New Zealand and the Vietnam War: Politics and Diplomacy.

• Author: Hill, Richard
• Position: Book review

NEW ZEALAND AND THE VIETNAM WAR Politics and Diplomacy

Author: Roberto Rabel

Published by: Auckland University Press, Auckland, 2005, 443pp, $34.95.

Roberto Rabel has written what must be called the definitive work on the official background and policy of New Zealand's military involvement in Vietnam, based on careful analysis of all available state archival sources (supplemented by interviews and use of other material). This is a highly significant subject, given that the decision to send combat troops in 1965 'launched an unprecedented domestic debate about foreign policy' in New Zealand. While in some ways the story is a familiar one, that of Cold War pressure on a small country whose government saw security as resting upon loyalty to the 'western alliance', the author adds much innovative analysis. In particular, he explores the emergence of New Zealand's Indo-China policy in the decolonisation period of the 1940s-50s, when the 'red menace' replaced the 'yellow peril' and the United States supplanted Britain as the country's key security guarantor against perceived threats from Asia.

New dimensions are also added to our knowledge of the more familiar 1960s-70s, particularly in matters of degree: the enormous influence that policy advisers can exercise within government; the high amount of official monitoring of news media; unprecedented governmental determination to secure favourable news coverage of official policies and military events; the central role of television in bringing some of the realities of war into people's homes; the numerous ideological difficulties and policy fudgings within the Labour Party, and the painfulness of the emergence of what was deemed to be an 'independent' foreign policy; the American propensity for unilateral decisions, some of which (or their timings) caused considerable embarrassment to its closest allies; the relentlessness of not just United States but also Australian pressure for a greater New Zealand contribution to the war in Vietnam; the full extent to which this contribution was wanted not for any significant military reasons but for those of politico-diplomatic 'flag-flying'.

This is a considered book that is all the better for having been a long time in the making. Its examination of policy, which is necessarily dominated by the difficulties that accompanied New Zealand's opting for loyalist membership of a powerful global alliance, shows a masterful grasp of official documents. When...