks’.°® Richard

Gardiner Casey, though, agreed with his son: ‘I do not want to rob you of your faith in human beings, but a considerable percentage of the fellows you are working with are always ready to walk over your head at any minute, if they can benefit themselves.’>? By mid-December Casey was quartered very comfortably in the chateau of the Countess D’Outremont near Charleroi in Belgium, but he was bored with organising educational courses for troops waiting for demobilisation. A week before Christmas he was one of a small group of officers chosen to lunch with the visiting Prince of Wales (‘he seems a cheery boy’). In the week between Christmas and the New Year he visited Dermot, who was stationed over the border in Cologne. Casey was upset by what he saw in Germany, but he was also upset by his own reaction to what he saw. After

SOLDIER 45

years in beautiful towns reduced to rubble and on farmland reduced to the indescribable (moonscape is a favourite term in this context, but its connotations of clean, cold brightness make it inadequate)

he saw German civilians going about their business in utterly undamaged cities: “one feels as if one wants to set to & smash things’. He determined never to return to ‘Hunland’: ‘I boiled with hate all the time I was there.’© There was always to remain in Casey something of the dashing major, but, unlike some, he did not seek deliberately to carry his

soldierly persona into the peace. It is possible that this reserve sprang in part from the kind of war he experienced. Australian servicemen could judge some of their brethren very harshly: as a young man who worked with Casey at Mt Morgan in 1914, Oliver Woodward, was to note, ‘“‘Red Tab” was in general applied to the young bloods who, without special qualification, secured a cushy job on the Staff.’°' It seems more likely, though, that Casey, like most survivors of the 1914-18 war, did not in later life often hark back to those years simply because too many had died, too many

had been maimed, too many had coughed their lives out after exposure to gas and too little of permanent value was gained from a war then unparalleled in the scale of its slaughter. His boyhood model, Theodore Roosevelt, could count lightly the hundreds of

thousands dead in the American Civil War because the union

thereby was saved and the union went on to fulfil a grand destiny, but little came from the 1914-18 war but the seeds of the 1939-45 war and the Holocaust. Men such as Casey never doubted that they

were right to fight and that they fought for right. Nor did they doubt that, as part of an empire that would have faced reallocation had the Central Powers won, it was properly Australia’s war. Still, especially on the Western Front, it was not a war that lent itself to glamorous re-living. The one person in whom Casey was able to confide later was to write that he returned from the war ‘smelling

smells where there were none—the death of men still in his consciousness’. ©

Besides having passed a test of his courage and stamina, what Casey principally gained from the war was an opportunity to earn the regard of older men who emerged as military leaders of rare quality during the war and, in many cases, went on to make a mark in the peace. He made the most of his opportunity, and men such as John Monash and Brudenell White approved his performance. That he showed his qualities not in derring-do gallantry, but rather in month after month of demanding staff work doubtless was the

46 CASEY

more acceptable to this group whose qualities were of the same general kind—and of so high an order as greatly to surprise their metropolitan brothers. On the other hand, the war left Casey, now approaching thirty, more boyish than he might have been had he known a different kind of war or, conceivably, no war at all. Most young lieutenants began their careers as platoon commanders, responsible for perhaps thirty men whom they led into battle, forced often to cope with older and tougher sergeants and shrewd corporals, sharing the privations

and triumphs of their men while yet imposing leadership. Some

green young men could not cope; most did cope and, in the process, matured beyond their years. Lieutenant Casey had none of this: he was working with and for generals. Young captains as a rule commanded companies of perhaps a hundred men, more removed from the ranks than lieutenants, but still physically at the head of their men, still coping with seasoned NCOs. Captain Casey had none of this. At no point in his long war did Casey command men; he was not forced to develop the capacities that allowed young men to lead troops into battle; he did not have to learn the the tricks of coping with strong personalities among peers and juniors. What Casey learned were the tricks of coping with vastly senior men. Unfortunately some of them were very like Richard Gardiner Casey: Bridges was reserved, with little conversation; Brudenell White, whom Casey worshipped, was also reserved. The war, then, tended to reinforce the traits that had developed in Casey during boyhood and adolescence under Richard Gardiner Casey’s regime: courtesy, deference and industry. He was efficient, and he was justifiably proud that, so far as he knew, as brigade major he so framed orders that on no occasion were they amended by seniors or questioned by juniors. To efficiency he added charm.

Doubtless the war aged Casey in some ways—none could see what he saw and remain unaffected—but in some ways it perhaps arrested his development. At war’s end, not having experienced the autonomy and responsibility of command, he was still a nice young man. In fact, he was to retain the soul of a nice young man until he was an old man. He never became a tough bastard of a man, and this perhaps was a pity because he was to seek a career in politics.

Had Richard Gardiner Casey lived to a ripe old age, it is possible

that Richard Casey might slowly have matured in a relationship where power and authority gradually would have passed to him, but Richard Gardiner Casey did not live to a ripe old age. Returning

to Australia with Evelyn in April 1919, Richard Gardiner Casey contracted pneumonia and died at Honolulu at the age of seventy-

|

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three. He left his wife and sons a fortune (his personal estate was valued at £100,000, and various trust arrangements had been made before his death). For Richard Casey there was no longer a master under whom to serve a deferred apprenticeship. He was demobilised and returned to Australia unexpectedly master of his own fate. He might have been better served had his father died much earlier or much later.

|

FOUR

PUBLIC SERVANT

Casey was demobilised and in Quebec for the beginning of his

North American tour when word reached him of his father’s death.

He went at once to his mother in Honolulu, and they returned to Melbourne together. Casey had been out of the country for most of the previous nine years, but he proposed to make his life in Australia, and he seemed nicely placed to make of it a very good life. He was something of a stranger on his old turf, and years at university and war meant that he was approaching thirty with no civilian work experience beyond six months at Mt Morgan back in 1914. But he was wealthy, handsome, decorated and single, and, thanks to his father’s standing and his own educational and wartime connections, he was returning to a niche high in Melbourne’s social and business world—at his first lunch back at the Melbourne Club his companions were Sir Lauchlan Mackinnon, Sir John Grice, Sir Brudenell White and Frank and Ernest Clarke (sons of Sir William

Clarke, Baronet), and at his second they were Andrew Chirnside, Sir James McKay and George Fairbairn. He had in Shipley House a mansion for entertaining, and he had in his mother an attractive and popular hostess. His father’s mandate had been that he ‘learn the elements of business, which will enable you to take charge, when I am not there,

of your own interests and those of your mother and brother’.' These interests, apart from land in Tasmania and Queensland, seem to have comprised mainly share investments. (He at once sold off the land in north-western Tasmania, inherited ultimately from old Cornelius, for a not inconsiderable £20,000.) For a young man who

had inherited his father’s financial advisers, notably the London City firm of Smith & Williamson (Andrew Williamson’s son-inlaw, Mervyn Talbot Rice, was to become his personal adviser and a close friend), this was not necessarily an onerous mandate. The world of finance as such did not greatly attract him, although later in life he was to mourn that he did not apprentice himself to a finance house. At that time, and perhaps affected by Cambridge and army mess values, he was inclined to see bankers as usurers

PUBLIC SERVANT 49

and accountants as mean-minded clerks. And the leisured life of the

clubman pottering with investments did not appeal to him at all. He was happy to visit friends with pastoral properties, but the rural life did not appeal to him, either. What, then, was he to do? He could have made a life for himself based on the boardrooms of large companies. Shortly after his return in 1919, he virtually inherited his father’s place on the board of Mount Morgan, and later in the year that company sent him off on the North American tour cut short by his father’s death. As in 1913, he covered a lot of ground in a short time, though this time he was distracted by poor health and the agonies of toothache (he lost six teeth on the trip). On the way home he picked up his father’s body for reburial, in March 1920 in the St Kilda Cemetery in Melbourne. Soon

afterwards, he followed his father’s steps into the boardrooms of Electrolytic Refining & Smelting, Metal Manufactures and Australian Fertilisers. These directorships led to further invitations: in 1922, for example, he joined the board of Western Assurance. In all these positions, while not technically a working director, he took a close interest in the firms’ activities, and especially in their engineering problems. These, though, were substantial firms, established and prosperous (except for Mount Morgan, now beset by labour troubles and poor copper prices) irrespective of his contribution. Paid employment, even as an executive, did not appeal. In 1920, for example, he knocked back an offer of the Victorian managership of Texaco. In fact, Casey had a dream, and it was to be Australia’s Henry Ford: ‘TI think I would be happiest making things—the material Output has a great fascination for me. It must be a great thing to make something wanted by the world.’? He wondered what sort of a man Ford was, and he longed to meet him. Whether Casey had the temperament of a Henry Ford is doubtful: during his 1919 tour of the USA, for instance, he marvelled at the industrial devel-

opment of Chicago, but he noted of the local population that ‘they're not a nice looking people—not one in five or six looks anything like English’.°’ Still, he had his dream, and he made two attempts to make reality of it. The first saw him take over a Col-

lingwood firm from J. H. Gregory and form Gregory Steel Production Ltd, manufacturing cutlery. Together with Dermot, who had returned to Melbourne after flirting with the notion of a regular army career in Britain, he threw himself into this enterprise, but, though he found some pleasure in coming across his products

in railway dining-cars and some diversion in lobbying federal ministers for increased protection, he was not going to become an

50 CASEY

industrial giant making knives and forks for an Australian market happily accustomed to Sheffield’s products. His second attempt very nearly succeeded. In Melbourne Casey came across A. G. M. Michell, a brilliant theoretical engineer. In 1905 Michell had patented a thrust block that allowed the development of propellor shafts for very large and powerful ships. Now he found a way to apply the same principle to automobile engines. To exploit this, Casey formed a company called Crankless Engines, backed by a syndicate comprising, besides himself and Michell,

John Medley, later Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne but then with Gibbs, Bright & Co.; Arthur Robinson and Wesley Ince, both solicitors and businessmen; and Kenneth Niall, James Niall’s son, and, like Casey, an engineer by training and a company director by occupation. A prototype was built, and

in 1923 Casey took it to the USA for inspection by Ford and General Motors. Both agreed that Michell’s engine was 10 per cent

more efficient than their own, but both found that margin insufficient to justify the capital cost of radical change in their plant.

Casey had hoped that one of them would manufacture the engine under licence. Had the Americans decided differently, Casey and his friends might have become extraordinarily rich, and his life might have taken a different path. With his failure to sell Michell’s engine, Casey’s life took on an

almost frantic tone. He travelled interstate a good deal-on his companies’ business, but it was at home in Melbourne that he was incredibly busy in a way that verged on the compulsive. Every day he visited factories and plants in the industrial suburbs, and every

day he talked to businessmen and professional men, but it was a self-set busyness, which seemed to be leading nowhere. He was just

as busy socially, lunching and dining out, playing tennis and fishing, going to theatres and balls. He was also a part-time soldier,

accepting an invitation from Brudenell White, now Chief of the General Staff, to serve as militia General Staff Officer, II (Intelligence), at Victoria Barracks with, as his executive officer, W. R. Hodgson, in later years a permanent head of the Department of External Affairs and, with Casey as his minister, a diplomat. On his travels in Australia, Casey called on intelligence officers attached

to the various army commands, and after his visit to the USA in 1923 he went to London for talks with military intelligence at the War Office. He was to retain an interest in intelligence and countersubversion for the rest of his life.

In the terms of the day, Casey was extraordinarily eligible. The war had left men of his age relatively scarce, and he was good

PUBLIC SERVANT 51

looking and well off, but this was one field in which he did not show frantic activity. He showed marked interest in only two young women. One was Rose Mary Reynolds, daughter of an English soldier and a mother with New South Wales pastoral connections, but she returned to Britain and in 1924 married Hubert Young, a soldier and future diplomat. The other was Maie Ryan, daughter of Sir Charles Ryan, now back in practice as a surgeon in Collins Street. He was finally to marry Maie, but several

years later, in London. Casey seems to have been the kind of bachelor who enjoys friendship with couples, with the husbands and the wives, and takes some interest in their small children, as though content to be on the periphery of others’ families rather than in any hurry to establish his own household. Indeed, the sparse records that survive suggest that he was oddly indifferent to home and hearth. Evelyn had suitors, but she wished neither to re-marry

nor to sit out a long widowhood at Shipley House, and she and Richard moved out late in 1922—preparatory to selling the house in March 1923-she to a flat in Melbourne Mansions in the city and he to residence at the nearby Melbourne Club. The loss of Shipley House seemed not to bother him at all. Casey also managed to fit into his busy life reading on a considerable scale. In just the first two months of 1922, for example, he read

novels by Stephen McKenna and Herman Melville, Thomas 4 Kempis’s Imitation of Christ, Rupert Brooke’s Letters from America

(with a preface by Henry James, in Casey’s view ‘dull and

involved’) and Benvenuto Cellini’s autobiography. A favourite was

G. K. Chesterton, whose wit clothed in hearty common sense especially appealed to him. It 1s from his reactions to his reading

that one gets some idea of his attitudes at that time. Reading Marriott’s The Grave Impertinence, for example, led him to note: Views like mine. He has an antipathy to Bohemianism. Is ready to give everything but himself. When he sees ‘British’ or ‘Imperial’ he suspects an appeal to his sympathies under false pretences. Is generally interested in topography & subject of a painting rather than its art.*

There survives from this period, too, a lengthy reflection on religion, apparently his own, though probably stimulated by some-

thing he had read. He dismissed the Old Testament as myth. Testimony for Christ’s divinity was ‘very imperfect & unconvincing.’ There was no evidence that prayer was answered. It was absured to worship some supernatural entity whose existence was assumed to allow explanation of the mysterious: ‘as well pray

to the force of gravity’. He was not impressed by the Church:

52 CASEY

‘a soporific, a Pears Soap for the conscience’. The only proper guide

to good conduct was one’s own conscience, and a decent life anyway would be the premium for the after life, if there were such a thing. On the other hand, the Church proclaimed the good and condemned the bad, and individual clergy were well meaning and intelligent, so that ‘no sane man wd want to undermine the influence of the Church, or hurt its prestige’. His views had changed since 1919 when, admittedly after dancing till dawn at a Brussels

ball, he declared that ‘the three classes of persons ... who definitely retard the progress of the world are Divines of all grades, Lawyers and Educationalists’.° Casey was to retain an interest in religion, but it was not an interest that became any better informed,

and in old age he was still to dismiss the theological bases for Christianity while yet considering himself a Christian and approving of Christian morality and, in the main, Christian insti-

tutions. There was something about the Judaic—Christian tradition that appealed to him, but he was never quite to identify the nature of that appeal. Christian morality was acceptable to him because, as he understood it, it amounted to nothing more than the code of the gentleman, and that code, in fact, governed his behaviour rather than divine commandment. Richard Gardiner Casey seemed to envisage his family continuing

after his death as a tight unit. This, however, was not Evelyn’s inclination: she not only abandoned the family home, but till her death in 1942 was to spend a good deal of her time overseas, especially in England with Jane Hall, Thomas Hall’s widow. Dermot, too, was restless, unable to decide on a career. He had adequate means, of course, and they became even more adequate in August 1924, when he married Gwynnedd Browne, whose mother, Mrs Everard Browne, was the only daughter of Andrew Chirnside of Werribee Park. Soon afterwards they went to New York, where for several years Dermot worked in an honorary Capacity as secretary to Sir James Elder, the Australian (Trade) Commissioner. By 1924, then, Casey was thirty-three, unmarried, terribly busy if to no obvious end, without a home and without much left in the

way of family. Politics might have provided a goal, and at Cambridge he had given thought to politics as a career. In Melbourne some political involvement followed almost inevitably

from his business involvement. As a company man, he went on to the board of the Mines & Metals Association in March 1921. As

a Mount Morgan director, he conferred in June 1921 with the Queensland premier, E. G. Theodore, and with union leaders

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during industrial conflict at the mine. In 1921, too, he was brought

into the National Union and served on its important finance committee. The National Union existed to provide financial and organisational backing for the non-Labor parties. Casey, however, seemed disinclined to take advantage of these associations and move

into parliamentary politics. In October 1920 he refused endorse-

ment for the safe Nationalist seat of Toorak in the Victorian

Parliament. At that point he might well have preferred to nurture his industrial dreams, but it is also likely that he felt a need for time for political education after such a long time away from Australia.

He had been absent, after all, virtually since the ‘fusion’ of free trade and protectionist Liberals in federal politics in 1909 had seen the emergence of a two-party system, with conservative and liberal Liberals on one side and Labor on the other. A labour movement extending to International Workers of the World arsonists and Leninist revolutionaries was a profound novelty to him, and so was a society made bitter by conscription referendums and what many

non-Catholics saw as Irish treason. He had grown up in an Australia positively innocent compared with the post-war reality, and on his return in 1919 he was surprised by local acceptance of the change: ‘It is quite curious to hear responsible people quietly admitting their conviction that we are on the eve of civil disturbance in Australia and making no other comment than “‘it’s got to come’”’.’’

He seemed in no hurry to enter the political arena, and yet it was through politics that he was about to abandon his father’s expectations and embark on a curiously varied life of his own. Membership of the National Union brought with it for Casey contact with senior federal Nationalist politicians. One of them was Stanley Bruce. Seven years older than Casey, he had excelled at Melbourne Grammar and at Cambridge (Trinity Hall), where he was a champion oarsman, and later he coached the light blues to

victory over Oxford. Though by inheritance a principal in a Melbourne importing firm, he also practised in Britain as a lawyer

and, with war, served in British regiments. He was wounded at Gallipoli, returned to Australia and was invalided out in 1917. In 1918 he was returned to federal Parliament for the Victorian seat of Flinders. In 1921 he became Treasurer in W. M. Hughes’s last government. Early in 1923 Country Party hostility forced Hughes’s resignation and Bruce replaced him as Prime Minister. On his return to Australia, Bruce for two years rented Shipley House while the Caseys Senior were overseas. Apart from politics, then, Casey

and Bruce had a lot in common, and there quickly developed between them a close rapport, though not quite friendship of the

54 CASEY

usual kind in that Bruce assumed superiority and Casey deferred. However, while the relationship began as one between patron and protégé, it soon took on a familial tone. ‘Our Richard’ seemed almost to become for Bruce the child he never had. For Casey, Bruce seemed almost to become a second father (only when they were both old men did Bruce realise that Casey was not one of the younger generation but almost his own age). Casey operated at a higher level in the business world than Bruce, and he held higher military rank, and this was an early indication of Casey’s tendency to use charm and boyishness in dealing with stronger personalities, a tendency that Bruce was to do nothing to discourage. Casey found great advantage in his relationship with Bruce, who gave him guidance and advice of a kind lacking since his father’s death, but at the price of dependence. There is scarcely enough surviving evidence to justify an amateurish application of psychology, but it would seem that Casey, used to having a strong father impose direction on his life until he was almost thirty, then

wallowed a bit for several years, and was quick to welcome a second father. Close connection with Bruce was to last for only six

or seven years, but for twenty years after that Bruce remained available to encourage, commiserate, advise and applaud. Only when he reached the brink of old age did Casey break the bond. It was only then, too, and with significant personal trauma, that Casey was forced to abandon boyish charm as his way of coping with the world. From about 1922 Casey dined a good deal with Bruce and wrote

speeches for him on minor subjects. Then, sOme time in 1924, Bruce suggested to Casey that he apply for appointment as a clerk in the Public Service. Even for a man perhaps tiring of boardroom life and frustrated as an industrialist, the Public Service of that time would not have been seen by many as an exciting alternative. It was

a small, poor service, which, in the Australian way, had made of mediocrity a god. But what Bruce had in mind was not quite an ordinary job in the federal Public Service. On the contrary, what he envisaged was in the Australian experience novel and adventurous, and Casey did not think twice about surrendering his clutch of valuable directorships in return for £15 9s 3d a week from the

Commonwealth. He was to represent the Commonwealth in London. To understand the significance of this appointment, it is

necessary to note briefly the current state of play in Anglo—

Australian relations.

When delegates from the Australasian colonies met during Casey’s boyhood in the 1890s to discuss some kind of limited

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union, external issues were not much discussed, because, while the colonies enjoyed a high degree of internal self-government, they were part of an empire, and the empire’s foreign policy and diplo-

macy were the preserve of the United Kingdom government in London. Independence from the empire was simply not on the agenda of the federation fathers in the Antipodes: as Victoria’s Alfred Deakin, not the humblest of colonists, declared, ‘there is no

pretence of claiming the power of peace or war, or of exercising power outside our own territories’.° Admittedly the Australian colonial federation came into being in 1901 with a constitution that referred to an ‘external affairs’ power, but this was taken to refer to the federation’s monopoly of the link with London. Admittedly, too, the first federal departments included a Department of External

Affairs, but this initially served as merely a secretariat for prime ministers in their dealings with London and the state capitals, and it was not in any sense a foreign office or home to a diplomatic service.

The empire that the federation fathers knew had been in their lifetime a dynamic system, and many of them assumed further change, even to the point, one day perhaps, of independence. In the decade and a half to the war of 1914-18 there was not, in fact, marked change. Most of the major elements in Australian life remained convinced that empire membership offered more in terms of capital, markets and defence security than lonely independence,

and the only change sought by Australia was consultation by London on important international questions or, at the least, provision by London of information on such questions. London, understandably enough, was not very interested, and war came in

1914 to an empire that was neither consulted nor even well

informed.

During the war Hughes achieved the right of direct access to British Prime Ministers in addition to the orthodox route via the Governor-General and the Colonial Office, but he did not lust for independence. Fearful of Japan and sensitive to Australia’s physical

isolation, he wanted a strong and unified empire, which could protect Australia, but he also wanted Australian participation in empire decision-making, and this would depend on a free flow of information from London and on consultation by London. At an Imperial Conference in 1921 Hughes thought he obtained genuine assurances to this effect from British ministers, but in 1922 he was

proved wrong: out of the blue came a request from London for military support in threatened confrontation with Turkey (the socalled Chanak crisis). The crisis blew over, and Hughes, although

56 CASEY

he pledged Australian support, sent London an extraordinarily long and abusive cable mourning this reversion to 1914 practice.’

Hughes’s successor, Bruce, shared Hughes’s views about the need for adequate information and consultation, and about the impropriety of the call to arms over Chanak. He discussed the question in London early in 1924 with the British Prime Minister of the day, Ramsay MacDonald, who agreed on the need for more effective communication between London and the dominion capitals, but left Bruce with the feeling that change would not come on London’s initiative. Bruce therefore borrowed from Britain an Australian-born Foreign Office official, Allen Leeper (a son of Casey’s Warden at Trinity College in the University of Melbourne), to advise on what steps Australia might take. Reporting to Bruce in June 1924, Leeper assumed that Australia was content to leave the executive machinery of foreign policy and diplomacy to London, and that his task was to advise on how best to link Melbourne (still the federal capital) with the British Government, and especially with the Foreign Office. Leeper’s solution was to have the federal Government recruit two young graduates, one

to serve in Melbourne and the other in London, and to alternate. The man in London would develop contacts and expertise such that he could help the Australian High Commissioner keep Melbourne more effectively informed, to act in Britain on Australia’s behalf and to service Australian delegations at various League of Nations meetings. (Australia was a founder member of the League because its covenant was framed to allow membership to self-governing colonies or dominions.) As Leeper himself put it, he saw the High Commissioner becoming an ambassador in all but name. In stressing the role of the High Commissioner, Leeper was on delicate ground. In these days before Australia became a separate

kingdom in her own right, and when Governors-General represented not the Australian monarch but the British Government, no Australian Prime Minister could be expected keenly to support the notion of a second figure standing between him and the British Government, especially if that second figure was an elderly retired politician (as High Commissioners had been since the appointment of the first of them, Sir George Reid in 1910) and possibly a political enemy. Instead, Bruce accepted the notion of graduates, but with the London appointee taking on a quasidiplomatic role, keeping the British Government informed of Australian thinking as well as keeping the Australian Government informed of British thinking. Bruce assumed, too, that the London

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appointee, whilst a regular public servant, would be very much his personal representative. This, then, was the position Bruce had in mind for Casey, to be

his agent and to burrow into the British governmental machine, thereby ensuring that he would have his own source of information from London, and that he would have a personal and informal channel for conveying his views to London (though Bruce was never to admit the latter function). The two graduate positions were advertised, and applicants were interviewed by Brudenell White, now chairman of the Public Service Board, and Leeper. Casey had a lot going for him: the Prime Minister favoured his candidature, Brudenell White was a mentor, Leeper liked him, and his referees were Sir John Monash, now chairman of the Victorian State Electricity Commission, Sir Mark Sheldon, company chairman, and Sir Arthur Robinson, Victorian Attorney-General. The field was large and included many men later to make a mark, including K. H. Bailey, J. G. B. Castieau, J. G. Hardman, N. E. McKenna, E. E. Longfield Lloyd, F. R. Beasley and P. M. Hamilton.'? However there was none whose qualifications were obviously superior. The London position went to Casey. The Melbourne position went to Dr Walter Henderson, similar to Casey in age

but in little else: where Casey’s background was affluent, Henderson’s was not; where Casey was charming and sociable, Henderson was staid; where Casey outside his professional field was intellectually light, Henderson after war service had put himself through the Sorbonne, winning a doctorate, and then achieving brilliant results at the School of Political Science in Paris. These differences were such that, while Casey and Henderson were civil to each

other, they were not to get on especially well, and Casey was left largely free to focus almost exclusively on Bruce. Bruce, as it happened, did not warm to Henderson as he had to Casey, though it was Bruce’s successor as Prime Minister, James Scullin, who was to ‘roll’ Henderson, and at that for private rather than occupational reasons. (Married into a French Huguenot family, Henderson was not timid about his Protestantism, a hazardous stance when dealing with a keenly Catholic Prime Minister.) The Australian Public Service was not accustomed to outside recruits of the calibre of Casey and Henderson, and, inevitably, there was resentment. Federal public servants working within a rigid seniority system based on recruitment at office-boy level were not happy to see outsiders appointed to rare and enviable plum jobs. Because of his known political connections and his known

58 CASEY

friendship with Bruce, and probably because his known affluence

stimulated the inverted snobbery never far from the surface in Australian public life, criticism was aimed mainly at Casey. The Melbourne Age was especially hostile, professing outrage at what

‘savours of patronage and social pull’, and its comments were reported in the London Press.'! The Age maintained its charges of

favouritism for over a year, besides arguing that Casey was a ‘diminutive ambassador’ whose functions could be fulfilled by the High Commissioner in London. !? Casey learned of his appointment early in September 1924, and he had only a month in which to be briefed by Bruce and officials, to order his affairs (and, unfortunately, to destroy personal papers),

and to enjoy a round of farewells. Neither then nor in the years to come did Casey give the impression that the severing of social bonds disturbed him. In this case he was pleased that his departure was not ignored: ‘About 35 men at Melbourne Club gave me a

goodbye dinner at which Mr Justice MacArthur presided &

speeches of all calibres were made ... My friends generally gave me quite a considerable send off.’!’ His apparent indifference is the more marked in that others found him attractive, and even men could find separation from him distressing. One of his friends in the

Michell syndicate, Arthur Robinson, for example, was eighteen years older, a veteran of state and federal politics, a bank and insurance company director and in every sense a worldly man. Yet he was upset by Casey’s imminent departure, and told him so in emotional terms. He could wish that ‘more of our younger men with a good deal of cash would make the same sacrifice for the commonweal’, but that was not for Robinson much compensation: ... While I am more than glad for my country’s sake that you were chosen I am very sorry for my own sake . . . I shall be like a rudderless ship without you. I do hope that you won’t shift your abode to the other side as if so our opportunities of meeting will be very few . . . Goodbye old chap. This is a lame and impotent letter but I shall miss you more than you imagine & | can’t write very cheerfully. '*

Robinson's letter raises a sensitive question. In some societies homosexuality, if not actually approved, is taken for granted, and gossip tends to circulate about the supposed homosexuality of notable men. Such gossip circulated about Earl Mountbatten, for example, and his official biographer, Philip Ziegler, felt obliged seriously to canvass the matter before concluding that, on the evidence, his subject was not homosexually inclined.'° In Australia

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such has been the popular aversion to homosexuality until very recently that, while most variations in human behaviour have been attributed to politicians, aspersions of homosexuality have not been

a feature of political gossip. Certainly, no such gossip circulated about Casey. Yet the tenor of Robinson’s letter cannot be ignored. Nor can one ignore Casey’s later fascination for Noel Coward and some others, or his interest in them. Ziegler’s conclusion about Mountbatten was that he was not a highly sexed man, and that what he sought was the companionship and emotional intimacy of conventional marriage (which, with Edwina Mountbatten, he did not get). One is inclined similarly to describe Casey, though he was more fortunate in marriage. It would seem, however, that there was something about Casey that appealed to some homosexual men or to the homosexual element in some men, and that Casey was attracted to something in homosexual men (their ‘camp’ style or wit, perhaps). Still, there is no evidence for supposing that Casey was homosexually inclined. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence that, as with many other things, the very phenomenon of homosexuality largely passed him by. He was in his mid-fifties when he recorded hearing for the first time the ‘sinister word’ pederast. In his old age,

when a servant was picked up by police in a public park, it was only with great difficulty that Casey could be convinced that a person might do something in a public park of possible interest to police.

Bruce wrote to the High Commissioner in London, Sir Joseph Cook, in mid-October, advising him of Casey’s appointment and

explaining that, as he had put it to the new British Prime

Minister, Stanley Baldwin, it was intended that Casey would ‘supervise and accelerate the flow of information between the

Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Government’.’® He stressed

that, unlike other Australian public servants stationed in London, Casey would deal directly with Melbourne and not through the High Commission at Australia House. A former Prime Minister and a quiet and shrewd operator in Australian politics, Cook now was thin-skinned and inclined to bluster when his dignity was affronted, and, on his arrival in London in mid-November, Casey found him ‘highly indignant’ at having an Australian official in London directly responsible to Melbourne.'’ Indeed, Cook at first could not believe that Bruce quite meant what he seemed to be saying, and only a confirming cable from Bruce settled the matter.

It must be allowed that Cook, whatever his irritation, was cooperative. He took Casey to meet Baldwin, Austen Chamberlain

60 CASEY

(Foreign Secretary), Leo Amery (Colonial Secretary) and Maurice Hankey (Cabinet Secretary). In the event, Casey was not located at the Foreign Office at all. Chamberlain was entirely benign, and he indicated at the outset that Casey should have access to Foreign Office department heads, but

space was tight at the Foreign Office and Amery intervened to suggest that Casey might be quartered with Hankey at the Cabinet Offices in Whitehall Lane. Chamberlain agreed that Casey would be better off with Hankey ‘where all information centres’.’® Hankey, whose mother was Australian and whose father had farmed for a time in South Australia, was delighted to have an Australian liaison officer in London and made Casey welcome.

Hankey’s support, the known good will of Baldwin and

Chamberlain and the quiet backing of Leeper combined to achieve for Casey more even than Bruce could have envisaged: copies of all despatches and and cables to and from the Foreign Office would be sent to him daily. (Casey was not altogether joking when he said that cables were marked ‘K. C. & C.’—King, Cabinet and Casey.)

The Colonial Office gave him copies of all its communications affecting Australia. As Hankey was also secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence, a body of vital significance to Australia, Casey

was privy to much of its deliberations and those of its subcommittees. Being with Hankey, Casey was at the very centre of British government and, providing he proved personally acceptable, he would hear of most developments in most fields. Indeed, he was likely to be better informed than any single United Kingdom minister. Had Casey’s personality jarred on Hankey and the men at the Foreign Office, had he seemed to them a gauche colonial, all these avenues of access to information would have been cut off, he would have learned little more than Bruce anyway learned by cable from

the Colonial Office, and Bruce’s experiment would have failed. Casey, however, did prove to be personally acceptable. Amery was quick to decide that he was ‘a nice fellow’, and reported to Bruce that he ‘has made an excellent impression’.'? Hankey warmed to him and soon had him as a weekend house guest (a qualified pleasure for the visitor in that the Hankeys were food faddists

addicted to carrot salads). Chamberlain liked him. Although unashamedly Australian, Casey had credentials recognisable in London terms: he was an officer suitably decorated, he was a Cambridge man, he was a man of means (still virtually a prerequisite for a Foreign Office career), he was a man of manners. When royal ears at Buckingham Palace picked up curious gossip about an

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Australian at large in the inner corridors of Whitehall, Hankey reassured Lord Stamfordham, King George V’s secretary, that Casey was ‘an ideal man... A keen Imperialist, but also a keen Australian.’*° Further, if the man was right, Bruce was also lucky

that the time was right. The time was right because, hurt economically by the 1914-18 war, facing the now obvious power of the USA and the alarming novelty of the USSR, and with the Milner

spirit giving an almost mystical significance to at least the white sectors of the Empire, British leaders as never before were disposed

to look on the white dominions as allies rather than as irritating dependants. As Casey noticed soon after his arrival, ‘it is difficult to overestimate the extent to which the value of the co-operation of the Dominions is talked and written about in this country, by all sections of the Press and by all political parties’.7! Casey took a furnished house at 7 Graham Street, Eaton Terrace,

bought a Renault and threw himself into work. His main job was to feed Henderson in Melbourne with every scrap of information likely to improve the Australian Government’s understanding of international affairs in general and British policy in particular. This he did with quite prodigious industry, and had he done no more than this, he would have earned his pay. Besides this, however, from the beginning he wrote frequent letters to Bruce, varying from the earnest to the chattily entertaining, and for Bruce alone.” Acceptable in Whitehall, Casey also slipped easily into London political society. (Within a few months of his arrival, for example, he was dining at the house of J. J. and Lady Violet Astor with, among others, Winston Churchill and Geoffrey Dawson, Editor of The Times.) This allowed him to become Bruce’s eyes and ears, transmitting back to him not only the substance of, say, intricate naval policy papers, British diplomats’ reports on the Far East or New Scotland Yard’s assessments of Comintern activities, but also the gossip circulating in the clubs and great houses. In those days of primitive radio, information reaching Australia was limited, so that material from Casey on, for example, French party politics or the financial situation in Germany, and whether to do with matters of current urgency or merely providing more remote background had greater value to Bruce and his officials than it is easy now to comprehend. Casey, however, was more than a reporter. He also acted as Bruce’s agent. One of his first chores for Bruce was to travel down

to Wales to see if Lord Kylsant might be interested in buying Australia’s Commonwealth Shipping Line. On Bruce’s instructions

he interviewed leading members of the Labour Opposition and

62 CASEY

reported their views. From 1925 he joined Australian delegations at League of Nations meetings in Geneva, sometimes as a backroom adviser, but sometimes taking on a publicly diplomatic role in, for instance, answering for Australia during questioning by the Permanent Mandates Commission on Australia’s administrative performance in New Guinea. Bruce was entirely delighted with Casey’s industry, acceptability and, in the main, values. (Casey was a little more charitable and less moralistic in his judgements than Bruce.) Bruce’s only demand was for more of the same: more information, more gossip, more anecdotes. In dealing with Bruce, and trained in the same schools, Casey was candid, at times self-serving, relaxed and amusing, but always to a degree deferential; he never presumed. In return for this amiable respect, Bruce gave him affection. To occupational success, Casey soon added domestic bliss. On 24 June 1926, at St James’s, Piccadilly, he married Ethel Marian (Maie) Sumner Ryan. Unlike the Caseys, the Ryans had been early recruits

to the Protestant Ascendancy, and Maie’s paternal grandfather, Charles Ryan, who migrated to Victoria in the 1840s, was the son of a Kilkenny solicitor and a mother descended from Irish peers. In Victoria, where he prospered as a pastoralist and as a stock and station agent until the crash of the 1890s, he married a Marian Cotton. (Her sister, Agnes, married a Peter Snodgrass and their daughter, Janet, married, as his second wife, Sir William Clarke, Baronet.) A daughter of Charles and Marian Ryan, Ada, married as well as a colonial gal could marry, becoming the wife of RearAdmiral Lord Charles Scott, a younger brother of the sixth Duke of Buccleuch. Besides the high-flying Ada, the Ryans had a son, also Charles, who studied medicine overseas, satisfied a youthful urge for adventure by serving with Turkish forces in the Russo— Turkish War of 1877-78, returned to Melbourne and established himself as a surgeon in Collins Street. Once settled in Melbourne, the younger Charles Ryan also married well, taking as his wife Alice Sumner. Alice was the daughter of T. J. Sumner, the migrant

son of a Cornish Wesleyan minister. Sumner did very well in Victoria as a merchant and, when he died in 1884, he left a fortune

to his widow and six beautiful daughters (one of whom, Anne, married James Grice, the son of an early partner of Sumner and also very wealthy). Alice Sumner was rather taken with a young pastoralist called Richard Gardiner Casey, when he spent time working in Melbourne in 1883 before entering into partnership

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with Donald Wallace and proceeding to Queensland, but she settled

for Charles Ryan, not as wealthy as some but an interesting man and with impeccable connections. Charles and Alice Ryan had two children, Rupert and Maie.

Rupert showed such rare promise at the Geelong Church of England Grammar School that he was sent to Harrow, passing on

to Woolwich and a commission in the Royal Horse Artillery. After private tuition in Melbourne, Maie went to finishing schools in London and Paris, and thereafter lived mainly overseas. Despite

his age, Charles Ryan enlisted in 1914. (The Turks at Gallipoli were much taken during ceasefires with his Turkish campaign ribbon, which he insisted on wearing.) Like the Caseys Senior, Maie Ryan and her mother spent the war years in London, where they could see something of their men. After the war, Charles and Alice Ryan returned to Melbourne, but Rupert, a career officer in the British Army, was made Deputy High Commissioner for the Rhineland, and Maie spent time with him at Cologne and Koblenz,

where he married Lady Rosemary Hay, the only daughter of his boss, the High Commissioner, the Earl of Erroll. For a colonial, then, Maie Ryan had most unusual connections: her sister-in-law was an earl’s daughter; an uncle was a duke’s brother. A little later,

in the 1930s, her ducal connection was to approach the awesome when Alice, a daughter of the seventh Duke of Buccleuch, married Prince Henry (the Duke of Gloucester), younger brother of the man who would be King George VI. (Later still, it would be possible to describe the grandchildren of Richard and Maie Casey as third

cousins of third cousins of Queen Elizabeth—a thought that probably did not occur to Richard, but probably did occur to Maie.) On her mother’s side, Maie was connected with some of Victoria’s major families—the Grices, the Clarkes, the Chirnsides (Andrew Chirnside Junior married Winifred Sumner, one of Maie’s aunts).*?

It is not known just when Maie Ryan and Richard Casey first met—perhaps as children in Melbourne (old Richard Gardiner Casey was a godfather to Maie’s brother, Rupert), perhaps at a Park

Lane clinic where Maie served as an honorary nurse and where Richard was treated on his return from Gallipoli in 1915, perhaps during leaves in London (their parents, of course, were friends, and

Richard got to know Rupert and Charles Ryan at the front), perhaps in Melbourne after the war during one of Maie’s visits. Certainly they were friendly enough that, when Richard went into

hospital in Melbourne in October 1920 to have his appendix

64 CASEY

removed, Maie Ryan sent him flowers and books. In her own account of their courtship, Maie suggested that she and Richard were not at all close until, at the wedding of friends in London, Richard proposed somewhat presumptuously, and that they married soon afterwards.** However, for reasons not always obvious, Maie in later life was inclined to blur some facts, and friends of hers recall her being in Melbourne in 1924 and recall Richard proposing to her before taking up his appointment in London. In any case, the London wedding to which Maie referred, that of Arthur and Joyce Yencken, occurred in June 1925, a year before her own marriage, and a year during which she and Richard spent a lot of time together in London.

Neither Richard nor Maie was in the first flush of youth when they married in 1926. He was almost thirty-six and, although she was always coy about her age and inclined in later life to drop a few years, she was only six months younger. Nor on the surface did they seem made for each other: where he was spare and tense, she was solid and self-confident; where he was a practical man interested in the mechanics of things, she was an artist (a painter

of genuine talent); where he was rigorously conventional in behaviour and attitudes, she was her own person; where he seems

to have lived a life unmarked by sexual ebullience, she seems to have been altogether livelier and more gregarious. Casey’s immediate predecessor as her suitor was Lord Thomson, an army officer raised to the peerage and made Secretary for Air by Ramsay MacDonald in 1924, and Maie was to retain very fond memories of him (he died in an airship crash in 1930). It was not an arranged marriage, although Richard’s mother and Maie’s father, both strong characters, seem to have taken a lively

interest in it. It would seem that theirs was not a marriage to consummate grand passion, that in each there was a feeling that time was passing, that if they were to marry at all it must be soon,

and that each found the other acceptable. Nevertheless, they married with firm commitment, and that commitment was to see them through almost fifty years during which the bonds between them strengthened and deepened in a relationship of affection,

companionship and mutual dependence. Over the years, and despite the emancipation provided by wealth, Maie was to bridle at some of the constraints of traditional marriage, but Richard rejoiced in them. It was, by now, in character than Richard should have chosen a strong and mature woman for his wife rather than a young debutante. He lacked the instincts of a husband looking

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PSE aeSRE . Re. ,epBee NS higaiiesesiogs Sy SLU SD "MBER. SSSI otSRSSRS ca aSESCOS RRO RS S I Roa ERa NNN. OSORNO EMU ocr cnt sean . ee sahe. SEES. a ERDOSROERS Secon cose SRS oes LeSED ET SSSR LESSSII 2SSS SRR ates na SOON RAS DURRANT eee egctthieanncetececineecehs Pomona Many years later, and after Casey’s death, Menzies protested that Casey

all along had wanted to go to Washington and that the exiled competitor theory had been floated at the time by Casey himself,

116 CASEY

‘a very selfish fellow’, for whom, Menzies said, he had ‘no respect’.° It is difficult to know whether Menzies in late 1939 really

saw Casey as a competitor. Casey, after all, had not been able to compete earlier in the year even with Hughes, a deaf ancient. On the other hand, Menzies and Casey were of different worlds. Menzies was a scholarship boy become a professional man, a lawyer turned politician. He led the UAP, but the men of power behind the UAP were of Casey’s world, and, while there seems no reason to suppose that the industrialists and financiers behind the UAP had any higher an opinion of Casey as a political leader than his parliamentary colleagues seem to have had, it is possible that Menzies feared that they and the Country Party might turn to him. It is even possible that Menzies feared that for as long as Casey remained in Canberra there was a link with Bruce, and that Casey and the Country Party might again agitate for Bruce’s return. As Bruce’s protégé Casey was a personal reminder of the 1920s, when Bruce’s Nationalists and Page’s Country Party ruled in amiable coalition, and there was nothing amiable about non-Labor politics in 1939. That Menzies was prepared to conspire with Maie, whom he did not like and to whom he was to refer as ‘Lady Macbeth’ (a term he also used for Percy Spender’s wife, Jean), leaves little

doubt that he was anxious to have Casey overseas. Despite Menzies’s later claims, it is clear from presently available evidence

that Casey did not want to go overseas. What is not utterly clear is whether Menzies wanted Casey in Washington because he was the best man available or simply because he wanted him out of Australian political life. Given that his first choice for Washington was Bruce, with Casey to go to London (a post that many might have filled adequately), one is inclined to the latter view. What one would dearly like to know are the grounds on which Menzies appealed to Maie and the grounds on which Maie apparently opted for Washington. If Maie was a key factor in this switch in Casey’s career, it was not to be the last time. Casey sailed from Sydney on 2 February 1940, with Maie and the children, then aged eleven and eight, following later when the children had recovered from mumps. In Washington, and assisted by Officer, Casey had first to establish the Australian legation in physical fact, choosing a large house on two acres on Cleveland Avenue to serve both as chancery and residence. With a base established, he then had to cope with formidable problems. First, he had virtually to create an American awareness of Australia’s existence. As he reported back to Canberra, ‘the American people know very

DIPLOMAT 117

little about Australia’ and ‘except on the Pacific coast they think very little about Australia’.’ Second, he had to emphasise and explain Australia’s separateness from Britain as a self-governing dominion (in itself a concept baffling to Americans when applied to white European societies), while yet affirming the unity of the British Empire and Australia’s oneness with Britain in prosecuting the war. Third, he had to do what he could to help British diplomats swing the USA from isolationism to support for the Allies. With the fall of France in 1940 this became very difficult. Now the Allies were little more than Britain and her dominions, and whereas France was the historical friend, Britain was the historical bogeyman: 1812 was not forgotten, and Irish-Americans remembered much more besides. Fourth, like any diplomat, and despite the handicap of representing a country scarcely more than a name remembered from primary school geography lessons in the host society, he had to achieve personal acceptance by powerful men. The timing of Casey’s arrival in Washington did not make the fulfilment of these functions any easier. This was a presidential election year, and throughout 1940 there would be a degree of administrative paralysis and an utter refusal by the White House to alienate public opinion. Washington’s tender respect for public opinion did little to increase Casey’s respect for democracy, the more when public opinion was solidly isolationist: a Gallup Poll published in April 1940 had 96.3 per cent of Americans opposed to war with Germany. Yet, while there was much about American life to depress and alienate Casey, it quickly emerged that he was ideally suited to cope with some American traits. Often frustrated in the more traditionalist Westminster political ethos and by the laconic phlegm of Australian society, his view that ‘life is an urgent vital business’ was seen in the USA not as silliness or nervous tautness but as attractive liveliness.? And, in coping with his problems,

he resorted to means peculiarly appropriate to the American environment: courtship of the Press, personal propaganda, cultivation of contacts. Almost from the day of his arrival Casey was struck by the power of the American Press and especially by its leading columnists. The Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, early advised him to hire a public relations adviser. Casey took on the highly regarded Earl

Newsome as his public relations adviser, and he gave sheer publicity very high priority, telling a probably sceptical John McEwen, Minister for External Affairs in Canberra, that ‘it may be a slight exaggeration to say that the success of our endeavours

118 CASEY

will be measured by the increased references that we can get in the

American daily and periodical press—but not much of an exaggeration’.” He went out of his way to be friendly to journalists and their editors, and he was lucky in that he personified in their eyes the Hollywood notion of a handsome Britisher enlivened by New

World zest. He would anyway have flown himself about the country in his own plane for pleasure, but he was aware that it made him newsworthy. The result was that this unknown diplomat from a scarcely known country of confusing status received

extraordinary publicity. Within a week of his arrival the Washington Post had given him full-page pictorial treatment. His call on President Roosevelt on 5 March to present his credentials was reported with pictures by several papers, including the New York Times, and

he was invited to lunch with the publisher and senior staff of that paper. When Maie joined her husband in mid-March, she brought with her, as her secretary, Patricia Jarrett, a journalist borrowed from Keith Murdoch. Neither in their own lives nor in their treatment of others were the Caseys inclined towards rigorous demarcation and, besides her work for Maie, Pat Jarrett did much to smooth Casey’s way with American journalists. Casey’s propaganda took the form of public speaking on, for a nervous man who was no orator, an incredible scale in terms both of pace (six public speeches and a radio broadcast during a five-day

trip to Chicago, Madison and Milwaukee in May 1940, for example) and in terms of the calibre of the groups he addressed. Within four months of his arrival in Washington he spoke to the National Press Club, the English Speaking Union, the Overseas Writers’ Club, the Women’s Press Club, and the American Society of International Law. In New York he addressed the University Club and the Economics Club. In three days in New York in June 1940 he estimated that he addressed ‘about 400 leaders of thought’ and dined with, or talked to, editors, publishers, senior service officers and what he called ‘a group of about 20 men of consequence at Union League Club’.*° He found that he must be careful with his choice of words. He was free to present an Australian viewpoint and he could say what he thought was at stake in the war, but he dare not say anything that could be interpreted as critical of American isolationism, as advocating American intervention, as seeming to tell Americans what to do: ‘an incautious word

... might get wide and devastating publicity.’" As in London in the 1920s, it emerged in Washington that Casey

had a rare talent for charming important people. His natural shyness and a boyishness now a little at odds with his age (he was

DIPLOMAT 119

now nearly fifty) made for a socially powerful combination. President Roosevelt liked him and took him up and, when Maie arrived in Washington, the President’s wife, Eleanor, had the Caseys to tea at the White House. He melted the austere heart of Cordell Hull,

also a shy man. He wisely took the precaution of courting Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt’s closest and most privileged adviser. The difference between Casey and Menzies was well illustrated when Menzies visited Washington in 1941 and quite failed to understand why Casey so pursued a man whom Menzies found to be ‘a great disappointment—a sort of gangling yokel’.'* Casey also paid close

attention to the President’s man at the State Department, Adolf Berle, as well as Stanley Hornbeck (Hull’s adviser on Far Eastern affairs) and Sumner Welles (Under-Secretary of State). Cabinet members, Congressmen, Supreme Court justices and servicemen all fell into his social net. He called on them, dined with them and drank with them—on at least one occasion to excess, or so Maie thought when she and Pat Jarrett returned to the legation one evening after vacating it for a men-only dinner to find Casey with a pocket full of gravy and a general with a pocket full of mint sauce. The hectic pace in Washington and constant travel about the USA took their toll, and in his first year Casey suffered one bout of pneumonia and two attacks of influenza.

Casey liked much about his hosts—their energy, candour and friendliness—but he found it hard to maintain patience during their slow relinquishment of isolationism. To sit in Washington while France fell and Italy joined Germany in 1940 was not easy: ‘It needs all the self-command one possesses not to be bitter and recriminatory towards this country.’!? He also found difficulty in stomaching what seemed to be the exclusively financial preoccupation of American businessman: ‘the public interest is none of his affair’.'* He suspected that the businessmen he met were attracted by the efficiency of totalitarianism: ‘they are blind to the regimentation, the inevitable and progressive loss of individual freedom, the abuses and the horrors’. He raged privately against the ‘jackal mentality’ of some Americans, who clearly hoped there would be ‘pickings’ from the war, including the transfer of Australia and New Zealand from the British fold to an American sphere of influence where they would be an American trade outlet: ‘their mouths water’.'®

A visit to Miami Beach scandalised him: ‘Ostentation, silly gossip, physical and mental sloth—vulgar and senseless display of wealth that ... is not only criminal but frightening . . . I feel as if I needed a phenyl] bath.”!” He was depressed too by what he

120 CASEY

saw of the American version of democracy. He was accustomed to democracies where politicians might in many cases need parliamentary salaries while they were in Parliament but rarely saw politics as a money-making profession and, if defeated, usually

returned to occupations pursued before entering Parliament, whether in a prosperous profession or a humble trade. In the USA

he met what several decades later was to become common in Australia, the professional politician. It seemed to Casey that career politicians, who anticipated income only from the public purse and who had access to public opinion polls, inevitably pandered to the electorate, however ignorant and perverse that electorate might be.

Had the American electorate at the time been pro-war and antiGerman, it is likely, of course, that Casey, who rarely pursued philosophical issues very far, would have applauded a democracy that forced politicians to respond to the public will.

Not that all was gloom. Taken to see gridiron, he was not diverted by what happened on the football field (‘a strange game ... I find other people’s amusements vastly difficult to comprehend’’®), but he was entertained by the crowd: Republican presidential hopeful Wendell Wilkie ‘and 35,000 other people’. When J. M. Keynes visited Washington, Casey saw a good deal of him and was captivated: ‘rare combination of professional knowledge, ability of expression, artistic temperament and personality, to make

one of the world’s great people’.’? A courtesy call on a new Japanese Ambassador could be amusing: ‘His fly buttons were undone—but I understand, on subsequent enquiry at State Department, that this has no particular significance—it is not some wellunderstood sign of friendship in Oriental countries, as I suspected might have been the case.’”° In establishing a presence in Washington, Casey was assisted by a small but keen staff: Keith Officer until his departure later in 1940

to help open a legation in Tokyo, Alan Watt, Peter Heydon and John McMillan. They comprised a superb team, and all went on to become ambassadors (Watt and Heydon also becoming department

heads in Canberra), but much of their élan came from satisfaction with their boss. Watt recorded his appreciation of Casey’s personal

interest in him and his ‘obvious receptiveness to new ideas ...

provided they were put forward as suggestions ... and not

advanced dogmatically’.*! With the chancery and the Minister’s residence in the same building, harmony between the Caseys and legation officers was more than ordinarily important, and there was harmony. Moreover, the Caseys’ enthusiasm jelled nicely with the excitement of young diplomatic pioneers. As Heydon wrote to

DIPLOMAT 121

John Hood, a senior officer in the Department of External Affairs back in Canberra: The Minister and Mrs Casey are energetic ... they are extraordinarily pleasant to deal with and have been very kind to me. . . One doesn’t mind a bit working hard for people who are prepared to throw themselves into it as they do... There’s no doubt they have made a splendid impression

here.”

Casey’s position was complicated in that, besides creating in Washington an awareness of Australia and an interest in her problems, he had also to work to a degree in harness with the British Embassy. This aspect of his work had been criticised by nationalists, one of them declaring that ‘Casey had no interest in presenting an Australian view in Washington separate from or opposed to that

of the British Embassy’. To make louder the British voice in Washington at a time when London and Canberra were both British capitals was part of his mandate, but he was never in any

sense a creature of the British Embassy. Indeed, Casey was reappraising his attitude towards Britain, blaming Britain in large part for the situation in which Australia found herself in 1940-41. He did not altogether excuse himself and his ministerial colleagues, admitting in 1940 that they had given only ‘an odd and uninformed half-hour every three months to some ad hoc aspect of international affairs’.** A little later, he was more thoroughly self-castigating: So much were we indifferent to the great forces that were in gestation that

I don’t remember a single discussion in Cabinet on any events or tendencies in the “Manchuria to Munich’ period—except what I now look back on as a most unreal discussion on Munich, the implications of which were entirely hidden from us. Australia had its head in the domestic sand in those years, with a vengeance.*

But he laid greater blame at Britain’s door because Australia had depended on Britain for information, and Australia had been illserved: Looking back on the 1937 Imperial Conference—how far removed from reality were its discussions .. . We were given no picture of the mighty efforts Germany was making—no stress was laid on any possible danger

... As late at 1939... How we were misinformed and fooled.

For Casey these were strong words, but he did not become antiBritish. It still seemed to him that British political behaviour was more moral than most. He did, however, become more separatist in his feelings, and he became more convinced than ever that Australia must have her own international diplomatic network so

122 CASEY

that she could gather her own information and act to meet her own

interests.

