LBJ visits Melbourne
Judy Maddigan
The one that does make me laugh is the LBJ one. When we gathered up in Grattan Street, [unintelligible] Swanston Street, and there were thousands there - not all uni students. Monash Uni had sent these buses of their students down, but there were a lot of older people and other people, you know, obviously, we weren't [unintelligible]. So we're standing there waiting and waiting and waiting. And then - I can't remember if a policeman told us or someone else. And I was there with a couple of girlfriends actually, one who was in the Commerce faculty [unintelligible] for me and another young lady whose name was Nola, who was an Arts student who was about that high and never said boo to a goose in her whole life. And this cop - I think a cop told us, I'm not sure - anyway, the news came through that they'd changed the route and he was coming the other way because there were too many protestors. Well this little Nola, she turned on the cop who was sitting on the horse next - gave him the serve of his life.
Alexandra
This is quite a short episode, but I felt it was important to include because several women mentioned it as important to the way they thought about the issues of the time, particularly about the way Australia was acting in the 1960s in terms of our connection to the United States. This episode features five women, who were born between 1937 and 1950: Judy, Kelley, Sherryl, Carol and Fiona. In 1966, when these events occurred, Carol was 29 while Fiona was 16, with the other three around 18 years old.
In October 1966, President Lyndon B Johnson - probably better known as LBJ - came to visit Australia, for the first offical visit of an American president to our country. He arrived on the 20th of October, and came to Melbourne for a flying visit on the 21st. The Australian Prime Minister, Harold Holt, had used the American Democratic Party’s slogan “All the way with LBJ” back in July 1966 when visiting the White House, in what was, according to an article on the National Archives website, quote “an impromptu addition… to the text of his remarks on the White House lawn” (https://www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/australias-prime-ministers/harold-holt/during-office). As may be guessed, Holt’s attitude and the visit of LBJ provoked quite some reaction from those who opposed the Vietnam War, and what was seen as American imperialism.
Alexandra
Did you get involved in any of the marches from Melbourne University?
Kelley Johnson
I did once, I think. Yeah.
Alexandra
Was it the LBJ one?
Kelley Johnson
Yeah. Yeah. All the way with LBJ, forget it.
Sherryl Garbutt
I just remember the huge hordes of people, and the car going – a big, black, shiny thing, I think, and going pretty fast – well, as fast as it possibly could. Dangerously fast, I suspect. So that was pretty amazing. There were kids clambering up on the gates, and I think there was a fence, I don’t know. Don’t remember. I remember a fence. But it was out on Grattan Street. So it was a big open space behind us. A great big garden or something. So it was perfect for people to gather. But he went, and I can remember Harold Holt saying, “All the way with LBJ,” which I just thought was outrageous. It’s just such a cringeworthy statement. Worthy on its own for a protest, let alone what was going on. And there were some people being outrageous, but, good on them.”
Alexandra
With the protests against President Johnson, what was - what was your attitude towards Johnson being in Australia? Why were you demonstrating?
Carol Goldson
Well, because he was representing all that that in our minds - that he was symbolic of, of our - my country's sycophancy, if you like, towards the United States, the willingness of this country to go - to follow the lead of the US and go into wars where I felt we had no business to be. And yeah, I don't know that I felt any particular animosity towards President Johnson as a person, but yes, as a symbol, certainly.
A week after his visit, so on the 28th of October, a woman named Janet Tribe wrote a letter to the editor of The Age. She had been involved in demonstrating against LBJ’s visit, and her letter is primarily concerned with the negative attitude towards the very idea of protest that was apparently prevalent in Melbourne, or Australia, at this point. She argues that such an attitude is quote “in complete contradiction to one of the principles of democracy - that anyone has the right to voice opinions.” She notes that the protests were necessary to show that President Johnson could not claim that all of Australia supported the US policy in Vietnam.
