Arthur Tange, page 20
There were few obvious manifestations of the growing divide between Menzies and Tange. Menzies was not given to explosions of rage and he had curbed the sharp tongue that alienated friends and foes in the 1930s and early 1940s. Tange, who could be remarkably insensitive to political nuances, did not pick up all the signs of a growing distance. He did notice, however, that Menzies would sometimes subtly distance himself from an External Affairs submission to Cabinet that he had endorsed as Minister, by describing it as the department’s views, leaving himself the freedom as Prime Minister to take a different line in Cabinet discussions. Tange also experienced the numerous wavs in which Menzies made it difficult for senior public servants to offer advice before, for instance, a session of a Prime Ministers’ conference in London. The Prime Minister would, for instance, emerge from his hotel suite at the last possible minute before setting off for the conference, or brush aside importunate advisers to have a chat with another Prime Minister.
When, decades later, Tange realised that he had been slipping from Menzies’ favour, he put it down as much to personal as to political factors. When Menzies travelled to London and Washington he was accompanied by what was, by latter-day standards, a decidedly modest entourage of senior public servants—‘the boys’, as these men of at least middle-age were usually called.283 Tange observed that each of the boys had his own way of establishing a personal rapport with Menzies during off-duty hours. Some, like Allen Brown, could display the caustic lawyers’ wit that Menzies no longer allowed himself to express but still enjoyed hearing; others knew how, and when, to tell an earthy story or to offer a fine cigar. In retrospect, Tange recognised that, in his forties, he had been rather too serious, too earnestly dedicated to giving sound policy advice, to achieve the rapport that the other boys enjoyed. There was, moreover, an intangible but important element in their relationship. Tange had, from an early age, learned how to establish dominance in a one-to-one conversation by unsettling even a friendly interlocutor in the first minutes. There was only one person who could always out-do him in this game and overawe him even in private: that person was Menzies.
In 1961, while he was still Minister for External Affairs, Menzies told Tange that ‘he ought to go’. Reminding Tange that he had never been an ambassador, Menzies suggested that he take an overseas post. The suggestion evidently fell on deaf ears. Menzies later told a confidant that he attributed Tange’s determination to stay largely to Marjorie.284 This probably explains why Menzies then tried a different approach. At a diplomatic function attended by both Arthur and Marjorie, Menzies took Marjorie aside and said: ‘Inky, how can you stand that husband of yours?’285 His words had been carefully chosen. ‘Inky’ had been a nickname for both Marjorie’s father, Edward Shann, and Edward’s brother, Frank, that Menzies liked to apply to Marjorie. Frank Shann was widely respected in Melbourne, especially as the headmaster of Trinity Grammar School, which was attended by his own son, Keith ‘Mick’ Shann, and John Bunting. Earlier in his career he had taught English at Wesley College, where his pupils included an exceptionally bright scholarship boy named Robert Menzies. Thus, by using the nickname to preface his blunt question, Menzies was signalling to Marjorie that she was ‘one of us’, but her husband was now definitely out of favour.
This unexpected confrontation—the only obvious sign of Menzies’ displeasure that Tange could recall in later years—jolted the Tanges but did not make Arthur any more responsive to Menzies’ prodding. When Menzies handed the External Affairs portfolio to Barwick in December 1961, he made clear his opinion that Tange should be moved on. Barwick, however, was in no hurry to comply and evidently used the difficulties of finding a suitable destination as a means of delaying the process. By early 1963 Menzies was clearly frustrated that Tange, despite what he called ‘two brutal suggestions’ that he take an overseas post, was determinedly staying in place. By this time Plimsoll was widely seen as the most likely successor. Plimsoll’s appointment as High Commissioner to India, following an outstanding term as Australia’s representative at the United Nations in New York, was regarded by some as another move by Tange to protect his own position. Menzies told Crocker, however, that the New York post vacated by Plimsoll was being held open because Menzies wanted Tange sent there, adding firmly that ‘he is going’.286 And yet, Tange did not go.
In Menzies’ mind, New York may have been an acceptable destination for Tange but Washington was not. In late 1963 and early 1964 there was considerable speculation over the succession to Sir Howard Beale, the former minister who had been ambassador to the United States since 1958. Beale wanted to stay but Menzies wanted him to move on, requiring Menzies to find an appointee of at least equal capacity. The position had always been held by a former Cabinet minister but the one Menzies had in mind, Athol Townley, died in December 1963. Of the others, as Menzies later put it, ‘the ones I consider suitable I can’t spare and the ones I can spare are not suitable’.287 He was thus led reluctantly to accept Barwick’s suggestion that he appoint a career diplomat for the first time. But, Menzies hastened to instruct Barwick, ‘you won’t appoint Tange’. Barwick said that he never understood the basis for Menzies’ antipathy to Tange but it was ‘deep-seated and persistent’.288 Keith Waller, by this time a first assistant secretary under Tange, was sent to Washington while his permanent head remained entrenched in Canberra.