Casey kept in close touch with the British Embassy primarily to

ensure that a common front was presented to the Roosevelt administration, but there was more to it than that. In comparison with the new and tiny Australian legation, the British Embassy was immense, and Casey was out to tap its expertise, as well as to inform it of contacts made by him and his officers. Even more than this, he aspired, to an educational role. He felt that he understood Americans better than his British counterparts, and on occasion he tried to tell them how better to deal with their hosts: ‘it was not so much a matter of “‘opposing”’ their views (though this came into it, in fact, with all the tact that I could command) as much as quiet

discussion and what I thought was sensible guidance’.*’ He also sought to play the middleman, trying to bridge what he described as ‘the friendly and spontaneous creature’ in the State Department and the ‘rather shy creature’ in the British Embassy.” British diplomats in Washington did not necessarily appreciate the presumption of a Minister from the colonies, and ‘this stupid

man’ was one description of him heard in the corridors of the Foreign Office at home in London.” Casey did get on well with Lord Lothian, the British Ambassador in Washington until his death in December 1940, and he was profoundly distressed by the circumstances of the death of Lothian, a Christian Scientist attended

by Christian Scientists. After Lothian’s death, Washington was disturbed to learn that Churchill was inclined to replace him with old Lloyd George, and Casey was enlisted by a confidant of Roosevelt, Norman Davis, to convey the President’s unwillingness

to accept a man so tainted with the appeasement brush. In fact, Lloyd George was not keen, and Lothian was succeeded by Lord Halifax. Casey established reasonable rapport with him. In London, Bruce was utterly delighted with Casey’s performance:

... you have put up a completely star turn performance ... you have made for yourself the position of the outstanding representative of the British Empire in the U.S.A. not excluding the United Kingdom Ambassador ... Yours has been a remarkable performance ... has stirred even me, almost to the point of effusive praise were such a thing in me.°°

When Casey went to Washington, Australia was at war with Germany, but her greater fear even then was of Japan, and virtually from the moment of his arrival Casey found disconcerting agree-

ment among leading figures in the American administration that

DIPLOMAT 123

Japan was bent on aggression, with disagreement only on when and in what direction Japan would move. Berle told Casey soon after has arrival that Japan would be preoccupied with China for a long time, but Hornbeck, in Casey’s view ‘a man of consequence and authority’, declared that there were no limits to Japanese ambition, that there were no moderates in Tokyo, and that Australia would be among Japan’s ultimate targets.°! Casey also found Americans

devoted to China’s cause and hostile to appeasement of Japan. Given that in an election year any explicit commitment by the USA to Japan’s potential victims could be discounted until after the elec-

tions, the American attitude faced Australia with a dilemma. If Australia sought the appeasement of Japan, she would put herself off-side with the power which, if the worst happened, she hoped

would join Britain in protecting her. On the other hand, if

Australia joined the USA in what Hornbeck called ‘blocking the Japanese and making their path. . . difficult’,°* she might thereby hasten a Pacific war to which Britain could not contribute much and in which the USA, after all, might not be engaged if American public opinion remained neutralist and if the Japanese were careful to avoid American targets. To make matters worse, it seemed to Casey that the Americans were not ready for war, that their navy was in fair condition, but their army and air force were not. The problem was well illustrated for Casey late in May 1940, when he discussed with President Roosevelt a cabled appeal from Menzies for more American aircraft for the Allies. Casey was not able to say much (‘an interview with the President tends to be a

monologue ... You have to hop in while he’s pausing for breath’*’), but what Roosevelt said was very discouraging: with Belgium and the Netherlands under attack as they spoke, America could spare very few aircraft. Worse, Roosevelt canvassed the possibility of Britain’s defeat and expressed the hope that the Royal Navy would flee to North America rather than surrender or scuttle.

Worse still, the next day Roosevelt told Lothian that the USA would not go to war against Japan if Japan attacked the Netherlands East Indies.

In the face of this, Casey was left wallowing: ‘I have been at a loss to know what attitude to take.°* With respect to the war in Europe, he decided to go for broke, telling Sumner Welles that the Allies now were beyond aid and that only an American ultimatum to Germany could save the day. On 6 June he said the same to Hull. What he seems not to have reported back to Canberra was Hull’s depressing response: ‘he hoped and prayed that we could last out

for the next four or five months’. A week later he forwarded

124 CASEY

to Roosevelt another appeal from Menzies, noting the current humbling of France, and begging that the USA throw her whole financial and material weight behind the Allies, but there was no positive response.

With respect to the Pacific, and aware that Britain’s extremity in Europe was forcing her to appeasement of Japan, Casey on 25 June sent Menzies a long cable urging Australian appeasement of Japan. There was, he said, no prospect of the USA going to war in the Pacific or the far East on behalf of other countries, and there was a chance that the USA anyway would further weaken herself in the Pacific by moving part of her fleet to the Atlantic. Casey thought that China must be sacrificed: ‘my own instinct is quite definitely that we should seek to come to terms with Japan on lines that would be attractive to Japan for the simple reason that beggars cannot be choosers’.*° He realised that Britain and the dominions would irritate the USA if they deserted China, but if the USA would not participate in the military consequences of failure to buy off Japan, this was the lesser evil. Indeed, to hold to the American line in the present circumstances would be for Australia suicidal. Casey showed this cable to Hornbeck, who declared angrily that appeasing Japan would not work. Casey replied with some heat that the Allies were not coping well in Europe, and that without the USA as a co-belligerent they could not possibly wage war against Japan, a status which the USA refused to anticipate. Casey was not comforted by Hornbeck’s view that Japan would not be equipped to do more than cut Australia’s lines of communi-_ cation in the event of war. Menzies and his government took the same view as Casey, hoping besides that, if appeasement of Japan lessened the likelihood of war in the Pacific, the USA might feel the more able to assist the Allies against Germany. A few days after

sending his cable to Menzies, Casey talked to Hull and heard the now familiar, if still frustrating, line: the United States did not believe that Japan could be appeased and would not join Britain in negotiations with Japan at the expense of China; equally, the USA would not use force against Japan, preferring economic measures. Japan was appeased to the extent that on 17 July Britain closed

the Burma Road by which China received supplies, and the Menzies Government applauded. Yet, no sooner was Japan thus appeased than the Government in Canberra and Casey in Washington had second thoughts. Casey was coming to feel that, while Australia dare not unnecessarily offend Japan, she could not afford either to offend China and the USA, where hostility towards Japan was hardening. When, late in September 1940, Japan threatened

DIPLOMAT 125

Indo-China and entered a tripartite pact with Germany and Italy (and with the USSR an ally of Germany), appeasement lost its point, and the Burma Road was re-opened on 17 October. In late 1940 and early 1941 Washington rested from the labours of Roosevelt’s re-election, Germany digested Europe, war was waged in North Africa, and Australia continued her swing towards USA positions, supporting China and imposing sanctions against

Japan (export of scrap iron was banned in November). After the elections Roosevelt allowed Anglo-American staff talks to proceed, and Australia was represented. But what Australia and the Allies still could not get was firm advice from Washington on just when and in what circumstances the USA would go to war in the Pacific, though it seemed distressingly clear that the USA would react with force only to physical violation of her own possessions. And by mid-1941 a quarter of the US navy had been moved to the Atlantic.

The USA engaged in almost continuous dialogue with Japan throughout 1941, but was disinclined to report on these talks to the

Allies. As late as 11 September, for example, Casey had learned only that the USA was taking a hard line. A month later Roosevelt told him that he doubted that talk would succeed, and stressed that China would not be abandoned. During October a more militant Government under Tojo took office in Tokyo, but still the talks continued. On 14 November Casey learned from Welles that the talks were breaking down, with the USA insisting on total evacuation of China by Japan. Only on 16 November was Casey able to tell Canberra what USA was seeking: Japanese evacuation of China and Indo-China, and removal of pressure from Thailand and Siberia, in return for American economic assistance. Several days later Japan made counter-proposals involving partial withdrawals under various conditions. Hull told Halifax and Casey that he found the Japanese counter-proposals unsatisfactory, but that he was prepared to go on talking. Casey certainly favoured more talk, convinced that, if the talks broke down, ‘war is not far off’.*’ Canberra agreed with him. On 24 November Hull told Casey that he would propose to Japan a modus vivendi to apply for three months during which Japan

would partly withdraw from Indo-China, the USA would lift its trade embargo against Japan in part, and China would be discussed. Casey urged Hull to proceed along these lines, and again Canberra

agreed. China, however, disagreed violently, with the result that the modus vivendi was not put to Japan, and Washington merely presented a list of broad concepts applicable in a general settlement.

126 CASEY

On 27 November Casey saw Hull and found him depressed and resigned to imminent Japanese aggression, ‘possibly within three or four days’.°> Sumner Welles was no more encouraging. Canberra was still fearful of Japanese aggression in a form that might not force the USA to war, but might doom Australia. It was keen, therefore, to see talks continue for as long as possible, if only to allow time during which Britain’s capacity for participation in a Pacific war might be improved. Casey thus sought to intervene in what probably was the most delicate and significant diplomatic task yet attempted by an Australian. On 28 November Casey rang Canberra to say that he proposed to break the American monopoly on negotiations by talking to the Japanese envoy in

Washington, Saburo Kurusu, himself. The new Minister for External Affairs, Labor’s H. V. Evatt, agreed to this (the Prime

Minister, John Curtin disagreed, but his veto arrived in

Washington by cable too late to stop Casey). On the next day Casey cleared his plans with Hull, who was pessimistic, but did not seek to deny him. Casey’s Head of Chancery, Alan Watt, then contacted the Japanese Embassy and that night Kurusu rang back to say that Casey might call on him.°?

Early on the morning of 30 November Casey called on Halifax and then proceeded to the Japanese Embassy where he talked to Kurusu alone for three-quarters of an hour, and for a further halfhour with the Japanese Ambassador, Kichisaburo Nomura. Casey found Kurusu amiable and able to laugh about Tokyo’s claims of encirclement. However, when Casey offered to take to Hull any fresh proposals that Kurusu might think worth discussing, the Japanese envoy had nothing to suggest. Casey then reported back to Hull and Halifax. He had achieved nothing, but he had been involved: ‘I don’t know how much I have achieved during the day, but it has certainly been an active Sunday.’*? Hull and Kurusu met again to no effect. On 5 December the US Navy Secretary, Frank Knox, told Casey that Japanese Embassy staff had been ordered to burn their papers. On the morning of 7 December, Japan attacked the United States, to the great relief of Casey and his masters in Canberra.

There has been some debate about whether Casey showed some inadequacy in failing to appreciate that from early November the

Japanese interest in negotiation was a charade, thereby leaving Canberra deprived of vital information.*! While it is clear that British, American and Australian authorities all had broken some Japanese ciphers, it is not yet clear just how much was known, and

DIPLOMAT 127

precisely by whom in government, about Japan’s apparent intentions.** Nor is it clear from his own records just what Casey knew or supposed. One of his academic defenders has noted that, at least on 24 November, Casey told Canberra that Kurusu had been given a 27 November negotiation deadline by Tokyo, and that Casey ascribed his information to ‘a most secret and reliable source’.*° It is true that this was a formula of words meant to refer to material gained from cipher intercepts. A version of it had been used, for example, by Bruce, when he warned Menzies in August 1940 that the Japanese Consulate-General in Sydney was sending militarily useful information back to Tokyo. However, it seems to have been overlooked that, when he reported to Canberra on 27 November Casey expressed doubt about his source: “The suspicion enters my mind that the above may be a “plant’’.’*4 In effect, it would seem that Casey in Washington and various sectors of government in Canberra had reason to fear imminent Japanese aggression, but that neither in the Washington legation nor in Canberra was available information seen as utterly conclusive, and that Casey in Washington and ministers in Canberra felt to the very end that efforts had to be made to find, if not avoidance of war through talk, then at least delay. Casey cannot have been optimistic when he spoke to Kurusu, but neither was he necessarily grandstanding—if there was a chance that he might stumble on to some way of reviving the Hull—Kurusu talks, it was a chance worth taking. Evatt clearly agreed with him, doubtless attracted to the notion of Australia

playing a separate diplomatic role as well as by hope for the outcome.

The fall of the Menzies Government in August 1941, and then of Arthur Fadden’s hapless administration, and their succession by a Labor Government under John Curtin in October did not at first affect Casey in Washington. Curtin and his Minister for External Affairs, Evatt, simply encouraged him to maintain rapport with senior American officials and to do all that he could to keep them in dialogue with Japan. Indeed, on 3 December Evatt sent out cables to Bruce, Casey and Eggleston (F. W. Eggleston had opened a legation in Chungking), congratulating them on their efforts to maintain peace in the Pacific. Eggleston was to remain in Evatt’s favour for reasons probably not altogether removed from Evatt’s susceptibility to flattery by the Melbourne mandarin, but that cable

was to be the last pleasure that Casey was to receive from Canberra. Once war broke out, Evatt in his instructions to Casey switched from stress on common cause with the Allies to stress on

128 CASEY

Australia’s separate status and separate needs. The wording of his cables became hectoring and trenchant. Frequently, and in harsh terms, Casey was asked why he had chosen this or that course in

his Washington dealings, as though Evatt were the experienced professional and Casey an obtuse novice; he was chastised for not replying to queries from Canberra promptly and with adequate detail; he was instructed on ‘correct tactics’.*° In late December 1941 and early January 1942 Churchill was in

the USA for talks with Roosevelt. Acting on instructions from an Australian Government fearful of invasion and desperate for aid, Casey lobbied Churchill a good deal. That Casey could achieve direct access to the British Prime Minister and get on well with him stirred some malevolent spirit in Evatt. In one cable, after blasting Casey for discussing with Churchill a point that was not Government policy, Evatt concluded: “To me it rather savours of the old game called Aunt Sally. Do you think Churchill was playing it?’4° The depths of Evatt’s distrust and Casey’s embarrassment were

plumbed on 22 February 1942. Evatt for some time had been acquainted with Felix Frankfurter, a justice of the US Supreme Court and close to Roosevelt. On 22 February Evatt cabled Frankfurter, asking him to support Australia’s pleas for war matériel. However, rather than simply send the cable to the Australian legation in Washington for delivery to Frankfurter, Evatt prefaced the cable with an instruction that it was to be deciphered by the legation’s young third secretary, John McMillan, and handed personally by him to Frankfurter. In effect, Casey was not to see it. By this time Frankfurter and Casey were closer than Frankfurter and Evatt had ever been, and as soon as he received the cable, Frankfurter showed it to Casey. It was anyway a disturbing cable, replete with

references to fifth columnists and treachery. Earle Page, now Australia’s special representative in London, was damned explicitly, but Casey could have felt himself covered by a complaint that the

Australian Government was ‘embarrassed by those who are the agents of the Australian Government’.*’ Alive to the insult to Casey in all this, Frankfurter may not have helped with his reply to Evatt:

... Casey ... enjoys the complete confidence of all in authority here from the highest down for his zeal on behalf of his country, for his persuasiveness and discretion. I myself have had the best of opportunity

for testing his qualities and I can assure you that he deserves your complete confidence.*®

Evatt was not reassured and extreme crankiness continued to mark his dealings with Casey.

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RRoo. ae:ares oe— 3 SRE ite ECS See ee SaBoece se ci RE a..~~ emer ~~ | : i:7 Peg sae a. BY is pote a eae ee le 2. . | . ee 4 ed pn Se ee aS Boaor * pe aeeg = SCsi eae= eeeoo pe esoe sees |eeoe See SES aot .eecrs Sree ares oe 2S ) )8 8 — : es are — oe Os ee oe eg? a foe Pes ee i i . Ee fg i. us So ee Se Pe 3 ae i oe a ee Se es ee See SE ee Then followed a line that in his later published account of the incident Casey felt bound to omit: ‘the Empire has cause for shame in the fact that, in Bengal at least, after a century and

a half of British rule, we can point to no achievement worth the name in any direction’. The cause of this ‘lamentable situation’ was

‘pinch-beck’ financing based on low taxation and minimal expenditure. This had led to a ‘suffocating system of red tape... which has throttled initiative’. The best officials had avoided Bengal, and those who had come had been burdened by the ‘communal racket’ and the low calibre of Bengali politicians. The

Bengalis themselves had a ‘negative and sodden attitude of mind which makes them sit down under difficulties and endure them rather than make an effort to help themselves and find solutions’. Bengal, said Casey, must have men and money. He concluded with an ultimatum: I believe that unless I am given more active assistance, I will have to ask to discuss with you whether it is worth while my remaining here. | do not want to be connected with a failure—particularly when a failure can be averted—but if I am denied the the essential means of coping with the situation, then I believe that someone else should be allowed to try.

Wavell was not amused and, apart from a short telephone call, he did not acknowledge Casey’s letter. It is difficult to know what Casey really thought of Wavell as Viceroy. In his published accounts of this period he wrote more

170 CASEY

from a public relations perspective than as an accurate reporter. In his little book An Australian in India, published in 1947, he made

no mention of the eruption of March 1945, writing, on the contrary, that ‘by the beginning of 1945 I thought everything was going pretty well’.°° In Personal Experience 1939-46, published in 1962, he admitted the eruption, but censored parts of his letter to Wavell lest he provide ammunition for Britain’s enemies. While he went out of his way to praise Wavell, he probably had more than Indians in mind when he wrote that Wavell was ‘economical in his use of words and had no small talk at all. Few Indians knew what to make of so silent a Viceroy.’ Later still, he was to claim special rapport: ‘my wife and I like to think that we were two people with whom Wavell talked freely and easily’.*® Probably as a result of Casey’s outburst, New Delhi in 1945 did provide a special grant

to Bengal, but Casey seems to have been moved by fatigue and frustration rather than coolly to have opted for abrasive tactics. With the war coming to an end, he must have known that he would not long be there to enjoy any beneficence, nor, with partition already in the air, might Bengal survive long to enjoy it.

Just as the Lebanon affair allowed Casey to finish his Cairo appointment on a high note when it seemed likely to peter out, his disaffection in Calcutta was lifted by unexpected political devel-

opment. Late in March, Casey informed New Delhi that the political temperature in Bengal seemed to be rising, with Hindu Congress politicians apparently trying to enter into coalition with

Nazimuddin and his Muslim League followers. Casey took a benign view of this and, not anticipating trouble, left Calcutta for a short visit to Madras. When he returned on 28 March, he found

what he called a ‘political flurry’: quite unexpectedly the Nazimuddin ministry had been defeated on a vote in the Assembly. On the following day the Speaker of the Assembly declared that, as the

Government had been defeated, it was inoperative, and he adjourned the Assembly. While critical of the Speaker, Casey grabbed his chance to reach for Section 93, and Nazimuddin did not object. Casey was a new man. As he wrote on 30 March (Good Friday):

I woke up today with a strange sense of relief—as if a great weight had been lifted from my mind. I had not realised that the political botherations

here had taken up so much of my mind and energy—consciously and

unconsciously—and the prospect of relief from them would be so attractive.°?

BRITISH GOVERNOR 171

Casey was justified in enjoying at least a short period of Section 93 rule in that supply was needed and there was no Assembly to vote it, and it would take at least six months to prepare a roll for elections. New Delhi and London agreed to let Casey apply Section

93, New Delhi wholeheartedly, London with regret and provided it was stressed in Calcutta that Section 93 had nothing to do with relief from inefficiency or corruption and had everything to do with the need for supply and the evident absence of a potentially stable ministry (evident to the extent that Casey made no serious attempt to patch up a stable ministry). With other Indian provinces already ruled by governors under Section 93, there was nothing very novel about its proclamation in Bengal on 31 March, and politicians and populace showed no marked distress. Casey at last was Governor in fact as well as name, and he revelled in his new status. His daily regime was not much affected, but the little change was for him markedly for the better: politicians now dropped in for a cup of tea rather than to agitate or argue; fewer files were received at Government House because civil servants free of political masters made more decisions on their own account. The only odd aspect of the situation was that within two months of fortuitously finding the freedom to press ahead as he wished, Casey signalled his desire to leave Bengal. In one sense it was odd that Casey should wish to leave Bengal just when, after nearly eighteen months there, he was beginning

to get its measure and just when he became free to rule with minimum restraint, but in another it was not. He had made it clear

from the beinning that he was interested in Bengal only for the duration of the war, and that duration was coming to an end. Casey let New Delhi know his wishes in May, just after Germany’s surrender and with Japan’s defeat certain and perhaps imminent. In May, too, the governing coalition in Britain collapsed and elections were set for 5 July. Casey neither anticipated nor feared a Labour

victory, but the elections signalled a return to normal peacetime politics. Furthermore, he was aware that elections were due in Australia in the following year, and he had taken Ryan’s point that he would need time to absorb the political atmosphere, find a seat

and estimate the strength of Menzies. This last factor now for Casey was tinged with a note of moral urgency. Maie had returned from Australia earlier in the year with gloomy accounts of current

Australian morals and morale. Early in May H. A. Stokes, a former journalist on his way to take up duty as First Secretary in the Australian legation in Chungking, also painted a gloomy picture

172 CASEY

of Australian political life under a tired Curtin and an Evatt showing ‘fascist tendencies’, and leaving Casey with the impression

that elections might be brought forward to early in 1946. While Casey did not see anything notably noxious in the modest reformism of the Australian Labor Party, and over the years he devel-

oped genuine friendships with some of its leaders, the little information reaching him from 1942 suggested, rightly or not, that

the Labor Government and the Australian people had not coped well with the stresses of war, and this stimulated his public spirit. At all events, late in May Casey wrote to Amery to seek his release.

On 4 June Amery informed Wavell that Casey should be freed to return to Australia in March 1946. Despite Casey’s recent beha-

viour, Wavell replied that he ‘will be very hard to replace in Bengal’.*°

Since his planned resignation was not made public, Casey was not yet a lame-duck Governor, and he continued with his busy existence in Bengal. In September he ordered the printing of a gran-

diose twenty-year plan for Bengal’s post-war reconstruction, involving prodigious irrigation works, land reclamation and reset-

tlement, livestock improvement, road building, afforestation, education and public health. Given the likely future of Bengal partitioned along communal lines, it was a curiously timed document, but Casey seemed to feel that it would give Bengalis a sense of direction and a more optimistic notion of the possible. Casey anyway soon had other things on his mind: from mid-September he had a marvellous month in London. As usual, Casey spent his time in London talking, eating and drinking with literally hundreds of ministers, backbenchers, officials, businessmen and friends. He called on the King and old

Queen Mary. He talked to the new Prime Minister, Clement

Attlee. He offered advice to his nominated successor, F. J. Burrows, a trade union leader, and agreed on a change-over in early February 1946. All this, metaphorically and literally, was meat and drink to

Casey, but lie also experienced in London a delight he could not have anticipated.

Casey’s experience during the war of British Labour had been very different from his experience of Australian Labor. From his point of view and from the information reaching him, Australian Labor generally and Evatt in particular had shown an inability to rise above party or to allow that non-Labor men happily could serve the national interest and loyally serve a Labor Government. British Labour, on the other hand, had entered a wartime coalition with the Conservatives, and in Cairo and Calcutta Casey had been

BRITISH GOVERNOR 173

the happy servant of governments that included Labour ministers. As it happened, his contacts mainly had been with Conservatives

—Churchill, Eden and Amery—but he had developed a regard for men such as Attlee and Bevin, and from July 1945 he had proceeded amiably under the new Secretary for India in the Attlee Government, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, a barrister, a former Labour MP and a predecessor of Casey at Trinity College, Cambridge. What must have surprised Casey was the degree to which his regard for them, as it now emerged, was matched by their regard for him. First, Arthur Henderson, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the India Office, asked Casey if he wished to be considered for appoint-

ment as chairman of the British Council. The compliment was considerable, but Casey at once declined the offer. However, Philip

Noel-Baker, Minister of State at the Foreign Office, then asked if he would like to be considered for nomination to the position

of Secretary-General of the United Nations. Again, Casey, though warmed, was quick to reject the offer, but his resolve weakened when he learned that Edward Stettinius, until recently Amer-

ican Secretary of State and now in London as American representative on the United Nations Security Council, had cabled

President Truman to suggest that the USA should push either General Dwight Eisenhower or Casey for Secretary-General, preferably Casey. Casey was not naive about such things, he knew

that he would scarcely appeal to the USSR, and while still in

London he ‘believed that the commonsense of it was that it would

not mature’.*' It is now known that Casey’s old enemies in the Foreign Office, notably Gladwyn Jebb, were quietly killing Casey’s

chances in backroom denigration, but ignorant of this, and even though aware that his successful candidature was highly unlikely, it was an understandably perky Casey who left London for Calcutta on 11 October. While still in London, Casey received an interesting letter from Sir Claude Reading in Sydney. Reading strongly urged Casey to return to Australia in time to stand for Parliament at the next elections, and quoted T. M. Ritchie, chairman of the Liberal Party, as agreeing that a safe seat could be found for him. Reading’s appeal was based in part on the need for an alternative to Menzies: Menzies has worked hard to get the new Liberal Party established & it is well on the way but their greatest handicap is Menzies. He has lost the confidence as a leader of the great majority . . . He has learnt something from his failure but not much. His personal weaknesses are still there.

174. CASEY

Concerned that the Liberals were bound to lose the 1946 elections

unless Casey were in the field, Reading seemed to think that, if Casey were in the field, Menzies might lead the Liberals to victory and then stand aside for Casey to become Prime Minister. Perhaps

because of this silliness, Casey replied in very guarded terms. However, the relationship with Menzies did concern Casey. Back

in Calcutta he wrote to Rupert Ryan, accepting Ryan’s earlier

advice that he would need time after his return to absorb Australian

politics as it had evolved since his departure back in 1940, but doubting that his ideas were altogether in harmony with the Liberal Party's: ‘We've got to do more original thinking and be less smugly ‘Conservative’ than we have been.’ However, that was only part of the problem: I’ve no reason to believe that Bob would welcome me back. We clashed before and I believe we’d clash again. Apart from matters of policy, Bob’s method of conducting Cabinet proceedings throws me into despair. He is the greatest advocate and the clearest expounder that I’ve ever met .. . but he’s the worst man at getting anything done that I’ve ever met.*

Nor did Casey like his chances of mounting a successful coup. To another correspondent, he wrote that “‘R. G. Menzies is now the

leader of the Liberal Party and won’t be displaced without an Atomic explosion’.**

When Casey’s resignation became public in early November 1945, more soundings came from Australia. Allan Campbell, of Campbell Advertising in Brisbane, described the Menzies-led Opposition as ‘lamentably weak’ and appealed to Casey to take over: ‘we need a leader of your experience to shape our future destiny’.*° From Adelaide Lloyd Dumas, now managing director of the Advertiser, added his voice. The Liberal organisation at Geelong offered him endorsement for his old seat of Corio, held since his departure by Labor’s John Dedman. In the New Year he was offered endorsement for the New South Wales seat of Calare. In each case the response was courteous but noncommittal. At the time this seemed wise, but later it was to emerge that some interpreted his guarded courtesies as as cold and rejecting, and he made some enemies in the process. Casey’s last months in Bengal proved to be eventful. He had not been long back in Calcutta when for the first time he faced serious

civil discord involving students and workers, which stemmed in part from local grievences and in part from communal tension now being felt all over India as nationalists sought to hasten Britain’s departure and at the same time fought for the spoils of inheritance.

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Casey showed considerable personal courage in visiting trouble spots. On 21 November, a day of confrontation between police and

students, ‘I visited the area ... and endeavoured to find some leaders to talk to.’*° Two days later Calcutta was paralysed by a transport strike and over the following week there was rioting and bloodshed. Casey demanded minimum application of force by the police, and he was slow to call out the army. He had no scruples about the propriety of military support for the civil power, but he was loath to call for the army because the military insisted on using military methods and military weapons, whereas Casey wanted tear gas and truncheons rather than rifles: ‘I don’t want to kill these poor

misguided creatures . . . I don’t want to declare war on the public ... T want to give them a good smack and show them that they can’t be silly without getting hurt—but not killed.’*” He carried his complaint against the army’s disinclination to lower its dignity by using ‘soft’ police methods to the Commander-in-Chief in New

Delhi, Auchinleck, but by then the worst of the violence was over, leaving thirty-three dead and a hundred and fifty injured. Compared with what shortly was to come to the subcontinent, this was very small beer, but Casey took even one death as a defeat, and he was only marginally consoled that ‘the brats of boys who are dignified by the name of students showed some signs of being ashamed of themselves’.*®

In December 1945 and January 1946 Casey also came into personal contact with Indian nationalist leaders, who were showing a heightened interest in Bengal, which faced dismemberment if the Muslim League’s campaign for a Pakistan succeeded. One of them,

M. K. Gandhi, had considered a meeting with Casey since mid1945, but there had been some hesitation on both sides, and it was not until 1 December that Gandhi arrived in Calcutta. That night he and Casey began a series of conversations, supplemented by correspondence, stretching over more than a month. At their first meeting Casey tried not very successfully to persuade Gandhi of British good faith as to independence and to convince him that Congress leaders, notably Jawaharlal Nehru, were promoting communal discord for indefensible reasons. Gandhi tried not very successfully to persuade Casey that Congress had good historical reasons for distrusting Britain. At first contact, Casey was interested by Gandhi, but not greatly impressed by him: ‘I got the impression of Gandhi as a man who could quite easily be worked upon by his politically much more astute colleagues. His political reasoning lacked realism and balance. However there was no sign of senility.’*? The talks continued on the following day, when, after

176 CASEY

listening to more criticism of British perfidy, Casey asked Gandhi to say just what he thought Britain should be doing: “This evidently caught him a bit on the hop as he hesitated and then said that he

would write and tell me.”° The next day happened to be one of Gandhi's ‘silence’ days, but he showed up at Government House, matching Casey’s spoken words with notes. At this point Casey learned from Sudhir Ghosh, an executive with the Tata Iron & Steel Company and principal arranger of the Gandhi—Casey talks, that

Gandhi had wanted to see him in the hope that he would be sympathetic and prepared to represent Gandhi to New Delhi and London in favourable terms. The talks widened on 7 December, when three other Congress leaders called on Casey: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Sardar Vallabhai Patel and Nehru. Casey found Patel ‘malignantly silent’,?!

and he thought Nehru suffered from ‘suppressed frustration, indignation and a rather hysterical impetuosity’.°? It is not known whether Casey then realised that he had followed closely in Nehru’s footsteps at Trinity College, where Nehru, too, had sat in college boats and debated with the Magpie and Stump. Nothing concrete was achieved by these talks, but Casey was convinced of the general value of talks of this kind. Casey thought he

had lessened the distrust of Congress leaders, but this was not for him the main point: ‘I believe that if we... had kept in friendly and non-official touch with these fellows over the last generation

—the present state of affairs might have... been appreciably mitigated . . . Even now it isn’t too late—but will it be done?’ Never inclined himself towards ideological commitment, Casey doubtless tended to undervalue others’ commitment to causes and to over-value personal and emotional factors. What for Casey was the major flaw in British dealings with India would be for many observers one flaw among many, but that it was a flaw few would dispute: I can well believe that a good deal of our trouble and difficulty in India

has been our own fault... We... have not sought the company of the friendship of Indians for their own sake . .. They are rather frightened of us and don’t want to invite a snub by making the first move, as regards

informal meetings. The first move is up to us—and we don’t make it. There is such a thing (God knows) as an inferiority complex—and we have

induced it in India to a high degree. We make them feel ill-at-ease and inferior. In its train comes the natural reaction—bitterness and dislike ... My recent meeting with Azad, Nehru and Patel was an eye-opener in this regard. They arrived (so my staff told me) silent and gloomy. They went away smiling and cracking jokes. I had given them no political

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comfort—rather the reverse—but I had had nearly two hours’ friendly and frank discussion. They had got their stuff off their chests—and had friendly and civil comment. . . . There is a lack of warmth and generosity about our dealings with Indians, both Hindus and Muslims.*4

Between Casey and Gandhi, of course, there was an immense chasm of temperament as well as of culture. Casey the engineer placed his faith in material works; so, in fact, did Gandhi, but in terms difficult for Casey to recognise. At one point, Casey wrote to Gandhi: I should like to see the renaissance of village crafts, but I cannot see that

this would be a real cure in itself for the ills of Bengal. These ills are shortage of food, undernourishment and illiteracy. They derive from the insufficient productivity of the land and... they could be largely cured by the integration and development of the land and water of the province

... Ido not look ... to solve the problem of human nature, but I do

look to the creation of circumstances in which human nature can best fulfil

itself.

To which Gandhi replied: I have not discounted your irrigation scheme . . . I have never suggested that attainment of happiness is possible without the control of physical

surroundings. But I have no desire to enter into any argument... The acid question is one of utilising waste labour, as under your scheme it is of utilising waste water.°©

Casey had another conversation with Nehru on 21 December,

this time alone. The talks was mainly of how best an Indian constitution might be framed to take account of Muslim League attitudes, and on this occasion Casey found him ‘quieter and less belligerent’. On 18 January 1946 Casey had a last, amiable chat with

Gandhi. Shortly before his departure from Calcutta in February, Casey also met the Muslim leader, M. A. Jinnah. Casey found him ‘very civil personally’, but ‘I found myself unmoved by his arguments and had the definite impression that he was a very much lesser man than I had supposed’.°’ During January and February there were further outbreaks of violence in Bengal, but the Caseys found time to enjoy a few days hunting from the backs of elephants. Casey shot a tiger, the skin

of which was to decorate Edrington, but he was at least as

impressed by the elephants: “Before this trip . . . I imagined the job

of re-designing the elephant was a long overdue one... I’ve now got a considerable respect for them.’® His successor, Burrows,

arrived in mid-February, and Casey devoted a lot of time to briefing him. On 19 February the Caseys left Bengal.

178 CASEY

Casey left India with praise in his ears. Wavell mourned that ‘the friendly feeling you created by your human approach to all problems should have been disturbed at the end by that excitable people

... Tam sure that in their hearts they are not ungrateful’.°? From London the Prime Minister, Attlee, wrote of ‘the difficult and exacting post which you have filled with such great ability, energy

and distinction ... You have both been an inspiration to

Europeans and Indians in most difficult times.’°° When news of his talks with Gandhi leaked out, the Times of India in Bombay had said of ‘this alert Australian Governor’ that ‘it is a most happy and laud-

able occurrence that such contacts are being made by at least one Governor’.®’ On his departure that newspaper praised his ‘great patience’ .° It is difficult to evaluate Casey’s performance in Bengal. He was

there for only two years and he had scarcely learned what was demanded of him than he was preparing to leave. A lesser man inheriting a province in such a dreadful mess, and especially a more ‘political’ man, easily could have caused much mischief, but to say

that he left Bengal in a sounder condition than he found it is not to say that he was entirely or even largely responsible. For much of his governorship he depended on his Bengali ministers, and even with direct rule he depended on civil servants (though one should

note that he imported many of the better of them and that he was responsible for reorganising an incredibly archaic civil service structure). What he tried especially to do was to bridge the moat of race

and protocol around Calcutta’s Government House, to treat Bengalis as though he were their Governor rather than to behave as the commander of an occupying power, and in this he was as

successful as any white, short-term Britisher of the raj could possibly have been. For many years to come, Bengalis, and especially those Bengalis who became Pakistanis, were to accord him affection and respect—and this was simply because, whatever his private feelings about them, he had treated them with respect. Day in and day out he talked to people, Indians and Britons, and, as he found to his surprise, this had not been a marked trait of British administrators. This did not always come easily to him: ‘I am sometimes asked if I like Indians. The answer is “yes’’—except those who succumb to “‘politics’’ or to illicit easy money making.’©

He would have put many of the Indians with whom he dealt into

one of those categories, and what he practised often was dissembling diplomacy. In fact, he drew other distinctions, but even they were not those commonly drawn by his British peers. Casey generally reacted to people at first meeting not according to

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whether they were European or Indian, Hindu or Muslim, maharaja or untouchable, but according to whether they were forthright, apparently honest, innovative and preferably articulate. Boring and silly Europeans received as short shrift from him as boring and silly Indians. Further, he seemed more interested in the practical daily needs of ordinary Bengalis than in Calcutta politics because he was more interested: he enjoyed inspecting a site for a

‘new dam; he did not enjoy numbers games in the Calcutta Assembly or constitution-making in New Delhi. This very limited

personal love for politicking, quite as much as his political and diplomatic experience, allowed him to maintain a degree of detachment and to avoid political pitfalls.

His other major attempted contribution was even more intangible and unmeasurable. What he preached, occasionally on radio and in dealings with journalists but mainly in constant conversa-

tion, were the virtues of efficiency, honesty, humanity and

industry, not as part of an alien religious ethic or in the cause of an alien ideology, but as translatable into food, clothing and relief for millions of impoverished Bengalis. It was probably a help to Casey that he was an Australian: he was outsider enough for Indian and Briton alike to allow him some licence in what he said and did. And the Indian experience was good far Casey. In the next decade, when Australia desperately was

to need leaders attuned to the new nationalist Asia, he would be one of the very few available. Of course, there was a limit to the Indian luggage that Casey was prepared to take on board, presumably to the disappointment of at least one Indian: I have the honour to bring to your notice that I wish to be your adopted

son and to live with you... and... to go to Australia when you will go there ... your Jesus has been born again .. . but this time he does not wish to be crucified as before ... 1am Jesus ... Perhaps... you will think that I am mad.™

Despite his health problems, an awful climate and political and administrative difficulties, which certainly at times got him down, Casey was seduced by Bengal. In later years he was always pleased

to stop over at Calcutta airport, always pleased when in Pakistan to look up the men who had been his ministers in Bengal. In his old age, and contemplating the many very different jobs he had filled, he was to write: ‘I have had many opportunities in life—

but I think the time in Bengal ... was probably the most interesting and useful.’

NINE

PARTY CHIEF

When Casey left Bengal early in 1946 there seemed to be nothing that would prevent his return to parliamentary politics in Australia.

With his experience, standing and connections, it was virtually certain that a seat would be found for him when he wanted it, and that when the Liberals and the Country Party were returned to government, he would be a senior minister. It was very unlikely, indeed, that the Labor Government could be bested at elections due later in 1946, and if Casey’s ambition had been limited to resumed

ministerial life, there was no reason why he should not proceed quietly and slowly. Casey, however, left Bengal with higher hopes

than that: his ambition was to dish Menzies and become Prime Minister. If that ambition was to be realised, he had to move fast. Menzies was leader of the Opposition and of the Liberal Party, and he could not be tossed (or other hopefuls, such as Percy Spender, contained) by Casey unless or until Casey entered the Parliamentary Liberal Party. Casey’s obviously best course, then, was to return to Australia as quickly as possible, grab endorsement for a seat, any winnable seat, and once back in Parliament (in presumably, Opposition) do what he could to supplant Menzies. If he could supplant

Menzies and hold off other challengers, he could then lead the Liberals into the next elections, due in 1949, and, provided the coalition could beat Labor at the hustings, he would then be Prime Minister. The key to all this was a parliamentary seat. Menzies was utterly safe from Casey while he was in Parliament and Casey was not.

However, Casey did not return to Australia with all possible speed. With his customary lack of political judgement, and although the born-again Liberal Party was already endorsing candidates, he and Maie went directly from India to the USA. Casey wanted to touch base with his financial advisers in New York, but essentially the trip was a holiday. Given the battering his health had taken in Calcutta, a holiday might have been very enticing, but Casey was temperamentally incapable of relaxing in leisure, and he might as well have returned directly to Australia.

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With no desire to sit about in the sun, Casey spent his time in the USA busily looking up old contacts, making new ones and investigating various applications of science to major developmental works. In Washington he was put up at the Australian legation, where Sir Frederic Eggleston was now Minister, and he drank and dined with the men he had known in 1940-42. He called on Presi-

dent Truman, and liked him: ‘a simple decent man ... gives a much better impression than I had anticipated’.' He also called on Winston Churchill, who happened to be visiting the USA. He had a look at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s work and talked of his own notion of using atomic explosions to blast a canal from Spencers Gulf to Lake Eyre and thereby change the climate of central Australia. In New York he lunched with businessmen, and he dined with Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times. There were less earnest diversions. In California, on the way home, he was introduced to a new aspect of popular culture: We went to see the remarkable phenomenon of a lad called Frank Sinatra

who croons and sends large numbers of young girls into hysterical squeals. A very matter of fact young man who copes with the rather embarrassing exhibitionism with as much dignity as possible.?

Still troubled by boils and prey to colds and fevers, Casey was a little liverish on his departure from San Francisco by ship on 29 March: ‘I cannot hide from myself the fact that I have not enjoyed this five weeks visit to the U.S.A. I have been impressed and depressed by the superficiality and bad manners. They are a generous

people, but most ill-informed’.* On board ship he wrote articles about India for syndication by Reuters and began work on a book.* While still in the USA, Casey had accepted the presidency of the Old Melburnians (Melbourne Church of England Grammar School Old Boys) and of the Australian—American Association, and his re-

entry into Melbourne society after an absence of six years was smooth. His re-entry into Australian politics was not. He was quick

to entertain Menzies at Edrington and to consult the chairman of the Victorian branch of the Liberal Party (W. H. Anderson, chief accountant of the Shell Co. of Australia). Apparently he conveyed to them that he wanted endorsement for a Melbourne metropolitan seat for the 1946 elections. Country seats in Queensland and Victoria were mooted (his cool response to offers from New South Wales while still in Calcutta seems to have alienated some Liberals in that state), but Casey claimed to think it poor form to take an interstate seat from a local. Besides, ‘nor do I want to take a big sprawling seat that would tear the inside out of me to hold, if 1 won

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it’. Consultations continued throughout May and June with Anderson in Melbourne, with Menzies in Canberra (where Casey

stayed at Government House with the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester) and with the party’s federal president, T. M. Ritchie, in Sydney (where he stayed with the Lloyd Joneses at Rosemont). Early in July, with time running out, Casey put aside his earlier

scruples and opted for the Brisbane seat of Lilley, where the selected candidate, C. H. Wilson, offered to stand down in his favour. The Brisbane Press recalled that Casey was Brisbane-born and professed delight, and on 12 July in Adelaide (where he was staying at Government House), Casey told the Press that he would definitely be standing. It would be interesting to know how Maie responded to the notion of residence in Brisbane, but her reactions were not to matter, because on the following day the Queensland People’s Party, as the anti-Labor urbanites north of the Tweed still were known, refused to let Wilson stand aside.

For a further fortnight the Press had great pleasure and the Liberal Party none at all. Faced with growing Press speculation that he feared Casey as a challenger to his leadership, Menzies felt forced publicly to declare that Casey had been offered Corio and Ballarat in Victoria and had refused them, and Casey felt obliged to declare

that he would not seek endorsement for Menzies’s seat of

Kooyong. A Gallup Poll was published showing that 44 per cent of Liberal and Country Party voters approved Menzies as coalition leader, while 34 per cent would prefer Casey, who, it might be noted, had not yet actually joined the Liberal Party. If Menzies were out of the field, 56 per cent would have wanted Casey as leader.© Endorsed candidates for Victorian seats were sought out by reporters and asked if they would stand down for Casey. Only two, both standing for safe Labor seats, offered to stand down, though subsequently, E. D. Mackinnon, candidate for Wannon and a member of a landed family with whom Casey had been friendly for many years, offered to stand aside in his favour. Fortunately,

the Press did not approach Rupert Ryan, who had conveyed privately to Casey that he had no intention of surrendering Flinders

to him. Some of those interviewed were positively waspish: T. W. White, a former Cabinet colleague, suggested that Casey put

his fame at the service of the party and stand for a Labor seat; H. B. Gullett, son of a late colleague and holder of the seat of Henty since a by-election in March, had ‘not uprooted myself from

my farm at Yea and come to hold Henty for a few months, nor to hand it over to anyone else’.’

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Casey continued to insist that he would be standing, though reporters were quick to note that the seats mentioned by Menzies, Corio and Ballarat, were held by prominent Labor ministers (John

Dedman and Reg Pollard), and that Corio extended to the now industrial, Labor-voting area of Sunshine on the western edge

of Melbourne. Not until 25 July did Casey very belatedly

announce that he would not, after all, be standing. One cynical journalistic response was to wonder if Casey had realised that, if he avoided that taint of almost inevitable failure in 1946, he would

be better placed to push Menzies aside and lead the Liberals to victory in 1949. This, however, assumed that Casey was gambling on an early by-election, because the fundamental fact remained that

a Casey outside Parliament could not challenge a Menzies in Parliament. It was scarcely conceivable that the Liberals would sack Menzies before the 1949 elections, go leaderless into those elections,

and then, if somehow successful, appoint Casey to the leadership and the prime ministership if he won his seat. The reality seems to be that Casey, encouraged by admirers and those keen politically to exploit the ‘Bengal Tiger’, as the Press was quick to dub him, allowed himself too readily to assume that an easy place would be found for him. His inclination to reside at the Australian legation in Washington and at government houses on his return to Australia suggests that for a time he still saw himself as a man of imperial consequence, a view reinforced by newspapers

disposed to make rather more of that standing than an Indian provincial governorship perhaps warranted. Even if Bengal glamour did impress journalists and their readers, it did not necessarily impress Casey’s political peers from the 1930s, let alone a much younger generation now entering politics (Casey, after all, was heading into his late fifties). Whatever the reasons, Casey left his run too late, probably was too choosy, and left his withdrawal from the race too late. Casey nevertheless threw himself vigorously into the election campaign, and by polling day, 28 September, he had made forty-

three speeches and travelled 10,000 miles. Nor was he loath to speak in fiercely Labor strongholds at meetings enlivened by the attendance of communists. Not that he made many converts in the Collingwoods. Casey had been dismayed in India not only by racial

chasms between Briton and Indian, but also Hindu—Muslim hostility, and by rigorous caste divisions among Hindus. He had come back to Australia convinced that class antagonism for too long had been encouraged both by labour and by capital, that

184 CASEY

without an immense improvement in industrial relations there could not be material development essential to any kind of exciting

future for Australia. Translated into the Casey style of political rhetoric, which tended to be long on exhortation with an upperclass stammer and short on earthy entertainment, this striving for consensus did not at once impress workers asked to swap militancy

for profit-sharing and bonuses—or, for that matter, employers asked to swap bloodymindedness for fatherliness and higher taxes. More than at any later period, for by the 1949 election campaign his concern about communism allowed him more wholeheartedly

to push party barrows, the 1946 campaign showed up Casey’s political loneliness. Because he had private means based on a wide spread of investments in Australia and overseas, he was neither a conventional parliamentary careerist obliged to play the party game

to the hilt nor a partisan for any particular industrial or sectional interest. Uncommonly detached himself (so detached that he did not notice that Catholics were rare in the higher councils of the Liberal and Country parties until it was pointed out to him by the Jesuit headmaster of Xavier College, Father W. Hackett), he really believed that occupation and social status should (and could) be

irrelevant to party attachment. He thought the Chifley Labor Government in Canberra too negative, too fond of regulation, too inclined to fan social discord and too unwilling to see virtue outside its own ranks (he ascribed his failure on his return to persuade Evatt of the need for Australian diplomatic representation in Cairo to the fact that he was a Liberal), but he was not to the core anti-Labor: I have the impression that the Labour Governments in the States are not bad Governments in N.S.W., Vic., Queensland, W.A. and Tasmania. They may tend to be egalitarian and to level down instead of levelling up,

but ... McKell, Hanlon and Cain sound quite sensible and balanced individuals. It may well be that Labour is only a menace in the Federal sphere.®

Nor, any more than in the 1930s, was he devoted to all on the other side of politics: In moments of depression, I tell myself that I’m not interested in getting back into Federal politics until there is some sign that the employers are willing to do the sort of thing that I’ve been talking about in the Election campaign. ?

Modern numbers democracy in the hands of politicians dependent on success at the hustings for their own bread and butter continued

to dispirit him and, he thought, had dispirited Australia: ‘The people have become used to being bribed and flattered . . .”'° Al-

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though he thought of himself as being more of a democrat than most of the Liberals and Laborites, he was still disinclined to follow that

thought through by troublesome reflection. Casey never tried to develop ideas on how politicians might reflect the popular will without achieving popularity, and seemed never to see a need intellectually to resolve conflict between his attachment to indi-

vidual freedom and happiness for the common man with his scarcely conscious disposition towards some kind of humane corporate state. He also had (then and always) a notable blind spot in that he simply could not imagine life not based on his consider-

able private means. He was an intelligent man, but he was not imaginative. Friends of modest means found he could not comprehend why they did not drive Bentleys like his or dine out as often

as he did. In ordinary material terms, he had never known want and he had probably never known envy, and that meant, among other things, that he could not really perceive the bitterness and anger that often accompany envy among those who have nothing or feel insecure in what they have. The Chifley Government was returned comfortably, and for a time Menzies was depressed and vulnerable. Casey, outside Parliament, could not capitalise on Menzies’s discomfort, and he settled down to his busy version of the life of a leisured gentleman based old Little Parndon and Edrington. At Edrington, Casey remained in a odd situation in that a resident Rupert Ryan remained the senior

male in the ménage, but Casey took an interest in the running of the place and now devoted himself to building and stocking a toolshed and workroom where his first project, the carving of boomerangs, allowed him to revel in the pleasures of woodwork and aerodynamic puzzles. He was also free to take a closer interest in his teenage children, and more especially in Donn. Jane had been

moved from Clyde to Invergowrie for homecraft training at the beginning of 1947 and responsibility for her was left largely to Maie. Casey visited Geelong Grammar several times until he had met all Donn’s masters, who impressed him rather more than the boys (‘very untidy and sloppily turned out’).'! As a father, he tried to do better than his own father, but Richard Gardiner Casey’s methods had lodged deeply. While Casey tried hard, he was limited by his own experience and temperament: It has recently become borne in on me that our children (and I suppose practically all children) know nothing whatever about ‘making arrangements’ and the elementary forms of staff work. So I wrote each of them a letter on the subject explaining what the elements of staff work means and gave as an example, their making arrangements for a journey in which

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several people are involved. I propose to pursue this subject and the method with them. !?

To take another example from a little later, when Jane celebrated her

twenty-first in October 1949 in some style with a party on a boat on the Yarra River, Casey marked the occasion with a letter that showed his good intentions, but also his utter inability to convey emotion in an intelligible and useful form. You are 21 tomorrow—a bit of a landmark—but only the first of many. Herewith a small present—for you to do what you like with. You are at the beginning of things—with a wide field ahead of you —a field that only you can plough. We'll help all we can. It was only yesterday that Mummy & I were 21. We’ve forgotten the detail—but the general story is fresh in our minds. And it is the general story—& not the detail—that matters. Everyone’s story is on much the same lines —only the detail varies. And the general story doesn’t alter much with the years or the generations. All we ask is that you should let us help you. Best love dear Jane—& many happy years— Daddy.'°

Maie, a keen painter in her youth, took up painting again,

entered the city’s art world, and began work on a book on Melbourne architecture.'* Her more refined tastes did not rub off on Casey. His 1946 Christmas reading was C. S. Forester’s Brown on Resolution (‘a fine story’) and Alexander Jeans’s Mysterious Universe (‘too obscure and abstruse for comfort’).!> Casey’s taste in novels and films was to remain not so much philistine as childlike. He liked best a good yarn simply told and preferably with interesting information thrown in. In later years he was to graduate to the sophistication of Ian Fleming’s James Bond stories. Unfortunately for his friends, he tended to become a missionary for whatever fascinated him and the most unlikely people were to be urged to recreate themselves with James Bond’s adventures. Casey’s work with the Australian—American Association, much of it involving publicity and social functions, but also involving planning for the American war memorial in Canberra, kept him in touch with Press and business leaders. Apart from that, and in a way reminiescent of his life in Melbourne in the early 1920s, he became a great visitor to plants and factories. He remained a public figure and he was asked to speak a good deal, whether on Indian or Australian subjects. He hoped for a fusion of the Liberal and Country Parties and was irritated that the ‘stubborn and unyielding resistance of the State Country Party organisations’ prevented it, though in truth most Liberal Party branches were scarcely enthu-

PARTY CHIEF 187

siastic.!© In the main, he used public platforms to preach his industrial relations gospel. For Casey, more amiable industrial relations

reflected his hankering for social harmony in preference to the pluralist discord liked by democrats or the discord assumed and encouraged by Marxists and some employers, but he had another point: There are many industrialists who seem to hope that they can get back to 1939 ... They fail to realise that the workers of Australia have had a good taste of what is called ‘paternalism’ at the hands of the Labour Governments—and they like it. They want more—and if the Employers don’t give it to them of their own accord, Labour Governments will. And with it will inevitably come a closer and closer control of the industry by

Governments, which will cramp private enterprise into narrower and narrower confines. If the Employers do not realise that a change in their attitude of mind is necessary, they are sounding something perilously close to the death knell of private enterprise. '’

In particular, he urged that company reports should be concerned as much with men as with profits, showing ‘the directions in which the enterprise has been made more attractive and less irksome to the workers who cooperate in it’.!® He did not find company chairmen among his social contacts notably responsive to his idea. It was not Casey’s way to try to develop a coherent set of social and political principles or, through reading, to absorb the systems of others. For him, it seemed all very simple: happy workers would be more efficient workers, and that would be nice for the workers, for their employers and for shareholders like himself. But he also believed in happiness for its own sake. There was in him a touch of the nineteenth-century improver, but his anti-snobbery, which

often approached inverted snobbery, left him unsympathetic towards ideologues out to remake men in their own image. As to just what would make workers happy, he was never sure whether to give primacy to status and respect or to money. What he had was a gut feeling borne of his experience in war and in Bengal that firm but enlightened leaders plus decent Australian workers would equal a contented and ultimately a more developed and richer Australia. Those who stood in the way of such harmony, whether reactionary capitalist or revolutionary worker, were anathema to him. For this reason, from the mid-1940s Casey began to take a kinder interest than formerly in Catholics, especially the new breed of educated young Catholics who were morally averse to the older

Irish Labor wheelers and dealers and whose notions of social

harmony involving co-operatives and a kind of syndicalism were close to his own.

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In all of this Casey was more or less in tune with Melbourne businessmen such as W. H. Anderson, Herbert Gepp, H. E. Brookes,

A. G. Warner and G. J. Coles, who, in harness with the Institute of Public Affairs’ Victorian branch (and especially the branch director, C. D. Kemp), had been feeling their way towards an accommodation of Keynesian notions while yet standing out for the rights of the individual and for limits on state power. Casey found some resistance to his views on industrial relations, but his major opponents, the men he saw as yearning for pre-1939 glories, mainly were in Sydney. However, while Casey developed a very high regard for Kemp, he seems not to have played a central role in what was an intellectually sophisticated attempt by Melbourne coteries to redefine Liberalism in relevant, contemporary terms. As much as anything, Casey was trying merely to project his notions of gentlemanly behaviour, to achieve a pleasant, gentlemanly society. For example, Casey as much as anyone was dubious

about racially mixed marriages and about fundamental change to the racial composition of Australian society, but he had seen in Egypt and India how wounding overt white superiority could be, and it seemed to him that the White Australia policy, still preached fervently by all parties, hurt the feelings of Asians. So to hurt the feelings of men because of the colour of their skin was for him bad form and, in view of Asia’s contemporary or imminent nationalist

emancipation, politically short-sighted. As he wrote to Bruce, ‘politically . . . it would be death and damnation’ to air the matter

publicly, but it did seem desirable that White Australia be so implemented as to be ‘less formal & humiliating for educated Asian businessmen and students.’ He thought that ‘sophisticated Asiatics

(Indian and Chinese mostly)’ might be mollified if there were a small Asian immigration quota.!? Bruce agreed that White Australia might be implemented ‘a little less blatantly and offensively’, but

he believed firmly in White Australia on economic grounds, and he feared the importation of racial problems affecting other countries.°° Casey put his views to men like Frank Packer and Brian Penton, owner and editor respectively of the Sydney Daily Telegtaph. He urged Menzies to tackle Evatt on the subject, and personally lobbied the Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell. Despite Calwell’s reputation as a rigorous enforcer of White Australia, Casey was pleasantly surprised to find him ‘civil and receptive’.7! That Casey’s concern was with hurtful appearances rather than with notions of universal equality was indicated by his record of a trip to the Northern Territory in 1947, a record replete with references to, and amusing yarns about, lubras and ‘abos’. After all, ‘even

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Daisy Bates admitted to me privately that she had no real liking for them’.*?

Casey expressed many of his concerns in Double or Quit, published in 1949. It was given over to sermons on the need for

economic development and for more harmonious industrial relations in Australia, but it also conveyed something of his feelings

on other issues. Despite some disillusionment with the United Kingdom, for example, he still referred in the book to ‘we, the British’, and he still urged closer consultation between the United

Kingdom and the dominions. He mourned that there were ‘too many divisions and antagonisms and frictions’ in Australia, and he pined for the eradication of ideology from politics: ‘the only thing

that really matters is the relationship of man to man—ordinary human relationships’.*° His heart was clearly in the right place, but it was not a book of intellectual weight. In his busy socialising Casey constantly came across new faces.

