How a US President’s problems with the press helped seal ANZUS

Trump’s rocky relationship with the media is reminiscent of an earlier era when our defence pact with the US was signed.

The ANZUS Treaty between Australia, New Zealand and USA document on display in Parliament House, Canberra, August 2001.

I was reflecting on Australia Day about a legendary story that changed Australia’s history. In 1950, we took advantage of the fact that a past President of the US had the same problem that Donald Trump now faces — he had very bad relations with the US press.

At the moment, Australia isn’t on Trump’s radar, although he was most impressed by BHP’s Jac Nasser and Andrew Mackenzie and he invited them to invest their pile of iron ore cash in US oil and gas.

Trump is somewhat confused by our Prime Minister who is still advocating the Trans-Pacific Partnership when even staunch globalisation supporter Hillary Clinton said it was not in the interests of the US — it was probably the only thing that Trump and Clinton agreed on.

Trump will be bemused that we sold Darwin’s port to China; that we are shutting our motor industry when it will be his linchpin to ‘make American great again’ and we are paying a huge $50 billion for submarines which may not be available until after he has completed his second term.

But our two nations are linked by ANZUS and its origins will tickle the fancy of Trump.

The President who drove ANZUS was Harry S Truman who has remarkable similarities to Donald J Trump. Their personalities and policies are very different but, like Trump, Truman defeated the establishment candidate Thomas Dewey. Hillary Clinton and Thomas Dewey were both seen as certainties to win and both had the strong backing of the media.

Like Trump, Harry Truman went out to Middle America and campaigned on the issues that the people were concerned about. Dewey stayed in the big cites. And, so, in some ways, Trump’s win was 1948 repeating itself.

A year later, in 1949, Robert Menzies won office in Australia. His minister for external affairs was the late Percy Spender who was a passionate advocate of a defence treaty between Australia, NZ and the US.

Prime Minister Menzies supported him but thought it was a long shot because the Pentagon opposed it. Somehow or other Spender got a 15 to 20 minute audience with Harry Truman. Legend has it he walked into Truman’s office and found the President distraught. His daughter, Margaret Truman, had been out singing the night before and was absolutely decimated by the press. Whatever Spender had planned to say to President Truman he put aside and spent almost all his time bemoaning the evils of the press with the President.

Eventually Harry Truman pointed out to Spender that they had spent almost all the allocated time taking about the evils of the press and his daughter. He asked whether there was anything specific that Spender wanted. Spender answered something like this: “Yes Mr. President — I would like a defence pact between my country, NZ and the United States of America”.

Harry Truman agreed it was a good idea and Spender left the room. A lot happened after that but with the President’s backing ANZUS was signed in 1951.

It so happens that Trump’s new defence secretary, James “Mad Dog” Mattis, has made a close study of ANZUS. Given that the US plans to take a tough line against China, the origins of ANZUS will be a great discussion point when our Prime Minister meets the US President. And they certainly both understand what it’s like to encounter a hostile press.