Helping draft resisters
Alexandra
Can I ask you a little bit more about the Draft Resisters Union - were there very many women involved in that?
Sue McCulloch
Yes, there were a lot of women. I think it was also at the time of the start of the women’s movement, and I think – you know, looking back on it, it was a pretty sexist movement, the draft resisters, in that the women were – we weren’t quite the cups of tea makers, we were very involved in the whole demonstration. A lot of the partners of the draft resisters were, you know, equally affected by it. Their lives were disrupted, and, you know, like me, many of them had had to leave either jobs or study that they were doing in order to support their partners and to make their own protests about the war. But, of course, it was the draft resisters themselves who were the focal points of the campaign. And I actually ended up as the secretary and treasurer of the Draft Resisters Union because everybody else had gone to jail. Or – it started off with all the men who held those positions, but that wasn’t really feasible because they were either on the run, or they were hiding underground, or, you know, they couldn’t really do things that you used to have to do to go into a bank, to do the banking and stuff. Because they’d get caught. So I became the treasurer of the Draft Resisters Union.”
Alexandra
The National Service Act required every 20 year old male in Australia to register for national service. If you didn’t want to comply, you had a few options. Firstly, and legally, you could register as a conscientious objector. This had been allowed under Australian law every time national service existed, but that certainly doesn’t mean it was an easy process, nor that you would actually have your status legally ratified. As the Vietnam War progressed, other options were exercised as well. There were those men who registered, but then failed to follow the rest of the process, such as turning up for their medical. And then there were those men who refused to comply even with the registration process - men like Tony Dalton, whose mother Dorothy was involved with Save Our Sons:
Alexandra
So you must have come - kind of known your number could potentially come up in late '69, would that have been it, for national service?
Tony Dalton
I turned, I turned 20 in 1968.
Alexandra
So had you thought about how you would -
Tony Dalton
Oh yeah I'd thought a lot about it.
Alexandra
And you filled out all the application...
Tony Dalton
Nope.
Alexandra
So you didn't do that bit. I wasn't sure -
Tony Dalton
I was one of the very early one, to say I'm not having anything to do with it.
Alexandra
So you didn't even get to the point where your number got called, and then you refused, you refused to participate right from the start.
Tony Dalton
Right from the beginning. And I wrote a letter saying I'm not registering and I hand-delivered it to the Department of Labour and National Service.”
Alexandra
Failing to register at all, or refusing to comply at any other stage, was breaking the law. There are varying numbers put out for the number of men who actually went down that route, but the number of men who were arrested was relatively low, and there’s a variety of reasons for that too. I’m not going in to all the detail of that here, but if you’re interested in an in-depth look at this whole process and some of the men who were involved, Bobbie Oliver’s 2022 book Hell No! We Won’t Go! has a very thorough investigation of the available records and also includes interviews with men who were involved. For our purposes what’s important to know is that a number of the men who broke the law in this way went on the run, staying away from their families for up to two years, to avoid being arrested and /or being drafted. Many of those men were assisted in this process by women. In this episode, you’ll hear from Sue, Caroline, Frances, Sandra, Anne, Lyn, Ceci and Jean, who were all involved in one way or another with the draft resisters.
A key organisation at this time was the Draft Resisters Union, or DRU. At the top of the episode you heard from Sue McCulloch, discussing the fact that she became both the secretary and the treasurer for the DRU. Fran Newell was also involved:
Frances Newell
And then, when the Draft Resisters Union was established after the moratorium, in June 1970, you know, I was very involved in supporting the Draft Resisters Union, and aware that the underground network had been set up by September of that year, although Michael wasn't actually underground in 1970. So he wasn't actually underground, and therefore I wasn't directly involved in the underground network until 1971.
Alexandra
Yeah, I was going to ask about the Draft Resisters Union - you say you supported that them. Does that mean you were you were kind of vocally in favour of what they were doing? Or again, did you, were you writing for them or giving them money? What did that support look like?
Frances Newell
So no, I wasn't writing leaflets or providing any money. I mean, I think Michael and I were living on something like $21 a week. That was my student allowance that supported us both. So no, I certainly wasn't giving any money. But what it means is that I was aware of the meetings that were going on, the strategies that were being developed, and I was certainly prepared to support the underground network. You know, once Michael, went underground. Yeah.
