Australian Living Peace Museum

Motivations for objecting to, and protesting against, the Vietnam War, and the National Service Act

Alva Geikie

Alva was born in 1936. 

Transcript:

Alva Geikie 

Yes. My father declared himself - was a socialist. He said he wasn't a communist, he was a socialist. And what else about him? Well, see he left - I didn't live with him after he was four – I was 14. So but before that, he definitely had told me that at some stage; I did see him when I was a bit older. But he had a big influence on my sort of development intellectually, I suppose. My mother was left of the Labor Party - well left of the Labor Party I might add…

Alexandra Pierce  

Do you remember being aware of Australia getting involved in the Korean War in the 1950s?

Alva Geikie  

A little bit. I remember - yeah, well, that was early 50s, wasn't it? I would have, yeah, I would have been still at school then and I sort of vaguely remember it, and I know that the Americans interfered with - in - or tried to interfere in it again, well they did I suppose. And, yeah, so that was, that was one of the reasons that I was against them getting - interfering again in Vietnam, because, you know, who are they? who are they to start interfering in other people's wars and stuff? You know.

Alexandra Pierce 

This is my next question: come the start of the Vietnam War, I guess really 1965 is when Australia gets involved there. How did you feel about Australia being involved in the Vietnam War?

Alva Geikie  

Well I guess I was like most people, it sort of built up didn't it, you sort of only heard little bits and little bits, and then gradually, you've got more information coming out, you know, like, who the contestants were and why they were fighting and why the - why the Vietcong were so popular in the south. And you know, it was just all gradually started to come out. And then we had conscription. And then we had the My Lai Massacre. And you know, it just seemed to get worse and worse as time went on.

Alexandra Pierce  

So does that mean that your opposition to the Vietnam War also developed over time?

Alva Geikie  

Probably because, you know, when you think about it, that Vietnam War in the end, at least by the end of the 60s, it was probably the most - what can I say - most information ever came out of a war, to that date. …

And then then the picture started coming out of kids running away from the bombs and - it was just awful. The way it built up, it was just worse and worse; reports came out each week.

Alexandra Pierce 

Yeah. And you mentioned that the introduction of conscription in Australia as well, what was your feeling about that for Australia?

Alva Geikie 

Oh, well, I thought it was pretty awful. Because, you know, there was - they used to have it on TV, if I remember. They used to show you the numbers coming up. It was like, I don't - I'm not sure if this is true or not. It seems to me it was a bit like you saw it like a lottery, like the lottery is done on the TV. Now whether that's true I can't, I don't really remember. But that was the feeling I got when they were doing it that they had all these little [balls], you know. And if your number came up, your number came up and off you went, you know, it was was pretty disgusting, really.

 

Andra Jackson

Andra Jackson was born in 1948. She attended Monash University and was a member of the Monash Labor Club. 

Note: DLP stands for Democratic Labor Party. They are a conservative political party who split from the Australian Labor Party in 1955. 

Louis Althusser was a French Marxist philosopher. 

Sir Henry Bolte was the Victorian premier at this time. 

 

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce  

So if you're growing up in a house with parents who initially at least were voting DLP, how do you come to joining the Monash Labor Club when you get to university?

Andra Jackson 

I think it was mainly through my own reading. I went through a period where I was very sick, and I had time off uni. And I did a lot of reading and read, you know, people like Althusser, Grant Speer [?]. All the theorists - Regis Dupree [?] - people like that. And it was just, you know, you're at an age where you've got an enquiring mind. And there were movements happening overseas that were in, that were getting news coverage. And so I was aware that change was afoot.

Alexandra Pierce  

Do you remember when you started being aware of the Vietnam War and objecting to Australia being there?

Andra Jackson  

Well, even when I first started at uni, I would have been fairly conservative. I would have been aware that there was a protest movement against the war at Monash and that there'd been protests against Henry Bolte - Sir Henry Bolte, as he called himself - attending the campus and being awarded an honorary doctorate, there'd been a demonstration with a cross; there'd been a lot of controversy about Monash, so I was aware of that. But I wasn't drawn into it. I was - my first couple of years, I was studying economics and politics. And I wasn't, I didn't really know other people that were involved in politics. But as I said, when I had that - was almost a term off by myself, and did a lot of reading. That's when I resolved to go and join the Labor Club when I was back at uni.

Alexandra Pierce  

Seems like quite a radical shift.

Andra Jackson 

Yes, but it was very much an individual decision, because of what was happening around me, globally in the news, but also just - just through my own reading.

Alexandra Pierce  

So as you're thinking and changing the way you regard the world, what were your - eventually what were your reasons for opposing the Vietnam War? What did you see as the problem there?

Andra Jackson  

Well, I thought the French had been in in there and I thought they were colonialist power. And I felt that America then stepped in, and carried on exactly the same relationship of oppression with the Vietnamese people. I felt that it was a struggle for independence - that America shouldn't have been there. And that we shouldn't have joined in. I couldn't see - at that stage, Vietnam was a country that we'd hardly ever heard of - maybe that was the first time I'd heard of it, in connection with the war. So I couldn't see why we would be there.

Alexandra Pierce  

And obviously, you developed an opposition to National Service as well, was that opposition to National Service in general or because it was associated with the Vietnam War?

Andra Jackson  

It would have been in general, I would have felt that no one should be forced to serve against their will. I would have had pacifist leanings, I certainly felt it was very unfair to select people to send overseas through what was virtually a lottery. And of course, as I mentioned, I had a brother that could have been in that situation. And many of the people that were at uni were people that also could have been in that situation, but they extended their studies. It was something they felt strongly about.

 

Anne Sgro

Anne was born in 1943. 

Note: Anne is referring to the Labor Club at Melbourne University. 

A “David and Goliath” battle refers to a situation where the two sides are mismatched: Goliath was reputed to be a giant, while David was slight. Their battle is in the Book of Samuel, of the Jewish Torah and Christian Old Testament. 

 

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce 

And was it through the Labor Club that you started being aware of the Vietnam War? Or would you have already been aware of Australia's involvement?

Anne Sgro 

Probably through - probably through the Labor Club and student activism, I'd say. Yes. And then I met Giovanni, my husband - would have been 1964? '63, '64. And he was involved in the ALP, but strongly involved in the peace movement. And there were things like marches for peace. When - what time of year was it, it was cold, where to sort of remember the dropping of the bombs - so it would have been August. There were marches from Frankston to Melbourne, taking all weekend, and so huge numbers of people would start off, sleep overnight someplace, billeted out, and then have mass meetings for peace. And that was involved around the Vietnam War and non involvement, as well as remembering past wars and how dreadful they were.

Alexandra Pierce 

And did it just seem to make sense to you to get involved in those sorts of activities? 

Anne Sgro 

Yeah, absolutely - was just - so I think, probably, although politics at home weren't discussed around the table openly, it was obviously something that I'd absorbed growing up and so it just made sense to keep on doing that.

Alexandra Pierce 

How did - what did you think of the Vietnam War? Like obviously you were opposed, but do you remember why or what your attitude was to it? 

Anne Sgro 

I think that the - feeling really angry that here was another country that was seeking to be independent in its own right and first having got rid of the French, then the Americans came in, and - to keep that sort of imperial, colonial control, and with Australia saying, Yep, we'll come in too, and it just was so wrong. It was almost like a David and Goliath kind of battle. And so immense, immense admiration for Vietnamese people and the Vietcong and their determination and their skill at defending their own country and what they believed in. So yeah, it was all of that.

Alexandra Pierce 

And were you also opposed to conscription in Australia? 

Anne Sgro  

Absolutely. 

Alexandra Pierce 

And was it for - because of conscription for Vietnam, or conscription in general do you think? 

Anne Sgro 

Conscription in general, I would have been probably quite opposed to the military, per se, seeing it as not something that was - particularly welcoming, understanding that probably countries needed to have a defence force but more in a defensive situation; that we should not go - be going and invading other countries and trying to smother people who just wanted to live the way they wanted in their own country under their own control.

Alexandra Pierce  

Would you have called yourself a pacifist?

Anne Sgro  

Probably not, in that while I didn't like the idea of actually going to war, I could see that there would have been circumstances in which you might need to think about how you reacted if your country was invaded, for example. So as in, opposed to - pacifism totally, probably not.

Alexandra Pierce  

When you were thinking about your activities in this period, do - it's maybe a silly question, but was it against Vietnam, against conscription, or are the two issues just so intertwined at the time... 

Anne Sgro  

Totally intertwined and the fact that you know, these were young - they were boys, really, 18 year olds, and just it's, it's the luck of where the marbles fall as to whether you are conscripted, and you've got no say, and off you go? Possibly to death? Appalling.

 

Carol Goldson

Carol was born in 1937. Both of her parents had been in the Australian Communist Party in the 1930s. 

Note: Form Three is the equivalent of Year 9. 

“Nasho” is “national service”.

 

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce  

By 1965, when Australia's getting involved in Vietnam, was that - like, right at the start, was that something that you were interested in, paying attention to, early on?

Carol Goldson 

Oh, yeah. Yes. I really sort of thought - by then I thought, you know, that was a really, really bad mistake for a country to be getting involved in that.

