CHAPTER EIGHT
DEAR MR PRESIDENT

I felt like a frogman trying to turn an aircraft carrier.

Gordon Barton

The day before his arrival in Sydney, the US president visited Melbourne. It was 21 October 1966. A crowd estimated at half a million lined the city streets to greet his slow-moving motorcade. As it passed Domain Road, two plastic bags of red and green paint were thrown at Johnson’s open-topped car, bursting as they splattered on his bodyguard. Further on, thousands of protesters had gathered on the route just past the southern end of Princess Bridge at the start of St Kilda Road. Banners held aloft proclaimed, ‘Hitler and Johnson—two of a kind’.

The motorcade, notified of the demonstration ahead, accelerated, sweeping past the main body of protesters in an instant. A stunned silence fell across the demonstrators for several seconds before they surged into the roadway, breaking down barricades. Violent scuffles ensued with police struggling to keep the crowd back. Fights began to break out between the police and the 3000 or so protesters.

In Sydney the next morning, city authorities went to great lengths to make the president feel welcome. Again, close to half a million people lined the streets. Keen to have youngsters in the crowd (and perhaps to dissuade violent protest), the government waived public transport fares for any child under fifteen for the day.

One thousand children wearing Texan cowboy hats were installed at the airport to greet Australia’s great ally. Flags lined the wide Anzac Parade on the approach to the city, although the presidential motorcade was diverted to avoid demonstrators. A carpet of fresh flowers 150 metres long was laid on the footpath from the top of King Street. City streets, shops and offices were decorated not only in a frenzy of red, white and blue, but with huge images of Lyndon Johnson and the American coat of arms. Two hundred homing pigeons were to be released in front of the Queens Square courts as the president’s wife passed by. At the Art Gallery of New South Wales, gum trees, waratahs, ferns and sandstone were installed in an attempt to give an Australian bush theme to a planned reception.

As the motorcade approached the city centre, the welcome turned ugly. Placards were raised reading ‘Uncle Sam Get out of Vietnam’ and ‘LBJ—How many Kids Have You Killed Today?’. Demonstrators yelled ‘Johnson is a murderer. Johnson, go home.’ Stones and eggs were lobbed at the motorcade. As demonstrators threw themselves on the road in front of the approaching vehicles, New South Wales Premier Robert Askin told a police driver to ‘run over the bastards’.

Alerted that it was in hostile territory, the motorcade accelerated, zooming past city crowds who had waited for hours for a glimpse of the president. The careful civic preparations turned to chaos. At least fourteen arrests were made that day.

Meanwhile, many of those not carried along in the general wave of hysteria were reading and talking about one of the most incisive and heartfelt letters they had ever seen in print. It appeared on the morning of Johnson’s Sydney visit, 22 October 1966, taking up an entire page of the Sydney Morning Herald.

An open letter to the President of the United States of America

Dear Mr President:

It is unfortunate that your welcome in Australia has been clouded by the deep disagreement in this country as to our part in the Vietnamese War. I am concerned that the thought, comment and actions of our Government have reflected very little of this disagreement, nor indeed much awareness of what is involved.

The fact that out of a population of eleven million we have had to depend on conscripts to make up two battalions to send to Vietnam is a sufficient indication that enthusiasm for this war is very largely confined to our politicians and their military advisers.

These are some of the reasons for this lack of enthusiasm:

The Vietnamese War has become known as a ‘dirty’ war. This is so partly because of the hardly disguised cynicism and brutality with which it has been conducted over the 20 years it has been going on, partly because it retains much of its original character of a colonial war, and partly because of the extent of the suffering of the civilian population.

Our problem is to satisfy ourselves that we have some very good reason to take part in this ‘dirty’ war.

Since it is clear enough that the only foreign military forces in Vietnam are those of America and her allies it is very difficult for us to accept the fiction that we are merely helping the Vietnamese people to defend themselves against outside aggression.

Most people accept the commonsense view that there is a civil war in Vietnam and we have decided to support one side. Unfortunately it is equally clear that the side we are supporting seems to command very little respect or affection either inside or outside Vietnam.

The government in Saigon is unstable, inefficient and corrupt. That it survives because of the support of what is virtually an occupation army of Americans has not enhanced its popularity.

It is our bitter experience, on the other hand, that a very large number of Vietnamese resent and oppose our intervention in their affairs. That we have a military force of some half million Americans, Australians and Koreans trying to pacify some of these Vietnamese opponents is some evidence of their dedication and the strength of their support among the population.

The more honest, if less attractive, reason for our intervention in Vietnam is that irrespective of the moral issues involved in the Vietnamese civil war, we have intervened to protect our interests.

Just as you Americans feel threatened by world communism, so do we Australians feel threatened by the prospect of a strong militant and unfriendly Asia. As one member of our Government put it to me ‘We’ve got to stop these —s before they get here.’

It is no small thing to be willing to kill people in a remote country which has offered us no provocation merely to safeguard what we conceive to be our political interests. I believe such a policy will fail by its moral bankruptcy alone.

But it is worse that this.

Our immediate objective is to halt the progress of communism in Vietnam. Yet by our own military policies of ‘kill and destroy’ we are creating the very conditions of social and economic chaos which communists need for their success.

At the same time we have associated the cause of anti-communism with the brutality, repression and corruption of a thoroughly discredited junta of generals.

Whatever your military advisers say, Mr President, the burning of crops, the bombing of villages, the killing of men, women and children are no way to improve a political situation.

On the wider international scene this war is doing the cause of communism very little harm.

Nor is it doing us much good.

People all over the world are tired of military solutions and power politics. They are tired of anti-communism as a substitute for commonsense. And above all they are tired of the killing.

As one of these people, and as a person having no connection or influence with any political party or organisation whatsoever, I have written this letter as a matter of personal conscience.

Friday 21 October 1966

Yours sincerely

Gordon Barton

Authorised by Mr G.P. Barton 22 Morella Place, Castle Cove

As the day progressed, perhaps Barton wished he had not provided his address. The telephone at his Castle Cove home had not stopped ringing since 5 am when the Saturday morning paper hit the newsstands.

