Theories grow new legs with Holt inquiry

By GREG ANSLEY Australia correspondent

CANBERRA - Old conspiracy theories are being dusted off in Australia with the decision to hold a new inquiry into the death of Liberal Prime Minister Harold Holt, who vanished while swimming at a Victorian beach in 1967.

Holt, who loved the image of flamboyant outdoorsman - posing for press photos James Bond-style in flippers and snorkel with beautiful women - was officially declared to have drowned.

But theories ranging from suicide to capture by a Russian or Chinese submarine have circulated for years.

Now, although a full, public inquest appears unlikely, the old, wild yarns have joined recollections of a Prime Minister with a string of lovers on one side and a Government sinking into the mire on the other.

The decision by Victoria's Coroner's office to re-open the 36-year-old mystery was not motivated by new doubts about Holt's death at 59, but by a law change requiring investigations into more than 100 drownings in which the bodies were not found.

Holt succeeded retiring Liberal giant Sir Robert Menzies in 1966, initially presiding over a buoyant Government that increased its majority with a pro-Vietnam war platform and Holt's famous "all the way with LBJ" pledge to United States President Lyndon Johnson.

Like Johnson's predecessor, John F. Kennedy, Holt also had a series of lovers in widely known but never-reported affairs, later described by his widow, Dame Zara Holt as a "queue [that] formed on the right".

But the good times paled as public opinion swung against the Vietnam War and other domestic woes placed his leadership in jeopardy.

On December 17, Holt went swimming in broiling, dangerous seas at Cheviot Beach, near Portsea, accompanied by a lover, Marjorie Gillespie, and Gillespie's daughter and her boyfriend.

Holt slipped into the water and disappeared. His body was never found.

The theories began almost immediately: Holt was depressed because of his political troubles, by rumours about the marriages of his three sons, and by his brother Cliff's death; or that he killed himself to fulfil a premonition of death before 60.

Others believed the CIA killed Holt because they thought he was about to take Australia out of Vietnam; that he was snatched by Soviet spies; or that he was a Chinese spy spirited away by submarine.

Yet another theory has him skipping Australia for the good life in France, where he allegedly died of a heart attack 10 years or so later.

But the official inquiry at the time concluded that "there has been no indication that the disappearance of the late Mr Holt was anything other than incidental".

Historian Ian Hancock, who specialises in the period, said when the Holt Cabinet papers were released that Holt had a bad shoulder, was probably trying to show off for Gillespie and her daughter, and for all his troubles had been in good spirits.

"In all probability [Holt] was just another statistic of an Australian summer," he said.