Selling White Australia: the Asian visits fund and assimilation as a foundational concept in Australian Cold War public diplomacy

ABSTRACT

The ‘Asian Visits Fund’ was the Australian Government’s first Cold War people-to-people public diplomacy programme. Standing in the Fund’s way was Australia’s racially restrictive immigration programme. A central feature of the scheme, therefore, was to present a vision of a non-racial Australia through the new national ideology of Assimilation. The treatment of indigenous Australians was showcased as one way to highlight Assimilation and debunk broader claims of racism. Ultimately, however, the Asian Visits Fund was unable to alter the negative perception of Australia’s immigration policy. It was the last major initiative aimed at selling the unsellable ‘White Australia Policy’.

KEYWORDS:

• Cold War
• Australian foreign policy
• assimilation
• White Australia policy
• cultural diplomacy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ For discussions of Namatjira and his legacy consult Ian A. McLean, White Aborigines: Identity Politics in Australian Art (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 96–104; and Wendy Aitken and Christopher Wareham, ‘The Narratives of Albert Namatjira’, Australian Aboriginal Studies, no. 1 (2017): 56–68.

² This paper is framed by Edmund Gullion’s 1965 ‘modern’ definition of the term ‘public diplomacy’ as a form of diplomacy that ‘deals with the influence of public attitudes on the formation and execution of foreign policies. It encompasses dimensions of international relations beyond traditional diplomacy; the cultivation by governments of public opinion in other countries; the interaction of private groups and interests in one country with another; the reporting of foreign affairs and its impact on policy; communication between those whose job is communication, as diplomats and foreign correspondents; and the process of intercultural communications’. Building on such a definition, Nicholas J. Cull has observed that an important means by which a nation engages in public diplomacy is not only through direct communication with the mass audience of another nation, but through the cultivation of ‘individuals within the target audience who are themselves influential in the wider community’. Nicholas J. Cull, ‘Public Diplomacy before Gullion: The Evolution of a Phrase’, ed. Nancy Snow and Philip M. Taylor, Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy (New York: Routledge, 2009), 19; and Nicholas J. Cull, ‘Public Diplomacy: Lessons from the Past’, in CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy (Los Angeles: USC Centre on Public Diplomacy, 2009), 12.

³ ‘Paper for Overseas Planning Committee’, A1838/1 574/1 PART 1, National Archives of Australia (NAA), (Canberra: Australian Capital Territory, Australia); Cabinet Minute, June 16, 1964, Decision No. 281 of Submission No. 222, ‘Special Overseas Visits Fund – Increase in Size of Fund and Extension of Area of Application’, Asian Visits Fund, Geographical Extension, A4940/1 C3265, NAA. In an External Affairs memorandum one official noted: ‘journalists are an important target and one to which the Minister attaches overriding importance’. Department of External Affairs Note 574/4, August 24, 1959, A1838 574/4, Part 4, NAA.

⁴ For discussions of Asian perceptions of the Australia and the White Australia Policy, consult Sean Brawley, ‘“An Iron Curtain Canberra Style”, Asian Perceptions of the White Australia Policy’, in Australia in the World: Perceptions and Possibilities, ed. Don Grant, Don Seal, and Graham Seal (Perth: Black Swan Press, 1994), 255–62; Kevin Blackburn, ‘Migration and Perceptions of Identity: The Case of Singapore and Malaysian Perceptions of the Australian Identity, 1966–96’, in Pacific Centuries: Pacific and Pacific Rim Economic History Since the 16th Century, vol. 12, ed. Denis O. Flynn, Lionel Frost, and Anthony John Heaton Latham, eds., (London: Routledge, 1998), 224–49; David Walker, ‘General Cariappa Encounters “White Australia”: Australia, India and the Commonwealth in the 1950s’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 34, no. 3 (2006): 389–406; Alexander E. Davis, ‘A Shared History?: Postcolonial Identity and India-Australia Relations, 1947–1954’, Pacific Affairs 88, no. 4 (2015): 849–69; Eric Meadows, ‘“He No Doubt Felt Insulted”: The White Australia Policy and Australia’s Relations with India, 1944–1964’, in Australia and the World: a Festschrift for Neville Meaney, ed. Joan Beaumont and Matthew Jordan (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2013), 81–98.

⁵ David McLean, ‘Australia in the Cold War: A Historiographical Review’, The International History Review 23, no. 2 (2001): 299–321.

