The War Game by David Horner

Author:David Horner
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2022-05-19T00:00:00+00:00

Crisis in Laos

The decisions in 1962 to deploy an army training team to Vietnam and an RAAF fighter squadron to Thailand were made against a background of several years of crisis. At the time, the government was seeking to ensure Australia’s security through three alliance arrangements: ANZUS, in which the principal partner was the United States; ANZAM, which involved Britain in the security issues of South-East Asia; and SEATO, which included both the United States and Britain.

By 1959, SEATO’s focus was on the small country of Laos, which under the Geneva Conference agreement was effectively partitioned between the northern areas, controlled by the communist Pathet Lao, supported by North Vietnam; and the southern and eastern areas under a right-wing government of Laos. In July 1959 fighting broke out between the Pathet Lao and the government forces, and in early September the Lao government appealed to the United Nations, claiming aggression from North Vietnam; it also considered appealing to SEATO should the United Nations be unable to assist. As a member of SEATO, Australia faced the prospect of committing forces, and on 22 September the Australian government informed Vice-Admiral Dowling, the Australian military adviser to SEATO, that if asked he could state that Australia would commit an infantry battalion, a squadron of RAAF fighters, air transport and two R AN destroyers.10 The battalion would come from the 28th Commonwealth Brigade in Malaya. The crisis died down and none of the SEATO nations deployed forces to Laos. The Australian government never made public that it had agreed to deploy forces if necessary, but the decision showed how anxious the government was to ensure that the United States remained involved in the region.

When, in early March 1961, the Pathet Lao defeated the Royal Lao Army and threatened Vientiane, the United States responded by deploying three aircraft carriers and 1000 marines into the Gulf of Thailand. On 27 March, the SEATO Council began meeting in Bangkok, with the United States keen to obtain a statement of SEATO’s determination to take action. Menzies, attending the council, was instrumental in drafting a resolution that expressed concern over the Pathet Lao offensive but favoured a negotiated settlement. Vice-Admiral Dowling, however, ‘indicated publicly, and indiscreetly, that Australia would respond favourably to a SEATO request and could place troops in Laos “within hours”’.11

In fact, on 29 March the Australian Cabinet secretly agreed that if called upon to act by SEATO or the United States, Australia would participate in military action in Laos. The External Affairs minister, Barwick, had argued that ‘The United States would certainly resent any Australian failure to participate in a military intervention in Laos. Such a failure would have grave repercussions on general Australian-American relations.’ The press statement by McEwen, who chaired the meeting in the absence of Menzies, ‘gave no hint that a major decision in principle had been taken’.12

In an effort to encourage the Thais, during March the United States and Thailand jointly sponsored a SEATO air defence exercise in Thailand with participation from

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