With the advent of the Labor Government, ‘The time had come, some thought, for ousting [Essington] Lewis’ (Blainey 1971). Instead, it was Brigden who was ousted.
The key figure in this manoeuvre was Norman Makin, now forgotten, but then a senior member of the Labor government.[47] When the ALP formed government in 1941, Curtin had offered him the department of Social Services and Repatriation, a backwater position in wartime. Upon Makin’s protest, Curtin instead made him Minister for the Navy, and Minister for Munitions, positions he held throughout the war.
The new minister quickly felt a painful lack of rapport with the permanent head, J. B. Brigden. Makin was a Methodist preacher. He was emphatic and glib. Brigden was the economist and lawyer. He was ‘subtle’, ‘reticent’ and ‘pertinacious’.
Makin has told his side of the story several times. The first occasion came in 1961 in his collection of cameo memoirs, Federal Labor leaders:
It was quite evident that the start in the expanded war effort was all too long delayed … The blame could not be attached to executives or workmen … Two things were principally responsible for this state of affairs, firstly, the hesitation with which policy decisions were made and, secondly, the unsatisfactory set up in the administration of the Munitions Department by having an Economist as the Head of staff … The Economist was a man of high integrity, and likeable, but totally unable to administer a Department like that of Munitions. (Makin 1961, p. 114).
On this occasion Brigden is spared identification. He is ‘The Economist’. And he is ‘totally unable to administer a department’.
By the time of a 1974 interview of Makin, the Economist has become Professor Brigden:
When I came to Munitions, I found that Professor Brigden, an economist, was the head of a department for the manufacturing of munitions and he knew nothing whatever about any of the procedures … A genial, kindly, a gracious man but totally unfitted for the position of head of a Munitions Department. Even in peacetime, I would never have thought of appointing him to that position. So the first thing I’ve got to do is to make a change in the head of the Department of Munitions, if we are to get production, we’ve got to do that because I’m satisfied that the present head is bottlenecking all of the things that are requiring to get decisions upon, and unfortunately delays are taking place that we cannot afford to have at this time, and therefore we’ve got to make a change … and I must ask for a change in the head of my department. (Makin 1974).
Brigden is now ‘bottlenecking’.
In his posthumously produced Memoirs of 1982 Makin repeats the story, but adds a psychological dimension.
Almost immediately upon examining the set-up of the Munitions Department, I became convinced that a change in the Head of Department was essential. Professor J. B. Brigden was a man of excellent personal qualifications as an Economist, a delightful and pleasing man in his staff relationships, but totally out of place in a technical department. He was, I feel sure, conscious of this. The second in charge, Mr J. K. Jenson … was one of the brilliant minds of the Department. Professor Brigden knew this, and was no doubt anxious to counter with extreme caution in all decisions. This had the effect of creating delays and, at times, indecision … I was therefore determined that a change was essential if a free flow of decision making was to be possible. (Makin 1982, p. 80).
The tale has thickened; a vein of jealousy has been added to Brigden’s incapacity. Brigden wished to thwart the ‘brilliant mind’ of his deputy J.K. Jensen.
Makin’s suggestion of a general incapacity may be dismissed. Essington Lewis, praised by Makin, wrote of Brigden’s role in the Department:
His ripe experience as an administrator was of the greatest value in placing the new and complex organisation upon a satisfactory basis … I shall always be grateful to him for relieving me of all responsibility for political matters arising out of the Department’s activities, and for shielding me from the minor tribulations inseparable from the Public Service Act. (Quoted in Wilson 1951).
Jensen, too, had explicitly defended Brigden on this score (Ross 1995).
The accusation of ‘bottlenecking’ can also be dismissed. Any lack of momentum can be traced to political leadership. In 1973 Melville recalled Menzies’ wartime prime-ministership:
We had a great deal of difficulty in getting decisions from Menzies. He would study his brief over a very long time. Whether he studied it, I’m never sure, but at any rate it remained on his desk for a very long time, and he would discuss the matter in cabinet, and we just didn’t get decisions. Things went very slowly. (Melville 1973).
In fact, it was Brigden who did some unplugging of bottlenecks created by political vacillation. A case in point was a decision over investment in railways to facilitate the transport of military hardware. The overwhelming case in favour of this investment was met with incomprehension and indecision. Melville again:
Finally, Brigden, who was a pretty choleric sort of man, I believe burst in on the meeting of the Defence Council[48] and we did finally get approval.
But if Brigden was neither bottlenecking nor maladministering, why was he eliminated? Political circumstances created a context favourable to it. The Labor Party had campaigned throughout 1941 against the lack of energy in the government’s prosecution of the war. Makin was now minister for munitions when munitions were in short supply in the face of a Japanese invasion. He had to be seen to be doing something. ‘Off with his head!’ But whose head? Not Jensen’s. He had Chifley’s backing. Lewis was one obvious target. But Brigden made a better scapegoat. Brigden was something of a marked man.
There was also evidently a personal tension. Makin’s posy of compliments – ‘high integrity, likeable, genial, kindly gracious, delightful, pleasing’ – appears to be the bouquet laid sanctimoniously by the assailant on the victim’s graveside. He is more truthful when he noted waspishly later in an interview that, having removed Brigden, the two were to cross paths once more, in Washington: ‘I put up again with him when I became Ambassador, you see’.
But how to purge the Department of him? ‘Permanent Heads’ were meant to be permanent. A suitable means of elimination would be some call of patriotic duty to another front. At this point Brigden’s old boss Richard Casey, now Minister to the United States, came unwittingly and serendipitously into service.
Since April 1941 Casey had been imploring the appointment to the Legation in Washington of a ‘first-class economist’, ‘as early as possible’ – ‘a high-grade professional economist with prestige in his profession, to follow along, to argue and dispute’. Menzies took the counsel of Giblin, Copland and Wilson on this matter, who variously proposed Gerald Firth, John La Nauze and Keith Isles, Roland Wilson’s old classmate and sparring partner. Casey took these names to Keynes, but their lack of seniority left Casey dissatisfied. Giblin then proposed Coombs, ‘who has been a tower of strength at the Treasury since September 1939’, but Chifley refused to let him go. Wilson, observed Giblin, ‘has been badly over-worked, at a pace that cannot be safely continued’, and therefore expressed the hope that his release for Washington was possible. ‘I feel it terribly important to have the best possible representation in America, if anything is to be saved from the impending wreck’ (NAA LFG to Casey, 10 October 1941).
But the elimination of Bridgen presented itself as a convenient means to finally meet Casey’s repeated ‘very persistent’ request for an economist ‘of standing with wide knowledge of Australia and experience of the business of government’.
The blow was crushing to Brigden, and seemingly unexpected. One of the very few surviving personal letters of Brigden conveys his state of mind on the eve of his embarkation for the United States.
Sunday 11.1.42
Dear Leslie[49]
Today is a pause before my ship’s delayed departure tomorrow. How sudden things happen. I really thought that Wilson or someone else would go to Washington, but the PM and govt would have no one else. It was a blow of course …
Now and then I’ll speak a small prayer for you and yours, until the ordeal of 42 passes. (NAA JBB).
‘He arrived [in Washington]’, Wilson later recalled, a sick and exhausted man’ (Wilson 1951).