The Gatekeepers of Australian Foreign Policy 1950-1966

Abstract

The Liberal-Country Party government elected in 1949 built their policies around the challenges (and opportunities) of what David Lowe terms 'the great world struggle' of the Cold War. This reorientation had a profound effect on the Department of External Affairs (DEA), as it managed Australia's international relations into the 1950s and onwards. This political and policy reorientation is the subject of this book. The core argument being advanced here is that, for all the various political drivers of the turn to Cold War priorities, the changing culture, processes and networks of the officials within the DEA were integral to the manufacture of Australia's foreign policy thinking, and to translating various political and ideological realignments into an anti-communist orthodoxy that proved to be robust and resilient, but ultimately limited.