Fraser re-think on Vietnam
By PAUL KELLY, 12march, 2001
FORMER prime minister Malcolm Fraser, who served as defence minister during the Vietnam War, has recanted on Australia's commitment to the conflict 35 years later.
His re-assessment of the Vietnam War is made in the ABC television series 100 Years, The Australian Story, which begins screening on Wednesday.
Admitting his re-think, Mr Fraser says
of Australia's contribution to the war: "How I see it now is second-guessing
how I saw it then. I thought it was necessary. I thought what we did was
defensible. It ended up not being successful. Judging it all by today
and judging
some of the things that I now know about the US conduct of the war,
I
guess I wish we weren't part of it."
In the unedited interview for the series, Mr Fraser says: "Of course
I've got regrets, yes. It, in the end, was a failed venture. We should
have known what fighting in Vietnam would be like. We
probably misjudged the extent of the commitment
on the part of the Viet Cong, of North Vietnam, the extent
of support that was provided by the Soviet Union rather than China, and
the lack of capacity of the South (Vietnamese) to maintain a government
seen to be acting in the interests of the people of South Vietnam . .
. So there were many miscalculations."
Mr Fraser attacks the White House plan to get rid of South Vietnam's president
Ngo Dinh Diem in the early 1960s, saying: "If America believes it
has the right to engineer the destruction of the head of state of a country
with whom it is allies at war, that alone makes me very cautious about
the circumstances in which I'd want to have a partnership with the US."
His comments come in the fifth program of the series, to be screened
on April 11. Mr Fraser served as both army minister and defence minister
during the war. At the time he was one of the most resolute champions
of the Australian commitment. Mr Fraser reveals
a deep distrust of the US – in retrospect
over Vietnam but relating also to the present.
He says: "I wouldn't want to be part of any military operation with
the US and would not be unless I had an Australian, a very senior Australian,
right in the innermost war councils of the US . . ."
Pressed on his own role at the time, Mr Fraser says: "At the end of
it, the whole war was a failure. Of course
it was. Although in defence of Australians who operated in Phuoc Tuy province
in the Australian area of operations, they did so with enormous distinction."