⁶ Ibid. The rise of ‘cultural Cold War’ studies from the early years of the twenty-first century was identified by Gene Zubuvich in his 2018 examination of US Cold War historiography. See Zubuvich, ‘The Cold War Era – A Historiographical Survey’, in Routledge History of the Twentieth-Century United States, ed. Darren Dochuk and Jerald Podair (New York: Routledge, 2018), 48–59.

⁷ See for example James Curran, ‘Beyond the Euphoria: Lyndon Johnson in Australia and the Politics of the Cold War Alliance’, Journal of Cold War Studies 17, no. 1 (2015): 64–96; Dan Halvorson, ‘From Cold War Solidarity to Transactional Engagement: Reinterpreting Australia’s Relations with East Asia, 1950–1974’, Journal of Cold War Studies 18, no. 2 (2016): 130–59; Andrea Benvenuti, Cold War and Decolonisation: Australia’s Policy towards Britain’s End of Empire in Southeast Asia (Singapore: NUS Press, 2017); Andrea Benvenuti, ‘Commonwealth Responsibility and Cold War Solidarity: Australia in Asia, 1944–74’, Journal of Cold War Studies 23, no. 3 (2021): 243–5.

⁸ McLean, ‘Australia in the Cold War’, The International History Review 23, no. 2 (2001): 299–321.

⁹ Dan Halvorson, Commonwealth Responsibility and Cold War Solidarity: Australia in Asia, 1944–74 (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019), 4. This need has also been identified for the broader international literature. See Federico Romero, ‘Cold War Historiography at the Crossroads’, Cold War History 14, no. 4 (2014): 685–703. For recent Australian examples, see Agnieszka Sobocinska, ‘Visiting the Neighbours: The Political Meanings of Australian Travel to Cold War Asia’, Australian Historical Studies 44, no. 3 (2013): 382–404; Sean Brawley and Mathew Radcliffe, ‘Losing the Blanket, Building a Fence: Australian Anxiety and the End of Military Colonialism in Malaysia’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 45, no. 6 (2017): 1026–48; Christina Twomey, Agnieszka Sobocinska, Mathew Radcliffe, and Sean Brawley, ‘Australia’s Asian Garrisons: Decolonisation and the Colonial Dynamics of Expatriate Military Communities in Cold War Asia’, Australian Historical Studies 51, no. 2 (2020): 184–211; Jon Piccini, ‘“That Brotherhood May Prevail”: International House Brisbane, Race and the Humanitarian Ethic in Cold War Australia’, History Australia 17, no. 4 (2020): 695–710; and Peter Dean and Tristan Moss, eds., Fighting Australia’s Cold War: The Nexus of Strategy and Operations in a Multipolar Asia, 1945–1965 (Canberra: ANU Press, 2021).

¹⁰ Odd Arne Westad, ‘The Cold War and the International History of the Twentieth Century’, in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. 1, Origins, ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 2.

¹¹ Halvorson, Commonwealth Responsibility and Cold War Solidarity, 4.

¹² Christopher Waters, ‘A Failure of Imagination: R.G. Casey and Australian Plans for Counter-Subversion in Asia, 1954–1956’, Australian Journal of Politics and History 45, no. 3 (1999): 354. Waters returns to this introduction of the AVF in ‘Cold War Liberals: Richard Casey and the Department of External Affairs, 1951–60’, in Ministers, Mandarins and Diplomats: Australian Foreign Policy Making, 1941–1960, by Joan Beaumont, David Lowe, Christopher Waters with Garry Woodward (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2003), 102.

¹³ Daniel Oakman, ‘The Politics of Foreign Aid: Counter-Subversion and the Colombo Plan, 1950–1970’, Pacifica Review: Peace, Security and Global Change 13, no. 3 (2001): 268–9. While admittedly modest by international standards, the Fund within two years of commencement had brought over 50 Asian visitors to Australia. See ‘Extract of speech by Mr. R.G. Casey, Minister for External Affairs, in the House of Representatives’, April 15, 1958, 1838 574/4 Part 4, NAA.

¹⁴ Daniel Oakman, Facing Asia: A History of the Colombo Plan (Canberra: ANU Press, 2011), 150–2.

¹⁵ Through his efforts, Newsom contributed to the development of public relations as an ‘essential calling in American society’ and his work saw connections between corporate public relations and government public diplomacy grow in the early Cold War period. See for example Elisabetta Bini, ‘Oil for The Free World: US Public Relations as Cultural Diplomacy in Post-World War II Italy’, Ricerche Di Storia Politica 20, no. 1 (2017): 3–22. For discussions of Newsom and his relationship with Casey consult Bridget Griffen-Foley, ‘The Kangaroo is Coming Into Its Own: R G Casey, Earl Newsom and Public Relations in the 1940s’, The Australasian Journal of American Studies 23, no. 2 (2004): 1–20; Carl Bridge, ‘Allies of a Kind: Three Wartime Australian Ministers to the United States, 1940–46’, in Australia Goes to Washington: 75 Years of Australian Representation in the United States, 1940–2015, ed. David Lowe, David Lee, and Carl Bridge (Canberra: ANU Press, 2016), 26–30, and Carl Bridge, ed., A Delicate Mission: The Washington Diaries of R.G. Casey, 1940–42 (Canberra: National of Australia, 2008), 5–9. Newsom’s enduring influence on Casey and his Washington staff is apparent in a 1958 correspondence between Casey and senior Australian diplomat P.R. (later Sir Peter) Heydon. In the correspondence Heydon evoked memories of Newsom and his approach. See P.R. Heydon to RG Casey, May 27, 1968, Papers of Sir Peter Heydon, MS 3155, Box 14 Folder 122, National Library of Australia (NLA), (Canberra: Australian Capital Territory, Australia).

¹⁶ An examination of the historical evolution of Casey’s ideas would be a valuable contribution to filling one of the ‘many gaps’ that have been identified by scholars of public relations and public diplomacy since the exploration of their intersections became an area of academic inquiry in the early 1990s. See Michael Kunczik, ‘Transnational Public Relations by Foreign Governments’, in The Global Public Relations Handbook: Theory, Research, and Practice, ed. Krishnamurthy Sriramesh and Dejan Vercic (London: Routledge, 2003), 399, and; Antoaneta M. Vanc and Kathy R. Fitzpatrick, ‘Scope and Status of Public Diplomacy Research by Public Relations Scholars, 1990–2014’, Public Relations Review, 42, no. 3 (2016): 432–40.

¹⁷ See R.G. Casey, Double Quit: Some Views on Australian Development and Relations (Cheshire: Wadley & Ginn, 1949), esp. 103–5, and R.G. Casey, Friends and Neighbours: Australia and the World (Melbourne: Cheshire, 1954), esp. 15, 28 & 120. It has been alleged that much of Friends and Neighbours had been ghost written by senior External Affairs officer Jim (later Sir James) Plimsoll. See Jeremy Herder, ‘Casey and Plimsoll: A Close Working Relationship’, in R.G. Casey: Minister for External Affairs, 1951–60, ed. Melissa Conley Tyler, John Robbins, and Adrian March (Canberra: Australian Institute of International Affairs, 2012), 65–6.

¹⁸ Casey to Heydon, June 28, 1955, Heydon Papers, Box 14, Folder 118, NLA.

¹⁹ ibid.

²⁰ Arthur Tange, ‘Policy Critique 22 June 1955’, Australian Foreign Policy, M3401, 21, NAA.

²¹ David Walker and Kane Collins, ‘Playing Fields’ in Sean Brawley and Nick Guoth, eds., Australia’s Asian Sporting Context, 1920s–30s (London: Routledge, 2013), 151.

²² Amit Sarwal, ‘A Kangaroo and Bradman: Indian Journalists’ visit to Australia under the Colombo Plan, 1950–1957’, Journalism Studies, published online (January 2018), doi:10.1080/1461670X.2018.1428907, (accessed 15 March 2020).

²³ ‘Goodwill Contacts with Asian Countries’, Information Branch, Asian Visits Fund – Policy, NAA, A1838 574/4 Part 3. Tange also observed: ‘In large measure, we equate our good neighbour policy with the Colombo Plan. We count too much upon the Colombo Plan’. See Tange, ‘Policy Critique’ and Peter Edwards, Arthur Tange: Last of the Mandarins (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2006), 73–6.

²⁴ David Walker, Stranded Nation: White Australia in an Asian Region (Perth: UWA Publishing, 2019) esp. 64, 300–4, 309 & 315.