As a rule he was quick privately to brand a man as sound and intelligent or as unsound and silly. If the former, he sometimes took pains to draw the sound chap into his life and to recommend

him to others in his world. (Melbourne men such as Casey,

M. H. Baillieu and Geoffrey Grimwade acted like talent scouts for

each other.) One to take Casey’s fancy was Oscar Oeser. On the whole, Casey professed little regard for universities, on one occasion putting them in the same category as jails and seminaries, and on another declaring that ‘I am not one of those who believes that a university degree is a necessity in life. . . it means very little

except in limited circles’.** He treated academics in the social

sciences with special reserve, and he saw subjects such as psychology as morbid, or worse. Born and raised in South Africa,

Professor Oeser held the Psychology Chair in the University of Melbourne. In Casey’s terms, then, Oeser did not have much going for him. It happened, however, that Casey met Oeser just when he was consumed by the industrial relations’ issue and just when Oeser had embarked on a campaign to persuade employers of the value of psychologists. Casey was impressed: ‘an interesting fellow whom I was glad to meet’.~” Soon afterwards Casey attended a public lecture by Oeser on ‘How Can Psychology Help Industry?’. The lecture was free of academic jargon, Casey again was impressed and, addressing the meeting himself, said “how fortunate I believed this community was in having a man of Oéeser’s capacity and quality’.*° The rest

followed in due course. Oeser and his wife found themselves invited to drink and dine at Little Parndon; Oeser was asked to accompany Casey on one of his expeditions to Geelong Grammar,

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where Oeser inquired about enrolling his own son. When he retired from his chair in 1969, Oeser became head of the human relations unit of the Western Mining Corporation.

Late in May 1947 Anderson suggested to Casey that he might succeed Ritchie as federal president of the Liberal Party. Under the party’s rules, the president could not be a parliamentarian, but elections were two years away, and Casey liked the idea. In mid-June his candidature was discussed at a federal council meeting, and the

discussion favoured him. The mechanics were then handled

smoothly: Casey was made the Berwick branch representative on the party’s Victorian council; at a meeting of that council on 12

August he was one of thirty elected to the state executive committee; the executive committee, in turn, made him one of seven delegates to the federal council; at a meeting of the federal council in Melbourne on 2 September he was elected federal presi-

dent unopposed. He was for the Liberals an obvious choice: he was available, not to say unemployed; the party needed money, and his connections were incomparable; he was more acceptable than most to the Country Party. There could well have been another reason for the approach to Casey. Gallup polls in mid-1947 showed that Menzies was favoured as leader by 41 per cent of Liberal and Country Party voters, but that 40 per cent of them favoured Casey. Given that Casey was not even in Parliament or in public politics of any kind, these were extraodinary figures and, for Menzies, deeply disturbing. Even

more disturbing for the Liberal Party, polls showed that, if

Menzies were not coalition leader, 10 per cent of Labor voters would swing to the coalition, enough to put the coalition into government. What these figures meant, of course, was that Menzies

personally and the Liberal Party generally would be better served by Casey’s public partnership with Menzies than by having Casey continue as a rusticating pretender at Berwick waiting for a call to leadership. Whether, in accepting the federal presidency of the party, Casey was politically wise in terms of his own ambition remains a moot point. As federal president Casey was locked out of any challenge to Menzies, because as federal president he was barred by party rules from entering Parliament and must assert his support for the parliamentary leader. To resign from the presidency, enter Parliament at a by-election and then challenge Menzies would have been to jeopardise his own credibility. On the other hand, Casey might well have had grounds for supposing that even if he avoided the inhibiting presidency, and even if he managed to get into Parliament at a by-election before the next federal elections,

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public opinion might not have been reflected in the views of Liberal

MPs. The veterans had rejected him in 1939 and had seen little of him since, and the novices did not know him at all. As the Liberals’ federal president, Casey at once proclaimed his loyalty to Menzies: ‘if I have a better friend than Mr Menzies I have yet to meet him’. Rumours of their ‘rivalry and antagonism’, he said, caused him ‘great distress and embarrassment’.*’ These fibs largely were swallowed, Press speculation about Menzies—Casey rivalry tended to decline, and the Liberal Party then had the advantage, rare then in Australian politics, of a machine leader and a

parliamentary leader each with what Casey’s beloved public relations men would have called a very high profile. Casey was quick to make his job satisfyingly busy. He travelled constantly,

again drawing on his rare capacity for coping with endless meetings, discussions, conferences, dinners. Whether in boardrooms in Melbourne and Sydney or in halls in small country towns in Tasmania and Queensland, he preached everywhere the need for staunch organisation in the fight for office, for optimism, for selec-

tion of good electoral candidates. Paul Hasluck and Hubert Opperman were among those whose causes he helped to advance. Casey turned out to be a superb fund-raiser. With the social and ‘economic connections of his own family and Maie’s family, with

the contacts he had made in business in the early 1920s and in politics in the 1930s, it is difficult to imagine that anyone had wider

personal contacts among the landed and business communities in virtually all the states, and he put these contacts to good use. He

had the assistance of other well-placed Liberals, especially in Victoria where the party’s finance committee included G. J. Coles, Geoffrey Grimwade and Ian Potter, but Casey had the experience

and good sense to go carefully with state branches unused to a strong federal centre, to work closely with branch officers and to stress to supporters that contributions to federal funds must not be at the expense of normal gifts to the state branches. When in May

1948 it seemed that some branches were suffering financially because he was skimming off funds that normally would have gone

to them, Casey agreed readily to a temporary moratorium on federal fund-raising. In 1949 he happily accepted an arrangement whereby 85 per cent of funds raised for the party went to relevant state branches and only 15 per cent to the federal organisation. Casey did not hesitate to use personal connections. Soon after his election as federal president he went to Queensland and persuaded

Douglas Fraser to part with £1000 and to find another £4000 from pastoralist friends. In Melbourne, Harold Rabling, a fellow

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engineering student at the University of Melbourne, and now chairman of Vacuum Oil and a colleague on the executive of the Australian—American Association, agreed to find £2000. In Sydney,

Charles Lloyd Jones and Frank Packer each came up with £1000, and D. B. Lewington of British-Australian Tobacco parted with £5000. G. B. S. Falkiner of the famous Hatton Rig property at Warren gave £1000 and agreed to press grazier friends for more. A dinner in Adelaide attended by thirty members of leading South Australian families and addressed by Casey produced £15,000 (not that Casey had much time for South Australian Liberals, ‘a very conservative, parochial crowd’**). He described his basic ploy thus: My method is to have a series of dinners for the Tall Poppies, which seem to vary from about 12 to about 50 men. I give them a good meal and then subject them to 30 to 40 minutes talk—outlining the situation and what it is proposed to do about it. Then invite questions and trail one’s coat generally. These dinners have been quite successful and lucrative. I don’t let them get away until the most sticky of them has no more to say.??

From his own resources and from lists provided by the state branches, Casey also sent out thousands of letters appealing for funds, and many to whom he wrote suggested the names of others Open to approach. Casey was lucky in that, a month before his election to the party presidency, the Labor Government had announced its decision to seek the nationalisation of private banks.

This caused immense consternation not only among the affluent but among even those with modest savings, and Casey, whatever his flirtation when in Cairo with notions of radically changing the banking system, now capitalised on that consternation. His appeal letters were long, alarmist (a “Socialist Republic’ was in the offing)

and couched in the language of the recipients: they should not hesitate to realise capital assets to allow contributions because capital assets under socialism would be wasting assets, and to realise some assets would be to provide an insurance premium on the rest. He was meticulous with acknowledgements, whether for £50 from

the Misses Armytage at Como or £5000 from the National Bank. While he made it clear that he would direct the spending of the money, he observed the proprieties liked by the kind of people he was addressing by stressing that contributions would go to a trust fund to be administered by a lawyer, John Burt, and an accountant, Edwin Nixon, both partners in respected Melbourne firms. Finally, he appealed to a sense of almost conspiratorial privilege in that he

was asking for funds, not for ordinary party activities, but for

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‘a large scale, centrally organised programme of research, publicity and public relations’ in a campaign of some subtlety: ‘the campaign

will be very largely, if not entirely, non-political—and designed to create the background of sympathetic interest in Liberalism and in free enterprise’.°° Casey’s initial onslaught raised about £100,000 in the six months to April 1948. By the conventions of that pre-television time, this

was an enormous sum. He found that some very wealthy men replied with rapturous letters and tiny cheques. Some, on grounds

of scruple, gave nothing. (R. J. F. Boyer wrote that ‘the role of neutrality irks me sorely’, but he refused to contribute while he was

chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission.*') Some large donations came anonymously through solicitors from companies unwilling to provoke their Labor-supporting workers. (Even receipts had to be handled carefully lest secretarial staff become privy to their employers’ contributions and pass on the information to union leaders.) With the local situation nicely in hand, Casey decided the time was ripe to look overseas: “I am off to London. . . to try and beat up some funds from the U.K. firms with subsidiaries or businesses in Australia.’** He alerted Bruce, Clive Baillieu and his personal financial adviser, Mervyn Talbot Rice, of the need for London funds, and he left Sydney on 22 January 1948 to knock on doors there himself. Casey and the Liberals were embarrassed by the claim by a former federal officer of the party, Eric White, published in his newsletter, Inside Canberra, that Casey was seeking £100,000

in London for the Liberal Party. Menzies felt obliged to lie about this, asserting that Casey was not seeking money in London, but merely ‘first hand information of the latest ideas’ about ‘very

similar political issues to those we are dealing with here’.*

Menzies’s denial did not convince the Labor Press, which made

much of English Tory money being marshalled against the

Australian worker. While Casey had some impact in London, it is very unlikely that he raised £100,000, whether directly from business leaders there or

later through their Australian companies. He dined separately in turn with the heads of pastoral companies (their meanness left him with an abiding dislike of land companies, which, it seemed to him, had taken millions out of Australia and put back very little), ship-

ping lines and so on, but if the response generally was amiable, it seems not to have been markedly enthusiastic. And yet again his health gave way. Over the previous year he had still suffered from boils. Now in London he was hospitalised with what at first was

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thought to be a recurrence of dysentery, but turned out to be an intestinal abscess. As usual, illness gave Casey enforced rest and a chance to read. He enjoyed Renan’s Life of Jesus and The Apostles,

James F. Byrne’s Speaking Frankly, Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, The Letters and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln and The Unpublished Diaries of Pierre Laval. Before illness struck he had dined with Keith Hancock, soon to take up a foundation Chair of History at the Australian National University. Hancock gave Casey a copy of his Politics in Pitcairn, but Casey found it ‘unreadable

... evidently written for his academic colleagues’.°* Hugh

Trevor-Roper’s The Last Days of Hitler, on the other hand, was ‘enthralling’. While in London, Casey called on the Prime Minister,

Clement Attlee, and the Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, whom he held in increasingly high regard. He also had a chat with Queen

Mary and the Duchess of Gloucester. He renewed contact with Harold Macmillan and, as in Cairo, found his historical culture beyond him: ‘still confounds me by drawing comparisons between now and the Wars of the Roses and Wat Tyler’s Rebellion!’*> As in 1945, his vanity was tickled by offers of big appointments. The Secretary for Commonwealth Relations, Philip Noel-Baker, asked

if he would serve as chairman of the Kashmir Plebiscite Commission. Bruce, now chairman of the World Food Council, asked if he would serve as Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization. The latter probably was in Bruce’s gift, and a few years later Casey was to have second thoughts about such a job away from Canberra and Menzies. Before Casey left for England, he warned William Spooner, a leading member of the Liberals’ New South Wales branch, that ‘my

main aim will not necessarily be to collect money in Britain, so much as to stimulate as many parent firms as possible to authorise (or tell) their Australian subsidiaries to contribute to State and/or Federal funds in Australia’.*© It is difficult, therefore, to evaluate the success of his visit, though it would seem that some firms resisted his pleas—notably the Vestey empire and some shipping firms. At home he continued his fund raising throughout 1948 and 1949, agreeing to stay on as federal president until after the 1949 elections, even if this did briefly break a party rule. Not all money was acceptable. From the beginning he had been doubtful about accepting money from industry associations, lest they demand special treatment from Liberals in government. When in May 1948, for example, he discovered that an anonymous donation of £1000 had come from the Fire & Accident Underwriters’ Association, he

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returned the money. In financial matters, whether party or private, Casey was very scrupulous. Liberal confidence rose when the Liberals won office in Victoria in 1947 (though Casey did not give credit to the Liberals, arguing that the ALP’s nationalisation proposals at the federal level had killed Labor’s chances at the state level). Furthermore, the Chifley

Government was embarrassed by legal challenge to its bank nationalisation proposals and by communist activity in the trade unions. Thus 1949 saw an all-out appeal for funds in the form of joint federal—state appeals. In Victoria alone this appeal raised £40,000. As ever, there were great variations in the response to Casey’s appeals, with North Broken Hill giving £2250 but South Broken Hill only £200 and Huddart Parker £100. The Manifold family gave £1000, but Sir Rupert Clarke gave only £50. Overall, however, Casey was well satisfied. It was later estimated that, in his period as federal president, Casey raised £272,000 for the Liberals.°’

If Casey’s fund-raising ability was of great value to the Liberals, his devotion to public relations was of scarcely less value. Struck

in Washington by the impact of public relations on American politics, he was determined to harness the new force in the Liberal

interest. Unimpressed by J. Walter Thompson because that firm was unimpressed by his ideas on how best to exploit radio, Casey was introduced to Sim Rubensohn of Hansen Rubensohn (‘a not very Jewish looking Jew’ was Casey’s description of him).°*° Rubensohn had been working for the ALP, and Labor’s campaign in 1946 had been much more effective than the Liberals’. Casey was delighted with him, persuaded him to switch clients (his commission on outlay would be 15 per cent) and worked happily with him preparing election strategies, and especially in covert use

of radio. This last involved the development of programmes conveying attitudes in line with Liberal values but without mentioning the Liberal Party. Two of the programmes nursed by Casey with greatest care had very large audiences: ‘John Henry Austral’ went out over eighty-one radio stations and ‘Country Quiz’ over fifty-six. Casey took great pains to woo the Press, talking to editors and reporters, writing articles himself on everything from India to the coal industry, and appointing journalists to the party secretariat.

With a large interstate media empire at his command, Keith Murdoch at the Herald & Weekly Times Ltd was especially courted. Casey and Murdoch had fallen out in recent years. There

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had been squabbles over organising publicity for Australia in the USA in 1940, when Murdoch was Director-General of Information in Australia and Casey was Minister in Washington. Casey had not forgiven the Murdoch newspapers’ disapproval of his acceptance of the Cairo appointment. Casey still looked unkindly on Murdoch personally (though in future years he was to look kindly on his son, Rupert Murdoch, and help him achieve access to American credit), but he co-operated with him in the Australian—American Association, and he courted him for Liberal purposes. Apparently, Casey kept his feelings about Murdoch well disguised, for several times

during 1949 Murdoch tried to persuade Casey to forget about politics and succeed him as chairman of the Herald & Weekly Times Ltd, and he lent Casey one of his best journalists, Allen Dawes, to work for the Liberal Party. In Sydney he obtained the services of Vincent Kelly of the Sun, Harry Standish of the Sydney Morning Herald and Donald Horne of the Daily Telegraph to form a Press panel for the Liberals. As a result of all of this, it might be

noted, Casey as well as the Liberal Party received immense publicity, and to the general public the Liberals seemed to have in Menzies and Casey two almost equal leaders. Menzies might be

Opposition leader in Parliament, but Casey kept himself in the public eye on almost a daily basis, and Australian women especially

reacted happily to this handsome, apparently debonaire man so unlike the ordinary run of political figures. Casey had not been involved in the early development of a Liberal philosophy, and after his return in Australia he was not

much inclined to immerse himself in theoretical questions. However, in the run up to the 1949 elections he took a greater interest in policy that was acceptable to him and he thought sellable

to the electorate. On his initiative the federal party agreed in February 1949 to the formation of policy subcommittees in the states to work on subjects allocated by Casey and Menzies. Casey also recruited Professor Benjamin Higgins and Richard Downing from the University of Melbourne’s Commerce Faculty to work

part-time for the party (one day a week for six months for the grand payment of £146).

Although swept up in the crusade for office, Casey remained privately reserved about some of his political company. He was conscious that he had put immense effort into an attempt to convert

Australian employers to a more benign approach to industrial relations, and that largely he had failed. It seemed to him now that hustings talk about the virtues of private enterprise was foolish if a few entrepreneurs rather than the mass of working Australians

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were to enjoy the benefits. He pushed hard for an Australian bill of rights and the Liberals’ federal executive gave its approval to ‘rather a watery form’. Casey was no lawyer and Menzies would not have a bar of it, so Casey was left lamenting: ‘I sometimes

... wonder if we have the proper concern for the average man ...°? However, it was the political rhetoric of private enterprise that, even though he used it himself, most bothered him: I have little or no objection to public ownership of ‘public utilities’ which can be defined as activities that serve the public directly with goods and services, and in respect of which it is not practicable or economic that there should be competition.

I am for Government works of the ‘development stimulator’ type Government financial assistance ... is justified and right, to various sections of the community which would otherwise be in distress. These may be defined by age groups and economic condition . . . producers of economically desirable goods who would otherwise ... be unable to produce at a profit.*°

Towards fringe groups on the right, Casey was scarcely more tolerant than to groups on the left. Among the quasi-religious crusaders, Moral Rearmament, for example, evoked almost instinc-

tive aversion. The League of Rights fared worse: its leader, Eric Butler, was a ‘loud mouthed fellow’. A Sydney group called the People’s Union was a little more acceptable, because it preached incentives and profit-sharing, two notions dear to Casey. With respect to the mainstream parties, Casey simply could not take their differences very seriously. His heart was with the Liberals

only to the extent that on balance he preferred them to Labor, but it was a fine balance. He was not a good hater, and in practical dealings with people party affliation just did not register with him. On the contrary, he was proprietorial about most major elements in Australian life, as inclined to speak of ‘our’ labour movement as ‘our’ Liberal Party, as inclined to respect the sound tradesman

as the learned professional (rather more, in fact). Thus, for example, when he discovered in mid-1948 that Arthur Calwell’s much-loved only son, an eleven-year-old, was dying of leukemia, Casey did not stop to reflect that he had met Calwell only once, or that he was a political enemy, or that they came from different worlds and that Calwell’s could well sustain him. His reaction was at once to rush about Melbourne gathering medical reports on the boy to send to his own medical adviser in London, Lord Horder. The boy died, and for the rest of his life Arthur Calwell mourned. When one loses a son or daughter in childhood, one attaches special

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privilege to anyone who seemed really to care about the fate of the child. It is no wonder that thereafter friendship developed between Casey and the tough Labor man from North Melbourne.

Nevertheless Casey was aware that in the 1930s he had not projected an image of toughness, that he had not played even an ordinarily venomous role in political theatre, and that if he was to climb to the top in politics a tough image was essential. In the latter 1940s, therefore, he determined to change his image. A more aggressive style did help to keep him in the headlines, but his attempts at rough-house politics rarely were successful. To describe the advocates of bank nationalisation as ‘thin-lipped, long-haired doctrinaires in a back room, seeking to grind the people down to political cannon-fodder’ was about par for the course,*! but to say that ‘this pipe-smoking J. B. Chifley is Australian enemy No.1’ was merely to delight cartoonists.4* And his claims that there were thousands of tea-swilling public servants who should be sacked impressed no one. Ironically, Casey sullied his reputation in the minds of many Australians when he tried to match hard rhetoric with something in which he did genuinely believe, and that was his anti-commu-

nism. Casey had not been in the vanguard of the Cold War warriors. For years he had been hostile to communism on the grounds that, while it promised freedom, it delivered slavery. At best a qualified admirer of capitalism, he preferred its reform to its

replacement with something worse. To the extent that he had a picture of them, communists seemed to him to be seedy, violent and alienated people; to the extent that he had a clear picture of communism, and there is no reason to suppose that he had read a word of Marx or understood what Marxism was about, it was, like all ideologies in his eyes, awfully pretentious—and awfully foreign. However unknowingly, Casey’s was the English Whig tradition: kings without power, a state church without unseemly enthusiasms or a creed to be taken too seriously, a polity without demagogues or ‘isms’, constant if chequered progress towards human betterment and freedom, tolerance of limited domestic dissent, good will towards amiable foreigners. Communism for Casey, then, was to be opposed, but for a year or two after his return to Australia he gave opposition to it no great priority, regarding it largely as an industrial relations problem and assuming that if there were no avaricious and bloody-minded employers there would be no communists.

Immediately after the war Casey did not have strong feelings about the USSR, and he had been surprised to find anti-Soviet

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feeling in the USA early in 1946. On his return to Australia, Casey

had turned to Bruce for advice about international affairs, and Bruce, as it happened, was very tolerant of the USSR, convinced that Moscow had no wish to dominate the world, that Soviet control of eastern Europe should be seen as no more than a Soviet insurance policy against the failure of the United Nations collective

security system, and that the grosser aspects of Soviet behaviour could be seen as as a response to ‘reactionary elements in the capitalistic countries and the Roman Catholic Church’.* In Australia Casey turned to the Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, Hugh McClure Smith, who assured him that the USSR’s international posturing was meant only to distract domestic opinion, and that Stalin and his generation soon would be displaced by younger and more sensible men, who, in the meantime, should be convinced

that the West bore them no ill-will. Casey thought this ‘quite sensibly put’.**

This sense of detachment, however, did not last, and during 1947

and 1948 Casey swung over to an anti-communist and an antiSoviet stance, accusing the Labor Government of weakness in coping with communists in the unions, which were supposed to fall within its bailiwick, and of encouraging a climate of class antagonism helpful to Communists. By late 1948 he was calling for

a purge of the Commonwealth Public Service: ‘people owing allegiance to a foreign and hostile power should not be allowed to

continue in the service of the Crown ... We know there is a considerable number of traitors in some Government depart-

ments.’4? He was to make variations on this statement for several years, and later, when there was public reaction against the excesses of McCarthyism (a reaction exploited with skill by communists and even more by ex-communists still committed to less Stalinist forms of socialism), his reputation was hurt. Some revisionists have pushed the view that Casey and his kind

opted for anti-communism as an electoral tactic, that their anticommunism was utterly cynical. Doubtless there was an electoral aspect, but there was also genuine conviction, and Casey’s private conversations matched his public oratory. Talking in London, for example, to A. V. A. Alexander, Minister of Defence in the Attlee Government, ‘I said I didn’t believe Socialism (on any important scale) was possible without the labour camp and compulsion and gestapo.’*© A major factor in Casey’s adoption of a strong anticommunist position was the fall of Czechoslovakia in 1948. He was in London during what he called the ‘awful travail’ of that country, he had known and liked Jan Masaryk during the war, and the fate

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of what he saw as a modern Protestant democracy was for him much more affecting than the earlier experience of Catholic and Orthodox backwaters farther east. And with Czechoslovakia his cultural inheritance came into play. In his English Protestant tradition, the only significant internationalist ideology had been ‘Roman’ Catholicism, for historical and political reasons damned precisely because Catholics gave loyalty to a power focus outside the state. Casey had been educated to look with a very jaundiced eye at men proclaiming their devotion to a foreign state, to a cause

above states or to violent change within their own states. In this context, for Casey in the late 1940s to call communists traitors was

no more loose-tongued than for the sons of 1688 to describe Catholic Jacobites in the 1740s as traitors. Apart from residual hopes for the British Commonwealth, for a special Anglo—Australian relationship and for more intimate Anglo—American relations, Casey was a nationalist uninterested in international organisations

and always potentially hostile to international ideologies. The outcome was that, where formerly Casey had seen Australian communists as seedy neurotics or as good men warped by avaricious employers, now he saw them as servants of an expansionist foreign power—and there was little in the rhetoric of Australian communists or of Moscow in conflict with that view. Casey’s fundamental longing for a cohesive, friendly national society made him see trade unions not as the natural enemy of his party, but as a major community element with which the Liberal

Party should be involved if it proposed to govern with the approval, and for the benefit, of all Australians. Another factor in his interest in trade unions certainly was his growing conviction that communism was an evil to be fought on all fronts, including the unions, where its presence was most obvious. It is difficult now to establish just how close Casey came to the anti-communist fight in the unions. It is clear that he was privy to the operations of “The Association’, an anti-communist group led by Thomas Blamey, but he would seem to have been informed rather than involved. It is clear, too, that he became aware of the operations of the ALP industrial groups and sought to co-operate with them. Late in 1947, for example, an official of the Blacksmiths’ Union called on him to discuss the communist issue. Casey’s reaction was to note: ‘I must call and see Vic Stout, Secretary of the Trades Hall.’*’ It is

not known whether he did call on Stout (the notion of Casey striding down the corridors of the Trades Hall boggles the mind a little) or whether he was as familiar as the note suggested with J. V. Stout, then fiercely embattled with grouper and Catholic

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‘Movement’ allies against communists. (Once he had defeated the communists, Stout, like many others, then turned on his allies.) In

April 1949 Casey recorded a conversation with Menzies and Magnus Cormack, a member of the Liberals’ Victorian executive,

during which he told them of his contacts with the industrial groups achieved through “The Association’, and ‘of my proposal to give them a hand in their anti-Communist activities, with which they agreed’.*® There are indications that he passed funds to the ALP industrial groups and introduced groupers to businessmen able to contribute finance, sometimes in the form of highly paid advertisements in union journals controlled by groupers. Because of their fear of communism, some Protestants were converted almost overnight in the late 1940s to the patriotic virtues of Catholics. Keith Murdoch for example, a son of the manse, saw the light, and suddenly some Catholic journalists found themselves preferred for executive positions in the Melbourne Herald organisation. Casey did come to value the anti-communism of Catholics, and he referred in hostile terms to Protestants more concerned to fight old battles against Rome than new battles against Moscow, but he took up in the Liberal Party what he called the ‘sectarian issue’ for quite other reasons. He did not enjoy special prescience in seeing that traditional Catholic leanings towards Labor were jeopardised by communist leadership of unions or by ALP statism. Indeed, it was to be more than a decade before even the electorally canny Menzies was to reach wholeheartedly for the Catholic vote, and even then only after Catholic social mobility had become ' obvious, and after the breakaway Democratic Labor Party had led some Catholics part-way across the political spectrum. Casey’s concerns were quite other. A minor factor probably was the embarrassment he and Maie had suffered in non-Labor ranks because of their Irish names, and the acceptance of Protestant Caseys and Ryans would be easier if Catholic Caseys and Ryans also were acceptable. Yet another minor factor probably was his emotional distaste for discrimination where the discrimination was against groups that he personally found acceptable or where the discrimination seemed to him so overt as to be hurtful. Beyond these personal factors, though, there was a political issue. It seemed to him that a party that had to ‘disabuse the public mind that we are the party of privilege’ could not afford to ignore a quarter of

the population disposed to see the Liberals in just that light.’ Throughout his term as federal president Casey constantly raised the matter in the party’s councils, urging that Catholics be recruited and that the party aim for the Catholic vote, but he was ahead of

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his time. Of the thirty-nine federal council delegates who voted him into the presidency in 1949, just two of them were Catholics, one of them Tasmania’s Enid Lyons. On his departure, the situation was little changed. Casey’s discomfort in some kinds of conservative company, his regard for moderate Labor men, his nationalism and his qualified statism raise the question of whether in any circumstances he might

have found a place in Labor ranks. Given his upbringing, means and mode of life, this might seem to be absurd speculation. After

all, membership of the Melbourne Club was not for Casey a formality; he enjoyed eating and drinking there, even if on occasion

he found the wine list wanting. Yet men with comparable backgrounds had joined the Labour Party in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s and would join the Australian Labor Party in the 1960s and 1970s. One of Casey’s closest friends, the younger Colin Bednall, was educated at St Peter’s in Adelaide, married a daughter of C. L. A. Abbott (New South Wales pastoralist, federal Country

Party minister in 1928-29 and backer of clandestine associations during the Depression years), rose high under Murdoch in the Melbourne Herald empire, where he showed anything but radical tendencies, saw the light late, and stood for Parliament for the ALP under Gough Whitlam.

During Casey’s political heyday, though, the ALP did not accommodate men such as Casey, who would have faced in it insuperable social hurdles. Just as in those years some High Church

Anglicans moved intellectually to Rome, but could not face the Irish proletarian temper of Australian Irish Catholicism and finished

their spiritual journey only in cultivated Benedictine company in Britain, Casey would have found moderate Labor company politically congenial but socially and culturally barren. He liked and respected Labor men such as Robert Cosgrove, Arthur Calwell, Robert Heffron and, a little later, Fred Daly (just as he liked and respected British Labour men such as Ernest Bevin, rather than what he called ‘filleted and delicate’ Conservatives such as Anthony Eden and Anthony Nutting), but he would have been lonely in their

party as it then existed. Unfortunately he was to know some

loneliness in Liberal ranks. In general, Casey was a success as federal president of the Liberal

Party. He raised a lot of money for the party, and he achieved a. lot of publicity for it. He helped to increase the cohesion of the party, always a problem in Australia’s federal politics. He failed with some of his personal campaigns, but his only substantial

PARTY CHIEF 203

failure as party leader was his inability to achieve union with the Country Party, and that was scarcely achievable. Yet, despite his success at the head of a party machine, Casey remained a political novice. He did not become a wire-puller or a stacker of branches; he did not call in political debts to achieve his aims, or even set

about creating political credit on which to draw. He did not become a backroom manipulator. This inability to flex muscle was nowhere better shown than in his uncertainty about endorsement for a safe seat in 1949. As the elections approached, and although he was the federal party boss, Casey found that he could not take

for granted endorsement for any kind of seat, safe or not, and he was touched when Cormack said that, if he were endorsed and

Casey were not, he would try to surrender his seat to Casey. (Cormack, in the event, went to the Senate in 1951.) Casey finally nominated for the new seat of Latrobe. Small and then regarded

as semi-metropolitan, Latrobe was on the eastern outskirts of Melbourne, stretching from Box Hill and Oakleigh down to Dandenong and out to ‘the Hills’. It was then an area of market gardens, small farms, holiday houses and pockets of commuters. If the coalition was to win government it had to take seats such as Latrobe, but it was not regarded at the time as an utterly safe seat.

Casey won Liberal endorsement for Latrobe with minimal competition from a public servant, and he was then assisted in his

fight to win it at the elections by a curious development on the Labor side. Earlier in 1949, a man called Cecil Sharpley had left the

Communist Party and published a series of articles in the

Melbourne Herald denouncing his former comrades. Casey was not at first very impressed by Sharpley: ‘Iam told. . . that Cecil Sharp-

ley is a very third-rate type of human being’.*’ Later in the year

Casey met Sharpley and found ‘a weak face—but I think... genuine in his conversion’.°' What was to affect Casey, though, was not Sharpley’s character but his claim that the endorsed Labor candidate for Latrobe, John Bennett, was an undercover member of the Communist Party. Whether because, like Casey, it believed the Sharpley claim or because it thought the allegation enough to hurt Labor, the party late in the day withdrew Bennett’s endorsement and endorsed a replacement. All this was a great help to Casey, and at the elections on 10 December he won Latrobe by a large margin. Casey won Latrobe, Rupert Ryan held Flinders, and the coalition was returned to government. Christmas 1949 should have been a happy season at Edrington. Instead, the family’s Christmas jinx

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reappeared: Misr, taken into the family as a puppy in Cairo, survivor of Calcutta and migration to Australia, drowned in the Edrington swimming pool on Christmas Eve. Sparing with his affection, Misr had responded principally to Jane, but Casey was

distressed: ‘Misr’s death has thrown a black cloud over this Christmas’.°* The cloud was to be a long time in lifting.

TEN

IN THE DESERT

The blight on Casey’s Christmas of 1949, caused by the death of his dog, cut short euphoria flowing from the coalition’s electoral success and his own return to executive government. The next two to three years, during which he passed into his sixties, were not happy ones for Casey and brought him to the edge of resignation from public life in a welter of frustration and bitterness. Staunchly supported by the formidable Maie, he drew on reserves of courage to survive the crisis, and he passed through to enjoy better times, but it was a near thing. Domestically, it was a good time. Maie had enjoyed her years overseas and, back in Melbourne, she made a busy life for herself in her own right. Maie tended towards female liberation, unusual for that time. She complained publicly that “Australian women are dogged by domesticity’, mourning especially that “after a man and woman are married they seldom mix with members of the opposite sex... desirable in many ways, it is very narrowing’.' Overseas, she had been constrained by her husband’s official positions, but it is unlikely that at home she tolerated much sexual segregation

or was too dogged by domesticity (the Caseys always ran to servants). Still, her public statements did truly indicate a degree of frustration in her situation. She was a fervent admirer of Edwina Mountbatten, but, while there were some similarities between the Caseys and the Mountbattens, Maie was a much more stable and disciplined person than Lady Mountbatten. Casey feared that even back in Australia her position as his wife affected her: “she has a dreadful life in Melbourne, with continuous meetings and correspondence’.* In this he was being excessively protective, for in fact they worked out a pleasant compromise, less in mode then than

now, in which they lived their own lives but admitted the other to the extent that the other wished to enter. Casey admitted her fully to his life, discussing all his concerns with her, having her read ministerial papers, and on at least one occasion quoting her views in Cabinet.

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Casey and Maie shared great pleasure in flying their old Fairchild machine bought in the USA during their Washington posting, lent

to the RAAF for the duration of the war, and now reconditioned. In general, they were much closer than married couples of their

class then tended to be. Her own person and financially independent, she assumed a kind of equality, and he allowed it without strain; her strength and confidence complemented but also soothed

his more volatile and highly strung temperament. When he was tempted to throw in the towel, she listened, talked and encouraged perseverance. Each had a temper and there were flare-ups, but quarrels were brief. His seemed to be the greater emotional dependence,

and he fretted when she was ill or for long absent from his side, but appearances probably were misleading. In her way she loved and respected her husband, and his death was to leave her inconsolable. Friends regarded them as unusual, so apparently sufficient to themselves as a couple as to make it difficult for them to include their own children in a wider family setting. Casey took some pride and pleasure in Jane, now an attractive young woman, and he was delighted when, in 1951, she went to Britain and fell in love with the place. But she found difficulty in coping with a father who showed little overt affection and who was inclined to try to organise her life as his father had organised his. Faced with filial resistance, he tended towards greater reserve and

towards constant criticism: ‘Jane is not, I regret to say, very businesslike.’? Each hankered after closer rapport; neither knew quite how to achieve it. For the time being, Casey’s relations with his son proceeded more smoothly. Donn matriculated well at the end of 1949, but returned to Geelong Grammar for an additional year as house captain and school prefect prior to enrolling in 1951 in Agricultural Science in the University of Melbourne, as a resident of his father’s old college, Trinity. When, after a year or two, Donn

was to wonder about the point of finishing his degree, Casey was forced to swallow former words about the dubious significance of

university degrees and to inform his son that ‘it’s not only important to have knowledge—but to have the label that demonstrates that you have the knowledge’ .* In the early 1950s, then, Casey’s domestic life was reasonably content. With the coalition returned to government and with Casey now a minister, it was a frantic life. His ministerial offices were in Melbourne, where he divided his time between Little Parndon at East Melbourne and Edrington at Berwick, but he had often to live at the Hotel Canberra during Cabinet meetings and parliamentary sessions, and he had to travel about the states constantly. This kind

IN THE DESERT 207

of busyness, however, was entirely to Casey’s taste. Much less to his taste was political life under Robert Menzies. When Casey was federal president of the Liberal Party and Menzies

was parliamentary leader, the Press treated them virtually as dual leaders of the party. Even late in the 1949 election campaign, the Press, and especially the Murdoch Press, continued to bill Casey as an alternative to Menzies, though Casey declared his willingness to serve under Menzies ‘with the greatest possible enthusiasm’.° Electoral success, however, radically changed the relationship between Menzies and Casey. In government, Menzies as parliamentary leader became the leader and Casey became a follower, and coalition arrangements and his long absence from Parliament did not

allow Casey to slip into second place behind Menzies. When the new ministry was sworn in on 19 December, Casey, as Minister for Supply and Development and for Works and Housing, ranked seventh in the coalition Cabinet and fifth among Liberal ministers. Ahead of him were Menzies, the Country Party’s Arthur Fadden (Treasurer), the Liberals’ Eric Harrison (Defence and Post-War Reconstruction), the Liberals’ Harold Holt (Labour and National Service, and Immigration), the Country Party’s John McEwen (Commerce and Agriculture) and the Liberals’ Percy Spender (External Affairs and External Territories). The Menzies ministry of 1949 was not especially youthful, with an average age of fiftyfive; but Casey was now fifty-nine, and all the men ahead of him were younger—Holt eighteen years younger. Only Menzies had comparable ministerial experience, though farther down in the ministry there were the veterans T. W. White and Earle Page. The apparently mundane portfolios given to Casey did not in themselves indicate Menzian hostility. The new Government inherited the administrative arrangements of its Labor predecessor, many portfolios were scheduled for early rearrangement, and from the beginning Casey was expected to make a new and separate DevelOpment ministry his major task. After the election Menzies treated him with apparent courtesy, discussing Cabinet arrangements with him, ensuring that he was happy with the portfolios given to him: ‘R.G.M. telephoned this afternoon to ask if I’d take Development, which I said I'd like to do. He said he gathered that was what I wanted—and, as he said, he wanted to give me what I wanted to do’.

Despite some public speculation to the contrary, Casey seems not

to have supposed that his experience gave him a mortgage on the External Affairs portfolio, nor does he seem to have wanted it: ‘some people have believed that I should have taken the External

208 CASEY

Affairs portfolio—but I didn’t want this—in fact the thing that I wanted to do was development and nothing else’.’ In March 1950 the new Government’s administrative framework was put in place, and Casey became Minister for National Development and Minister

for Works and Housing, with responsibility also for the Snowy Mountains Authority and, shortly afterwards, for CSIRO. In many ways the Development portfolio was right for Casey: he was an engineer; he believed in the need for great material expansion and, more than many Liberals, he saw a major role for the state in promoting development. On the other hand, there was from the beginning a fuzziness about functions. Casey was not intent on empire building and he opted from the first for a ‘small high grade specialist Department’.®? But his vision was long: ‘I conceive the Ministry of National Development as being a Depart-

ment with adequate powers and adequate staff to stimulate and initiate proposals for development in any and every line of activity

in Australia.’? His public servants found this all very grand, but difficult to reduce to practicality, and one of his department’s division heads was clearly bemused: “The main role ... would

... seem to be one of review and policy making ... the grand strategy of development in peace time.’!° Except for specialists, such as economists, scientists and diplomats, Casey did not hold career public servants in high regard and, unimpressed by his

inheritance, he persuaded Menzies to let him borrow Robert Jackson from the British Treasury to head his department. An Australian, ‘Jacko’ had worked on the supply side under Casey in Cairo. The Press liked him, but he did not stay long, and whether he contributed much besides headlines before he returned to Britain late in 1950 to recover from illness and marry economist Barbara Ward is open to question. Casey was inclined almost to apologise for him to his English masters: “He had not had an easy time here, as he has had to absorb an entirely new situation in which economics and politics have been inextricably mixed.’!! Fortunately Casey recruited a good man as Jackson’s deputy and successor, Major-General J. E. S. Stevens, who had been general manager of the Overseas Telecommunications Commission. It is also the case that, while Casey was appropriately educated for Development and was fascinated by visionary public works, his was not generally an innovative mind, and he was better at implementing others’ ideas than formulating his own and bullying them

through to realisation. To a degree, the Development portfolio brought out the worst in him in that he was, if anything, too satisfied that his functions would be to talk, to arrange surveys, to

IN THE DESERT 209

suggest possible projects, to liaise with the states and other federal departments. Still, at the outset, he was happy with the portfolio. Development, after all, seemed central to the concerns of the new

Government, which was committed to continuing Labor’s postwar immigration programme and to expansion of the Australian economy. Three facts, however, soon emerged quickly to sour Casey’s expectations. First, in mid-1950, Australia joined the USA and other members of the United Nations in war in Korea. Second, partly as a result of the war, wool prices soared, and inflation, already a problem, went through the roof. Third, in government, and especially in coalition government, political considerations were all important, and Casey, it emerged, was even less at ease as a politician in the 1950s than he had been in the 1930s. The impact of the Korean War was partly a matter of mood. Casey did not expect the Korean conflict to lead to wider war though, contrary to the views of later deterrence theorists, he did fear the war might come when the USSR achieved nuclear parity with the USA, ‘which I am told is something like 3 to 7 years ahead’.'* That prospect, and his fear after Czechoslovakia that in

the meantime the USSR would subvert the West piecemeal, depressed him: “The times are serious and it is not easy to get much piece of mind.’”!° As he wrote to Felix Frankfurter, ‘the powers of

darkness’ seemed to be closing in.'* Like many others at such a time, he felt Australia’s remoteness from friends, telling Nancy Astor that ‘England seems a long way from Australia, with a lot of potentially unpleasant things in between. The whole business is a pretty dog’s breakfast wherever you look.’!? That China was now

a communist state did not seem especially to worry him, and he

was one of the few Australian conservative leaders inclined towards

early recognition of the new regime in Peking. He dismissed as a domestic American electoral gimmick the naming of China by the USA as an aggressor in Korea. Casey now saw communists not as trade union radicals or as armchair revolutionaries, but as servants of a malevolent USSR and a potentially malevolent China, so he felt no scruples about his Government’s attempt to ban the Communist Party in 1950: ‘a democracy has to take unorthodox measures to defend itself against an enemy within its own shores’.'° The High Court’s rejection of

the ban as unconstitutional quite baffled him. He reported to Frankfurter:

Latham, as you will know, was in a minority of one in supporting the validity of the Act. Owen Dixon and the the other five were against it.

210 CASEY

As you know, I know less than nothing about the law—but Jack Latham’s argument seemed to me just ordinary commonsense—and took, what I would believe to be, the notorious facts of the world situ-

ation into account—and of which the other six seemed to revel in ignoring. However, I expect Owen will have put it to you in quite another light—and who am I to argue the Law?!’

Casey campaigned vigorously in the eastern states when the Government sought constitutional warranty by referendum. He was surprised to find during the campaign that some Liberals were

pessimistic about the outcome. He remained confident, and the

rejection of the Government’s case at the referendum on 22 September 1951 stunned and worried him: ‘It seems to me to mean that the people don’t begin to realise the extent and intensity of the

menace, which is quite frightening.’!® If popular indifference worried him, he was even more upset by his inability to persuade Menzies to mount a massive public relations campaign designed to

alert the electorate. It is not clear just what kind of campaign he had in mind. Judging by his approach to propaganda for the Liberal Party, probably he would have supplemented weekly radio chats by

Menzies in the Roosevelt style with appropriate doctoring of the scripts of the then popular radio serials and plays.

The Korean War allowed Casey to link development with defence preparedness, but it remained that he found himself handling an inherently expansionist portfolio on behalf of a Government keen to rein in expenditure and contain inflation. And, of all the ministers, he was perhaps the keenest of all to control inflation, at almost any cost. The inevitable consequence was that all Casey’s tiring inspections of sites and all his long talks with state governments and companies came to very little. The Snowy Mountains Scheme continued, of course, and Casey could make contributions: channelling funds to develop this or that state activity, encouraging states to develop coal fields, persuading a colleague to lower duties on this or that item needed by local industry. But that was about the extent of his capacity for getting things done: “Development, in present Australian circumstances, is a pretty hard nut to crack.’!” Given the circumstances, his inability to launch major new projects

did not of itself much bother Casey. His concern was with the circumstances, because it seemed to him that they sprang in large part from his Government’s inefficiency and from the intrusion of politics where he thought politics should not be.

When Casey took on the Development portfolio at the end of 1949, he thought that he would be a prime mover, but he also thought he would be working in a relatively apolitical environment:

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.. . the Development job I have taken on is a very big task, but I can think of no other that I would rather be doing. The scope is wonderfully wide, and allows me actually to do things, and to a certain extent (thank goodness) I am not hampered by politics in the carrying out of developmental plans.”

Not only did it turn out that he could not do much, but he could scarcely have been more mistaken about the politics of the job.

States complained bitterly if they lost technical staff to the Commonwealth, competed for Commonwealth subsidies, and lamented perfidy in interstate schemes. He found that he was expected to carry the party flag as well as the Commonwealth’s during his forays into the states. This mattered to Casey because he was still not the compleat politician. He was still an indifferent performer in Parliament. He was not an orator like Menzies; he was not a humorist like Fadden; he could not project the quiet rectitude of a Chifley. Neither a lawyer nor an actor, he found Parliament ‘ineffably dreary’.*’ Not being at

ease, he could make mistakes of judgement. He meant nothing malicious by it, but it did nothing for his standing, for example, to say that when in 1936 he had as Treasurer nominated Chifley for membership of the royal commission on banking, Chifley ‘did not know a bank from a public convenience’.*” It was, in fact, more typical of Casey that, seeing Chifley dining alone one night at the Hotel Canberra, he joined him and, finding that Chifley loved tea, at once wrote off to the Governor of West Bengal for a few pounds of the finest Darjeeling for him. And, when Chifley was ill late in 1950, Casey was quick to write: Just a note to tell you how sorry I am to hear of your temporary indisposition. I know how irritable it must be to be laid low in these times —and how difficult it would be for you not to be impatient about it .. . hoping that you will be back amongst us soon.”

What Parliament saw, though, was a stiff, mannered man with an odd accent and a hesitant delivery. What Casey saw was boring pretence.

Nor was Casey any more at ease in Cabinet. Within two months of the coalition’s return he was complaining that ‘we’re spending

a very great deal of time on matters that don’t matter and not pitching into the hard things’.** Yet he was also capable of admit-

ting after a long Cabinet session on international tariff arrangements, by any criteria one of the ‘important things’, that ‘I find it very hard to concentrate on what seem to me these dreary (but I suppose necessary) trade matters’.*? As in the 1930s he found it hard

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to accommodate the give and take, the compromises and the inefficiency of democratic politics. He yearned for rational central economic planning by experts detached from parties; he yearned for national unity and an end to bickering between the components of the federation; he yearned for an end to party play-acting, assuming

that the Chifleys and the Calwells, and even more the younger groupers, wanted approximately the same kind of life for their countrymen as he did. He thought he had seen party interest give way to the national interest in Britain during the war, and he could not accept that to expect in peacetime the kind of unity likely only in war, and not even then in the Australian experience, was absurd. He fantasised to Keith Murdoch: First things must be put first—not party politics. We can reach a very considerable measure of non-political agreement with Chifley, if we wanted to, on national matters that can and should be agreed upon by both sides of the Parliament. If backbench extremists violate any such

agreement, they should be denounced by the leaders of their own parties. 6

He daydreamed of the delights of the defence power, which in time

of war allowed Commonwealth control over prices, wages and manpower. As he mused in false justification: ‘we are virtually at

war’.?’

Casey’s inability to tolerate political reality did nothing to recommend him to Menzies. After his experience in 1941 and long years in Opposition, Menzies was a chastened and cautious politician. The coalition had not won control of the Senate in 1949, and

a double dissolution was on the cards. In that context Menzies could not be expected to listen fondly to Casey urging that the Government combat inflation by cutting public works, forcing a

pruning of the states’ loan programmes, trying a wages and prices

freeze and even interfering with the payment of war gratuities. Given his experience, Menzies was determined that nothing must jeopardise the coalition relationship. Repeatedly in 1950 and 1951 Casey forced Cabinet to consider currency appreciation (by as much as 25 per cent against the pound sterling) as a partial antidote to inflation and, it seems, he carried some Liberals with him, but

the Country Party would not have it. In September 1950 Casey

went so far as to advise Menzies to re-form the government without the Country Party if Fadden’s men remained stubborn, but Menzies was not moved.

Before the double dissolution of Parliament, which came in March 1951, Spender retired from domestic politics and accepted

|

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the Australian Embassy in Washington. Casey stood in as Acting Minister for External Affairs pending the elections on 28 April and, with the coalition’s return, he was then offered, and accepted, the portfolio in his own right, surrendering Development to William Spooner. He was ‘glad and sorry’ about the change: ‘I will not like

very much giving up the janglion of matters that constitute “Development’’.’”®

The new portfolio did not once distract or comfort Casey. His frustration deepened, misery in the face of apparent slights grew, a sense of proportion eluded him, and his Government could do no right. In 1951 the Government brought down a hard budget, but Casey’s discontent remained. Unimpressed with the Treasury’s expertise, he longed for an economic secretariat to service Cabinet, and he mourned that the Government could not call on the advice of Douglas Copland and Leslie Melville. Copland, in fact, was near by at the Australian National University and never loath to offer advice; Melville was a member of the Advisory Committee on Financial and Economic Policy at the Treasury and could hardly have been more available. In fact, Casey was beyond pleasing. If Cabinet speeches appealed to principle, they wearied him and

brought out the cynic in him; if Cabinet speeches appealed to crude pragmatism, he was outraged. For example, his ministerial colleagues would not agree to harsher domestic measures to help Britain cope with a sterling crisis, on the grounds that if Australia did not approach Anglo—Australian relations in horse-trading terms Britain certainly would. He fretted that hours of Cabinet time went on discussion of sugar and cotton prices, as though these were not matters of great importance to substantial areas of the country. When evidence is thin, and one’s own relevant technical expertise bare, medical terms should not be applied lightly, but it is difficult to see Casey’s condition at this time as other than one of clinical depression. Very little of his torment was allowed to surface, and one would know almost nothing of it had he not kept scraps of paper describing his misery in his own hand. This little manuscript is undated, but its content and changes in the script leave little doubt that it was written at various times late in 1951 and early in 1952. When under stress, old Richard Gardiner Casey was inclined to note his worries on scraps of paper and then lock them securely away. His son followed the same course. Casey focused his misery mainly on Menzies: The time has come when I must get out of this Government. I cannot serve any longer under M’s leadership. I have struggled on for 2 years in

214 CASEY an effort to adjust myself to his way of doing things but I cannot do so any longer. I believe his whole approach to the business of government is wrong, and that it will bring the Liberal Party down. I have no quarrel with the Liberal Party nor with any of my colleagues in the Government—except M.

A major grievance was that Menzies had not taken due account of his views on the prime importance of dealing with inflation and on the best ways of dealing with it: When the Government came to office in late 1949 we inherited an inflationary situation which it was our duty to cope with vigorously. I used every possible effort to induce M. to do so, by word of mouth & in letters to him. He knew the situation but for some reason that I don’t understand, he would not grip the situation & do the many things that

needed to be done...

.. . | recommended the many directions in which this could have been done, nearly 2 years ago . . . M never even acknowledged my letters. He obviously resented my attitudes & my insistence. If I had gone further than I did, either in the Cabinet or in private, I would have had to leave the Government which might have demonstrated lack of unity, which, in the face of an impending election, might have been unfortunate. M was

the leader of the Government and I had accepted him as leader .. . so I remained, altho getting more unhappy all the time... M has known of my critical attitude & has resented it & has made my task as Minister a particularly difficult one. He has made it less and less possible for me to see him on matters concerned with my Dept. It has got to the stage at which I cannot go on in the circumstances that he has created.

Casey also blamed Menzies for poor relations with the states, for not keeping the states adequately informed about the country’s economic situation: For the last two years the State Governments have been treated like schoolboys or nuisances that have to do as they’re told. Inevitably they react badly to this treatment & are hostile, suspicious and combative.

There was, too, the problem of Cabinet business. Casey com-

plained that long submissions were read aloud, that minor matters received long discussion and important matters none. Then came a litany of Menzies’s faults: My criticism is as regards the basic attitudes & approach to political problems by X—not on any one matter. X has very great gifts—but he lacks the ability to make up his mind. In fact he lacks fundamental discernment as to the things that are vastly important.

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Unconscionable time is wasted on small matters. The larger matters of policy he keeps in his own hands & does not consult Cabinet. He knew (& I wrote to him constantly) on what should have been done as regards the economic situation—2 years ago. He. . . did nothing. I have not spoken my mind at Cabinet meetings—because the things I have to say are things that, if said, I must resign from the Cabinet— because they are personal criticisms of X’s conduct of affairs.

I have written many of them & haven’t had the courtesy of even acknowledgement of any of them... About the end of 1950—after a party meeting on inflation—I asked him why he had not told the Party certain facts about the situation. He looked in amazement at me & said ‘I say what I say in order to create a certain effect in their minds’.

Casey’s frame of mind was indicated by one of several jottings on a separate piece of paper: ‘I collected £4 m. for the Lib Party in 1949 —no word of thanks or appreciation’.”’

Before considering Casey’s complaints against Menzies, it is as well to recall that the bland stability that some ascribe to Menzies’s long prime ministership, from 1949 to 1966, certainly did not exist in 1949-52. Many Liberals then doubted that Menzies had learned democratic manners well enough to survive and still regarded him as a liability rather than as the electoral genius he was to seem to

become. Talk of plots against him was constant. Early in 1950 it was thought that Spender had tried to mount a coup and, despite his long, published denials, there is some evidence that when he went to Washington Spender saw himself as a beaten rival.°° In 1952 there were rumours that a New South Wales cabal wanted to overthrow Menzies and replace him with Casey as a seat-warmer for a Victorian MP, Wilfred Kent Hughes. During 1951 some journalists thought that Menzies was unwilling to stay long in politics, seeing himself rather as Chief Justice of the High Court. If Menzies

did opt for the judiciary, wrote the Melbourne Herald’s Harold Cox, ‘Mr Casey would become immediately a significant figure’.>! In this political environment it is scarcely surprising that Menzies was unwilling to clasp to his breast a Casey who aspired to replace him, who did not hide his greater intimacy with the moneyed men

behind the party, and whom for many years he had not liked personally. It is possible that being Rupert Ryan’s brother-in-law hurt Casey as far as Menzies was concerned. In Canberra, Ryan organised a small dining club of Liberal back-benchers, whose major interest was probably in their dinners, but Menzies was suspicious of such groupings, and few in Ryan’s group were to enjoy preferment in Menzies’s time as Prime Minister.

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It is clear that on occasion Menzies slapped Casey down rather as Curtin had occasionally slapped Evatt down: in January 1952 the Melbourne Herald reported that, in a debate on the Japanese Peace

Treaty, Kent Hughes answered Evatt for the Government and ‘stole Mr Casey’s thunder with the benediction of the Prime Minister’.°* However, it is not clear from evidence at present available that Menzies went far out of his way to flatten a man who was, after all, one of his senior ministers. On the contrary, there is some

evidence that Menzies went out of his way to be pleasant. When Menzies went overseas in mid-1950 to raise loans, for example, he thought to cable Casey from the USA: ‘Would like you to know that wherever I have gone prominent men have enquired after you with respect and regard. Hope to bring home the bacon.’”*° Overall,

it would seem, Menzies loomed much larger in Casey’s mind than Casey in his, and that probably was Casey’s major problem. One is inclined to see Casey’s scribblings on scraps of paper as a reflection of depression rather than of rationally based disappointment in his Government and in Menzies, not only because of his language, but also because his suggested explanations for his feel-

ings seem so wide of the mark. It may be, for example, that Menzies had no wish to engage in lengthy technical correspondence with Casey on financial issues of the kind welcomed by Bruce, but it is not the case that Menzies failed utterly to seek Casey’s views: Casey himself opened a letter to Menzies late in 1950 on inflation with the reminder that “you mentioned the inflationary business last week and asked if I had any other ideas as to possible action’.** It

may be that Casey would have handled the states differently (though, as federal Treasurer in the 1930s, he had found the states

so difficult that he had supposed that only Commonwealth supremacy could provide a solution), but he was not ignored and,

again, his advice on at least one occasion was prefaced with a reminder that ‘you asked me to provide you with material that might be useful for your meeting with the premiers’.*? Nor was the inflation issue as simple as Casey sometimes persuaded himself.