Barton’s letter was published when disappointment with and alienation from the major parties was high. Many intelligent Australians felt let down by the resistance to change. Many had the firm conviction that Australia’s support for South Vietnam’s oppressive and unpopular regime was immoral and wrong, yet never before had there been a respectable outlet for their feelings.

Ken Thomas, now chairman of TNT, had a strong and irascible personality which greatly appealed to Barton. Thomas maintained a global outlook, and was well informed on world affairs. He received many newsletters and publications pertaining to the Vietnam peace movement. Known for wearing his heart on his sleeve, Thomas would sometimes get up on a soapbox to air his views at impromptu lunchtime public meetings in the city. Having read the open letter, Thomas drove directly to Barton’s house to give his full support. The pair had a very long discussion, interrupted by a stream of friends and strangers dropping in with donations and offers of assistance.

Barton had no real concept of how Australians would react to the letter. The phone calls did not stop—he had to take the receiver off the hook that night to get even a few hours’ sleep. The telephone continued to ring and supporters dropped in all day Sunday and Monday. Barton would later recall that ‘sackfuls of letters started to arrive and reporters and others. I was gratified to know that I hadn’t wasted my time or my money.’

Meanwhile, over at IPEC, Bob Bass recalls a host of customers complaining, ‘Your bloody boss is a pinkie’. And Greg Farrell wasn’t particularly taken with his partner’s stand. Fred Gardiner, however, does not recall a detrimental impact on business profitability. He explains that ‘many thought Gordon was a bit way-out anyway’. They simply rationalised it as, ‘That’s Gordon. He does some funny things at times.’

Over the next two weeks hundreds of people personally contacted Barton pledging their support for an anti-Vietnam War campaign. Reporters began to stake out the Barton home. Firm, intense and polite in manner, Barton was gravely concerned about his country’s future. Nonetheless he would recall, ‘I was not prepared for an invasion of my home, and I was still concerned for my wife’s health’. When a friend offered his Canberra house as a temporary refuge from the deluge of attention, Barton jumped at the opportunity. With his wife, young child and the family poodle he vanished for a few days.

On his return the phone was still ringing and there was a mountain of mail, much of it along the lines, ‘We agree with you; what should we do?’ Of the thousand or so letters received, only eight were antagonistic. One man mailed in two sonnets he had written for Barton. Pensioners sent dollar notes; one even sent a lottery ticket.

While Barton felt some responsibility to keep the momentum going, he was essentially a private man. He began confessing to friends and supporters that he was in no position to ‘run a crusade’. His wife suggested funding a private national referendum on the issue, though Barton quickly realised the cost would be enormous.

Liberal leader Harold Holt had called an election for 26 November. It was clear the major issues would be conscription and Australia’s participation in the Vietnam War. There were a great many traditional Liberal voters who could not in all conscience vote for Holt’s government, and yet a vote for Labor was anathema to them.

Out of the blue Barton received a call from his old university Liberal branch colleague Francis James. Barton had not been in contact with James since their falling out over the anti-communist bill.

‘I’m going to run against Bill McMahon [the Federal Treasurer],’ James volunteered.

James had opposed Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War from the early 1960s, using the newspaper he ran—The Anglican—as a mouthpiece for this opposition. Already he had addressed over a hundred public meetings and written dozens of articles opposing the war on moral and strategic grounds. James suggested Barton and his supporters put up ‘Independent Liberal’ candidates for the election on an anti-war ticket.

The idea appealed to Barton, though he had no intention of running himself. There were three major obstacles, however. The election was to take place in just four weeks time, giving them little opportunity to mount a campaign; they would need more candidates than just Francis James; and they had to come up with more policies than simply an anti-Vietnam stance.

Urged on by Vonnie, Barton looked into the legal requirements and determined how much money and how many members were required to register a party. Given the massive support he had received, Barton thought it was worth a shot. With two other self-made millionaires, his friend Ken Thomas and the reclusive Victa boss, Gary Richardson, whose father had invented the rotary-blade lawnmower, Barton formed an executive committee. No-one would try to associate such a team with hippies or communists, Barton reasoned. He was wrong.

With only weeks until the election there was no time for democratic consultation. Instead Barton hurriedly drafted a set of four platform principles: loyalty to the British throne and respect for the Australian Constitution; support for anti-socialist principles; opposition to selective (lottery style) military conscription; and opposition to Australian involvement in the Vietnam War. These were designed to reassure Australians that the group was not a radical left-wing rabble.

Barton had been inundated by letters and calls of support, so it must have been a relief when a stranger by the name of John Crew called. A film and television producer, Crew had a solution to harness the extraordinary support Barton’s letter had invoked.

‘Don’t worry about a thing, dear boy’, Barton heard the stranger say down the line. ‘We’ll help.’

John Crew and novelist Ken Cook (author of Wake in Fright) were unlikely political organisers. They were business partners who had both worked at the ABC in the early 1960s and had since tinkered with several entrepreneurial businesses. For a time, their St Ives office would become the new political group’s hub as their staff answered calls and letters, allowing the Barton household to return to some semblance of normality. The pair advised Barton he had a potential army of supporters if they could be organised. Hundreds of people had offered to help, though many other supporters were unwilling to identify themselves, frightened of being labelled as communist sympathisers.

Cook and Crew were also to prove useful to the political cause in other ways. Their film and TV production experience and access to resources meant in the coming weeks they were able rapidly to put together two one-minute TV commercials, nearly two dozen twenty-second commercials and a suite of radio ads for the new group’s campaign.

Meanwhile, an informal group began to meet at Barton’s Castle Cove home. As it grew, people would simply sit on the floor. These were for the most part disillusioned Liberals—hard-nosed businessmen, visionary academics and despairing clergymen. Activist and mother of two Alice Beauchamp, lawyers John Mant and John Fisher, as well as teacher Douglas McPherson were amongst the first to attend. Their involvement deflated the myth that opposition to the Vietnam War was confined to radicals.

There were clearly thousands of intelligent Australians ready to support the cause. The group took the unprecedented step of advertising for political candidates for the upcoming election. To sidestep the government’s dismissal of war protesters as hippies and communists, Barton knew candidates would need political respectability—suits and ties were in, beards were out. Group members would suggest potential candidates whom Barton would then approach to see if they would stand.

