The British Government’s new Defence Secretary, Lord Carrington, included Australia in a tour of Southeast Asia. I felt that his visit in early 1973 would not be entirely welcome so early in the life of our Government, and might rouse fears of ‘heavying’ by a major defence power. But Carrington was received cordially by Ministers. His purpose was to ascertain whether Australia would continue to hold to its commitments under the Five Power Defence Arrangements with Malaysia and Singapore alongside Britain, entered into by the Whitlam Government’s predecessors. Uncertainty had been created by the announced withdrawal of Army units. Britain’s intentions would be affected by those of Australia. After the consultation with Barnard, and their frank discussion of the outlook, Carrington publicly declared himself to be well satisfied.

For my part, I had renewed a longstanding friendship which went back to 1956 when Carrington was appointed British High Commissioner to Australia. His young family and mine shared outings and picnics in Canberra, and we kept in touch afterwards. More recently he had stayed several days with me in the Australian residence in New Delhi, in preference to the British residence (and demonstrated his duck-shooting prowess in lakes in the Punjab). But his visit had some less pleasant consequences for me.

Lloyd alleged that my administrative arrangements for the conference with Carrington prompted his resignation from Barnard’s office and, with the help of sympathetic friends in the press and in the Labor movement, he stimulated a sustained attack on Barnard. The focus was on Barnard’s supposed inability to control his Departmental Secretary and on my allegedly exceeding my duty. That blended well with the conviction in Labor Party Left circles, particularly the Victorian Left, who alleged that I was a kind of Menzies relic, subservient to American defence interests and incapable of supporting Labor’s platform.

In fact, what was to blame was confusion in communication and, on Barnard’s part, an extraordinary (and, to me, inexplicable) lack of contact between Barnard and his employee, who was sitting outside his office when he was in Canberra.

The sequence of events had been that Lloyd (without, I was told, seeking any authority from his boss) applied to my staff to be included in the group of advisers to sit behind Barnard in the talks with Carrington. When I learned of this, Barnard was in Launceston, where he remained for several days, contactable only by telephone. I spoke to him, saying that I thought it unusual to include a Private Secretary; and that this one did not carry the security clearance needed in the event that certain joint intelligence arrangements came under discussion. After saying that he had had in mind someone other than Lloyd, Barnard agreed to drop the idea of either attending. In consequence I told my staff to tell Lloyd he would not be included. Thereafter, both the Minister and the orchestrated critics in Canberra took offence at my giving a direction to one of his personal staff. Barnard later changed his mind and one of his staff did attend. To avoid public argument with my Minister, I wrote a minute recording my view of events. I began by including the pointed words, ‘you decided the composition of the group of advisers to attend the Ministerial Defence Conference’. To assist him to justify publicly his own misunderstanding of the course of events, I included the word ‘apologise’. Neither then, nor as I record the events now, did I believe that I had anything to apologise about.

But the storm blew right out of the teacup when the Opposition (with no thanks from me for their helpfulness) initiated several days of questions about the ill-treatment not of Lloyd but of Tange. They lent on the remark by Barnard that he had ‘reservations’ about my report that he had tabled in the House. It was a new experience for me to be the subject of multi-column headlines in the major dailies. I accepted the judgement of the shrewd Alan Reid that I was not the important target, but a scapegoat in the continued campaign against the Barnard/Whitlam leadership and their softer line on defence cooperation with the United States.^[5]

As the Canberra Times observed on 8 March 1973: ‘Sir Arthur has to put up with the occupational hazard of being the silent partner in a difference with his Ministerial superior.’ In fact I remained silent and refused all the many media requests for an interview.

On 8 March the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Doug Anthony, had, I have no doubt, my interest in mind along with an obvious political motivation, in calling on the Prime Minister to speak to me to ascertain the facts and to clear the name of (as he said) ‘one of Australia’s most experienced and highly regarded public servants’. But more reassuring for me, as I needed the trust of the Government so that I could get on with so much unfinished business, was to read that the Prime Minister, in confirming in his statement in the House his total confidence in his Defence Minister, also foresaw his Minister putting to use the talents he attributed to me. That evening, Barnard told a (possibly disappointed) television journalist that he did not want a new Permanent Head.

I addressed a minute to Barnard saying plainly that, after so many days without a face-to-face discussion, I would like one now. He then confided to me some details of difficulties of his own during his association with Lloyd—a confidence that I have no intention of breaching. It seems probable to me that Lloyd, a man of some intellectual substance, had some difficulty, emotional and otherwise, in translating from the calm of an adviser to a political leader in Opposition with no responsibility for national affairs, to a position requiring some response to the high national policy issues for decision swirling past him to his employer’s desk. He later joined the staff of a University where I understand he gained respect for the quality of his research and writings.^[6]