Another group, which I’ve found less information about than the DRU, was called Conscientious Objectors (non-Pacifist), which I think was formed in 1967. This has particularly come to my attention because a letter signed by Jennifer Talbot, as secretary of that organisation, appeared in the student papers at Melbourne, Monash and La Trobe Universities. I haven’t been able to find any other information about Talbot aside from the fact that she was also on the committee for SOS. Anyway, in this letter she wrote that “At the present time the Australian government is supporting the USA in a war which many informed and responsible people believe to be totally wrong and misguided… To kill in self-defence is one thing, to kill in a country thousands of miles from Australia to appease the Americans and as a sort of insurance policy… is both foolish and truly base.” She goes on at length to explain why the notion of trying to stop Communism is foolish. The letter adds that, quote, “Conscientious Objectors (Non-Pacifist) was founded last year to cover a wider field of conscientious objection than the simply pacifist. We are working to achieve the acceptance of the principle of non-pacifist conscientious objection. We maintain that you can have a deep and true objection without being a pacifist… We rely on the Nuremberg trials for our justification.” How much of this was Talbot’s own words of course we can’t know, but in putting her name to it she’s clearly deeply committed to the cause.
Women were assisting men from the very beginning of the process, handing out pamphlets that outlined the options that men had. In one pamphlet that lists names and phone numbers of people who can help out, of the eight people who are mentioned by name four of them are women - Jean McLean, Joan Coxsedge, Dorothy Dalton, Sue McCulloch, and Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo (Margaret Frazer Accession no: 93/158 Box 1, University of Melbourne Archives). Caroline Hogg was also involved, thanks to Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo:
Caroline Hogg
[Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo] roped me in as a draft counselor. It involved young men if they were faced with filling in their form, or if they'd been - if they'd been called up, just coming for general advice. I think only two or three people ever came. But there was a notice up in your area with your telephone number that people could pop in. And a couple did.“
In this same vein I must mention the Abraham sisters, Shirley and especially Vivienne. One of their most significant contributions to the protest movement was editing a journal called The Peacemaker from 1964 to 1968. In her book Hell No We Won’t Go, Bobbie Oliver calls Vivienne “the strongest and most dedicated supporter of conscientious objectors to compulsory military training” (Bobbie Oliver, Hell No! We Won’t Go! Melbourne: Interventions, 2022, 22).
Frances Newell
But the other women who were not students, but who had a key role were Vivienne and Shirley Abraham. And they single handedly, pretty well, ran the Federal Pacifist Council, and ran the conscientious objectors advisory groups and put out the newspaper and really kept a track of who was being - going to court and who was being arrested - you know, so they were absolute stalwarts.”
Vivienne attended court cases, and reported on their progress and outcomes, regularly wrote to men who were going through the conscientious objector process, visited them in jail, and was generally very involved for several years. In an essay about the journal, Bobbie Oliver notes that the Abrahams “also served as an unofficial postal service for objectors who were on the run.” (Bobbie Oliver, “The Peacemaker’s Role in the Anti-Vietnam War movement”, Fighting Against War ed. Phillip Deery and Julie Kimber, p257).
Alexandra
So one of the things that I've heard about you, Sandra, is your involvement with organising safe houses for draft resistors. So, I mean, my first question is why? Why did you get involved in doing that sort of thing?
Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo
That was in my DNA. …
Alexandra
Did you ever host people yourself?
Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo
I can't remember to tell you the truth. Unlikely because I think by that stage, John and I - we separated in '71. That's when we were living in Kew. And... was after the moratorium we separated. But we had full house... he and I had that room... the children would have been in that room... I think it was only a two bedroom house. So I might have, but I don't remember. People moved in with me after John separated - it was really tight squeeze, lots of kids all under the age of five and several adults. And eventually, not surprisingly, that household broke up all together. Then I moved into another house with an adult couple and another - there were five children; two of the children were always mine, and two people without children, and that household broke up. And it was left with me. And I started living there with this guy who was a draft resister. Yeah, so he was - he was a draft resister. He didn't want to go conscientious objection. So he was hiding in plain view. He went to work. He worked at the International Bookshop. He went to work every day or however many days it was that he worked, he come home and blah, blah. The day before Whitlam was elected, bang, bang, bang on the front door. Chris says I know what that's gonna be. He goes bolting out the back - we had a back laundry or something like that - goes bolting out the back. I open the door, there's these two really heavy looking dudes in suits, standing there with a piece of paper in their hand and what I had learned was, they can't serve you unless you take the paperwork. So they say, "Does Chris Brigley [?] live here?" And I said, "No." They said, "Yes, he does." "No." "Yes, he does. And you're served" - boom - and before I had a chance to close the door they threw it inside, and that's considered to be delivered. Anyway, and then the election results came and that was that, so he didn't have to go hide somewhere else.”
Alexandra
Several years ago Rennis Witham did a marvellous project for the Labor Party here in Victoria called the Safe House Project, in which she interviewed both people who housed draft resisters and the men they sheltered. I’ve put a link in the show notes if you’re interested in seeing them (https://viclabor.com.au/resource/the-safe-house-project-an-oral-history/ ). Almost every place mentioned by these men involved a married couple, with no suggestion that the wife in any way objected - and, given it’s the 60s and early 70s, probably meant the wife was doing all the housework. Bob Muntz remembered a Mrs Ipsen, whose husband at least was a member of the Communist Party, saying “I have washed your clothes and hung them in the middle so neighbours won’t see strange clothing”. Michael Hamel-Green remembered a South Melbourne house rented solely to draft resisters which had probably been organised by Jean McLean. He also recalled living briefly with a South African Quaker named Elizabeth Taylor in the suburb of Malvern, who fed them well and had no expectation that they would do housework (footnote). Tony Dalton recalled staying with Connie and Keith Benn for ten months, when Connie’s mum was also staying with them, and she taught him to cook Italian food. The Daltons themselves did not get involved in this side of things:
Alexandra
Did your couch ever get used for other draft resisters? Or was that too close to home.
Tony Dalton
I doubt it. I suspect it was partly - you never knew, in a sense, as to when, what - when the police were looking.”
In his book Draftmen Go Free, Bob Scates does mention that the Daltons regularly hosted meetings about draft resistance at their home, even if they weren’t housing other men who were on the run. One of the people who did house draft resisters, and was interviewed for Safe Houses, was Anne Sgro:
Anne Sgro
And then in the early '70s, with the anti conscription movement, we had a couple of draft resistors staying with us, just - as they were moved around. So Bob Scates was one, he stayed here the longest. And there was another young fellow whose name I can't remember. Bob Scates got picked up at some stage and ended in Pentridge until the Whitlam government, but it was- it was kind of it, it was real - it was real cat and mouse, you know, because - and there was always ASIO and secret police, you were conscious all the time of - there are people taking photos, checking out, watching and seeing, tapping your phone, or whatever. So you - everybody, I think, was aware that this was the reality. So you were relatively careful what you said on the phone. And there was real care in hiding Bob, for example, that he - during the day was not to be seen, on the whole. And that - not to ever answer the door, not to go - all that sort of stuff. Just - and it must have been really hard for those young men to go from one place to another to another knowing that sooner or later, chances are you'd be picked up. Because there was a real intention to get them because they was they were standing out, saying it's not - it's not going to be me. I just I won't go.
Alexandra
Yeah. How did you get involved in offering a safe house? Did somebody just approach you and say, Have you got a couch?
Anne Sgro
No idea. Probably? Probably, I mean, it was - Giovanni was quite close with Sam Goldbloom, who was the chairperson of CICD, and also very much involved in the moratorium. So it was this kind of network of people who you knew and who were trusted. And so someone must have said, well, can you hide a couple of fellas? And why wouldn't you? So we did. … Because otherwise, if we didn't, and others didn't, well, they were taking a stand for what? You know, you really had to, just in terms of solidarity, I think, and because we didn't want them to be caught. They were brave enough to say we're not going and so you had to give them some support, I think.”
Caroline Hogg
Hiding draft resistors. Yeah.