On Thursday 3 November 1966, just eleven days after his letter to Johnson, Barton and his colleagues ran an advertisement in the Sydney Morning Herald setting out their principles and asking for ‘persons of good character who are willing to offer themselves as Independent Liberal candidates’ to contact Barton. There was little time—candidates only had until the following Monday to nominate, so Barton even provided his home telephone number. Interviewed by the Herald that day, Barton declared ‘we intend to give Liberal voters a chance to express any doubts they may have about conscription and Vietnam’.

At a meeting at Barton’s home that same Thursday night, 40 people gathered. They were an idealistic, enthusiastic and diverse group—many of them young professionals. They decided on a name suggested by Barton—the Liberal Reform Group. In the anti-communist fervour of the times, the name was carefully chosen to placate potential supporters’ fears that the group might be thought too radical in approach. They planned to contest at least ten swinging seats in the Sydney area.

By Friday night they were able to announce their first six candidates: John Gunn (an aviation journalist who had come to respect Barton as a result of his IPEC AIR struggle) and journalist Fred Simpson, both Castle Cove neighbours; Francis James, by now the managing director of Anglican Press; Barton’s university colleague John Hannan; Ken Cook and John Crew. Crew was not the only one who didn’t think he’d be much good, but the new group needed candidates quickly and Barton was more than encouraging, funding each candidate’s deposit to the Electoral Commission.

Despite Barton’s personal belief that the new party should not allocate preferences as a matter of principle, his was a minority view. The group had already intimated it would be giving its preferences to Labor. That same night the Federal Treasurer, Billy McMahon, attacked the group as a ‘discreditable little plot’, claiming their sole aim was to elect Labor to power. Barton was quick to ridicule the idea.

By Saturday, Barton had to take the phone off the hook if he wanted to shave, shower or sleep.

On Sunday 6 November, the Sunday Telegraph published a damning opinion piece on the new movement, accusing it of ‘phoniness’ and the three-man committee as ‘dupes of the communists’. Barton quickly had his lawyers from Allen Allen & Hemsley demand an apology from Frank Packer’s Consolidated Press. Packer’s lawyers, from the same firm, argued the editorial was fair and lawful, and refused to run an apology. Barton sued and later claimed he recovered ‘a very large sum in damages’.

That same Sunday from breakfast until late into the night, the polished slate floors of Barton’s sandstock brick home were crowded with a mix of busy supporters, potential donors to the cause and reporters waiting patiently to interview Barton.

‘I’m speaking as a human being, not a politician’, was the man’s common preface to journalists’ questions as he stated the group’s policies. Barton was on the telephone much of the day. Supporters huddled together, discussed, planned publicity, stopping only to listen to a gregarious Francis James, who had recently been in North and South Vietnam.

In a lounge room strategy meeting with James, John Gunn, Ken Cook and others that day Barton penned a telegram to Harold Holt, denying accusations the group was a Labor front and offering to withdraw its candidates if the government abandoned its conscription policy and opened immediate discussions with the US to withdraw Australian troops from Vietnam. In part the cable read: ‘We believe that you are a truly humane, tolerant liberal-minded man at heart and that you tolerate the wanton wickedness of Vietnam against your private convictions out of what you believe to be sheer political necessity.’ If Holt ignored the offer, Barton said, he doubted the government had ‘a snowball’s chance in a furnace’ of winning the election.

A picture of the ‘Liberal Rebels’ made the front page of Monday’s Australian.

When Prime Minister Holt arrived at his Melbourne office that Monday morning, Barton’s telegrammed offer was waiting for him. The same day Holt wired his reply—marked urgent—to Barton at home. In part he wrote: ‘Frankly I find an “Alice in Wonderland” quality about its timing and its terms, which makes it difficult for me to regard it as intended other than for propaganda purposes . . . ’ However, the promptness and length of Holt’s response—over 450 words—made it clear he was treating Barton’s telegram seriously.

Holt was irritated that the group was calling itself Liberal Reform, when ‘very few, if any of you, have been active members of the Liberal Party’. He concluded, ‘your offer of withdrawal is rejected as are the terms on which you state it to have been based’. Holt’s response only served to fuel Barton’s press coverage.

When the deadline for nominations closed, the group had, in little over a week, endorsed 22 candidates—twelve in New South Wales and ten in Victoria.

Letters of support from not only academics and business leaders but ordinary Australians continued to pour in from every state and territory. Even if they were still going to vote Labor or Liberal, Barton’s message provoked admiration: ‘Your commonsense and non-offensive defence policy for this country is to be commended’ wrote one man from Sydney’s outer west. ‘Thanking you for having given me back some faith in some of us’, wrote one old pensioner. ‘You have given a tremendous lift to all the people who feel deeply ashamed of fellow Australians . . . Bless you for your courage’, wrote another. ‘. . . your open letter . . . was an excellent retort to the mass-hysteria so carefully fanned by publicity . . . Your action made me almost believe that it would be possible for me and my family to stay in this country and make it our home’, praised a third.

One European immigrant, hearing Barton’s wife was unwell, offered to help. ‘Perhaps your children [sic] would like practice in French or German?’ she volunteered out of the blue. ‘Do they collect stamps?’

Small donations continued to arrive—anything from one to ten dollars—in support of the cause. Some young Australians still living at home wrote secretly to avoid the wrath of their parents.

In the first twelve months after his letter appeared in the Herald, Barton would sometimes sit down and draft a set of policies at a sitting. He penned noble words: ‘a new foreign policy based on faith, understanding and co-operation instead of fear, ignorance and violence.’ The clarity of his ideas inspired his disaffected followers.

Letters to the daily papers began asking Barton’s Independent Liberal group to elaborate on its policies. In particular, there was concern about how far Barton was proposing Australia move from its popular alliance with the US. He was quick to respond, reminding voters that Australia’s pact obligations to the United States ‘do not cover Vietnam or any primarily immoral acts’.

By the Wednesday of that week, the group had extended its policy platform to include universal rather than selective national service; national service for eighteen-year-old women as well as men; the development of Australia’s capacity to produce its own defence hardware; and the protection of an independent foreign policy to free Australia from reliance on the US. While Barton was unwilling to run as a candidate, he made it clear to those opposed to the war in Vietnam that they needed to do more than think about the issue. ‘I don’t believe in hoping for things’, Barton confessed. ‘I believe in working like hell. Anything else is like looking around in a race.’

