Des Moines diary
As is obvious from recent events, we live in times where it is not enough to disagree with someone and…
White House gossip
When the brilliant American biographer, Robert A. Caro, first approached the task of writing a biography of the 36th President…
Pearl Harbor
The Punchbowl in Honolulu, Hawaii is a place of reverence in which 34,000 American battle-dead are interred. Battlefield remains are…
Unforgotten person
A newly-elected Australian Prime Minister was pleased to receive a letter of congratulations from Australia’s longest serving PM, Sir Robert…
Kiwi notes
The Socialist Ardernative New Zealand politics has thrown up some wonderful invective over the years. A favourite of mine originated…
The Fighting Kangaroo
Jim Eames, an established and respected aviation writer, whose previous credits include The Flying Kangaroo, a history of Qantas, has…
Hawaiian notes
Under Hawaiian eyes The Pearl Harbour memorial to the 1,177 American sailors and marines (1,102 still entombed) who lost their…
Ruck ‘n roll
As every Speccie reader certainly will be aware and no doubt heartily applaud, the game of rugby league was born…
Telling it on the mountain
As we stood on the threshold of the dacha outside Vladivostok, the Australian delegation paused. We had been monitoring Boris…
Australian Diary
At the end of the week of Treasurer Joe Hockey’s second Federal Budget, I recalled the caustic observation about the…
War and jealousy
Le Hamel was the site of an extraordinary triumph of allied arms early on the morning of July 4, 1918.…
Californian diary
The American Republic has always been characterized by great political families. From earliest days, from the Adams and the Harrisons…
Shock jock
A senior Minister in the NSW government of John Fahey once told me that there was a vacant metaphorical chair…
Lazarus is back
Australia’s Ambassador to the United States, Kim Beazley, still quips that John Winston Howard is his nemesis. This does not…
Hero and villain
There is a story told of Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister speaking with his Treasurer, Bill Hayden. It is late…
American notes
The 1980 US presidential election campaign was characterised by warnings from the Carter White House about the impact of a…
Sound military history
Scott Fitzgerald once made the famous observation that there are no second acts in American life. Perhaps. But Mike Carlton…
The way it was
There is a test in Canberra which applies to the quality of political commentary. It is called the ‘Blue Poles’…
The useful Colonel Houses
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was determined to get the measure of Britain’s wartime prime minister Winston Churchill, and of Britain’s chances…
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