Alexandra
How did you get on the list of people to do that?
Caroline Hogg
On look, it wasn't, it wasn't hard to get on the list of people to do that. Probably - I don't know. Sandra Zurbo may have given my name or the Labor Party; I'm not - I'm honestly not sure. I had contact - I mean, we had some people but not very many because I was known to be politically active and my then husband Robert Hogg, even more politically active. We hid one or two people at our place for a short while, and then my move was just move them on somewhere else pretty quickly. Also the draft resisters Tony Dalton and Michael Hamel-Green had their wigs fitted in our kitchen. It came about because one of Robert's friends knew somebody who made wigs, perhaps? And I mean, there was a group of us, we knew who the draft resisters were - we knew them. We didn't and didn't want to know where they were hiding out at any particular time. I mean, Bob Scates must have been hiding out at Ann and Giovanni Sgro's place because he was caught driving away from somewhere in Coburg, but I just knew he was in hiding. I had no idea where even though they were great friends of mine, so we learned to shut up. And I was teaching at Fitzroy High School. And there were enough people on the staff, who when I said … And I'd say, Look, he's a nice bloke, could you manage to put him up for three or four days til we can find somewhere else? You know, there was a network, a bit like the underground railway, only not as dramatic, I don't want to inflate it beyond its role, but it worked pretty well.”
Lyn Hovey
So we, at that stage of our lives, we lived in a collective, which the mainstream press called a commune, but we called it a collective. And because he was resisting the draft, we had that big network of draft resistors. And some of us, some of them were - well, one of them was hiding in a ceiling. He had this little trapdoor where he would, he would go, but after I read my ASIO file, I realised that, like, they set out the front of our place, it was a big house in Vermont, you know, a rented house with 12 people living in it. And the ASIO agents would sit out the front and write down the number plates of cars that were coming and going. But it - I find it really interesting that we must have hidden our tracks really well, because they never picked up on the fact that we had a house full of draft resistors.
Alexandra
Wow. Obviously, then being involved in the draft resistors was something pretty significant for you at the time. Were you involved in, like actively involved in helping them to move around and be safe, or was that just because it was the house and that's - people just came and stayed?
Lyn Hovey
Well, it was, it was sort of me saying they could come there. There were, there were - some of those 12 people who lived in the house were not political at all. And, and so there were three of us who were involved with the draft resistance stuff
Ceci Cairns
And eventually we were harbouring draft resisters, driving them around, having adventures. You know, it was pretty adventurous and funny. Sort of very funny things happened. Like the day I stole a car. Very funny things. I lived in South Melbourne at the time, and when we drove draft resisters around, we tried to get different cars. Because we knew we were being watched and followed, and everything. And how much we knew, I’m not sure, but we just were very careful. So I used to sometimes borrow my grandmother’s Mercedes Benz, or I’d borrow someone else’s car. Anyway, one day, we ran out of cars, and Jeanie said, “Well, look, you’ll find–” gave me a set of keys to a blue Holden, and said, “Look, the car will be parked halfway along your street.” So I walked out of my house, walked halfway along the street, and there was a blue Holden. And it was open. And I thought, oh, that’s a bit peculiar. Anyway, I hopped in, and on the front seat was a packet with fresh, hot chips on it. And I thought, that’s funny. So I ate a chip, and put the key in, drove off. Get to the meeting place, I’ve taken the wrong car. I mean, I’ve stolen a car. So the absolute nightmare was, what if I get caught in a stolen car? [laughing]
Alexandra
With a draft resister.
Ceci Cairns
Yes! So I thought, I’ve just got to get back to that car park, get rid of this car – so I just drove back. By this time, it was about three quarters of an hour later, because by the time we realised what had happened – and where I was living was opposite the South Melbourne football ground. And it was a football day, so there were no car parks anywhere near where I took the car from. I had to park it again about a mile away. And so that was one of the sort of mad sort of adventures that happened. [laughing] Yeah, it’s very funny. But it’s a sort of – breaking the law on all fronts, it was getting a bit too much.”
