In 1967, on this day the General Secretary of the Australian Communist Party and de facto Head of State Lawrence (Lance) Louis Sharkey died of a heart attack in Sidney, New South Wales. O Tempora, O Mores Part 3 - The Death of Lance Sharkey
His successor would be Laurence 'Laurie' Aarons (pictured) who by coincidence was himself born in Sydney, the son of Sam Aarons, a leading member of the Communist Party and a veteran of the Spanish Civil War. The Aarons family was of German-Jewish origin; Brian Aarons, who was also later prominent in the Communist Party, Mark Aarons, a well-known broadcaster, journalist and author, and John Aarons.
During the Sino-Soviet Split of the early 1960s the CPA suffered a split, and Aarons led the majority pro-Soviet and anti-Chinese faction. He was a strong supporter of Nikita Khrushchev's liberalisation in the Soviet Union, and after Khrushchev's fall he became increasingly critical of the Soviet leadership's policies, re-evaulating his earlier antaganoism towards China.
A fair summary would be that Aarons was an internationalist with a new, compelling vision for the nation. In office, Aarons would seek to re-position Australia as a multi-ethnic Pacific Rim nation, refocusing the economy in the Far East.
During August, Aarons would visit North Vietnam to offer the support of Australian workers to Ho Chi Minh in his struggles against imperialism. Referring to the shipment of convicts from Britain in the eighteenth century, Aarons put together a convincing case that Australians themselves were dehumanised by the same forces threatening the Republic of Vietnam.
So in Harold Holt, Aarons saw an unreconstructed symbol of Australia's colonial past. A link to the hated British monarchy and the white supremacist views of the Australian capitalist. In short, an embarassment to the incoming administration. And since Holt's return from a tour of America and Europe, a rallying point for reactionary politicians who sought to overthrow the 1948 revolution.