ch7 quotes - Indochina wars

Question 1

Prime Minister Menzies announced a greater shift towards the US as the principal ally:

Answer 1

“Australia’s forces would be organised “to fit ourselves for close cooperation with the United States in the Southeast Asian area.”

Question 2

The policy of Forward Defence was that it was better to:

Answer 2

“[fight] the enemy up there before we have to fight them here” (Adcock et al.)

Question 3

historian Peter Edwards on the policy:

Answer 3

“struck a sensible balance.”

Question 4

According to the SEATO treaty, member states could:

Answer 4

“take no action on the territory of any State…except at the invitation or with the consent of the government concerned”

Question 5

STATISTICS for US involvement in Vietnam War

Answer 5

B-52 bombers dropped an estimated 40,000 tonnes of bombs over an 11 day period in the most intensive bombing of the war
While ‘Operation Linebacker II’ was suspended over the Christmas period, the campaign came to be known as ‘The Christmas Bombing’.

Question 6

STATISTICS on the cost of the Vietnam war:

Answer 6

• The casualties in the Vietnam war was 2 million civilians on both sides (US + Viet), 1.1 million North Vietnamese + Viet Cong and 200,000 South Vietnamese soldiers
• The highest no. of casualties of the US+its allies in the war is US itself with 58,500 people being killed whilst only 521 Australians
• The financial cost for the AUS of participating in war AU$218.4 million and costs for post-war benefits for veterans and families unavailable
• The land and environment of Vietnam and surrounding countries were also casualties of the war, suffering extensive, long-term and often irreversible damage

Question 7

The Department of Veterans’ Affairs website states that days of commemoration in Australia are an opportunity to:

Answer 7

“come together to commemorate those who have served our nation and its allies in wars, conflicts and peace operations.”

Question 8

An extract from the ANZUS Treaty:

Answer 8

“Desiring to declare publicly and formally their sense of unity, so that no potential aggressor could be under the illusion that any of them stand alone in the Pacific Area”

Question 9

An extract from the ANZUS Treaty:

Answer 9

“means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.”

Question 10

Historian Robert O’Neil describes conflicting opinions on the ANZUS Treaty: the differing political views on Australia’s realignement of foreign defence

Answer 10

“The British Government was not pleased by Australia’s realignment as an ally of the United States…but “Truman felt obliged to Australia for its support in Korea”

Question 11

SEATO Treaty 1954

Answer 11

“prevent or counter by appropriate means any attempt in the treaty area to subvert their freedom or to destroy their sovereignty or territorial integrity”

Question 12

US President, Dwight D. Eisenhower in a press conference on 7 April 1954:
DOMINO THEORY

Answer 12

“row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly.”

Question 13

US President, Dwight D. Eisenhower in a press conference on 7 April 1954: explaining their fears of the spread of communism across Asia

Answer 13

“you have the specific value of a locality in its production of materials that the world needs.”

Question 14

Opinion piece by Peter Edwards (Menzies believed that the real problem with American policy wasn’t that the U.S. was trying to do too much, but rather that it was pulling back and avoiding involvement in global affairs)

Answer 14

“As Menzies saw it, the risk in American policy was not strategic overreach but isolationism.”

Question 15

PM Robert Menzies in a 1964 address to the NSW Liberal Council:

Answer 15

“We have alliances, we have arrangements, we have mutual advantages and obligations with some of the great countries of the world.”

Question 16

DIFFERING VIEWS -> A 1966 pamphlet by Labor politician Clyde Holding:

Answer 16

“Australia must end the wishful thinking that we can survive in Asia merely on the basis of alliances with Great Britain and America.”

Question 17

American historian Michael Robinson

Answer 17

“The ultimate objective was for the Soviet Union and the United States to leave, and let the Koreans figure it out.”

Question 18

Extract of a response by US President Harry S. Truman on the 27th of June 1950:

Answer 18

“The attack upon Korea makes it plain beyond all doubt that Communism has passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now use armed invasion and war.”

Question 19

PM Robert Menzies in his ‘House of Representatives Question Korea Speech’ on the 6th of July 1950:

Answer 19

“They are a reminder that the peace of the world is threatened and that, as a British and democratic nation, we must be not only willing, but also ready. “

Question 20

PM Robert Menzies in his ‘House of Representatives Question Korea Speech’ on the 6th of July 1950:

Answer 20

“We are for peace. We do not understand aggression, but we will resist it with all we have and are.”

Question 21

Leader of the Opposition, Ben Chifley, in the ‘House of Representatives Question Korea Speech’ on the 6th of July 1950:highlights that Australian political parties became unified in their approach to the Korean War, exhibited by their mutual agreement of the neccessity of Australia’s involvement

Answer 21

“I hope, as we all do, that the action being taken by the United Nations will be successful. It will be a demonstration to the world, and to those who might become aggressors, that there exists a body of 59 nations determined to maintain peace.”

Question 22

Minister of external affairs, Percy Spender, in the ‘House of Representatives Question Korea Speech’ on the 6th of July 1950:

Answer 22

“The situation is not simple.”

Question 23

Historian Richard Trembath
- KOREAN WAR

Answer 23

“jumped to beat Britain…to show that we were firm in the alliance with the United States”

Question 24

Historian Richard Trembath describes the ‘flood of volunteers’ who signed up at re-opened recruitment offices around Australia in 1951:

Answer 24

“an enthusiastic response.”

Question 25

‘Australian Women and War’, July 2008, Dept of Veterans Affairs website - KOREAN WAR

Answer 25

“It was a war that most Australians ignored, which made it especially difficult for wives and families of servicemen.”

Question 26

Historian Richard Trembath - KOREAN WAR

Answer 26

“The world response was a lot more united. The United Nations was the one calling for action, so it had the mark of being something right to do.”

Question 27

historians Peter Dennis and Jeffrey Grey

Answer 27

“was deeply conscious of the serious position that exists in Malaya due to Communist activities in the area’ and was anxious to cooperate as fully as possible with Britain”

Question 28

Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State

Answer 28

“Concerned about regional instability, the United States became increasingly committed to countering communist nationalists in Indochina.”

Question 29

National Archives of Australia website:

Answer 29

“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.”

Question 30

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet website - motives for AUS involvement in Vietnam War

Answer 30

“These initiatives were political and not military in motive. “

Question 31

SEATO - Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet website

Answer 31

showed that “members of SEATO were in fact prepared to make a practical contribution to defence against communism.”

Question 32

PM Robert Menzies 1965

Answer 32

“I subscribe to the Domino Theory.”

Question 33

Robert Menzies, Vietnam (speech), 29 April 1965, PM Transcripts, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet website:

Answer 33

“The takeover of South Vietnam would be a direct military threat to Australia and all the countries of South and South East Asia.”

Question 34

National Museum of Australia website - STATISTICS

Answer 34

“A fortnight after the announcement a Morgan Gallup Poll found that 64% of people believed that communism would overrun South- East Asia if left unchecked.”

Question 35

RESULT OF WHITLAM’S LETTER TO NIXON CRITICISING THE BOMBINGS - HISTORIAN JAMES CURRAN

Answer 35

“plunged the relationship into a virtual six-month freeze.”

Question 36

PM Harold Holt

Answer 36

“All the way with LBJ”

Question 37

Bombings in Vietnam

Answer 37

“it remains the largest aerial bombardment in human history”

Question 38

Professor Joan Beaumont

Answer 38

“The Anzac legend has sometimes been seen as the last hurrah of the white Australian male.”

Question 39

Historian Ken Inglis

Answer 39

“For families who lost sons overseas, these memorials became the focus of their grieving and commemoration”