Manufacturing Australian foreign policy 1950 - 1966

Abstract

The transition from the liberal foreign policy approach of the Chifley Labor Government to the more strident anti-communism of the conservative Menzies Government after 1949 is a significant event in 20th Century Australian history. During the period 1950-1966 the Menzies Government faced a range of challenges such as relations with the USA, responses to the USSR and China and the question of Indonesia and decolonisation in post-war Southeast Asia. In response the Menzies Government developed new foreign policies, encouraged a particular style of diplomacy and helped to establish a new Cold War attitude towards Australian international affairs. In the 1950s, the Cold War, the United Nations (UN) and the establishment of new overseas diplomatic missions (particularly in Asia) placed growing administrative and bureaucratic demands on the machinery of Australian diplomacy. From the mid 1950s the Department of External Affairs (DEA) was restructured in order to meet such demands. This process allowed the Department to establish what were considered to be the defining characteristics and attitudes of a new professional Australian diplomacy. The selection and training of new diplomatic recruits is one such area in which this occurred. This period saw growing interest from politicians, diplomats and academics for developing new types of foreign policy analysis about communism in South East Asia, or the Cold War in general. While some networks between politics, bureaucracy and academia linked to foreign policy analysis had existed in the 1930s and 1940s, from the 1950s new and more powerful relationships were being established. Various academics, many from the Australian Institute of International Affairs (AlIA) and the Australian National University (ANU) forged close and ongoing contacts with the DEA. The relationships between small groups of key individuals and institutions ultimately wielded significant influence on issues such as the Cold War and Australian foreign policy debates. By the 1960s this small foreign policy network had built a vital relationship with the Ford Foundation of New York. This relationship certainly helped to define dominant attitudes towards Australian foreign policy debates. The ANU, AIIA, DEA and Ford Foundation network established a style of foreign policy analysis that was openly (or at least cautiously) sympathetic to the policies of Canberra and Washington often accepting the official justifications at face value. Show more