Currency appreciation was out of court, admittedly, for political reasons, but in 1950 and 1951, when he was suffering most from chagrin and after one Cabinet meeting ‘went to bed even more miserable than I have been lately—which is saying something’,”° Casey was not suggesting much beyond a credit squeeze, public works cuts and a quite utopian non-party production drive. Indeed, while Casey rightly appreciated that Australia’s inflation problem sprang from too few goods attracting too much money, he recognised himself at times that he did not have the answers, and he

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pleaded with an old Victorian pastoralist friend, Alan Ritchie: ‘what

to do about it all? . . . I would like you to tell me what you would do’.*’

It is not even certain that Casey was conveying the real measure of his feelings to Menzies. In March 1951, for example, Casey reported to Menzies in very relaxed terms about a Parliamentary Liberal Party meeting at which there was backbench demand for stronger action against inflation and for less subservience to the Country Party, concluding with the amiable assurance that ‘I think it did them a certain amount of good to let off steam’.*® It might be observed, finally, that Casey must have worn Menzies’s patience very thin, not only by bombarding him with advice on matters that

fell outside the responsibilities of his own portfolio, but by behaving like some kind of elder statesman offering advice. In May 1951, for example, he sent Menzies a long letter in which he urged greater reliance on Cabinet committees (and indicated in detail the

desirable composition of such committees), suggested in detail a radical rearrangement of departments’ functions, and listed for Menzies’s benefit the eight major problems facing the Government in almost absurdly comprehensive and vague terms (‘the need to

restore economic stability ... measures to deal with industrial conditions and production . . . external relations’ and so on).°? It is not too difficult to suggest reasons for Casey’s distress at this

time; it is rather more difficult to list such reasons in order of importance. There was probably, for example, a medical factor. Despite poor health (and he suffered still from recurrent bouts of dysentery) he had been working very hard for many years. Unfortunately, too, he was inclined to tinker with his body as though

it were an engine. In Washington in 1940 he had discovered sleeping tablets, and he had been taking them virtually nightly ever

since. This answered an old insomnia problem, but marked his waking hours with a heaviness at odds with his hyperactivity. Then there was a behaviour problem. From boyhood Casey had sought success through courtesy, deference and industry, through impressing seniors in a position to advance his cause. As a backbench novice in the early 1930s, these traits had been useful, but with higher political rank in the late 1930s and now in the early 1950s, they were almost counter-productive. What he needed in the

higher reaches of politics was toughness, calculated aggression, cunning and self-confidence, and he did not have these in adequate measure, though he did have courage. He remained industrious, and this was very acceptable, but it did not specially recommend him now. He remained at heart, and mostly in practice, courteous.

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This, too, was pleasant for his colleagues and opponents, but it did not specially recommend him to most of them. Worse, he could not tolerate discourtesy in others: some would have laughed off the occasion when a very drunk Tasmanian Cabinet minister called uninvited at Edrington when Maie and Jane were home and he was not, but he was outraged by what to him was almost inconceivably gross behaviour and frustrated by his inability to do anything about it. As for deference, he had run out of seniors. All his life Casey had striven for the regard of seniors. As a protégé, he was at ease. But he turned sixty in 1950, and at that age he was too old to play that role with a younger Menzies, who had his own protégés in yet younger men, such as Harold Holt and Athol Townley, and he was not prepared (if it ever occurred to him) to encourage, stimulate, flatter and advise Casey. It is more than coincidence that, just when he was putting on paper his misery with life under Menzies, who could not serve as a father, Casey was speculating that Churchill was likely soon to regain power in Britain and that, when this happened, the job of Britain’s regional minister in Singapore, then held by Malcolm MacDonald, might be obtainable: ‘It is the sort of job that I think I could make a pretty good fist of myself—as it is just my line of country’. At this time of personal crisis, and whatever Bruce’s past value to him, Casey was not’well served by his continuing relationship with his old mentor. It was a relationship still of dependence. Late in 1950 Casey wrote to Bruce: ‘I often wish I could talk to you. Why do you live so very far away?! And soon after succeeding Spender as Minister for External Affairs, he wrote: ‘Now that I’ve taken External Affairs—I hope you'll write and tell me what’s what’.*? Unfortunately, Bruce also disliked Menzies and encouraged Casey in his disaffection. Confessing in late 1950 that ‘I’m pretty fed up with things here’, Casey asked Bruce if the post of

Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization, mooted earlier by Bruce, might still be available.** Bruce’s response

was to suggest rather that Casey come to London as High Commissioner, a suggestion couched in the usual flattery: it was a big job, and none would do it better than Casey. Bruce admitted that this would end Casey’s political career, but he doubted that Casey had much of a future in Canberra anyway: ‘I am certain that all your efforts in Australia to do what is outstanding as necessary are going to be frustrated, as the Government just hasn’t the guts to do what they should’.** In fact there was gossip in London at the time that Casey might go there as High Commissioner. The Melbourne Herald took the gossip seriously enough to publish an

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editorial arguing that Casey was needed in Canberra, but that, if economic conditions too limited the contribution he could make as Minister for National Development, he would be more valuable in Washington than London. According to Casey, the gossip was unfounded: “The suggestion that I should go to London is entirely an invention of the Press in London. I have not otherwise heard of it from anybody—and I have no desire to go there’.* Another problem was that Casey was lonely. He was not the leader of a faction or coterie; he had come back into Parliament as a stranger to most on his side. Of course he knew the men who were his Cabinet colleagues, but he knew few of them well. It would seem, too, that most in Cabinet did not take quickly to him. Just as he was bored by their long outpourings on what to him were arid topics, they were bored by what were to them pleasant chats from a Casey who was uneasy if challenged or questioned. Only on CSIRO matters did Casey seem to be enthusiastic, on top of his brief, impressive. In effect he was to a degree respected, but at that stage he had no habitual allies in Cabinet and few effective admirers. Here he was not helped by his continuing infatuation with public relations. In March 1952, for example, he earned immense attention, first with a statement that inflation in the West was the ‘secret weapon of International Communism’, and then with a suggestion that all Australians should work for five hours a week outside normal working hours and for no pay on useful local and national tasks—a vast national working bee. He got headlines in plenty, and doubtless they were read by the working men and women he had in mind when he tried to simplify big issues or to rouse a sense of altruism in the community, but it 1s not difficult to imagine the reaction among ministerial colleagues, whom he regarded as crass amateurs in their economic and industrial thinking. It is undeniable, too, that at times Casey got a bee in his bonnet about matters unlikely to arouse the enthusiasm of Menzies and other ministers with problems enough to their plates. During 1952, for example, he plagued Menzies with suggestions that he ask the Queen to consider marking the start of her reign with the creation of a new order to be called the Fellowship of the Commonwealth. To comprise members and companions, it would not be an order of knighthood and might be acceptable, therefore, to countries such as India and Pakistan. Long convinced that human vanity scarcely could be overestimated (and in Bengal he had devised and awarded his own local system of honours), Casey saw the Fellowship as helping to hold the British Commonwealth together at a time when

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fragmentation was more obvious than unity. He was not successful,

any more than he was successful over the years in arguing for a larger share of imperial honours for Australia. With respect to the allocation of imperial honours he had a point in his concern that Australian dipomatic personnel suffered in comparison with their British colleagues, with a senior Australian diplomat likely to hold the same honour as a lowly British consular official in the same

place, and with protocol-conscious locals likely to undervalue the Australian as a consequence. The Commonwealth Fellowship notion, though, was fanciful. Yet another factor of relevance to Casey’s unhappy condition sprang from his temperament, and that was his inability to relax. Menzies could escape from the pressures of office while watching his beloved Carlton footballers on winter Saturday afternoons; in summer he could spend hours contentedly watching test cricket;

he could relax over whisky and cigars in the company of other accomplished raconteurs; he could read for pleasure. Casey, on the other hand, was a doer, and relaxation for him was flying alone in

an elderly plane prone to engine malfunction. No wowser, he enjoyed his food and drink, but for quality rather than quantity. He enjoyed the conversation and jokes of extroverts, but his own natural ambit was in relatively simple meals at home or at the Melbourne Club with what he called men of consequence while

discussing what he called matters of substance. Lacking the common touch (not because of snobbery but because of shyness and incomprehension of so much that moved other men), he was

denied pleasures enjoyed by other men. Had he known that

Scottish liberalism, Catholic activism and secular socialism were quite forgotten by Menzies, B. A. Santamaria and James Cairns as they cheered on the Blues at Princes Park, or had he known that parliamentary duelling between Menzies and Calwell was most likely to move from ritual to blood drawing in the week of a clash

between Carlton and North Melbourne, he would have been

baffled utterly. To watch others recreating themselves, or to watch animals running about, was to Casey an incomprehensible waste of time. Hubert Opperman was one of the Liberals whose electoral endorsement was supported by Casey, but when, early in 1949, Pat Jarrett suggested that “Oppy’ would make a marvellous candidate,

Maie had to explain to Casey that “Oppy’ was a cyclist whose exploits had endeared him to the nation. Casey had never heard of

him. Later he was to react negatively when Menzies raised the possibility of embassies for a couple of his cricketing heroes,

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including Donald Bradman. Given his sublime indifference to sport, it is just possible that he had never heard of Bradman. Apart from flying and mechanical invention, Casey’s only other

major form of recreation took the form of reading. His reading in 1951 included Nevil Shute’s Round the Bend (‘particularly interesting’), Monica Baldwin’s story of convent life, I Leap Over the Wall (‘splendidly readable’), Thor Heyerdal’s Kon Tiki, which he recommended fervently to others, and Boswell’s London Journal. The last was ‘dreadfully frank’ and Boswell’s ‘demanding of his

two guineas back from the young woman was almost more than I could bear’.*° He and Maie attended the cinema quite often, preferring cheerful musicals, though he verged on what was for him the exotic in finding M. Vincent, the story of St Vincent de Paul, ‘beautifully done’. But Casey was not relaxed even about escapist reading. He tried to make of reading a social act and, just as for years he bombarded all sorts of people with news of his latest razor blade or ballpoint pen finds, so he tended to send to all sorts

of people, some of them by no means intimates, lists of what he was currently reading. Judging by their failure to react, most of the recipients of these lists were baffled. His apparent tendency to see in reading points for conversation or correspondence rather than private pleasure could well have been the fruit of his father’s conditioning. He had written diaries when young for his father’s inspection rather than to satisfy any urge of his own; now he began to circulate among friends, colleagues and officials extracts from his diaries covering overseas trips. Few found them very interesting and Menzies is said to have shrunk from them with dismay.

Finally, there was for Casey an age factor. This was an era of elder statesmen, but Casey was sixty in 1950 and that was a little late to be starting what was for him really a new career, the more when he nursed hopes of getting to the top in that career. It seems likely that consciousness of age, as well as temperament and medical condition, contributed to a frantic sense of urgency in him.

On the day after the elections in December 1949 he wrote in his diary in capital letters: ‘WE HAVE TO REALISE THAT OUR PRESENT WAY OF LIFE IS ON TRIAL AND HAS, IN EFFECT, BEEN GIVEN ANOTHER PERIOD OF OPPORTUNITY. IF WE DON’T JUSTIFY IT NOW, WE RUN GREAT RISKS ... WE

MUST LEAVE NO STONE UNTURNED’.*’ The issues that worried him also

worried Menzies and other ministers, but Casey behaved as though

inflation, the communist threat, defence preparedness, industrial relations, productivity and federal relations could be dealt with all together and all at once. Only two months after the elections, a

222 CASEY

period covering the Christmas break and the settling in of a new ministry, Casey was complaining bitterly of the new regime’s administrative lethargy. That some hurdles might be better not rushed, that there were no instant answers to some problems, or that national politics could not be practised as though federal Cabinet were the central committee of the Communist Party in Moscow (or Bengal under a Governor’s rule) seemed beyond his

ability to accommodate. One result was reinforcement to his

uncomfortable sense of isolation: ‘I seem to be a voice crying in the wilderness’ .*°

Age contributed to a sense of isolation is another way. While on top of contemporary developments in fields as diverse as public relations and civil engineering, and always an enthusiast for the latest gadget, Casey now was coming to show some of the attitudes

of an older generation, and this was hard for him because he continued to see himself as part of an adventurous new generation.

His approach to development, for example, was very much that of his father, of the nineteenth-century man on the frontier. He thought in terms of roads and railways, of water conservation and irrigation, of rabbit control. The more contemporary approach to development along scientific and cost-benefit accountancy lines sometimes engaged him, but often irritated him. Thus, while he adopted the cause of CSIRO with immense fervour, pushing its budgets through Cabinet, forcing MPs to an awareness of its work and assisting its officers in every possible way, he was ruthless in forcing it to focus strictly on practical problems. Its concerns must be with ‘material gains’, with ‘increased production and improved

land-use ... even ... at the expense of ... fundamental research’.°” He was very coolly disposed towards the creation of the Australian National University as an exclusively research institution: ‘More I see and hear of this National University, the more

I believe it is a great many years ahead of its time.’>! And he grieved that university funding generally could not be biased in favour of engineering and applied science faculties. This was not grief with which Menzies was likely to sympathise. (Casey sometimes wondered if he was the first professional engineer to have sat in the federal Parliament.) Casey’s approach to politics was dated not only in that he tried to practise it as a gentleman but in that he tried to practise it as an eighteenth-century gentleman, and in this he was showing his age, and earning some opprobrium. Casey did not divide his life into compartments, and this made for what others could see as a blurring of private life and public functions bordering on impropriety.

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That he should seek the assistance of the Minister for Shipping, George McLeay, in securing scarce berths for his daughter and her friends wanting to travel to Britain was normal enough. That he should ask his brother, Dermot, an amateur archaeologist, informally to investigate a Victorian sawmiller seeking import licences for machinery was not normal. Nor was it normal that Casey

should press Menzies and Fadden for a subsidy to assist the

Tasmanian Government to build a wharf at Strahan for the shipment of pyrites by the Mt Lyell Mining & Railway Company Limited, whose chairman was Kenneth Niall, one of his oldest friends, and on the grounds that the company was struggling to cope with a large overdraft. The Press certainly did not think it normal that he should resort to the RAAF for mechanics when Maie made a forced landing in their Fairchild near Lake George in September 1950. Casey was not conscious. of the slightest impropriety in such actions. He assumed that one used one’s contacts and

connections, and he never hesitated to use his own on behalf of friends or constituents. He also assumed that men of consequence used their weight and conveyed their wishes. Just as he sent to people lists of books he was reading, it was natural for Casey that when, in 1951, he read Douglas Hyde’s I Believed (the memoir of an ex-communist), he should write off to six newspaper editors, all acquaintances and two of them friends, stating very baldly: ‘If

you haven’t read it—and had it prominently reviewed—I commend it to you’.°* It should perhaps be stressed that Casey was scrupulous in handling his business affairs. He constantly bought and sold shares in a wide variety of enterprises here and overseas, but'there is nothing to suggest that he profited, or sought to profit,

from privileged information. Casey did not treat money lightly, but he did not make further acquisition his main object and his reputation in some quarters for meanness was unjustified. (During the war he gave an allowance to an English cousin who had fallen on hard times and whom he scarcely knew and, when she died, he extended it to her daughter.) Casey did not come out of depression all at once. He remained in the doldrums for much of 1952, but he was coming good by the end of the, year, and by 1953 he was quite recovered. He continued to be at odds with his Government on major issues, but the canker had left his soul. His relative content can be measured by acceptance

of things that formerly had most depressed him. Where formerly he had deplored the intrusion of politics into decision-making, now (1953) he could observe with approval that ‘political pressure .. . is part of the democratic process’.>> Where formerly he had raged

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especially against the intrusion of politics into economic decision-

making, now he could observe almost with equanimity that a ‘budget tends to be a conflict between politics and economics—in which politics nearly always wins’.>* Just as a number of factors contributed to Casey’s depression, a

number contributed to his survival and revival. One, doubtless, was Maie, always happy to serve as a sounding board, never inclined to counsel surrender, always ambitious for him. Another was success as an engineer in bringing to near-completion an inven-

tion, a small time-and-distance computer for pilots—‘computer’ in the literal rather than the later electronic sense. Generally known as the Casey Computer, it was refined with the help of David Myers, then Professor of Electrical Engineering in the University of Sydney. Patents were taken out in 1953 and production was undertaken by Weems System of Navigation, a Maryland firm. To give the invention its technical description: . . . the computer comprises a plastic protractor at the end of ‘lazy tongs’

arms with eyelet pivots which enable the device to be expanded and contracted in a straight line, the distance between the adjacent eyelet pivots remaining substantially equal and representing 10-minute time intervals. The distance between the graduations on the protractor scale represent speed variations . . . The Casey-Myers computer is used in flight to check

pre-flight calculations, and gives the true ground speed and distance covered.>°

The computer was not a commercial success—only about 600 were ever sold—but in technical terms it was a competent piece of work, it was found useful by amateur pilots in Australia and North America, and Casey was pleased to make a mark in his old field.

Another factor was change in the domestic regime at Berwick. On the morning of 26 August 1952 Rupert Ryan was found to have

died in his sleep at Edrington. It had been arranged that, on Rupert’s death, his three-fifths share in Edrington would pass to his son Patrick, who would be bought out by the Caseys. This was done, and the three-fifths share was put in Donn Casey’s name. Now well into his Agricultural Science degree at Melbourne, Donn took an interest in the Edrington farm, but it was Casey himself who now became the effective head of the establishment, and he gave close attention to every aspect of its operations. It may that headship of his house, for so long delayed, settled Casey. What 1s certain is that the extra demands made on him by responsibility for Edrington extended him to the full, kept him utterly busy, helped

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to stifle his restlessness and left him little leisure for melancholy. At the end of the year, he pretended to find his life too full: My trouble is that I’m trying to live several lives at the same time— political—my own affairs (now including farming!)—flying—and some writing—as well as being almost a professional correspondent. | could build up any two of these into a fulltime and satisfying experience —and, at the same time, see something of my family.°°

If this was trouble, one can only observe that Casey was at his best when so troubled.

The major factor in Casey’s revival, though, was his External Affairs portfolio, and Spender’s departure proved to be his salvation. Had Spender not resigned, and had Casey not succeeded him, it is difficult to imagine that he could long have survived in politics.

With a domestic portfolio, and given his seniority, he could have remained enmeshed in frustration. External Affairs allowed him to escape, to walk the world stage, to take advantage of experience and connections, to work with a group of extraordinarily talented public servants. There were still hurts and frustration to come, but now there would be compensations and distractions. The relationship with Bruce, while always amiable, quickly became attenuated. More than ever before, and however late in the day, Casey at last was to become his own man.

ELEVEN

FOREIGN MINISTER

With the extraordinary career of Otto von Bismarck in mind, Edward Crankshaw has noted that ‘it is very rare to find a public

figure past sixty whose life and work suddenly take on a new dimension’.' In terms of renown, Casey was such a rarity. Had he died in 1950, a few elderly ladies might now recall him vaguely as a handsome chap in public life, without being too sure just who or what he was, and his performance as a public servant in the 1920s, as a politician in the 1930s and as a diplomat and governor in the 1940s would be recalled only by academic specialists. Casey survives in the public memory because he was Minister for External Affairs from early in 1951, when he was sixty, until early in 1960, when he was in his seventieth year. None before or since has served for so long as Australia’s foreign minister. Except for H. V. Evatt, who was also a controversial Attorney-General while Minister for External Affairs, no foreign minister before or since has so impressed himself on the country. From Casey’s own point of view the 1950s comprised the years of his life’s fulfilment. He rated his two years in Calcutta as the most useful and interesting in his life, but they could not have served him as a satisfying culmination. An observer might argue that his later governor-generalship saw him in a yet higher position,

which he filled more excellently than any of his many other positions, but for him the governor-generalship crowned a long career rather than comprised part of it. As foreign minister, he had nine years of enjoyment and achievement, of involvement in great affairs and in dealings with the great men of his age. They ended with all the honours that a man could want. During those years,

his daughter married and gave him grandchildren. However, if these were years of fame, fulfilment and achievement, they were also years that brought a measure of disappointment and humiliation. During diplomatic negotiations in 1954 he disobeyed an explicit Cabinet instruction and courted dismissal. In 1956 he tried

a last late bid for the political summit and, as in 1939, he was humiliated not by defeat but by what the scale of his defeat said

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about his standing. Year after year he failed to carry Cabinets with him on major issues.

The ‘ifs’ of these years are staggering: if, to take only one example, he had carried the day on recognition of Peking in the mid-1950s, and if his colleagues then had given him his head in diplomatic dealings with China, the Vietnam War in the 1960s might have taken a very different course. His successes as a foreign minister were the successes of a diplomat; his failures were the failures of a politician. Tempted to get out of politics after humiliation as foreign minister and as politician in 1956, he stayed on. It was then, though, that part of him turned back, burrowing into the lives of his father and grandfather, even gingerly re-entering his

own childhood. Whether in persisting with politics until the end of the decade he showed primarily courage or lack of bearable alternatives 1s beside the point. Persistence took courage and, in persisting, he qualified for further opportunities, which gave shape to a life that needed external shaping. In a physical sense, these were hard years. Life at home was tiring enough: “The life one leads here is rather doglegged—in a small house at East Melbourne at times—in a hotel at Canberra a great deal more time—with short weekends on our farm at Berwick ... It all adds up to a not very satisfactory life.’ To this, he now added travel. As foreign minister, he was obliged to travel overseas, but he went well beyond minimum obligations. In most years he

spent at least three months out of the country, not in long recreational visits to particular places, but usually in several trips crowded with short stopovers and earnest talks with hosts. This sprang in part from his diplomat’s conviction that he must get to know his overseas counterparts to the point virtually of personal friendship, and in part from a sense that Australia easily slipped from the consciousness of other states and that, as their leaders could not stop off in Australia on their way to anywhere (except New Zealanders, in whom he took relatively little interest), he must take Australia to them in his own person. In part, though, his restlessness led him to take advantage of opportunities for travel. For example, whatever the volume of his annual complaints

about the boredom and fatigue of the United Nations General Assembly session, there seemed always to be convincing reasons for his attendance. At his age, constant travel between Canberra and Melbourne and overseas travel, plus the demands of a portfolio literally world-wide in its scope, tested his physical capacity. He was now becoming deaf, and his memory, while remarkable in some areas, was not always reliable. In most years he suffered at

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least one bad bout of intestinal trouble, whether from recurring dysentery or from: infections picked up on his travels. The wet and cold winters of south-eastern Australia were not kind to his bones

and sinews. Nevertheless, he drove himself to the utmost and, if External Affairs and Edrington were not burdens enough, he still took every opportunity to fly himself about the country. In 1955

he earned disapproval in some quarters when he went eagle shooting from his plane in Queensland, and in 1956 he broke a hand on a propeller. The pace of his life raises the difficult question of whether, perhaps unconsciously, he turned to stimulants to maintain that pace, or whether he used them for proper medical reasons, with the inevitable result that he was, to put it mildly, very active for his age. In the mid-1950s he was taking benzedrine several times

a week and sometimes, as he admitted, twice in a morning, supposedly for low blood pressure. Subsequently he seems to have

switched to dexadrine. He was still taking sleeping pills, and ‘downers’ each night and ‘uppers’ most days made for a devilish combination. Not surprisingly, there were costs: officials found his attention span could be short; he demanded brevity and pungency

in what he read; his own speech and writing took on a staccato quality; unless the company was singularly sparkling, he came to sympathise with his father’s misanthropic view of dinner parties as occasions when others chose what you ate, when you ate and with

whom you ate. Sitting about in Parliament or even in Cabinet could be torture for him. Even when an issue captured his interest and he felt moved to write about it, he tended to farm out research, ask others for brief summaries of relevant information, have others prepare drafts—not from laziness, and certainly not from a desire to profit from others’ work, but from inability to give much time to one thing. He developed a reputation for using people, but this

was not his intention. Admittedly he tended to bombard people with requests for ideas, and before a United Nations General Assembly session, when convention demanded that he deliver a long set-piece speech, people as diverse as B.A. Santamaria, Professor

Fred Alexander (University of Western Australia) and Sir John Latham would be asked to suggest themes. It was not that he lacked

ideas himself, as his frequent memos to his department show. It was simply that he would not, or could not, give time to reflection, while earnestly mourning that his life had not allowed time for reflection.

His sense of humour came to show the same febrile quality. Officers of his department were asked if some way could be found

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of squeezing the USSR out of the United Nations; they were asked

to advise on whether an appropriate response to anti-colonial crusaders at the United Nations might be explicitly to wonder if they envisaged the return of Calais to Britain—or Australia to the Aborigines. He thought ‘Bringyerginalong’ a very humorous play

on the names of some New South Wales country towns. And, while always inclined to write to people in what he thought were their terms rather than his own, now he could go a little far, writing for example, to Noel Coward that he seemed to spend a lot of time entertaining ‘wops’ and that ‘I hear of you, even in this remote country, as epater-ing the bourgeois in Las Vegas or some such marijuana joint, with great profit to yourself ’.’ An element of coarseness surfaced in various contexts: of Spencer Tracy, Judith Anderson and Katharine Hepburn, whom he and Maie had got to know on visits to North America, and of Noel Coward, he could

write that ‘all these we’ve liked and tamed, and they now feed comfortably out of the hand’.* In brief reaction to Jane’s decision

to name her youngest daughter Tempe, he could complain in wounding terms that Tempe was an unpleasant district of Sydney best known for its odorous rubbish tip. Yet these flaws should not be exaggerated. Overall, Casey in the

1950s remained hard-working, honourable, considerate and generous. Nowhere was this more evident than in his dealings with his department. Casey’s administrative inheritance was of a high

order. The Secretary of the Department of External Affairs was Alan Watt, who had served with Casey in Washington; an industrious man, he was well recommended by Spender. The assistant secretaries were Laurence McIntyre, Charles Kevin and Arthur Tange, the last an economist admired by Evatt and who at once impressed Casey (‘a first class officer . . . from all points of view”). Tange was chosen over others’ heads by Casey to replace Watt as

Secretary in late 1953). Of the men overseas, he knew Peter Heydon (Wellington), John McMillan and Keith Officer (Paris), Alfred Stirling (The Hague) and Colin Moodie (Washington). Besides Watt and Tange, Casey came quickly to value especially McIntyre, Ralph Harry (a key contributor to the drafting of the ANZUS Treaty), James Plimsoll (then Australia’s representative on the United Nations Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea, and later to succeed Tange as Secretary and Keith Waller (then in London, and also to become Secretary). Given Casey’s reputation, and the department’s, it might be noted that, of these six, three were private school men and three were high school men.

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Re-established as a separate department only in 1935, External Affairs had set high recruitment standards. As Casey noted, ‘I had not realised that there were so many Rhodes Scholars about’ (they included Watt, McIntyre, Harry and, then in Jakarta, John Hood).°® However, rapid expansion during and after the war had left the department short of men equipped to head overseas missions, and one of Casey’s first decisions was to look for outside appointees. He enlisted Walter Crocker, Professor of International Relations in

the Australian National University (to New Delhi in 1952), Douglas Copland, Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University (Ottawa in 1953) and H. A. McClure Smith, Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald (Cairo in 1953). He wrote to eminent men, asking them to suggest names; he scoured bench and service lists; he even leafed through Who’s Who (all his life, Casey assumed

that men of any significance were listed there). While alert to the career sensibilities of External Affairs officers, he persisted with occasional outside appointments, besides accommodating some

forced on him by a Menzies seeking cool pastures for retiring politicians. Casey was surprised to find that, just as some men sink their pride and beg for honours, some petition for overseas appointments. He did not object, but his reactions varied: writer Alan Moorehead was taken seriously; when a word was put in for Donald Cleland, a former Liberal party official and then administrator of Papua and New Guinea, ‘I laughed heartily’;’ when E. J. Hogan, a former Premier of Victoria, asked for Dublin or, failing that, Norfolk Island, he was tolerant, if bemused. An important factor in such considerations was whether a man had a ‘good wife’.

It was typical of Casey that the first administrative issues to engage him were the need for the department to recruit a journalist

able to improve its public relations, and the need to crack down on overseas officers inclined to send back expensively wordy cables, ‘an outlet for impressing us with their energy and effectiveness’ .®

Throughout his years at External Affairs, Casey gave constant attention to the Press, dining with editors, giving background briefings to newspaper executives, keeping in touch with columnists, having department officers prepare articles on current events for publication over his name, writing about his own enthusiasms (notably rainmaking and flying saucers, neither an interest shared by ministerial colleagues). He expected due consideration in return, and he was greatly offended when in 1955 the Sydney Morning Herald gave front page headlines to a claim by Eddie Ward (one of the few Labor MPs beyond Casey’s tolerance) that he had appeared

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in Parliament ‘full of grog’. The Editor, John Douglas Pringle, previously well-liked by Casey, was treated sternly: ‘It seems to me hardly necessary to have given such prominence to this scurrilous,

damaging and... untrue remark. I would be interested to know why you did so.” Casey also kept a close eye on Letters-to-the-Editor pages. In 1954 he warned the Editor of the Age, H. A. M. Campbell, to check with a relative, an ASIO officer, before publishing further letters from J. F. Cairns. In 1956 he had ASIO check the Age’s columns and warned Campbell that over the previous eighteen months he had published letters from thirty-eight communists or people with communist associations. Campbell replied that he should publish a range of views. With respect to ASIO, it should perhaps be noted that Casey felt,

rightly or not, that the Government had acted on his suggestion in appointing Colonel Charles Spry as Director-General of the agency in 1950, and, although he had no ministerial connection with him, he assumed and received apparently invariable cooperation from Spry in the provision of information on groups and individuals. At times, Casey’s purpose was clearly political, but he

saw communism and communists as beyond the pale of normal conventions. He would have been appalled by the notion, but he thought in ‘Establishment’ terms, assuming that right-thinking men (men whom he described as ‘for law and order’), whether business leaders or union chiefs, made common cause against the state’s enemies.

Although fascinated by the technology, Casey’s interest in the Press did not extend in equal measure to television, which began broadcasting in Sydney and Melbourne in 1956. He appeared on television occasionally to face journalists’ interviews, but he rarely watched television himself and, believing that the costs would be beyond the resources of political parties, he doubted that television would have much impact on Australian politics. The overseas journals he liked best were the Economist, the weekly edition of the Manchester Guardian and part 4 of the Sunday edition of the New York Times. Surprisingly, in view of his liking for breeziness and brevity, he loathed Time. It was typical of Casey that from the first he treated the Depart-

ment of External Affairs as a benign proprietorship, taking immense pains over the welfare of what he saw as his officers. Especially, he felt for Australian diplomats suffering a sense of isolation in overseas posts: his own experience in Washington had been such that ‘I still remember the deadening effect of sending a

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lot of informative material back to Australia and getting practically no response whatsoever to it’.’° As a result, he embarked on what became a quite extraordinary private correspondence with heads of missions Overseas, involving in some cases hundreds of long letters covering everything from high policy to the condition of embassy

drains. Even allowing for his love of dictating machines, it is difficult to imagine how he found time for correspondence on such a scale. He fought unceasingly for better housing at overseas posts, especially at hardship posts in Asia, though a Treasury hostile to Overseas spending on what it could portray as private luxury for élitist diplomats limited his success. He took the health of officers into account in considering postings, and at times he conspired with wives and his own doctors to force treatment on reluctant officers. When the neurotic, separated wife of one officer hectored him, he showed no impatience with the officer. When one of his heads of mission, a man formerly of significant military and public service rank, gave rise to gossip in Canberra and overseas because of noisy

drinking bouts, he came down hard, but with courtesy and concern: the man had known pain daily since being wounded at Gallipoli. When a former senior Labor politician appointed by the Chifley Government to a high commissionership pleaded for an

extension to his term to allow his children to complete their education, he got his extension and more besides—and Casey had another influential friend in Labor ranks. If, as occasionally happened, Casey became convinced that an officer was intellectually or temperamentally inadequate, a desk was found for him in Canberra, and his career progressed no farther. In this, Casey was indifferent to appeals of the old-school-tie kind. In only one aspect of his treatment of his officers could Casey be

faulted: if the slightest question was raised about an officer’s security status or his ideological commitment to the Marxist left, Casey was prone at once to damn, and to rage that Public Service rules prevented sacking. A few careers were blighted because of this, though it may be doubted that his department heads, Watt and Tange, anyway would have been less harsh. Casey wanted close rapport between External Affairs and the Department of Defence,

and he wanted his officers to have the trust of United States agencies, and neither, he thought, could be had if the security standing of External Affairs officers was in question. Further, what

Watt and Tange wanted, quite as much as Casey, was what they regarded as an apolitical service, in which ideological commitment would be an item in analyses rather than an analyst’s initial bias. In this they were determined to wipe out the memory of unhappy

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years in the 1940s when the department had coteries of leftists, Catholics, Masons and Liberals, all wondering if association counted for more than merit in promotion. The new order was to be one of severe professionalism. Casey’s inclination to concern himself with officers of various ranks could have grieved the department’s senior administrators, but Casey kept close to them and, if they resented Casey’s dealings

with their men or his pervasive interest in their activities (not excluding their choice of paper clips), doubtless they set this against the value of a minister who had been one of them, who knew their trade, who understood their difficulties. Doubtless, too, occasional weekends at Edrington and lunches at the Melbourne Club soothed

them. In terms of his constitutional responsibility for the administration of his department, then, Casey was much more conscientious than most ministers, and for this he earned the regard of his officers. Public servants, though, especially value a minister who carries weight in Government, and in this Casey was for them less satisfactory.

Much of a minister’s weight, of course, is measured by his relations with his Prime Minister. This applied especially to Casey because, of their nature, the External Affairs portfolio and department were especially subject to prime ministerial interest. Because of the significance to nations and to international society of issues treated at an international level, there is a call on heads of governments at times to deal directly and authoritatively with each other, to intervene at a level higher than that of the community of foreign ministers. For a former British dominion such as Australia, there was an additional factor: the Australian federation began its life in

1901 in an imperial context, where its normal external dealings were with London through its Prime Minister, and, even into the 1950s, relations with the United Kingdom still were felt to be especially the Prime Minister’s business. Inevitably, therefore, Menzies had to be kept informed of major events as they unfolded overseas, he had to be consulted about policy to be proposed in Australia’s name, relatively minor matters such as diplomatic postings had to be referred to him. Thus, while External Affairs took Casey away from the domestic issues that had so aggravated him and strained his relations with Menzies, and while External Affairs allowed him to remove himself physically from Menzies for long periods, the rélationship still mattered to Casey, to the department and to the country’s foreign policy and diplomacy. Except on a couple of matters—such as the Suez crisis and the election for the deputy leadership of the Liberal Party in 1956—it

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would seem that on an ordinary daily basis Menzies and Casey in the main rubbed along well enough. Compared with some of his successors, Menzies let his ministers run their own bailiwicks and fight their own fights, but Casey would have liked a more intimate

relationship than this and, paradoxicallly, even more autonomy. Menzies offered neither, and this left Casey at something of a loss. One suspects that he would have liked to have been to Menzies what Eden was to Churchill or Dulles to Eisenhower, but Menzies did not see Casey as a favourite son or as his strong right hand. The result was that Casey never felt able to take Menzies for granted, perhaps fearing more personal dislike and mistrust on Menzies’s side than actually existed. This could show itself in trivial

ways as, for example, in 1954, when Menzies was given a dinner at the Melbourne Club. There was a ballot for places, and Casey asked the Club secretary to give him a seat irrespective of the ballot, ‘not by any means because I particularly want to be at the dinner but because I believe that Menzies would misunderstand it if I were not there—I am the only member of the Cabinet who happens to be a member of the Melbourne Club’."’ Again, Casey was always conscious that Menzies’s son-in-law, Peter Henderson, was a junior officer in his department, though Casey found some positive value in this: it seemed to him. that Menzies was more

inclined to brush aside Treasury reservations on the need to improve facilities at overseas missions when Henderson (and Menzies’s daughter, Heather) were serving at hardship posts. The major problem, though, for Casey and his department was simply

that on what they regarded as important questions Casey often could not carry the Prime Minister with him. To make matters worse, from the department’s point of view, Casey could not cope with Cabinet. He expected a Cabinet of ministers concerned mainly with domestic matters and largely ignorant of foreign policy and diplomacy to defer to his experience

and specialist expertise, and they did not defer. Casey was not personally impressive in Cabinet. Impromptu argument was not his forte, at times he spoke at inordinate length, he was unable to focus

on his colleagues’ earthier concerns, he gave other ministers the impression that he was too swayed by foreigners’ manners and style, and on his own admission he was occasionally embarrassed by inadequate mastery of his department’s briefs. Worse for a politician, he did not lobby. He tried to keep the Minister for Defence, Philip McBride, on side, and often they were a minority of two in Cabinet, but even here his aim was less to enlist a vote than to link defence policy and foreign policy as a good in itself.

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In Casey’s papers for the period there are many complaints of hard

handling in Cabinet, but very little to suggest that he ever tried to orchestrate support in advance or to hedge his bets if support was not forthcoming. This meant that his own relatively sophisticated approach to foreign policy was little reflected in his Government’s policies, and that a department of increasingly skilled professionals enjoyed less impact on government than it would have liked, or deserved. Nor did things improve with the passing of the years. In the late 1950s Casey was still battling to get his department’s estimates through Cabinet, still complaining after such battles that ‘life isn’t very easy or pleasant’. '* Casey came to External Affairs more knowledgeable than most,

but there were gaps. One was Africa: [am.. . quite unnaturally ignorant about affairs in Africa. Anything that comes to me to read on the subject is so long and dull looking that I fall by the wayside before I get to the end of the first page. And so my darkness continues—Darkest Africa is right so far as I am concerned.!°

His ignorance of Latin America was total. Of Asia he knew only South Asia, and that, of course, from personal experience. He maintained a special interest in the sub-continent. Because he knew some Pakistani leaders from his Bengal days, and because initially

Pakistan took a place in the Western camp, he liked visiting

Pakistan and felt at ease with Pakistanis. He would have liked the same rapport with Indians, but he found the achievement difficult. Still, India’s status as a leader of an emerging neutralist bloc and fascination with Nehru led him to give close attention to all aspects of Australian—Indian dealings. Especially, he treated Australian representation in New Delhi with great care: ‘we should send a man of really good intellectual capacity to New Delhi. . . if such a man

was not available, we should shoot off to the other end of the scale, and send a good sensible likeable Australian’.'* For Casey,

Crocker was an example of the former and Peter Heydon, who succeeded Crocker in 1955, an example of the latter. He had considered Lieutant-General Sir Sydney Rowell for New Delhi, but decided that Nehru would not warm to a soldier. Whereas Casey

had a comradely liking for Pakistanis, and admitted to a bias in favour of Moslems over Hindus, he was ambivalent about Indians: ‘they are so used, in their own community, to people doing things

only in expectation of reward... that any... approach... with nothing in mind except the desire to help, is very refreshing and welcome to them’.'? But India’s neutralism baffled him: ‘I just don’t

understand it ... I do not believe that any honest Indian can

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honestly believe that India’s “‘neutralism” is going the deflect the U.S.S.R. from her assumed ultimate objective of conquering the world.’!®

Conscious of his ignorance of East and South-East Asia, Casey sought quickly to remedy this deficiency in July-August 1951 with

a trip covering Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines. Apart from Tokyo, which he found a ‘dreary city’, he was pleasantly surprised by what

he saw and by some of the men he met, notably the Philippines’ foreign secretary, Carlos Romulo: ‘vigorous . . . obvious character ... got rather to like him’.!’ This first overseas trip in office had

a marked effect on Casey. He was instantly converted to the importance of South-East Asia to Australia, declaring that Australia’s key diplomatic posts now must be Washington, London and Singapore. He then persuaded the Government to approve the opening of posts in Saigon and Rangoon (1952), the raising of the consulate-general in Bangkok to legation status (1951) and the sending of a senior External Affairs officer to Singapore in 1952 (though a tolerably senior man had been there since 1950). Beyond

this, he was impressed by, and took pride in, the quality of Australian officers whom he found serving in Asia (especially, ‘Plimsoll is a useful fellow with brains and judgement’,'®) and by evidence that their hosts and foreign peers held them in high regard. If Casey’s first overseas trip as foreign minister in mid-1951 gave

him an Asian focus that was to characterise his years in office, a second and much longer trip later in the same year laid the foundations for his climb up from the slough of depression by providing

stimulation, a sense of being at the world centre of things, a soothing of a bruised ego. To convey the impact of the trip, it is necessary to give lists of names, but it is the sheer number of significant names that makes the point. It is also worth describing because it was to be typical of the trips he was to make year after year as minister.

Accompanied by Maie, Casey left Sydney on 21 October. During a stopover at Singapore he raised the desirability of a wider South-East Asian security pact to supplement ANZUS during talks with the British Commissioner-General for SouthEast Asia, Malcolm MacDonald. At Rangoon he talked with Burmese leaders, including the army commander, Ne Win (‘clearly somebody’), but he was not impressed by the Burmese generally (‘the Irish of the East’). In New Delhi he lunched with Nehru, who

was ‘courteous but reserved towards me’. In Karachi he dined

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happily with the Pakistani Prime Minister, his old sparring partner Nazimuddin. In Rome he met the Italian Prime Minister, Alcedo de Gasperi (‘quiet, competent’) and Pope Pius XII. In Paris for that year’s United Nations General Assembly session, he conferred with the British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden; the French Foreign Minister, Robert Schuman; the Canadian External Affairs Minister, Lester Pearson; the American Secretary of State, his old friend Dean Acheson; the United Nations Secretary-General, Trygve Lie; the Israeli Foreign Minister, Moshe Sharrett; the American Ambassador

to Indonesia, Merle Cochran; and as well with Lord Hankey, General Dwight Eisenhower, and Field-Marshal Lord Montgo-

mery. He dined with the Philippines’ Romulo; the British

Ambassador to the United Nations, Gladwyn Jebb; the Minister of State at the Foreign Office, Selwyn Lloyd; the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Archmad Subardjo; the Iraqi Prime Minister, another old friend in Nuri as-Said; the Lebanese Foreign Minister, Charles Malik; and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. A side visit to the Netherlands included meetings with Dutch leaders. On 21 November the Caseys went on to London. There he saw the Chancellor of the Exchequer, R. A. Butler; the Colonial Secretary, Oliver Lyttelton; the head of the Foreign Office, William Strang; the leader of the Opposition, Clement Attlee; the Commonwealth Relations Secretary, Lord Ismay; the head of the Treasury, Edward Bridges; the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field-Marshal Sir William Slim; as well as the King, Queen Mary, Lord and Lady

Gowrie and Lord McGowan (formerly chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries). He dined with the Prime Minister, Churchill; the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Basil Brooke; the American Ambassador in London, Walter Gifford; the Lord Chancellor, Lord Simonds; the Government leader in the Lords, Lord Salisbury; as well as with the Mountbattens, Leo Amery, and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. For some, including Nancy Astor, he had time only for a phone call. Then followed Canada, and dinner with the Prime Minister, Louis St Laurent. By 3 December the Caseys were in New York for receptions (at one of which Casey met Oscar Hammerstein, ‘clearly a man of consequence’), lunch with the Editors of Life, and a night on Broadway (The King and I was ‘the best play I’ve seen for a very long time’). In Washington from 7 December, he dined with William Fulbright, Sumner Welles, Felix Frankfurter, Christian Herter, Walter Lippmann and Francis Biddle. He called on President Truman. In Paris, Casey was briefly in the world spotlight. The scheduled speech to the General Assembly by the Soviet delegate, Andrei

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Vyshinsky, on 8 November gave Casey his first taste of polemic in the Kremlin style. One of Stalin’s more gruesome henchmen, Vyshinsky was an above-average exponent of that style, and Casey was flabbergasted: ‘made me wonder if the whole Soviet gang aren’t cuckoo’.'” Casey made his own plenary speech on the follow-

ing day, and enjoyed it: ‘I bellowed at them for 30 minutes... Dean Acheson and Anthony Eden... were clearly impressed.’”° Then, on 16 November, and contrary to precedent, Vyshinsky applied to speak again. Urged on by Britain, the USA and New Zealand, Casey took a point of order and, in the process, he and Vyshinsky jostled each other at the podium. Casey was overruled and was then subjected to lengthy abuse by Vyshinsky. Casey was applauded by an Assembly still dominated by Western states. At the time he found the whole adventure exciting. Later he was to resent the failure of Acheson and Eden to support him, and to suspect that they had set him up. There was informal pleasure on the trip: meeting Jane in Paris and London; hearing Trygve Lie tell stories against Evatt. And there was a nice end to the trip: on their return for Christmas they found that Maie had been invited to join experts from Britain, the USA, France, West Germany, the USSR and Brazil in judging a sculpture

exhibition organised by the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. The pace of 1951 was maintained. In 1952 Casey went to

South and South-East Asia in March-April, to Honolulu in

August, and to New York for the General Assembly in OctoberNovember. He was now enjoying External Affairs, his melancholy was falling away, and his greater ease was evident in New York. He could now be bored by a dinner party attended by Acheson, Lie and Selwyn Lloyd, and he was confident enough to be critical of Acheson:

Dean Acheson has got pretty cynical about all this U.N. business. He says

why not let them talk about anything they want. What’s it matter

anyway? Talk, words, self interest, poppycock. Maybe a natural reaction— but a confession of failure.’

Even Vyshinsky no longer bothered him: Vyshinsky spoke this morning in the Plenary session . . . his powers are clearly declining. His speech was about as poisonous as it could be—but I could not help feeling sorry for him, which I had difficulty in explaining to myself.?2

When Pakistan’s foreign minister, Zafrulla Khan, made a speech urging the attendance of both North Korea and South Korea at UN

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talks, but confessed privately that he had meant only to start hares and did not at all want his own recommendation accepted, Casey was content to tell him he was ‘a wicked old man’, and wondered ‘if Tom Playford may not have been right when he once said to me that no politician can be thoroughly trusted’.*? Nor was he slow to reflect on British behaviour. The failure of British delegates to attend functions arranged by the Belgian and Indian delegations revived memories of Cairo and Calcutta: I’m not sure that one of the real chinks in the U.K. armour is not indifference to the feelings of other, perhaps lesser people. I don’t think they . . . pay enough attention to personal relation and so they tend to hurt other people’s feelings.*

Generally, New York this time was ‘great fun’. At one party Casey met ‘some well developed girl called Evie Hayes’. Star of Annie Get

Your Gun and Call Me Madam, Miss Hayes expected to be recognised, but Casey was unruffled: ‘We all have our limitations and gaps. The theatre is one of mine.’ This was a time when death was marking the seniors of Casey’s generation. Apart from Rupert Ryan, Keith Murdoch died in 1952; Kenneth Niall, a lifelong friend of Casey and son of old Richard Gardiner Casey’s confidant, died in April 1953. While events of the

most transitory significance might merit thousands of words in Casey’s diaries and letters, deaths of intimates received the baldest statement of fact. The Caseys went straight from Niall’s funeral to see Leslie Caron in Lili (‘a delightful movie’), but death did, in fact, sadden Casey. One cannot say with confidence whether he anticipated immortality. His friendships extended to the clergy (notably

Irving Benson, a Methodist minister prominent in Melbourne’s cultural life) and to religious men such as James Darling (headmaster of Geelong Grammar), religion interested him, and he was in no sense hostile to the churches. By now even the Catholic Church was acceptable: he marvelled at Catholics’ organisational gifts; he liked the ‘good, honest Australian voices’ of Catholic priests; he deeply admired prelates such as Eris O’Brien, the gentle

and scholarly archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn. Indeed, if anything, his sympathies were swinging from Protestants to Catholics, not only because Catholics took the communist threat seriously, but because he felt that the anti-Catholicism of Protestants was socially divisive and it offended his notions of social harmony. (For this reason, he was hostile to the appointment of Hugh Gough, an English evangelical, to the Sydney Anglican see in 1958.)

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For Maie, 1953 was a big year. She went to London late in February to meet her sculpture-judging commitment, and while there she was persuaded that the Caseys needed another plane, a second-hand Miles Messenger. Casey did not cavil at the expense: ‘As to flying, it 1s one of Maie’s and my forms of escape from the normal dreariness of life’.*° In July her book on early Melbourne architecture was published, and Casey shared her pleasure. It was

‘a proud day’.?’ It was to have been a busy year for Casey, with a familiarisation trip to New Caledonia, the New Hebrides (unlike Spender, Casey was not interested in having Australia take over the British part in the Anglo-French condominium, though he was interested in taking over the Solomon Islands from Britain) and both halves of New Guinea, but he was flattened by a recurrence of dysentery, and he was able to make only one overseas trip, to North America for UN and ANZUS Council meetings. Neither meeting was eventful, and in New York even Vyshinsky was amiable: ‘we shook hands vociferously . . . to the accompaniment of many cackles’.** Casey was impressed by Dag Hammarskjéld, Lie’s successor as UN Secretary-General: ‘a man of consequence . . . considerable intellectual capacity, common sense and administrative experience’.”” He returned via Britain, Europe, the Middle East and South Asia. In London he was saddened by Churchill’s physical decline and noted Eden’s delicate health. In Bonn he dined with the chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. The wine flowed (with Casey

challenging his host to produce a half-way decent Rhine red), Adenauer professed to remember Maie and Rupert Ryan in Cologne in the old days, and inhibitions were dropped: Knowing that Adenauer was a Rhinelander, I told him I knew the Lorelei, which pleased him and we sang it together—while the Germans present listened with respect and the rest with some bewilderment!—also ‘Nach

Frankreich Zogen Zwei Grenadiere, sie Waren aus Russland gefangen’

etc.°°

Casey was so struck by Adenauer’s Mongolian appearance that later he sent a picture of him to A. P. Elkin, Professor of Anthropology

in the University of Sydney, for an opinion on whether Attila’s hordes had left their genetic mark on the Rhineland. (Elkin seemed to think they had.)

This, then, was the kind of regime that Casey could enjoy as Minister for External Affairs. But he inherited more than a depart-

ment that he liked administering, a diplomatic corps that he admired, and functions that, at least overseas, he enjoyed fulfilling.

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He also inherited policy. Unlike his predecessors, Evatt and Spender, Casey did not come to office with a huge ego and a matching determination to achieve radical change in Australia’s international relations. In the main, he was an inheritor and a defender. First and foremost, he inherited ANZUS, negotiated during talks in Canberra in Febuary 1951 between Spender, America’s John Foster Dulles and New Zealand’s Frederick Doidge.

As Casey bluntly insisted, ANZUS for Australia was ‘the quid pro quo... to offset . . . obvious fear of future Jap aggression’,*’ but

fear of Japan had nothing to do with his continuing devotion to ANZUS. Long before revisionist historians came along to enjoy blacking their own countries’ records, Casey took the unfashionable view that Japan virtually had been forced to war in 1941: ‘whenever

they get their industries. ..in... shape... the world’s customs tariffs rise against them’.°* Although Menzies and other ministers long retained suspicion of Japan, Casey capitalised on their lust for

trade to persuade them that a viable Japanese economy was in Australia’s interest, and that Australia should treat Japan ‘in a more civilised way than in the past’.*’ As early as 1951 Casey argued that the ‘fear and hatred of Japan in 1945 was groundless today’.**

Nor was Casey naive about ANZUS. He knew that treaties indicate little more than the parties’ attitudes at the time of signing

and, unlike some of his colleagues and successors, he was not inclined as the years passed to agonise about the circumstances in which the USA might or might not come to Australia’s aid. Nor did he see ANZUS as cementing Australia into a Western alliance:

he took Australian membership of that alliance for granted, ANZUS or no ANZUS. For Casey, the value, or potential value, of ANZUS was threefold. First, it gave Australia claims to a special status, something on which to hang an appeal to the USA in a diplomatic or military emergency, and it might give aggressors

pause. Later in the 1950s, for example, when it seemed that Indonesia might use force to take West New Guinea, and when he knew that the USA had no wish to alienate Indonesia or so to act as to provoke a communist coup in Jakarta, Casey supposed that ANZUS would tend to deter Indonesia from aggression and, at the same time, give him the basis for making a case to Washington that Australia especially deserved support. The second value of ANZUS in Casey’s eyes was that it gave Australia privileged access to a super-power at the highest political level, whether at annual ANZUS Council meetings or in day-today diplomacy. After his experience in Washington in 1940-41, he

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was not one to undervalue such access. As he wrote after an ANZUS Council meeting attended by Acheson at Honolulu in August 1952: One cannot help being impressed by the fact that Dean Acheson with all his many burdens found it possible to give eight days to this ANZUS conference—and to bring a good proportion of his top level officers from the State Department. One wishes that others might do the same now and again—instead of our always having to go to other people’s capitals.*

About the third point of ANZUS for Australia, Casey was forced to dissemble. He once wrote that ‘the advantages to Australia of the ANZUS Treaty are quite clear—it gives us a very helpful, close and re-assuring association with American planning and policy-making’.*© In fact he found American military planners anything but helpful, close or reassuring. For some years he could not believe State Department claims that the Pentagon did not have regional contingency plans into which Australia could weave her military planning, that the Pentagon thought in terms of ad hoc responses to flare-ups wherever they might occur. Casey remained at least suspicious that there were Pentagon plans from which Australia was excluded for security reasons, perhaps related to an assumption in Washington that what went to Canberra would be passed on to London. In 1955 he complained bitterly to Canada’s Lester Pearson that Australians were being treated like ‘small boys

... not trusted’.°’ Later, when the American line seemed to be

changing in favour of joint military planning for South-East Asia, Casey doubted that the new tack was genuine, convinced at base of ‘the determination of the Americans to keep all the strings in

their own hands, so that any military decisions that have to be made in an emergency will be untrammelled American decisions’.*°

Casey was not an admirer of all things American. The

Hollywood aspect of American life left him cold, the vulgarity of the new rich offended him, and he disliked the tendency of American film makers and playwrights to focus on the morbid facets of the human condition. He thought William Lederer’s The Ugly American only a slight exaggeration. Curiously, he was seriously disturbed by McCarthyism. When he went to the USA in 1951, he noted that ‘America is security mad. People hesitate to express even liberal ideas, for fear of being branded.’*? Over the years he mourned especially that McCarthyism had inhibited thinking about

China in the State Department. Here, of course, there was a contradiction, which Casey did not recognise in himself. He saw Australian communists and their associates in various movements

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as agents of foreign powers and, in advocating revolution against liberal democracy, disqualified from appealing to liberal democratic rights. Given his head, he would have banned the Communist Party, sacked communist public servants, removed communists from trade union leadership, forbidden communist propaganda. He simply did not recognise that what he wanted in Australia either

would have amounted to McCarthyism or would have led to McCarthyism, which he despised when he saw it in operation in the United States. In Casey’s Cold War terms, McCarthyism could have been defended, but he did not defend it, any more than in the following decade he was to find the Republican’s Barry Goldwater defensible.

A possible explanation for this contradiction might be found in class terms. One suspects that had the anti-communist crusade been in respectable East Coast hands he might have reacted differently to it, but he could not stomach the grossness of Senator McCarthy and his friends. One might also note his lingering doubts about the guilt of Alger Hiss, doubts based less on the evidence in the famous

trial than on Casey’s estimate of Hiss as a State Department

gentleman and of his accusers as inferior types. Again, with Casey even communism seemed to matter less than manners and style. As minister, for example, he was once about to nominate Australian

National University geographer Oskar Spate as Australian rep-

resentative on the South Pacific Commission, when it was discovered that Spate had been a communist. Casey felt unable to proceed with the nomination, but he was so impressed by Spate’s honesty and bearing that he continued to hold him in high regard, despite his past associations. Casey’s attitudes and his inability to withstand good manners showed in another Cold War context. Because he was committed to Cold War partisanship, Casey was intolerant of intellectuals who seemed to him detached from the conflict and prone to criticise the USA and to present Asian communist parties as less than diabolical. Especially, he was angered by talks given on the Australian Broadcasting Commission by W. Macmahon Ball of the University of

Melbourne, Julius Stone of the University of Sydney, and Peter Russo of the Argus. Perhaps because Russo was a working journalist and knew Asia at first hand, Casey was relatively tolerant of him and occasionally summoned him to hear his views on Asian

affairs. Macmahon Ball, though, roused all of Casey’s antiacademic prejudices. Casey had had Macmahon Ball and his wife call at Little Parndon early in 1949, and, while Macmahon Ball’s dislike of Evatt met with Casey’s approval, Casey did not quite

244. CASEY

take to him: ‘there is something not quite convincing about him’.*° In 1953 Casey complained to the Chairman of the ABC, Richard

Boyer, that the ABC was giving too much time to left-wingers, and he sent him a list of alternatives: W. E. H. Stanner of the Australian National University, Zelman Cowen of the University of Melbourne, Marjorie Jacobs of the University of Sydney, Colin Bingham of the Sydney Morning Herald and, later, Frederic Eggleston, B. A. Santamaria and D. G. M. Jackson (a Melbourne Catholic commentator recommended to Casey by M. H. Baillieu). Some of these were taken on by the ABC, but Macmahon Ball remained. Finally, Casey issued a press statement condemning

Macmahon Ball as ‘too ready to embrace the cause of the Communists and to condemn our friends the Americans’.*! Boyer

defended what Casey called ‘the clouded crystal Ball’ on two grounds: the ABC should broadcast a range of views; Macmahon Ball was in technical terms an excellent broadcaster. To the former,

Casey could only respond that ‘I suppose it has to be as you say —although I must admit that I wish it could be otherwise’. To the latter, he responded with some venom that ‘his voice is supremely unattractive and his material is very obviously read’.** However,

Casey could not resist good manners, and when a little later Macmahon Ball called on him to thank him for assistance from Australian posts during a visit to Japan, Casey was quite disarmed, and thereafter Macmahon Ball’s radio commentaries were ‘useful, and ‘sensible’.

