Diplomatic history of Australia the democratic world. In a country gripped by this fear, the government's defence policy was dominated by the idea of "forward defence", in which Australia would seek to prevent the Communist "thrust into South-East Asia". The committal of troops to the Vietnam War was viewed as an attempt by the Menzies Government to strengthen the alliance with the USA following Great Britain's withdrawal "east of Suez". With his arrival in October 1966, Lyndon Baines Johnson became the first US President to visit Australia. The visit came in the light of increasing international criticism over the war in Vietnam. The majority
Kalākaua's 1874–75 state visit to the United States predecessors, he belonged to fraternal organizations, as a member of the freemasonry lodge "Le Progres de l’Oceanie", and as the founding member of the Ancient Order of Foresters in Hawaii. When Kalākaua embarked on his state visit to the United States, nine months after being elected, he was the first reigning monarch to visit America, but not the first member of Hawaii's royal family to do so. He was the second reigning Hawaiian monarch to travel abroad, having been preceded in 1824 by King Kamehameha II and Queen Kamāmalu, who had traveled to the United Kingdom via the Strait of