Australia brought to power the first Labour government in decades. The day after the government assumed office, the vice chancellor of ANU wrote to the new prime minister urging that the university, not the board, should appoint the director. Shortly thereafter, the new minister for science, W. L. Morrison, summoned Taffy Bowen, then the chairman of the board, who had just been appointed to an attractive position in the Australian Embassy in Washington. Morrison demanded that ANU run the telescope, to which Bowen responded that the board was a body legally established by two governments, one of which was now on the verge of acting illegally. Morrison hit back with a threat to sack him as chairman, which produced the response that a minister had no power to dismiss a board member. At this, Morrison exploded with anger, producing his ultimate weapon: If Bowen wished to take up the diplomatic appointment in Washington, he must resign from the board because “as minister I need a Chairman close by whom I can consult on a daily basis.” Bowen resigned on the spot and the board temporarily had no chairman.

The headstrong minister had failed to take account of the rules on chairmanship (his officials had not had time to brief him). With the resignation of the Australian chairman, responsibility for filling the position passed to the UK, which appointed Fred Hoyle. A promotion at the SRC next removed Hosie from the board. With both him and Bowen gone, and Margaret Burbidge’s impending resignation from the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Hoyle became the most experienced board member. He still had much to achieve.

He urgently needed to appoint the first director. In his search, he sounded out his contacts in the United States, a recruitment method that had been successful for IoTA. To his dismay, he quickly found that the direct interference of Australian ministers had seriously tarnished the appeal of the AAT. In March 1973, Hoyle was back in Canberra to interview two candidates, Hanbury Brown (by then at the University of Sydney) and Bev Oke (Caltech). Both rejected the offer of the directorship because of the continuing hostility of the ANU. Fortunately, help was at hand. Morrison decided to hold a meeting of Australian astronomers to discover their views. On finding that the local community of astronomers was heavily against the position of the ANU, the