Alexandra Pierce  

Why was it a mistake for you? 

Carol Goldson 

Well, I guess because we had no business being - getting involved in it. And, and I didn't believe all - by then - the accepted view of it. I didn't, for instance, believe that - in the Domino Theory about if, you know if this country changes its allegiance that, you know, it's just another step towards us all being overrun by the yellow horde.

Alexandra Pierce  

At that stage were you kind of sympathetic to communist ideas or more just live and let live. 

Carol Goldson  

Oh yeah, no, by that time, I'd decided that I certainly I - I believed in socialism. I mean, I'd be, I'd be having tickets on myself if I called myself a Marxist, because I haven't done the study. But yeah, I broadly, I accept Marxist ideas. Yeah. I did from probably from my mid teens. And, you know, there was a lot of peer influence involved in that too, not just parental influence. And, and my parents, although they told me what they thought and told me about their ideas, there was never any pressure on me to accept their points of view. And in fact, you know, when I first started in form three at University High School, my father wrote the permission, which enabled me to go to the Catholic religious education instead of going with all the others, to the - oh there was a big Jewish religious education class, too. But yeah, there was a small group of Catholics who used to go to the library and talk with this priest during this education time. And, and I still continued going even after I had lost the faith, so to speak. And I sort of just went for fun then, just to - I think we gave that poor priest a terrible time too.

Alexandra 

Obviously at about that same time, Menzies is introducing conscription, and then that conscripts will serve overseas. Was that something that you were particularly aware of at the time as well?

Carol Goldson  

Oh, yeah. I thought that was pretty poor. You know, that they'd be - I mean, conscription had been, I forget exactly when conscription was introduced, because I had - I had a feeling that people had to go off and do their national service anyway, long before that, I just can't remember the year - 

Alexandra Pierce  

There was national service in the 1950s. 

Carol Goldson 

Yeah. 

Alexandra Pierce  

And then it was reintroduced, I think it's '64, with the birthday ballot and all those sorts of things. 

Carol Goldson  

Oh, yeah, well, that - that yeah, that was [unclear] - because I seem to remember that boys that I went to school with, got called up for nasho, you know, but there was no question of people being sent overseas at that stage. But yes, when it did come in, in earnest, yeah, I pretty disgusted at that.

Alexandra Pierce  

What about it did you dislike - what aspect? Or was it just everything about being forced to serve?

Carol Goldson 

Yeah, I think the fact that people had to do military service, I always took a dim view of because I, I thought of myself as being sort of a pacifist, although not very, because, you know, I wasn't totally against all armed conflict, necessarily, but it's something that I feel it shouldn't be automatic that people get called up for military service. And, I guess I still hold that view. I'm not a pacifist, unlike a lot of people who were against the Vietnam War. But I just feel it is taken not seriously enough, that people are all too prone to buy into the idea of you know, going off to war if your country is involved in one and that's always been my position, I think.

 

Caroline Hogg

Caroline was born in 1942. 

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce  

Were you initially opposed to Australia's involvement in Vietnam? Or did that develop as you read about what was happening?

Caroline Hogg  

No, I was almost from the start. And it certainly developed, certainly developed as I was reading about it. And as it was happening, and I was appalled by the notion of conscription, absolutely appalled. Well, it had begun with advisors being sent from the United States. And then those roles had rapidly changed and escalated; it was pretty obvious to me that any role we had was going to escalate as well. And I'd read just enough about the political history of Vietnam, in the '60s, to know that the issues were not as straightforward as they were being presented in the Australian press. And that probably includes The Australian - that is, the internal political issues. We were not necessarily on the right side of things.

Alexandra Pierce  

Your opposition to conscription: was it because of the Vietnam War? Or was it a separate disapproval of that as an issue?

Caroline Hogg  

Well, look, I probably would have disapproved of it at any rate, but I don't know. And for anybody of my age, it is inextricably tied up with the Vietnam War. You can't think of one thing without the other. I suppose if I'd been around in the First World War, I'd have been against conscription too, but I can't - I can't know that. I can't know that. I just know, I was horrified that conscription - and particularly in such a way pulling numbers out of a hat, you know - I mean, it was somehow so disrespectful to the young men who were without a vote, being sent off to fight in a war that I certainly didn't believe in, and they wouldn't have known what it was about.

 

Ceci Cairns

Ceci was born in 1944. 

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce

Were you particularly concerned with the National Service Act, or with Australia being involved in Vietnam?

Ceci Cairns

Well, I was – I came from a family – my father was a conscientious objector in the Second World War. And my family were Labor Party supporters. My father probably would have been a Communist, except he had differences with the way the Communists were behaving in Europe, and he never joined the Communist Party. 

But he was – he basically believed in, sort of, socialism, and in peace, and he was totally anti-war, obviously. And he was an official conscientious objector. Which meant you were officially in the army. Bizarrely, he has an army record. But they went off somewhere or other, to a camp, I think it was, and they trained to be nurses. That’s what he did in the Second World War. 

And so I come from that sort of background, which I’m still dedicated to, that idea of freedom and peace, and anti-war. I mean, I’m anti the whole idea of armies anyway, I think they should be – I mean, I think the way they’re trained, which is to kill – basically to kill people, they have to be trained to – they have to be brainwashed into thinking the people they kill aren’t actually human beings like them. And so they become monsters without even realising. So perfectly normal people can become terrible people. As we keep finding out about army generals and things, who go wrong. 

And so that’s my position. I very deeply feel all that. So when – I remember when I was at school, and I was about seventeen years old, reading then about – in the early days of Vietnam, when America actually was very influential in the politics of Vietnam, and put – I can’t remember the history of all that … So I was interested from an early age in Vietnam, anyway. To do with being at school, I suppose, and what was interesting in that era was, there was a great deal of information out there about what was going on in the world. I think, despite all our media, and despite our flash, flash, flash of information, we actually – there was a deeper understanding of the politics, if you bothered to read it, at that time. 

And, of course, over the period, sort of, ten years after that, the papers were full of terrible photographs which illustrated what was happening. And I think everyone who became anti that war learnt a lot from those photographs, which I’m sure everyone says. 

So that’s my kind of position. I wasn’t particularly – I mean, I had feminist sensibilities, but I didn’t come at it because I was a feminist. I came at it because I wanted justice for everyone, and justice for the Vietnamese. I wanted justice for the young men who were coerced into being in the army. The cruelty for those young men, putting them in a situation that they had no idea what they were going into, just seemed to me so unjust.

 

Deborah Towns

Deborah was born in 1949. She attended La Trobe University. 

Note: ASIO is the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation

 

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce 

So do you remember what the objection was to - well, for your mum was the objection to the Vietnam War, or to the conscription issue?

Deborah Towns  

Oh, I think it would have been a conscription issue. That's how I feel looking back on it. I, I can't remember my parents talking about the war at that time, in the, in the '60s, when I was still living at home in Geelong, I can't remember them talking about that. But I can remember, you know, the "all the way with LBJ" and watching that behavior, you know, on the TV and everything. I can't remember my parents commenting on that, but I just think all of that was a bit of a shock. And down in Geelong, you know, there wasn't a lot of - didn't seem to be a lot happening down there. You know, compared to what I found when I moved up to Melbourne and went to university in 1970. But yes, I would have said I thought it was saving her son, really, she would have been against conscription. Funnily enough, if I can tell you this, but she sort of got waylaid into various things. And she did tell me once that there's a small ASIO file on her so she sounds... And the reason is, is because she had a boyfriend, she went to RMIT and she had a boyfriend. And he was involved with the Communist Party, which was, you know, much more common back in the '40s. And he got her to hand out Communist Party pamphlets on the you know, the corner of Burke Street and whatever, near RMIT. And she ended up getting a little ASIO file. So but the thing was, as I said she was interested in all of these things, but not - not an activist really in any way other than joining. Then she joined as I said Women's Electoral Lobby later, but earlier than that, she'd been involved with the Save Our Sons movement.

Alexandra Pierce  

For you, Deborah, were you initially compelled by the conscription issue as well, obviously knowing men who might be called up, or was there also an objection to Australia being in Vietnam?

Deborah Towns  

I think really early on, I didn't really think a lot about being involved in Vietnam. I was - it would have been, yes, knowing people and wondering, I suppose, and not really realising that the government had this power that it could conscript people. It wasn't until I learned more about Australian history and understood about, you know, how conscription referendums have been lost in the past, and so on. I learned all of that later. But I just think it was knowing young people who were my age being conscripted, and being horrified that this was happening. And I don't think anybody I knew personally was killed, but I know that some did go and fight over there. Well, in the '60s, if we're still talking about the '60s I, I understood about, a bit about colonialism and so on, because I've got a half Dutch background, and my family used to live in what was called the Dutch East Indies. So I would be against colonialism - that would be in there, I'd be embarrassed back then about that sort of thing. So there must have been an inkling there of, of what was happening, but I can't remember joining in - didn't, definitely didn't join anything. I just can't remember having conversations about it in the '60s. I just can't remember. Was it - 1970, before I sort of, you know, put it all together, shall we say, I think. 

 

Diana Crunden

Diana was born in 1948. She attended Melbourne University. 

