How did Holt disappear – the story which won’t go away

as posted here

How did Holt disappear – the story which won’t go away

Posted by James Higham on 2 January 2010, 2:17 pm

The disappearance of Australian PM Harold Holt in 1967 has never quite died away as a story and with good reason – there are anomalies, lies and the times themselves were a hotbed of agitation and world trouble – these times included the Kennedy assassination.

A search of my old blog reveals that this subject hasn’t been touched on before so maybe it should now.  Former Governor General Paul Hasluck who himself had been “kicked upstairs” for political reasons had been an intelligent maverick for the Liberal [read Conservative] Party and too hot to handle.

He has come out and said that Holt had been depressed and possibly on drugs to keep him going at the time and when he went for a swim at Cheviot Beach that fateful morning, he was in no condition to swim:

Hasluck believed Holt’s distress was the result of the treachery of at least one of his colleagues – his old Liberal Party nemesis, then treasurer and deputy prime minister Sir William McMahon – whom Hasluck named as the key person plotting against Holt.

Almost everyone who comes out with big statements has some axe to grind or some central reason, central motivation and one of Hasluck’s was his distaste for McMahon, the eventual PM, a view which was shared by many of his colleagues and by the Australian electorate later on.  In short, McMahon was a nakedly ambitious, nasty little piece of work, dubbed by Gough Whitlam: “Tiberius with a telephone”.

Snippets which might have been factors

Robert Menzies was so pro-British, it was almost embarrassing and it backfired on him. In 1941 PM Menzies, of the UAP, spent months in Britain discussing war strategy with Winston Churchill and other leaders, while his position at home deteriorated. It was even suggested he take over from Churchill as British leader, never really on. Predictably, when he came back to Australia, he was forced to resign and the party then lost to Labor in an election. Labour’s Curtin had refused to form a wartime coalition with Menzies.

Another snippet was that Menzies, in 1914, resigned his commission at the very time others of his age and class clamoured to be allowed to enlist and this dogged him for the rest of his days, especially come WW2. It seems, to me, to be in line with his own decision in 1940, to recall up an coming Holt who was being groomed for eventual leadership and PMship.

Why would a leader who brooked no opposition and shafted opponents, like all “statesmen” of the world, have groomed Holt? Why woud Putin have groomed Medvedev? When Kennedy was groomed in the U.S., he suddenly got uppity and the rest was history. The parallels litter the political sphere.

Menzies was still very much alive at the time of his smoothly acceding successor Holt’s death and was quite mentally active. I saw him in those days at Melbourne University being wheeled by his entourage and he was quite alert and could have clearly been in touch with political developments of “his” party, the one he’d formed in 1944, at Ravenscraig, on the ashes of the old UAP.

How does a Prime Minister who is the key factor in doing Britain’s will [Maralinga] and also America’s [Vietnam, Pine Gap military base], survive all political vicissitudes during a tumultuous time in the world? The question answers itself, doesn’t it?

Holt had an unloved childhood and the early loss of his mother to contend with which apparently made him compensate with public achievement and the desire to be loved and accepted by all – thus he courted union leaders as well as those on his side of politics and was seen as a “consensus man”, never a sustainable position politically. He was a philanderer and assuaged his self-esteem through women, a la Tiger Woods, as well as through his Teddy Roosevelt, workaholic, invincible pursuit of the active life, manifesting itself, for example, through his love of swimming in rough seas, e.g. at Portsea.

Prior to the disappearance

Holt had taken over a power vacuum in Canberra and MPs who’d been kept in check by the Thatcheresque Menzies were now no longer so and the most treasonous of them, e.g. McMahon, were making their moves. Plots and counter-plots were being hatched all over the place. Holt’s son Sam says that his father was not in the least concerned by McMahon’s machinations but that’s not really the point. McMahon would have done as he did, irrespective of Holt’s view.

I saw a programme decades ago, going over the circumstances in the light of new evidence and the most that could have been said was that a lot of people were telling porkies – official stories were not according with the stories of domestics and aides, let alone the navy diver who seems a bit strange and was later chipped in the neck, who went in search of Holt with other divers.  The one which struck me the most was the affidavit by and later interview with the housekeeper at Portsea by the filmmakers, when she firmly reiterated that Holt had received a phone call from his destabilizing rival McMahon that morning.