Throughout this episode, Casey kept Calwell on side, and quoted him to Boyer: In the course of quite a long telephone conversation, Arthur Calwell spoke with some bitterness about the sprinkling of professional anti-Americans

in the Universities and in both the Liberal and Labour [sic] Parties. He went on to complain generally about news commentators who did not represent any of the large established political parties .. . and who had no responsibility for what they said. He said that, if Labour [sic] came into office in the Federal sphere, he hoped they would take steps to do away with all such commentators, whether left-wing or right-wing, and replace them with people who would speak on behalf of the established political parties. *°

Casey also claimed to have been told by Calwell with respect to Macmahon Ball: ‘if he offends again, you keep out of it and let me take him on. I’ll deal with him without kid gfoves.’** Some Australians could not accommodate McCarthyism and drifted into an anti-American attitude. Whether or not the USA was nice did not, for Casey, ultimately matter: “The United States

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exists .. . We have to accept its existence in its present form... We may not like it—but we have to live with it’.*” He took this line for defence reasons. He wanted Australia to be much more self-

sufficient militarily and less dependent on an external friend. For this reason, he wanted to see the light form of national service introduced by his Government greatly extended. He was dubious about the decision in 1955 to station Australian forces in Malaya, arguing that Malaya could not be defended except in a wider South-East Asian strategic context, and that Australian forces would be better kept at home for dispatch when needed and where needed. What he had mainly in mind at that point was a possible need to buttress British power in the Middle East and a possible need to support a Jakarta government facing not a communist coup at the centre but communist territorial takeovers on the Indonesian periphery. To lessen dependence on the USA and to give Australia the means with which to look to her interests, Casey pleaded in Cabinet year after year for such spending on defence as would actually meet Australia’s needs, and not spending that represented a compromise with other financial demands on government. In mid-1954 he went for broke, asking for a 50 per cent boost in defence spending. The Press spoke of ‘ministers who support Mr Casey’,*© but Casey lamented that he was ‘in a minority of one’.*” He also described his session with a Cabinet committee comprising Menzies, Arthur

Fadden, Eric Harrison, Harold Holt, John McEwen, Philip McBride, Neil O’Sullivan and William Spooner as ‘an unpleasant time’.*® He kept up a vain fight. In mid-1958 ‘in the discussion of

the Defence Budget estimates, I made my annual plea for considering Defence from the point of view of the security of this country, rather than from the Budgetary or political point of view ... As usual I got no support.” At the end of the decade, Casey wondered if he should have resigned at various times during the 1950s

to indicate his dissatisfaction with colleagues fearful of depriving _ the electorate of immediate material benefits and inclined to see in alliance diplomacy a nicely cheap form of defence policy. Like Paul Hasluck after him, and unlike Evatt before him, Casey

took the general view that ‘a country can only make a positive impact on world affairs that is consistent with the armed strength that she can exert in an emergency’.°’ Beyond this, however, it seemed to Casey elementary that a country such as Australia should be able largely to defend itself. If, however, his governments would not countenance the financial costs of defence self-sufficiency, then there was in his view no alternative to dependence on the USA. Even here he was frustrated because he argued constantly that the

246 CASEY

USA could not be expected to treat Australia seriously as an ally if Australia evidently could not contribute significant forces to the alliance, and just as constantly his colleagues denied him. If, then, his governments would not vote funds to give Australia defence self-sufficiency, and if they would not vote funds enough even to make Australia a desirable ally, it seemed to Casey that only one option was left: Australia must somehow give the USA a strong

interest in defending Australia, even if Australia was not doing much about her own defence or maintaining the strength of the alliance.

Casey began to think about ‘things’ that Australia might offer to the USA, wondering at first if the offer of a slice of Australia’s very large, but probably unsustainable, Antarctic claim might do. Then, reflecting that Americans seemed to have reacted with some alertness when he happened to mention the Woomera rocket range, he came up with a thought that was to have such an important impact

on Australian—American relations years after his departure from office. In September 1955 he put it to Menzies that he should plant in American minds the notion that ‘Australia would be sympathetic to the idea of an American base being established on Australian soil’.°’ Menzies was ‘very enthusiastic’, and the following month Cabinet authorised him to drop the idea into Washington minds as opportunity allowed. It is likely that, aware of the Manus fiasco of the 1940s, Casey envisaged conventional military bases rather than the scientific ‘facilities’ which ultimately eventuated. Whether he saw the full diplomatic potential of what he was about is not altogether clear: after decades of uneasy dependence on the United Kingdom in a lopsided relationship in which Australia could only plead for protection and maintain blood credit, and after a further period of dependence on the USA in another lopsided relationship in which Australia could only plead for protection and maintain blood credit, now Australia would have a lever in her dealings with a great protector.

Although temperamentally allergic to the ‘ocker’ forms of nationalist expression later to be abused by politicians and adver-

tising agencies Casey was as he said ‘rather a fanatical Australian’.-- He valued Australian separateness, and he was not always comfortable with the intimacy with the USA seemingly necessary to Australia’s safety and prosperity. Apart from bases, he thought that Australia must seek closer economic integration with the United States ‘although all my instincts are against it’.-* When the USA cracked the whip as leader of the Western alliance, Casey

was disposed to mourn with McClure Smith that ‘it looks as

FOREIGN MINISTER 247

though we are all satellites now’.°? In this context Casey always compared Australia’s situation with Canada’s. Like Australia, Canada could not protect herself unaided, but Canada’s contiguity with the USA meant that, as Casey put it, ‘Canada does not run the slightest risk of losing American support in the defence of Canada in any world extremity’.°° Because it was so distant from the USA, Australia, unlike Canada, not only had to give Washington reasons for wanting to defend Australia, but it had also to tread a much more careful diplomatic path: “We feel a good deal of hesitation in taking a line in public that is diametrically opposite to that of the United States—although we do our best to influence their minds by private telegraphic messages.”°’ This, in turn, had a cost attached to it, and especially in Asian eyes Australia could seem to be merely an American pawn. To cope with this, Casey could only remind his department of ‘the value of making a point occasionally .. . of describing publicly and in the most objective way possible where we disagree with the Americans’.° In fact,

Casey the diplomat was never easy in his mind about public disagreements within the alliance, and he was bitterly critical of British ministers who rocked the Western boat. In practice, he was prone rather to make points about Australian independence by passing privately to men such as Nehru the contents of some Australian communications with Washington. Preoccupation with the USA necessarily affected the old Australian relationship with Britain. While still seeing Australia as

a British country, and while still tied to London by a host of personal connections, Casey was better placed than some to cope with this change, to advance it. Here, his intellectual and emotional limitations were a help. Menzies, for example, could, and often did, list what he valued in the British connection: the monarchy, the common law, Westminster forms and Whitehall conventions, liberty of the subject, a glorious history, the Scottish kirk, cricket. Casey was an unquestioning monarchist (not unconnected, one suspects, with what he saw as the deplorable manners of contemporary republicans such as Lord Altrincham and Malcolm Muggeridge), but otherwise he lacked the Menzian kinds of attachments. If anything, his regard for British forms was dropping. As he wrote half-seriously in 1959 to Selwyn Lloyd, then Foreign Secretary:

I used to think .. . that U.K. politics was a nice clean gentlemanly business in which men were men and things happened on their merits and all that—but over the years I’ve come to think that if a Chicago gangster

248 CASEY wanted to improve his technique, he’d be well advised to spend a little time in the political field in London.°?

Above all, though, Casey was affected by clear evidence as the decade progressed that, for contemporary Britain, South-East Asia

and the South Pacific were now of marginal interest and, even more, by what he saw as Britain’s calamitous behaviour over Suez

in 1956—behaviour that discredited Britain, alienated the USA and embarrassed Australia. Casey was not much concerned by Britain’s exclusion from the

ANZUS Treaty. He knew that the Attlee Government had been kept informed and had registered no protest, and he did not take too seriously the mutterings of the Churchill Government when it was returned late in 1951. At an ANZUS Council meeting in 1952 he advocated some kind of British association with ANZUS at a military staff level, but the USA said it feared that such a gesture would lead to requests for a similar association from France and the Philippines. Casey did not press the matter, realising that, if other

states were to become associated with ANZUS, Australia’s privileged relationship with the USA would become much less privileged in terms of political access and candour and in terms of intelligence sharing.

Still, there remained for Casey some embarrassment. Churchill

and his Foreign Secretary, Eden, were inclined to harp on the matter in private, and the London Press was inclined to make an issue of Britain’s exclusion. If, as happened, Fleet Street presented Casey as a British champion unhappy with American insistence on Britain’s exclusion, he felt obliged quickly to assure Washington that he had been misrepresented: ‘I would not like Mr Acheson to believe that I had said what Ward Price [in the Daily Mail] reports me as having said.’©° If, as sometimes also happened, Fleet Street presented him as a traitor to the British cause, Casey felt obliged for personal and electoral reasons to protest his imperial devotion. After an attack in the Daily Express of the latter kind, Casey wrote in very abrasive terms to its proprietor, Lord Beaverbrook, but he

found self-defence difficult, and he was forced back to a view of Australia representing the British interest in the South Pacific, a ploy used by Labor governments in the previous decade to justify Australian activity: To conceive of the Anzus Treaty as an attempt to isolate and ignore the United Kingdom is a profound mistake. Rather should it be regarded as one further illustration of an Australian and New Zealand desire, in a particular geographical area, to improve British-American relations—in

FOREIGN MINISTER 249

the widest sense of the word ‘British’. The Anzus Treaty strengthens the security of Australia and New Zealand and in this respect strengthens the security of an important section of the British Commonwealth.®!

Casey hoped to see an additional and quite separate arrangement that would involve the USA, Asian and Pacific states, as well as European states, such as Britain, with dependencies in the region. Besides ANZUS, Casey also inherited from Spender the aid programme known as the Colombo Plan. He accepted that ‘the simple purpose of the Colombo Plan [was] to HELP the countries concerned to maintain democracy and to combat communism’.° He assumed, as Spender had done, that aid would achieve these ends by helping to raise living standards, but he was not averse to listing items such as police training under Colombo Plan heads. As with CSIRO, the Colombo Plan engaged Casey’s keen interest at a practical level. His Bengal experience and his engineer’s instincts disposed him to see the Plan not just in political terms but in terms of a particular irrigation project in a particular district or the enlistment of Australian physicians to treat a particular health problem in a particular region (recruitment of surgeons to repair the faces of congenitally disfigured Malayan children was one of his many personal interventions). In this his enthusiasm far outstripped his colleagues’, and throughout the 1950s he had great difficulty in getting aid estimates through Cabinet. In 1953 he wrote to Walter Crocker in New Delhi: the Colombo Plan is not notably popular in the Cabinet or amongst the supporters of the Government . . . it represents a few million pounds of money that goes to other countries and in respect of which Australia sees no immediate advantage.©

At that point he found such an attitude ‘understandable’, but in the following year, when he was especially keen to woo Asian states

(right into SEATO, if possible), he was less tolerant. He had an ‘unpleasant time’ when grilled in Cabinet about his pleas for higher allocations for Colombo Plan and United Nations aid, and he was angered: The simple fact is that most people are—hostile to the U.N.—hostile to the Colombo Plan—and unsympathetic to Asia... The fact that we are not pulling our weight internationally doesn’t cut any ice at all.

Casey was reduced to volunteering to cut his CSIRO vote to get more aid funds, and this, added to his current frustrations over defence, brought him near to resignation: ‘I came very close to the edge of things today.’© The situation did not improve. In 1955 he

290 CASEY

got his aid estimates through Cabinet only after a ‘knock-downdrag-out scrap with Artie Fadden in which I found myself obliged

to say a lot of harsh things about the Treasury’, but later the estimates were trimmed and Casey was left complaining that ‘Cabinet prejudice against the Colombo Plan is baffling and persistent’.°’ That his colleagues were ‘unsympathetic to Asia’ mattered more

to Casey even than their indifference to aid. He did what he could personally to have removed the more insulting aspects of Australia’s racially restrictive immigration policy, pressing his governments to have the states delete offensive references to Asians from their regulations, pressing the Liberal Party to remove refer-

ences to White Australia from its platform, pressing the Sydney Bulletin to drop the slogan ‘Australia for the White Man’ from its masthead. Early in the decade he was inclined to question White Australia as a policy, but he moved to a more conservative position because it seemed to him that, except perhaps in Burma, people of mixed race suffered discrimination and he feared that this would be the case, too, in Australia. In his terms, if there could not be intermarriage because the children of mixed marriages faced too grievous penalties, then there could be no assimilation and, as with most of his generation, he did not question the desirability of assimilation. It seemed to Casey, further, that ‘responsible Asians are coming more to accept our right to prevent minority ethnic groups from forming in our country’.° (Even though he let part of the Edrington farm to Italian tenant farmers for pea growing, he seems not to have noticed that ethnic groups were already growing rapidly in Australia.) Besides being concerned about the wider social problems associated with mixed marriages, he thought for some reason that racially mixed marriages rarely were happy, explaining this on the very curious grounds that ‘Europeans and Asians are not mutually physically attracted to each other, other than possibly for a short time’.®’ Casey did not pretend to emancipation from attitudes based on race: he still thought Australian Aborigines a pretty unprepossessing lot; he found Papuans ‘distinctly ugly’; he wondered at the numbers of ‘Jews, negroes, Puerto Ricans and the like’ in New York.”° In direct dealings, what moved him still was

honour: the semi-public blackballing by the Melbourne Club of a man who was part Jewish apparently because he was part Jewish was outrageous because there was no way in which the rejected applicant

could answer the insult to his honour. (Besides, as Casey put it, all the Jews he knew handled their knives and forks correctly.) As a

minister, what moved him was a diplomatic imperative: public

FOREIGN MINISTER 251

manifestations of bias or assumptions of racial superiority were intolerable because they were inconsistent with friendly relations between Australia and Asian states. That Australia must have friendly relations as far as possible with Asian states was taken as ax1lomiatic.

Casey’s colleagues did not really care if he waffled on about Asia,

but they did react if he tried to confuse their plain thinking about communist states in Asia, and especially if he tried to complicate their thinking about China. Until he became Minister for External Affairs, Casey did not have marked views about the new Peking, probably because he assumed it was a weak echo of Moscow. On his first trip to Asia as minister in mid-1951, however, he was convinced by British officials and businessmen in Singapore not only that the Nationalist Chinese cause was lost and that the new mainland regime was secure, but also that the new China posed a direct territorial threat to Burma and Vietnam and, by means of terrorism and subversion, threatened Malaya. This conviction stuck and, long before President Eisenhower gave expression to his domino theory, Casey expressed one of his own: If the Chinese Communists got Siam they could starve Malaya, Indonesia

and the Philippines into submission (if they wanted to) without a shot being fired—and we'd have the Communists at our door, which isn’t a nice thought.”!

This, of course, caused him no embarrassment with his ministerial colleagues: it fitted their thinking and what they knew of American thinking. Embarrassment stemmed rather from his conviction that, while China might not be nice, Nationalist China was passé and an alien presence on Formosa and that, therefore, Peking must be accommodated diplomatically.

As usual, what most stimulated Casey was personal contact.

While in Geneva in 1954 for international conferences on Korea and

Indo-China, Casey used British good offices to obtain a meeting with the Chinese premier, Chou En-lai. Casey was greatly taken

with Chou: ‘a good face... and with a good looking eye... a

“reassuring” face’. After an enjoyable three-quarters of hour with him, Casey assured Chou that, where as formerly he had been no more than a name in newspapers, now he was ‘a personality and a man I had looked in the eye’.’* What Chou made of his excited Australian visitor is not known, though Casey admitted that he

‘boggled a bit’ when he (Casey) suggested that China would advance the cause of peace in South-East Asia if she desisted from

building miulitary bases on her territory near the border with

|

252 CASEY

Vietnam. This meeting with Chou convinced Casey that the Chinese leadership could be dealt with according to normal diplomatic forms, and he returned to Australia keen to have Australia recognise China and have diplomatic intercourse with her, even if remaining vigilant for Chinese tendencies towards expansionism. On the China issue Casey was foiled by domestic and foreign opposition, the latter being the more important because it markedly affected the former. While overseas, Casey told Menzies on his return, he had raised the China question in Washington and ‘I got the distinct impression at the top end of the State Department that

some lead .. . would not be ill taken . . . it is very hard for them to take the lead themselves, as they are prisoners of their past state-

ments and attitudes’.”” At home, Casey thought most of the Australian Press seemed to favour recognition, and he actually drafted a statement meant to be ‘a fairly distinct lead to public opinion’, but the Government at the time was facing criticism from some of its own backbenchers for seeming to be soft on the West

New Guinea question. Mooted change on China would further have upset the same backbenchers, and he thought better of it. Early in the New Year of 1955 Casey took his draft to Cabinet, but ‘the feeling of Cabinet was against it’, and he was left with the impression that he must clear it with America’s John Foster Dulles.“ Dulles turned Casey down flat, but he persisted. He tried vainly

to persuade Menzies that ‘Peking’s entry into normal world relationships is only a matter of time. . . and our best interests are that she should .. . It is desirable for us to have a representative in Peking as soon as we can.’” In Cabinet he argued in vain that,

while the USA might not much like Australian recognition of Peking, he would be able to mollify Washington with sensitive diplomacy. To the American Ambassador in Canberra, Amos Peaslee, he argued with little more success that what he sought was ‘not appeasement . . . but common sense’.’° He publicly welcomed as ‘clearly worth exploring’ a suggestion by Chou that China join the USA and other parties in a mutual non-aggression pact.’” The

Government, though, was not prepared to irritate the USA, and Casey made no headway. His colleagues did allow him to ignore American suggestions that Australia establish a diplomatic mission

on Formosa, but when, during heightened tension in 1955 in the Formosa Straits over the Chinese offshore islands issue, Casey

declared in public that Australia was under no obligation to contribute to the defence of Formosa, Menzies just as publicly contradicted him.

FOREIGN MINISTER = 253

Casey was not even allowed to seek change, however carefully. In mid-1955 Cabinet decided that ‘no steps shall be taken in the direction of or leading towards recognition of communist China’.

Casey knew as well as his colleagues that there was a domestic problem: many government MPs felt strongly about China, and some were thought prepared to vote against the Government if it opted for recognition; the Catholic Church and many on the Labor right vigorously opposed recognition; the conservative electorate had been conditioned to see Peking as beyond the pale. Casey thought

he could handle the Americans, and he thought that Menzies could handle the backbenchers and the electorate; his colleagues did not agree. In his campaign on China, Casey had his department with him. The professionals thought Casey a bit naive in his reactions to his meeting with Chou, but, as Tange put it with his customary bite, ‘it is difficult to believe that Australia’s future security . . . will be served by acquiescence in an American policy which is partly the product of an internal political struggle inside the United States’.

In irony not unknown in Australian politics, the colleagues who opposed Casey in the name of Australian—American relations were quite happy to have Australia trade with China, despite American disapproval. In 1959, when the Minister for Trade, John McEwen, sought his co-operation in persuading Cabinet to support Chinese admission to international commodities agreements, Casey presum-

ably found some pleasure in being able to reply that China might use such recognition to force diplomatic recognition, which was contrary to Government policy. In the face of such firm opposition Casey gave up the struggle, and China’s later behaviour in Tibet and her border quarrels with India anyway led him to modify his views. It is difficult to avoid speculation about the might-have-beens. If Casey had been given his head in 1955, he would soon have had Australian diplomats in Peking, he would have descended on Peking himself at least once a year, he would have had Chinese leaders visiting Australia. He would have busied himself between Peking and Washington, he might well have been in a position to help capitalise on the SinoSoviet split in ways that were not to be employed by others for another decade and more. The Vietnam War, with its dreadful physical impact on Vietnam and its socio-political impact on the

USA and Australia, might have taken a very different form. So much that was to happen was to spring in part from ignorance of Chinese attitudes and from Chinese non-participation. Casey would have lessened the ignorance, including his own, and he would have sought Chinese participation.

254 CASEY

Little of Casey’s views on the recognition of China have emerged

because in one respect at least he was a politician. When he was trying privately to persuade his Government to enter into relations

with Peking, he not only maintained rigorous discretion: he engaged publicly in vitriolic rhetoric against China. ‘We feel the hot

breath of communism on our necks’ was one of his pithier lines.” In part this reflected a genuine fear of Chinese intentions, and he was quite serious, and approving, in supposing that Queenslanders were more interested in international relations than southerners because they were closer to the ‘hot breath’. It also reflected the point that he was trying to make to his colleagues, that one need not like a state to recognise it, to have diplomatic dealings with it. Further, it reflected his assumption that, as a member of a Government, he must support loyally that Government’s policies in public to the limit of his oratorical capacity. It must be admitted, however, that in this he showed poor judgement. He always found it hard to resist a chance to make the headlines, and the anti-Chinese headlines he achieved cannot have improved his credibility in Cabinet. Nor would they have helped his diplomacy if Cabinet had changed its mind and let him make overtures to Peking. A foreign minister’s lot is always difficult in that he must keep in good repair his party fences, his constituency fences and very varied international fences. On many issues Casey would have been better served by a silence, which in politics often is seen as wisdom, or by a more sophisticated sense of public relations. China was for Casey the great adventure that might have been. Indonesia, however, was the Asian state that bedevilled Casey

through his years as foreign minister. His first impressions of Indonesia on taking office were good: he thought the Indonesians were making a good fist of public administration after independence; he found President Sukarno, whom he met in Jakarta in 1952, ‘an attractive intelligent fellow’.8? He was to revise his opinion of Sukarno. What concerned him more than personalities, though, was the rapid growth of the Indonesian Communist Party and the Indonesian claim to West (Dutch) New Guinea. Apart from urging greater use of Radio Australia as a propaganda vehicle, there was not much that Casey could do about communist strength in Indonesia or Sukarno’s tolerance of it. Yet this dominated his and his governments’ thinking about West New Guinea. Australia was not concerned to defend Dutch sovereignty in West

New Guinea out of regard for the Dutch. Nor was it unaware of the danger in crossing the Indonesians. In Casey’s words, ‘as I tell the Dutch, while they can pull up their economic stakes ... we

FOREIGN MINISTER 255

must live with Indonesia . . . for all time’.®! Australia used all sorts

of arguments in public defence of the Dutch—legal sovereignty was with the Dutch, the Indonesians would be as much colonialists to the Melanesians of West New Guinea as the Dutch, the people

of New Guinea should one day have the option of forming an island state—but Australia’s real concern about West New Guinea, as it had always been about eastern New Guinea, was strategic: if a potential enemy held West New Guinea, northern Australia was in jeopardy. None thought of the Dutch as a potential enemy, but for as long as there seemed a real danger of a communist govern-

ment in Jakarta, Indonesia was seen as a potential enemy. (And,

short of that, even a Sukarno-style Government might allow Chinese or Japanese infiltration of New Guinea.) At first Casey toyed with the notion of a joint trusteeship agree-

ment for West New Guinea, involving Indonesia, Australia, the

Netherlands, the USA and the United Kingdom, but Eden’s response on behalf of the United Kingdom was ‘rather watery’ and

he dropped the idea. Betraying some ignorance of the UN trusteeship system, Casey then wondered if West New Guinea might be incorporated in the American trust territory of Micro-

nesia. In the event, though, he settled for a tactic of trying to keep the issue in cold storage internationally and, when in Jakarta, trying candour and jollity. As Indonesia then raised the pitch of its campaign, referring the issue to the United Nations in 1955-57, he began to wonder if West New Guinea really was so strategically important as to justify alienating Indonesia.

As with the China issue, Casey was constrained on the West New Guinea issue by the attitudes of the USA and what were thought to be the attitudes of the domestic electorate. Early in the decade Casey was frustrated principally by American indifference.

Later he had to cope with Washington’s growing awareness of Indonesia’s strategic and commercial significance, an awareness that

brought with it an unwillingness to offend Sukarno or so to block the Indonesian campaign for West New Guinea as to increase the likelihood of a communist coup in Jakarta. In 1958, for example,

he tried to persuade the USA and Britain not to sell arms to Indonesia, and failed.

Casey’s domestic electoral problem was a little unusual in that it sprang from bipartisanship. Foreign ministers often plead for bipartisanship on foreign policy so that they can assert a staunch national view in international forums rather than a view known to be likely to be overturned if their governments should lose elections. Casey often enough complained that the Labor Opposition

256 CASEY

hurt Australia internationally by proclaiming to the world that Australia was internally divided on some issues. On the other hand,

unity between Opposition and Government can lock a foreign minister into a position and deny him opportunities for flexibility. Labor, it happened, had been pro-Indonesian when it formed the

Government, but in Opposition from 1949 its attitudes had

changed, and it agreed that Indonesia must not have West New Guinea without reference to interested parties such as Australia or to the indigenes of West New Guinea itself. This meant that if he was concerned to achieve British and American support, Casey could warn that the fate of his Government was at stake, and if he was concerned to press Indonesia to pigeonhole the West New Guinea issue, he could tell Sukarno that Australian public opinion

was adamant (and Sukarno, of course, could tell Casey that Indonesian opinion was adamant). It also meant, however, that Casey was inhibited in looking for ways in which Australia could avoid conflict with Indonesia. When in 1958 he said publicly that West New Guinea was a suitable matter for discussion between

Australia and Indonesia, there was some evidence of public disquiet. When in 1959 the Indonesian foreign minister, Dr Suban-

drio, visited Australia, and enjoyed the Caseys’ hospitality at Edrington, Casey felt obliged to pave the way by pleading with newspaper editors to go quietly. But he still had to suffer Press cries

of a sell-out and backbench criticism because a communique that

he issued jointly with Subandrio promised Australian acceptance of any arrangement negotiated between Indonesia and the Netherlands. In this situation there was little that Casey could do. His colleagues and, it was thought, public opinion would not let him simply drop Australian objections to an Indonesian takeover. On the other hand, after some ministers in 1958 had flirted with

the notion of backing the Dutch with military force, Cabinet decided against force. (Casey agreed: ‘I said . . . we had practically nothing to support them with’.®*) And there was little prospect of American support. When Casey left office early in 1960 the issue was still festering. Subsequently Indonesian and American pressure forced his successors to climb down. Subsequently, too, the Indo-

nesians wiped out their own Communist Party, and the bases for Australian concern largely evaporated. At home, Casey retained his interest in Labor and its affairs. He cultivated his friendship with Arthur Calwell all through the 1950s:

‘I must admit that I suffer from enjoying talking to Arthur

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been branded as anti-British ‘and other unpleasant things’, confessing that it was ‘all a little hard to take—but politics is not always the clean potato’.** Writing to Walter Crocker, he placed the blame squarely on Menzies: ‘his speech in the party room

... appeared to me to be almost entirely directed against me, although without mentioning my name’. Casey did not lack courage, and, although he was very strongly tempted to resign, he stayed on under a leader he thought hostile to him and a deputy young enough to have been his son. The very day after the party room ballot he sought out Menzies to warn him again that war over Suez would split the Commonwealth, alienate the USA, destroy British influence in the Middle East and damage Australia in Asian eyes. He proclaimed his devotion still to Britain: ‘it was inevitable that Britain would lose face . . . My concern was that she should lose as little . . . as possible.’*° Given that he was being criticised by some for failing to support a militant Britain, it was perhaps unfortunate that at that time the Press was playing up Casey’s suggestion that the time had come for the Royal Empire Society to style itself the Royal Commonwealth Society, a suggestion less than rapturously received in some quarters. Casey went to London late in October, then on to New York for that year’s United Nations General Assembly session and to Washington for an ANZUS council meeting. Throughout this period Britain proceeded in collusion with France and Israel to have

Israel invade Egypt, supported by British bombing of Egyptian

SUEZ AND AFTER 277

airfields, and to have Anglo-French forces intervene in a proclaimed police action to separate Israeli and Egyptian forces and,

in the process, take control of the canal—and all this despite Egypt’s evident willingness to co-operate with the UN SecretaryGeneral, Dag Hammarskjdld, in finding a solution acceptable to

canal users. In London Selwyn Lloyd admitted to Casey that Britain had had prior knowledge of Israel’s invasion plans, but only

in New York did he hear informed gossip pointing to collusion against Egypt. Casey reported this gossip to Canberra, though without indicating whether he believed it. It did become clear to him from British and American sources, however, that Britain’s aim was as much to topple Nasser as to safeguard the canal. In London Casey urged Eden and other ministers to co-operate in letting a United Nations peace-keeping force replace Anglo—French

troops in Egypt. In New York and Washington he gave public support to Britain: ‘I have taken a stand right from the start .. . against the use of force... As soon as the U.K. went into the Middle East with force of arms, I had, of course, to do my utmost to make the best case I could, particularly with the U.S.’*’ But he also supported a peace-keeping role for the United Nations, and he put immense effort into private lobbying of Americans, pleading

that the USA not allow the Suez episode for too long to sour Anglo-American relations. It seemed to him that he enjoyed some

success, although President Eisenhower refused his persistent requests for an audience. Casey found the experience exhausting: ‘a pretty dreadful few weeks’.*®

Quite apart from the deputy leadership question and the diplomatic impact on Australia (Australian heads of missions in Asian capitals reported considerable loss of Australian prestige because Australia seemed in Asian eyes to have reverted to dependent colonial behaviour in publicly supporting dubious British behaviour), Suez personally distressed Casey for another reason. Just as in the 1920s he had been converted to the notion that a strong and united British Commonwealth could play a valuable international

role, so in the 1940s he had become convinced that Western

survival would depend on Anglo—American unity, and while in Cairo he had written a long, if somewhat woolly, memorandum to Churchill on the subject. For long he had thought closer Anglo— American relations dependent on a less supercilious view by the British of their earthier American cousins. With Suez, he was embarrassed to find himself having to defend British ineptitude to apparently more sophisticated Americans: ‘I never want to go through another three weeks like the time I had in Washington and

278 CASEY

New York, when U.S.-—U.K. relations seemed to be foundering —which felt as if everything that I’d pinned my faith and hopes on was dissolving in front of me.’*? To his old confidant and and financial adviser in London, Talbot Rice, he wrote: ‘Never have I been so disturbed in mind—and so shaken by the bad judgement

that precipitated all this ... How the U.K. Government could have been led into such action defeats me.’ Not that to him his Australian colleagues seemed any wiser. On his return from overseas in December he stressed to Cabinet that, as he had foreseen, the Suez affair had weakened the Commonwealth and damaged Britain’s prestige without hurting Nasser, but he found “considerable

reluctance in facing up to the unpleasant facts’.*! For years afterwards, Suez remained for him a point of reference. When he heard in 1958, for example, that an English Conservative politician, Angus Maude, had been appointed Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, he wrote at once to the External Affairs officer in London: ‘What attitude did he take on Suez?’ It is impossible to say just how much Casey learned, and when, of what really happened in London during Suez. Early in 1957, when Norman Harper of the University of Melbourne asked him to read his chapter on Suez written for Australia in World Affairs 1950-55 and written in ignorance of Anglo-French collusion with Israel, Casey found nothing lacking in it—though it is possible that at that point he might have chosen not to enlighten Harper even if he were in a position to do so. At about the same time, he wrote to Walter Crocker: ‘Some day I will tell you the story about the United Kingdom and France going into Egypt. I think I know

all the facts—but it is not the sort of thing that lends itself to putting down frankly on paper.’”> When Anthony Nutting, who resigned as Minister of State at the Foreign Office in protest against his Government’s Suez policy, in 1967 laid all bare in his No End

of a Lesson, Casey seemed to find in it confirmation more than novelty: ‘He spills the beans with a vengeance. No doubt at all about collusion.’** He seemed more interested in how Nutting had got around the Official Secrets Act. Casey soldiered on through 1957, 1958 and 1959, apparently able

to put disappointment behind him and to get on with life. Occasionally there were rumours that he might be made GovernorGeneral of Australia, or even of Canada, but they were baseless, and Casey thought that his long life in politics and Menzies’s dislike of him would prevent such nominations. His life in these years settled into a busy routine based on External Affairs, CSIRO, Cabinet, Parliament, Edrington and Little Parndon, with flying still

SUEZ AND AFTER 279

for recreation and travel for stimulation—always Asia in March— April and Europe and North America in August-November.

Casey was fortunate in that his last visit to North America as minister late in 1959 included not only the usual United Nations General Assembly session and ANZUS council talks, but also a conference on the Antarctic, which would lead to a major treaty. Casey had been especially interested in the Antarctic since his London posting in the 1920s, when he had helped to organise the British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition of 1929-31. Several Antarctic geographical features had been named

after him, and over the years he had kept in touch with one of the giants of Antarctic exploration, Douglas Mawson. As minister he had taken a close interest in his department’s Antarctic Division led by P. G. Law, and in scientific work in the Antarctic. Despite this, he was not at first keen to attend the Antarctic conference called by the USA, suggesting to Menzies that Garfield Barwick, who had entered Parliament and become Attorney-General the previous year, should go, but Menzies indicated that he preferred Casey to attend. The conference was limited to states with evident interest in the Antarctic: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the USSR, the USA and the United Kingdom. The conference was for Casey a kind environment. The whole point of the conference was to put aside the question of territorial claims and to establish a regime helpful to exploration and scientific research based on co-operation between states already involved and states that might wish to become involved. Substantial negotiations between governments preceded the conference, but inevitably disputes emerged during the conference itself over three weeks in October-November. Casey was in his element simply practising diplomacy, sometimes firm and sometimes conciliatory, calling informal meetings of delegation heads to sort out difficulties, soothing Latin American sensitivities, courting the USSR. At one

point, when the French delegation was proving difficult, he appealed directly to the French foreign minister in Paris, Couve de Murville. It is interesting to note his tactic, which was successful: The question of the Antarctic arouses strong political feelings in Australia

... If the conference were now to fail ... the Australian Government will suffer deep political embarrassment and my own position will be seriously affected.*>

Besides enjoying his successful busyness at the conference, Casey

was delighted to find that in a context of applied science, of all

280 CASEY

fields of human endeavour the one most to excite him personally, many of the normal constraints of international politics disappeared: ‘It’s been a friendly conference, with no sign of cold war, and a good deal of accommodation between the views of delegations.’

That there could be useful activity outside Cold War lists was especially comforting. He was as convinced as ever about his own Cold War position, writing to Professor Fred Alexander in 1957: About the Cold War. Who started it anyway? My own belief is that the Russians very definitely started it very soon after the end of the last war.

They took the ideological war into every democratic camp ... quite naturally, the democracies had to defend themselves.°’

Nevertheless, the pervasive impact of the Cold War on almost every aspect of political life depressed him, not least because of the tactics involved: “This Cold War business seems to mean saying one

thing and doing another—something that we (the British generally) are not very much good at.’°®

Although diplomacy was Casey’s forte, some diplomatic problems proved to be beyond him. One involved Australian relations with Ireland. Canberra and Dublin established diplomatic relations in 1946. The coalition regarded the Australian head of mission, W. J. Dignam, as a Labor political appointee and, on gaining office in 1949, recalled him and left the post to a chargé d’affaires, Dr

W. A. Wynes. While overseas in late 1951 Casey was told ‘by Wynes that ‘there is practically nothing to do’ in Dublin and that the post could be serviced from London (the Indian practice).%? During 1951 and 1952 some Labor MPs with Irish—Australian

constituencies clamoured for an appointment, and late in 1952 Casey decided to act. Because he was loath to place a good career man in a post of marginal significance at a time of concentration on expanded representation in Asia, Casey looked for an outside appointee. His first thoughts were of Justices McTiernan or Webb of the High Court, but he then enlisted the good offices of Senator Neil O’Sullivan, a Catholic Cabinet colleague from Queensland, and O’Sullivan in turn consulted the Irish-born Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, James Duhig. Neil Macgroarty, a Brisbane

barrister, former state minister and one-time president of the Queensland Irish Association, apparently was approached but declined. Mr Justice Douglas of the Queensland Supreme Court was also approached. With O’Sullivan unable to provide a candidate, Casey opted for Paul McGuire, a Catholic writer from South Australia, and acceptable to Duhig and O’Sullivan. In April 1953 McGuire’s name was submitted to the Queen.

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To Casey’s surprise, there then erupted a war of words. Australia

wanted to send to Dublin an Ambassador to the ‘Republic of Ireland’ (eighteen months before, a British Ambassador had been

appointed in that form). That form did not imply Canberra’s acceptance of Dublin’s claims to Ulster. Dublin, on the other hand, wanted to receive an Ambassador to ‘Ireland’ precisely to indicate

acceptance of ‘Ireland’s right to unity’.*® Casey and the rest of Cabinet felt unable to meet Dublin’s wishes, taking the view that Australian ministers could not advise the Queen of Australia to approve a formula known to be repugnant to her as Queen of the United Kingdom on the advice of her United Kingdom ministers. On the face of it, this was bad reasoning: the whole point of transforming dominions such as Australia into separate monarchies with, as it happened, the same person as monarch, had been to free overseas ministries from subservience to London ministries. But there was a feeling that diplomatic protocol involved the person of the monarch in a special way, and that a young queen new to the throne should not be embarrassed. That the United Kingdom used the formula preferred by Australia did not weigh with Dublin; the United Kingdom was the party in dispute; different rules applied to third parties. What Casey called ‘the wretched complication of Dublin’ could not be settled. Early in 1954 McGuire went to Rome

as Ambassador to Italy. An Ambassador finally was to go to Dublin in 1964, with Dublin using its form of words and Canberra using its form. It has been claimed that all this reflected the devotion of Casey and his colleagues to Britain and to Ulster and their indifference, even hostility, to Dublin.*’ There was indifference in the sense that Canberra did not rate Dublin highly in diplomatic terms. And it

is true that Casey, despite his patrimony, was not enamoured of the Irish, and that he did count the Prime Minister of Ulster (Lord Brookeborough) as a friend (they had met while travelling to Britain

from Australia by ship in the 1930s). And it is true that Casey wrote to his friend: ‘at no stage have I (or we) deviated from the simple conviction that we would not in any circumstances do anything that would embarrass the Queen—or you’. The last two words should be taken as representing no more than Casey’s normal tendency to take advantage of every opportunity to buttress

a friendship. There is no reason to suppose that Casey or his colleagues took sides on the Ulster question. For them, it was an historical problem for Dublin and London to sort out. They did dislike pressure from Dublin to take sides against Britain; they did wish to avoid embarrassment to a young Queen.

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Another problem, a domestic problem, beyond Casey’s capacity to resolve, related to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs. When in Opposition, Menzies had made much of the need for such a committee representing all parties to exercise surveillance

Over government activity on behalf of the Parliament, though leaving policy formulation and execution to the Government. Inevitably the coalition felt differently in government, and it was not until October 1951 that Casey moved for the establishment of a committee that would meet in secret, deal only with subjects proposed by the minister, and report to the minister rather than

to Parliament. Just as inevitably, Labor, now in Opposition, demanded a committee free to choose its own subjects for inquiry and to summon witnesses and records.* Like any minister, Casey

was not keen to make a thorn for his own side, and he saw the committee entirely as a means whereby its members could be ‘adequately indoctrinated’ on matters of concern, resulting in ‘an improved calibre of debate in our two Houses’.** Refused a more

autonomous and public body, Labor decided to boycott the

committee, which was established in March 1952 under the chairmanship of Rupert Ryan, and with a minority of places allocated to Labor left vacant. Casey addressed the committee frequently, had his department supply it liberally with briefs, and kept Evatt informed of the kind of information going to the committee. Late in 1952 Casey met Labor leaders and offered some concessions: the committee could consider matters referred to it by either House as well as by the minister; Parliament would be informed of committee reports to the minister and either house could order

publication. Casey convinced the Labor leadership, but caucus rebelled and the boycott continued until the next decade when a later minister, Paul Hasluck, and a later Labor leader, Gough Whitlam, agreed to changes acceptable to Labor (committee reports to the Opposition leader as well as to the minister, and committee freedom to hear expert witnesses).

Provided its functions were seen principally in terms of adding to the knowledge of Members of Parliament about international affairs, Casey was genuinely interested in the committee, and it was modestly successful in raising the standard of parliamentary debates on foreign affairs. Ultimately, ministries benefited in that, of the original committee members, three became ministers, and one,

John Gorton, became Prime Minister. Casey, though, was not a constitutionalist or even a devoted parliamentarian in the sense that Menzies and some others were, and he was not interested in arguments about the proper role of the legislature in relation to the

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executive. When during long years of coalition success Government

backbenchers on the committee looked for wider outlets for their energies, Casey reacted impatiently, and tended to show some vagueness about just what role a committee of the legislature might enjoy in the Australian system. Early, he was happy to affirm with candour that ‘I regard the Committee as a study group’.* Later in

the decade he was angered by what he called the ‘unjustified remarks’ of an ebullient committee chairman, W. Kent Hughes, whose complaint was precisely that Casey regarded the committee as merely a study group.*° For Casey, foreign policy and diplomacy were for ministers and their public servant diplomats. If a commit-

tee of Parliament allowed some education for MPs in the arcane problems of foreign policy and diplomacy, it had his blessing. If it aspired to a greater role, if it distracted his External Affairs officers or if it presumed to grill him, he was not benignly disposed.

Casey went out of his way to encourage Gorton. As ever, manners were relevant: Gorton spent time talking to a young and overlooked Donn Casey at a Melbourne Club function, and this was not forgotten. He also went out of his way to welcome young Malcolm Fraser when he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1955 and saw in him a future parliamentary under-secretary at External Affairs if ever such an office were created. This sprang in part from Casey’s old friendship with Fraser’s parents, but it

also reflected his appreciation of Fraser’s ‘good manners and approach’.*’ Manners mattered to Casey, and without them none got to first base with him. His relations with Menzies, for example might have been smoother had Menzies been a more conscientious correspondent. In the years after 1956 Casey soldiered on, but, for the first time

in his life, he also retreated into the past. At Edrington and in company storerooms he found cases of his father’s and grandfather’s papers. Being Casey, soon after a first glance at this mater-

ial he began to think in terms of a book, which, with some help from a cousin in the United Kingdom, Gwen Peyton Jones, his brother, Dermot, and an academic, Lloyd Robson, emerged in 1966 as Australian Father and Son. In going through his father’s papers, a process he found a little embarrassing, he seemed to come to terms with him, and perhaps to a degree with himself: ‘As I write notes as they occur to me about my Father, it frequently occurs to me, after I have written them, that I might well be describing myself, although this was by no means my intention when I wrote them.’*® In the book, he wrote of his father generally in approving and affectionate

terms, but, beyond noting that he had found him hard to talk to

284 CASEY

when a child and that he had been a stern, if fair, father, he kept veils intact. If he reflected on his parents’ conditioning in making him the kind of person he was, he kept his reflections to himself. It is tempting to suppose that his early years were so emotionally

straitened, with a too-imposing father and a too-imposing, if very different, mother, that he preferred not to re-enter his childhood and youth. Certainly, despite occasional thoughts about writing an autobiography, he did not use some rather barren years in retirement to that end. He enjoyed delving into the Casey family tree, and he hoped that Donn would be sustained by knowledge of three previous generations of achievers. He took an interest in Maie’s somewhat more colourful family background, but he showed no

interest at all in his own maternal background and even the discovery by others of his mother’s family’s convict origins seemed

not to be of much interest to him. He was neither fascinated nor mortified. During these years and later, he was occasionally sent mementoes of school life by contemporaries. Although he always responded graciously, he seemed not to want to freshen memories, to re-live the past. His aversion to nostalgia, though, might have reflected less a distaste for aspects of his past, or a psychological need to leave it buried, than Victorian colonial notions of manliness. His hatred of drama that delved into the corners of souls was extreme. In September 1958, for example, Judith Anderson, who had become a friend of his and Maie’s, took them to a New York performance of Dtrrenmatt’s The Visit. Casey found it ‘crude and morbid’; he was ‘embarrassed and bored’. The following day, they went to see Maurice Chevalier in the film Gigi, This was ‘good and entertaining, offset to last night’s horror’.*’ It does seem that, for Casey, a good chap should concentrate buoyantly on the present and the future.

Just as Casey’s entry into Australian politics in 1931 and attempted re-entry in 1946 were poorly managed, his departure in January 1960 was not managed as well as it might have been. For Casey, Christmas 1959 was something of a trial. Two Christmases earlier, when visited only by Jane and Murray Macgowan and their

two daughters (a second, Marian, had been born in mid-1957), Casey had coped better than he had expected: “The children are, strangely enough, quite nice little creatures. I had expected that the

House would be a living hell with them here, but this has not happened at all’.°” However, after the christening at Berwick of a third grand-daughter, Tempe, in December 1959, he noted sourly that ‘Jane’s child yowled throughout’.°’ For Christmas 1959 he and Maie were host at Edrington to the five Macgowans, together with

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his brother, Dermot, and Dermot’s wife Gwynnedd, and young Patrick Ryan (Rupert’s son) and his wife and child. Casey could only console himself that ‘Christmas comes but once a year’.°?

Life in the New Year of 1960 proceeded normally until 22 January, when a few members of his Canberra office were told that

he was about to retire. He returned to Melbourne and, on the

morning of Saturday 23 January, Press and radio carried the news that he had been made a life peer. Although Arthur Calwell disapproved acceptance by Casey of the peerage, the general reaction seemed favourable (a Gallup Poll in March showed 60 per cent of those sampled favouring life peerages for eminent Australians, with 21 per cent opposed). Subsequent events, however, were a little drawn out. He did not resign as Minister for External Affairs until

4 February, and he did not resign from Parliament until 10 February, and over that period his piecemeal departure became swamped in curiosity about who would succeed him, who would succeed Evatt (who had gone to New South Wales as Chief Justice), and how the Liberals would fare in a by-election for Latrobe (John

Jess scraped in with DLP preferences, where Casey in 1958 had enjoyed a comfortable absolute majority). Furthermore, Parliament did not reassemble after the Christmas recess until March, so that Casey had no opportunity to farewell the Parliament or to be farewelled by it, and he had no opportunity to attempt any kind of statement about his years as foreign minister or about his hopes for the future. Cabinet gave him a dinner on 3 February, and he returned to Canberra for dinners given by External Affairs officers on 29 February and by the diplomatic corps on 17 March, and that was that. Despite Casey’s expression of thanks to Menzies in his resignation

note ‘for all the consideration that you have been good enough to give me over the years’,>’ there remained a certain public chilliness between Casey and Menzies. News of Casey’s peerage was accompanied by a somewhat gratuitous statement by Menzies that the

peerage had been recommended to the Queen by the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, and that Casey had wanted to

retire ‘some time ago’. Casey had discussed his future with

Menzies over the previous year, but surviving evidence suggests that he was more interested in a long holiday than retirement, at least until his visit to London in November when the Lord Chancellor, Lord Kilmuir, pressed him to accept a life peerage. In that

a peerage carried a seat in the House of Lords in the United Kingdom Parliament, doubtless the British Prime Minister’s advice

to the monarch was crucial, but Menzies’s statement tended to

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allow an impression that a peerage for Casey was not his idea and

perhaps even not his desire. It also tended to revive a feeling in

some that Casey was a United Kingdom man rather than an Australian. Indeed, Casey was led repeatedly to assure the Press that he was an Australian who would remain resident in Australia, unlike Melbourne Grammar’s other old boy peers, Lord Bruce and Lord Baillieu, who had become expatriates. Casey also had a chance to have a dig back at Menzies, who took the External Affairs portfolio himself on Casey’s retirement. In a television interview Casey agreed with Press critics of Menzies’s decision, declaring that the External Affairs portfolio had become too onerous and involved too much travel for it to be combined

for long with another portfolio. In this kind of context it was inevitable that newspapers should carry speculation on whether Casey had left office freely or had been pushed. Had Casey’s peerage and retirement been delayed until Parliament reassembled in March, his retirement from the ministry and from Parliament and his acceptance of a peerage could have been announced at the

same time. Casey could then have farewelled Parliament and political life in Australia from the Government front bench in the federal legislature, and his long participation in public life could have ended on a triumphant note. As it was, the process of retirement was too piecemeal, too prolonged, for that note quite to be achieved. Not that all this reflected malevolence on the part of Menzies. Casey’s own shyness led him to refuse Menzies’s suggestion that his peerage and retirement be announced at a Cabinet meeting, and the timing of his retirement from Parliament was in his own hands. It may be, of course, that he wished to share his elevation with Maie, and this was better achieved at Edrington than in Canberra. Because Parliament was not in session when Casey retired, and because the Press was distracted by the novelty of his peerage, his retirement was marked by recapitulations of his long public career, with special emphasis on his posts overseas in the 1940s, and few attempts were made at the time to evaluate his performance as

Minister for External Affairs. However, one evaluation was

attempted by a Sydney Morning Herald leader writer: It was Lord Casey at the inauguration of ANZUS and of SEATO who helped to make Australia’s collaboration with America a factor of importance in Pacific affairs. As well, he personally laid the foundations of the closer relationships with the new nations of South-East Asia which must now be among the first of our preoccupations. In this work his personal qualities and interests—his blend of courtesy, gentleness and shrewdness;

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his sympathy with Asians’ ambitions; and his understanding of their prob-

lems—made a most valuable contribution. Australia will long be in his debt for his determination, in years when public interest in our relations with Asia was absurdly small, to improve the quality of our representation in Asia. This lack of interest extended to the higher reaches of Cabinet itself and

undoubtedly handicapped Lord Casey. A tougher man and a cleverer politician might have done more perhaps to help his department and to push its policies home. Such a man might not, however, have made the

friends for Australia that Lord Casey did in his many trips abroad.

Australia owes him much. . .”°

It is difficult to fault this evaluation of Casey. If to Australians who recall Vietnam controversies or youthful touring in Asia it seems odd so to remark a man who was a constant visitor to Asian countries, who was a constant preacher to Australians of the importance to them of Asia, who treated Asians as seriously as Americans and Europeans, they must realise just how unaware even educated

Australians had been of Asia. A few coteries of lawyers and academics took a special interest in India and Indonesia, but their public impact was minimal. Japan was disliked but little known; China was no longer a subject for missionary appeals, but it was quite unknown except in ideological caricature; Ceylon was a boat stop on the way to Britain; Cambodia (now Kampuchea) and Laos were entries in atlas indexes and handy in crosswords; Thailand (then Siam) was a nice backdrop for musical comedy. Events in Asia and widening access to higher education in Australia helped to make Australians more aware of Asia, but Casey’s constant preaching in and to the Press and his frequent Asian travels, which the Press had

to cover, also played an important part. At Government level he was almost alone. Few ministers had any interest in Asia, and

Menzies seems to have had none at all. In 1959, with Australian—Indonesian relations in a delicate condition, Menzies was persuaded to visit Indonesia, but, as Casey noted, ‘I don’t think he’s much looking forward to it.’°°

Casey also gave solid institutional form to his campaign. By Opening and expanding posts in Asia, the Department of External

Affairs inevitably came to have influential officers with Asian experience and Asian interests. In April 1959, as was his wont, Casey addressed the year’s intake of diplomatic cadets. They should, he said, learn how to write memoranda in plain English, master French, read widely and ‘concentrate on Asia rather than Europe’.®’ Had he been given his head by colleagues, he might have achieved much more. In particular, had he been allowed to establish

288 CASEY

diplomatic relations with China and to develop close rapport with some Chinese leaders (as inevitably he would have), subsequent Australian and regional history might have been very different— and much more pleasant. He was not given his head because he was not tough enough, cunning enough or politician enough to carry Cabinets with him. Even so, he achieved much, less perhaps as a foreign minister than as a minister—diplomat.

THIRTEEN

(GOVERNOR-GENERAL

Retirement for Australian politicians usually means retirement into

private life. Most disappear from public sight very quickly, and only a few of the most eminent and colourful continue occasionally to interest the Press. Even without a peerage, this would not have been Casey’s way. He was now heading into his seventies, but conventional retirement into a quiet life of relaxation and hobbies was no more attractive to him now than it had ever been: ‘I... am never really happy unless I am working.’! He had been for so

long a public person that he would have continued to make speeches with an eye to headlines, to write for the Press, to be interviewed for television, to publish books. He had _ been for so long a foreign minister inclined to close relations with his officers that, peerage or not, they would have continued to pay their respects to him in Melbourne before taking up overseas postings, to play host to him during his travels, to keep him informed,

to send him department policy papers, and he would have continued to correspond with them, to seek their ideas, to dine with them. Peerage or not, in view of his long ministerial association with CSIRO, Menzies probably would have arranged for him

to become a member of the CSIRO executive, giving him the Opportunity to make of it a base for making new acquaintances, for official travel and for airing his views on current scientific and technological developments, notably in the field of population control. Peerage or not, he would have involved himself in the

Australian—American Association and the Australian—Asian Associ-

ation; he would anyway have taken an interest in International House at the University of Melbourne, in an appeal for funds by the Australian College of Surgeons, in the Freedom from Hunger campaign. He would still have travelled extensively in Australia (often flying himself) and overseas, maintaining connections with hundreds of friends and acquaintances and visiting places difficult to enter as a minister (the USSR in 1961, for example). The peerage, though, did make a difference. Strictly speaking, Arthur Calwell was right in seeing Casey’s peerage as anachronistic.