Transcript:

Alex Pierce

Early on, do you feel like you were more opposed to the war or conscription? Or did they really – were they really one and the same issue for you? Was it like, not really a relevant question?

Diana Crunden

No, it’s a relevant question. Both, I would say. Yeah. Both. 

Alex Pierce

In terms of the war itself like, what were your objections? 

Diana Crunden 

It wasn’t something that America should be involved in, and Australia shouldn’t be involved in. And it was typical of Australia that it went in league with the States. It was just appalling. And, you know, all the things about, if the referendum had been – not the referendum, the – you know, the United Nations had said, “This – the demilitarised zone, and when that’s – we’ll have elections, and then that will be the solution to it.” And, of course, America decided they didn’t want to do that, so they intervened. So those were all appalling. I mean, I must have developed this perspective quite quickly, but I did have it. 

Alex Pierce

And conscription? 

Diana Crunden

Yes, yeah. Because so many of my friends were involved. 

Alex Pierce

Would you have described yourself as a pacifist? Or was it more about the forcing people who didn’t want to do it? 

Diana Crunden 

No, not really. Because that just seemed to be – it was an unjust war. And that should be sufficient grounds to allow people to get conscientious objection. But, of course, it wasn’t. You had to be a pacifist. But no, I wasn’t a pacifist. 

 

Faye Findlay

Faye was born in 1950.

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce  

What led you then to be opposed to Australia being in Vietnam?

Faye Findlay  

Well, I was brought up as a Christian, you know, I was baptised. And, you know, in my early teens, I was, I chose to be confirmed. So, my values were, you don't hurt people. Or you try not to hurt people? Yes. So that's probably how it initiated.

Alexandra Pierce  

Yeah. Would you have said you were opposed to all war? Or was there something specific about the Vietnam War?

Faye Findlay  

No, I think I'd be a pacifist anyway. Though of course, when, when I was at age that if I had been a boy, I could have gone into the ballot. You know, I was conscious of the fact that you know, I'd have to - well, you know, I mean I know I wasn't a boy, but steel myself choose to, to say that I was a pacifist that, you know, no, I don't want to be subscripted [sic]. You know, and I would be prepared to go to jail if that was the consequence type of thing.

Alexandra Pierce  

So you were obviously opposed to conscription at the time as well.

Faye Findlay  

Yeah. Yeah. Particularly when it crystallised - and, and now we're going to send them to Vietnam.

Alexandra Pierce  

Was there anything specific about Australia in Vietnam that troubled you?

Faye Findlay  

Oh, I must admit, I recoiled from the phrase all the way with LBJ.

Alexandra Pierce  

Because of the implications about following America?

Faye Findlay  

Yeah, yeah. So I kind of, you know, if we were going to do anything, I would have preferred us to think about it ourselves, you know, come to the decision ourselves as Australians and not just, you know, fall in line with - even if it was a powerful ally.

 

Fran Newell

Fran was born in 1948. 

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce 

Did you come from a political family? Were you talking about Vietnam at home?

Fran Newell 

My parents were World War Two conscientious objectors. And their frame of reference was a pacifist frame of reference. And so yes, that had a big influence on me. Both their approach to - how they approached social change, and also their interest in international issues. Yeah.

Alexandra Pierce 

At the time, would you have said that you were a pacifist as well?

Fran Newell 

Yes. So in 1967, at Melbourne University, I established or set up the Melbourne University Pacifist Society. Yeah.

Alexandra Pierce 

And was that a - was it a political motivation, a religious motivation? Like what was the impetus behind the pacifism?

Fran Newell 

I guess you'd say that... there were both aspects to it. Like it was a, an ethical stance about respecting human life and not taking human life. But it was also a political stand in the sense of understanding or believing that non violence was an effective way to organise, and also an effective way to try and ensure that the outcome of one's activities wasn't to spin into violence, but to contribute to social change in a non violent way.

Alexandra Pierce

When it came to thinking about the Vietnam War, were there specific reasons that you were opposed to Australia's involvement there? Or was it more just all war is bad, and this is just another example of it.

Fran Newell 

Again, I'd say that there was both that generic view, but also, I'd be - as, so, through the Pacifist Society at Melbourne University, I organised for a speaker in 1967, to talk about his experiences in Vietnam, with the American Friends Service Council, so that was the American Quaker aid organisation. And he made very clear the massive civilian cost of the war in Vietnam. And so my concern about Vietnam was also very specific that the cost to civilians in Vietnam was just horrific.

Alexandra Pierce

I guess it's obvious then that opposition to conscription flows out of opposition to war, in general - was the National Service Act something that you were particularly aware of in the 60s?

Fran Newell

Yes, so my thinking was, that this was a war that Australia should not be participating in, that the Americans shouldn't be participating in. That it was not - totally unjustified. And that conscription, or the National Service Act, was the mechanism by which Australia prosecuted the war. So conscription was a means to the Australian government being able to have the troops to send to Vietnam so stopping conscription was a way of ending Australia's involvement in the war.

 

Jan Muller

Jan was born in 1949.

Note: ‘pinko’ was a term used to refer to someone who was regarded as sympathetic to Communism. 

Transcript:

Jan Muller

First of all, I was a good little Christian girl. And from a middle class, conservative family, and I remember finding in the shed one of the Uniting Church's early booklets about the effects of napalm and, and so forth, on children and in the villages of Vietnam. And I was pretty horrified. And so I think that was my first – I mean, we did, we did talk about the Vietnam War in school, but it didn't mean anything in school. 

So I suppose I was about sixteen or seventeen when I saw this, these graphic – graphic photos of, of injuries, and I was pretty incensed about that. So, moving on, that would have been in the mid '60s. 

And when I was at Teachers College in 1968, '69, I wasn't – I was pretty politically naive. But I do remember people talking about going to the demonstrations against the war. And I – can't remember the first one I went to. But it was mainly – my fiancé, I think, was quite politically active in '68, late '68, early '69. And I think I went to my first demo with him. And it was a very violent demonstration. Not violent from our side, by the way. But I was so naive, I didn't think that the police would actually hit women. So I had a big wake up then.  

Alex Pierce

It seems like your initial problem with what was happening was the way that people in Vietnam were being treated. 

Jan Muller

Yep. 

Alex Pierce

And then did you come to oppose conscription kind of because of Vietnam, or conscription in general? Do you remember?

Jan Muller

Yeah, I do. I remember clearly. I do remember, one of the neighbours, who my father called a pinko, driving up the street with a "no conscripts for Vietnam" sticker on the back of her car. And I didn't know what the word "conscripts" meant. And I didn't – I knew that Vietnam existed. I knew about Vietnam because I was a stamp collector, so I knew what Vietnam was. But I didn't know what the word "conscripts" – but I do remember seeing that car every day as the neighbour drove home, and wondered what "conscripts" meant. That's, that's in the '60s, early '60s. 

So by the time I got to be aware of conscription, I was already politically active. And, yes, I had a neighbour who was conscripted. And I got involved in the anti-conscription movement, and had friends in the Draft Resisters Union. 

 

Jane Stewart

Jane was born in 1950. 

Note: the NLF were the National Liberation Front (whom Australians were fighting in Vietnam). 

The “huge march” Jane refers to is the May 1970 moratorium. 

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce  

Did you get interested or concerned about the Vietnam War when you got to university? Or was it something you'd already been thinking about?

Jane Stewart 

I was aware of it before then, just from the newspaper, but also, again, my boyfriend at the time, must have known - I don't, I said the Counihans but it may not have been, it might have been another family - but there were a left family that was associated with Camberwell High, which is where he was at school. And he asked me if I was interested to go and I felt like I didn't know much about it. And I thought it would be a good idea. It was actually a support the NLF meeting and I wasn't quite sure about that. But because I just didn't know enough. So then I just tried to read more about it and find out but that was a couple of years before uni - that was in 1966. So yeah, I did know a little bit about it when I went to uni, or - I did, I didn't - but what I was really aware of was the fact that boys who were being called up didn't have the vote. And you know, the environment I grew up in, I was sort of reflecting on this after I'd spoken to you, it wasn't a political household, I would say, at all. But it was very, there was a very strong sense of right and wrong and morality that, you know, I think my parents and my aunts who I also lived with my grandfather, had a really strong moral compass. And it was just that sense that no, this isn't right. I didn't have - I wasn't involved from a political, it really wasn't a political response. It was a moral reponse at that time. The politics came later.

Alexandra Pierce  

So initially, were you more objecting to the conscription issue, rather than Australia being in Vietnam?

Jane Stewart  

I never thought they should be in Vietnam. But, but the things that one could actually get involved in initially, I think - I might be wrong here - were conscription. But no, it was, it was against the Vietnam War. I mean, there were so many marches against the Vietnam War, some were just local ones around La Trobe. Some were part of, you know, massive, massive demonstrations. And it was, it was interesting, because it was certainly - I was the oldest. So I had two younger brothers still at school. We talked about it all the time at dinner, the whole family. So the whole family came to the - and I don't think that was that uncommon - to that huge march, the one that Jim Cairns addressed, and that was when I started to get more aware of the politics. And you know, the fact that one party was for it, and one was against - because you didn't vote till 21, you were 21 back then, you weren't that engaged with politics at school, except sort of the, you know, the sort of subject that you might be studying or something.