Fiona Lindsay
And so when - when did Lyndon Johnson come out? '64 or '65? I think it was '65. I must have been in Year 10. And a few of us went in on the train from Eltham High into - with the blessing of the school, in our uniforms - to protest. And you know lots, there were lots of kids there. So it's a bit like the climate action movement among students now, in a way: I think it tapped into that similar idealism and anger about the future, as well as what's going on now. So Chris Sanders came in with me, that's right, and we were on the train, and we went in, and the police - the security guys were really brutal. They really were. I suppose because they had - I suppose they had American detail there as well. They were just laying into people. And I met up with my mother there. And I just was hysterical with - it was so frightening. I remember saying to [unclear], "don't you hit them, don't you - leave them alone." It was really confronting. So that probably reinforced anger and - among, you know, many people, and also sort of the anti police, anti authoritarian, anti government, feeling at the time; yeah, would have consolidated people's views.”
There are a lot of reports about police violence at the LBJ demonstrations. I’ll start with The Age, who on October 22 reported that there was a near-riot along St Kilda Road as the motorcade sped along. There’s a claim that “several women kicked the legs of the police horses,” (“Near-riot as protesters clash with protest groups”, The Age 22 October 1966, p3). The article also states that “Jeering catcalls broke out as a group of women from the Save Ours Sons movement gathered opposite” - that’s opposite Government House, but it’s unclear who did the catcalling. Also at Government House, there was a report that a girl was pulled across the road by her hair, and thrust under s barrier by a policeman, because she was pleading with police not to put her boyfriend in a riot wagon.
Because they felt that the mainstream media was not representing the truth of the situation, twelve people - including two women, B Higgins and H Russell - put out a substantial pamphlet called “Facts about the LBJ demonstration”. This claims to have been produced “completely independently by a group of adult individuals concerned at the flagrant disregard for law and order shown by the police - local and Commonwealth - in their treatment of those who wished to demonstrate their dissension” (Political Ephemera relating to Defiance of the Law 1968-1972, State Library of Victoria). It does seem to have some connection to Monash University, although one of the people involved in compiling it is Michael Hamel-Green, who attended Melbourne University. Anyway: the statements compiled in this pamphlet speak to the violence witnessed, and the fact that women were involved in the protests and the violence. For instance, in her statement Barbara Higgins notes that she saw a man thrown to the ground by police, another man photographing the incident who was then himself punched, and “Two girls who tried to drag the security men off [that] man on the ground were flung to the ground themselves (p9). Additionally, ““A young woman, terrified by what she had just seen, ran on to the roadway screaming ‘Leave him alone!’ A large, thickset man seized her by the hair and proceeded to drag her back to the barrier, hitting her about the head.” Higgins herself had her poster taken away, and was threatened by a police officer (p10), as did another woman named Helen. Michael Hamel-Green described “a young woman sitting on the ground just behind the barricade, dazed and crying, with her head turned into the breast of another young woman who had her arms around her… Several people were taunting the police for hurting the woman.” Someone else reported seeing “a middle-aged woman being dragged along between two policemen in uniform” (p11).
The newspapers did report some of the violence. On October 26, in The Age, the subheading claims that “A young woman had grabbed a policeman by the hair and then another had held him by the coat during the scuffle near Government House last Friday” (“Two more face court over LBJ visit”, The Age, 26 October 1966). These women were claimed to be the fiancé and wife of the two men who were the focus of the article, Robert Hopkins and Desmond Files, both of whom were charged with offensive behaviour and resisting arrest at the demonstration. The men denied the actions claimed against their partners. In another newspaper, further police violence was claimed, and a Miss Peggy Somers gave a statement alleging pretty serious police violence. I’m not sure which newspaper that was in because it was just a clipping from the Ralph and Dorothy Gibson archive box, but I suspect it as The Guardian - a Communist newspaper. The date given is October 27, 1966 (Box 2, University of Melbourne archives).
October 1966 is very early in the piece in terms of protesting against the Vietnam War. While some of the protest action discussed here may have been vernally anti-American, the Vietnam War connection was definitely significant. From this very early point onwards, women are involved in the protest movement.