Rowan Cahill has lived an incredible life. From wanting to travel around Australia and write, fate intervened. Rowan’s name was drawn in ‘the lottery of death’: the conscription system for Australian troops in the Vietnam War. Of those conscripted, there were over 1200 casualties and over 200 killed. Errol Noack, a 21 year old private, was the first conscript to die. He died 10 days after he arrived in Vietnam.
Conscription forced Rowan into the world of the left, and he soon applied to become a conscientious objector. Although there are some well-told stories of early influences, this world is largely what his brilliant memoir Cold War Kid details. Rowan writes about brawls on campus with the Sydney University Regiment students, the effort in organising a pioneering experiment in democratic education, the Free University, and rogue activists throwing tomatoes at the NSW governor. Initiatives inspired by the Free University popped up around Australia, and some continue to be active today. Rowan tells us about working on a radical Honi Soit with Hall Greenland and everyone’s favourite turncoat, Keith Windschuttle. One of my favourite stories is when Rowan attempted to bond with a sex worker at court also facing the wrath of the law. ‘Fuck off you Commie traitor’, she replied.
The best story is the incredible ‘Mini Affair’, featuring Rowan and NSW Police Sergeant Fred Longbottom. Longbottom paid a particular interest in the young radicals of the left, and their relationship came to a head on Friday August 2, 1968. A meeting of the Sydney University Labor Club was being held on the front lawns. As Rowan went towards the meeting he noticed a grey Mini-Minor monitoring the meeting, with Longbottom inside. Rowan yelled ‘Longbottom’s here’ and the students surged towards it. The car’s tyres were deflated, its doors and windows plastered with anti-war stickers, and the ignition keys confiscated. Eventually the car was picked up and carried away to Parramatta Road, with Rowan on top.
There are some interesting snippets at attempts at organising within the army. The US Army was a hotbed of dissent, with an array of anti-war underground newspapers and the practice of fragging rife (killing officers with frag grenades). This wasn’t quite true to the same extent amongst the Australian troops, although there were 2 deaths due to fragging. Rowan, nevertheless, was involved in organising a Committee for the Rights of Servicemen, which, he explains, seriously spooked ASIO.
One of the best parts of the book are Rowan’s reflections on how to organise. Rowan is proudly non-sectarian, working, for instance with the Communist Party newspaper Tribune, despite not being a member of the party. Rowan reflects how in the anti-Vietnam movement patient building was key:
Yes, public and media opinion eventually turned against the war and conscription, and the big end of decade protests manifested this, but in terms of movement building it took a lot of time, patience and effort, in which frustration and senses of despair were not uncommon, to build bridges and develop the mutual understandings and trust
Rowan stresses that everyone in a movement has their own skills, and can offer their own valuable and unique contributions.
Rowan is clearly a voracious reader and I appreciated the sections of the book that reflected on the role of reading, in particular around Vietnam. Reading does not just enhance your individual learning but can make you a better and more effective activist. Rowan went on to write fantastic books as a historian as well, from a history of the Seaman’s Union to a personal favourite of mine, the iconic Radical Sydney. I would encourage you to read Rowan’s histories. Always carry a book.
This is a wonderful memoir: engaging, humorous and thoughtful all at once. I hope it inspires more veterans of the radical 1960s and 1970s to write their own memoirs. In these dark times of Trump, Netanyahu and genocide we sorely need more inspiration from the past.
Note - You can buy Cold War Kid from Kembla Books here