Alexandra Pierce  

Do you remember why you objected to Australia being in Vietnam? Was there something specific that you didn't, you know, approve of?

Jane Stewart  

Well, generally, my dad was in the war. All the dads I knew had fought in the war against the Japanese. And that seemed okay, because they were threatening Australia. I couldn't understand - I thought it was wrong that we went to another country and got involved. I was also pretty anti America. I remember I wanted to go around and blow up there was one McDonald's in Victoria Parade and so I had this great thing I was going to ride there on my bike - don't know where I was gonna get a bomb from - and bomb it. Which was really stupid. But you know, that was, I had a very, there was a very strong anti American sort of - a sort of resentment that they thought they could tell you what to do and tell your politicians what to do. So it was an anti American thing. But it was primarily just like, why on earth would we be involved? And you know, the domino theory, I thought, well, that's a neat image. But it doesn't actually make any sense to me. You know, I - so it was just thinking about those sorts of issues. And I guess discussing it with peers, so - rather than with older people, because that was - my, to me, my memories, it was my age group that was really particularly engaged with the question, but maybe that was just because they were the people I talked to, I don't know. It just seemed right. I mean, war - because through the '50s, we were very aware of the fact that there was now you know, a hydrogen bomb, an atomic bomb. I can't even remember not knowing that, and being very... so we were sort of almost the first generation to grow up with this sense of obliteration. So nobody wanted war, and particularly, why would you get engaged in a war that, that had nothing to do - you had nothing to do with those people? It was wrong to be in the country, sort of, in a sense, uninvited. I don't know whether I thought the South Vietnamese had invited us then, but I don't think I do. I think I just thought it was illogical, and immoral. 

 

Janet McCalman

Janet was born in 1948. 

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce  

Did you come from a political family? Were you talking about politics?

Janet McCalman  

All the time, very political family. So that's why I was in a different sort of environment from most of the people I went to school with. I mean, there were people from similar families. But we were a minority - [unclear], you know, we were in Australia anyway. 

Alexandra Pierce  

And were you talking about the Vietnam War and national service at home? 

Janet McCalman  

Yes, yes, sure. You know, and so, my parents were very left wing. And so I grew up in that environment. They talked politics all the time. And I think that's what turned me into an historian because everything that was talked about was talked about in a larger sort of conceptual and theoretical framework. So it wasn't just politics, about personalities, you know I was exposed to that from a very early age.

Alexandra Pierce 

What sorts of things were your parents discussing or was being discussed around the dinner table about the Vietnam War?

Janet McCalman  

I mean, I just think they saw it as the hot part of the Cold War, of the West and capitalism trying to suppress national liberation and a communist movement. So you know, yes, their view was a minority one. …

Alexandra Pierce  

Obviously, you seem to have followed along with and accepted the ideas that you were getting from your parents and from school. As you kind of developed your own perspectives, how did you feel about the Vietnam War? What were your reasons for opposing Australia's involvement?

Janet McCalman  

Well, I just saw - I wanted to know Vietnamese to win. I wanted the Vietcong to win. So this was to me a war of liberation, I saw the South Vietnamese as corrupt. And I think since that I actually know a little bit about it now, which I didn't, you know, the legacy the French left was so appalling, and the fact that America would not reach out to Ho Chi Minh, that he was more of a nationalist than he was a communist, and so yet again, America screwed it up, and it could have had - saved a lot of lives if they could have swallowed their capitalist pride and helped Vietnam unite. But they went back to this very, very sleazy group. And the French were very, very bad colonisers, as were the British. And I did have some awareness of that because my mother was French herself and came from Algeria. So the family was aware of what colonising does. I mean, I think - I still thought the British were better than anyone else. But I now know they weren't. You know, and I think that, at that time, I felt very simplistically just simply wanted the North Vietnamese to win, which made me a traitor, I suppose. But you actually didn't say things like that.

Alexandra Pierce  

Did National Service get much discussed - kind of was it, was that entwined with talking about the war, or were they separate issues?

Janet McCalman  

Well, I think that was the crunch point for most people because our - my generation of baby boomers, it was girls, I was an only child, but it was their brothers who were likely to be conscripted. And so when I did my book Journeyings, where I follow generation through, the generation I followed they became - they were parents of the baby boomers. And so the shock came when their sons refused to go in the draft. And suddenly, people who had been very obedient and conventional found that they were being torn and that the - some people in the church were saying, and this is the Methodist world, that the war - there shouldn't be conscription. I mean, how much people remembered of the First World War conscription plebiscites I doubt very much, but it was a painful transition. But they tended to support their sons because they loved them. So that's what was happening to the boys yet at the boys' school like Wesley, a boy who came also from a left wing family - a Jewish family - was beaten up at school because he was anti war. But he was also gay, so that's probably the other reason. So it was much harder in the schools and the boys' schools were very conventionally pro war because they had cadets and all that military culture. 

 

Jean McLean

Jean was born in 1934. 

Transcript:

Alex Pierce

What were your initial problems with the National Service scheme as suggested?

Jean McLean

Well, first of all, Menzies announced in December 1964 that he was going to bring in conscription for overseas service. Now, I had always – and still am – very interested in our region. So I knew a lot about Vietnam, I knew the history of Vietnam, and I knew about the secret war that America was carrying out in Laos and creeping into Vietnam and Cambodia. 

And Australia had been – Australia asked, actually, whether they could go and kill some people in Vietnam. And they finally invited us – not straight away – the Americans. And then the government said it was through ANZUS. And it wasn’t through ANZUS. Again, if one understood the history of all this –

So I knew that this was why he introduced conscription, to join the war in Vietnam. And so I obviously opposed it. …

Alex Pierce

Had you been against Australia’s involvement in Vietnam from the start? 

Jean McLean

Absolutely. 

Alex Pierce

As I think you suggested. 

Jean McLean 

Yes, yes. Yes, but as I say, I was aware of – that the Vietnamese supported the Allies during the war against the Japanese, whereas the French – because they were part of the Vichy French, who were the colonists there, they supported the Japanese. So Ho Chi Minh was a hero.

Alex Pierce

Had American support against the Japanese in that period. 

Jean McLean

Yeah. 

Alex Pierce

Yeah. 

Jean McLean

All that. And then, promised that they’d help them have independence, and paid the French to go back in. So it was pretty perfidious. 

Alex Pierce

And to go back before that, had you had much awareness of Australia’s involvement in Korea ten years beforehand? Like, how had you felt about Australia’s involvement there?

Jean McLean 

I absolutely opposed it. In fact, I’ve got a marvellous book about the Korean War. It’s written by a judge in New South Wales. And it’s brilliant. Because it actually covers that whole era, and how the war started. But yes, I was against the war. I was brought up by parents who were – well, they weren’t pacifists, but they were political, and they thought wars were wrong. And so I was aware. My mother was a Russian Jew, and was very aware of the whole Second World War, and, you know, both sides of how the Jews weren’t allowed into Australia as refugees, nor in the United States. The boats were turned back. And so, yes, I was very aware. And the Korean War, we were there for three years, or something, was just another absolutely ridiculous – we didn’t have conscription for that war. But we also didn’t talk about it. And a lot of Australians were killed for absolutely no reason, except that MacArthur wanted it. 

 

Jenny Beacham

Jenny was born in 1938. 

Note: Eddie is Jenny’s husband. 

LBJ is the American president Lyndon B. Johnson. He visited Australia in 1966. 

Napalm: 

Agent Orange: a chemical defoliant designed to destroy foliage in the Vietnamese jungle. It has since been alleged (?shown) to have detrimental health impacts on people who ingested(?) it.

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce  

Before you came back to Melbourne, were you already thinking that you opposed the war in Vietnam and conscription?

Jenny Beacham  

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. The conscription issue, actually was... I remember, one of the kids was born in...  was born in 1967. And talking to the doctor about it, and he said, this was in a small country town nearby, Charlton, except he was opposed to the war. He said he had to examine the conscripts. And his first question he asked was, do you want to go? And, and so if they said they didn't want to go, he found a reason for them not to go. But he was still very uncomfortable about being put in that role. Conscription was a, was a terrible, you know, instituting it in the way they did was just, we were always offended by that. And knew people who were conscripted too; in fact, my cousin who was conscripted, he went; he was - he lost his legs. He's been in a wheelchair all his life. So that - it did have immediate impact. I didn't know him that well he lived in another country town. But anyway, it was all through the '60s, you were certainly offended by conscription. Eddie's brother was conscripted. He didn't go to Vietnam, but he was conscripted, so... and teachers were high, you know, you knew schools or country schools where they were hiding conscripted members. So conscription was... and the Vietnam War was totally offensive. Really.

Alexandra Pierce  

Why was it offensive for you?

