Thread by @cvmonakow

The US-AUS alliance in WWII and the Cold War was based on a shared Anglo-Saxon race. The Australian PM spoke to Congress in 1950, where he said “Americans are not foreigners in Australia.”

There is an absurd amount of kino from this period, so let's share some stories:

In the early 20th century, both the US and AUS had systems of racial domination: in the US, Jim Crow, in AUS, White Australia. A booklet prepared for AUS soldiers in WWII stated, "To the principle of ‘White Australia’ all political parties in the British Commonwealth subscribe."

Douglas MacArthur's first speech when he arrived in AUS observed that the US-AUS bond depends not on diplomatic doctrine, but on the "indescribable consanguinity of race"

At the beginning of WWII, The Commander in Chief of the US Fleet wrote to FDR that it was essential to prevent the Japanese overrun of AUS and NZ because they are "white men's countries." The US effort in the Pacific theatre was explicitly an effort to defend Anglo civilization

This was commonly understood as well, not a niche opinion. It was communicated to Canberra that FDR himself thought the "prestige of the white man" was the primary purpose of US efforts in the Pacific

Race was frequently referenced by AUS leadership to ask for support. The PM wrote to FDR asking for more aid because they were "the only white man's territory south of the equator."

The PM even chastised the Murdoch patriarch for suggesting that all AUS allies get citizenship

The US ambassador wrote a letter to the editor where he stated that Australians were our "natural racial allies in the Pacific" because they were the "largest homogenous Occidental in the Pacific zone."

Australians had a romantic view of the US, which was based on the visit of the American fleet in 1908 and 1924. The US ambassador recorded that the visits of the fleet were seen as a "demonstration of white solidarity against the yellow races."

American ethnic political machines were a cautionary tale to Australian diplomats, calling them "low-call alien (that is non Anglo-Saxon) political bosses." They considered it a sign of how important it was to defend a policy of WHITE AUSTRALIA

The Australian ambassador to China during WWII thought that "it is absurd to go to the expense of protecting ourselves from external attack if we are going to allow our heritage to be destroyed by floods of alien immigration."

Australia wanted a Pacific first strategy by the US, and was much displeased with the US choice to prioritize the European theatre.

The Australian plan for post-WWII prioritized the reassertion of British power in the Far East. It's a fascinating counter factual to consider. What if the US had followed the Australian plan: a Pacific first strategy supporting the defense of the European colonies?

After WWII, the fight redirected to combatting communism. George Patton worried that the US "destroyed what could have been a good race [Germans] and we are about to replace them with Mongolian savages."

A major concern for AUS leadership post-WWII was scrutiny against the White Australia policy. The Minister for External Affairs thought South Africa proved the folly of multiracial nations, not of discrimination, but worried that this argument would lose at majority non-white UN

Unfortunately, the minster was proven correct. US fear of losing influence with non-white countries led to scrutiny on the ANZUS security agreement. Asians saw it as an alliance of "white nations," and the US even proposed including the Philippines and Japan to prevent this

US diplomats stressed that the US "would not wish an exclusively white association." The US was concerned about non-white countries siding with communism, and needed to combat accusations of racism. The US even got the UK to attempt to persuade Australia of this

Australia opposed expanding ANZUS, and the Philippines was furious. They even considered severing diplomatic relations to Australia entirely, with this reaction due to reports that Australia opposed alliances with non-white nations.

There's a tragic quality as the Cold War continues. Carter's UN ambassador shifted US policy towards the considering the "importance" of Third World nations, especially in Africa. 50 years later African nations are still irrelevant backwaters

The beginning of the end of White Australia was the case of Annie O'Keefe. Asians were given refuge assuming they would leave at the war's end, but many simply refused. O'Keefe, an Indonesian refugee, married an Australian, but the Immigration Ministry still tried to deport her

The High Court overturned the decision. Left out of the previous description was that O'Keefe got married explicitly to avoid deportation.

The end of White Australia finally came in the 1970s. Immigration no longer considered race, and a Racial Discrimination Act was passed

For those who want to learn more: