No foreign policy is conducted in a void. The words themselves imply a definition of relationship: a foreign policy operates within an international framework which is not itself rigid but subject, from the pressure of change, to constant alteration in form. The period of this volume, 1961–65, was one in which Australia, in response to new challenges, achieved a degree of maturity in both the shaping and the execution of policy. In narrow Australian terms, it opened with events which by 1962 had produced a major diplomatic defeat for Australia in the outcome of the West New Guinea dispute; it was to close with a remarkable Australian diplomatic success in the conduct of relations with Indonesia. The basic objective of policy, the safety of Australia itself, was consolidated and indeed secured for a foreseeable time by the United States relationship. But this was coupled with large uncertainties about the extent and nature of the growing political, military, and economic involvement in South-East Asia, and perhaps Asia generally.

The international outlook of any community, at any stage in its development, is likely to be determined very largely by the interaction of four overlapping factors: geographic position with its strategic requirements; racial composition and resulting prejudices; economic interests, actual and potential, and, by no means least in importance, traditional policies and ideological trends. The relative strength of these several influences varies from period to period. Their individual content may change considerably under pressure of events either inside or outside the community, including the impact of party politics and of powerful personalities. They nevertheless have much to contribute to an understanding of the involved and complicated behaviour patterns of democratic societies in their relations with foreign states and peoples.

This chapter describes the growth of the Department of External Affairs at home and abroad over a thirty-year period since its reorganisation as a separate Department in 1935,examines its functions and considers its role in the formulation and execution of foreign policy. An outline of its history between 1901 and 1935 is also given.

In the previous volume it was argued that a wide area of disagreement divided the Australian from the Indian approach to problems of international affairs: Australia was aligned irrevocably with the western power bloc and looked for her military security to the United States with whose methods of attaining her international ends India fundamentally disagreed. The area of difference had been emphasized by Mr. Menzies’ policy during the Suez crisis, a policy which aligned Australia in Asian eyes with an outworn nineteenth century gunboat British imperialism.

Australian policy towards Japan has changed a great deal since Japan’s surrender. It has passed through three main phases. The first was the period of the early Occupation, from September 1945 to mid-1947. At this time Australian policy was mainly shaped by the emotional aftermath of the war years, by fear and bitterness. The overriding aim was security; to ensure that Japan would not again be able to return to the paths of aggression. This was linked with a demand for retribution, and a desire to make Japan into a democracy, since it was believed that a democracy by its nature seeks a peaceful and co-operative foreign policy. The transition to the second phase in 1947 was a reflection of the outbreak of the Cold War. The old fears of Japan were finding it harder to compete with the quickly growing fears of the Soviet Union and world Communism. From 1947 until 1951, when the Peace Treaty brought the Occupation to an end, Australian policy was ambivalent, or perhaps just inconsistent. How could Japan be made strong enough to be a bulwark against Communism, but not strong enough to be a possible danger again to Australia?

It has been remarked in earlier volumes in this series that the pattern of Australia’s relations with the United Nations to a degree can be categorised according to the personnel principally involved. Thus, one may refer with some validity to an Evatt period and to a Spender- Casey period. The period under review here, 1961–65, does not lend itself easily to a similar identification. Dr Evatt held the External Affairs portfolio in the Curtin and Chifley Governments throughout most of the 1940’s; his successors in Menzies Governments, Sir Percy Spender and (the then) Mr R. G. Casey, were of similar mind and, with Sir Percy later moving freely between his embassy in Washington and the United Nations in New York, they were closely associated throughout most of the 1950’s in the United Nations context.

“Instead of living in a tranquil corner of the globe, we are now on the verge of the most unsettled region of the world.” In these words the Minister for External Affairs, Mr. R. G. Casey, neatly summarised both the main problem of Australian foreign affairs and the changed situation in which any policy framed by an Australian Government must now function. It may also, perhaps, be thought that the Minister’s words convey a hint of that wistful regret for a more simple, clearly defined, situation which is still prominent in the attitude of most Australians towards the complex problems of the New Asia. It all used to be so easy: there was Britain, controlling the seas, ruling in her Indian Empire the main land mass of southern Asia. Holland occupied the regions immediately adjacent to Australia; peaceful, civilised Holland. The French in Indo-China removed that area from any need for consideration. China was weak, divided, and dominated by the foreign powers. There was only Japan, a real but distant menace.

Australian interests in the Middle East in general and the Suez area in particular have traditionally been of two kinds: military and economic. Imperial and Australian defence planning in the first half of the twentieth century had been based on the assumption that there would be a string of imperial bases between London and Singapore or Darwin which would make effective Commonwealth defence plans in the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean areas. Gibraltar, Malta, Suez, Aden, Colombo and Singapore had been the normal naval and/or air bases regarded as vital to the safeguarding of the Dominions east of Suez. Commonwealth security had been maintained through dominant British influence at key strategic points along what had frequently been described as the jugular vein of the Commonwealth. It was for this reason that Australian forces had served in the Middle East in two world wars. Political and economic stability in the sensitive Middle Eastern area was regarded as a matter of vital concern to the Commonwealth as a whole.