Tange, by his own account, was not only unaware of the basis for Menzies’ attitude but did not really accept that Menzies held such feelings. Menzies’ ‘brutal suggestions’ did not register significantly in Tange’s memory. Nor did Menzies tell others much about why his feelings had changed. He seems to have mentioned only two failings, which were common property to Tange’s critics: that Tange had never been head of a diplomatic mission and that he was sometimes long-winded and rambling. Menzies lamented, for example, a briefing that had been far from brief before the Prime Minister had met President Eisenhower. But generally he would only say that Tange was ‘decent enough but a dull fellow’.289 Throughout his career, and long afterwards, Tange was either hailed as a Colossus of the public service or denounced as an egotistical bully; only Menzies could dismiss him as decent but dull.
It is impossible to be dogmatic about the reasons why Tange fell from Menzies’ favour but the circumstantial evidence suggests that it was a combination of three elements. The policy lines being adopted by External Affairs were increasingly at variance with those that Menzies preferred; he did not think that any public servant should be in such a position for so long; and, not least, he had simply become bored with Tange’s presence. What is most remarkable, by modern standards, is that for four years Tange was able to turn a Nelsonian eye to his Prime Minister’s repeated and blunt signals, simply refusing to acknowledge that he was being told to depart.
Tange and Gorton: An early encounter
To those who argued that he should not hold the External Affairs portfolio as well as the prime ministership, Menzies made one concession: the appointment of a ‘minister assisting’ to share the burden. This raised a longstanding legal issue, whether section 64 of the constitution permitted more than one minister to be appointed to any one department. The prevailing legal opinion was that such an appointment would be unconstitutional. Tange claimed that he ‘had a hand’ in proposing the solution that was adopted until a different legal opinion was accepted in the 1980s. This was to appoint a minister already holding a portfolio, presumably junior and not too demanding, to assist a senior colleague. As the ‘minister assisting’ would not claim an additional salary, this was considered to be constitutionally acceptable. Thus the relatively obscure Minister for the Navy, Senator John Gorton, was appointed Minister Assisting the Minister for External Affairs. Tange drew up a list of the areas on which the department would answer to Gorton, essentially those that could be readily separated from the mainstream of foreign policy.
One of these areas was Antarctica. Phillip Law, the assertive head of the Antarctic Division, welcomed the chance to deal directly with another minister, now that Casey had left Australian politics. This provoked Tange to object strongly to Gorton’s corresponding directly with Law when their discussions impinged on the department’s budget. Gorton responded with a heavily sarcastic letter to Tange, asking him to put in writing whether communications between the division head and the responsible minister could only take place ‘with Departmental permission and after Departmental censorship’. In the meantime, Gorton asserted, ‘I shall see and communicate with Mr. Law direct should I wish to do so.’ Tange, infuriated by the tone as much as the substance of the letter, confronted Gorton, pointing out that, as departmental secretary and permanent head, he was by law responsible for the department’s expenditure. He therefore could not allow his financial responsibilities to be circumvented by a division head and a minister assisting. The confrontation, by Tange’s account, was vigorous but ended with Gorton telling Tange that he could tear up the letter. Tange decided not to do so. ‘It speaks for itself’, he wrote.290 Tange was fortunate that Gorton evidently bore no grudge since, before the decade was out, Gorton would, as Prime Minister, offer Tange his most senior appointments.
Tange and Barwick: West New Guinea
The principal reason for Tange’s continued survival during this time was the relationship he forged with Garfield Barwick, when Menzies finally appointed Barwick to External Affairs in December 1961. The relationship was founded largely on their shared views on Indonesia and New Guinea.291 Immediately after being sworn in on 22 December, Barwick visited the department to be briefed on current issues. Tange told him that West New Guinea was the most urgent. Sukarno had been making increasingly belligerent statements, implying that he was about to use force to seize the territory. It was also increasingly apparent that the Americans and the British were moving away from any military commitment to support the Dutch and towards convincing them to accept an Indonesian takeover. Barwick, who had been discussing developments with Australian diplomats, including Pat Shaw and Tom Critchley, over the preceding two years, had further discussions with the department on 30 December and with Menzies in early January. It seems that Barwick accepted the arguments that Tange and his colleagues had been unsuccessfully pressing on Menzies for some months, especially in a long minute in February 1961.
Barwick presented long submissions, based largely on External Affairs advice but also reflecting his personal views and style, to a Cabinet meeting on 11 and 12 January. The government reluctantly accepted that the policy of the past decade had to change and that Australia would now support moves through the United Nations that would transfer control of West New Guinea to Indonesia. Most accounts of this period emphasise Barwick’s initiative in changing Australian policy but his task was probably made much easier by a letter, dated 27 December, from British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to Menzies, following Macmillan’s meeting with President John F. Kennedy in Bermuda. This made it clear that both the United States and Britain placed Western links with Indonesia ahead of the Dutch position in New Guinea. If the Indonesians used force, there would be no American or British military support for the Dutch. It is likely that this, as much as Barwick’s skilled advocacy based on the briefs supplied by Tange, convinced Menzies and his Cabinet that the change had to come. Menzies announced on 12 January 1962 that Australia was adapting to ‘the hard facts of international life’, because Australian security depended on acting ‘in concert with our great and powerful friends’.
