Afternoon Light By Sir Robert Menzies

Some memories of men and events.

Menzies was Prime Minister of Australia from 1939-41 and 1949-66. This is a group of reminiscent essays. He writes about Baldwin, Chamberlain, Atlee, DeValera, Roosevelt, Truman, JFK, and more lengthily about his friends Felix Frankfurter and Dean Acheson, as well as his hero Churchill. He reviews his participation in the Suez Committee of 1956 and upholds Eden’s action. No striking disclosures, not even a memorable anecdote, emerge from these memoirs. But they are rather engaging; Menzies seems to take himself less seriously than most statesmen, his style is monosyllabic British, not bureaucratese, and he has a sense of humour. The book is discursive until Menzies turns his lawyer’s mind to the problems of Commonwealth. He is virtually obsessed with retaining Australia’s whites-only immigration policy, and opposes intervention from any quarter in Rhodesian and South African affairs because it would be a dangerous precedent. He includes his 1960 correspondence with Verwoerd on such topics. The other essays–on the virtues of the monarchy, the British form of government, and cricket, are less crisp, more Old Boyish. There is also a profession of friendship and mutual interest with the U.S., and memos of dealings with Nasser are appended.