Jenny Beacham  

Well just it was a country, we had no right to be interfering in. It was, we knew nothing about the politics behind it. We were just told to follow America, all the way with LBJ. I'm not sure when the Holt visit was, when LBJ came, but I certainly remember the demonstrations around that. But there was a general air of rebellion. And I think that's - the interesting thing about that is it was a group of people who were getting educated at the state's expense, because they needed us for the service, the baby boom, that's the big advantage of being born in 1938. Because you came into a post-war, into a world where they needed more skills than they had. And they paid for us to go to university. I can remember being taken aside by the teacher when they announced studentships, and he said, you can get one of those. And that was in a Mallee town - I grew up in, well, in the Mallee. And so that was, no one in the family had any aspirations to university. My mother did; she had been a schoolteacher but no expectation that was within our reach. I think it did go back to that group of people - class of people - who actually were freed up and had no, no previous class constraints in a way. So you're thrown in to the city, into city life, Melbourne University when I just turned 17, find my way around Calton. That was very exciting. '56 - the year of the Olympics and Sputnik going over the sky at night, all those things were happening. We were ripe for a new way of looking at things or a free way of looking at things. So by the end of the 60s, we were clear about which side we were on politically. And the sort of - but more particularly the sort of Australia we wanted, I think. Which was coming out of the dead hand of Menzies was... Menzies and the churches and the institutions, I suppose, in a way. So we're, we're ripe for freedom. 

Alexandra Pierce  

How do you feel like that tied into those ideas of not just going along with America, you know, that whole, all the way with LBJ seems to have been such a controversial and contentious idea.

Jenny Beacham  

It's really interesting, isn't it? Because Australia and the US had similar, some similar history, like the gold rushes and the independence and freedom. So there had been some sympathy to the US position. But this was just - going all the way with LBJ was just like swapping one sort of royalty for an another sort of royalty, in a way. So that was... it was ambivalence towards America but certainly all the way with LBJ was just swapping another king for a new one. 

Alexandra Pierce  

Do you remember whether the images coming back from Vietnam about the war had much of an impact on how you felt about the war? 

Jenny Beacham  

Well it's hard to remember now, separating it out, but the napalm and the Agent Orange, and that image of the girl, the naked girl, was incredibly dramatic. And everyone did have access to that, but that didn't seem to stop them plowing on with it. 

 

Jill Reichstein

Jill was born in 1949. 

Note: matriculation is the equivalent of Year 12. 

Labor won the federal election in 1972. 

Transcript:

Jill Reichstein  

My journey started when I was doing my matriculation year at a private girls' school in Melbourne. And both my parents were fairly conservative. And I had a history teacher who - or politics, political science teacher - who was wonderful. And she discussed the Vietnam War. So we're talking 1967. And I was outraged. And I really started to get involved and have a look at it. I mean, I knew we were involved in it, but I didn't sort of take a lot of interest

Alexandra Pierce  

What was it that outraged you? 

Jill Reichstein  

I didn't think we should be sending our soldiers to fight in a war that had nothing really to do with us. And I think I was slightly anti American. And I didn't like the idea of following what Americans did. And I just didn't understand the rationale behind it. I mean, it was a war in a country between the North and the South. Obviously, America was spooked. But I didn't understand the rationale behind it. So I started writing essays at school against the war. And then the following year, I went and lived in the UK for 12 months. You know, my parents wouldn't let me travel. But they let me go to a liberal arts college, which sort of - wasn't a finishing school, because we actually, we actually did politics and history. And there were an amazing range of women - there was 100 women living out in the country near Oxford - so I ended up spending a lot of time with people in Oxford, who were also very politically opposed to the war. And so I'd go down to the demonstrations in London, that's when I first started to participate in the anti-war demos, concerts, etc. And then when I came back to Melbourne and went to Monash University - hotbed of, you know, political unrest - a lot of my friends, and in fact, my future boyfriend, he was a draft dodger. So there were all all of those issues for me that I faced. So I ended up going to quite a lot of the demonstrations here in Melbourne' quite memorable to think that our streets were just 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of people who were opposed to it; providing safe havens for people who were avoiding it. And so that election night when Labor won was just such a celebration.

Alexandra Pierce  

Were you were opposed to conscription early on, or did that develop later?

Jill Reichstein  

No I felt it was challenging somebody's liberty to tell them they had to go and fight somebody else's war. And I probably didn't really understand the political agenda behind it, other than mimicking what America was doing, which I really disliked, and I thought to force someone to fight in something they didn't believe in was inappropriate. And I compared it to what had happened in the First and Second World War. Australians were committed to doing that. I think it's because they probably still saw saw themselves as British. But I certainly didn't see myself as American.

Alexandra Pierce  

Do you think you were opposed to conscription for - in general or because of Vietnam?

Jill Reichstein  

I think because of Vietnam. Having not lived through a war, where our country was threatened, I've never really been in a position where I was opposed to conscription, per se. But I thought conscription was inappropriate for Australia, for Vietnam.

 

Joan Coxsedge

Joan was born in 1931. 

Note: Agent Orange: a chemical defoliant designed to destroy foliage in the Vietnamese jungle. It has since been alleged (?shown) to have detrimental health impacts on people who ingested(?) it.

Korean War: 1950-53

U3A: University of the Third Age – “an international self-help movement, run by and for retirees.”

Medicos: medical workers 

The suggestion that the conscription system was manipulated as Joan suggests is contested.

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce  

Were you against Australia's involvement in Vietnam right from the start?

Joan Coxsedge  

Right from the start. And that was - I suppose back then we saw the nightly horror show on TV, we could see what was happening there; the journalists weren't embedded like they are today, which means that they're totally in the thrall of the army. And they can only write and say whatever is approved by them. And they were free to move around, and they did, and then reported the war, I think very honestly, which meant we could see what was happening to the Vietnamese people and what the Americans were doing. And then by definition, what we were doing, because we were attached at the hip, like we seem to always be unfortunately. So that's what got me going, I was so angry, because what I saw was a defenseless, poor country, being absolutely decimated in the most brutal, terrible ways. And I've never changed my mind since - in fact, the more you learn, the more evil you realise it is, when you realise what they did to the land, and they not only assaulted the people, but they assaulted the land itself. So I saw it is an assault on life - as fundamental as that; when you look at Agent Orange, the destruction of the soil, you know - and and having been there and seen what it did to the children, and sometimes say were third generation, fourth generation, it just made you very angry, and determined to do whatever you could do to try and stop the war.

Alexandra Pierce  

Would you have said that you were a pacifist? Against all war? 

Joan Coxsedge  

Not really. 

Alexandra Pierce  

But this one in particular.

Joan Coxsedge  

I'm anti war, put it that way. I'm probably - pacifist seems to me a fairly muted term. I would say I'm anti war and definitely anti war because it solves nothing. And all it does is bring misery and so there's - so that makes me more activist if you like. Pacifism, yes, you can be against war but do nothing. Whereas I believe you've got to do something.

Alexandra Pierce  

Be active. Do you remember whether you had the same sort of reaction against the Korean War?

Joan Coxsedge  

Now I wasn't as actively involved in - I didn't understand then; because I was just married with a young family, I was so damn immersed in all that. Looking back, of course, I've done a lot - done a lot of research. And I probably would have been, because it was like an extension of World War Two in many ways. And then World War Two was an extension of World War One - as people have said, you had one war and a gap in between. Very hard to do, because sometimes the environment can be horrible, like World War One, what happened to the people who were against the war was just so brutal. Whereas at least... although to start with the opposition to the Vietnam War, it was pretty nasty because people were very hostile, very hostile. That changed as the facts were coming through. And more people became upset. And this was a global movement, particularly with the United States; Britain, not so much because they weren't involved. So they really were out of a bit. So it - mainly America, Canada, and New Zealand and Australia. Predominantly. That's one side of the equation.

Alexandra Pierce  

What about in the conscription issue? What was that - was your objection to that an extension of your objection to being involved in Vietnam? Or was there something additional? 

Joan Coxsedge  

Oh additional; I thought the whole thing was grossly unfair, the way young men were picked out on a whim of a - or so it seemed to be, you know, on a capricious bloody marble turning up; a certain age. But then I was told yesterday, which was very interesting, that system itself was manipulated, because they wanted more medicos. And an inordinate number of young doctors were called up. So it wasn't quite straightforward. I only learned that yesterday from a doctor.

Alexandra Pierce  

So some - those medicos have done some research into that and looked at the statistics.

Joan Coxsedge  

Interesting, though, isn't it; and farmers because farmers were seen to have that multi skills, you see, and very practical people. And they were also - rather more than the average were called up. So it is interesting. Now, I have only learned about that like yesterday, because I belong to U3A, it was somebody in U3A - because we discuss all sorts of things; wouldn't you know, I'm in the politics and current affairs group. Consequently, you know, some of it came up, and I was very interested in that. Very interested.

Alexandra Pierce  

So you mentioned that you had - you were married and had a young family by - around this time, how did your family feel about your opposition to Vietnam? Would they have felt agreed?

Joan Coxsedge  

Oh yes, my husband did certainly, because my name is such an unusual name, it didn't help his career prospects. Definitely didn't help at all. You know, I appreciated that; it was hard. It's a hard decision. And some people don't realise that it doesn't just involve you, involves your family as well.

Alexandra Pierce  

What about your parents or siblings? 

Joan Coxsedge  

My mother was - I was quite surprised because she was fairly conservative, actually. And I think when I went to jail, my husband was too frightened to even tell her. And she took it quite quite well, which amazed him. So you know, you can never be sure, can you? But by then I think the mood was changing. They'd also picked up on the fact that it was a war we should never have been involved in.

