Arthur Tange by Peter Edwards

Author:Peter Edwards
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ligature Pty Limited
Published: 2021-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

Visits to Vietnam

During his time in India Tange made two visits to Vietnam, in August 1967 and September 1969, in order to make an independent assessment of the war, of Australia’s contribution and of the adequacy of Australian political and military reporting. In 1967 he offered a coolly objective appraisal of the conflict to which Australia was deeply committed, to which India was equally deeply opposed, and which was provoking deep divisions in Australian politics and society. On the military performance, he thought that Australia’s defence machinery and armed services had taken far too long to despatch and equip a tiny force. ‘It would be alarming to think,’ he reported to Plimsoll, ‘that this is the best we can do—and our quickest reaction—in the event of a more direct threat to Australian security.’ Privately, he said of Vietnam, as of other manifestations of Australian military performance, ‘the Australian public deserves better’.364

By contrast, Tange was particularly impressed by the ability of the American generals to express themselves and to discuss broad political and strategic issues as well as more narrowly operational questions. They were, he said, ‘educated men as well as fighting men’, an impression that strongly influenced his approach in the 1970s towards the education of Australia’s officer cadets. But while Tange admired the ability of the American generals to think in broad strategic terms and to articulate their views persuasively, he also saw it as a major challenge to Australian policy-makers. Australians, he said, should not be easily persuaded by American enthusiasm. Were they winning? He told Plimsoll that:

frankly, I don’t know where the truth lies. We simply have to remain sceptical. And perhaps this contains some lessons for the way Australia assesses Vietnam, determines our policy there, and runs our Mission there. I would counsel the creation of an analytical and self-critical approach (not a negative one) because the American effort combined with American enthusiasm in justifying what they are doing may swamp our better judgment. We must do everything we can to form independent conclusions … 365

These views were of little or no immediate significance in Australia’s conduct of the war, but pointed to a longstanding theme in his attitude to the American alliance and a central concern in his subsequent administration of Australia’s defence machinery.

By 1969 the United States was beginning to withdraw some of its forces from Vietnam but was still assuring its allies of its continued interest in South-East Asia. Britain, by contrast, was accelerating the withdrawal of its military from the whole region ‘east of Suez’. Tange, as noted earlier, had been involved in the negotiations in 1950 when the British had objected strongly to their exclusion from the security treaty that linked Australia and New Zealand with the United States. Tange now commented in his diary:

It is interesting now to reflect, twenty years later, that ANZUS stands as a worthwhile contract between the US and Australia to share [the] defence burden in the Pacific/South East Asian region. And Britain, with all its concern of 20 years ago … has no special influence in India.

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