Vonnie Barton, in a newspaper interview a few days later, admitted: ‘This has interrupted our personal lives, naturally. But we are so delighted with the response that it doesn’t matter at all. We have met a great many wonderful people through this.’

On 16 November, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a clear, incisive and powerful article by Barton arguing for Australia to adopt a defence policy independent of the US. He pointed out that only the US and the Soviet Union had the capability to invade Australia. The likelihood of either doing so was remote. Should Australia develop an army of over 100,000, a strong airforce and navy, it could free itself from reliance on the US. The next day’s editorial dismissed Barton’s arguments as a ‘selfish dream’.

Just a week before the election, with a campaign budget of some $50,000 (raised thanks mostly to the wealthy business people supporting the cause), the Liberal Reform team booked close to 150 television spots and 600 Sydney radio station commercials. Four full-page advertisements were taken in the daily press.

This last-minute campaign was a toe in the water. Barton and his colleagues promised each other that if there was any evidence of support at the polling booths, it would be worth developing a longer term plan.

On 20 November, the last Sunday before the election, Gordon Barton again wrote a long letter to Prime Minister Holt questioning the government’s reasoning for sending troops to Vietnam. In it he challenged the prime minister to a national television debate on foreign policy. Holt declined to take the bait. (Inventive supporters wrote to Barton suggesting he debate extracts from Holt’s policy speeches in lieu of the man himself.)

On the Monday Liberal Reform released a seven-point plan aimed at ending the conflict in Vietnam. The plan was cabled to the four world leaders who counted—US President Johnson, North Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh, political leader of the Viet Cong Nguyen Huu Tho and General Nguyen Van Thieu, South Vietnam’s head of state. The Liberal Reformers were quick to point out that Australian Prime Minister Holt and Treasurer McMahon were specifically bypassed ‘because quite frankly they did not matter’. The cable asked whether the plan would be acceptable in principle to each leader.

A day later Barton delivered a thoughtful speech in Sydney, outlining his reasons for becoming involved in the forthcoming election. He provided a careful rebuttal of the supposed threat of communist invasion and outlined the practical impossibilities of such a thing happening. He clarified just how far ahead Australia was in terms of capacity to defend itself against any Southeast Asian rival. His main concern was that Australia had a foreign policy heading for disaster.

The day before the election, the group funded full-page advertisements in The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald—featuring not only the 22 candidates but a graphic image of a mutilated Vietnamese baby. In an attempt to attract wavering DLP voters, the Herald advertisement reminded voters that three of the twelve Sydney candidates were Catholics.

There was also drama in Melbourne as the Victorian Liberal Reform branch spent that last night before the election fighting a Supreme Court action. The Liberal Party argued that Liberal Reform candidates had printed misleading how-to-vote cards. The Victorian Liberal Reform president did admit the word ‘Reform’ was hard to see in their how-to-vote cards, given the typefaces chosen.

On polling day, 26 November 1966, Liberal Reform Group candidates picked up over 53,000 votes—an average of 5 per cent in each of the seats they contested. Considering the new group was only weeks old and had run an incredibly short campaign, this was an impressive result. Holt’s Liberal Party, however, won an extra ten seats in parliament. Barton and his supporters were disappointed. Still, their campaign had made it respectable to question the government policy on Vietnam.

Harold Holt would remain prime minister for little over a year. Just before Christmas 1967 he disappeared while swimming in heavy surf near Portsea, Victoria, presumed drowned. Discovered in his briefcase was a Liberal Reform Group document, ‘Confidential instructions to personnel on polling day’.

The enthusiasm and camaraderie built up over the campaign had shown there was community support for the Liberal Reform Group’s agenda. Most of those involved wanted the movement to continue. Mary McNish, who was to become the group’s national secretary, recalls: ‘We had a lot of really good people who’d come together . . . so we decided that we would have a picnic down in Northbridge Park with all the volunteers.’ As well as Barton, Vonnie and the candidates who had run, well over a hundred supporters turned out. By now the group had flushed out support from the Humanist Society, rationalists and various other activists. McNish remembers standing up at the picnic and announcing what a terrible waste it would be to let the energy dissipate.

Soon enough, Gordon Barton announced to the media that there was no good reason for the group to disband. He was adamant that any organisation he was part of would not be hamstrung by the hierarchies that defined most political parties. He shunned the notion of a president and an all-powerful inner circle. Instead, he agreed to be the group’s convenor, the facilitator of a movement that would reinvigorate Australia’s democracy.

He penned a long letter to Liberal Reform supporters. It began:

The election is over:

A majority of well-fed, semi-Christian Australians voted for frightened violence abroad and respectable inertia at home . . . for military intervention as the solution for the problems of Asia, for provocation as the path to understanding with China, and for subservience as the price of American protection. As a nation we also voted to endorse economic policies which lack every virtue except caution and social policies which respect every principle except humanity.

Three pages later Barton’s letter assured its readers that Liberal Reform intended to ‘stay in business as a permanent political organisation. It intends to stand for liberal, humanitarian and anti-authoritarian principles in society and in government.’ The group planned to run candidates and hopefully gain political representation, though Barton admitted:

This will be a long, expensive, difficult task. But this is no reason for avoiding it or leaving it to others. History is full of examples of societies which slid into violence and political excess because people said ‘I don’t want to be involved’. Even if you are a non-joiner by habit and inclination, I ask you for your help and support in this enterprise.

It will be necessary to establish committees, to settle details of organisation and policy. It will also be necessary to set up groups on an electorate basis, and also in Universities, offices, factories and wherever we have supporters. Many such groups have already been formed . . . Talk to your friends of what we are trying to do and send us the names of any who may be willing to join.

Already there was talk of changing the group’s name to avoid use of the word ‘Liberal’. The Victorians suggested Australian Reform Party.

A detailed questionnaire was designed and distributed, with the aim of canvassing what supporters wanted for the group moving forward. It was the first sign of the broadly consultative approach that would mark Liberal Reform as unique.