 

Judith Buckrich

Judith was born in 1950. 

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce  

Did you grow up in a - in a political family? Were you talking about Vietnam at home?

Judith Buckrich 

Absolutely. My father was a communist. So - he had lived in the United States. So he hadn't been in the Communist Party here. But he was in the Communist Party in the United States. So I was absolutely plugged into the Vietnam War from the beginning.

Alexandra Pierce  

And - I mean, I guess it's an obvious question, and probably some obvious answers - but what sorts of things were you talking about? What were the objections to Vietnam War?

Judith Buckrich  

Well, I suppose just purely, you know, because my father was an old believer, we just thought that it was, you know, outrageous that the United States had got itself involved in a part of the world that was not their business, and they had no right to be there. And that they were there because, you know, and this often happened with the United States, that there was a legally elected government - that they were actually opposing something that had been legally voted for. And so that was it. But you know then the other thing, really, the thing that I, you know - other people probably have mentioned to you - is that, that was on the news every night. Every night, every single night. And so you couldn't, you know, I really don't understand the people who - just think, how come you weren't aware of it? And it just - well, people were, but it just took them a long time. A longer time. 

Alexandra Pierce  

And was the National Service Act also something that was being discussed at home?

Judith Buckrich 

No, it wasn't discussed in particular at home, though, of course, by the time I got to university, it was affecting boys that I knew. So it would have been, you know, so more toward 1968, 69, 70 that we were discussing it as I got to the age where the boys were the same age, and so they would be eligible for the draft. And so it was - yeah, I guess it was one of the things that we discussed. But also, you know, I was just so aware of it because I - you know, I had all these friends who, you know, they were going to be sent to Vietnam.

 

Kay Setches

Kay was born in 1944. 

Transcript:

Kay Setches  

You would talk to your parents about it, you know, because you were - I was married, and I was talking to them. And they didn't have ... they said, you know, after it took them a while for them to settle their mind about it. 

Alexandra Pierce  

They were happy enough to talk about it as an issue. It wasn't sort of taboo at home?

Kay Setches  

Now, we could talk about this issue at home. They didn't have a strong view about it one way or the other, but they hated the federal - they hated a non Labor government. They were working class Labor people.

Alexandra Pierce  

It's not because of them that you were against the war. What sort of... 

Kay Setches  

Oh, yeah, yes, yes, I should say to you you that my father was a builder's - sorry, a waterside worker, and a strong, strong, strong unionist. My mother was a worker in a blanket factory, you wouldn't remember it was called Lakonia. And, and so she was a weaver... a lot of stuff went into her lungs from the wool, but she was a factory worker. And so they had a very strong view about war. They hated it. That's why I just can't quite remember how they thought about the moratoriums. I don't know that they were that rapt about us being that many people in the street.

Alexandra Pierce

So they were against the Vietnam War or war in general?

Kay Setches  

War in general; war in general; they hated conscription.

Alexandra Pierce  

Why - Were they against conscription? Because they were against war? Or was there something extra? 

Kay Setches  

There was something extra, and that was the government pushing workers into war. They hated that. 

Alexandra Pierce  

And for you, did you see a difference between opposing the Vietnam War and opposing conscription? Or did they were they just issues that were entwined? 

Kay Setches  

No no, very intertwined, absolutely intertwined, very fearful. Because the...  if I had been a man, I would have been in a draw. And my husband was two years too old to be in the draw. And my ... member of our family was in the draw, more or less extended family. And we - the fear of waiting and waiting for the drawing of those numbers was, it was terrible for us waiting with the family. And when I called out the number and we passed the number, we - we just had a party.

Alexandra Pierce  

Do you remember what sorts of things about the Vietnam War itself you found objectionable? Was it Australia's involvement because of America? Or was it you know,  the media images of what was happening there?

Kay Setches  

Well, we knew that the American government was lying, lying and lying and lying. We'd been involved with them. They were in - we were in lockstep with that. We wanted an independent foreign policy in the Labor Party then, but we were fighting over what that might look like. I was opposed to it in almost any way you could think of. I was opposed to Australia being involved in a war that was in Vietnam. The Vietnam didn't have anything to do with us I felt; I didn't believe in the theory that they had, which was...  the Domino, Domino Effect. I felt it was bullshit. And you know, that all these countries were gonna turn red, and we've gotta - and they're coming - course that was the time of reds under the bed. And so I joined the Labor Party. We were going to the moratoriums before I joined the Labor Party, but I joined it when I was...  in 19... when the... 1972. So it was a very big a lot of people joined the Labor Party because of Whitlam a lot of people joined the Labor Party because of the Vietnam War.

 

Kelley Johnson

Kelley was born in 1947, and grew up in Shepparton with very conservative parents but a grandfather who was a communist. 

Note: Ormond College is a residential college attached to Melbourne University.

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce  03:15

How do you go from fairly conservative country town to, you know - how do you feel when you get to Melbourne University, and there's kind of those, starting to be much more kind of radical politics happening on campus?

Kelley Johnson  03:31

Yeah, well, it's interesting, you know, because for the first 12 months, I don't think I noticed it, I was incredibly homesick. It was the first time I'd ever been away from home. I'd never lived in a communal setting before. I found it really quite daunting. And there was this, you know, my parents were working class background, they were sort of - didn't have a huge amount of money. They were - it was a real push for them. I got a scholarship to go to university, so that paid my fees, but they paid for my college fees. But the issue for them was stuff like well, if you're in college, you get your three meals a day. So I got, I think I got something like 50 cents a week or something. So I didn't have money for clothes or going out or any - so it was literally, I would walk from the college to the university and back again, for lunch and for dinner. And that was about it really; I had sort of, was determined to work really hard. So I did. Everything political just passed me by pretty much. And then things sort of started to happen around the campus a bit. So there was sort of groups of students that I'd sort of sit on the fringe of and watch what was happening. But then it started to hit home because I made a couple of friends in college - well, more than a couple; three or four, I was a fairly withdrawn person at that point. But I made a friend whose brother was called up. And she was really upset. But my memory is a bit hazy about it. So my memory of it was that he was called up. And then we went, I went with her to have dinner with her parents. And they were very upset. And suddenly this war got a whole new picture to it. It was about people I knew, I started to get a sense that she wasn't the only one who was being affected. I started thinking about the guys who were living in Ormond, and going to uni, and they were sort of right in line for calling up too. And so there was this thing that it suddenly got a reality about it. I didn't understand the politics of it really.

…

Alexandra Pierce  

In my head, it makes sense that people would be - would object to the Vietnam War, and that objection to National Service would be somehow separate. Because I think in my head, I've seen them as being separate. But basically everyone I've spoken to said, no, they're basically the same issue for a lot of people. Clearly, that's the same for you that they object to the war and to National Service. And it's all just one big rage inducing issue.

Kelley Johnson  

Yeah, I think that's right. For me, I think the National Service came first. But then, I suspect partly because we started hearing more and more and more about what was happening, and also I was more alert to it so I looked for it. It became "we've got to stop this. This is terrible". And I do wonder a bit, you know, sort of thinking about it now, I mean, I think probably the people my age then had been raised by people who'd gone through the Second World War. So there was a sense of both, we don't want Australians to die, like our parents' brothers and sisters did. And we don't want our friends to go off to war. And yeah, it's quite interesting isn't it because I sort of think about that, and I think: First World War, Australian men volunteered because they wanted - they saw it as an exciting adventure. 

Alexandra Pierce  

And we rejected conscription twice. 

Kelley Johnson  

And then Second World War. Well, there was a threat for us. So it was different again, but with this one, there really was, I think, for the first time that sort of sense of "No, this isn't on, there's no justification for it". This is a - you know, in a way, it was yet another colonial commitment on our part, you know; we'll go and save the Brits. And now we're gonna go and save the Americans, or the - but we're also going to stop the push down again to... 

 

Kerry Dwyer

Kerry was born in 1943. 

Note: John Zarb was a conscientious objector who was jailed for refusing to comply with the National Service Act

Liz Aird

Liz was born in 1946. 

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce  

Did you grow up in a household that talked about politics? Was that important at home?

Liz Aird  

My parents talked about nothing else. My - I learned a lot at the dinner table. I mean, I was very privileged, because I had parents who were fully involved in what they thought was good for normal people. And they were both very intelligent. And they were both engaged. And I learned so much. My mother was a very active Communist Party member. My father was a journalist. And when he was working for the Herald - he was the film critic - and he and two other people were lined up and sacked for being communists. So I was very involved, but I had a certain viewpoint, because of my parents. Like, I remember being driven around Melbourne - I remember going up Spring Street and saying, is that person, is that person on that statue, is that a good person or a bad person? Now most people would just accept that they were all good people. "Oh, no, he was a bad person". And then what about him? "Oh he was okay." So I had this outsider's view of our political system.

Alexandra Pierce 

So then was Australia's involvement in Vietnam, something that you were talking about? 