²⁵ See Agnieszka Sobocinska, ‘Visiting the Neighbours: The Political Meanings of Travel to Cold War Asia’, Australian Historical Studies 44, no. 3 (2013): 389; and Kyhlie Daws, ‘Advancing Australia: Cultural Diplomacy in the Menzies Era’ (PhD Thesis, Deakin University, 2016), 46.

²⁶ David Lowe, ‘Journalists and the Stirring of Australian Public Diplomacy: The Colombo Plan Towards the 1960s’, Journal of Contemporary History 48, no. 1 (2012): 189.

²⁷ Ibid.

²⁸ Cotton’s review was published on the Australian Institute of International Affairs’ website. https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/reading-room-stranded-nation/ (accessed 20 December 2020).

²⁹ Walker, Stranded Nation, 300.

³⁰ Tange, ‘Policy Critique’.

³¹ See Brawley ‘“An Iron Curtain Canberra Style”’; and Meg Gurry and Gwenda Tavan, ‘Too Soft and Long‐haired? The Department of External Affairs and the White Australia Policy, 1946–1966’, Australian Journal of International Affairs 58, no. 1 (2004): 127–42.

³² Heydon to Tange, March 7, 1956, Heydon Papers, Box 14, Folder 120, NLA.

³³ ‘Paper for Overseas Planning Committee’, A1838/1 574/1 PART 1, NAA.

³⁴ Cabinet Minute, June 16, 1964, Decision No. 281 of Submission No. 222, ‘Special Overseas Visits Fund – Increase in Size of Fund and Extension of Area of Application’, Asian Visits Fund, Geographical Extension, A4940/1 C3265, NAA.

³⁵ Walker, Stranded Nation, 434–44. While not using the term ‘balancing act’, Sean Brawley in his 1995 study spoke of Australia’s efforts ‘to narrow the gap between the White Australia Policy and its desires for Asian friendship’. See Brawley, The White Peril: Foreign Relations and Asian Immigration to Australasia and North America, 1919–1978 (Sydney, UNSW Press, 1995), 254. The general historiography central to this issue and this period is hotly contested. For examples see Matthew Jordan, ‘The Reappraisal of the White Australia Policy Against the Background of a Changing Asia, 1945–67’, Australian Journal of Politics & History 52, no. 2 (2006): 224–3; Andrea Benvenuti and David Martin Jones, ‘Myth and Misrepresentation in Australian Foreign Policy: Menzies and Engagement with Asia’, Journal of Cold War Studies 13, no. 4 (2011): 57–78; David Martin Jones and Andrea Benvenuti, ‘Menzies’ Asia Policy and the Anachronistic Fallacy’, Australian Journal of International Affairs 66, no. 2 (2012): 206–22; James Cotton, ‘Rejoinder to “Menzies’ Asia Policy and the Anachronistic Fallacy”’, Australian Journal of International Affairs 67, no. 2 (2013): 235–42; David Martin Jones and Andrea Benvenuti, ‘Anachronism Refuted or Irrefutable? A Reply to James Cotton’, Australian Journal of International Affairs 67, no. 2 (2013): 243–6; Agnieszka Sobocinska, ‘Overturning the Point: Exploring Change in Australian–Asian Relations’, History Compass 12, no. 8 (2014): 642–50 and Dan Halvorson, ‘From Commonwealth Responsibility to the National Interest: Australia and Post-war Decolonisation in South-East Asia’, The International History Review 40, no. 4 (2018): 870–92.

³⁶ L.E. Barsdell, Escorting Officer’s Report, Visit of Asian Journalists from April 22 to May 22 1957, A1838 574/4 Part 3, NAA.

³⁷ Ibid.

³⁸ An Australian report noted that the radio journalist had enjoyed a ‘marvellous experience’ and that ‘[a]lthough he looked closely for it he was unable to find any evidence of “colour bar”’. Australian Commissioner’s Office, Singapore, Memo No. 1874, October 3, 1958, Asian Visits Fund: Visits of Asian Journalists – August 1958, Publicity Arising from Tour, A1838/1 574/4/51/1, NAA.

³⁹ See for example, Sydney Morning Herald, January 19, 1954, 2; Courier Mail (Brisbane), March 15, 1952, 4.

⁴⁰ Oakman, Facing Asia 443. Walker, Anxious Nation 154. See also Sarah Mirams, ‘“The Attractions of Australia’: EJ Brady and the Making of Australia Unlimited’, Australian Historical Studies 43, no. 2 (2012): 270–86.