Barton was now being called upon for interviews and debates on a regular basis. He paid rent on premises at 299 Penshurst Street, Willoughby, from which Mary McNish and Sheila Mason (party stalwart and wife of candidate Peter Mason) would administer the fledgling organisation and book Barton’s speaking engagements. One of the first was a ‘dialogue’— the second in a series—with the local minister of a Sydney Anglican congregation. Barton did not beat around the bush. ‘People rely on piety as a substitute for charity,’ he declaimed. ‘They think they can buy conscience by religious attendance and faith . . . I want a Church which is willing to be unpopular rather than stand for respectability.’

Barton would quickly become in demand as a speaker on the situation in Vietnam at universities and other forums around the country. ASIO spies began attending these meetings. Barton’s ASIO file had been unblemished since a lone incident in 1953 when his truck had been identified holding copies of the communist newspaper Tribune (no doubt in the hands of his colleague Jim Staples). Now his file rapidly grew.

Management consultant Harry Wallace, a devout Christian who would become the group’s coordinator and a significant financial donor, recalls hiding membership lists in case he was raided by ASIO. He and his wife Pat say their phone was tapped because they were one of many families hosting meetings in their home. Disenfranchised from the major parties, Wallace and his wife were among many who acknowledged Barton’s stimulus and support changed their life for the better. Barton would attend as many local meetings as he could. Pat Wallace recalls that he ‘. . . would almost blend into the wallpaper. He was an incredible listener . . . Then he would say something in a very quiet voice and you just knew this was really intelligent stuff. It might have only been a sentence or two. He would just throw it in when the time was right.’

By May, Barton had heard of a collection of shocking photographs by photo-journalist William Pepper showing the reality of the conflict in Vietnam. Published in the magazine Ramparts in the United States in January under the heading ‘The Children of Vietnam’, Pepper also provided a graphic eyewitness account of the suffering he had seen. It was powerful and persuasive evidence, deliberately designed to provoke emotions. Barton sourced the original photographs and story and had them smuggled into Australia. He arranged for 15,000 copies to be printed and distributed.

In June, Barton was up to his usual antics with the legal system. This time he served a writ for defamation on Federal Treasurer Billy McMahon and the Melbourne Sun.

The groundswell of grassroots support nationally meant the Liberal Reform Group was now much larger than the term ‘group’ suggested—it became simply Liberal Reform. What differentiated it from other political groups was its vaguely elitist nature. A particular target for membership were professionals who traditionally never became involved in politics—those repelled by what Barton called the Liberals’ ‘provocation abroad and inertia at home’ and by Labor, given its working-class roots and its undignified and ill-concealed internal power struggles.

There were soon over 40 informally organised suburban branches in Sydney (most on the affluent North Shore) and 25 in Melbourne. Gordon Barton was addressing branch meetings at a rate of three to four a week. His message was empowering. After attending one meeting, long-time Labor voter and university lecturer Dorothy Jones’ sense of despair about her ability to do anything effective about the situation in Vietnam lifted. ‘Now I feel there is something I can do’, she wrote, ‘and this is a great source of relief and satisfaction’. On the downside, Liberal Reform increasingly received advances from eccentric single-issue groups and alternative movements such as the Hare Krishnas, offering or asking for support.

Most administrative work and detailed decision-making was effected by small informal subcommittees. A key principle was that if parliamentary representation was ever achieved, representatives should be free to vote on conscience rather than according to a ‘party line’.

Barton was increasingly able to articulate what he and his supporters saw as missing from the political system. ‘We need better politicians, a sort of non-politician’, he wrote at the end of Liberal Reform’s policy booklet, ‘. . . a well-qualified person who is concerned with meeting national problems with imagination and common sense and with regard to the priority of moral principles over selfish interests . . .’

To Barton, Australia’s foreign policy required ‘the same degree of moral integrity, tolerance and trust as is required in normal transactions between individuals . . .’ In an interview for The Bulletin magazine, he further clarified Liberal Reform’s view: ‘Our Vietnam policy must be to dis-identify ourselves from the Americans in the most convincing and obvious way. We believe Australia should stand on its own two feet. We want to restrict foreign investment in this country and get rid of the political and financial influence of America.’

There was at first surprise that the group maintained its momentum. Evan Williams in the Sydney Morning Herald believed this was partly due to the affluence and ability of its members: ‘. . . people skilled in management, organisation and group dynamics; partly due to Barton’s exceptional intelligence and drive and partly to a growing belief amongst Australians that their Vietnam war investment was increasingly futile, immoral and dangerous’. Barton had predicted that Liberal Reform would draw in ‘young people who find the existing parties dull, cynical and much for the middle-aged’. Indeed, it soon became clear it was attracting many young, successful middle-class members.

On Gordon and Vonnie’s return to Australia in April 1966, Barton set up an office from home and had a self-contained flat added so his wife’s parents, Ray and Daphne Hand, could move in to be near their precious daughter. Vonnie was determined to make whatever time she had left count. In a further attempt to excise her tumour, she had another operation in 1967. Mary McNish recalls Vonnie telling her afterwards: ‘They haven’t got it . . . They couldn’t get it all in the operation. It’s there and it’s growing.’

When in April 1967 Vonnie discovered she was pregnant again, neither she nor her husband were prepared. Her neurosurgeon urged Vonnie and Gordon to terminate the pregnancy. They refused. Though Vonnie had little chance of seeing her child’s first birthday, the pair wanted the baby. Some friends and relatives were horrified that she was going ahead with the pregnancy.

In June her tumour recurred, paralysing Vonnie’s left side. To Barton, his wife’s cancer was an evil to be overcome. The neurosurgeon drained the tumour again and Vonnie improved. The pair took a short break to Fiji and a month later had five days in New Caledonia.

Vonnie’s nephew, Michael Hand, shifted up from the country to stay with the family at Castle Cove for six months in 1967. He recalls his aunt wearing wigs to conceal her hair loss. In late October, just seven months into her pregnancy, Vonnie Barton was rushed to hospital to have a caesarean. She was not keen on having to squeeze the baby out and Barton agreed with her: ‘. . . this uncomfortable childbirth procedure . . . is very undignified. Human beings enjoy a certain measure of style about important events, and having a baby is very unstylish.’ Ken Thomas’ daughter, Lib, was in the same maternity ward. She recalls Vonnie being desperately ill at the time. ‘There were tubes coming out of her back to drain the fluid.’

