Trying to Sell Apartheid to 1950s Australia*

Abstract

This article deals with an aspect of white South Africa’s efforts to promote itself as its international situation started deteriorating in the 1950s. The instrument on this occasion was an articulate 76-year-old English-born immigrant who had done well in South African politics, was grateful for the opportunities the country had given him, and ostensibly wanted to give something back. The article also provides a practical example of longtime Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies’s affection for white South Africans and their country despite the bad odor in which the latter’s government was held by much of the Australian media and public even though Australia was itself a racist society at the time. *Adapted from a paper presented at a biennial conference of the Australian Historical Association. I am grateful to Dr Frank Bongiorno of the University of New England, Armidale, NSW, and the AHA, for his comments.