⁴¹ Walker, Stranded Nation, 289; Oakman, Facing Asia, 150.

⁴² An example of the argument being aired in the Asian press is found in a 1957 edition of the Singapore Standard which pondered the ‘bewildering problem’ of how 50,000 ‘Stone Age Men’ could be elevated into the ‘television-atomic age’. Singapore Standard, January 15, 1957, 7.

⁴³ Anna Haebich, ‘Imagining Assimilation’, Australian Historical Studies 33, no. 188 (2002): 61.

⁴⁴ Julie T. Wells and Michael F. Christie, ‘Namatjira and the Burden of Citizenship’, Australian Historical Studies 31, no. 114 (2000): 113. Assimilation would not deliver on the promise many Australians held for it and today its failure is most controversially highlighted by the removal of Aboriginal children from their families during this period. The so-called ‘Stolen Generations’ is seen to highlight the misguided thinking which drove the policy of Assimilation as it was applied to indigenous affairs. See also Anthony Moran, ‘White Australia, Settler Nationalism and Aboriginal Assimilation’, Australian Journal of Politics & History 51, no. 2 (2005): 184. Dylan Lino, ‘The Indigenous Franchise and Assimilation’, Australian Historical Studies 48, no. 3 (2017): 365.

⁴⁵ John Chesterman, ‘Defending Australia’s Reputation How Indigenous Australians Won Civil Rights, Part One’, Australian Historical Studies 32, no. 116 (2001): 23.

⁴⁶ Wells and Christie, ‘Namatjira and the Burden of Citizenship’, 113. McGregor makes the important point that while Assimilationist ideas, as noted by the likes of Stuart Macintyre, can be traced back to the early years of European colonisation, the term and its application after the Second World War spoke to very different ideas. Russell McGregor, ‘Nation and Assimilation: Continuity and Discontinuity in Aboriginal Affairs in the 1950s’, in Modern Frontier: Aspects of the 1950s in Australia’s Northern Territory, ed. Julie T. Wells, Mickey Dewar, and Suzanne Parry (Darwin: Charles Darwin University Press, 2005), 17.

⁴⁷ Russel McGregor, ‘One People: Aboriginal Assimilation and the White Australia Ideal’, History Australia 6, no. 1 (2009): 03.13.

⁴⁸ Paul Hasluck, ‘The Future of the Australian Aborigine’, paper presented at symposium, Section F, ANZAAS, Adelaide, August 22, 1958, Private Papers of Sir Paul Hasluck, NLA, MS5247, Box 38. Before the definition adopted by the 1961 Native Welfare Conference, Hasluck understood Assimilation to mean ‘that the aborigines and persons of mixed blood are expected eventually to attain to the same manner of living and to the same privileges of citizenship as white Australians’ so that they could live ‘as members of a single Australian community’. See Hasluck, ‘The Future of the Australian Aborigines’, Presidential Address, 29^th Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS), Section F (Anthropology), August 22, 1952, Speeches, Australian Aborigines, 1952–1965, Hasluck Papers, NLA, Box 38.

⁴⁹ In practice there were rare examples of intersection at this time as noted by Jennifer Jones and her study of the Country Women’s Association. See Jennifer Jones, Country Women and the Colour Bar: Grassroots Activism and the Country Women’s Association (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2015), xvi.

⁵⁰ McGregor, ‘One People’, 03.13

⁵¹ For discussions of integration consult Russell McGregor, ‘Assimilationists Contest Assimilation: TGH Strehlow and AP Elkin on Aboriginal Policy’, Journal of Australian Studies 26, no. 75 (2002): 43–50; and Robert Van Krieken, ‘Between Assimilation and Multiculturalism: Models of Integration in Australia’, Patterns of Prejudice 46, no. 5 (2012): 500–17.

⁵² Australian Embassy Rangoon, Memorandum No. 641, 22 July 1959, A1838/1 574/4/54/1, NAA.

⁵³ Ibid.

⁵⁴ Ibid.

⁵⁵ Ibid.

⁵⁶ Ibid.

⁵⁷ Ibid.

⁵⁸ See Mel Pratt to Secretary of Territories, December 3, 1958, Government plans for Assimilation of the Aborigines of the Northern Territory – Article by K G Kennedy: A452, 1958/4514, NAA. For a study placing the conference in broader context consult Russell McGregor, Indifferent Inclusion: Aboriginal People and the Australian Nation (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2011).