A tiny boy was born. The couple called him Geoffrey, although willing the infant to fight for his life, Barton quickly nicknamed him Tiger (later this morphed to Tigger). Vonnie and Gordon believed in no God, yet as Vonnie’s health seemed to stabilise and the premature infant looked as if he would survive, Barton gave thanks and began to feel ‘expansive and self-confident’.

During October 1967, Barton announced that Liberal Reform would be changing its name to the Australian Reform Movement (ARM), thus completely dissociating itself from the Liberal Party in time for the upcoming Senate election. If the group took just one or two Senate seats, it might gain the balance of power. Additionally, a Senate win would provide a platform for two years of free publicity.

Ken Thomas promised to kick in $20,000 towards another elaborate election campaign. Barton himself earmarked part of IPEC’s profits. He had attracted a sophisticated team to run with him for the New South Wales Senate seats: controversial, internationally acclaimed architect Harry Seidler; snowy-haired transport tycoon Ken Thomas; physics professor Peter Mason; and engineer Paul Allsop. Interviewed by the press in his city office following the announcement of his candidacy, Seidler remarked: ‘By the time most politicians pass through the party machines, all they can propagate is the lowest common denominator of thought. I think the public wants people of a different calibre in Government.’

In the course of planning a full political attack on Australian participation in the Vietnam War, Barton was visited by Max Teichmann, a bright Monash University academic. Teichmann argued that an alternative to the American alliance at any cost was needed. Both recognised that the Swiss and the Swedes had done well for a long time, and in more difficult circumstances, with a policy of armed neutrality. The more Barton thought about the idea, the more he liked it. He wrote a long opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald. To his surprise it was published prominently. Barton summarised his outlook on defence in one sentence: ‘We shouldn’t be arming, we should be building bridges.’ He meant trade and aid, not guns and war.

The ripples from the Herald piece spread widely and Barton received further invitations to speak. One was from the Royal Military College at Duntroon. Here he ridiculed the supposed threat of a Chinese invasion— even if China secured the unlikely support of the Indonesians. Barton suggested that even if a threat did come it could be more reliably and effectively defended by a trained citizen army (like that of the Swiss), and with weapons suited to the need, spare parts which did not have to be sourced from 5000 miles away. As an enticing illustration, Barton suggested that 1000 Dakotas with Gatling guns would better serve Australia than the 30 supersonic bombers just bought from the United States. To Barton, armaments salesmen had much to answer for.

His words did not receive universal acceptance. Some people were quite upset. In a few cases strangers rang his home threatening violence. Vonnie sometimes answered the phone. She would terminate such calls upset and angry.

Despite its small share of the vote in the last election, the media continued to give the maverick movement generous coverage. However, without elected candidates, it was not eligible for the free television airtime awarded to the Liberal and Labor parties. Channel Nine even refused to air its paid advertising. Instead, ARM engaged an advertising company ‘To publicise in the most provocative manner possible and to the greatest number of voters available, the policy outline and specific policy directions of the Movement’.

During a Sydney policy speech in McMahons Point Community Hall, Barton reminded the 100-odd supporters, ‘ “All The Way With LBJ” is just not good enough a foreign policy for Australia, even if judged only on the basis of saving our own skins’.

A statewide campaign went to air in New South Wales from 31 October. With a budget of over $34,000, advertisements were placed in every major newspaper, Woman’s Day, and on four commercial radio stations and two TV channels. Three 60-second TV ads were recorded— one for Barton, Ken Thomas and Harry Seidler. Barton’s advertisement concluded with the campaign slogan, ‘It is time to stop making war and start building an independent Australia’.

Three days into the campaign, Ken Thomas was convinced there was no way Barton was going to win a Senate seat. He decided to defer $5000 of his contribution to a later date, and ear-mark it solely for anti-war activities.

Nonetheless, the campaign ploughed ahead. Advertising was even run in Sydney’s Italian language press. Barton and Thomas also printed thousands of copies of an extract of an open letter to President Lyndon Johnson from members of the International Voluntary Services. Its particular strength was not only its apolitical nature but the fact that many of its 49 signatories—senior aid directors—had spent up to nine years living and working in Vietnam.

In contrast, the Liberals were counting on voter fear to maintain the status quo and ran press advertisements claiming that ‘bombing is necessary to prevent the build-up of enemy troops, arms and ammunition to be used against our own Australian soldiers!’

In the election held on 25 November, Gordon Barton received over 39,000 primary votes. Despite all the money spent, as a whole ARM had fared badly. Barton admitted, ‘We have a long way to go to get our message through to farmers and factory workers’.

On 1 December 1967, Thomas wrote to Barton and seven other senior members of ARM. He hated the new name, preferring The Australian Freedom Party. Thomas also thought the movement should expand its grassroots organisation, although he was unwilling to take on any senior executive position.

Six days later Ken Thomas’ sons—one in Fourth Form and the other in Fifth Form—had their school Speech Day at North Sydney Boys’ High. Around 1000 pupils, teachers and parents had gathered in the assembly hall. Mrs Thomas had arrived early and sat in the front but Ken had been caught at work. He arrived late, finding a seat towards the back of the room, but he was in time for the guest speaker—the Honorable John Waddy, DFC, ex-World War II fighter pilot and current Liberal MP. Waddy’s words would have been fairly familiar to any Speech Day regular. ‘You are now going out into the world. Some of you will go into industry, some into commerce, some to the university and some will be called for National Service. I would not worry about this.’

This brought bitter laughter from some students, but Thomas’ blood began to boil. When Waddy repeated the statement, Ken Thomas called out from the back of the room, ‘Why don’t you go?’

Waddy ignored the heckler and ploughed on. ‘Don’t look on National Service as a chore. Look on it as a privilege. Many more young Australians are being killed in road accidents than are being killed in Vietnam.’ He boasted that he himself had left a young son at home to serve five years with the RAAF.

As Waddy sat down, the Speech Day chairman apologised for the interjection. Thomas jumped to his feet again, thundering, ‘I challenge Mr Waddy to debate the issue in public at any time and at any place’. As Thomas’ wife tried to disappear into the floor in the front row, the room gasped collectively before erupting in a wave of murmured comments. The chairman tried to bring order. ‘Sit down, Mr Thomas. This is not the place for that sort of talk.’

