Word: whitlam
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...Gough Whitlam was born July 11, 1916 in the Melbourne suburb of Kew. His father, Harry Frederick Ernest Whitlam, was a lawyer who eventually attained the high civil service post of Commonwealth Crown Solicitor and also became Australian representative on the U.N. Human Rights Commission. As a boy, Gough liked to sit at dinner with the family encyclopedia at his back, handy for reference in arguments. Gough left one school after a teacher complained of his impudence, a charge that was to be echoed throughout his life. In Canberra Grammar, he was classed as industrious but not brilliant, good...
...neutralized zone in Southeast Asia; he announced he would petition the International Court of Justice in an attempt to stop French nuclear tests in the South Pacific. (A number of similar steps were taken by Fellow Laborite Norman Kirk, who won power in New Zealand just a week before Whitlam's victory...
...second end, Whitlam backed U.N. resolutions against white-supremacist Rhodesia and South Africa and banned visits to Australia by segregated athletic teams. Perhaps more significantly, Whitlam abruptly abolished the "white Australia" policy that had long discriminated against colored immigrants. He also took steps to improve the lot of Australia's own long-abused aborigines; among other things, he acknowledged aboriginal claims to ancient tribal lands...
...Whitlam married a fellow student, 6-ft. 2-in. Margaret Dovey, daughter of a Sydney lawyer who later became a Supreme Court Justice in New South Wales. They met at a university party when, as Margaret puts it, their eyes found each other across the heads of their smaller companions. Margaret has been a surprise to Australians, who still generally accept the notion that women should not always be seen, let alone heard. Shortly after her husband's election, Margaret told interviewers that she favored wages for housewives, was not opposed to couples living together outside marriage, and thought...
...Whitlam was a Royal Australian Air Force bomber-navigator during World War II, then completed his law course. After failing in two local contests, he won a by-election for the federal seat of Werriwa in 1952 and has held it ever since. His early years in Parliament were difficult. His own party regarded him suspiciously because he did not fit the image of a typical Labor politician: he had never worked with his hands, worn overalls, belonged to a trade union or been on strike. Well-educated, well-spoken, well-dressed, he was characterized as a "smoothie...