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Investigation 2
Why was Australia involved?
In 1962 the first Australian troops were sent to South
Vietnam as military advisers to the South Vietnamese army.
In 1965 Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies announced that
Australian combat troops would be sent, and that this would
include men who had been conscripted (conscription applied
to 20 year old men whose birth dates were pulled at random
from a ballot) as well as regular troops. This was the start of
Australia’s main involvement in the war.
Why would Australia want to become involved in a war in
South Vietnam, so far away from our own country?
1
Look at these illustrations and in each case, decide:
a) what the cartoon shows (who are the main characters, what
they are doing / saying, etc.)
b)what the meaning or message of each cartoon is — that is,
the idea that the cartoonist wants you to accept and agree
with
c) what the cartoonist suggests is the reason is for Australia
being involved in the war.
Source
1 Images of Australian values and Vietnam
A
C
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News-Weekly 21 July 1954
Australian 14 June 1965
B
D
Australian 3 May 1965
Australian 4 July 1966
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2
Look at this description of what was happening in a variety of
Asian countries by 1965.
a) Mark each country on the map.
b)Briefly summarise in the table how each country was
affected by Communism.
Country
Experience
Burma
Singapore
Had fought a civil war in the 1950s involving
communist and non-communist forces.
A member of SEATO (See Source 2). Thailand had a
policy of anti-communism.
A radical but non-communist government. Strong
pro-communist forces there.
Divided by civil war into three competing and warring
factions — anti-communist, neutral, and pro-communist.
Aligned with the west. Australian troops there to help
combat communist guerillas.
Aligned with the west. Australian troops there to help
combat communist guerillas.
Strongly anti-communist.
Brunei
Strongly anti-communist.
Thailand
Cambodia
Laos
Malaysia
Sarawak
Summary
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Country
Experience
Indonesia
A conservative government, with a strong communist
party and support.
Western-oriented government.
Philippines
China
Vietnam
Korea
Source
Summary
Communist controlled from 1949, a supporter of the
spread of communism.
North Vietnam was communist controlled, South
Vietnam was backed by the United States.
North Korea was communist and supported by China,
South Korea was supported by the United States.
2 Cartoon about SEATO
Courier-Mail 10 September 1954
In the 1950s Australia became part of two international
defence agreements: ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand and
United States, 1951), and SEATO (South-East Asian Treaty
Organisation, 1954).
5
a) What do you think Australia hoped to achieve from these
commitments?
b)What did Australia have to do in return?
Communism in Asia was a political system that imposed a
single party system of government, was not democratic, and
forced people to have a state-controlled economic system.
3
Why might Australia be worried about communism in Asia?
4
Why might Australia be inclined to become involved in a
conflict in South Vietnam where a communist North was
trying to unify the country against the American-backed
non-communist South?
6
Imagine that you are the Prime Minister of Australia. There is
fighting in South Vietnam between South Vietnamese forces,
and North Vietnam forces supported by some South Vietnamese
people. Some say this conflict is an attempt to spread
communism south so we should help, others say it is a civil war
and none of our business. The United States is helping South
Vietnam, North Vietnam is getting aid from China and Soviet
Russia. If Australia were to supply combat troops to help South
Vietnam, this would cost a great deal of money, and would
result in some Australian deaths and injuries.
Here are three situations. Decide what you would do in each.
Situation
A South Vietnam asks for help.
Do you offer troops?
B South Vietnam does not ask
for help. Do you offer troops
anyway?
C The USA asks for Australian
help for the South Vietnamese
Government. Do you offer troops?
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Your Decision
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8
List the reasons why Prime Minister Menzies committed
Australian combat troops to the war.
The leader of the Opposition, Arthur Calwell, said:
7
Look at Source 3.
a) List the different reasons why this person says Australia
should agree.
b)What is the main thing he is trying to achieve?
c) Why would he want that?
Source
5 Opposition Leader Arthur
Calwell opposes the sending
of troops
Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 4
May 1965, vol 46 pages 1102-7
Source
[O]n behalf of all my colleagues of Her Majesty’s
Opposition, I say that we oppose the Government’s
decision to send 800 men to fight in Vietnam. We
oppose it firmly and completely …
We do not think it is a wise decision. We do not
think it is a timely decision. We do not think it will
help the fight against Communism. On the contrary,
we believe it will harm that fight in the long term. We
do not believe it will promote the welfare of the people
of Vietnam. On the contrary, we believe it will prolong
and deepen the suffering of that unhappy people so
that Australia’s very name may become a term of
reproach among them. We do not believe that it
represents a wise or even intelligent response to the
challenge of Chinese power. On the contrary, we
believe it mistakes entirely the nature of that power,
and that it materially assists China in her subversive
aims. Indeed, we cannot conceive a decision by the
Government more likely to promote the long term
interests of China in Asia and the Pacific.
3 Allan Renouf, Australian
Ambassador in Washington
Michael Sexton, War For The Asking, Penguin, Melbourne, 1981
pages 44-45.
It is recommended that we make a response which is
both as positive and as prompt as possible … Our
objective should be … to achieve such an habitual
closeness of relations with the United States and sense
of mutual alliance that in our time and need, after we
have shown all reasonable restraint and good sense,
the United States would have little option but to
respond as we would want.
The problem of Vietnam is one, it seems, where we
could … pick up a lot of credit with the United States,
for this problem is one to which the United States is
deeply committed and in which it genuinely feels it is
carrying too much of the load, not so much the
physical load the bulk of which the United States is
prepared to bear, as the moral load.
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The actual situation in 1964 was situation C mixed with
situation A. The United States suggested that it would
appreciate help from Australia. Australia could not just send
troops, so asked South Vietnam to request help — which it
could then respond to.
Prime Minister Menzies said:
Source
a) List the reasons why Calwell is opposed to it.
b)Do you think most people would be likely to agree or
disagree with Menzies rather than Calwell?
c) How could you test this idea?
4 Prime Minister Menzies announces that combat troops will be sent to
South Vietnam
Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 29 April 1965, vol 45 pages 1060-1
The Australian Government is now in receipt of a request
from the Government of South Vietnam for further military
assistance. We have decided — and this has been after close
consultation with the Government of the United States — to
provide an infantry battalion for service in Vietnam …
There can be no doubt of the gravity of the situation in
South Vietnam. There is ample evidence to show that with
the support of the North Vietnamese regime and other
Communist powers, the Viet Cong has been preparing on a
more substantial scale than … [before] insurgency action
designed to destroy South Vietnamese Government control,
and to disrupt by violence the life of the local people …
The takeover of South Vietnam would be a direct military
threat to Australia and all the countries of South and SouthEast Asia. It must be seen as part of a thrust by Communist
China between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
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Here are two extracts from historians:
Source
6 Historians on why Australia
joined the war in South Vietnam
A
The Australian commitment to Vietnam was a
response not to a call for help from an embattled
neighbour, but to demands from the United States to
participate militarily in regional defence. The
Australian Government responded affirmatively to
those requests in order to maintain a close United
States-Australia defence relationship. Vietnam was
never the central issue; the central issue was the
‘insurance policy’ should Australia require United
States support in the future.
Colin Mackerras (ed), Eastern Asia, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne,
1992, pages 593-4
B
The idea that Australia became involved in Vietnam
solely because of its relationship with the United
States ought to be scotched … Australia … was …
concerned … about Malaya, Indonesia and the other
countries of South East Asia … Even if the United
States had not existed, the Australian Government
would have been deeply concerned over the perceived
threat from communism in South East Asia. But
equally it must be said that the Australian-American
relationship was vitally important in shaping
Australia’s reactions to this perceived threat.
J. Grey and J. Doyle, Vietnam: War, Myth and Memory, Allen and
Unwin, St Leonard’s, 1992, pages 4-5
10
Why do you think Australian troops were committed? Which
historian would you agree with?
11
Do you think that the decision to involve Australia in the war
in South Vietnam was justified? Justify your views.
12
Go back to your hypothesis grid and make any changes
needed.
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