Furious at Waddy’s political spin, Thomas repeated the challenge as he resumed his seat. Once the official proceedings had concluded, Thomas left the hall. Waiting outside for the politician to appear, he buttonholed Waddy. ‘I want to reiterate the challenge.’

‘I refuse to have anything to say to you,’ Waddy spat dismissively. ‘I certainly will not debate with you. The Australian public gave its answer to your views at the Senate elections.’

By now there was a crowd of onlookers. The parliamentarian’s minders began to push Thomas away so Waddy could reach his waiting car. Ken’s son Rhody Thomas recalls a great deal of shoving and yelling: ‘It got quite ugly . . . It created chaos.’ Mrs Thomas returned home mortified and went straight to the liquor cabinet.

The next day the story was on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald—‘Speech Day Erupts in Clash on War’. In the Daily Telegraph, Thomas had taken out space in which to repeat his challenge to a debate with Waddy.

Dozens of letters, telegrams and phone calls of support for Thomas’ protest poured into the TNT mailroom, ARM headquarters, newspapers and the Thomas home from academics, professionals, politicians, mothers and unionists around Australia. Even Tom Uren, Federal Labor MP for Reid, sent a message of support.

Ken Thomas loved a stoush of minds, so he pushed the issue. As Waddy continued to refuse a debate, it would be an old classmate from Fort Street High School, barrister Ken Gee, secretary of the Friends of Vietnam, who offered to debate Thomas at Sydney University. Gee saw Ho Chi Minh as a Chinese communist—someone intent upon a war of subversion to gain control of ‘a large percentage of the world’s population’.

Over the Christmas break Ken Thomas mulled over his own future. His priority was to campaign for peace rather than the host of issues Australian Reform now stood for. However, given the poor ARM result in the Senate election, he could not decide whether to ease back to become an ordinary ARM member and confine himself to peace campaigning; to take a lead role with Barton in nurturing the movement into a new party; to join Labor and try to influence its own policies; or walk away entirely. Ultimately Thomas decided to leave the limelight.

By this stage the Reformers, as they were known, were advocating a fortress-style defence policy based on the Swedish or Swiss model. Instead of Holt’s lottery-style selective conscription process, they advocated two years’ military service for all young Australian males (they had dumped the notion of including females), with the intention of building an Australian army of 100,000 and a readily mobilised force of a million. Moreover, they argued for Australia acquiring nuclear weapons and an expanded submarine fleet. Conscientious objectors to military service were to be given the option of working on Australian development projects or providing cheap labour for an Australian overseas shipping line.

Despite Barton’s preference to remain in the background and let his financial support speak for itself, to the media he was a magnetic presence. He remained the group’s national figurehead and was constantly being called on by the press for comment.

A newsletter was founded by the group. Called Reform, it was a forum where policy issues could be raised, discussed, crystallised and ultimately voted on by members. Through Reform and branch groups in living rooms around the country, members began to debate other contentious issues of the day—abortion, civil liberties and conservation. Australian Reform was the only political group to oppose State aid to independent schools.

Many in ARM saw its role mainly as a pressure group through which to push the movement’s platform or as an organisation to co-ordinate the activities of others on civil liberty and environmental issues. Others saw it purely as a think-tank, charged with formulating clever ideas and feeding them to the established political parties. A third view of it was a party of conscience, contributing a constant moral critique on the policies of others.

To Barton and the Reformers, Australia’s leaders were too resistant to new ideas. Barton saw the nation ‘developing a spectator society, a waiting and watching mentality . . . What the country needs is a deep topsoil of leadership and a more sophisticated compost of ideas to grow in. There is a general lack of fertility. We are attacking the mediocrity and moral cynicism of Australian political life and the social apathy that tolerates it . . .’ Always clever with words, Barton’s metaphor was designed to appeal to his garden-loving North Shore target constituency.

As Australia’s conservative press noted, Barton was one to attract unusual people around him—people with offbeat personalities, but people with ideas and ability into which Barton breathed life.

One evening Barton received a knock at the door. He and Vonnie weren’t expecting anyone. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows and their transparent curtains they could see the outlines of two very large men in long black overcoats. Vonnie cautioned against letting them in. But their house was not designed as a fortress. Barton went out to meet them. They were apologetic, but said they came as friends with an important proposal which Barton might find interesting.

They were obviously father and son. Impressive in speech and appearance, the younger man said he had just interrupted his astronauts’ training course in the US. Barton wondered if he was about to be recruited to the CIA. They explained that Barton had come to the attention of their principal, who wished to meet him.

‘Who would that be?’ Barton inquired.

They were not at liberty to say. However, they assured Barton that it would be in his interests to meet their principal—a powerful man with an open mind on issues of common interest. This man would arrange transport and guarantee Barton’s safety.

Barton admitted he was intrigued and flattered by the invitation but reluctant to embark on a private aircraft to an unknown destination to meet this unnamed man.

The visitors indicated they would seek further instructions. Barton gave them his office number and saw them out to their chauffeured car. The next day one of the men rang to say that the pilot for the proposed journey would be a Bill McLachlan of Brisbane. Barton was reassured, given he had known McLachlan for some years. IPEC had chartered a Bristol freighter from him on many occasions. ‘Like most pilots, priests and physicians, regrettably not always with justification, Bill inspired trust and confidence,’ Barton once recalled.

Barton rang McLachlan to check and sure enough he confirmed that while the two men—the Chapmans—were rather strange people, he had known their principal for many years and that he was genuine, trustworthy, albeit a little eccentric (which of course appealed to Barton). Knowing Barton’s doubts about single-engined planes, McLachlan said they would travel in a twin. Barton was convinced.

Barton subsequently flew north, although McLachlan remained mysterious about the destination. They passed over Quilpie and the black soil plains of southern Queensland, which Barton had visited years earlier as a truck driver. McLachlan pointed towards a mansion more suited to the English Home Counties. On its airstrip neatly parked in rows were over 50 small aircraft. Barton’s host was evidently entertaining house guests.

Jimbour House, an 1877 homestead on a slight rise on the Darling Downs north of Dalby, was the only really grand Queensland country house constructed in the English style. This was the home of Charles Wilfred Russell, World War II veteran, millionaire pastoralist and self-taught economist. Fiercely anti-socialist and intensely loyal to the Empire, Russell stood on the extreme right of conservative politics. He spent time with other men similarly disaffected with the major political parties, among them Sir Raphael Cilento.

A founder and guarantor of the Queensland Country Party, Russell, like Barton, was a political maverick. He had been expelled from the party he founded in 1951 after protesting over its economic policies. The Liberals too had turned down his application to join. Since then he had campaigned unsuccessfully as an Independent, published his views in newspaper columns, and broadcast them on radio and finally on television. Like Gordon Barton, Russell’s wealth and connections gave him the means to shrug off censure. He was also unafraid to challenge government policies, willing to take his convictions to the highest court.

Russell welcomed Barton, insisting he call him Charlie, and led him into a ballroom where there were a hundred or so guests being served refreshments by a bevy of handsome young men and women. Russell introduced Barton, and in particular to the craggy-faced Sir Raphael Cilento. Barton knew of the man—a famous physician, former Queensland minister, arch-conservative and father of film star Diane (who was then married to Sean Connery).

Cilento was warm in his greeting, declaring he was looking forward to hearing Barton’s views. This was Barton’s first hint that he had been flown here not merely as a guest, but as the keynote speaker.

‘I hope you won’t mind,’ said Russell.

Barton and his pilot sipped champagne sparingly (Barton would need his wits; Bill had to fly them home). They were both hungry, so began to devour plates of caviar and lobster. As they did so, their host called for quiet, announcing he had asked Barton to say a few words on the subject of Australian foreign policy on which he had recently been briefing the US President. The audience chuckled. While their recently arrived guest was finishing his lunch, Russell also informed his guests that Sir Raphael had agreed to say a few words as well. Barton realised this was to be a debate.

Cilento was a good speaker and familiar with the subject. His calm and kindly manner reminded Barton of US author and conservative public intellectual William Buckley junior. Cilento warned of the ‘deadly political disease [that] threatens civilisation’. Highly contagious, he argued it had infected Russia, all of Eastern Europe, China and Cuba. Barton’s papers record Cilento’s rhetoric. ‘It has already infected China and is at the borders of India and Burma. At the cost of many Australian and American lives it has been halted in Korea, at the very gateway to Japan.’ Cilento argued communism threatened to strike both Indonesia and the Philippines. ‘If we pull our troops out can we reasonably expect the Americans to continue to undertake our defence as the threat moves closer to our shores?’ He went on to propose a line be drawn which the Americans would defend as if it were their own border. The line would cross Korea, run between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland and through a newly divided Vietnam.

Barton was quick to respond and he reminded his audience that the US had not participated in the Geneva Conference that had promised elections in Vietnam; instead a US-sponsored puppet regime had been installed in Saigon. The country had quickly fallen into civil war. The Americans chose to call this ‘an invasion of the self-styled new democratic state of South Vietnam by the Communist North’. The US had sent military advisers to the south, whose successive governments had been incompetent, corrupt, cruel and unpopular. As US involvement grew, Barton pointed out, it became clear the conflict was not between northern and southern Vietnamese, but between the Vietnamese and the Americans (and their allies such as Australia). Despite air power and sophisticated weapons, the war was not being won.

The great unwashed masses, Barton argued, had been encouraged to believe it was the Chinese who the US and Australia were fighting. ‘They should know and I think Sir Raphael will confirm that no Chinese soldiers have been seen nor heard of in Vietnam or anywhere else in South-East Asia,’ he continued. ‘It is no great secret that there is little love lost between the Vietnamese and the Chinese . . . the Chinese have maintained scrupulous neutrality in the conflict . . . The Chinese have enough problems at home and have eschewed a policy of adventurism. Our policy surely at worst should be to let sleeping dogs lie. Surely we do not think the Vietnamese themselves want to attack us? That is ludicrous. Or for that matter the Philippines or Indonesia? Common sense and military logistics alone preclude that. As for the political domino theory, are we to seriously believe that philosophical attitudes in Indonesia or Singapore or Australia, will be influenced in favour of communism by the arrival of a popular communist government in Vietnam? Or that we were advancing the cause of freedom by trying to bomb a backward community into the Stone Age—as an American general advocated.’

Barton felt he had at least reduced Sir Raphael’s commanding lead in this unexpected debate. Some of those gathered were at least looking thoughtful. ‘We are right to be friendly with the Americans,’ he said. ‘We have ties in our European origins and in trade and we should not forget the past. But in the long run we do our friends no favours by encouraging them in bad and foolish acts. And we have to bear in mind that we are not one of the Home Counties. We live on the edge of Asia and it is in trade with Asia that our prosperity will increasingly depend.’

Barton knew a little of Russell’s views on politics and economics. He was aware that Russell owned at least one million sheep and his friends between them probably three times that. He continued: ‘The Chinese for example, nearly one billion of them, are already our biggest customers for wheat and wool. They have neither offered us insult nor threatened us injury. Is it sensible to gratuitously regard them as our enemies?

‘I have no doubt that there is always political capital to be won from talk of the threat of war. And the military men and their friends in the armaments business will fan the flames at our great cost. War means not only death and destruction, it means taxes. There was no income tax in Great Britain before it became necessary to fund the Napoleonic Wars. Taxes doubled and quadrupled to fund the great armies of the two world wars. The damage did not end there. There was the hidden tax of debasement of the currency leading to economic problems and ultimately to inflation, which ravaged currencies and caused political unrest, leading to the rise of Nazism in Germany and communism in Russia.

‘Currency debasement is a greater threat to Australia than China. It is the friend of fascism and communism and the enemy of pluralism. War engenders strong government and authoritarian control which linger even beyond an ultimate victory. The Vietnamese are entitled to their own form of government and we should not interfere. We will not be thanked for so doing. We should offer friendship and trade. In this case morality and self-interest coincide.’

Barton sat down and let his audience stew on their Chinese wool cheques, inflation, taxes, and more control from Canberra. His host announced that Barton had given his audience something to think about. McLachlan flew Barton to Brisbane in time for him to catch the last TAA plane to Sydney. It was not the last he heard from the pastoralist or the Chapmans.