⁵⁹ Ibid.

⁶⁰ Ibid.

⁶¹ Ibid.

⁶² Ibid.

⁶³ Ibid.

⁶⁴ Ibid.

⁶⁵ Ibid.

⁶⁶ Australian High Commissioner’s Office, Colombo, Memorandum No. 941, November 13, 1958, A1838/1 574/4/54/1, NAA.

⁶⁷ ‘Review of Operations of the Asian Visits Fund to EOFY 1959/60’, Asian Visits Fund – Policy, NAA A1838/2 574/4 Part 5.

⁶⁸ L.E. Barsdell, ‘Report: Visit of Asian Journalists from 22 April to 22 May 1957’; Report: ‘Visit of Asian Journalists, May, 1957’, June 5, 1957; A1838/2 574/4 Part 3, NAA. Asian students had also expressed such trepidations. See for example, Sydney Morning Herald, September 7, 1960, 14.

⁶⁹ Department of External Affairs Note 574/4, 29 March 1961, Asian Visits Fund – Policy, A1838/2 574/4 Part 5, NAA. The Australian people were also advised of the benefits derived from ‘visits by leading Asian journalists … [which] helped greatly in promoting goodwill and understanding between Australia and her Asian neighbours’, Canberra Times, April 3, 1959, 2.

⁷⁰ Australian Legation Rangoon, Memo. No. 942 of December 4, 1959; A1838/1 574/4/54/1, NAA.

⁷¹ Australian High Commissioner’s Office, Colombo, Memorandum No. 941, November 13, 1958, A1838/1 574/4/54/1, NAA.

⁷² The Age, September 8, 1958, 3.

⁷³ Ibid.

⁷⁴ Straits Times (Singapore), July 1, 1958, 3.

⁷⁵ Walker, Stranded Nation, 301–7.

⁷⁶ Ibid.

⁷⁷ Ibid.

⁷⁸ McGregor, ‘One People’, 03.04. See also John Chesterman, ‘Defending Australia’s Reputation: how Indigenous Australians won Civil Rights Part One’, Australian Historical Studies 32, no. 116 (2001): 20–39; Sue Taffe, ‘Australian Diplomacy in a Policy Vacuum: Government and Aboriginal Affairs, 1961–62’, Aboriginal History, no. 19 (1995): 154–72, esp. 169–72; Jennifer Clark, ‘“Something to Hide”: Aborigines and the Department of External Affairs, January 1961–January 1962’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, no. 83 (1997): 71–84, esp. 80–2.

⁷⁹ P.R. Heydon, ‘Record of conversion with Sir Arthur Tange on 9 September 1963’, Heydon Papers, Box 16, Folder 13, NLA.

⁸⁰ Despite growing reservations, from at least 1959 External Affairs officials justified continuing the programme on the basis that leaving the Sino-Soviet bloc to continue their propaganda visits unfettered would result in a net loss for Australian public diplomacy. Department of External Affairs, Note 574/4, June 23, 1959, Asian Visits Fund Policy, 1838 574/4 Part 4, NAA.

⁸¹ Cabinet Minute, June 16, 1964, Decision No. 281 of Submission No. 222 – Special Overseas Visits Fund – Increase in Size of Fund and Extension of Area of Application, A4940/1 C3265, NAA.

⁸² Cited by Gurry and Tavan, ‘Too Soft and Long‐Haired?’, 137.

⁸³ For discussions of the White Australia Policy, its administration, challenges and defence during the 1950s and 1960s consult, Brawley, The White Peril,242–89; and Gwenda Tavan The Long, Slow Death of White Australia (Melbourne: Scribe, 2005) esp. Chapter 5, and; Mathew Jordan, ‘“Not on Your Life”: Cabinet and Liberalisation of the White Australia Policy, 1964–67’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 46, no. 1 (2018): 169–201.

⁸⁴ Ibid.

⁸⁵ Joseph Nye, ‘Public Diplomacy and Soft Power’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 616, no. 1 (2008): 108, 96.

⁸⁶ See Jennifer Rutherford, The Gauche Intruder: Freud, Lacan and the White Australian Fantasy (Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 2000): 5–27.

⁸⁷ Clipping, Chao Thai, May 5, 1959, A1838/1 574/4/54/1, NAA.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [DP160100750].