1963
January – External Affairs Minister Barwick announces further consignment of wire and ‘equipment’ for ‘strategic villages’ in South Vietnam
March 8 – Jim Cairns denounces ‘military resistance to national-revolutionary movements in economically-retarded countries’
March 26 – CICD launches new nation-wide petition for nuclear-free zone in Southern Hemisphere and against foreign military bases on Australian soil
April 15 – CND march from Dandenong to Yarra Bank in Easter solidarity with Aldermaston
April 21 – CICD ‘Aldermaston Solidarity March’
May 9 – External Affairs Minister Barwick and U.S Ambassador Battle sign agreement providing for U.S ‘Naval Communications Base’ at North West Cape
July – Diem dictatorship cracks down on mass urban oppositional movement led by Buddhists and students
July – A victory at last for the world-wide peace movement – U.S, USSR, UK sign limited nuclear test ban treaty
August 3-4 – CICD Hiroshima Day March starts (for the first time) at Frankston
August 14-16 – CICD ‘Cavalcade to Canberra’
November – Dictator Diem murdered in Saigon coup
Download the full timeline here, or click through below for a year-by-year timeline (with pictures) of this momentous period.
‘Taking to the Streets against the Vietnam War’: A Timeline History of Australian Protest 1962-1972
©Ken Mansell