As Tange noted in a reflective minute, External Affairs had ensured the change in policy did not surprise the Dutch but Australian public opinion had been less well prepared.292 The reaction was vitriolic. Leading the press denunciation of Australia’s ‘appeasement’ of Indonesia was the Sydney Morning Herald, which, in Tange’s view, had abandoned all ‘objectivity’ and was ‘writing like a morning edition of the Mirror’.293 Both Barwick and Menzies were the targets of the press campaign, but Tange and the department believed that it was their new minister who deserved the principal credit for moving the government towards acceptance of the position to which they had long been pointing, and who was now bearing the brunt of unfair criticism.
After this promising start, Barwick was highly regarded by his officials. Unlike most ministers, who worked from their offices in Parliament House, he used the office in the department that was always provided for the minister. The diplomats responded well to his robust and cheerful manner and his shirt-sleeves style of work. Far from secluding himself in his office, Barwick would roam the corridors, looking to debate issues with his officials. He was even known on occasion to borrow a dinner suit from Keith Waller (who was of similar build), if he had left his own in Sydney. Tange and his colleagues drew increasing confidence from the belief that they had a strong minister, who would consult openly and listen to advice, but who also had his own mind and would give clear directions on policy; who was not overawed in international company, even by Australia’s most powerful allies; and who could win battles with other ministers and departments, even including Menzies and his department.
In the last years of his life, Tange wrote an article intended to rescue Barwick’s reputation from the controversies associated with his term as Chief Justice, especially his judgments on tax-avoidance schemes and his advice to Sir John Kerr in November 1975. Tange felt that these controversies had overshadowed the respect that Barwick deserved as Minister for External Affairs. Tange pointed to his robust style of argument with leading Americans. On one occasion he had brushed aside an earnest reference to what Portugal was doing in similar circumstances, breezily asserting: ‘This is not Portugal, brother’. His courtroom style led him to cross-examine such eminent figures as American Secretary of State Dean Rusk, until even the admiring Tange had to whisper in his ear, ‘You can let him off the floor now, Minister’. Barwick, like Menzies, had a deeply ingrained respect for the traditions of British law and government but with a slightly different focus. Menzies had a romantic vision of established British institutions—the law, the monarchy, Parliament, cricket. Barwick’s admiration was directed more to the yeomen, the village Hampdens, and to the opportunities that even a hierarchical society granted to the able but less privileged. Tange did not mention that Barwick had not supported his department’s pressure to liberalise the implementation of the White Australia Policy, especially as it affected ‘distinguished Asians’.294
While Tange and the officials in External Affairs generally welcomed Barwick’s robust attitude towards Australia’s great and powerful friends, their view was not universally shared in Canberra. In particular, the Prime Minister’s Department, still responsible for relations with the United Kingdom, thought that Barwick and his department were too abrasive towards Britain. Although aware of this concern, Tange underestimated its strength and importance, especially in the minds of John Bunting, the outwardly mild-mannered Secretary to both Cabinet and the Prime Minister’s Department, and Bunting’s principal adviser on foreign affairs and defence, Allan Griffith. When Griffith and Bunting moved Cabinet to form a Foreign Affairs and Defence (FAD) Committee in January 1963, they could foresee a period of considerable tension and difficult decisions in Australia’s relations with South-East Asia. They recommended, and Cabinet accepted, that a small committee of senior Cabinet ministers would be the most effective way to manage these decisions and, not least, to supervise Barwick and his officials in External Affairs.295
Tange and Barwick: Konfrontasi
The timing of this move was highly significant for in the same month the Indonesians adopted a policy of ‘konfrontasi’, or confrontation, towards the proposed new federation of Malaysia. This was to link the states of the existing federation of Malaya with Singapore and two British territories on the island of Borneo (in Indonesian, Kalimantan), which shared long land borders with Indonesia. Britain strongly supported this formula for the decolonisation of the region and reacted vehemently to Indonesia’s objections. While seeking support from the United States, Australia and New Zealand, the Foreign Office described Sukarno as an expansionist megalomaniac, comparable with Hitler. Thus was initiated one of the most significant episodes in the making of Australian foreign policy. It combined many of the most sensitive and enduring themes in that policy, themes to which Tange repeatedly adverted. They included Australia’s need to establish the best possible relationship with Indonesia, even when the Australian public was highly suspicious of Sukarno’s ambitions; the need to assert Australia’s national interests in the region, when Australia’s most powerful allies were trying to pull Australia in different directions; and the need to ensure that Australia’s foreign and defence policies were coordinated and consistent. Although this episode was soon overshadowed by the controversies associated with the Vietnam War, at the time ‘Confrontation’ was hugely significant in revealing and shaping Australian attitudes and policies.296
