Secondly, within a grand comprehensive strategy, what policies have been pursued in connection with the rimland nations of Asia and the Pacific basin? In recent years, the query extends to American involvement in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.

Finally, Camilleri is ready to examine Australia’s role in the relationship with its powerful ally. It become possible to evaluate the extent to which the two nation’s aims and methods converge. Does Australia’s perceived need for a ‘protector’ warrant endorsement of America’s return to a politics of brinkmanship, especially when the strategic relationship between the two superpowers is highly unstable and the American empire is in a state of decline? Any hard-headed appraisal must ask what reciprocity has Australia gained by making itself vulnerable to a first strike nuclear attack.

These are the sorts of questions that Camilleri’s analytic framework imposes. But other questions emerge as he looks beyond the diplomatic and military dimensions of the alliance. The growing economic ties assume paramount importance. Their ramifications are felt not only in external relations, such as with the five ASEAN countries, but also in the conduct of internal politics at the level of monetary, fiscal and trade policies, attitudes to business controls, extent of public ownership, support for political parties, and opposition to left-wing extra-parliamentary politics.

Question: Is it in the interests of the majority of Australians that an interconnection has developed between the American and Australian power elites? Does this narrow and asymmetrical relationship in a world increasingly marked by opportunities for Australians to promote comity amongst their Asian neighbours as well as security and well-being for themselves at home? Are short term private material gains outweighed by the long term risk of rendering Australians collectively impotent? What appears like rhetorical questions arise quite naturally in the reader’s mind after assimilating the welter of data that Camilleri has neatly ordered.

The American Imbroglio is shown to reach into and interact with other dimensions of Australian life – namely, the link with export energy policies, in particular with the nuclear fuel cycle, as well as the nexus in intelligence operations and penetration into cultural, media and educational activities. Although the latter dimension is not spelled out in detail, the control or acquiescence of the Australian mind is clearly an important factor in maintaining ‘the web of dependence’. It accounts, in large measure, for the Labor Party’s electoral vulnerability, and hence its reluctance to challenge the foundations of the alliance.

During the years of the Whitlam Government, despite the rhetoric of national self-assertion and the misplaced fears of some American politicians and intelligence personal, there is no evidence to suggest, from Camilleri’s investigation, that Whitlam was prepared to act outside the perimeters of American global strategic-economics interests, or the role assigned Australia within America’s Pacific basin strategy. On the other hand, there is ample evidence to demonstrate ‘that the strategic and economic links between the two countries were consistently strengthened, and most, if not all, of the potentially divisive issues were resolved to the satisfaction of the senior partner’.

For Whitlam, argues Camilleri, ‘It was not a question of dispensing with the American connection or of antagonising the great and powerful friend, but of placing a greater distance between Australia and the United States and of endowing Australia diplomacy with greater flexibility and a much broader range of interests.’ Such an approach conformed completely to the guidelines set down in the Nixon Doctrine, as long as there was no attempt to undermine fundamental American considerations. And Whitlam obligingly played according to the rules of the game.

On only one occasion could it be argued that a confrontation loomed. The occurred when several Labor Ministers sharply denounced the American resumption of bombing over the Haiphong-Hanoi area at the end of 1972. Yet Whitlam significantly refrained from openly condemning the Americans, limiting himself to expressions of regret that the ceasefire negotiations had collapsed and to sending President Nixon a letter of protest whose contents he refused to disclose publicly.

Obviously, the way Camilleri has dealt with sensitive material will not be greeted with universal approval; some of his conclusions will be strongly refuted. However, he has marshalled his data with such care and depth of research that any rebuttal of his position – unless it disavows the methodology of empirical analysis – will be forced to contest his arguments on a point by point basis.

The author states in the Preface that he hopes his study will contribute to a much-needed, extensive public airing of the American relationship. He does not advocate a rejection of the alliance in toto; he wants a more balanced perception, the ‘the liquidation of those institutional links, both military and civilian, which have consistently biased Australian policies in America’s direction for more than three decades’.

That the issues raised in the book only tangentially appeared on the agendas of the political parties and mass media during the 1980 Federal elections attests to the extremely pervasive nature of the problem. To initiate discussion of ‘the problem’, one is virtually placed in the impossible position of first having to overcome ‘the problem’. In such a predicament, the best procedure would seem to call for the reappraisal process to begin outside the confines of conventional politics.

A lucid, non-hysterical book has been written about the alliance’s baneful effects, one suitable for coffee-table discussions, worker classrooms, as well as graduate political science seminars. Thus an important first step has been taken.