Alexandra
While it was the men who had to hide, women were also impacted of course. Families didn’t see their sons and brothers for however long, and may not even have had a letter or a phone call on any sort of regular basis to know that they were doing ok. Girlfriends and wives were impacted, too, as Frances recalls:
Frances Newell
So I finished my degree in 1970. And in 1971, I went to work for a small NGO called International Development Actions. And that organisation had its office in the Methodist Mission in Prahran, Prahran Methodist Mission. Mike and I were living close by, I was working at IDA. And so things like this would happen. There was an internal phone system, whereby the receptionist down on the ground floor could ring me on the internal line and say hello, or whatever. Anyway, one day, she rang me and she said, I don't know whether this is of any interest to you, Fran. But there's two Commonwealth cops downstairs in the foyer. The cleaner has just sent them on their way. And if you look out your office window, you'll see on the other side of Chapel Street, there's a Chinese cafe, and just behind the curtains there, you'll see that's where they've gone. And they're keeping a watch out for you. So I said oh yeah, thank you. I'm very interested in that. Not that I had any inkling that she knew who I was or what I was on about. So I just then locked up the office, and departed via the back stairwell, the fire escape down the back of the building. So it was a part of everyday life, I suppose.” …
Alexandra
Were there other times when you knew you were being watched or followed?
Fran Newell
Well, yes, so that was just at the time when Michael did officially go underground, because it was around that time that he was arrested, put on bail and then went underground, absconded and went underground. So around that time, we no longer lived together in Prahran. But we moved - well he went underground, and I went to a sharehouse in Kensington with two wonderful women, Sister Penelope who is no longer alive, so you can't interview her. But - and Jenny Walpole. So the three of us were living in Kensington. And the real estate agent rang up one day and didn't speak to me spoke to probably Sister Penelope as the person who had the lease and said we've been contacted by the Commonwealth police. They believe that there's a draft resister living with you. So clearly, they were on to it. So yeah, there was always a sense that one was being under surveillance, yeah.
Alexandra
Did that make any difference to the way that you lived or acted? I mean, I guess you were already very aware of being cautious with Michael underground. Did it did it have an everyday impact?
Fran Newell
Well, how it worked was I was at work, living in the share house, and then at weekends, I'd try and get together with Michael. So knowing that, you know, I was under surveillance, I would go to complicated lengths to, you know, leave work, take a variety of different forms of public transport, etc, etc. That's how - that's where the effect cut in, well, the roundabout methods I used to connect up with Michael. And so there was one very amusing occasion at Melbourne University. So I traveled by public transport to Melbourne University, and sought to lose myself in the Union and then to meet up with somebody who was taking me to see Michael. And that young man and I were walking through the university together when we met his girlfriend, and she wanted to know what they were doing that night - it was Friday. And of course, he couldn't give an explanation. So she looked at me very skeptically. And that was the end of that relationship pretty much. So he very faithfully didn't say what he was doing, but she wasn't impressed. So all sorts of little incidents like that.”
Alexandra
One of the things Fran would do is wear a wig as a disguise, and that wig is now in the Melbourne Museum - I’ve got a photo of it on the podcast website.
Jean McLean has already been mentioned as being crucial to this whole process. In the following excerpt, she mentions the DRU, which is the Drafter Resisters Union.
Alexandra
Did you have much to do with the draft resisters, with Tony Dalton and Barry Johnston and so on?
Jean McLean
Yeah, I ran the underground. Yeah, I did. Tony Dalton stayed at Ian Turner’s house. That was his first – then he stayed at Connie Benn’s house. Then – because they used to move them every fortnight.
Alexandra
So you organised the movement and the transport, and so on?
Jean McLean
Yeah, the whole thing. And then he stayed at the McCullochs’ house in South Melbourne. And that was when he – he lost his camera. He was out – he lost his camera, and he rang the police to report it. Then he rang me and said - - - “I – I forgot,” you know, because – you see, middle class people – the reaction, “Oh, you’ve got to report it or the insurance won’t pay up.” So we had to move him.
Alexandra
Were there lots of women involved in, like, being those underground stations?