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When Britain was an imperial power and even the white settler dominions were only self-governing British dependencies, and when British nationality encompassed all, there was nothing

odd in a dominion-born Briton being raised to the peerage and sitting in the Upper House of the United Kingdom Parliament. By 1960, when the British Commonwealth comprised a number of kingdoms and republics equal in status and dignity, it was odd that

an Australian should be ennobled not by the Queen of Australia but by the Queen of the United Kingdom, and that in consequence

he should have a seat in the United Kingdom Parliament. However, while it would have seemed very odd if, say, the Queen of Canada had appointed an Australian to the Canadian legislature, most Australians in 1960 still saw themselves as British and still saw

Westminster as the Mother Parliament, and nice constitutional questions were scarcely raised. Certainly Casey saw nothing odd in his new station. Indeed he made it his business at once to urge British ministers to recommend life peerages for eminent Indians and Pakistanis. The mind now boggles at the notion of nationals of republics entering the Upper House of the legislature of another country, a monarchy, by the ennobling act of that other country’s monarch, whose only link with such republics was titular headship

of an international grouping of states to which the republics belonged, but at the time ministers in London saw nothing consti-

tutionally anomalous in Casey’s proposal. For them, Casey’s peerage was an honour to a leading citizen of the Commonwealth, giving the Commonwealth a voice in the House of Lords. In Australian terms, what the peerage bestowed principally on Casey was singularity. Lord Bruce and Lord Baillieu might have been Australians, but they were rarely in Australia and rarely in the

Australian public eye. A few hereditary peerages had passed to Australians from distant connections, but small farmers become earls cut little ice with Australians (or, in most cases, with the small farmers). Casey’s peerage was different. Capping a long, colourful and unusual life, the peerage made of Casey an institution. Because

he was Lord Casey, what he said and did was certain to be news, so that in a sense he did not retire: being a peer almost became an occupation. Now Australian Governments could call on Casey,

| because he was Lord Casey, to represent Australia—at East African independence celebrations in 1963, for example. This status

was the more easily established in that Casey refused seats on company boards in Australia, Britain and the United States (‘I don’t

particularly need them’)? and even the chairmanship of ‘an antisubversive organisation’ (which must have tempted him).° He kept

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his commitments almost exclusively to the public domain and

without remuneration. Casey himself was not altogether at ease with the more feudal aspects of his new status. He did not like being addressed as ‘My Lord’, preferring simply “Lord Casey’ (Maie, on the other hand, was a Sstickler for correct forms). At his swearing-in at the House

of Lords on 18 May 1960, with old Lord Hankey and Lord Carrington, First Lord of the Admiralty, as his sponsors (he had been at Melbourne Grammar with Carrington’s father, Rupert

Carington), Casey shocked the clerk by signing himself ‘R. G. Casey’ instead of ‘Casey’. He had a long and cranky disagreement with the Garter Principal King-of-Arms before accepting that he could not be just Baron Casey of Berwick, but must add a British territorial reference; he had lived within the boundaries of the City of Westminster, and so he became Baron Casey of Berwick in the State of Victoria in the Commonwealth of Australia, and of the City of Westminster. (The alternatives suggested to him were Cambridge, where he had been a student, and Liverpool, which had been his grandfather’s home.) Because Casey could not pretend to speak as a United Kingdom

man in the Upper House of the United Kingdom Parliament, or as an Australian in a non-Australian Parliament, he had little choice

but to assert that in the House of Lords he spoke for a Commonwealth constituency. Having over the previous decade dealt with London usually on wider international issues, he had not focused closely on the Commonwealth, and he went to London in 1960 assuming that he was going to the Commonwealth’s engine-room. He

was astounded that at the highest levels in Whitehall and West-

minster ‘I failed to discover (in the course of many relevant talks...) any noticeable interest in the Commonwealth’.* A second visit to London in mid-1961 (he and Maie quickly fell into

a routine of spending the late northern spring and summer in Britain) was similarly startling. He had been fully aware, of course,

of the changes in the Commonwealth since the war, with the old dominions claiming utter independence and many dependencies of the coloured empire now independent or near independence, but it had not occurred to him that Britain’s pride in mothering this

new kind of Commonwealth might rapidly have faded into

rhetoric. Almost for the first time he had now to question that rhet-

oric. A little wanly, he asked Zelman Cowen at the Law School

in the University of Melbourne: ‘Is there something basic in the Commonwealth relationship (common law, decency and all that)?’

292 CASEY

At this point Casey could not resist the impulse to act, to write a book, even if he was going off half-cocked. After two seasons in London Casey could see no hope for the Commonwealth as it had been conceived by bright spirits during his years in London in 1920s: I believe the people in London at all levels (with minor exceptions) have

lost confidence in the Commonwealth, and indeed interest in it... . There are a number of smallish things that they could do in an effort to integrate the Commonwealth—but even in total they would be unlikely to have any appreciable effect in the face of the disintegrating factors.°®

Despite this pessimism, Casey proceeded with his book, which was knocked back by Macmillan and by Faber, but which was published as The Future of the Commonwealth in 1963 by Frederick Muller. His

prescriptions were modest and sensible: more aid by old Commonwealth states to new; greater scientific effort in Britain to solve new Commonwealth states’ population problems; creation of Commonwealth universities in Asia and Africa; more frequent visits by journalists and politicians to Commonwealth countries; encouragement of British emigration to Commonwealth countries; more intimate

links between professional associations in the Commonwealth; dropping of the word ‘British’ from Commonwealth institutions. Still, the book begged fundamental questions: what was special about the Commonwealth, why should it be preserved, what did it matter if, as Casey put it, ‘the Commonwealth is on the way to becoming a paper conception, with little reality or practical usefulness?’’ Casey could note only that Britain had given the bases for sound public administration to a quarter of the world’s population,

and hope that this would ‘fertilise’ the world and ‘mature’ into something.

Despite all his experience to the contrary, Casey still assumed that efficiency and dispatch were proper to politics, and he was still impatient if the obvious and the practicable were ignored. His proposals seemed to him obvious and practicable and he anticipated

that ‘if what I’ve said in my book... is not acted upon... I'll very largely lose interest in the Commonwealth—and turn my thinking to how we can cement and improve our link with the United States’.2 The book, in fact, was politely received, but he found on his annual trip to London in 1964 that men of power were not moved by it, that he might as well not have bothered to write it. As he had anticipated, he was angered and ready to abandon the British connection: I suppose I’ll come over here again, but I doubt if Pll do so with very much enthusiasm. Perhaps I’ll go to America and Asia, where they seem

GOVERNOR-GENERAL 293

to know what I’m talking about. This time in London has been rather a climacteric for me.’

Casey was not generally a moralist, but there was a moral aspect

to his distress over the refusal of British political and business leaders to take up the Commonwealth cause. While preparing his book, Casey had re-lived his Calcutta days, recalling his outrage at the way in which the British in India had treated Indians. By the time the book was published, Casey had moved beyond much of its content in his thinking, and was coming to focus increasingly on the aid issue. For him, the point now of the old Commonwealth offering aid to the new was not ideological or political but moral. As he wrote to a friend, Hugh Roberton: ‘For one thing they’ll go

further downhill if we don’t—and for another we owe it to them.” This notion of debt sprang entirely from his time in

Bengal, ‘which didn’t make me very proud of the past’."! Casey did not go overboard in his reaction to British indifference towards the Commonwealth. He continued to regard the English as ‘the most civilised people in the world’,'* and he advised Robert

Jackson and Barbara Ward to send their son to Eton because ‘he would get a better and broader education at Eton than he would at any school here in Australia that I know’.'* On the other hand, his aversion to some facets of British life grew, and high on the list was class consciousness. Early in 1962 he warned Donn, now resident in Britain, that the “English social set-up... is highly stratified, very class conscious and reserved’,'* but this was simply a fact of British life to be accommodated. By mid-1964, when he was angry with the British élite, he noted after a talk with Bruce in London: ‘Bruce tends to believe that class feeling is much less in Britain today than it was. It may be, but there is still a great deal, which is rather hard to take.’!’ And in 1964 he was feeling alienated enough to wonder if he should reduce the family’s investments in

Britain and re-invest in Australia and the USA. Further, and inevitably, his sense of Australian patriotism was buttressed. His

undoubted Australian patriotism had to a degree remained subsumed in a wider sense of Britishness, but now he was more

inclined to follow his younger countrymen towards a more exclusive Australianness. In May 1964 he had a long talk with Sir Alec Douglas Home at 10 Downing Street. Casey had a high regard personally for Home but, after an hour-and-a-half of Home’s cour-

teous imprecision, Casey declared that ‘I am becoming more and

more convinced that we are growing apart and becoming two different peoples.’'®

294 CASEY

It might be thought inconsistent that Casey should damn what he saw as the British characteristic of class consciousness while in his highly gregarious daily life largely confining himself to political,

economic and scientific élites. Casey probably did kid himself a little about his own attitudes, but in general he pursued men at the top because they were the interesting achievers. Their social origins or connections did not much affect him except to the extent that, if anything, he favoured the man who had climbed over the man who simply sat at the top of a social heap by right of birth. He was aware of Arthur Calwell’s relatively underprivileged background,

for example, but Calwell had achieved high office in the state. That, and the wisdom Calwell had gained, made him socially acceptable to Casey. In 1963 Casey wrote to Calwell to say that Maie would be happy to propose his daughter, Mary Elizabeth, for membership of the Lyceum Club, ‘not quite such a stronghold of

capitalism as the Melbourne Club, to which I know you have an allergy’.*’

Membership of the House of Lords could have opened to Casey a whole new field of aristocratic cultivation had he wanted it, but, though he took an interest in the leading personalities of the Lords, he made friends only of a few with whom he and Maie happened

to hit it off—the Earl and Countess of Limerick, for example. (The Earl was a financier interested in medical research and his countess had high standing in her own right in social welfare and public health.) Others, such as the Mountbattens, had been friends

since the early 1940s, and Casey was ‘devastated’ by Edwina Mountbatten’s early death in 1960. Casey was not snob enough or romantic enough to revel simply in being in the House of Lords,

and he was no keener a parliamentarian in London than in

Canberra. In fact, he made two gaffes when he first spoke in the Lords: he rose to speak on the third reading of a bill, and he had not been a member of the Lords for a month. He felt obliged to speak in the Lords during his annual visits to London—usually on aviation, Commonwealth or birth-control matters—but Westminster did not greatly impress him. Indeed, when feelings ran high in the Commons, he could find the behavior of MPs ‘caddish and shame-making’.'®

Despite his disillusionment with Britain, Casey remained determined as far as possible to live buoyantly. He continued to abhor what was depressing: posthumous publication of Dag Hammarskjdld’s tortured agonising about himself and existence offended

Casey because ‘there’s enough pessimism about without gratuitously adding to it’;'? the musical, West Side Story, was ‘peculiar

GOVERNOR-GENERAL 295

and not very pleasant’;*? Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was ‘highly unpleasant and unhealthy . . . nearly made me

vomit’ (he and Maie walked out of a London performance).?! He much preferred the James Bond novels of Ian Fleming in these years

and, true to form, gave copies to friends, Owen Dixon being one of the unlikely recipients. He was delighted by the performances of a young Melbourne comedian called Barry Humphries (‘pleasant boyish lad . . . remarkably good’),** invited him and his wife to lunch and gave him, of all things, a Roman nail he had bought in England. In these years he and Maie had Maurice Chevalier, Noel Coward, Vivien Leigh, Robert Helpmann, Googie Withers and John McCallum to visit or stay at Edrington. Coward remained ‘the most interesting man I know’.*°

The Caseys remained keen travellers. They toured Ireland looking for their roots, but they found none. They enjoyed Ireland,

were a shade less enthusiastic about the Irish, and loathed Irish food: Irish hotels were ‘rather like what I imagine is the Bricklayer’s

Arms in Collingwood, as regards food’.** They were anxious to visit China, but neither Canberra nor Peking shared their anxiety, and visas were not forthcoming. However, they did manage to get

to the USSR in mid-1961. They were ‘duchessed’, and they succumbed. Offered state hospitality, they opted for a private visit

so that they could stay with the Australian Ambassador in

Moscow, Keith Waller, who had become a personal friend at

External Affairs in the 1950s. Gromyko was amiable to the point that he ‘even smiled and cracked a few jokes’;* deputy foreign ministers showed ‘almost embarrassing friendliness’; Maie was

taken to see the Hermitage. Overall, Casey was marvellously impressed. What he saw differed so greatly from what he expected to see that he was inclined to accuse the Western press of practising disinformation. As he wrote to Talbot Rice in London, ‘domesti-

cally they are a good deal further ahead—and better off—than I’d have believed and, if the world holds in one piece, the progress is certain to continue’.*° This visit pretty much finished Casey as a Cold War warrior: “The progress they’ve made is very substantial

indeed and it is blinding oneself to reality not to realise it... Communism is here to stay and it is foolish to speak of “rolling

back Communism”’.’?’

For a time Casey did not feel comfortable on the CSIRO execu-

tive: he had been the responsible minister for too long. But this

sense of strain passed, CSIRO gave him an office in East Melbourne, he took part conscientiously in the executive's discussions, and he was happy to do chores for the organisation

296 CASEY

when overseas. At home Casey insisted still that CSIRO must concentrate on practical problems: ‘science is not an end in itself —but to enable more Australians to earn better livings’.*® Or, as he put it to the CSIRO secretary, G. B. Gresford: May it not be that fundamental research has got ahead of mankind’s ability to develop and apply the scientific knowledge already acquired . . . may

it not be appropriate to put more current emphasis on development and application, to the temporary detriment to fundamental research.”?

Overseas, Casey placed great emphasis on population control. Maie shared his concern, and at a Buckingham Palace dinner in June 1960 ‘Maie gave the Queen an indoctrination on birth control’.’? Casey’s

interest sprang from his fears for some Asian countries, but it happened that in these years his son, Donn, made birth control his field, not as a scientist but as a bibliographer. In matters that they saw as technical, the Caseys could be extraordinarily unsqueamish, and a letter from Donn on, say, what could be done to make abor-

tion easier at the village level in India by changing fittings on ordinary bicycle pumps was quite acceptable at Edrington. Casey went on the campaign trail occasionally for the Liberals (in the Lords he sat with the independent Conservatives) and, as

a young minister, Peter Howson, noted after a meeting at the

Melbourne Club, ‘he is always glad to hear gossip from Canberra’, but he did not aspire to the role of party elder statesman. Garfield Barwick was the minister most to engage Casey’s interest, even affection. It is not uncommon for those shy

in personal dealings to lean towards unconventional candour in writing, and this trait was evident in a note from Casey to Barwick early in 1960: ‘I realised when first we met that you were someone that I would very much like to know—and I have tried to do this

... I have come to appreciate you very much.’*” He retained his interest in Labor and Labor men. Although he admitted that ‘I have to remind myself that I’m not now Minister for External A ffairs’,°° he still wrote to External Affairs officers at overseas posts to enlist their good offices when Labor men of his acquaintance were planning overseas trips. He continued to court Arthur Calwell. When

Calwell received a papal knighthood in 1964 and showed some unease about it, Casey wrote to him: ‘you needn’t be so modest about it. Any such distinction alleviates the flat uniformity of our society and gives people aiming marks.’ Whereas most old men become increasingly conservative with age, Casey, if anything, went in the other direction. He was pleased by John Kennedy’s success in the 1960 American presidential elec-

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tions (he never quite made up his mind about Richard Nixon, sometimes seeing him as sinister, sometimes finding him commendably well-mannered and knowledgeable). In 1964, when Senator Barry Goldwater carried the Republican banner against President Johnson, he wrote that ‘the appalling prospect of even the possibility of Goldwater hangs over the world like a black cloud’.*° He even entered the British political arena as a champion of trade unionism: when the Conservatives’ Enoch Powell in 1964 claimed

that the working of supply and demand in the market place had done more to boost workers’ wages than the activities of trade unions, Casey wrote a trenchant letter to the London Sunday Times

giving the ALP and trade unions exclusive credit for substantial increases in Australian wage rates, and stating that ‘I’d be interested to hear the reaction of an automobile worker in Detroit if he were

told by Mr Powell that he’d get along just as well without his union’.°° On the central importance to Australia of the American alliance, however, he held firm. While he wanted close relations with Asian states, he did not believe that Australia could become part of Asia or pass as Asian: ‘we are the outpost of European civilisation in this part of the world’.°’ Like Bruce in the 1920s, he wanted overseas investment and yet bridled when overseas interests bought up Australian enterprises (like Bruce in the 1920s, he feared a repetition of Canada’s economic experience). He was attracted by the notion of a more autonomous Australia, but it seemed to him that a small population and geographical isolation forced dependence on ‘at least the moral support of a strong friend, which, in today’s circumstances, can only be the United States’.*8 During these years of ‘retirement’, the bond between the Caseys became even stronger. In the main, they could now spend their time together, and Casey came to hate separation from Maie, even for a few days. When occasionally they were parted briefly, he conveyed to her very explicitly his affection and loneliness. For

example, in January 1963, when he went to Switzerland for a scientific conference by himself, he wrote from the plane on the way to New York: ‘My love to you dearest ... All my love to you—lI hate your not being with me for this next six weeks.’ Two

days later, he wrote: ‘All my love dearest—we musn’t do these long trips alone again—I’m miserable without you.’*? They still enjoyed flying. They both enjoyed travel. Now, they were both throwing themselves into writing: besides The Future of the Commonwealth, he prepared Personal Experience 1939-1946 (1962), based on his diaries for the period, and resumed work on Australian

Father and Son (1966); Maie worked on her family history (An

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Australian Story 1837-1907, 1962) and on her own memoirs (Tides

and Eddies, 1966). Maie was without doubt the better writer. Where she wrote with a relaxed command of style and a feeling for words, his prose was as stilted as his verbal delivery. His books

were kindly reviewed in a country where politicians rarely write anything of interest, but some reviewers were impatient with the extreme discretion that marked his publications. Geoffrey Hutton in the Age complained of his ‘reticence’ and thought that in Personal

Experience he was ‘carrying gentlemanly behavior to the limit’;*’ Mel Jacques in the Nation complained of Casey’s ‘Public School code’;** and A. J. Forbes in the Australian Book Review mourned that ‘a lifetime habit of playing his cards close to his chest . . . has been too much for him even in retirement’.*° If the relationship between Richard and Maie Casey continued and deepened, the same cannot be said of their relations with their children. They were dutiful and responsible parents, but they were unable to translate good intentions into reality. Having grown up in rigorously patriarchal societies where only women of very rare stature had much chance of autonomy and independence, both were inclined to undervalue their daughter, Jane, as a person and as a

woman, and to see in her marriage further and proper submergence. Maie in her day had been strong enough, and supported enough by a father and a brother, to go her own way, but it would

have taken a wise and strong daughter indeed to have earned her respect and affection. Casey did not really know what to do with a daughter until she became someone’s wife; then he could be generous to her and to his son-in-law, at least in material terms.

While they tended to undervalue their daughter, they had too high expectations of their son, Donn. Casey saw Donn becoming a man grounded in finance and land management preparatory to leadership, probably political, in Australian life, and he found great difficulty in accommodating an alternative vision. Worse, Casey brought to his relationship with his son the style of his own father: constant advice, constant exhortation, constant criticism. Casey had never rebelled against such a regime, but Donn did. At first, Donn seemed set to follow paternal guidelines: he took his degree in Agricultural Science, he learned to fly, he sought a CMF commission, he learned farm management and, with his father preparing the way, Spent time in finance houses in London and New York. Then he became fascinated by problems of population control (initially encouraged by Casey), spent time in the field in India, and moved to Cambridge, where he worked on bibliographies on the subject.

GOVERNOR-GENERAL 299

In the early 1960s Casey became increasingly impatient with Donn’s inclination to settle into this bibliographical work, but Donn, now in his early thirties, did not respond. There was little that Casey could.do beyond preach and complain: ‘with all the Opportunities in the world for doing worth-while things ... you free-wheel along and the years go by’.** In the long run, the Caseys

alienated their son, who remained in Cambridge doing what he wanted to do. Casey, of course, saw Donn continuing a New World dynasty. When he began sifting his father’s and grandfather’s papers in the late 1950s, he wrote to Donn: ‘All this makes a back-

ground for you. It is not often that you get four generations of people immediately succeeding each other who have something to contribute.’*? Donn’s visits home became infrequent, his interest in Edrington evaporated. People familiar with the family were to be a little staggered when, in August 1968, the National Fathers’ Day Council named Casey Father of the Year. As grandparents, too, the Caseys were dutiful but unenthusiastic. Expecting the worst, Casey could sometimes find his granddaughters ‘really quite attractive creatures’,*® but he wrote to Robert Jackson in 1965: We're just emerging from the turmoil of the Christmas and New Year period, with the house at Berwick stuffed full of Jane and Murray and their three children. They’ve been under our feet and in our hair and have savaged our routine, but, like everything else, it can’t last forever and is coming to an end. Natural love and affection and all that, but young children tend to be too affectionate. In consequence, Maie and I have a rather

jaundiced view of what, for some reason, is called by some people the festive season.*’

Because they were dutiful, the Caseys’ attitudes did not affect the children, who were to remember their grandparents, and especially their grandfather, with affection. The eldest, Anna, was to recall how at Christmas 1960 Casey sat crosslegged on the floor to mend her toy top. For the rest of his life Casey was to write little notes

to the children, sometimes to mark birthdays, often just to keep in touch. As with everything else, he worked at being a grandfather, and, as far as his grandchildren were concerned, he did pretty well. Casey was so ill at ease in situations where emotion normally is made overt that one must allow the possibility that he felt more joy and less irritation than he claimed, and it is recalled that, when Tempe was a toddler, he spent hours walking about the grounds of Edrington with her, hand in hand. Still, Casey excelled as a husband; headship of a family was not his forte.

300 CASEY

Despite the temptation in 1964 to abandon London, the Caseys were back there in April—July 1965. While they were there, the Governor-General of Australia, Viscount De L’Isle, resigned and

returned to Britain. With one or two exceptions, Australian Governors-General since federation had not been a prepossessing lot, inferior in many cases to the states’ Governors. One of the best of them had been Sir William Slim (1953-60), a soldier of modest origins and blessed with a personality attractive to Australians, but he had been succeeded by Viscount Dunrossil, a rather grey man

who had been Speaker of the House of Commons and who died

in office in 1961, and then by De L’Isle, an aristocrat with a Victoria Cross. It is likely that Menzies, who went to London himself, sought a Briton to succeed De L’Isle and, like many prime ministers before him, found it hard to drum up candidates accept-

able to Australians and interested in the job. It was only after he had been in London for some time, certainly, that he dined with the Caseys at the Savoy Grill and offered the job to Casey. Casey’s initial reaction was to refuse, but he asked if he could sleep on it. Casey probably had several reasons for not taking up Menzies’s offer at once, apart from surprise that Menzies, of all people, should

make it. One might well have been aversion to the fatigue and boredom of a busy but ceremonial position. Another might well have been genuine doubt about his own suitability, for, despite their at times uninspired choices, Australian ministers had treated vice-regal appointments very seriously, and none more seriously than Casey. Here it is interesting to consider Casey’s unsolicited advice to Menzies in 1952 about a successor to William McKell.

Casey then assumed that the Governor-General must be an Australian, a Canadian, a New Zealander, a United Kingdom exserviceman or a United Kingdom ‘political or social individual’. Among Australians, he thought John Latham, John Northcott and Edmund Herring worth considering, but the only Australian really of adequate stature was Bruce, and he doubted Bruce would accept. Among Canadians, Vincent Massey was the best, but he was already Governor-General of Canada. St Laurent would be ‘splendid’ if Australians could overlook his recent political partisanship. The only New Zealand possibility was Bernard Freyberg, but Casey was not keen about him. Among the United Kingdom ex-servicemen, there were Lord Alanbrooke, Lord Cunningham (‘great man’), and Lord

Portal (‘splendid fellow’) and Sir William Slim (‘good solid hard-bitten fellow . . . with a good wife’). Among United Kingdom civilians, there were Lord Halifax and Lord Harlech (‘married to a

very good Cecil’). None of the Royal Family was available, nor

GOVERNOR-GENERAL 301

‘even reasonably intelligent Dukes’. One name raised by Casey, but

dismissed in very harsh terms, was Lord Killearn, who as Miles Lampson had been one of the Foreign Office push to give Casey such

a hard time in Cairo (‘he’d be a calamity’).*® In effect, if Casey accepted, he would in his own terms be placing himself in rare company.

His main reason for hesitation, however, was doubt about his public acceptability. He had held similar doubts about the peerage, and to a degree they had been borne out by Labor’s reaction to it. He saw the governor-generalship as much more hazardous, and for good reason. Non-Labor governments not only had insisted on

continuing with British appointments, but, in reaction to the Chifley Government’s appointment of William McKell, a former Labor politician, had declared for the principle that the post must not go to an Australian identified with a political party. In view of the coalition’s response to McKell’s appointment, it was reasonable to suppose that Labor would take a very hostile view of a former Liberal minister at Government House in Canberra.

By all accounts, Casey remained anything but keen. Maie, however, was very keen, and the next day he told Menzies that he would accept. On 8 July he and Maie had tea with the Queen at Buckingham Palace, and all was sealed: rather than the usual fiveyear term, he would be appointed for two years, with extensions

if he wished. Still, it was with trepidation that they returned to Melbourne and Casey waited for the planned public announcement on 28 July. For Casey, the key figure was Arthur Calwell, leader

of the Opposition. If he condemned the appointment, Casey was assured of a rough passage. On the night of the 28th, Casey paced the floor at Little Parndon at East Melbourne, unable to sleep until a telegram from Calwell was rung through prior to delivery next morning. It said, in part: “This is most welcome news for me personally for my party and for Australia.’*”? A very relieved and delighted Casey slept.

It was for the Caseys a heady time. In August a one-act opera called The Young Kabbarli, with music by Margaret Sutherland and

a libretto by Maie (based on the life of Daisy Bates), had its premiere in Hobart. Casey was invested as a Knight Grand Cross of St Michael and St George before his swearing-in as the federation’s sixteenth Governor-General by Garfield Barwick, by that time a Chief Justice of the High Court, in the Senate chamber in Canberra on 22 September. On 30 December Jane provided a grandson, Richard, and, as Casey did not forebear to say, ‘everybody was pleased after a run of three girls’.?° And, soon after taking

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up residence at Government House (Yarralumla), the Caseys took

delivery of a 6-cylinder Porsche, the only one of its kind in Australia, for £2750—a saving of £2000 because Governors-General

did not pay tax. After so many years of resentment on his own side and dislike

on both, Casey was deeply affected by what he took to be Menzies’s generosity in letting his peerage go through and now in recommending him for Yarralumla. He wrote to him late in July 1965 ‘to say what I said yesterday—that we are both most grateful

to you indeed for the kindness and consideration that you have shown to us both, particularly in early 1960 and now—and this is the language of great understatement’.°! A few weeks after Menzies’s retirement from political life, in January 1966, Casey again wrote to him, again clearly trying to mend fences: You have been through a very considerable emotional experience in recent times and you will have many things going through your mind, past and

present—the great contribution you have made to the stability and welfare of Australia and the recent abrupt cut-off point that you sought yourself—and the future that is ahead of you. You would be more than human if you didn’t have some difficulty in adjusting all this in your mind .. . If you’d both care to come and spend a few days with us here at any

time, we’d be only too glad.»

It is not clear how successful Casey was in trying to establish amiable rapport with Menzies. Certainly, the Caseys and the Menzies were to behave with civility towards each other, but the indications seem to be that Menzies did not now make of Casey a friend. Casey, on the other hand, seems genuinely to have felt for Menzies, who did not find retirement easy. Governors-General have had two options since Australia’s rise to the status of a separate kingdom in the inter-war years. They

can serve as figureheads and symbols on behalf of the absent monarch, making speeches, laying foundation stones, patronising worthy causes, opening conferences, being seen on travels, reviewing military parades and attending to state ceremonial, but avoiding any kind of political role. As it stands, the federal constitution gives the Governor-General powers that viceroys of India might have envied in the prime of the raj, but the convention had

developed that, like the monarch in the United Kingdom, the Governor-General would exercise these powers only at the will of the Government of the day—the ministry with the confidence of

the Lower House, the House of Representatives. Unlike British practice, it had not been customary in Australia even for non-Labor

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parties to leave final choice of a Prime Minister to the head of state.

It seemed that in Australia there would always be a Prime Minister at the head of a party with majority support in the Representatives to advise (tell) the Governor-General what to do, even if only temporary support pending elections or, in the case of sudden resignation or death, pending leadership elections by the

major party in the Representatives. In political matters the Governor-General could see himself as a rubber stamp.

A second, though not mutually exclusive, option allowed the Governor-General a much more active role of the kind thought to be exercised by long-reigning monarchs in the United Kingdom.

This was not an executive role so much as an application of

experience to the affairs of state—to suggest activity, to quéstion

methods of policy implementation, to demand respect for the minutiae of constitutional forms, to query appointments, to advise reconsideration of measures, to take a special interest in diplomacy. Casey took up both options, in the case of the second stretching convention to the limit. As he said, ‘I hate being called a rubber stamp.’>°

In the business of government, an immense quantity of paper goes to a Governor-General for his signature or for his information.

If he soaks up the information, one of his major functions, to preside over meetings of the executive council (as close as the Australian constitution comes to recognising the facts of cabinet government), can be more than a formality. Casey read all the material sent to him, though he found External Affairs a little too generous in sending him copies of all cables, and he asked for a selection. If papers sent to him seemed wanting in detail or explanation, he did not hesitate to return them to ministers. In early 1967 he asked that executive council submissions indicate the authority for them (Cabinet or minister), with a note of Treasury approval if expenditure was involved and Public Service Board approval if Public Service recruitment was involved. Experience of this aspect of the office convinced Casey that, far from political office being a disqualification for the governor-generalship, a background in politics and an intimate knowledge of the working of government were essential.

Casey, though, went much farther than conscientious attention to administrative forms. While he was Governor-General, he saw prime ministers as his prime ministers, ministers as his ministers and

governments as his governments. He dealt only with coalition governments, but one can be fairly sure that his attitude towards Labor governments would have been the same: they, too, would

304 CASEY

have been his governments. Because he felt as a reality some of the proprietorial forms of his office (and to this day some ministers of

the period refer to themselves as Casey’s ministers rather than Holt’s or Gorton’s), he did not hesitate to advise almost as much as he accepted advice. Thus, when Harold Holt succeeded Menzies as Prime Minister in January 1966, and while admitting that ‘it is

not my function to make suggestions’,°* Casey urged him to increase the country’s defence capacity by means of deferred

payment for purchases from the USA, to appoint assistant ministers, to lend a senior adviser to the Indonesian Government, to let CSIRO station a liaison officer in Japan and further to liberalise

immigration policy. In March 1966 he asked Holt to consider setting up a royal commission to report on how the impact of droughts might be lessened. In April he suggested tax concessions to encourage investment in research and development, ‘much as one resents having to bribe industry to do something in their own and the national interest’.°’ Just before a Commonwealth prime ministers’ conference, he urged Holt to do all he could to encourage

and support the British Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, whom he saw as struggling valiantly to cope with Britain’s economic woes, declaring that ‘the Conservatives have little or nothing to offer

—and I don’t think they deserve any support .. . They invent all sorts of snide demerits for Harold Wilson.’° After a visit to Western Australia, Casey warned Holt of ‘intense feeling’ and ‘quite an unhealthy attitude’ there towards the Commonwealth.°’ When John Gorton became Prime Minister after Holt’s death by drowning at Christmas 1967, he recommended that he send social workers to South Vietnam, establish closer economic

relations with New Zealand, allow less parliamentary time for Opposition campaigns on minor matters, hold Australian financial reserves in Japan, take a tough line on Public Service recruitment. He even suggested forms of words that Gorton might use in deflecting

criticism (‘why waste time swotting flies when there are vultures about’).°° He asked Gorton to remember in his dealings with the USA that ‘the Americans, even at the top level, are susceptible to a little discreet praise’.°? He counselled a tough approach to the states on tax reimbursement and financial assistance: ‘survival must mean continued high expenditure on defence (and on aid to selected Asian countries), even if the States have to accept less than they want’.°° Prime ministers were not the only recipients of Casey’s advice. He asked John McEwen, Minister for Trade, to take up the decentralisation issue, preferably in co-operation with state premiers

whose personal electorates happened to be rural. He urged

GOVERNOR-GENERAL 305

C. E. Barnes, Minister for Territories, to institute a crash programme for the education of up to a thousand of the brightest

children in Papua New Guinea. He complained to William McMahon, the Treasurer, that Public Service departments were spending too much on prestige office accommodation in the state capitals, and suggested a public relations campaign in the USA to have Washington lower its tariff on Australian wool. To Paul Hasluck, Minister for External Affairs, he expressed doubts about the wisdom of transferring the High Commission in London from control of the Prime Minister’s Department to External Affairs. To B. M. Snedden, Minister for Immigration, he suggested an inquiry into Australia’s future needs for professional men in various fields, with overseas recruitment where necessary. He chastised P. J. Nixon,

Minister for the Interior, who had called for less attention to European languages in Australian schools and more attention to Asian languages. Despite his devotion to closer Australian relations

with Asian countries, Casey thought English and French the important international languages, and he regarded Asian languages as ‘“‘exotic”’. . . hard to learn and harder still to remember’.*!

Casey did not hesitate to deal directly with public servants. In the main, these comprised External Affairs men. In mid-1966, for example, he invited James Plimsoll, Secretary of External Affairs,

to lunch ‘at which I expressed surprise at our putting an Ambassador on Formosa’.®* He wrote to heads of missions overseas

to compliment them on what he regarded as uncommonly good dispatches. He also saw a good deal of John Bunting, Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Department, urging him especially to have Holt take on Age journalist Keith Sinclair as a personal assistant lest Holt’s health give way under the pressures of office. Of greater significance than his inclination to suggest activity to

ministers was Casey’s view that he might intervene in disputes between ministers and parties lest his governments’ effectiveness be

reduced. During 1967 relations between McMahon, the Liberal

Treasurer, and McEwen, the Country Party Trade Minister, deteriorated into public enmity. The reasons were mainly personal, though McEwen’s determination to make the Department of Trade a major economic department and differences on policy played a

part. It seemed to Casey that hostility between McMahon and McEwen could damage the coalition to the point ultimately of threatening the government and, when Harold and Zara Holt dined at Government House on 26 July, Casey suggested that he should have a word with McMahon. Holt agreed. Casey justified himself

to Buckingham Palace in these terms: ‘I based my reason for

306 CASEY

sending for McMahon on my belief that one of my responsibilities

was to endeavour to ensure the stability of Government in

Australia, whatever political party or parties were involved.’ He called for McMahon rather than McEwen because ‘from

my knowledge of the matters at issue between McEwen and McMahon, I laid most of the blame for the controversy on McMahon’.™ (It might be noted that, while Casey reported regularly on his doings and on major events in Australia, he did not behave as though he were accountable, and there is nothing to suggest that Buckingham Palace ever queried his activities.) It was not until 8 December that McMahon was free to call on Casey at Admiralty House (his official residence in Sydney). It was what Casey called ‘a long and “‘hard”’ talk’. On the following day

Casey wrote a long letter to Holt reporting on his talk with

McMahon. Holt told Casey by phone that he planned to take

Casey’s letter with him to his holiday home at Portsea in Victoria,

where he could give it fuller consideration over the Christmas holidays. On 17 December Holt disappeared while swimming at Portsea, and presumably was drowned. Casey, at once in close contact with John Bunting and the Victorian police, moved very quickly to have his letter about McMahon retrieved from Holt’s briefcase at Portsea, though a journalist, Alan Reid, either saw the letter, or a copy or summary of it, and published an account of it (‘reasonably correctly’, as Casey admitted®™) in his book, The Power

Struggle.’ Because of its constitutional significance and the interest roused by its removal from Holt’s papers at Portsea, the letter is published here in full. Headed “Written from Sydney’, and dated 9 December, it reads: I had a long talk alone with McMahon at Admiralty House, at my request, yesterday morning. I said that I had told you what I was going to say to him.

I started by saying I had wanted for some time to talk with him on

some events in recent times which I believed had been detrimental to the status of the Government. I said that my reason for asking him to come

to see me was by reason of my interpretation of my Constitutional position, in that I believed it was part of my function to support and watch the interests of the Government of the day, and that anything that tended to reduce the Government’s status was properly part of my concern. I went on to say that the close collaboration of the Liberal and Country

Parties was essential to the maintenance of the coalition—and that it could not necessarily be assumed that the D.L.P. would remain indefinitely in its present relationship with the other major parties. I said that his present notorious relationship with McEwen rubbed off on the relationship between the Liberal and Country Parties—and so was

GOVERNOR-GENERAL 307

to be deplored, as it reduced the prestige of the Government in the public mind and so might well affect the Election results. I then spoke of his apparent close relationship with Maxwell Newton

and the latter’s public writings in support of him (McMahon) and in denigration of McEwen and indeed of yourself. I said that Newton had had a certain reputation with responsible people, some of whom had conveyed their disapprobation of him (Newton) to me. I also spoke of his (McMahon’s) having taken Newton with him on two overseas conferences, which he (McMahon) denied. He said that Newton had travelled at his own expense to these overseas conferences, and not even in the same aircraft as himself (McMahon) and, at the conferences, had received no more than normal press contact with him (McMahon). He (McMahon) denied any close relationship with Newton and said that he (Newton) had never received any inside information from him. It was noticeable that he referred to Newton as ‘Max’ throughout. I said that, nevertheless, it was fairly generally believed that such close relationship with Newton existed in the past at least. It is not always the case of what are the facts, as much as what appear to be the facts.

I said that, a few weeks ago, I had asked Sir Richard Randall if he had any reaction to the name ‘Newton’, at which he said ‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather not speak of him’, which in consequence I did not pursue.

I mentioned his alleged remark on return from overseas lately, when a pressman had asked him why McEwen was going overseas, just before the Senate Election campaign—and that he was reported to have said he didn’t know as he (McMahon) had dealt with everything that McEwen was going overseas to do. McMahon denied having said this and said that you had denied it in the Parliament. He said it had been published in a news-sheet “Canberra Calling’ and not in the press.

McMahon made a vigorous denial that he had any animus against McEwen, other than that he (McMahon) had opposed McEwen on Treasury matters which he claimed were within his province as Treasurer. He said that he had ceased to combat McEwen on Customs Tariff matters

which McEwen had claimed were within his province as Minister for Trade and Industry, even although these matters had an influence on Commonwealth financial and economic matters.

In reply to this, I said that the ‘image’ remained in the minds of a number of people that he had an animus against McEwen, which, in the interests of Governmental harmony had not been dispelled. I suggested that he make efforts to dispel such an image. He said that he had made such efforts, to which McEwen had not responded. I suggested he keep on trying.

He said that, at the meeting with yourself, McEwen, himself and

others, he had specifically denied all the charges that McEwen had made against him. He said McEwen had accused him of trying to replace him (McEwen) from the deputy Prime Ministership, which he denied.

308 CASEY I said that in my personal contacts with McEwen I had tried to argue privately for his remaining in the Parliament for as long as possible, so as to postpone the day when a younger Country Party man would replace him, which would inevitably raise problems with the Liberal Party about the deputy Prime Ministership. By his (McMahon’s) relationship with McEwen, he had kept McEwen in a degree of nervous tension which

affected his health and so menaced his remaining in Parliament. He (McMahon) said that any conflict with McEwen originated with McEwen and not with himself. He then defended his conduct of the Treasuryship and threw a lot of flowers at himself in so doing. I said I had heard no criticism of his work at the Treasury. This led to discussion of the competition between the Treasury version

of the Resources Bank and the Trade Department version which had resulted in the current implementing of the Treasury proposal—although I doubted whether there was any appreciable pool of financial resources yet to be mobilised in Australia without deflecting them from other and less essential sections of the economy, although this alone was sufficient justification of the prospective activities of the Resources Bank by way

of getting money to help in getting big mineral developments off the ground with a bigger proportion of Australian participation. As for the new Resources Bank getting overseas money (which almost necessarily would be fixed interest bearing money), I said I couldn’t see much scope for the Resources Bank, as overseas interests would want equity in any

particular project and not fixed interest, and anyhow most of the Resources Bank money-getting overseas would probably tap the same pool of money that the Government taps for normal overseas Governmental loans. No disagreement arose out of this. I finished by saying that when I next saw McEwen, I would relay to him anything that might be helpful to his relations with McEwen that had arisen in our discussion. Also I said that I would report my conversation with him to you. I remember a long talk I had with McMahon, about ten years ago, when the conversation was largely about his hostility to McEwen, which I tried to argue him out of, although I don’t remember now what it was all about. My talk with McMahon yesterday was ‘hard’ discussion, of which what I have said is practically a factual account, which I thought you might care

to see. I think it may have done some good.®

When Holt disappeared, McMahon was deputy leader of the Liberal Party, and Casey earned some disapproval for his part in a process that saw McEwen take the prime ministership temporarily and Senator John Gorton, not McMahon, win the Liberal Party leadership and succession to McEwen. In matters as vital as the commissioning of a Prime Minister, Casey had shown staunch adherence to meticulous form (and concern for the coalition) when

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Menzies retired early in 1966. Holt was elected to the leadership of the Liberal Party, the senior party in the coalition, and he might have supposed when he went to Government House in Canberra on 20 January 1966 that automatically the prime ministership was his. Casey, though, was not so easily satisfied: Harold Holt called on me and assured me of his ability to form a Government. I said I would like to ask John McEwen to come to see me to give his personal assurance of support, with which he agreed. . . John

McEwen called ... and showed me his letter to Harold Holt which

appeared to be supportive. He assured me personally of his complete support without reservations, assuming, as he said, that Harold Holt did not seek to destroy the Country Party. He made no conditions as to any Country Party portfolios.%*

On the afternoon of Holt’s disappearance (17 December), Casey rang Nigel Bowen (Attorney-General) and Garfield Barwick (Chief Justice of the High Court), proposing that he wait for two days and then commission McEwen, the Deputy Prime Minister, as Prime

Minister pending a Liberal Party leadership ballot. Bowen and Barwick approved this course. That evening, McEwen told Casey that he would accept the prime ministership and hold it only until the Liberals elected a leader, but he also conveyed that if the Liberals elected McMahon, he would take the Country Party out of the coalition. The following morning the Liberals’ Paul Hasluck (Minister for External Affairs) told Casey that he, too, would refuse to serve under McMahon, and that he would run for the leadership

himself—though Casey felt that Hasluck would be a candidate

‘without any great desire to be Prime Méinister’.’”? Casey commissioned McEwen on 19 December, and two days after that McEwen announced publicly that he would not accept McMahon as coalition leader. Casey reported the next step to Buckingham Palace:

After McEwen’s . . . statement about McMahon, he (McMahon) has been silent on the subject. However he (McMahon) approached me by telephone and asked me to arrange a meeting with McEwen, with me present. I said I had no wish to be in a position, in the circumstances, to appear to be acting as umpire between them, which constitutionally would have

been wrong. However I passed on McMahon’s request to me, to McEwen, who agreed that I had been right. He (McEwen) said he would meet McMahon, but only if one of his own Country Party supporters was present. I passed this on to McMahon, with no result.”!

Casey also had talks with Allen Fairhall (Minister for Defence), John Gorton (Minister for Education and Science) and Dudley Erwin (Liberal Whip). On 9 January the Liberals elected Gorton as

310 CASEY

leader. On 10 January McEwen resigned and Casey commissioned Gorton as Prime Minister.

Except that it ‘contains a lot of rather sordid party politics’,

Casey found Reid’s The Power Struggle ‘well done’,” and for this reason he was the more mystified by Reid’s portrayal of him as having played too active a part in advancing McEwen’s interest at the expense of McMahon’s. Like other participants in the events of December—January 1967-68, Casey had in mind the events of 1939, in which he had played a part. In 1939 Lyons died without indicating publicly his wishes as to the succession, and at a time when Menzies’s resignation from the ministry over the national

insurance issue had left the UAP without a deputy leader. The Country Party leader, Page, accepted the prime ministership for the

short period needed for the UAP to arrange a leadership ballot. Page stressed that he accepted the prime ministership, even though

leader of the minority party in a coalition, because the UAP did not have a deputy leader in direct line of succession. In 1967-68, of course, the Liberals did have a deputy leader in direct line of succession, McMahon. Casey, though, took the view that deputy leadership did not necessarily involve progression to leadership, that the Liberals must ballot for their leadership. In the meantime

he had in McEwen a Deputy Prime Minister who, on Holt’s recommendation, on occasion had served as Acting Prime Minister,

and he opted to offer a temporary commission to McEwen. These were the grounds on which Casey acted, and they seemed to him proper grounds. Had he offered the prime ministership to

McMahon, he would virtually have pre-empted the Liberals’ leadership decision. Certainly Casey wanted at all costs to preserve the coalition, and he knew the coalition was unlikely to survive if

McMahon were made Prime Minister and could then use that

position to secure leadership of the Liberals and his own continuation as Prime Minister. While Casey had all this in mind, it did not seem to him that he had to act on it. As far he was concerned, the Liberals lacked a leader and, until they had a leader, he had in McEwen not the leader of a minority party in the coalition, but the Deputy Prime Minister with the evident confidence of the former Prime Minister. Given the absence of a Prime Minister to advise him, and given that this was one of those very rare situations where the Governor-General had to act with very little precedent to guide him, but where the Attorney-General and Chief Justice approved his intentions, it is difficult to fault Casey’s constitutional behaviour —even if his constitutional interpretation happened to harmonise with his personal attitudes towards the politicians involved. Had

GOVERNOR-GENERAL 311

McMahon won the Liberal leadership, it is almost certain that Casey would have given him the prime ministership. Had McEwen

then been able to take all his Country Party members out of the

coalition, McMahon would have fallen when the House of Representatives resumed in March 1968, and elections would have followed. It 1s just possible that if McMahon had won the leadership, and knowing that McEwen would try to take all his followers

out of the coalition, Casey might have taken the view that McMahon would be in no position to assure him of adequate support in the Representatives until the Representatives resumed.

Things might then have become very complicated indeed, but Gorton’s election fortunately saved Casey from such nightmares.

Whether Casey was on sure constitutional ground in his earlier attempt to damp down conflict between McEwen and McMahon is another matter. The leader of the Labor Opposition, Gough Whitlam, thought Casey’s intervention ‘an error... to put it at its mildest’.”°

Not himself a lawyer, applying his own political wisdom in a

common-sense way, and with probably an understanding of constitutional monarchy owing more to his reading of biographies of George V than knowledge of more recent conventions, Casey did intervene in politics to a point where it is difficult to disagree with Whitlam. To suggest policy and activity to ministers was for a Governor-General in the 1960s going a bit far, even if they seem not to have resented his behaviour. Casey acted in good faith and

in accordance with his temperament. He was an activist. To sit back until or unless there arose a rare situation demanding an exercise of vice-regal discretion was not in him. One such situation, for example, occurs in the Australian federal system when a Prime Minister seeks a double dissolution of Parliament or an early elec-

tion and must present to the Governor-General evidence of conditions laid down in the constitution. It was typical that in 1968, when Gorton wanted an electoral mandate of his own, and when the House of Representatives and the Senate were out of electoral kilter, Casey reacted to political gossip and got in first with a warning to Gorton that ‘he had better evolve some good understandable reasons for... an early election. After a ‘good talk’, Gorton made what Casey regarded as a ‘wise decision’ not to seek an election in 1968.’4

In his reports to Buckingham Palace, Casey did not attempt a continuous chronicle of Australian politics, which, as he admitted to the Palace, he still found dreary. Indeed, national politics did not loom large in his letters at all; space went rather to accounts of his

312 CASEY

travels, of visits of Englishmen known to the Palace and, especially,

of matters of domestic concern to the Palace: the enrolment of Prince Charles at Geelong Grammar and the visit of the Queen Mother in 1967, for example. When he did report on political developments, there was undeniably an appearance of bias: the anticonscription movement was ‘a fuss . . . clearly organised by the left

wing and probably basically by the Communists’.’”> Calwell’s arguments against conscription during the 1966 election campaign (won handsomely by Holt) ‘do not bear critical examination’.”° After the elections, Labor was ‘greatly divided’ and, having given up thinking thirty years before, were ‘coasting along ... on the past momentum of their support for “the underdog”’. In mid1968 the Opposition was ‘still divided and arguing between themselves’.’° All this reflected Casey’s real feelings: he liked and respected Calwell personally, but thought him a primitive politically. He had been saying for years that Labor had yet to find a cause now that its basic, and admirable, social objectives largely had been met. He had a high opinion of Gough Whitlam, who was ‘middleof-the-road’ and ‘formidable’, and he described him in those terms to the Palace.” It is very likely that in this correspondence, and quite

unconsciously, Casey was showing his usual tendency to write to people in terms they were likely to appreciate. He might well have supposed that the Queen’s Private Secretary, Sir Michael Adeane, and perhaps the Queen herself, would see Australia through Tory rather than socialist spectacles. It is a pity he was not in office during a Labor administration. One can be almost certain that he would then have written defensively about his Labor Government

and coolly about the Opposition, but it would be nice to have grounds for certainty. Shortly after taking office Casey complained of ‘a fair amount

of routine and boredom’,®” but this was tongue in cheek. He enjoyed being Governor-General; he was good at it. It was Bengal all over again, but better. He and Maie travelled about Australia and Papua New Guinea incessantly (he logged 115,000 miles in RAAF planes alone). They entertained on a massive scale—apart from special occasions they averaged a hundred people a month to lunches and dinners. They could virtually command the company of interesting people: for Maie artists such as Russell Drysdale and writers such as Patrick White; for Casey, engineers, economists, journalists, overseas leaders. A manner that was less than ideal for

Parliament or the hustings was ideal for Government House. Although he refused to wear uniforms, Casey had the age, the bearing, the voice and the enthusiasm for the job. And he was

GOVERNOR-GENERAL 313

positively licensed to preach. All the things he cared about—from clear diction in children’s speech to acceptance of Asians—could be the subject of sermons well reported by the Press.

For four years Casey mostly was in a good mood. His granddaughters, who could visit him at Admiralty House (after several moves, the Macgowans were now settled in Sydney), were interesting and charming. Harold Wilson was a good and courageous man. President Johnson was a ‘phenomenon’ and Mrs Johnson was an ‘intelligent sweetie’.®' South Vietnam’s Air Vice-Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky was ‘a most unusually good man’.®” The Israelis

in 1967 showed ‘high intelligence and military valour’.®’ Peter Coleman, Editor of the Bulletin, was a ‘good type—intelligent’.** Sydney bookmaker Bill Waterhouse was an interesting man. With the Victorian premier, Henry Bolte, giving him the winner of several Melbourne Cups, compulsory vice-regal attendance at Cups even became bearable, though Casey remained ‘not at all addicted

to racing and I can’t understand why anyone is’. Labor’s

J. F. Cairns now was ‘a thinking man—and showed no signs of left-wingism or any extreme radicalism’.®° He wanted the Soviet premier, Kosygin, to visit Australia. He urged Bolte to stop prosecuting Victorians who played ‘the innocent national game of two-

up’.

There were a few flies in Casey’s ointment. When his appointment

was announced, he wrote to Bruce to ‘thank you for having been

the first to put me on the road that has led to this thing happening’,®° and when Bruce died in 1967, he was very distressed.

He was disturbed by Britain’s announcement in 1967 that she planned to withdraw her military power from east of Suez, and he wondered why ministers in London seemed so determined to make of Britain another Sweden. He was disturbed, too, by restrictions placed on Australians’ right of appeal to the Privy Council, writing to Donn that ‘it cuts another of the links that used to bind Australia

to the U.K... . We’re getting to the end of a long trail. . . You seem able to stand it. We can’t.’8? Indeed, his dislike of some facets

of British behaviour was becoming balanced by a degree of proBritish sentimentality, by an almost Menzies-like regret for what was passing. As he put it in a little note to one of his granddaughters, Tempe: ‘Britain ... is green and lovely, whereas Australia often is dry and brown.’ Republicanism thoughtfully discussed did not now offend him. What worried him, even with the American alliance in place, was the loneliness that Australia would face if the final bond with Britain, a shared monarch, were broken: ‘Our ‘independence’”’ is all very well if we had the strength to defend

314. CASEY

it. In its absence, we-need friends.’?! He was irritated and baffled by some Australians’ inclination to question Australian participation

in the war in Vietnam: for him, Australian forces were there

because the physical containment of communism in the region was in Australia’s interest, not because the USA wanted them there. In

1968 the anti-Vietnam war movement and student violence in

Australia and overseas made -him wonder if he should transfer the family’s assets to Switzerland (he didn’t). Overall, though, he was happy, busy and fulfilled in his years as Governor-General.

Despite his busyness (Edrington was now a haven reached for only a few days each month), Casey’s mind turned in these years to religion. He still professed to dislike intellectuals and academics, especially when they aired views on public affairs on which ‘prize fighters, bookmakers or billiard«markers’ were as well qualified to

speak,?? but he was prepared to make an exception of the French Jesuit, Teilhard de Chardin, who had once been a geologist (and even though some of his old anti-popery had returned, saying of Catholics for Donn’s benefit that ‘they’re experts at rationalisation.

With them, par excellence, the end justifies the means’?). He waded through The Phenomenon of Man, discussed it with academics

he came across and, as with anything that interested him, sent copies to friends. What he was looking for, with little success, was

support for the notion that evolution, to which he had always

subscribed and which he had seen as making nonsense of orthodox religion, might have been ‘directed’. He was also reading

the New Testament, showing special interest in the education of Christ, and in the technicalities of translation. Because he found it difficult to ‘love’ his neighbour and to ‘love’ his enemies, he wondered if Christ really had counselled what we would call sympathy or understanding rather than love, a word that in English can be applied indiscriminately or very exclusively. Religion did not come to dominate Casey’s thoughts, and personal belief probably never was to come, but for the rest of his life religion was to have a place in his thoughts. Casey was also thinking a good deal about human motivation. This was sparked in part by a burst of biographical reading. He reported to his brother, Dermot: For going-to-sleep reading I’ve become obsessed with Andre Maurois’ writings and have read in recent weeks his lives of Balzac, George Sand and Disraeli—and am continuing. He’s great biographer.”

Casey had never been sure just what drove him in particular and men in general. At times he had given high priority to public status;

GOVERNOR-GENERAL 315

at others he had thought money the spur. Now, it seemed to him that ‘doing something useful and doing it well’ had been his own objectives and should be others’, with fame or affluence as a pleasant side-product.””> He wondered about the importance in men’s lives of a sense of inferiority developed in school-days as a spur to excellence; ostensibly he had Churchill in mind, but he might have applied the thought to himself. He still admired adventurous achievers, the kind whose company for a time in the early 1920s he had hoped to join: we need more vigorous thrusting people in Australia of the sort of Bill Gunn, Frank Packer and, if you like, Reg Ansett—with the courage to get out of the rut and have a crack at things the ‘respectables’ haven’t the fire in their bellies to do.”

Even when he disliked an individual personally or disapproved of a man’s methods, he was excited by the doers. Rupert Murdoch

was a case in point. Of one of his Sydney newspapers, Casey declared: ‘The Sunday Mirror is a disgraceful dragnet of pornography and unwholesome titillation . . . Rupert Murdoch has a lot to answer for’.”’ But, although he was ‘hardly my cup of tea’, for Casey Murdoch remained ‘a phenomenon of energy, courage and

ambition’.””> Later, in 1974, when he observed that ‘Rupert Murdoch seems in trouble’, he gave him a letter of introduction

to Nelson Rockefeller.” Casey was so successful in his public performance as GovernorGeneral that he changed for ever some assumptions about the office. For one thing, it was unlikely that it would ever again be held by an Englishman. None had doubted that McKell had been an honourable and conscientious man, but many had retained the feeling that men such as McKell, whatever their personal merits and however representative they might be of much that was good in Australian society, somehow lacked the dignity, the style, to serve as

head of state and representative of the Queen. Casey had these qualities and he showed that an Australian could apply them as well as any Englishman. He also made it easier for his successors to be Australians, even on the nomination of non-Labor governments, in that he literally civilised the office. He showed that the ceremonial

aspects of the office could be performed convincingly in civilian

dress and, trivial as it may sound, this made it easier for his successors to include lawyers and academics averse to cocked hats and

plumes. Finally, he laid to rest the fear, which had lingered despite McKell’s worthy tenure and despite the earlier political careers of

some English appointees, that the office could not be trusted to

316 CASEY

former politicians, and this cleared the way for men such as his immediate successor, Paul Hasluck, a scholar and politician. For Casey, the governor-generalship was another job well done.

When he stepped down in April 1969, after almost four years in office, he returned to Berwick content with his performance. Now almost seventy-nine, this time he was surely going into retirement, and about that he was less content.

FOURTEEN

ENDINGS

The Caseys returned to Melbourne early in May 1969, with a Corgi

pup given to them as a farewell present by the domestic staff at Government House. They had scarcely completed the move when they flew to London for Casey’s investiture on 16 June at Windsor as Australia’s first Knight of the Garter. In the monarch’s gift, the Garter was a wonderful seal on Casey’s long public life. A peer,

a privy councillor, a Companion of Honour and now a Knight of the Garter, he had virtually exhausted the imperial honours system. His father could have asked no more of him. On the way home from London, he officially opened the Australian Embassy’s handsome new chancery in Washington. (The building he had chosen on Cleveland Avenue back in 1940 remained the Ambassador’s residence.)

