A sustained tantrum: how the Joint Chiefs of Staff shaped the ANZUS treaty

Unsurprisingly, most of the literature on the origins of the ANZUS alliance examines why the treaty came into existence in 1951, emphasising the role of John Foster Dulles, President Truman’s Special Representative, Dean Acheson, the Secretary of State, and Percy Spender, the Australian Foreign Minister. This paper takes a different approach. It focuses on the policy priorities of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and argues that the JCS played an...