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Harold Edward Holt, (;〔"Holt", ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary'', Random House, 2001.〕 5 August 190817 December 1967), was an Australian politician and the 17th Prime Minister of Australia. Holt spent 32 years in Parliament, including many years as a senior Cabinet Minister, but was Prime Minister for only 22 months before he disappeared in December 1967 while swimming at Cheviot Beach near Portsea, Victoria, and was presumed drowned. As Minister for Immigration (1949–1956), Holt was responsible for the relaxation of the White Australia policy and as Treasurer under Menzies, he initiated major fiscal reforms including the establishment of the Reserve Bank of Australia, and launched and guided the process to convert Australia to decimal currency. As Prime Minister, he oversaw landmark changes including the decision not to devalue the Australian dollar in line with the British pound, and the 1967 constitutional referendum in which an overwhelming majority of Australians voted in favour of giving the Commonwealth power to legislate specifically for indigenous Australians. Today, Holt is mainly remembered for his somewhat controversial role in expanding Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War; for his "All the way with LBJ" quote; and for the circumstances of his death. In the opinion of his biographer Tom Frame, these have tended to obscure the achievements of Holt's long political career. == Early life == Born in Stanmore, New South Wales on 5 August 1908, Holt was the elder son of Thomas and Olive (Williams). He and his brother Cliff (Clifford Thomas Holt, born 1910), spent their early life in Sydney and attended three different schools in Sydney and Adelaide between 1913 and 1919. In 1921, Thomas Holt enrolled his sons at Wesley College in Melbourne, where the future Prime Minister Robert Menzies had been a star pupil. By this time, Thomas Holt had left teaching and moved into theatrical and artist management in partnership with the noted entrepreneur Hugh D. McIntosh, owner of the Tivoli theatre circuit. For several years in the early 1930s, he was based in London. Harold Holt's parents divorced in 1918. In 1924, when Holt was sixteen, his mother died and he did not attend her funeral. A lack of parental affection, his parents' divorce and his mother's early death instilled deep feelings of loneliness and insecurity in the young Holt, driving him to seek approval and acclaim through personal endeavour and career achievement, and fueling his eagerness to please others and his need to be liked. A formative event was his singing performance at his school's annual Speech Night in December 1926 – none of his family were present, and the sense of loneliness he felt that night remained with him throughout his life. Holt won a scholarship to Queen's College at the University of Melbourne and began his law degree in 1927. He excelled in many areas of university life – he won College 'Blues' for cricket and Australian rules football, as well as the College Oratory and Essay Prize. A member of the Melbourne Inter-University Debating team and the United Australia Organization 'A' Grade debating team, he was president of both the Sports and Social Club and the Law Students' Society. Holt had dated Viola Thring (known as Lola; 1911–71), daughter of his father's business partner F. W. Thring (and half-sister of the actor Frank Thring), but she ultimately rejected Holt only to marry his divorced father. Harold Holt thus acquired a step-mother who was three years his junior.〔(Treasury Publications ). Retrieved 21 February 2014〕 While at university, Holt met Zara Kate Dickins, and they soon became lovers. However, the couple split up in 1934 and Zara travelled overseas. In London she met Captain James Fell, a British Army officer, and they married in March 1935. Her first son Nicholas was born in 1937, followed by twin boys Sam and Andrew, born in 1939. By this time, however, she had renewed her relationship with Holt and her marriage to Fell ended soon after the twins' birth. Tom Frame's biography reveals that Holt was the twins' biological father. Zara and Fell subsequently divorced, she married Holt in 1946 and he adopted the three boys. Although they remained married until Holt's death in 1967, Zara's memoirs confirmed longstanding rumours that Holt had a number of extramarital affairs. Holt graduated with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1930. He was admitted to the Victorian Bar in November 1932 and served his articles with the Melbourne firm of Fink, Best & Miller, but the Great Depression meant that he was unable to find work as a barrister. His father, based in London at the time, wanted him to further his studies in England, but the worsening economy also made this impossible. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Harold Holt」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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