Holt had been bright and cheerful earlier and now his mood was altered.  McMahon was interviewed and flatly denied he’d made any phone call whatever to Holt, at any time that morning.  They cut back to the housekeeper who smiled and said, basically, “I know what I know and I know Mr. McMahon’s voice anywhere [all in Australia during those years knew of the distinctive high-pitched voice] and I was the one who took that call and told him where Mr. Holt was at the time.”

What we have in this story, as in the Knox case, is a litany of lies for seemingly no reason, not an admission of guilt, of course but nonetheless anomalous.

The night before and the morning

The official line can be seen here, in this ABC show from 2003. It’s useful as general background of who was there and who did what.

Here is an article in the Independent, from 2003, basically taking the official line.

Here is a seemingly quite comprehensive look at the various theories of his diappearance but when you click on Harold Holt 1 and 3, they have now disappeared.  Harold Holt 2 and 4 are still there and give the official line again.

As I said above, it doesn’t prove guilt, it doesn’t prove anything but it is nonetheless curious that two of these explanations have disappeared.

And so to today’s report on Hasluck’s claim that Holt was on pep pills and overconfident in entering the water, which supports the official line that he was swept away by the current.

The official government records page says that there is a file:

(A1209, 1968/8063) containing police reports, correspondence, maps, photographs, press releases and documents suggesting a key witness withheld information, also provides a comprehensive coverage of events.

Seems open and fair until you try to access that information.  For a start, on the parent page, it just says A1209 but when you go there, you’re presented with many files on everything from Torres Strait islanders to family and community services and no indication of where the file in question is located.  Not only that, there is no open search enquiry button – only statistical buttons, telling us only how many enquiries there have been and telling them who has been checking.

Strangely and despite appearances, even though I’m presenting these things, in my own mind I’m unsure and am looking for evidence which would tell me on way or the other.  If the evidence that Holt just drowned was overwhelming, then I for one would just accept it, let it go and move on to some other story to blog on.

Confirming the official line, IMHO, is that if they’d wanted to spirit the PM away, they needed to have produced a body, any body would have done, they’d have had the funeral and the matter would have rested.  To not sign the matter off for once and for all is not unlike the Diana killing.

This could very well mean he was just swept out to sea, as stated and the failure to present a cut and dried case was because no one was expecting it to happen and well … that’s how real life happens.

I’m happy to accept that, except for the Simmons’ testimony.  Gary Simmons was that navy diver who wrote to official bodies and who presented, as evidence, a CAT scan which showed this.  Simmons said [click to go to another page where it appears in a larger form]:

He removed the body the night before, so he says and not only says but has taken legal action to have the claim heard.  That would not necessarily make the housekeeper’s testimony false – Holt might have stayed out overnight but what if she had seen him the morning of the disappearance?  Churchill had doubles – why not Holt?  It’s a motif running through history and literature.  Would it have fooled the housekeeper?

What housekeeper?  OK, now we’re getting into my own testimony.  I saw that programme on national television in Australia, can’t remember which channel, around the mid to late 80s and one can only accept that when the crew interviewed the housekeeper, they interviewed the housekeeper.  Now, on google, I can find nothing on her whatsoever, which belies my statement.

There is a short videotube put out by the Australian Government which avoids the controversy and looks at his briefcase the day he disappeared.  It doesn’t conclude or prove anything but is a further insight and has some nice footage of Holt, together with a view of that beach.

Aftermath

McMahon was automatically assumed to be the successor but certain people weren’t having it.  Gorton was contacted by McMahon straight after the Holt disappearance and told that he [McM] supposed they’d best get this succession sorted out, to which Gorton [who did become the PM] answered that he wasn’t supporting McMahon.

Black Jack McEwen, the coalition partner leader, flatly refused to serve under McMahon but refused to say why, ony that Mr. McMahon was well aware of the reasons.  So Gorton became PM instead.

In the end, it doesn’t seem cut and dried to me and might be too late.  Just as with Diana, a prime time TV special commemorating the 40th anniversary was almost competely ignored by Australians who were either to young to know or else who just wanted to move on.

It won’t die as long as testimony such as Simmons’ is ignored, the anomalies continue unexplained and while the officials wish to do anything to play it down and bury it.

as posted here
Does not mention ASIO but I'm sure it fits in here - webyter