Jean McLean
No. I – well, I mean, other people did some, obviously. But I’d go to – like, I went to Marge Gunner, the Benns, to the Turners. To quite a few people. They were people I knew, who weren’t publicly associated so much. So that people wouldn’t think that – and I had two guys down at Carrum, where I lived. But not in my house. But up the road, there was – he was an East Berliner. And he lived there – I used to see him on the beach. I never quite knew why he was there, but anyway. He gave us his house. It was his holiday house. And he gave us his house to pop people in. But I had to feed them.
Alexandra
Just trotting along with food up to this allegedly empty house? Yep.
Jean McLean
Another guy, called Ian Turner, who we sent to – he was studying architecture at Melbourne Uni. And he was called up, and he didn’t want to go. So we sent him up to Eden, to a friend who was a fisherperson. And he stayed there. And he loved it so much, he never wanted to go back. And what he ended up doing was being a pearl seeder.
Alexandra
When you approached people to house the draft resisters, were people generally open to it?
Jean McLean
Oh, yeah. I mean, there was only one who worried, because she thought the cops would come, and her husband would lose his job. I mean, you know, a bit – but if anyone had any doubts, they’d just forget it. But, no, most of them were perfectly happy. But I never landed them people for too long. And, I mean, Michael Hamel-Green – Christ, I not only got him a house, but I also used to go to his – the lecturer who was, you know, doing his PhD. What do you call it?
Alexandra
Supervisor.
Jean McLean
Yeah, his supervisor. I used to go and say, “Oh, Michael’s so distressed, the pressure on him in the underground, could he have extra time?” And I used to go and get him extra time. And he doesn’t even acknowledge it. Funny, but people turn the stories the way they want them to.
Alexandra
Were you mostly housing the draft resisters with families? With couples?
Jean McLean
Yeah, they were mainly families. They were cousins, you know, they always became their cousin. And sometimes people – Ian Turner, the other Ian Turner, he said, “I didn’t know you had a cousin.” He said, “Well, it was illegitimate.”
Alexandra
That’s a lot of women being involved in that kind of underhand, underground way, which is really interesting. And, again, not – you know, I read Bob Scates’s Draftmen Go Free, and there’s not really that much mention of that aspect in terms of - - -
Jean McLean
No. No.
Alexandra
Because without those people, they would have been - - -
Jean McLean
Exactly.
Alexandra
- - - sleeping on the streets or caught very quickly.
Jean McLean
Exactly. And he was a pain in the neck, too. No, because I had him in a house. And he had a Volkswagen, a little bug, that had all anti-conscription stuff and everything all over it. And we said, you know, “You shouldn’t go burning around in that, because they know exactly whose car it is.” But he got bored, and – this is my theory – so he used to go off, and then I’d get a call, oh, he thought the cops were coming. All that. But, yeah, I mean, he doesn’t even [laughing] It’s funny, in fact, you know, they’re young men who – I don’t know what they would have done. In the main, they were distinctly unorganised. Really. You know? And another one, I got on a boat to New Zealand. He - I went to the Painters and Dockers. And I had to go and see them at six in the morning, though, because they work different hours to other human beings. And I went, and there was a guy at the door with a gun. “That’s interesting.” Anyway, I said I’d come to see – Nichols, his surname – they used to call him Putty Nose Nichols. But anyway, I went to see him. Because you have all these fantasy beliefs, you know, that the Painters and Dockers and the wharfies and that, had connections with the underground. And part of that was because people with a jail history couldn’t get work anywhere else. It was only the builders’ labourers, painters and dockers, where – those areas where they could get work. Because it was hard, difficult, you know, heavy sort of work. And, I suppose, certain – that wasn’t what I was looking for. Anyway, off I went. And I said, “I want a passport for this – a false passport for this young man.”
And he said, “What gives you the idea that I can get him a false —”
I said, “Well, I’ve read all about all—”
And he said, “It’s not quite as simple as that. It is possible, but it’s very difficult, and it’s very expensive. And I would suggest, Jean, that you could think of another way.” He said “But I’ll tell you something we can do. We can put him in one of the grain ships.” You know, we used to have the ships going to New Zealand. So we popped him off there. And he stayed in New Zealand. I mean – see, we had – we had much better relations then than we do now. We deport people. I got him smuggled.“