The Caseys then settled down to the life they had made for themselves in the early 1960s before the move to Canberra: busy social-

ising in Melbourne based on Little Parndon; farming, reading, writing, some entertaining (and, in Maie’s case, painting) at Edring-

ton; overseas travel. In September 1969 Casey was in hospital for a week for a hernia operation, but he recovered quickly, and in February—March 1970 he and Maie went to Katmandu

as the Governor-General’s representatives at the wedding of the crown prince of Nepal. Home for only a couple of weeks, they then went to Japan, where Maie launched a Mitsubishi container ship, the Arafura (Casey wanted to visit China on this

trip, but Canberra was not keen and Peking was not approached). Again, they were not long home before setting off on their regular mid-year visit to Britain and North America. In the following year, 1971, their pace slackened, and they limited themselves to the mid-year visit to Britain, though on this trip they

also returned to Moscow where, as in 1961, they were féted and

impressed. In March 1972 Casey fell on the cellar stairs at Edrington and hurt his knee. He was in hospital for a month and an overseas trip that year was beyond him.

318 CASEY

In May—June 1973 the Caseys made what was to be their last trip

to Britain and the United States. Fortunately, this was for the Caseys a pleasant trip. There has seemed little point in presenting long lists of the people with whom the Caseys socialised when visiting London over the years, but a list here will indicate the flavour of their connections in their last years. Many of Casey’s contemporaries were.now dead or well retired from politics or the public service, and.it happened that in 1973 they did not have a chance to see the Queen, Prince Philip, Princess Alexandra (though they had a phone chat with her) or Lord Mountbatten, so that their contacts were fewer than usual on this visit and limited more than

formerly to personal friends. Still, apart from old intimates such as Mervyn Talbot Rice and Australians living in, or visiting Britain, such as Alexander Downer and Garfield Barwick, Casey dined with

the Countess of Limerick, Selwyn Lloyd (now Speaker of the Commons), Sir Val Duncan (chairman of Rio Tinto and New Broken Hill, and a director of the Bank of England), Viscountess Waverley, the Duchess of Sutherland, Lewis Douglas (a former American Ambassador and prominent in Anglo-American business

and cultural life), Lord Sherfield (as Roger Makins, a British diplomat), Lord Trevelyan (another former diplomat), Whitney Straight (deputy chairman of Rolls Royce), Katharine Hepburn. He lunched with the Queen Mother, Princess Margaret, the Duchess

of Gloucester, Lady (Pamela) Vestey (Nellie Melba’s granddaughter), the Baroness Spencer-Churchill (Clementine, Winston Churchill’s widow), Lord Carrington, Rosemary Young and the board of directors of the Economist. He took tea with Lord Hankey (Robin, Maurice Hankey’s son), Sir Michael Adeane, Trevor Smith (a veteran Australian journalist) and Lord Glendyne. The Caseys stayed with the Duke and Duchess of Grafton and with Maie’s relations, the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch and Queensberry, and they visited the Prime Minister, Edward Heath, at Chequers. And Maie popped over to Paris for lunch with Princess Marthe Bibesco. By Casey standards, this was a quiet visit. In the years from 1969 to 1973, Casey was still in demand as a public speaker (in 1970, he was named Australian of the Year for 1969); politicians, businessmen and scientists still called on him; the men at External Affairs (re-named Foreign Affairs in 1970—a change unwelcome to Casey because it put Australian relations with Britain, Canada and New Zealand under a ‘foreign’ heading) still called on him, wrote .to-him, sent him papers. He still admired Santamaria and passed on his views to ministers in Canberra. He still welcomed visits from DLP officials, sending them to likely

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sources of funds. He was given the Freedom of Melbourne in 1969 and, in 1972, the presidency of the Australian Neurological Foun-

dation. With editorial assistance from T. B. Millar, he published in London in 1972 a volume.of extracts from his diaries for the 1950s under the title of Australian Foreign Minister. Maie, too, was

very: much a public figureuin. these years. In September 1972 she .and Joan Lindsay heldaa:joint exhibition of their paintings in Melbourne. Casey took great: pride in Maie’s standing as an artist, and in these years he took pleasure in rereading her books. Casey was fortunate in that he lived to a good age yet died before mental deterioration had too great an impact, but, as he moved into

his eighties, he:found difficulty in coping with some change going on about him. His disenchantment with Britain made for conflict in him. When he and Maie went to Britain in 1969 for his Garter investiture, he found London run down and with too many ‘longhaired and unattractive people about’.' He dropped into the House of Lords, but ‘it all seemed a little unreal to me and I did not feel very much at home’.* London traffic was too congested for him

to enjoy driving. Suez still haunted him, and he was now ‘quite reasonably sure’ of Anglo—French—Israeli collusion in 1956.° His

British contemporaries seemed uninterested in Australia or in the

wider Commonwealth. The following year, 1970, he found London again ‘infested with long-haired individuals to an extent that is quite nauseating’ (one reason for his approval of Moscow in 1971 was the absence there of long-haired men), and he mourned that ‘I find London less agreeable and acceptable each year’.* On the other hand, like some ex-communists and ex-Catholics who remain disturbed by others’ criticism of communism or Catholicism, Casey was upset by others’ criticism of Britain or of the Anglo-Australian connection..When, in 1972, Alan Watt published his memoirs (Australian Diplomat), Casey wrote that ‘Maie and | have been devastated by ... their violently anti-British tone and content’.” In fact, Watt’s barbs were aimed principally at British snobbery, against which Casey himself had been privately railing for thirty years. And, while he reacted with qualified approval to the election in December 1972 of the Whitlam Labor Government (‘a number of things would be better for a change’),° he was angered

by what he saw as the rudeness of Whitlam and some of his ministers in their public references to Britain and her leaders. Casey

was aware of the contradictions in his-attitudes, but he could see

no way of resolving them, and, like some others, though with more than usually explicit honesty, he hankered for the past when

320 CASEY

Mother was in her prime and well able to cope with filial impertinence: I’m largely a nostalgic minded individual who yearns for the ‘old days’

of the Empire. For me... a Republic would be the end. Why do we (or some of us) revere the old Empire? ... by reason of the power it represented which has now practically disappeared.’

At home he was worried by the ‘malignant activities’ of Robert Hawke, then president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions.® More than most Liberals, he sincerely approved of trade unions as guardians of their members’ income levels, but, as much as any Liberal, he was outraged by trade union interest in wider political and social issues (these were for the Labor Party responsible to the electorate). He was worried, too, by aspects of the foreign policy stance of the Whitlam Government: The new Commonwealth Government ... are being rather stupidly boastful about . . . ‘independence’ which seems to mean that they think they can be safely rude to the Americans and the British, apparently forgetting that we're likely to want something from London or Washington before long, before the wounds caused by their rudeness have healed.?

Further, the new morality of the time offended him. He was to retain a degree of respect for Whitlam, but Mrs Whitlam’s at times

forthright mode of expression and her ‘rather watery support for the sanctity of the marriage tie’ were more than he could accommodate.'° As ever, he was affected by manner as much as by substance. While strictly monogamous himself, he was sympathetic

to the introduction of easier divorce for the unhappily married, but he was alienated by the strident tones of the advocates of change.

Casey now was beginning to lose touch with reality. In December 1973 he wrote to a harassed President Nixon, apparently with Menzies’s approval, to express ‘my personal sympathy in the face of the appalling public denigrations to which you have been subjected’. He told Nixon that, after a meeting with him in 1957,

he had described him in his diary as a ‘modest, serious-minded, intelligent, thinking individual’.'’ Admittedly Casey had spent forty minutes with Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger at the White House on his way home from his Garter installation in 1969, and admittedly he had his countrymen’s inclination to sympathise with a dog when it is down, but it was a curious letter. There had been, however, an earlier and sad indication that Casey’s judgement was becoming shaky. Still interested in religion,

ENDING 321

he decided in 1970 to read his way through the New English Bible, not in any intense way but as bedtime reading and intermittently

over several months. While reading, he took notes and, when he had finished, he had these notes typed up in a twenty-six-page, single-space manuscript headed ‘Notes on the Bible’. The ‘Notes’ comprised spare summary and some comment of a kind to be expected from an intelligent schoolboy. Some books of the Old Testament baffled Casey, and with these he indicated simply that they were obscure. Where two in succession were of this kind, the waggish entry on the second read simply ‘ditto’. There was little in the ‘Notes’ to indicate Casey’s own beliefs, if any. Indeed, the overall tone was one of indulgent scepticism. He rather liked St Paul, but he did not at all like a God who showed such favouritism towards one tribe, and he found ‘hard to swallow’ what he called ‘anthropomorphizing the Lord God of the Israelites’. '* Making high drama of the minor operation of circumcision did not impress him,

either. In literary terms, he approved the new translation: ‘some of the music of the King James version has gone, but it is appreciably more easily read than its predecessors’.'’ If anything were to be done with these ‘Notes’, they might have been of some interest to

his grandchildren, but, always inclined to share his experience, Casey sent off some twenty-five copies to family friends and acquaintances. The recipients included Dean Acheson, Viscount

Brookeborough and Viscount Norwich, Rohan Delacombe (Governor of Victoria), Archbishop Frank Woods (Anglican

Archbishop of Melbourne), Garfield Barwick, John Gorton, Arthur Tange and Colin Syme. Archbishop Woods complimented Casey on his ‘almost incredible industry’,'* but otherwise he received little

more than polite acknowledgements. He had hoped for meaty correspondence, and he was disappointed and a little hurt to be denied.

This experience was an indicator of things to come. Casey was a doer, and he lacked the temperamental resources to cope with solitude and inactivity. He was in the Mercy Hospital for a month in March-April 1972, recovering from an operation on his knee

hurt in the fall at Edrington. That was boring enough, though Menzies was in the Mercy at the same time and ‘R.G.M. and I

exchange stately visits up and down the corridor ... (he in wheeled chair, me on crutches)’.’> Worse, his knee did not mend

quickly, and at home at Edrington he complained that ‘I’m thoroughly bored with my lack of adequate mobility. I hobble round with the aid of a stick and go up and down stairs like a debilitated tortoise.’!®

322 CASEY

Though still inconvenienced by his knee, he was able to resume

something like his normal routine in 1973, but he fretted at the elementary fact of retirement: he had nothing in particular to do. In earlier years he and Maie had supposed that one day he would write his autobiography. Now was the obvious time to write such a work. He asked Noel Coward to suggest a title, and he talked to publishers, but that was as far as it went. Perhaps he balked at the effort involved, but it is more likely that he could not bring himself to describe the reality of events with which he had been associated, let alone analyse his own self. He still disliked talking

for the record of the politics of the past, his stock answer to

academic inquirers being that such things were ‘too close to the bone’. Instead of an autobiography, Casey decided to work on a book comprising a collection of his speeches over the years. In fact, even in these years he had something to offer. When the Macgowans gathered at Edrington for the Christmas of 1972, Casey still professed misanthropy: ‘the place rings with their lively cries! I’m afraid Christmas is not one of my favourite times of the year.’!” If this was more than a facade that for some reason he wished to maintain, he was better than ever at disguising his real feelings, because in these last years his grandchildren felt they were enjoying intimacy with him. In earlier years Tempe, the youngest, had been his favourite, in part because he delighted in her mordant

use of words: asked when young to pat a large bull at a Sydney Show, Tempe had replied that ‘I’m not the sort of girl who pats bulls’. Now it was as well the turn of Anna, the eldest. Previously somewhat overlooked as younger siblings arrived, Anna now found joy in her grandparents: Grandfather had great insight and wisdom. I remember an afternoon when I was about sixteen, sitting on one of the sofas in the library at Edrington, feeling very confused, and he came in and got me talking. I

talked and he probed and after about an hour or so when he left I remember feeling as though a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders and that he really did understand how I felt.18

The beginning of the end came in September 1974, when Casey

drove his car into the back of a semi-trailer in the Melbourne suburb of Carnegie. Luckily, he was driving that day his old

Bentley and not a little Morris that had become his favourite. Even so, he suffered a broken leg, fractured ribs and a cut face. This time

he was in the Mercy for nine months, for in December, while in hospital, he fell and broke more ribs and contracted pneumonia. For Casey, this was scarcely bearable. Maie visited him daily, and

ENDING 323

Jane flew down frequently from Sydney to see him, but time dragged and he found hospital routine tedious and_ boring. Especially, he pined for contact with the world of politics: ‘it’s

rather remarkable how soon one can cut oneself off from former political contacts’. *”

To cap his misery, in April 1975, while he was still convalescing,

he was joined at the Mercy by Maie. Driving their Porsche, she collided with another car near the city, breaking a collar bone and

eight ribs. They left hospital together in July 1975. Back at Edrington, Casey gave desultory attention to his book of speeches,

but his heart was not in it and it was never completed. He was getting lonely. Since his retirement from the governor-generalship, death had been removing his friends: in 1969 Keith Officer, a friend at school and war and one of his diplomats in the 1950s; in 1971 Peter Heydon, then Secretary of the Department of Immigration; in 1972 Owen Dixon, one of the most considerable men Casey had known; in 1973 Arthur Calwell, Arthur Fadden, Noel Coward and Robert Knox, an old friend in the Victorian political and business worlds; in 1974 Frank Packer and Alan Ritchie, a businessman and pastoralist, and one of his oldest friends; in 1975 Mabel Brookes, whom he had known since kindergarten days. His loneliness and feelings of uselessness were conveyed in September 1975 in a letter

to K. C. O. (‘Mick’) Shann, one of his favourites at External Affairs in the 1950s:

Your welcome letter ... to hand, but you don’t ask me to do anything which is a relief and a disappointment, as you clearly have nothing much to ask people (such as me) about. . . I’m beginning to wonder why I’m here and that people like me are not being asked to talk about things that

happen ... You complain about the number of visitors who bombard you. I can’t say the same thing as very few people seem inquisitive about the area I’m in.”

Early in 1976 he wrote to F. J. Blakeney, another of ‘his’ men at External Affairs: ‘ve got to the stage of boredom at Berwick with little more left to do.’ One of the few things to lighten his days was the news that his second granddaughter, Marian, had been accepted by Girton College at Cambridge; he was delighted and roud. P Early in June 1976 Casey caught a cold. Sir Edward Dunlop

(“Weary’ Dunlop of POW fame) was called in and had him admitted to St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne. He developed pneumonia, and he died just before midnight on 17 June, a week before he and Maie would have celebrated their golden wedding

324 CASEY

anniversary. A distraught Maie claimed him as her own: after a private service at the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd at Mt Macedon on 22 June attended only by twenty family and friends, he was laid to rest under pine trees in the dilapidated old Macedon cemetery next to Marian and Charles Ryan, Maie’s paternal grandparents. A memorial service was held for him at St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in Melbourne on 24 June. On 20 July, during evensong, the Dean of Windsor laid his Garter banner on the high altar of St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle.

Richard Casey’s affectionate brother, Dermot, died in the following year. Maie went to earth at Edrington—‘my beloved home where the essence of Dick and Rupert remains’.*” In 1980 she published Rare Encounters, finely written recollections of Edwina

Mountbatten, Evelyn Casey, Bernard Montgomery and Nellie Melba, and she continued to draw and to paint. But while many

had thought Richard more dependent on Maie than Maie on Richard, with his death it became apparent that without him life for her had no savour. She could not bear change, even renovation, in the house she and Dick had known together. Weather and the possums took their toll; the little swimming pool, where poor Misr had drowned in 1949, but where grandchildren later splashed, was let go. She died in January 1983, joining Richard at Macedon, the timeless land of her friend Joan Lindsay. With its views over Westernport Bay and Port Phillip, with its murmuring pines, Edrington lately has passed into strangers’ hands, and seeping suburbs threaten the farm. With Shipley House demolished in 1965

to make room for home units, only Little Parndon at East

Melbourne remains as Casey knew it and in his family’s hands.

Nothing is easier than to pile unwarranted praise on a man or to damn a man, especially when, as is usually the case, the writer’s Capacities are as nothing compared with the subject’s. The fact is

that we remain mysteries to ourselves; and others, however well we think we know them, remain mysteries to us. We will never know just what made Richard Casey tick, just what in him sprang from his genes or his conditioning, just what in the dark hours

tormented him, just what in the dawn spurred him on. In

presenting Casey, one can only fall back on common-sense observation of him and of the evidence that he chose to leave

behind. A quiet, not especially robust child, he was persuaded by an overwhelming father that salvation lay in hard work, in ceaseless effort, in achievement. For his father, success could be measured by self-satisfaction and the family bank balance. For Casey, these were difficult measuring sticks. He inherited an enviable bank

ENDING 325

balance and, while he husbanded his family’s finances with great care, he had neither the need nor for most of his life the inclination to give further pursuit of money high priority. What he did pursue was self-satisfaction, not in terms primarily of personal aggrandisement or sensible indulgence, but in terms of doing well things that were worth doing. For much of his life he was in some doubt as to what those things were, but his own constant restlessness, Maie’s forceful encouragement, and the luck that so governs any man’s life meant that, in his case, one thing led to another. More even than that, however, he tried to do things well not only in terms of the conventional criteria generally applied to the kinds of jobs he did, but with an eye to the moral aspect. He knew that self-deception dogs men, but, without false modesty, he thought he had tried: It’s hard enough to try to analyse one’s own motives, let alone other peoples. It’s easy enough to attribute lofty motives to oneself. It’s easy enough to debunk other people—but not so easy to debunk oneself. We always give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. For myself, I seem to get satisfaction in trying to help other people, and in trying to achieve something. One of the most pleasant things that was once said about me was that I seemed to have ‘compassion’ for others, which I like to think I deserved, although I’d never have expressed it in this way. Nothing rouses me to more internal fury than pretentiousness.”>

Some have been inclined to focus not on what Casey did achieve

but on what he did not achieve—the prime ministership. In the 1930s and in the 1950s his hat was in the ring. In part, he failed because he refused, or was unable, to go for the jugular. As a political opponent, E. G. Whitlam, said of him, he was ‘tough’ but not ‘ruthless’.** In an interview for a documentary on his life made by the Australian Broadcasting Commission in 1970, Casey himself admitted that ‘anyone in politics ... aims to be Prime Minister, but I’ve never had that in any well-developed way—in that I was prepared to kick somebody else to death to achieve it’. Why was he not prepared to kick heads? Arthur Calwell was interviewed for the same television film, and he thought the answer lay

in the fact that Casey had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth and that this had left him with an inferiority complex in a party largely comprised of self-made men. It may be that in the relatively egalitarian Australian ethos inherited wealth might incline a man towards an apologetic stance, but there is nothing to suggest

that Casey, in fact, ever felt apologetic about private wealth provided men saw in it freedom to work for the common weal. It may be that affluence dulls ambition (and Casey was affluent —late in life he put the family’s wealth at $2 million, excluding

326 CASEY

Edrington) and that this explains why latter-day Fairbairns and Downers lacked their forebears’ drive and were no match for striving scholarship boys such as Menzies. But what of Malcolm Fraser? And what of Paul Hasluck, who was not affluent, and refused to kick heads?

It may be, of course, that Casey simply knew that he was not naturally equipped for the rough stuff, that if he had tried to kick heads he would simply have tripped and kicked his own ankle. As the Times obituary said of him: ‘Casey . .. was respected, but he was never able to identify himself with the rich, roguish ways of Australians, although he was a brave man with an attractive sense of adventure.’*° But he did anyway have scruples and it has been seen

that, raised as a gentleman, he sought to observe the fundamental code of the gentleman: never give unnecessary offence to others.

At various times he disliked all sorts of people and groups of people; he had his share of prejudices. It never occurred to him that

it was improper to have these dislikes and prejudices. What he could not tolerate was public manifestation of them in forms likely to hurt those disliked. Some now would see this as hypocrisy, but for him the issue was one of manners: almost to the extent that he

disliked Bengalis, he went out of his way in Calcutta to honour them; almost to the extent that he harboured some anti-Semitism, he laboured for the social acceptance of Jews; almost to the extent that he retained anti-papist instincts, he courted Catholics; almost to the extent that he found noisy grandchildren painful, he wrote to them, talked to them. He appreciated a pretty face and a wellturned ankle, but in almost fifty years of marriage to Maie there is not the slightest hint that he looked to any woman but her: to have given that kind of offence to his wife would have been to him inconceivably gross. As a father he was in important ways a failure,

but how he tried. These traits were not much help in politics, but awareness of what he did not achieve should not obscure what he did achieve. Educated to be an engineer and raised also to become something of a financier, it might not be too surprising that, with industry, honesty and proper ambition, he should become a federal minister or that, with his kind of upbringing, he should be a brave soldier. Casey, though, managed as well to be an uncommonly effective diplomat, a tolerably effective British minister, an effective British Governor, a notable foreign minister and, at the last, a highly regarded Governor-General. Because he was shy, because he was not educated for much that he did, because he was not intellectually sophisticated and because

ENDING 327

he was scrupulous, his record of public achievement was, to put it mildly, extraordinary—prime ministership or no. But again one

must note that this was not really the measure of the man.

Panegyrics as a rule are not to be taken too seriously, and ecclesiastical orators seem especially prone to revel in their own rhetoric, unembarrassed by ignorance of their subject. Archbishop Sir Frank Woods, however, had come to know Casey quite well in the 1960s and 1970s, he was not afflicted with pulpit pomposity, and at the memorial service for Casey in St Paul’s Cathedral on 24 June 1976, he did indicate the measure of the man with one short sentence and one short question: ‘He was a thoroughly good man. What more can you say???’

It is not hard to imagine whispers of assent from the shades of Arthur Calwell remembering Casey’s concern for his dying son; of Joe Lyons remembering Casey’s concern for his stranded family and for the education of one of his sons; of Joe Gander remembering Casey’s concern for his widow; of a well-known zoologist remembering Casey’s concern for the education of his son; of a famous science administrator remembering Casey’s concern for his widow; of Nuri as-Said remembering in Casey a European who was a friend; of Bengalis remembering this white who ate with them; of the Mahatma Gandhi remembering a Casey who treated him with honour; of a legion of men and woman who over the years received little notes from Casey saying no more than that he had not heard from them in some time and that he was thinking of them.

But let blood have the last word. Anna Macgowan: I did not know Lord Casey as the world saw him, but I knew him as Grandfather and as a friend. If I had to describe Lord Casey, I would say

that he was an honest man, with an ability to see the true person, shed of all the layers that are put up as a defence. He had a great humility and warmth as an individual, and a belief in what people can offer.”

REFERENCES

Abbreviations AA Australian Archives AGPS_ Australian Government Publishing Service

AIF Australian Imperial Force CPD Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates NLA National Library of Australia TOP Nicholas Mansergh (ed.), India: The transfer of power 1942-7, 12 volumes, London, 1973-83.

Preface 1 AGPS, Canberra, 1980. 2 W. J. Hudson and Jane North (eds), My Dear P.M.: R. G. Casey’s Letters to S. M. Bruce, 1924-29, Canberra, 1980.

Chapter1 Beginnings 1 Gwen Peyton Jones, cited in Maie Casey, Rare Encounters, Melbourne, 1980, p. 18. 2 Dame Mabel Brookes, Memoirs, Melbourne, 1974, p. 8. 3 M.R. M. Smith to Richard Casey, 26 October 1966.

Chapter 2 Student 1 Dame Mabel Brookes, Memoirs, Melbourne, 1974, p. 9. 2 Melbourne Herald, 31 January 1940. 3 Richard Casey to C. D. Kemp, 8 October 1970. 4 Richard Casey to Francis Riddle, 21 May 1965. 5 Melbourne Age, 20 May 1949. 6 Richard Casey to Donn Casey, 31 December 1963. 7 Richard Gardiner Casey to Richard Casey, 29 August 1907. 8 Richard Casey to Richard Gardiner Casey, 16 January 1904. 9 Richard Casey to Richard Gardiner Casey, 10 December 1904. 10 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 2 July 1970. 11 Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life, London, 1902, p. 1.

12 Ibid. pp. 2-3. 13. Richard Casey to Richard Gardiner Casey, 6 June 1909.

REFERENCES 329

14 Ibid. 15 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 25 July 1910. 16 Ibid. 30 September 1910. 17 Richard Casey to D. Glazebrook, 14 December 1962. 18 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 30 September 1910. 19 Ibid. 23 October 1910. 20 Richard Casey to Richard Gardiner Casey, 24 March 1913. 21 ‘Some Impressions of Germany’, a note in Richard Casey’s ‘Diary’ for 1911.

22 Richard Casey, ‘Some Impressions of Germany’, 3 December 1912 (23-page typescript). 23. L. E. Jones, An Edwardian Youth, London, 1956, p. 162. 24 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 11 March 1912.

25 Ibid. 23 June 1913. 26 Richard Casey to Richard Gardiner Casey, 22 July 1910 (a typed copy, incorrectly dated).

27 Ibid.

28 Richard Casey to Richard Gardiner Casey, 24 March 1913. 29 = Ibid.

30 Richard Casey to Richard Gardiner Casey, 13 June 1913. 31 Richard Casey, ‘Notes on a Trip Through Germany and Austria— Hungary’, typescript, London, September 1913.

32 Ibid.

33, Richard Casey to Richard Gardiner Casey, 5 August 1913. 34 Richard Casey to M. W. D. Bell, 23 April 1959.

Chapter 3 Soldier 1 Richard Gardiner Casey to Richard Casey, 12 November 1913. 2 ‘Report on Various Copper Metallurgical Works, Plants, Mills, Processes, Methods &c in the United States of America, November 1913 to January 1914’, by R. G. Casey Jr, typescript, 8 February 1914.

3 Richard Casey to Richard Gardiner Casey, 18 November 1913. 4 Richard Casey to Dermot Casey, 14 November 1913. 5 Richard Gardiner Casey to Richard Casey, 18 February 1914. 6 Richard Gardiner Casey to Richard Casey, 14 March 1914. 7 Richard Gardiner Casey to Richard Casey, 2 April 1914. 8 Richard Gardiner Casey to Richard Casey, 22 April 1914. 9 Richard Casey to Donn Casey, 5 May 1966. 10 J. Harris to Richard Casey, 18 June 1914. 11 Richard Casey to Richard Gardiner Casey, 12 June 1914. 12 Richard Gardiner Casey to Richard Casey, 24 June 1914. 13. Richard Gardiner Casey to Richard Casey, 1 July 1914. 14 Richard Casey to Evelyn Casey, 30 August 1914. 15 See CPD, vol. 109, pp. 5215-17 (7 October 1924). 16 Richard Casey to parents, 4 September 1918.

330 CASEY 17 Richard Casey to parents, 29 November 1914 (see also Navy News, 22 November 1968). 18 Richard Casey to parents, 22 November 1914. 19 Richard Casey, “Diary’, 23 November 1914. 20 Ibid. 1 February 1915. 21 Ibid. 3 February 1915. 22 Ibid. 26 January 1915. 23 Ibid. 28 February 1915. 24 Ibid. 20 March 1915. 25 Richard Casey to parents, 16 May 1915 (in fact, the day after the incident).

26 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 16 May 1915. 27 Ibid. 24 May 1915. 28 Ibid. 13 June 1915. 29 Ibid. 19 September 1915. 30 Richard Casey to parents, 15 February 1916. 31 Richard Casey to Bruce Graham, 24 March 1965. 32 Richard Casey to parents, 15 February 1916. 33 Richard Casey to Martin Gilbert, 11 March 1970. 34 Richard Gardiner Casey to Richard Casey, 9 August 1916. 35 Richard Casey to parerits, 12 August 1916. 36 Recommendations for Honours and Rewards, ist Australian Division, 23rd to 26th-—7—1916 and 23rd to 27th—8-—1916, Australian

War Memorial File 368.212. 37 Richard Gardiner Casey to Richard Casey, 22 November 1916.

38 Richard Casey to parents, 4 April 1917. 39 Richard Casey to parents, 13 May 1917. 40 Richard Casey to parents, 12 April and 10 July 1917. 41 Richard Casey to parents, 24 August 1917. 42 Richard Casey to parents, 22 September 1917. 43 Richard Casey to L. F. Urwick, 30 September 1964. 44 Richard Casey to parents, 28 September 1917. 45 Richard Casey to parents, 26 October 1917. 46 Richard Gardiner Casey to Richard Casey, 31 October 1917. 47 Sir Douglas Haig’s Despatch of 7 November 1917. 48 Richard Casey to parents, 24 November 1917. 49 Richard Casey to parents, 6 January 1918. 50 Richard Gardiner Casey to Richard Casey, 10 January 1918. 51 Richard Casey to parents, 19 January 1918. 52 Richard Casey to Richard Gardiner Casey, 28 January 1918. 53 Richard Gardiner Casey to Richard Casey, 7 January 1918. 54 Richard Casey to parents, 10 February 1918. 55 Richard Casey to parents, 21 November 1918. 56 Richard Casey to parents, 24 November 1918. 57 Richard Casey to parents, 1 December 1918.

58 Ibid.

59 Richard Gardiner Casey to Richard Casey, 4 December 1918.

REFERENCES 331

60 Richard Casey to parents, 28 December 1918. 61 Oliver Holmes Woodward, autobiography, vol. 2 (held in Mitchell Library, Sydney), p. 106. 62 Maie Casey, Tides and Eddies, Melbourne, 1969, p. 55.

Chapter 4 Public Servant 1 Richard Gardiner Casey to Richard Casey, 7 January 1919. 2 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 30 August 1919. 3 Ibid. 4 October 1919. 4 Ibid. 19 November 1921. 5 From a page in a loose-leaf notebook given over to headings for conversational gambits. Undated, but apparently either 1920 or 1924.

6 Richard Casey to parents, 1 January 1919. 7 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 20 July 1919. 8 Official Record of the Proceedings and Debates of the National Australasian Convention held in Parliament House, Sydney, New South Wales, in the months of March and April, 1891, Sydney, 1891,

p. 374.

9 For the full text, see L. F. Fitzhardinge, The Little Digger 1914-1952, Sydney, 1979, pp. 487-91. 10 Bailey was later Sir Kenneth Bailey, Solicitor-General and then High Commissioner in Ottawa. Castieau was later an Assistant Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Department. Hardman was later Principal Registrar of the High Court. McKenna was later a Senator and Minister for Health. Lloyd was later an intelligence operative and then Government Commissioner in Japan. Beasley was later Professor of Law in the University of Western Australia. Hamilton was later principal of the Brisbane Boys’ College. 11 London Daily Telegraph, 10 January 1925. 12 For example, Age, 30 July and 23 November 1925. 13. Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 13 September 1924. 14 Arthur Robinson to Richard Casey, 28 September 1924. 15 Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten, London, 1985, pp. 52-3. 16 S.M. Bruce to Stanley Baldwin, 19 November 1924. 17 Richard Casey to Stephen Roskill, 6 February 1968. 18 Austen Chamberlain to Stanley Baldwin, 20 December 1924, in Stephen Roskill, Hankey: Man of secrets, vol. Il, 1919-1931. London, 1972, p. 402. 19 Leo Amery to S. M. Bruce, 20 December 1924 (AA:AA1970/555).

20 Copy of extract from Maurice Hankey to Lord Stamfordham, 13 January 1925.

21 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 18 March 1925 (AA:AA1967/165). 22 See W. J. Hudson and Jane North (eds), My Dear P.M.: R. G. Casey’s letters to S. M. Bruce, 1914-1929, Canberra, 1980. 23 For her own account of her family background, see Maie Casey, An

332 CASEY Australian Story 1837-1907, London, 1962. For her own formative years, see Maie Casey, Tides and Eddies, London, 1966. 24 = Ibid.

25 See Joan Lindsay, Time without Clocks, Melbourne, 1979,

pp. 205-7. 26 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 15 April 1926 (Hudson and North, op. cit. p. 179). 27 S.M. Bruce to Richard Casey, 16 January 1926 (AA:AA1420). 28 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce (in London), 1 November 1926. 29 = Ibid.

30 Richard Casey to Tom Jones, 26 April 1927. 31 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce (in Melbourne), 2 September 1927. 32 J. G. Latham to Richard Casey, 13 March 1928. 33 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce (Hudson and North, op. cit. pp. 404-5). 34 Ibid. p. 487. 35 S. M. Bruce to Richard Casey, 11 July 1929 (AA:A1420). 36 S.-M. Bruce to Richard Casey, 20 March 1928 (AA:A1420). 37 See W. J. Hudson, Australia and the League of Nations, Sydney, 1980, p. 168. 38 See H. J. Radi in Australian Journal of Politics and History, December 1981.

39 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 18 February 1926 (Hudson and North, op. cit. p. 139). 40 Chapman Pincher, Their Trade Is Treachery, London, 1981, pp. 161-72.

41 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 1927, undated note.

Chapter5 Treasurer 1 Richard Casey to Maurice Hankey, 31 May 1931, in Hankey Papers (courtesy David Day). 2 Bulletin, 10 December 1930. 3 Richard Casey to Maurice Hankey, 31 May 1931, in Hankey Papers (courtesy David Day). 4 Richard Casey to J. H. Thomas, 26 March 1931, in Hankey Papers (courtesy David Day).

5 Ibid.

6 See R. G. Casey, Australia’s Place in the World, Melbourne, 1931. 7 Geelong Advertiser, 19 September 1931.

8 Named for his grandfathers, but always known as Donn, a name of no special significance, except that his parents liked it. In adult life Donn Casey abandoned his first and second names. 9 ‘What General Blamey Says About Major Casey’, 27 May 1931. 10 Richard Casey to Dermot Casey, 31 May 1931, copy in Hankey Papers (courtesy David Day).

11 Ibid.

REFERENCES 333

12 Ibid. 13. Richard Casey to Maurice Hankey, 6 July 1931, in Hankey Papers (courtesy David Day). 14 Richard Casey to Norman Cowper, 12 September 1931. 15 W.K. Hancock to Richard Casey, 21 February 1932. 16 S. M. Bruce to Richard Casey, 19 January 1933 (AA:A1421). 17 Richard Casey to Lord Glendyne, 17 June 1932, copy in Hankey Papers (courtesy David Day). 18 Enclosure with Richard Casey to Donn Casey, 6 January 1969.

19 Ibid.

20 Richard Casey to Maurice Hankey, 30 March 1932, in Hankey Papers (courtesy David Day).

21 Ibid. 22 Ibid.

23 CPD, vol. 134, p. 89 (28 April 1932). 24 Richard Casey to John Gorton, 1 November 1954. 25 Geelong Advertiser, 12 December 1931. 26 CPD, vol. 136, p. 1876 (3 November 1932). 27 CPD, vol. 139, p. 1251 (5 May 1933). 28 CPD, vol. 138, p. 206 (14 March 1933). 29 = Ibid.

30 Coincidentally it was Massy Greene whom Casey had lobbied for higher protection for his cutlery products in the early 1920s. 31 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 20 February 1933. 32 Maie Casey, ‘Edrington’ and “The Story of Edrington, Berwick’, undated typescripts. 33. Enid Lyons, Among the Carrion Crows, Adelaide, 1972, p. 26. 34 C. J. Lloyd, “The Formation and Development of the United Australia Party, 1929-37’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Australian National University, 1984, p. 350.

35 Richard Casey to J. A. Lyons, 10 June 1935, copy enclosed with Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 10 June 1935 (AA:A1421). 36 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 9 December 1934 (AA:A1421). 37 Smith’s Weekly, 23 September 1933. 38 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 30 March 1936 (AA:A1421). 39 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 3 November 1934 (AA:A1421). 40 Maie Casey, Tides and Eddies, Melbourne, 1969, p. 64. 41 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 28 April 1935 (AA:A1421).

42 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 16 June 1935. 43, S. M. Bruce to Richard Casey, 9 November 1935. 44 For pictures and description of Little Parndon, see Australian Home Beautiful, July 1947.

45 Richard Casey to Jane Casey, 12 July 1938. 46 L. F. Crisp, “The Commonwealth’s Changed Role and Its Organisational Consequences’, in R. N. Spann and G. R. Curnow (eds), Public Policy and Administration in Australia: A reader, Sydney,

1975, p. 561.

334 CASEY 47 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 3 May 1938 (AA:A1421). Gregory’s best-known book was, perhaps, Gold, Unemployment and Capitalism, London, 1933.

48 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 2 September 1935 (AA:A1421). 49 Richard Casey to Harry Batterbee, 10 June 1932, copy in Hankey Papers (courtesy David Day). 50 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 20 February 1935 (AA:A1421). 51 First published in London in 1932. 52 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 24 May 1933 (AA:A1421). 53 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 3 February 1936 (AA:A1421). 54 Neville Cain, ‘Economics Between the Wars’, Australian Cultural History, no. 3 (1984), p. 83.

55 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 17 February 1936 (AA:A1421). 56 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 28 February 1936 (AA:A1421). 57 Melbourne Herald, 10 November 1936. 58 Sydney Morning Herald, 12 November 1936. 59 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 30 December 1936 (AA:A1968/391, folder 50). 60 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 30 September 1935 (AA:A1421).

61 Richard Casey, note of 23 September 1935 (AA:A1968/391, folder 47).

62 A.C. Davidson to Richard Casey, 30 August 1935 (AA:CP503/1, bundle 3). 63 Richard Casey to Henry Sheehan, 26 September 1935, ibid. 64 Richard Casey to Harry Batterbee, 10 June 1932, copy in Hankey Papers (courtesy David Day). 65 Sydney Morning Herald, 23 October 1935. 66 Richard Casey to Harry Batterbee, 10 June 1932, in Hankey Papers (courtesy David Day). 67 See D. L. S. Sissons, “Manchester v. Japan: the imperial background to the Australian trade diversion dispute with Japan, 1936’, Australian Outlook, December 1976.

68 Richard Casey to Lord Glendyne, 30 March 1936, copy in Hankey Papers (courtesy David Day). 69 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 3 May 1938 (AA:A1421). 70 Richard Casey to John Hetherington, 28 October 1964. 71 Richard Casey to F. Daly, 31 May 1956. 72 Lyons, op. cit. p. 179. 73 Melbourne Argus, 10 April 1939. 74 Ibid. 17 April 1939. 75 Ibid. 1 December 1937. 76 Percy Spender, Politics and a Man, Sydney, 1972, p. 25. 77 Sir Earle Page, Truant Surgeon, Sydney, 1963, p. 227.

78 Lyons, op. cit. p. 62. 79 Lord Wakehurst, ‘Diary’, 30 March and 18 May 1938, in Wakehurst Papers (courtesy David Day).

REFERENCES 335 80 R. G. Neale (ed.), Documents on Australian Foreign Policy, 1937-1949

vol. Il, Canberra, 1976, p. 430. 81 Richard Casey to Maurice Casey, 30 March 1936, in Hankey Papers (courtesy David Day).

82 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 21 March 1938.

83 Ibid.

84. Noel Coward, ‘Diary’, 8 September 1943, typescript fragment.

Chapter6 Diplomat 1 Minister was the diplomatic rank held by heads of legations, being, as it were, a rung below embassies.

2 R.G. Menzies to S. M. Bruce, 27 October 1939, in R. G. Neale, Documents on Australian Foreign Policy 1937-49, vol. 1, Canberra, 1976, p. 355.

3 Note by S. M. Bruce on conversation with Richard Casey, London, 8 November 1939, ibid. p. 381. 4 R.G. Menzies to Richard Casey, 6 December 1939, ibid. p. 449. 5 See Ruth M. Megaw, “‘Undiplomatic Channels: Australian representation in the United States, 1918-39’, Historical Studies, April 1973, p. 629. 6 Cited in David McNicoll, Luck’s a Fortune, Sydney, 1979, p. 219. 7 Richard Casey to John McEwen, 16 April 1940, in Documents on Australian Foreign Policy 1937-49, vol. m, p. 203. 8 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 31 July 1941.

9 Richard Casey to John McEwen, 16 April 1940, as above. 10 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 13 June 1940. 11 Ibid. 5 June 1940. 12 Robert Menzies, ‘Diary’, 1941, “C’ (NLA: MS4936, series 13). 13. Richard Casey to John McEwen, 5 June 1940, in Documents on Australian Foreign Policy 1937-49, vol. m, p. 341.

14 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 15 August 1940. 15 Ibid. 27 December 1940. 16 Ibid. 18 April 1941. 17 Ibid. 5 January 1941. 18 Ibid. 1 January 1941. 19 Ibid. 16 July 1941. 20 Ibid. 31 March 1941. 21 Alan Watt, Australian Diplomat, Sydney, 1972, p. 35. 22 Peter Heydon to John Hood, 19 April 1940. 23 Kylie Tennant, Evatt: Politics and justice, Sydney, 1970, p. 141.

24 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 11 June 1940. 25 Ibid. 29 May 1943. 26 Ibid. 14 July 1940. 27 Richard Casey to Kylie Tennant, 16 November 1970. 28 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 22 June 1940.

336 CASEY 29 Hugh Dalton’s record of Foreign Office gossip reported by Gladwyn Jebb: Hugh Dalton, ‘Diary’, 22 April 1942 (courtesy David Day).

30 S.-M. Bruce to Richard Casey, 17 September 1941. 31 Richard Casey to John McEwen, 27 March 1940 (copy in Richard Casey’s ‘Diary’ for 1939-40).

32 Ibid.

33 Richard Casey to John McEwen, 5 June 1940, as above. 34 = Ibid.

35 Richard Casey, “Diary’, 5 June 1940. 36 Richard Casey to R. G. Menzies, 25 June 1940, in Documents on Australian Foreign Policy 1937—49, vol. m, p. 506.

37 Richard Casey to H. V. Evatt, 23 November 1941, ibid. vol. v, p. 220.

38 Richard Casey to John Curtin and H. V. Evatt, 27 November 1941, ibid. p. 236. 39 For no obvious reason, Casey had the record show that a third party approached Kurusu on 29 November (see R. G. Casey, Personal Experience, London, 1962, p. 58, and Paul Hasluck, The Government and the People 1939-41, Canberra, 1952, p. 551). In his account written years later, Casey mistakenly gave the night of 29 November as the time of his conversation with Kurusu.

40 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 30 November 1941. 41 See C. Bridge, ‘R. G. Casey’s Contribution to Australian War Policy, 1939 to 1942: some myths’, Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, no. 9 (1981), pp. 80-90. 42 See David Horner, Australia and Allied Intelligence in the Pacific in the Second World War, Canberra, 1980.

43 Bridge, op. cit. 44 See Richard Casey to John Curtin and H. V. Evatt, 24 November, in Documents on Australian Foreign Policy 1937-49, vol. v, p. 218, fn. 15.

45 H. V. Evatt to Richard Casey, 10 January 1942, ibid. p. 427. 46 H. V. Evatt to Richard Casey, 14 January 1942, ibid. p. 432. 47 H. V. Evatt to John McMillan, 22 February 1942, ibid. p. 555. 48 Felix Frankfurter to H. V. Evatt, 27 February 1942, ibid. p. 588. 49 P. G. Edwards (ed.), Australia Through American Eyes 1935-1945, Brisbane, 1979, p. 69.

50 Ibid.

51 For the fairest and best treatment of Evatt, see Paul Hasluck, Diplomatic Witness, Melbourne, 1980. 52 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 31 January 1942.

53. Barrier Daily Truth, 6 February 1960. See also Don Whitington; Strive to be Fair, Canberra, 1977, p. 79. 54 R. G. Menzies, “Diaries 1941’, “C’, General Reflection after 15 May (NLA: MS4936, series 13).

55 London Observer, 31 May 1942.

REFERENCES 337

56 Hugh Dalton, ‘Diary’, 16 December 1942 (courtesy David Day). 57 Leo Amery to S. M. Bruce, 19 March 1942. 58 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 15 March 1942. 59 Robert E. Sherwood, The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins, vol. 2, London, 1949, p. 513. 60 See Commonwealth of Australia, Documents Relating to the Appointment of H. M. Minister at Washington (Right Hon.

R. G. Casey) as Minister of State in the United Kingdom, Canberra, 1942.

61 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 20 March 1942. 62 Ibid. 22 March 1942. 63 Hugh Dalton, ‘Diary’, 22 April 1942 (courtesy David Day). 64 Melbourne Herald, 27 December 1941. 65 Richard Casey, undated manuscript fragment. 66 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 5 May 1941. 67 New York Times, 21 March 1942. 68 New York Herald Tribune, 31 March 1942. 69 Washington Post, 28 December 1943. 70 Richard Casey to K. M. Niall, 22 February 1943.

Chapter 7 British Minister

1 Revised directive to the Minister of State in the Middle East,

undated typescript. 2 See John Hetherington, Blamey, Canberra, 1973, pp. 78-80. 3 Andrew Cunningham to John Edelston, 23 April 1942 (courtesy David Day). 4 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 24 May 1942. 5 Oliver Harvey, ‘Diary’, 11 July 1942 (courtesy David Day). 6 Louis Spears to Hastings Ismay, 2 September 1942 (courtesy David Day).

7 Lord Casey, Personal Experience 1939-46, London, 1962, pp. 103-4. 8 Cited in Roger Parkinson, The Auk, London, 1977, p. 171.

9 Ibid.

10 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 24 June 1942. 11 Ibid. 20 July 1942. 12 Casey, Personal Experience, as above, p. 111. 13. Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 8 August 1942. 14 Alfred Stirling to Richard Casey, 5 July 1956. 15 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 20 July 1942.

16 Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 1, Sydney, 1951, p. 383.

17 Alexander Cadogan to Oliver Harvey, 25 August 1942 (courtesy David Day). 18 Hugh Dalton, ‘Diary’, 27 August 1942 (courtesy David Day). 19 Richard Casey to James Plimsoll, 5 June 1972. 20 Casey, Personal Experience, as above, p. 131.

338 CASEY 21 Joseph P. Lash (ed.), From the Diaries of Felix Frankfurter, New York, 1975, p. 153. 22 Winston Churchill to Richard Casey, 30 January 1943. 23 Richard Casey to Clement Attlee, 1 February 1943. 24 Winston Churchill to Richard Casey, 12 February 1943. 25 Richard Casey to Winston Churchill, 4 February 1943. 26 Richard Casey to Winston Churchill, 5 February 1943. 27 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 21 February 1943. 28 Harold Macmillan, The Blast of War 1939-1945, London, 1967, p. 275. 29 Harold Macmillan, War Diaries, Politics and the War in the Mediterranean, January 1943—May 1945, London, 1984, pp. 33, 365.

30 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 3 March 1943. 31 Ibid. 12 March 1943. 32 Ibid. 3 March 1943. 33 Ibid. 4 July 1943.

34 Churchill, op. cit. 35 Richard Casey to K. M. Niall, 22 February 1943. 36 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 3 November 1943. 37 Ibid. 17 March 1943. 38 Ibid. 24 August 1943. 39 Ibid. 15 April 1943. 40 Ibid. 10 March 1943. 41 Ibid. 13 June 1943. 42 Alexander Cadogan, ‘Diary’, 12, 14, 19 July 1943 (courtesy David Day).

43 Hugh Dalton, ‘Diary’, 17 December 1943 (courtesy David Day). 44 Oliver Harvey, ‘Diary’, 15 October 1943 (courtesy David Day). 45 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, early March 1943. 46 Richard Casey to Arthur Tange, 4 January 1957. 47 See especially Ronald W. Zweig, ‘British Plans for the Evacuation of Palestine in 1941-1942’, Studies in Zionism, Autumn, 1983. I am also indebted to Zweig for letting me read an article of his in manuscript form: “The Political Uses of Military Intelligence: evaluating the threat of a Jewish revolt against Britain during the Second World War’, 1983. 48 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 30 July 1943. 49 Ibid. 2 August 1943.

50 Ibid. 7 August 1943. 51 Ibid. 28 June 1943. 52 Ibid. 27 June 1943. 53 Ibid. 12 November 1943. 54 London Daily Mail, 22 November 1943. 55 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 27 November 1943. 56 Ibid. 22 December 1943. Canal operations during the war had not

REFERENCES 339

been a problem. Casey’s observations were triggered by ‘some forward-looking papers’ from London. 57 Richard Casey to K. M. Niall, 22 February 1943. 58 = Ibid.

59 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 7 December 1943.

Chapter 8 British Governor 1 Lord Wavell to Leo Amery, 29 October 1943, in Nicholas Mansergh (ed.) India: The transfer of power 1942-7 (hereafter TOP), vol. 1v, London, 1973, p. 413.

2 Leo Amery to Lord Wavell, 6 November 1943, ibid. p. 452. 3 Richard Casey to Winston Churchill, 8 November 1943, ibid. p. 454.

4 Ibid.

5 Leo Amery to Lord Wavell, 12 November 1943, ibid. p. 471. 6 Paul Emrys-Evans to Lord Harlech, 18 January 1944 (courtesy David Day). 7 Richard Casey to D. A. Cameron, 19 December 1952. 8 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 1 January 1944. 9 Ibid. 11 January 1944. 10 Ibid. 14 January 1944. 11 Penderal Moon (ed.), Wavell: The Viceroy’s journal, London, 1973. pp. 52-3.

12 TOP, vol. iv, p. 670. 13 Ibid. p. 697. 14 Richard Casey to Lord Wavell, 26 January 1944, ibid. p. 675. 15 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 24 February 1944. 16 Leo Amery to Richard Casey, 28 July 1945.

17 TOP, vol. tv, p. 670. 18 Moon, op. cit. p. 56. 19 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 10 February 1944. 20 Ibid. 24 February 1944. 21 Lord Wavell to Leo Amery, 7 March 1944, TOP, vol. tv, p. 786. 22 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 8 February 1944. 23 Ibid. 24 February 1944. 24 Richard Casey to Winston Churchill, 20 May 1944, TOP, vol. tv, pp. 1029-31.

25 Lord Wavell to Leo Amery, 29 June 1944, ibid. p. 1056. 26 Minute by Mr Casey, 17 August 1944, ibid. pp. 1208-9. 27 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 13 August 1944. 28 Dated 31 August 1944, TOP, vol. v, p. 4. 29 Richard Casey to Lord Wavell, 6 November 1944, ibid. pp. 179-84. 30 Lord Wavell to Leo Amery, 15 November 1944, ibid. pp. 206-7. 31 Richard Casey to Lord Wavell, 17 December 1944, ibid. p. 308.

340 CASEY 32 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 15 December 1944. 33, Rupert Ryan to Richard Casey, 23 January 1945. 34 Richard Casey to John Curtin, 4 February 1945 (AA:A5954, box 57).

35 Richard Casey to Lord Wavell, 1 March 1945, TOP, vol. v, pp. 637-42. 36 R. G. Casey, An Australian in India, London, 1947, p. 21. 37 Lord Casey, Personal Experience 1939-46, London, 1962, p. 215.

38 Richard Casey to W. A. R. Collins, 29 December 1964. 39 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 30 March 1945. 40 Lord Wavell to Leo Amery, 12 June 1945, TOP, vol. v, . 1117.

41 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 7 October 1945. 42 Claude Reading to Richard Casey, 13 September 1945. 43 Richard Casey to Rupert Ryan, 30 October 1945. 44 Richard Casey to Hugh de Crespigny, 26 November 1945. 45 Allan Campbell to Richard Casey, 27 November 1945. 46 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 21 November 1945. 47 Ibid. 24 November 1945. 48 Ibid. 27 November 1945. 49 Richard Casey to Lord Wavell, 2 December 1945. 50 Richard Casey to Lord Wavell, 3 December 1945. 51 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 7 December 1945. 52 Richard Casey to Lord Wavell, 8 December 1945. 53 Richard Casey to Stafford Cripps, 23 December 1945. 54 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 10 December 1945. 55 Richard Casey to M. K. Gandhi, 10 December 1945. 56 M. K. Gandhi to Richard Casey, 12 December 1945. 57 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 16 February 1946. 58 Ibid. 22 January 1946. 59 Lord Wavell to Richard Casey, 14 February 1946. 60 Clement Attlee to Richard Casey, 4 February 1946. 61 Times of India, 11 December 1945. 62 Ibid. 11 January 1946. 63 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 22 May 1945. 64 Gour Gopal Adhikari to Richard Casey, undated. 65 Richard Casey to Anthony Bolger, 27 July 1970.

Chapter 9 Party Chief 1 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 26 February 1946. 2 Ibid. 19 March 1946. 3 Ibid. 29 March 1946. 4 An Australian in India, London, 1947. 5 Richard Casey, “Diary’, 10 May 1946. 6 Melbourne Herald, 13 July 1946. 7 Ibid. 17 July 1946.

REFERENCES 341

8 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 24 September 1946. Casey always referred to the Australian Labor Party as the Labour Party.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid. 3 October 1946. 11 Ibid. 9 November 1946. 12 Ibid. 30 November 1947. 13. Richard Casey to Jane Casey, undated. 14 See Maie Casey et al., Early Melbourne Architecture, Melbourne, 1953.

15 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 27 December 1946. 16 Ibid. 6 February 1947. 17 Ibid. 13 June 1947.

18 Ibid.

19 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 8 March 1947. 20 S. M. Bruce to Richard Casey, 2 April 1947. 21 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 4 April 1947. 22 Ibid. 20 April 1947. 23 Richard Casey, Double or Quit, Melbourne, 1949, pp. 111, 113. 24 Richard Casey to R. G. A. Jackson, 11 June 1952. 25 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 16 June 1947.

26 Ibid. 1 July 1947. 27 Melbourne Herald, 3 September 1947. 28 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 9 October 1947. 29 Richard Casey to M. Talbot Rice, 18 November 1947. 30 For example, Richard Casey to G. W. Giddy, 12 November 1947. 31 R.J. F. Boyer to Richard Casey, 23 December 1947. 32 Richard Casey to B. Dargan, 8 January 1948. 33 Sydney Morning Herald, 26 January 1948. 34 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 18 February 1948. 35 Ibid. 4 February 1948. 36 Richard Casey to William Spooner, 2 January 1948. 37 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 9 September 1951. 38 Ibid. 11 June 1947.

39 Ibid. 15 August 1949. 40 Ibid. 12 March 1949. 41 Brisbane Courier-Mail, 20 September 1947. 42 Ibid. 23 September 1947. 43. S. M. Bruce to Richard Casey, 23 September 1946. 44 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 24 September 1948. 45 Sydney Sun, 27 September 1948. 46 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 5 February 1948.

47 Ibid. 6 October 1947. 48 Ibid. 28 April 1949. 49 Ibid. 4 March 1948. 50 Richard Casey to Charles Porter, 27 April 1949. 51 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 17 May 1949. 52 Ibid. 25 December 1949.

342 CASEY

Chapter 10 In the Desert 1 Sydney Daily Telegraph, 3 June 1952. 2 Richard Casey to A. S. Dunk, 11 March 1952. 3 Richard Casey to M. Talbot Rice, 27 November 1950. 4 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 2 August 1953. 5 Melbourne Sun Pictorial, 30 October 1949. 6 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 16 December 1949. 7 Richard Casey to R. G. A. Jackson, 16 January 1950. 8 Richard Casey to F. B. Clapp, 11 January 1950. 9 Richard Casey to R. G. A. Jackson, 16 January 1950. 10 B. W. Hartnell to Richard Casey, 8 March 1950. 11 Richard Casey to Edward Bridges, 23 October 1950. Jackson returned to Australia in 1951~52 as an adviser to the Minister for National Development before moving on to a series of illustrious appointments as planning and development adviser to governments and international agencies. 12 Richard Casey to A. Moore Montgomery, 12 July 1950. 13. Richard Casey to Mary Spears, 11 August 1950. 14 Richard Casey to Felix Frankfurter, 10 July 1950. 15 Richard Casey to Viscountess Astor, 6 November 1950. 16 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 10 July 1951. 17 Richard Casey to Felix Frankfurter, 19 March 1951. 18 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 22 September 1951. 19 Richard Casey to Edward Bridges, 22 November 1950. 20 Richard Casey to J. Elmhirst, undated. 21 Richard Casey to Josiah Francis, 23 November 1950. 22 CPD, vol. 207, p. 1707 (20 April 1950). 23 Richard Casey to J. B. Chifley, 20 November 1950. 24 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 7 February 1950.

