The Copley Archive - War and Peace. An annotated catalogue of the Copley's newspaper cuttings and pamphlets, 1950-1970.

In 1950, the year that he failed to outlaw the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), Prime Minister Menzies was convinced that Australia would be involved in a third world war within three years, so he spearheaded a post war rearmament program.

A decade later he gave a speech, "The Menace of Communism" (1) where he stated that “Liberalism and Communism are at the very opposite poles of thought and action. A victory for Communism would involve the destruction of literally everything we stand for”. These newspaper cuttings refer to rearmament plans and community reaction to them.

Various disarmament and peace organisations were active in Newcastle, some sponsored by the CPA, and a representative sample of the pamphlets and notices are included here from this collection.

A detailed account of how and why Merv and Janet Copley collected this material is available on the Auchmuty Library Special Collections & Archives website. 

This material is held in Archive Box C293.

The headlines of the newspaper articles have been recorded verbatim; their contents are
paraphrased.

(1) Menzies, Sir Robert. ‘The Menace of Communism’. Speech at the Liberal Party Rally, Olympic Pool, Melbourne, 23/9/60. Transcript 221.

Copyright David Smith 2025