In his leisure hours, summer or winter, Australia's Prime Minister Harold Holt was never far from the sea. Twenty-three months ago, when he first took office, newspapers all over the world ran pictures of the hardy, silver-haired Prime Minister wearing a rubber wet suit and carrying a spear gun. Holt fished from the rocks, body-surfed in the great Pacific waves that pound southern Australia's Mornington Peninsula, and spent hours with his wife, Zara, exploring rock pools, collecting shells and spearing fish. His greatest delight was snorkeling. "From the moment I put my head under the water," he said, "I was caught. And I've been captured ever since." Last week Harold Holt, 59, was captured for good by the sea that he loved so much.
Gone Like a Leaf. Taking a weekend off after the strain of a Senate election campaign and the devaluation of the British pound, Holt jumped into his red 1967 Pontiac and drove 59 miles from Melbourne to a small, white hilltop beach home he had built in the southern seaside town of Portsea on Port Phillip Bay. Though his doctors had warned him against swimming because of a slight muscular complaint, Holt felt that the sea air and the relaxation would do him good. So early on an overcast Sunday morning, he picked up four friends—Portsea Neighbors Alan Stewart and Mrs. Marjorie Gillespie, Mrs. Gillespie's daughter Vyner, and Vyner's boy friend, Martin Simpson—and all went looking for a place to swim and sunbathe. "I know," Holt suggested. "Let's go to Cheviot Beach" —a lonely, rocky stretch 21 miles from Holt's beach home, and one of the most dangerous beaches in the Portsea area. When the five arrived, the tide was at crest, and ugly chunks of wood and flotsam bobbed about on the sur face. "I had never seen it like that before," Mrs. Gillespie says. But Holt decided to go in anyway. "I know this beach like the back of my hand," he insisted. After all, he had been swimming there since 1926, when as an unmarried law student he began visiting Cheviot with Zara and her family. And, as a strong swimmer, he had often plunged into rougher waters.
"The Prime Minister must be a lot fitter than we are," Stewart quipped to the others. "There he goes, striding along like Marco Polo." Holt strolled down the beach and dived into the chill waters. "If Mr. Holt can take it," Stewart said, "I'd better go in too." He went for a dip but, discouraged by the condition of the water, quickly returned to the others. By now, the tide had turned and was rushing out. As he swam, his head bobbing above the waves, Holt was carried farther and farther out into a broad stretch of swirling water. "Suddenly," Mrs. Gillespie recalls, "I had the most terrible feeling and yelled: 'Come back, come back!' " "Does he often stay in this long?" Stewart asked nervously. As the four watched the distant head, the waves suddenly seemed to boil up around Holt. The Prime Minister of Australia dis appeared from sight beneath the waters about 500 yards offshore. "I knew then that there was nothing anyone could do, even if we had lifesavers," says Mrs. Gillespie. "He was like a leaf being carried out. It was so quick and final."