Farquharson said that all four of them had had a faith before Buchman came. 'Through his visit', he says, 'we saw how it could be applied in our work and in the formulation of policy.'

Buchman's own evaluation was, 'So much has taken place in Canberra that will never be undone.' Certainly it was true of these young men, who all went on to take large responsibilities. Barnett, at the time of writing, is head of Radio Australia, the country's overseas broadcasting network; Farquharson is Associate Editor of the Canberra Times; Warin is Director of Exploration for the Utah Company based in San Francisco and an internationally known geologist; while Griffith spent thirty-one years in the Prime Minister's department till his retirement in 1982. When Griffith retired the Sydney Morning Herald headed a half-page appraisal, 'Griffo's going: Fraser loses a third leg'. Describing him as 'an untidy dresser with an immaculately tidy intellect' who 'manages to get on with people who can't get on with each other', the article named him as 'the anonymous power behind Australia's biggest policy thrusts'.11

During the whole Australian trip, and in New Zealand which was his next stop, Buchman was much troubled over the growing crisis in the Middle East. In Perth he had heard of the death of El Glaoui and cabled Abdessadeq, 'Deeply grieved. Your father's recent historic reconciliations were his most significant acts of statesmanship, turning the key for his country and opening new chapters on Morocco's nationhood. Loving messages to your brothers Mohamed, Abdullah and Ahmed.'12

The knowledge, from his personal contact with North Africa, that there was a ready response from the Muslim world on a basis of moral values, created in Buchman a growing uneasiness about the attitude of Western politicians at this time. Six months before the disastrous Franco-British expedition to the Suez Canal, he remarked, 'Eden and company don't know how to handle people so they have to try and get rid of them. This makes martyrs of them and inflames a nation's feelings.' One day he said that he sometimes imagined a Muslim leader rising from prayer and having to say to himself, 'Communism wants to take over my country to make the world different. America wants to buy my country to enable her to stay as she is.' His own hope was that the Muslim countries should become 'a belt of sanity to bind East and West and bring moral rebirth'. To Baynard-Smith he added, 'If Britain and America were to defeat Communism today, the world would be in a worse state than it is. Because the other man is wrong doesn't make me right.'

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