William Macmahon Ball
(1901-1986)
The obituary of Macmahon Ball in The Age paints a portrait of a person
of exceptional integrity and charisma who resigned on matters of principle
from more positions than most people are ever offered.
He graduated in Arts in 1923, immediately being appointed Research Scholar
in Psychology. He lectured in Psychology, Logic and Ethics before taking
up a Rockefeller Fellowship in Political Science in 1929, studying in
Europe and the UK. A Carnegie Travelling Fellowship took him to Europe
and the USA in 1938-39: during the Munich crisis he was in Germany.
From 1940 to 1943 Ball was Controller of Short Wave Broadcasts for the
Commonwealth Government, assembling and directing a team to monitor
and translate foreign-language broadcasts and provide the voice of Australia
overseas. From 1945 to 1948, he was employed at the University and in
a succession of overseas posts, first as an adviser to the Australian
delegation to the San Francisco conference which preceded the establishment
of the United Nations, then as the representative of the Australian
Government in Indonesia during that country's struggle for independence.
In 1946 he was appointed Australian Minister to Japan and the British
Commonwealth representative on the Allied Council, with the difficult
task of dealing with the demands of both Douglas MacArthur and HV Evatt.
In 1948 he had the happier experience of leading a goodwill mission
to East Asia.
Following a brief period of employment with The Herald, Ball was appointed
to the Foundation Chair in Political Science at Melbourne University.
He remained for almost 20 years, training many of his successors in
the Diplomatic Service and becoming a notable commentator on current
affairs in print and on radio.
He retired as Professor Emeritus in 1968, and, in the words of his obituary,
"Mac Ball never ceased from thinking, reading and writing, keeping
in touch with younger men who had been his pupils".
