Harold Holt Conspiracy

Harold Edward Holt CH (5 August 1908 – presumed dead 17 December 1967) was an Australian politician who became the 17th Prime Minister of Australia in 1966. His term as Prime Minister was dramatically ended in December of the following year when he disappeared while swimming at Cheviot Beach near Portsea and was presumed drowned.

Holt spent 32 years in Parliament, including many years as a senior Cabinet Minister, but he was Prime Minister for only 22 months. This necessarily limited his personal and political impact, especially when compared to his immediate predecessor Robert Menzies, who was PM for a total of 18 years.

Today, Holt is mainly remembered for the sensational circumstances of his death, for his controversial role in expanding Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War and for his famous (or infamous) "All the way with LBJ" quote. In the opinion of his biographer Tom Frame, this has tended to obscure the many achievements of Holt's long and distinguished political career.

Disappearance

Harold Holt collecting snorkelling paraphernalia from his car at Portsea, Victoria, 1966.

The Age reporting on Holt's disappearance December 18 1967

On the morning of Sunday 17 December 1967, Holt and some friends drove down from Melbourne to see the British lone yachtsman Alec Rose sail through Port Phillip Heads in his boat Lively Lady to complete this leg of his solo circumnavigation of the globe, which started and ended in England. Around noon, the party drove to one of Holt's favourite swimming and snorkeling spots, Cheviot Beach on Point Nepean near Portsea, on the eastern arm of Port Phillip Bay. Holt decided to go swimming, although the surf was heavy, and Cheviot Beach was notorious for its strong currents and dangerous rip tides.

Apparently seeking to impress his friends, and ignoring pleas not to go in, Holt plunged into the surf and quickly disappeared from view. Fearing the worst, his friends raised the alert, and within a short time the beach and the water off shore was being combed by a large contingent of police, Navy divers and volunteers. This quickly escalated into one of the largest search operations in Australian history, but no trace of Holt could be found, and two days later, on 19 December 1967, the government made an official announcement that Holt was presumed dead. The Governor-General sent for the Country Party leader and Coalition Deputy Prime Minister John McEwen, and he was sworn in as caretaker Prime Minister while the Liberals elected a new leader.

Holt was a strong swimmer and an experienced skindiver, with what Tom Frame describes as "incredible powers of endurance underwater". However, his health was evidently far from perfect at the time of his death — he had collapsed in Parliament earlier in the year, apparently suffering from a "vitamin deficiency", and this raised fears among some senior Liberals that he might have a heart condition.

In September 1967 Holt had suffered a recurrence of an old shoulder injury, which reportedly caused him agonising pain and forced him to take strong painkillers. He ignored recent advice from his doctor not to play tennis or swim until the shoulder healed, and it is likely that this injury would have severely reduced his ability to stay afloat in the heavy seas and strong currents at Cheviot Beach on the day he disappeared. Tom Frame also records that Holt had already got into trouble twice while skindiving earlier in 1967. On the first occasion, while snorkeling at Portsea in May, he got into severe difficulties due to a leaking snorkel and had to be pulled from the water by friends, gasping for breath, blue in the face and vomiting seawater.

A memorial service was held at St Paul's Anglican Cathedral in Melbourne on 22 December, and it was attended by scores of dignitaries including President Johnson, Prince Charles and many Asian leaders, including the Presidents of South Vietnam and South Korea. It was also one of the first events to be transmitted from Australia to other countries via satellite.

There were many rumours surrounding Holt's death, such as that he had committed suicide or faked his own death in order to run away with his mistress. The mystery became the subject of numerous urban myths in Australia, including outlandish but persistent stories that he had been kidnapped by a Russian or Chinese submarine, or that he had been abducted by a UFO.

In 1983, British journalist Anthony Grey published a book in which he claimed that Holt had been an agent for the People's Republic of China and had been picked up by a Chinese submarine off Portsea and taken to China.^[1]

Most likely, however, Holt was caught in the strong undertow off the beach, which was known for its treacherous currents, and he was swept out to sea.

No inquest was held at the time because Victorian law did not provide any mechanism for reporting presumed or suspected deaths to the Victorian Coroner. The law was changed in 1985, and in 2003 the Victoria Police Missing Persons Unit formally reopened 161 pre-1985 cases where drowning was suspected but no body was found. Holt's stepson Nicholas Holt said that after thirty-seven years there were few surviving witnesses and no new evidence would be presented. On 2 September 2005, the Coroner's finding was that Holt had drowned in accidental circumstances on 17 December 1967.

After Holt's death, his widow Zara was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE), becoming Dame Zara Holt. She later married for a third time, to a Liberal party colleague of Holt's, Jeff Bate.

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