2 - From the beginning

Summary

“You might want to think about the guy who wrote that”, said Hedley Bull as we sat together in his office just after my return from ten months study leave in the United Kingdom, in December 1973. Hedley was, of course, referring to Des Ball's doctoral thesis. And the need to think about Des had arisen because in my absence the Defence Minister of the day, Lance Barnard, had awarded the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC) two non-tenured posts. We now needed to think hard about candidates for them, at Research Fellow and Senior Research Fellow level.

I did not know Des very well at all in 1973. In 1970, when I first came to the ANU, and he was finishing his Ph.D., we were on very different tracks. He was a young, free, radically inclined man who had been prominent in opposing Australia's part in the Vietnam War. I was a decade older with thirteen years of service in the Australian Army behind me, including a year in Vietnam as an infantry officer, 1966–67.

When Hedley asked me early in 1970 if I would take on the Headship of the Centre, my initial reaction was to refuse. By entering academia I was expressing a desire to be free and, if need be, to be critical of national foreign and defence policies. But in taking on responsibility for the Centre, which inevitably had some dealings with the Defence Department and the armed services, I would have to tread very carefully in order to sustain the Centre's existing relations without becoming too circumscribed by them. After talking Hedley's offer over with my wife, Sally, that evening in early 1970, I changed my mind. It was probably going to cause some serious disappointment if I was to refuse to take the Centre on, and perhaps I could do the necessary balancing act and make a success of the responsibility. So I told Hedley next morning that I would accept the post. The die was cast — and it was an excellent outcome for me too in the longer term.

But my first years as Centre head were a somewhat lonely experience. The air of student and collegial disapproval of the Centre's existence was palpable on the ANU campus.