Mrs. Casey Is Annoyed

As well-smoked a bit of back-room political haggling as ever went on in a jerkwater election for justice of the peace took on empire dimensions last week. The hagglers were two Prime Ministers, Tory Winston Churchill and Laborite John Curtin. The man in the middle, a thoroughly miserable chopping block for a personal quarrel, was popular, efficient Richard Gardiner Casey, Australian Minister to the U.S. He got a new job, but the story of how he got it was so confused by personalities that it overshadowed a significant shift in world politics.

Before Singapore fell, the Australians demanded (but never got) representation in an Imperial War Cabinet. After Singapore fell, the Australians, led by Curtin's Labor Government, demanded that the Pacific War strategy council be moved from London to Washington (see p. 15).

Basis of the new orientation of Australian foreign policy has been the realization that Australia's present plight, and future welfare, are problems which once concerned Britain and Australia, but which are now primarily the concern of the U.S. and Australia. With the Japanese massing for invasion, the Australians were desperate. If tough, blunt talk was needed, burly Herbert Vere Evatt, Minister for External Affairs, was the man to make it. Curtin dispatched him to Washington to plead Australia's case on the brief prepared by Casey.

At that point Winston Churchill, looking around for new administrative talent, cabled Casey an offer to become Minister of State for Great Britain's War Cabinet in the Middle East. It was the first time Britain had offered to take a Dominion statesman into the Home Government. Minister Casey was to replace Captain Oliver Lyttelton (Britain's new Minister of Production) in the vital liaison job in Cairo.

It was a signal honor for Casey. Britons believed the appointment would please Australia. It did not.

What caused the ensuing uproar was Curtin's indignation at a BBC broadcast announcing that Casey had accepted the new post. In conversations with Downing Street, Curtin had indicated that, although the choice was up to Casey, the Australian Government preferred that he remain in Washington. Curtin promised a White Paper on the affair and complained: "I learn what my Minister has done from the world at large."

Churchill tartly cabled back that he was surprised at Curtin's tone, promised to review all the facts before the House of Commons. Later Churchill hinted that a vital cablegram had been delayed. The Melbourne Sun was forced to comment that L'Affaire Casey had been handled by all concerned with "surprising feebleness."

In Washington, fluttery, silver-haired Mrs. Casey patted her husband's hand and said: "The whole thing makes me sick."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.