Liz Aird

Oh that was big. Yeah, that was - actually by then my father was dead. But you know, when you're a young person, you want that feeling of involvement. And it was actually a vehicle for all of us to be involved in something. And if it hadn't been that it might have been something else, you know. It was it - I went to Monash, you know, it was, it was the driving thing. You know, you couldn't wait to get Lot's Wife to read, which students have done what, and what's going on, and who thinks what and ... so it was a wonderful, rich time really.

Alexandra Pierce  

Did you consider or did you join the Communist Party? Was that something you were interested in?

Liz Aird  

I considered it. But it had had such a bad effect on my family that I actually thought it was - it was almost like it was too big a step to take. I ended up joining the ALP, which is the short answer. And somebody said to me, well, it is the party of the people. So they were trying to make me feel better about it. But actually, since then, I've met people who had been members of the Communist Party. And I am a bit sorry that I didn't join it because I would have belonged. It would have been where I belonged. I wouldn't have been the outsider.

Alexandra Pierce 

So for you, early on, how would you have expressed your objection to the Vietnam War? What did you primarily see as being the problem with Australia being involved?

Liz Aird 

Well, because the French had got out, and then the Americans had come in, and these poor people were being bombed to hell. It just seemed so obvious to me that the Vietcong were - were the people, you know, like, they were farmers during the day and fighting at night time, and North Vietnam - well, it was Uncle Ho, you know, he was, he was their man. So you just had this incursion of foreigners making their lives hell. And I used to say, Oh, we have no right to - I used to say all sorts of things. But that's actually what I felt.

Alexandra Pierce  

And obviously, from a kind of an Australian perspective, the issue of conscription always comes out. Were the two issues for you just really entwined?

Liz Aird  

Yeah. I'm just trying to remember what happened. My younger brother was - I'm not sure if he registered as a draft resistance person or not. But I know that my mother was frantic about him possibly going into the army

 

Lyn Hovey 

Lyn was born in 1950; her father was a member of the Australian Communist Party.

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce 

Did you follow in your father's politics? Were you interested in or involved in the Communist Party?

Lyn Hovey

Yeah, yeah, I was a member of the Communist Party. And from, after a July the 4th demonstration and being bashed over the head, and I thought, you know, I'd gone one off, just me, and I thought, I've got to join with other people. And because my father was in the Communist Party I, that was the logical place to look. And then I became an organiser for the Party and worked as the first sort of young woman organiser during the Women's Liberation Movement years.

Alexandra Pierce

So was Australia's involvement in Vietnam discussed at home, in that case?

Lyn Hovey 

Yeah, everything, all of that - everything political was happening. But my father died when I was 15. So you know, there were five of us. And then my grandmother died. And then my brother went to university and then I went to teacher training. And so you know, from a family of five in one year when my mother was there by herself. We didn't particularly - the Vietnam war wasn't - because my father had died when I was 15, it was 1965, I don't remember a lot of discussion about the Vietnam War. More, you know, what Russia was doing, what China was doing, all that stuff when my father was alive.

Alexandra Pierce

So how did you come to have a position that led you to protest? What was it about Australia's involvement in Vietnam that you disagreed with?

Lyn Hovey 

It was not our place to go and tell another country what government they should have. If a socialist or a communist government worked for them and you could see, you know, that there were huge advances, that - why should Australia follow America and try and you know, the - in those years there was this idea about the domino theory. The communist countries would fall all the way down to Australia. It just seemed like a ludicrous theory that had no relevance in reality. And we had, you know, people came out from Vietnam, visited and talked about their country. And, and it was, you know, it just seemed amazing that we were there fighting for - in somebody else's war.

Alexandra Pierce 

And were you also opposed to Australia's use of conscription for fighting?

Lyn Hovey 

Yes. So my husband of a whole two years, he was called up. He managed to get out of it. And I hesitate to say how he got out of it, because now I'm not really sure, you know, in hindsight I'm not really sure how he got out of it. I think his father pulled strings, because his father was a bank manager, and, but it - it rallied all of our friends, you know, like, the idea of him having to go and fight in a foreign country because Australia was following America just seemed to be a bizarre thing.

 

Margaret Williamson 

Margaret was born in 1947.

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce  

Did you come from a political family? Is that what got you initially interested in politics?

Margaret Williamson  

Not - not a major political family. My father had had a really bad war and was still in and out of the Heidelberg repatriation hospital. Even when, you know, I'd started school, Mum and I would still go out there on the funny old bus. And economically, it was very hard for us because, you know, they didn't get part pensions even. So he lost - he lost work time and income. And we were living in flats in sort of inner Melbourne around St Kilda, and Richmond until I was 12. You know, and, you know, a story of a lot of people my age, Alex, people then had help from other family members. My grandmother sold her house in Ballarat, and my father got a war service home loan. And that's how we got a home. But he, he was very - he'd had a really bad war in the islands. He was one of only 300 odd people who got off New Britain, the rest died. They died. Like his battalion was disbanded. He was discharged with medical illness and also war neurosis. He was only 23. So he was anti war. And I do remember him sitting my three kids down, when they were only very little, and saying, You got to promise me you never go to war. And he was - he was a good union man. He worked for Telstra, Telecom. He was a good union man. He fought hard for the technicians that worked with him. And he was a Labor man. You know, that was the generation that came back from war still referring to Joseph Stalin as Uncle Joe, because they'd been our allies. And before all the propaganda happened in the '50s. So I can remember him taking quite a - although he'd never joined the Labor Party, he certainly was a member of his union - but I can remember him having very strong opinions, through the arguments in the '50s. In fact, even though I was very young, I can still remember things like the Petrov affair, and issues that Dr. Evatt was, you know, putting up with in the media and everything. And I think I remember those because of the discussions at the tea table, and listening to the radio with dad. Yeah, so my politics - 

Alexandra Pierce  

His attitudes influenced your own, then? 

Margaret Williamson  

Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm pretty sure of it. You know, we had long discussions. In fact, it's - I hated meeting to this - but as I got older, and you know, went through a real lefty stage, I can remember we would have real bitter arguments about that too. And he was actually really in favor of me becoming a member of Young Labor and then the Labor Party, but he was deadly opposed to me taking on a position because he, he actually said I'd rather you didn't because politics is a really dirty game. And of course, like everything else I defied him.

Alexandra Pierce  

Do you remember what his attitude was towards the Vietnam War? 

Margaret Williamson  

Oh yes, he, he and my mother were very helpful to draft resisters that we knew. And they were - and he went out to the big rallies; he in fact wore his returned serviceman's badge when he went to the rallies and, and a cop - a policeman - came up to him and said, You ought to be ashamed of yourself for being here. And my father said to him, the reason I wear this is the reason that I very much should be here, because I know what war's all about. So he went to both of those big rallies. I went to the smaller ones before I got married, and left Melbourne. But certainly he was - he was very supportive of me going to the rallies, you know, just with a word of caution, of course, as a father. And I can remember, we - you know, without going into too many details - a fellow that he'd worked with, who'd gone into the police force, had actually warned - tried to warn me off at one stage and, and Dad nearly threw him out of the house.

Alexandra Pierce  

So your own attitudes towards Vietnam - was it - were you opposed because it was a war in general? Or were there more political reasons for opposing it?

Margaret Williamson  

I was pretty horrified from what I saw on the news every night. You know, I think my - well, those of my generation who actually watched the news, and there were a few of us, you couldn't help but be horrified, you know, seeing, you know, a poor man having his brains blown out, seeing, seeing a monk self emulate - emolulate [sic]; watching a girl child running down the street with the skin hanging off her, having been burned by napalm. I don't know what sort of person couldn't sort of say, this has got to stop. And the other thing was, you know, when you saw the huge bombing raids on the jungle, and you - it didn't take much to know that below that were just peasant people, innocent people, and to know that they were being exterminated by such a mighty power. Maybe there was something in me politically already, but I could see the imbalance between the might of the US and the struggle of the people. And I was completely supportive of their struggle. I mean, I don't know what year it happened, I can't remember, that Jane Fonda went to Hanoi. But you know, I remember thinking how courageous. And I also remember going to Swan Street barracks to say goodbye to a close young man, and seeing the Save Our Sons people there - Joan Coxsedge and co. And that was the first time I'd, I'd sort of met women like that. Well, I didn't actually meet them. I just stood there and looked at them, but I thought, oh, how brave, how courageous. And of course, within a couple of years, I'd met them, you know, particularly Joan, she became a friend. That had a big influence on me - to see people out there, who were my mother's, more my mother's age, really. There were university student women who were involved. But but not too many women like myself, just a working class woman. I didn't finish secondary school, did a bit of nursing, didn't work; went and worked in a bank, became the shop steward. Got a job in a union office. But I - there weren't too many working class women involved. There were - I'm not saying there weren't. There were older working class women, certainly, women who I came to understand years later; women from the Union of Australian Women; the women that were in the women's committee in the Labor Party. Really good people.

Alexandra Pierce  

And I assume you objected to conscription as well, at the time.

Margaret Williamson  

Very much.

Alexandra Pierce  

Because of the war itself, or was there other motivation for objecting to conscription?