25 Ibid.

26 Richard Casey to Keith Murdoch, 8 January 1951. 27 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 24 July 1952. 28 Richard Casey to Keith Officer, 8 May 1951. 29 Richard Casey, undated manuscript fragments. 30 For Spender’s denial, see Percy Spender, Politics and a Man, Sydney, 1972, pp. 300-3. For a contrary possibility see R. L. Harry, The Diplomat Who Laughed, Melbourne, 1983, pp. 48-9.

31 Melbourne Herald, 18 May 1951. 32 Ibid. 18 January 1952. 33. R. G. Menzies to Richard Casey, 11 August 1950. 34 Richard Casey to R. G. Menzies, 13 November 1950. 35 Richard Casey to R. G. Menzies, 27 February 1951. 36 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 26 September 1950. 37 Richard Casey to Alan Ritchie, 25 October 1950. 38 Richard Casey to R. G. Menzies, 8 March 1951. 39 Richard Casey to R. G. Menzies, 2 May 1951. 40 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 21 September 1951.

REFERENCES 343

41 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 9 October 1950. 42 Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 22 May 1951. 43, Richard Casey to S. M. Bruce, 29 December 1950. 44S. M. Bruce to Richard Casey, 1 February 1951. 45 Richard Casey to Frank Clune, 21 February 1951. 46 Richard Casey to Neil O’Sullivan, 14 May 1951. 47 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 11 December 1949. 48 Richard Casey to Alfred Brookes, 18 September 1950. 49 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 21 September 1950. 50 Richard Casey to I. Clunies Ross, 28 August 1950. 51 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 7 December 1950. 52 Richard Casey to Colin Bednall, H. McClure Smith, H. A. M. Campbell, J. Williams, Lloyd Dumas and Gordon Rolph, 27 March 1951.

53 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 6 August 1953. 54 Ibid. 13 August 1953. 55 See Aeroplane, 2 April 1954. 56 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 7 December 1952.

Chapter 11 Foreign Minister 1 Edward Crankshaw, Bismarck, London, 1984, p. iii. 2 Richard Casey to Robin Hankey, 12 February 1952. 3 Richard Casey to Noel Coward, 17 July 1956. 4 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 14 September 1958. 5 Richard Casey to William Slim, 11 November 1953. 6 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 7 June 1951. 7 Richard Casey to Arthur Tange, 31 January 1956. 8 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 27 June 1951. 9 Richard Casey to John Douglas Pringle, 6 May 1955. 10 Richard Casey to Arthur Tange, 25 February 1954. 11 Richard Casey to Edric Henty, 13 August 1954. 12 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 16 July 1958. 13 Richard Casey to R. G. A. Jackson, 16 December 1954. 14 Richard Casey to Walter Crocker, 7 February 1955. 15 Richard Casey to Macfarlane Burnet, 27 November 1952. 16 Richard Casey to Malcolm MacDonald, 10 April 1956. 17 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 14 August 1951. 18 Ibid. 8 August 1951. 19 Ibid. 8 November 1951. 20 Ibid. 9 November 1951. 21 Ibid. 17 October 1952. 22 Ibid. 18 October 1952. 23 Ibid. 23 October 1952. 24 Ibid. 5 November 1952. 25 Ibid. 21 October 1952. 26 Richard Casey to Percy Spender, 20 January 1953.

344 CASEY 27 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 16 July 1953. 28 Ibid. 18 September 1953. 29 Ibid. 23 September 1953. 30. Ibid. 8 October 1953. 31 Ibid. 15 February 1951. 32 Richard Casey to Arthur Tange, 17 August 1954.

33 Ibid.

34 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 15 February 1951.

35 Ibid. 8 May 1952. 36 Richard Casey to J. P. Jones, 10 May 1954. 37 Conversation of 11 September 1955, in AA:229/9/1 Canada— Relations with Australia.

38 Richard Casey to Athol Townley, 15 November 1957. 39 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 12 December 1951. 40 Ibid. 9 March 1949. 41 Sun Pictorial, 15 May 1953. 42 Richard Casey to Richard Boyer, 19 June 1953. 43. Richard Casey to Richard Boyer, 7 July 1953. 44 Richard Casey to Richard Boyer, 19 June 1953. 45 Richard Casey to Walter Crocker, 7 July 1958. 46 Melbourne Herald, 30 July 1954. 47 Richard Casey, “Diary’, 28 July 1954. 48 Ibid. This recently created policy committee, and another on administrative matters chaired by Harrison, represented precisely what Casey had demanded of Menzies when in the depths of his earlier depression, but he was not consoled by his first experience

of the new system: ‘I suspect ... this... is not going to be an innovation that saves time—but rather something that means doing the same thing all over again.’ (Ibid. 29 July 1954.)

49 Ibid. 1 July 1954. 50 Richard Casey to Claude McKay, 18 September 1956. 51 Richard Casey to James Plimsoll, 25 September 1956.

52 Ibid.

53 Richard Casey to Lady Seymour, 18 December 1953. 54 Richard Casey to Roland Wilson, 2 February 1953. 55 H. McClure Smith to Richard Casey, 9 January 1957. 56 Richard Casey to D. B. Copland, 5 May 1955.

57 Ibid.

58 Richard Casey to Arthur Tange, 29 September 1954. 59 Richard Casey to Selwyn Lloyd, 16 June 1959. 60 Richard Casey to Pete Jarman, 18 September 1952. 61 Richard Casey to Lord Beaverbrook, 16 December 1952. 62 Richard Casey to Arthur Tange, 13 June 1952. 63 Richard Casey to Walter Crocker, 25 March 1953. 64 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 28 July 1954.

65 Ibid.

66 Ibid. 28 June 1955.

REFERENCES 345

67 Ibid. 29 July 1955. 68 Richard Casey to D. W. McNicol, 21 March 1957. 69 Richard Casey to A. R. Downer, 22 January 1959. 70 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 19 March 1957 and 12 October 1958. 71 Richard Casey to William McMahon, 19 April 1952. 72 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 26 May 1955. 73 Richard Casey to R. G. Menzies, 10 December 1954. 74 Richard Casey to Arthur Tange, 10 January 1955. 75 Richard Casey to R. G. Menzies, 16 August 1955. 76 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 26 May 1955. 77 Sydney Daily Telegraph, 1 August 1955.

78 Arthur Tange to Richard Casey, 3 August 1955. 79 U.S. News and World Report, 16 July 1954. 80 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 5 April 1952. 81 Ibid. 2 January 1958. 82 Richard Casey to Arthur Tange, 9 July 1958. 83 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 27 June 1951. 84 Richard Casey to Arthur Calwell, 5 September 1955. 85 Richard Casey to Jane Casey, 15 June 1951. 86 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 11 July 1951. 87 Richard Casey to M. Talbot Rice, 11 July 1952. 88 Richard Casey to Colin York Syme, 30 August 1954. 89 Richard Casey to J. M. Mullens, 19 December 1955. 90 Richard Casey to W. S. Bengtsson, 12 February 1953. 91 Richard Casey to Arthur Calwell, 13 January 1958. 92 Richard Casey to Geoffrey Brown, 3 March 1952. 93 Richard Casey to J. A. Spicer, 30 March 1953. 94 Richard Casey to J. M. Schmella, 18 September 1956. 95 Richard Casey to L. R. McIntyre, 8 February 1956. 96 Denis Murphy to W. J. Hudson, 15 April 1982. 97 Richard Casey to H. V. Evatt, 26 February 1954. 98 Richard Casey to Owen Dixon, 2 March 1952. 99 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 2 March 1952.

Chapter 12 Suez and After 1 Richard Casey to Charles Gavan Duffy, 6 June 1954. 2 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 30 June 1954. 3 Sydney Morning Herald, 25 July 1954. 4 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 29 July 1954. 5 Ibid. 8 September 1954. 6 Ibid. See also Alan Watt, Australian Diplomat, Sydney, 1972, p. 222. 7 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 26 October 1954. 8 Richard Casey to Walter Crocker, 15 November 1954. 9 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 10 September 1954. 10 Arthur Tange to Richard Casey, 13 September 1954. 11. Richard Casey to Arthur Tange, 27 April 1955.

346 CASEY 12 Richard Casey to Walter Crocker, 2 May 1955. 13 Richard Casey, ‘Notes on Suez Crisis (dictated on 28 September, 1956)’, typescript.

14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid.

17 See Sir Robert Menzies, Afternoon Light, Melbourne, 1967, pp. 149-85. 18 Percy Spender to Richard Casey, 15 September 1956. 19 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 12 September 1956. 20 Richard Casey to Lord Bruce, 28 May 1956. 21 Adelaide News, 25 September 1956. 22 Richard Casey, ‘Notes on Suez Crisis’, as above. 23 Richard Casey to Sir John Spicer, 1 October 1956. 24 Richard Casey to Leon Trout, 2 October 1956. 25 Richard Casey to Walter Crocker, 18 October 1956. 26 Richard Casey, ‘Notes on Suez Crisis,’ as above. 27 Richard Casey to M. Talbot Rice, 24 December 1956. 28 Richard Casey to Edward Spears, 4 December 1956. 29 Richard Casey to Henry Alexander, 27 December 1956. 30 Richard Casey to M. Talbot Rice, 24 December 1956. 31 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 5 December 1956. 32 Richard Casey to Owen Davis, 30 January 1958. 33 Richard Casey to Walter Crocker, 25 February 1957. 34 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 5 May 1967. Nutting’s No End of a Lesson was published by Constable, London.

35 Ibid. 13 October 1959. 36 Ibid. 6 November 1959. 37 Richard Casey to Fred Alexander, 23 January 1957. 38 Richard Casey to F. A. Dodds, 3 January 1958. 39 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 20 November 1951. 40 R. G. Casey, Record of Conversation with Dr Keirnan, Wednesday 5 August 1953, at Canberra. 41 See Patrick O’Farrell, ‘Irish—Australian Diplomatic Relations’,

Quadrant, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 11-20. 42 Richard Casey to Lord Brookeborough, 14 January 1954. 43, For wider discussion see John Knight and W. J. Hudson, Parliament and Foreign Policy, Canberra, 1983, pp. 59-76.

44 Richard Casey to John Spicer, 16 January 1952. 45 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 17 March 1952. 46 Richard Casey to J. C. G. Kevin, 29 July 1958. 47 Richard Casey to James Plimsoll, 25 September 1956. 48 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 3 July 1958. 49 Ibid. 12-13 September 1958. 50 Richard Casey to F. A. Dodds, 3 January 1958. 51 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 5 December 1959. 52 Ibid. 25 December 1959.

REFERENCES 347

53 Richard Casey to R. G. Menzies, 2 February 1960. 54 Melbourne Herald, 23 January 1960. 55 Sydney Morning Herald, 6 February 1960. 56 Richard Casey to K. C. O. Shann, 25 November 1959. 57 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 20 April 1959.

Chapter 13 Governor-General 1 Richard Casey to W. Hawryluk, 2 July 1964. 2 Richard Casey to James Plimsoll, 26 September 1960. 3 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 19 February 1960. 4 Richard Casey to Zelman Cowen, 3 November 1960. 5 Richard Casey to Zelman Cowen, 18 October 1961. 6 Richard Casey to Arthur Tange, 9 January 1962. 7 Lord Casey, The Future of the Commonwealth, London, 1963, p. 10. 8 Richard Casey to John Iggulden, 3 February 1964. 9 Richard Casey to M. Talbot Rice, 29 June 1964. 10 Richard Casey to Hugh Roberton, 13 January 1964.

11 Ibid.

12 Richard Casey to Donn Casey, 19 February 1962. 13. Richard Casey to Robert Jackson, 23 December 1963. 14 Richard Casey to Donn Casey, 19 February 1962. 15 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 13 June 1964. 16 Ibid. 2 May 1964. 17 Richard Casey to Arthur Calwell, 6 May 1963. 18 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 2 February 1965. 19 Richard Casey to A. R. Downer, 11 January 1965. 20 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 7 November 1960. 21 Ibid. 23 May 1964. 22 Ibid. 6 August 1962. 23 Ibid. 9 May 1960. 24 Ibid. 7 June 1960. 25 Ibid. 18 July 1961. 26 Richard Casey to M. Talbot Rice, 1 September 1961. 27 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 15 July 1961. 28 Ibid. 21 March 1962. 29 Richard Casey to G. B. Gresford, 6 February 1961. 30 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 30 June 1960. 31 Peter Howson, The Life of Politics, Melbourne, 1984. 32 Richard Casey to Garfield Barwick, 8 February 1960. 33 Richard Casey to Arthur Calwell, 6 May 1963. 34 Richard Casey to Arthur Calwell, 17 March 1964. 35 Richard Casey to Roden Cutler, 7 August 1964. 36 Sunday Times, 20 September 1964. 37 Richard Casey to Frederick White, 24 February 1964. 38 Richard Casey to F. H. Stuart, 4 October 1962. 39 Richard Casey to Maie Casey, 15 and 17 January 1963.

348 CASEY 40 All published in London. 41 Age, 8 September 1962. 42 Nation, 8 September 1962. 43 Australian Book Review, August 1962. 44 Richard Casey to Donn Casey, 1 March 1965. 45 Richard Casey to Donn Casey, 10 February 1958. 46 Richard Casey to Gwen Peyton Jones, 4 January 1968. 47 Richard Casey to Robert Jackson, 6 January 1968. 48 Richard Casey to R. G. Menzies, 21 April 1952. 49 Richard Casey to Donn Casey, 29 July 1965. 50 Richard Casey to Donn Casey, 5 January 1966. 51 Richard Casey to R. G. Menzies, 30 July 1965. 52 Richard Casey to R. G. Menzies, 15 February 1966. 53 Sydney Sun Herald, 20 February 1966. 54 Richard Casey to Harold Holt, 29 January 1966. 55 Richard Casey to Harold Holt, 4 April 1966. 56 Richard Casey to Harold Wilson, 13 August 1966. 57 Richard Casey to Harold Holt, 17 April 1967. 58 Richard Casey to John Gorton, 19 January 1968. 59 Richard Casey to John Gorton, 21 May 1968. 60 Richard Casey to John Gorton, 24 October 1968. 61 Richard Casey to P. J. Nixon, 24 January 1968. 62 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 12 June 1966. 63 Richard Casey to Michael Adeane, 21 January 1969.

64 Ibid.

65 Richard Casey,‘Diary’, 8 December 1967. 66 Richard Casey to Michael Adeane, 21 January 1969. 67 Published by Shakespeare Head, Sydney, 1969. 68 Richard Casey to Harold Holt, 9 December 1967. 69 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 20 January 1966. 70 Ibid. 18 December 1967. 71 Richard Casey to Michael Adeane, 8 January 1968. 72 Alan Reid, The Power Struggle, Sydney, 1969. 73 Australian, 14 February 1969.

74 Richard Casey to Michael Adeane, 14 October 1968. 75 Ibid. 4 April 1966. 76 Ibid. 12 November 1966. 77 Ibid. 16 January 1966. 78 Ibid. 15 May 1968. 79 Ibid. 16 January and 27 July 1967. 80 Richard Casey to Donn Casey, 25 January 1966. 81 Richard Casey to Barbara Ward, 24 October 1966. 82 Richard Casey to A. B. Ritchie, 20 January 1967. 83 Richard Casey to Dermot Casey, 21 June 1967. 84 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 5 August 1966. 85 Ibid. 1 November 1966. 86 Ibid. 7 June 1968.

REFERENCES 349

87 Richard Casey to Henry Bolte, 24 October 1967. 88 Richard Casey to Lord Bruce, 10 August 1965. 89 Richard Casey to Donn Casey, 11 September 1967. 90 Richard Casey to Tempe Macgowan, 19 February 1968. 91 Richard Casey to Don Chipp, 13 February 1967. 92 Richard Casey to Murray Macgowan, 27 June 1968. 93 Richard Casey to Donn Casey, 24 March 1961. 94 Richard Casey to Dermot Casey, 28 September 1966. 95 Richard Casey to Donn Casey, 2 October 1967. 96 Richard Casey to Garfield Barwick, 30 May 1968. 97 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 8 December 1968. 98 Richard Casey to Keith Waller, 19 November 1969. 99 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 8 July 1974.

Chapter 14 Endings 1 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 19 May 1969. 2 Ibid. 10 June 1969. 3 Ibid. 2 June 1969. 4 Ibid. 10 and 20 June 1969. 5 Richard Casey to Alexander Downer, 9 August 1972. 6 Richard Casey to Guy Gresford, 1 December 1972. 7 Richard Casey to Keith Waller, 17 January 1973. 8 Richard Casey to William McMahon, 8 February 1972. 9 Richard Casey to Robert Jackson, 7 February 1973. 10 Richard Casey to Keith Waller, 7 February 1973. 11 Richard Casey to Richard Nixon, 11 December 1973. 12 Richard Casey to Marney Bassett, 16 September 1970. 13. Richard Casey to Dermot Casey, 3 September 1970. 14 Frank Woods to Richard Casey, 20 November 1970. 15 Richard Casey, ‘Diary’, 25 March 1972. 16 Richard Casey to James Plimsoll, 31 May 1972. 17 Richard Casey to Elizabeth Hudson, 29 November 1972. 18 Anna Macgowan, ‘Memories of Grandfather—Lord Casey’, typescript. 19 Richard Casey to Lord Carrington, 22 April 1974. 20 Richard Casey to K. C. O. Shann, 11 September 1975. 21 Richard Casey to F. J. Blakeney, 16 February 1976. 22 Maie Casey, undated manuscript. 23 Richard Casey to E. J. Connellan, 30 September 1963. 24 Brisbane Sunday Mail, 20 June 1976. 25 Sydney Daily Telegraph, 5 July 1970. 26 London Times, 19 June 1976. 27 Canberra Times, 25 June 1976.

28 Anna Macgowan, op. cit.

NOTES ON SOURCES

Lord Casey’s diaries have been deposited at the National Library of Australia, in Canberra, in accordance with his will. At the request of his family, the Library is applying a thirty-year rule for access

to them. Lord Casey’s extensive press cuttings have also been deposited in the Library.

Most of Lord Casey’s other papers are to be deposited at the Australian Archives, in Melbourne, where in the main a thirty-year rule will be applied. When I read the papers they had not been sorted or catalogued, hence reference in the notes are to the items only, without catalogue numbers. There has seemed little point in attaching a bibliography beyond what is provided in the notes. Casey’s own major publications have been noted in the text. Little of substance yet has been published

about him apart from two articles by Dr Carl Bridge: ‘R. G. Casey’s Contribution to Australian War Policy, 1939-1942: some myths’, Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, no. 9 (1981) and ‘R. G. Casey, Australia’s First Washington Legation, and the Origins of the Pacific War, 1940-1942’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 28, no. 2 (1982).

In the preparation of the index, titles of lords and baronets have been omitted, ‘Lord’ as a courtesy title has been retained and where more

than one peer in a succession has been included, the entry is to successive peers in so far as they have been referred to in the text.

Abbott, C. L. A. 202 Astor, J. J. 61

248, 321 209, 237

Acheson, Dean 135, 143, 237-8, 242, Astor, Viscountess (Nancy) 73, 143,

Adeane, Michael 312, 318 Astor, Lady Violet 61 Adenauer, Konrad 240 Attlee, Clement 159, 172, 178, 194,

Age, Melbourne 58, 105, 133, 231, 237, 248

298, 305 Auchinleck, Claude 138-42, 175

Alanbrooke, Lord see Brooke, Alan Austin, Claude 41

Alexander, A. V. A. 199 Australian—American Association 181, Alexander, Frederick 228, 280 186, 192, 289 Alexander, Harold 141 Australian—Asian Association 289 Alexandra, Princess 318 Australian Broadcasting Commission

Alford, V. C. 257 86, 244

Alsop, Rodney 89 Australian Father and Son 283, 297 Altrincham, Lord 247 Australian Foreign Minister 319

Amery, Leo 60, 66-7, 150, 157-9, Australian Labor Party 15, 72, 77-8,

161-2, 164, 168, 172-3, 237 92, 127, 172, 202, 256-60, 262, 312 An Australian in India 170 Australian National University 222 An Australian Story 1837-1907 297-8 Australian Security Intelligence

Anders, Wladyslaw 139, 147 Organization 231, 258 Anderson, Judith 229, 284 Automobile Corps 29-31

Anderson, W. H. 181-2, 188, 190 Avon, Earl of see Eden, Anthony

Angell, Norman 71 Azad, M. A. K. 176

65-6 Bailey, Kenneth 57

Anglo—Australians, The vi, 19-20,

Ansett, Reginald 315 Baillieu, first Baron (Clive) 11, 193, Anstey, Frank 29-31 286, 290 Antarctica 73, 246, 279 Baillieu, M. H. 189, 244 ANZUS 236, 240-2, 248-9, 262, 266, Baillieu, W.L. 5

276, 279 Baldwin, Stanley 59, 72

Argus, Melbourne 82, 105-7 Balfour Declaration 143-4, 149

Armstrong, Richard 1 Ball, W. Macmahon 243-4

Arndt, Heinz 257 Barnes, C. E. 305 Astor, second Viscount 143 Barr Smith, T. 82

352 CASEY Barwick, Garfield 279, 296, 301, 309, Buccleuch, seventh Duke of 63

318, 321 Buccleuch, eighth Duke of 318

Bates, Daisy 189, 301 Bulletin, Sydney 78, 250

Bavin, Thomas 78 Bunting, John 305-6 Beasley, F. R. 57 Burma 161, 236, 250-1, 266 Beasley, J. A. 77, 85 Burma Road 124-5 Beatty, Chester 139 Burrows, F. J. 172, 177

Beaverbrook, first Baron 131, 248 Burt, John 192

Bednall, Colin 202 Butler, Eric 197 Bennett, John 203 Butler, R. A. 237, 273 Benson, Irving 239 Butler, Richard 92

Bengal 154, 156-79, 183, 235 Butler, Henry 20 Berle, Adolf 119, 123, 143

Bevin, Ernest 173, 194 Cadbury, L. J. 21

Bibesco, Princess Marthe 318 Cadogan, Alexander 142, 147, 149

Biddle, Francis 237 Cain, John 184

Bingham, Colin 244 Cairns, J. F. 220, 231, 313

Birdwood, William 31-3, 37, 42-3, 73 Calwell, Arthur 188, 197-8, 202, 212,

Birth control 296, 298-9 220, 244, 256-8, 285, 289, 294, 296,

Blackett, Basil 100 301, 312, 323, 325, 327

Blakeney, F. J. 323 Calwell, Mary Elizabeth 294 Blamey, Thomas 41, 44, 80-1, 139, Campbell, Allan 174

200 Campbell, H. A. M. 231

Blanch, G. E. 11, 15, 20 Canada 242, 247, 297

Bland, F. A. 82 Carington, Rupert 291

Bolte, Henry 313 Carlton Football Club 220

Borden, Mary 150-1 Carrington, sixth Baron 291, 318 Bose, Subhas Chandra 156-7 Casey, Bartholomew 1

Bowen, Nigel 309 Casey, Cornelius 1-2, 7-8, 19 Boyd, James 21 Casey, Dermot 7-8, 17-19, 21, 27,

Boyer, R. J. F. 193, 244 36, 43-4, 49, 52, 68, 81, 223, 285, Braddon, Henry 113 314, 324 Bradman, Donald 221 Casey, Donn ix, xiii, 80, 82, 84, 143,

Bridge, Carl 350 151, 155, 164, 168, 185-6, 106, 224, Bridges, Edward 237 283-4, 293, 296, 298-9, 313 Bridges, William 31-4, 41, 46 Casey, Eileen 6-8

Brodribb, Kenric 7 Casey, Evelyn (née Harris) 3, 6-8, 14, Brodribb, Theresa (née Casey) 7 18, 24, 36-7, 41, 48, 51-2, 90-1,

Brooke, Alan 141 148, 324

Brooke, Basil 237, 281, 321 Casey, Gwynnedd (née Browne) _ 52,

Brookeborough, Lord see Brooke, 285

Basil Casey, Jane see Macgowan, Jane (née

Brookes, Herbert 113, 188 Casey)

Brookes, Mabel (née Emmerton) 10, Casey, Loetitia (née Gardiner) 1-2, 8

323 Casey, Ethel Marian Sumner (Maie)

Brown, C. J. 11 (née Ryan) (vii), (x), 51, 62-6,

Bruce, Viscount (S. M.) 53-4, 56-62, 68-9, 73, 75, 80, 82, 84, 89-90, 66-75, 77, 80, 83, 86, 91, 93-6, 103, 97-8, 115, 135, 138, 142, 145, 155, 106-7, 110, 114-16, 127, 131, 167, 165-6, 168, 171, 180, 182, 186, 191, 188, 193-4, 199, 216, 218, 225, 275, 201, 205-7, 218, 223-4, 238, 240,

286, 290, 293, 297, 313 270, 284, 286, 291, 294-9, 301, 312,

Buccleuch, sixth Duke of 62 317-19, 322-5

INDEX 353

(Casey, Mary (née Gavin) 1 163-4; urges Britain’s departure,

Casey, Richard Gardiner 2-9, 13-14, 167-8; compliments from Attlee 16-19, 21, 23-31, 36-7, 39-40, 42, Government, 173; discussions with

43-4, 46-9, 52, 62-3, 185, 213, Gandhi and Nehru, 175-7.

283-4 Return to Australia, 180—1; denied

Casey, Richard Gavin Gardiner Parliamentary seat, 181-3; queries Ancestry, 1-6; birth, 6; upbringing, White Australia, 188; Liberal Party

6-9; schooling, 10-12; parental federal president, 190-204; fund

regime, 7-8, 14-17; at University of raiser, 192—5; public relations Melbourne, 17-18; at University of devotee, 195-6; and the Cold War, Cambridge, 18-24; American tour, 198-200; contact with A.L.P.

26-7; at Mt Morgan, 27-8. ‘groupers’, 200-1; attitudes towards Enlists in A.I.F., 29-31; cares for A.L.P., 197-8, 202; re-enters Emden captives, 31; at Gallipoli, 32-6; Parliament, 203-4. on Western Front, 37-44; impact of Minister for National Development,

war, 44—6; father’s death, 46—7. 207-11; unable to cope with Menzies, Would-be‘ Melbourne industrialist, 213-7; depression, 213-23, 48—50;; political connections, 52—4; ‘computer’ invention, 224, master at

Commonwealth liaison officer in Edrington, 224.

Londen, 54-74; marriage to Maie Minister for External Affairs, 226-88; Ryan, 62-6; birth of daughter, Jane, bureaucratic inheritance, 229-30;

70; learns economics, 71-2. relations with his department, 231-3; Enters federal Parliament, 76-82; birth Cabinet difficulties, 234-5; impact of of son, Donn, 80; proposes research first Asian tour, 235-6; in U.N. bureau, 82; settling-in problems in limelight, 237-8; attitudes towards Canberra, 83-5; tariff views, 87-8; ANZUS, 241-2; and McCarthyism, made an assistant minister, 89; Maie’s 242-3; frustration over defence, Edrington inheritance, 89-90; made 245-6; and Colombo Plan, 249-50; Treasurer, 94—5; hankers for London, recognition of China, 250-3; conflict

93-5; takes up flying, 97-8; trade with Indonesia, 254-6; liking for diversion, 102—3; national insurance, Labor men, 256-60; strife over 104-6; beaten for prime ministership, S.E.A.T.O., 267-9; Suez crisis, 106-8; made Minister for Supply and 270-8; defeated for Liberal deputy

‘Development, 108-9. leadership, 275-6; Antarctic

Translation to Washington, 113-6; conferenc e, 279; Irish ISSUe 280-1; diplomatic skills, 116-20; cooperation and i amament, 202-3; lite peerage,

with U.K. embassy, 121-2; Japan —

_ problem, 122-7; Evatt’s hostility, Disenchantment with U.K., 291-3; 128—9; Curtin—Churchill row over enchantment with Soviet Union, 295; Casey’s appointment:to Cairo in failures as a parent, 298—9; Governor-

U.K. service, 131-4. General, 300-16; activist approach,

Move to Cairo, 137-9; command 303-5; “carpets McMahon, 305-9; problems, 140-2: Foreign Office role after Holt’s death, 309-11. hostility, 139-40, 149-50; Force X The Garter, 317; effects of age, 320-1; issue, 144—5; mother’s death, 148; hospitalised, 317, 321-3, death, 323.

Palestine issue, 149-50; Lebanon Casey, Sydney 7

crisis, 151-2; offered Bengal Casey House 96

governorship, 154. Castieau, J. G. B. 57

Bengal situation, 156-60; Casey’s Catroux, Georges 152

reception, 160; reaction to racism, Chamberlain, Austen 59-60

354 CASEY Chamberlain, Neville 110, 115, 120 Country Party 53, 83, 87-8, 91,

Chanak crisis 55-6 105-6, 113, 115-16, 130, 186, 190,

Charles, Prince 312 203, 212, 306—11

Chevalier, Maurice 295 Coward, Noel 59, 110-11, 151, 229,

Chiang Kai-Shek 152, 159 295, 322-3

Chifley, J. B. 184-5, 198, 211-12; 257. Cowen, Zelman 244, 291

China 123-6; 209, 227, 251-4, 263, Cowper, Norman 82

265, 288, 295, 316 Cox, Harold 215, 274

Chirnside, Andrew Snr. 52 Cranborne, Lord 147

Chirnside, Andrew Jnr. 48, 90 Crankless engines 50

Chirnside, Winifred (née Sumner) 63, Crankshaw, Edward 226

90 Creswell, Randolph 17

Chou En-lai 251-2, 263 Cripps, Stafford 159, 167 Churchill, Clementine 318 Crisp, L. F. x, 98

Churchill, Winston 38, 61, 71, 128, Crocker, Walter xiii, 230, 235, 249,

130-4, 136, 138, 140-2, 144, 147, 270, 276, 278 150, 152-3, 154-5, 158, 160, 164, Crookshank, Harry 131 167, 173, 181, 2218, 234, 237, 240, Cumloden 10-11, 13, 19

248, 325 Cunningham, Andrew 139, 300

Clark, Colin 258 Cunningham, E. 8S. 82 Clark, Ernest 73 Curtin, John 30, 104, 126-7, 129, Clarke, Ernest 48 131-5, 159, 169, 172, 216

Clarke, Frank 48 Cutlack, F. M. 82

Clarke, Janet (née Snodgrass) 62 Czechoslovakia 199-200, 209 Clarke, Rupert 195

Clarke, William 48, 62 Daily Telegraph, Sydney 106, 188, 196

Cleland, Donald 230 Dalton, Hugh 134 Cochran, Merle 237 Daly, Fred 202, 259 Cohen, Harold 92 Dango, Fanny 90 Coleman, P. E. 72 D’Arcy, William 4-5, 18, 20 Coleman, Peter 313 Dardenelles see Gallipoli campaign Coles, G. J. 188, 191 Darling, James xi, 239

Colman, G. S. 82 Davidson, A. C. 100

Colombo Plan 249-50, 265 Davis, Norman 122, 135 Commonwealth Bank 92, 101-2 Dawes, Allen 196

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Dawson, Geoffrey 61

Research Organisation 208, 219, Dawson, Trevor 36

222, 289, 295-6, 304 Day, David xi

Communism 184, 198-201, 209-10, Deakin, Alfred 17, 55, 88

231, 241-4, 254-6, 266-9, 295 de Chardin, Teilhard 314 Communist Party Dissolution Bill Dedman, John 90, 174, 183

209-10 de Gasperi, Alcedo 237

Computer 224 de Gaulle, Charles 142 Congress Party 156, 175-6 Delacombe, Rohan 321

Cook, Joseph 59 De L’Isle and Dudley, sixth Baron 300 Cooke, G. B. 82 Democratic Labor Party 201, 306, 318 Cooper, Duff 131, 150-1 see also ‘Groupers’

Copland, Douglas 99, 213, 230 de Murville, Couve 279 Corio electorate 79-82, 87, 91, 104, Denison, Hugh 68, 113

174, 182-3 Depression, The Great 75-7, 81, 93,

Cormack, Magnus 203 100

Cosgrove, Robert 202 Dignam, W. J. 280

INDEX 355 Dixon, Owen 209-10, 260, 295, 323 Fairbairn, Clive 13

Dobbie, William 138 Fairbairn, George 13, 48 Doidge, Frederick 241 Fairhall, Allen 309 Donovan, William 143 Falkiner, G. B. S. 192 Double or Quit 189 Farouk, King 153 Douglas, Lewis 318 Fingall, eleventh Earl of 4 Douglas, Robert 280 Fitzpatrick, Brian 17

Douglas-Home, Alec 293 Fleming, Ian 186, 295 Downer, Alexander 318 Food and Agriculture Organisation 194

Downing, Richard 196 Forbes, A. J. 298 Drysdale, Russell 312 Force X 144-5

Duckham, Arthur 73 Foreign Office (U.K.) 60, 67, 69, 73, Dudley, third Earl of 157 139-40, 142-4, 147, 149-50, 152-3,

Duhig, James 280 173 Dulles, John Foster 234, 241, 252, Formosa _ see Taiwan

263, 266-9, 272, 274 France 109-10, 117, 119, 124, 262, Dumas, Lloyd 146, 174 266, 270-9; France—Free French

Duncan, Val 318 137-8, 144-5, 151-3; France—Vichy

Dunlop, Edward 323 137, 143-5

Dunrossil, first Viscount 300 Frankfurter, Felix 128, 132, 143-4,

Duntroon 83-4 209, 237, 260 Fraser, Colin 27-8

Eden, Anthony 110, 115, 131, 140, Fraser, Douglas 17, 191

147, 150, 173, 202, 234, 237-8, 240, Fraser, Malcolm 17, 183, 326

248, 254, 270-1, 277 Fraser, Neville 17

Edrington 89-90, 92, 98, 132, 135, Fraser, R. B. 17

185, 203-4, 206, 218, 224, 228, 233, Fraser, Simon 17

250, 256, 283, 295, 314, 316-7, 323-4 Freyberg, Bernard 157, 300 | Eggleston, F. W. 127, 181, 244 Fulbright, William 237 Egypt 137-8, 140-1, 153-4, 270-8 Eisenhower, Dwight 173, 234, 237, Gallipoli campaign 33-3, 38, 41, 137

251, 264, 273, 277 Gander, J. 259, 327

Elder, James 52, 67, 113 Gandhi, M. K. 156, 175-8, 327 Elizabeth, Queen 296, 301, 312, 318 Gardiner, Arthur 1

Elizabeth, Queen Mother 312 Garter, Order of the 317, 319, 324

Elkin, A. P. 240 Geelong Church of England Grammar

Ellis, Charles 74 School 185, 189, 206, 312 Ellis, Malcolm 82 Gepp, Herbert 188

Emden 31 George V, King 60-1, 73, 311

Emrys-Evans, Paul 159 George VI, King 96, 147, 160, 172,

Erroll, twenty-first Earl of 63 237 Erwin, Dudley 309 Germany 110-11, 119, 122, 125, 138, Evatt, H. V. 126-8, 132-4, 147, 150, 157, 171

172, 184, 188, 216, 226, 229, 238, Ghosh, Sudhir 176 241, 243, 245, 260, 262, 282, 285 Giblin, L. F. 99

External Affairs, Department of 66-9, Gifford, Walter 237

229-35, 258, 271, 287 Gibson, Ralph 17 213, 218, 225-88 Gladwyn, first Baron 142, 149, 173,

External Affairs, portfolio of 207-8, Gilroy, Norman, Cardinal 260 237, 318

Fadden, Arthur 113, 127, 207, 211, Gloucester, Alice, Duchess of 63, 182,

223, 245, 250, 271-2, 323 194, 237

356 CASEY Gloucester, Henry, Duke of 182, 237 Harris, John Snr. 3

Godefroy, Rene 144-5 Harris, John Jnr. 3 Godley, A. J. 31, 38 Harris, Sarah (née Walton) 3 Goldwater, Barry 243, 297 Harrison, Eric 207, 245, 275 Gott, W. H. E. 141 Harry, Ralph 229, 230 Gorton, John 282-3, 304, 308-11, 321. Harvey, Oliver 140, 149

Gough, Hugh 239 Harwood, Henry 139

160 309, 316, 326

Government of India Act 1935 156, Hasluck, Paul xi, 191, 245, 282, 305,

Governor-General, office of 300-16 Hauser, C. V. xi

Grace, W.G. 21 Hawke, Robert 320 Grafton, eleventh Duke of 318 Hawker, Charles 83

Greene, Massy 89 Hay, Rosemary 63 Gregory, J. H. 49 Hayes, Evie 239

Gregory, Maundy 74 Haylen, Les 259 Gregory, Theodor 71, 99 Healy, G. P. 82 Gresford, G. B. 296 Heath, Edward 318 Grey Smith, Nan 10 Heffron, Robert 202

Grey Smith, Susie 10 Helpmann, Robert 295 Grice, Anne (née Sumner) 62 Henderson, Arthur 173 Grice, James 62 Henderson, Heather (née Menzies)

Grice, John 48 234 Grimwade, Geoffrey 189, 191, 257 Henderson, Peter xi, 234

Groom, Littleton 169 Henderson, Walter 57, 61, 67-9 ‘Groupers’ 187, 200-1, 212, 258 Hepburn, Katherine 229, 318

Gullett, Henry, Snr 88 Herald, Melbourne 95, 104, 133, 163,

Gullett, Henry, Jnr 182 195-6, 201-3, 215-6, 218-9, 274

Gunn, William 315 Herbert, John 157 Herring, Edmund 300 Hackett, W. 184 Herter, Christian 237

Halifax, first Earl of 122, 125-6, 132, Heydon, Peter 120-1, 229, 235

135 Higgins, Benjamin 196

Hall, Harold 29 Hirst, Hugo 73

Hall, Jane 52 Hiss, Alger 243 Hall, Thomas 4—6, 12, 20, 29, 52 Hodgson, W. R. 50 Hall, Walter 5-6, 20 Hogan, E. J. 230

Halloran, Laurence xiii Holt, Harold 207, 218, 245, 275-6,

Hamilton, Ian 33 304-6, 308-9, 312 Hamilton, P. M. 57 Holt, Zara 305

Hammarskjéld, Dag 240, 277, 294-5 Hood, John 121, 230

Hammerstein, Oscar 237 Hopkins, Harry 119, 132, 143 Hancock, W. K. xi, 82, 147-8, 194 Horder, first Baron 197

Hankey, Baron (Maurice) 60-1, 66-8, Hornbeck, Stanley 119, 123-4

73, 237, 291 Horne, Donald 196 Hankey, second Baron (Robin) 318 Howse, Neville 32 Hanlon, E. 184 Howson, Peter 296

Hardman, J. G. 57 Hughes, William Morris 17, 44, 53, Harlech, fourth Baron 159, 300 55-6, 93, 106-8, 116 Harper, Norman 278 Hull, Cordell 117, 119, 123-4, 126-7,

Harriman, Averell 23 135, 143 Harris, George 3 Humphries, Barry 295 Harris, Jane (née Thorn) 3 Hutton, Geoffrey 299

INDEX 357

Ince, Wesley 50 Labour Party (U.K.) 171-2, 258 India 138, 140-1, 154, 156-79, 235-6, Laloki 27-8

266—7, 272, 287, 296 Lampson, Miles 137, 139-40, 301

Indonesia 236, 241, 245, 254-6, 266, Lang, J. T. 77

272, 287, 304 Latham, John 77-9, 82-3, 88, 91, 94,

Institute of Public Affairs 188 209-10, 228 Iran 137, 141, 143, 146 Latrobe electorate 203, 262, 285 Iraq 137, 141, 143, 146, 149 Laurence, R. V. 20 Irian Barat see West New Guinea Law, P. G. 279

Ireland 280-1, 295 Law, Richard 131 Ismay, Hastings 237 Lawson, J. J. 158

Isaacs, Isaac 73 Leach, W. A. 82

Italy 110, 119, 137, 156 League of Nations 56, 62, 66, 73 League of Rights 197

Jackson, D. G. M. 244 Leander Club 21 Jackson, Robert 208, 293, 299 Lebanon 137, 140, 142, 146-7, 150-3 Jacobs, Marjorie 244 Lederer, William 242

Jacques, Mel 298 Leeper, Alexander 17, 56

Japan 55, 102-3, 114, 123-7, 156, 161, Leeper, Allen 56-7, 73, 140

. 466, 171, 241, 279, 304 Legge, J. G. 35

* Jarrett, Patricia xiii, 118, 163, 220 Leigh, Vivien 295 Jebb, Gladwyn see Gladwyn, first Liberal Party 168, 173-4, 180, 186,

Baron 190—204, 214-5, 235, 250, 296, 306 Jess, John 285 Lie, Trygve 237-8, 240 Jinnah, M. A. 177 Limerick, Countess of 294, 318

Johnson, Ladybird 313 Limerick, fifth Earl of 294 Johnson, Lyndon 297, 313 Lindsay, Daryl x1 Joint Parliamentary Committee on Lindsay, Joan xi, 324 Foreign Affairs 282-3 Lippmann, Walter 143, 237

Jones, Thomas 68, 71 Lister, J. H. 79-80, 82

Little Parndon 97, 148, 185, 189, 206,

Kashmir Plebescite Commission 194 243, 301, 317, 324

Kelly, Vincent 196 Lloyd, E. E. Longfield 57 Kemp, C. D. 188 Lloyd, Selwyn 237-8, 273, 277, 318 Kennedy, Eric 146 Lloyd George, David 122 Kennedy, John F. 296 Lloyd Jones, Charles 182, 192 Kennedy, Joseph 111 Loan Council 91-2 Kent Hughes, Wilfrid 215-6, 283 Longworth, Alice Roosevelt 15

Keon, S. 257-8 Looker, Cecil xi

Kevin, Charles 229 Lothian, eleventh Marquess of 122-3

120 Lyceum Club 294

Keynes, John Maynard 20, 89, 98-9, Lugard

Khan, Zafrulla 238-9 Lyne, William 17

Killearn, Lord—see Lampson, Miles Lyons, Enid 90, 108, 202

Kilmuir, Ist Earl of 285 Lyons, J. A. 77-8, 82-3, 88-9, 91, King Edward’s Horse 21-2 94—6, 104-8, 114, 310, 327 Kissinger, Henry 320 Lyttelton, Oliver 130, 139, 237 Knox, Frank 126, 143 Knox, Robert 82, 323 MacArthur, Douglas, 169 Korean War 209, 210, 262 MacArthur, W. G. S. 58 Kurusu, Saburo 126-7 Macartney, Edward 82 Ky, Nguyen Cao 313 McBride, Philip 234, 245, 266, 268,

358 CASEY

271-2, 275-6 Grammar School 11-12, 15, 19~—20,

McCallum, John 295 114, 260, 286

McCarthy, Joseph 199, 242-2 Melbourne Club 27, 48, 51, 58, 202,

McClure Smith, Hugh 199, 230, 246 220, 233-4, 250, 283, 294, 296

MacDonald, Malcolm 218, 236 Melchett, second Baron 147 MacDonald, Ramsay 56, 64, 72 Melville, Leslie 99, 213

McDougall, F. L. 71, 82 Mena 139, 142, 145, 147 McEwen, John 117, 207, 245, 253, Menon, Krishna 265

304-11 Menzies, Robert 30, 80, 90—4, 104-8,

Macgowan, Anna_ xi, 270, 299, 322, 111, 113-6, 119, 123-4, 127, 129-30,

327 132, 146, 148, 154, 168, 171, 173-4,

Macgowan, Jane (née Casey) vi, xi, 180—5, 188, 190-1, 193-4, 196-7, 70, 73, 84, 90, 97, 143, 151, 155, 201, 207-8, 212—25, 230, 233-4, 241, 169, 185-6, 204, 206, 218, 229, 238, 245-7, 252, 259, 262, 264-6, 268-79, 257, 265—6, 270, 284, 298-9, 301, 283, 285-7, 300, 302, 304, 310, 321,

323 326

Macgowan, Marian 284, 323 Michell, A. G. M. 50, 58

Macgowan, Murray 265-6, 284, Middle East 130, 132-5, 137-55

298-9 Middle East Defence Committee

Macgowan, Richard 301 140-1, 147

Macgowan, Tempe xi, 229, 284, 299, Millar, T. B. 319

313, 322 Mills, R. C. 100

Macgroarty, Neil 280 Minter, John 129 McGuire, Paul 280-1 Misr 160, 204, 325 McIntyre, Laurence 229-30 Moffatt, J. P. 114 McKay, James 48 Monash, John, ix 40, 45, 57

McKay, S. P. 90 Monckton, Walter 273

McKell, William 184, 300-1, 315 Montgomery, Bernard 141, 143, 237, McKenna, N. E. 57 324 Mackinnon, Donald 113 Moodie, Colin 229

Mackinnon, E. D. 182 Moorehead, Alan 230 Mackinnon, Lauchlan 48 Moral Rearmament 197 McLaren, John 71 Mountbatten, first Earl 58-9, 143,

McLeay, George 223 237, 294, 318

McMahon, William 305-11 Mountbatten, Edwina 59, 205, 237,

MacMichael, Harold 149 294, 324

Macmillan, Harold 144-6, 194, 285 Mount Morgan Gold Mining Co. _ 5,

McMillan, John 120, 128, 229 26-8, 49, 52 McTiernan, Edward 280 Moyne, first Baron 142-3, 157, 166 Magpie and Stump 21, 176 Muggeridge, Malcolm 247

Malcolm, Dougal 73 Murdoch, Keith 95, 104, 118, 133, Malik, Charles 237 195-6, 201-2, 212 Marshall, George 143 Murdoch, Rupert 196, 315 Mary, Queen 172, 194, 237 Murray, Gilbert 73

Masaryk, Jan 147, 199 Murray, Hubert 73

Massey, Vincent 300 Muslim League 163, 165, 170, 177 Maude, Angus 278 Nash, Walter 129 Mawson, Douglas 279 National Development, Ministry of

Maxwell, G. A. 94 208-11

Medley, John 50 Nasser, Gamal Abdel 270-4, 277 Melba, Nellie 324 National insurance 104-6, 145-6 Melbourne Church of England Nationalist Party 53, 77-8

INDEX 359

National Union 53, 77 Peaslee, Amos 252

237 Penton, Brian 188

Nazimuddin, Khwaja 162, 164-6, 170, Peel, George 84

Nehru, Jawaharlal 175-7, 235, 237, Persia see Iran

247, 265 Personal Experience 1939-1946 170, 297

Netherlands 254-6 Pethick-Lawrence, first Baron 173 Netherlands East Indies 111, 123 Petrov, Vladimir 262

New Hebrides 240 Peyton Jones, Gwen 283

Ne Win 236 Peyton Jones, Leta (née Casey) 7 New Scotland Yard 61 Peyton Jones, Loftus 7 Newsome, Earl 117 Philip, Prince 318 Newstead House 3 Pius XII, Pope 237 Newton, Maxwell 307 Plant, E. C. P. 32

New York Times 135, 181 Playford, Thomas 239

New Zealand 67, 119, 227, 238, 241, Plimsoll, James 229, 236, 305

279, 304 Pollard, R. 183

Niall, James 5, 18, 50 Portal, W. R. 147

Niall, Kenneth 14, 50, 223, 239, 257 Potter, Ian 99, 191

Nicholas, H. S. 82 Powell, Enoch 297 Nixon, Edward 192 Price, Grenfell 82

Nixon, P. J. 305 Price, Ward 248

Nixon, Richard 297, 321 Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) 44 Noel-Baker, Philip 173, 194 Pringle, John Douglas 231 Nomura, Kichisaburo 126

Northcott, John 300 Queensland Peoples’ Party 182 Normanby 2, 6 Norwich, Viscount 321 Rabling, Harold 191 Nuri as-Said 149, 237, 327 Racism 148-9, 155, 163-4, 183,

Nutting, Anthony 202, 278 188-9, 250-1, 293, 326 Randall, Richard 307 O’Brien, Eris 239, 260 Reading, second Marquess of 268

Oeser, Oscar 189-90 Reading, Claude 92, 173-4 Officer, Keith 69, 114, 116, 120, 229 Reid, Alan 306, 310

Old Melburnians 12, 181 Reid, George 15, 56 O’Malley, King 105 Research and Publicity Bureau 82 Opperman, Hubert 191, 220 Reynolds, Rose Mary 51, 318

Osborn, Frederick 20 Ritchie, Alan 217, 323 O’Sullivan, Neil 245, 276, 280 Ritchie, Thomas 3

Ritchie, T. M. 182, 190

Packer, Frank 188, 315, 323 Roberton, Hugh 293 Page, Earle 83, 91, 105-8, 128, 207, Robertson, John x

310 Robertson, Macpherson 82

Pakistan 167-8, 179, 235, 238, 266-7, Robinson, Arthur 50, 57-8

272 Robson, Lloyd 283

Palestine 137, 143-4, 146-50 Rockefeller, Nelson 315 Parkhill, Archdale 91, 106 Rommel, Erwin 138, 140-3

Passfield, first Baron 72 Romney Place 97 Paterson, Thomas 91 Roosevelt, Eleanor 119 Peabody, Malcolm 21 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 119, 123-4,

Patel, S. V. 176 Romulo, Carlos 236-7

Pearce, George 83, 106, 114 128, 131-2, 134-5, 139, 143, 152,

Pearson, Lester 237, 242 158

360 CASEY Roosevelt, Theodore 15-16, 45, 74 Solomon Islands 240

Ross, Lloyd viii Soviet Union 61, 125, 140, 146, 173, Rowell, Sydney 235 198-200, 209, 229, 236-8, 262, Royal Commission on Banking 88, 272-4, 279, 289, 295, 317

101-2 Spate, Oskar 243

Rubensohn, Sim 195 Spears, Louis 140, 147, 150, 152 Russell, Bertrand 20 Spender, Jean 116 Russo, Peter 243, 264 Spender, Percy 107-8, 116, 180, 207, Rutherford, Thomas 157 212-3, 215, 218, 225, 229, 240-1, Ryan, Alice (née Sumner) 62-3 249, 274 Ryan, Charles Snr. 62, 325 Spicer, John 267-8, 276

Ryan, Charles Jnr. 34, 51, 62-4 Spooner, Eric 92

Ryan, Marian (née Cotton) 62, 324 Spooner, William 194, 213, 145,

Ryan, Patrick 90, 225, 285 275-6

Ryan, Rupert 63, 81, 90, 168-9, 171, Standish, Harry 196

174, 182, 185, 203, 215, 224, 239-40, Stanner, W. E. H. 244 282, 324 Stettinius, Edward 173 Stevens, Bertram 92, 100-1

Salisbury, fifth Marquess of 237 Stevens, J. E. S. 208 Santamaria, B. A. 220, 228, 244, Stewart, Frederick 105

257-8, 318 Stimson, Henry 143

Scherger, Frederick 97 Stirling, Alfred 142, 229 Schmella, Jack 259 Stockton, Earl of see Macmillan,

Schuman, Robert, 237 Harold

Scott, Lord Charles 62 Stokes, H. A. 171 Scullin, James 57, 72-3, 81, 88, 114 Stone, Julius 243 SEATO 260-1, 263-73 Stout, J.V. 200-1

Sectarianism 184, 201-2 Straight, Whitney 318 Selborne, third Earl of 147 Strang, William 237

Shann, E. O. 82, 99 Subandrio 256

Shann, K. C. O. 323 Subardjo, Archmad 237 Sharpley, Cecil 203 Suez Canal 137, 140, 153-4, 233,

Sharrett, Moshe 237 270-8, 319

Shedden, Frederick 272 Suhrawardy, Huseyn 163 Sheldon, Mark 57, 82, 112 Sukarno, Achmed 254-6 Shepilov, Dimitri 272 Sutherland, Margaret 301 Shipley House 6, 51, 53, 324 Spry, Charles 231, 258

Short, Laurence 258 Sulzberger, Arthur 181 Sikorski, Wladyslaw 147 Sumner, T. J. 62 Simpson, Telford 257 Sun, Sydney 196

Sinatra, Frank 181 Sydney Morning Herald 102, 196, 199,

Sinclair, Keith 305 230-1, 278, 286-7

Sinclair-MacLagan, E. G. 35-6 Syme, Colin York 258, 321 Singapore 109-10, 169, 218, 236 Syria 137, 142, 147, 153 Slim, William 237, 300

Smith, C. P. 146 Taiwan 251-2 Smith, Trevor 318 278, 295, 318

Smith, Osborne 101 Talbot Rice, Mervyn 48, 193, 257,

Smuts, Jan 131 Tange, Arthur 229, 232, 253, 269-70,

Snedden, B. M. 305 321

Snodgrass, Agnes (née Ryan) 62 Taylor, P. G. 97

Snodgrass, Peter 62 Tedder, Arthur 139, 141

INDEX 361

Tennant, Kylie x Ward, Barbara 293 Thailand 125, 266, 287 Ward, E. J. 230-1

297 Warner, A. G. 188

The Future of the Commonwealth 292, Ward, Fred xi

Theodore, E. G. 52 Washington Post 118, 136 Thompson, J. Walter 195 Waterhouse, W. 313

Thomson, first Baron 64 Watt, Alan 120, 126, 229-30, 232,

Thorn, George 3 266, 268, 319

Thorn, George Henry 3 Waugh, Alec 90

Thorn, Jane (née Handcock) 3 Waugh, Joan (née Chirnside) 90

Tides and Eddies 298 Wavell, first Viscount 138, 157-9,

Tivey, E. 40, 80 161-70, 172, 178

Tobruk 138, 140-1 Waverley, Viscountess 318 Townley, Athol 218 Webb, William 280 Tracy, Spencer 229 Weeting Hall 12, 21, 35

Trade Diversion Policy 102-3 Welles, Sumner 119, 123, 126, 143, Tranter, C. H. 82 237 Trinity College, Cambridge 18-23, Western Front 37-45, 93

173, 176 West New Guinea 241, 254-6

Trinity College, Melbourne 17, 56 Wheeler Bennett, Jack 147

Trout, Leon 276 Whiskard, Geoffrey 114

Truman, Harry S. 135, 173, 181, 237 White, Brudenell 31-4, 37, 42-3, 45-6, 48, 57, 69, 79

Underwood, Joseph 3 White, Eric 193

United Australia Party 79-80, 82-3, White, Patrick 312 86-9, 91-9, 113, 116, 129~30 White, Thomas 88, 106, 182, 207 United Kingdom 189, 233, 238, 240, White Australia Policy 86, 188, 250-1

247-8, 255, 262~4, 266, 270-9, Whitehead, A. N. 20

289-93, 313, 319-20 Whitington, Don 129

United Nations Organisation 173, 209, Whitlam, Gough 202, 282, 311,

227-8, 237-8, 240, 247, 255, 270, 319-20, 325

273, 275-6, 279 Whitlam, Margaret 320

United States of America 102-3, Wilkie, Wendell 120

112-36, 180-1, 199, 209, 238, 241-3, Willesee, Donald 259

245-9, 252-3, 255, 262-4, 266—9, Williamson, Andrew 48 271, 273, 276-7, 279, 292, 297, 304, Wilson, Harold 304, 313

314, 320 Wilson, Roland 92, 99 University of Cambridge 18-23, 173 Windsor, Duke of 237 University of Melbourne 17-18 Wisdom, E. A. 44 Wise, Frank 259

Vestey, Pamela 318 Withers, Googie 295

Victoria Racing Club 6 Woods, Frank 321, 327 Vietnam War 227, 253, 262—4, 314 Woodward, Oliver 45 Vyshinsky, Andrei 237-8 Wreford, E.H. 82 Wynes, W. A. 280 Wakehurst, second Baron 108, 157

Walker, H. B. 34, 39, 42 Yencken, Arthur 64, 73, 140, 166

Walker, Ronald 100 Young, Hubert 51 Wallace, Donald 4-5, 63 Wallace, Henry 143 Ziegler, Philip 58-9

Waller, Keith 229, 295 Zionism 143-4, 149-50