Margaret Williamson  

I think it was both. It was too easy for me to see that conscription meant going to the Vietnam War; and that had been going on since the earlier, middle 60s, we were sending troops there. I went to work with an office full of young men who were turning 20 around about the same time. You know, it was an interesting time. That was a time in Australia, of growth. So all the big institutions and public sector organisations were taking on huge numbers of young people to work - mostly young men; you know, young women back then, we were still losing our jobs when we got married, you know, it's a crazy time when you think about it. But I went into an office in the railways, and nearly all the young men in there were going to turn 20, either within a couple of years or around about that. And so the talk around the groups was of getting conscripted. And of course, I, you know, I really knew really well, people whose marbles had gone in. And it was the unfairness of it. You know, there were reasons why people could get out of going, if they were at university, which generally, in those years meant people from rather well off families; it was the working class boys who were going to go. Years later, I went to live in Bendigo. And it occurred to me when I met so many men there my age, who had been in Vietnam, or had been conscripts, I realised that rural and regional Australia young men went in quite large numbers, probably because they didn't have the same fallback positions as others. But so - it was the two things, you know, the unfairness of having your marble pulled out and sending young men off to war, who at that stage didn't even have a vote.

 

Marion Harper

Marion was born in 1932. She was a member of the Communist Party for many years. 

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce  

When Australia gets involved in the Vietnam War, what's your reaction to that moment?

Marion Harper  

Absolutely opposed to the Vietnam War. We saw it as a power grabbing exercise by the United States on a country that'd been struggling for years against the French. And we were very inspired by a guy called Jim Cairns, who also lived in Richmond at the time and who we met. I guess he did have an influence on our thinking. And he was such a clear thinker, for a Labor Party guy, you know? And that's how we got involved - through Jim Cairns.

Alexandra Pierce  

How did you feel about conscription? Did it kind of just get tied into your attitude towards the Vietnam War?

Marion Harper  

Well, I guess we would have been opposed to conscription really, generally, even if it wasn't the Vietnam War. Because we don't believe - we don't, we don't believe in predatory wars. We believe in this - two kinds of wars, we always believed; what we call just and unjust wars. So a just war is where people struggle to throw off an oppressor - a colonial oppressor - and unjust wars are where a wealthier nation goes into another country, and takes control. So we always saw those kinds of wars as unjust wars. Yeah.

Alexandra Pierce  

So you wouldn't have regarded yourself as a pacifist but you were opposed to the as you say, predatory wars.

Marion Harper  

Yeah, absolutely never a pacifist. I firmly believe that there are things you have to fight for. But, as I said, two kinds of wars, just and unjust.

Alexandra Pierce  

And so conscripting young men to fight in that predatory world was also anathema to you?

Marion Harper  

Absolutely. I mean, you just need to think about the First World War, which was a trade war. Undoubtedly. I mean, nobody even denies that these days. And we sent people from Australia, young men to fight in a trade war, which really had nothing to do with Australia - was just a British war. And our young guys went there and died. For trade. We glorify it, glorify that period, unjustly because there was nothing glorious about it. Nothing.

 

Melita Alford

Melita was born in 1953. 

Note: Melita is referring to Melbourne University. 

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce  

And was there discussion of Vietnam and conscription at that point, like in your classes?

Melita Alford  

No, no, it was very much - this is the hierarchy. This is the political system, and then he'd tell a few stories, you know, in-house stories. But he was Liberal. So he was not going to be rocking the boat either. So no.

Alexandra Pierce 

In general, was there much discussion about conscription? For example, did you know, you know, when it came time for the fellas to register for national service, was there much discussion about whether they would do it or not?

Melita Alford 

There was a discussion in my sort of social group, which was the Christian Union at the university. There was an awareness that some of the guys were being conscripted, and that they - so there was an awareness of conscription as a thing, and that it actually touched us, affected us. There was not a lot of discussion about conscription per se being a bad thing. But just maybe a frightening thing because it was so close to us. But the war itself, that - within the Christian Union, there was all the discussion about just war and the philosophy of - Christian philosophy of war, and it was pretty clear that this was not a just war. So it came more from a theoretical point of view of looking at, well, we're in the middle of this war in our lifetime. And should we be?

Alexandra Pierce 

So what were the reasons for thinking that it was not just?

Melita Alford 

Well, I, I mean, now I have to think about that, retrospectively, and that, that raises questions about being an invading force, as opposed to a rescuing or a peacekeeping force. And that the media obviously alerted us to the fact that we know this understanding the politics of communism and the Australian view, amongst some, that we had to defend ourselves against communism, and we could go there and murder people because it was a legitimate cause. It was not a legitimate cause, in my view, and it was actually an atrocity. And when LBJ - when our Australian, politician, Prime Minister, which one of them - 

Alexandra Pierce 

Holt? I think it is when LBJ comes out - 

Melita Alford  05:31

"All the way with LBJ" and and it was like, No, I mean, this is what - you know, we can, we're Australian, we stand on our own feet, why do we have to be embroiled in this when it seems so wrong, and people are really being hurt and murdered, and families displaced and all of that. So I think that was probably more - I mean, that was the, that was the media sort of approaching us, as young people on campus. And, of course, Farrago every week would have a lot of information, which was probably very left leaning. But it just felt like, it all made sense to me.

 

Martha Kinsman

Martha was born in 1947. Her parents had been members of the Communist Party in the UK, and she got involved with the Fourth International and identified as a Trotskyist when she started at Sydney University. 

Transcript:

Alexandra Pierce  

So what brought you to object to the Vietnam War?

Martha Kinsman  

Well, to me, it was another - even now, it seems to me a self-evident position to have taken. I mean, it was very, very prominent in the whole Australian - in Australian foreign policy, it was Australian foreign policy, apart from not recognising China. I was living with and married for a short period to somebody who was five or six years older than me, and who had analysed his opposition to the Vietnam War, which was a fairly intellectual one, he didn't actually do much. So that was one thing. I was at Sydney University, which, in 1965, was much more active than Monash or Melbourne, on a range of things, partly because, as I recall it, might have been '66 - but the whole visit by LBJ and later on by Marshall Ky... Anyway, the Sydney one was much - seemed to me was, it was very active in '65. And there were a lot of older students in Sydney University. And it also came out of the the Push, the libertarian tradition there, which became pretty right wing in in many ways in the end, but encouraged sort of an irreligious view of the world, which I don't think was the - certainly didn't seem to me to be the case in Melbourne, when I first got to living in Melbourne. And I think Monash was just very young, I mean, it was just full of kids that hadn't made Melbourne University to start with. And for various reasons, not because they were dumber or anything. It was a very new university. I hadn't realised when I went there, but that's another story. It was just a number of things. I can't remember doing much while I was at school in 1964. Certainly school was not - my friends, I had a group of girlfriends there. And they certainly were not. They were all from families that would have disapproved of any such activity. Their fathers were mainly senior public servants and so on. It was also a period before the pill. So it was just on the brink of the pill, but 15, 16 year olds couldn't get it. So you know, there was also that caution of not really living in a sexually promiscuous or free way. But when you think of it 16 and 17 is very young. I mean, got plenty of time. So - you don't think you have then, but looking back 60 years? Yes.

…

Alexandra Pierce  

You mentioned conscription, and we haven't really talked about that. Some of the people that I've spoken to have suggested that opposition to the Vietnam War and opposition to the conscription issue really just became entwined. Was that the case for you?

Martha Kinsman  

Well... I'm trying to remember; for me, the conscription issue was just subsumed by the need to get, you know, get Australia out of Vietnam and oppose the Vietnam War. And truthfully, to hope very hard that the NLF won, I mean, I was on their side. The conscription for me was something - was in a sense, a manifestation of Menzies' disregard, I think, for the actual political dynamics of Australian politics; he was so used by then - because, of course, he left in 1966, so he did the conscription thing between his last election, '63, and when he was going to go anyway - just his sort of disdain for anything that mattered to ordinary Australians. And it wasn't just the conscription. It was the lottery, you know, the barrel, the birthday lottery. I didn't see a need to be explicitly opposed to that, because as soon as that happened, the Save Our Sons movement - I mean, what that did was politicise and spread opposition to the Vietnam War across the Australian community, generally. It didn't sort of - of course, I opposed it. And I knew about the whole Labor thing, and Billy Hughes and all that and World War One, and I mean, I wasn't surprised that even Arthur Calwell, racist that he was, was against conscription, because that's the Labor tradition. But I suppose I was slightly surprised that Menzies was just either oblivious or completely... I don't know what the word is... contemptuous of that tradition in Australia. That's why I think the Save Our Sons women probably were the ones that moved the Australian community generally, to oppose it Vietnam, and the 1970s - 1970 moratorium, which I've read about and all my friends told me about in letters, that says a lot about Jean McLean, and also the Sydney women. I mean, I think that did mobilise mass opposition and beyond students and beyond the more radical unions far more than we did. I don't ever remember friction between those two groups. It was really anything that created and contributed to a critical mass of opposition was welcomed by the - even the Maoists, I mean, you know, that's what they were trying to do too, was to mobilise as much as they can an opposition to the war and Save Our Sons came from a different starting point, but the mobilisation of a lot of the community. And I think they were very important. Their starting point was conscription, but a lot of them were very highly politicised by it, and Jean McLean, who stayed very active in politics.