James Ford Cairns (1914 – 2003)

What if he returned?

Jim Cairns’s biographer Paul Ormonde talks of family honour in keeping the father’s desertion secret and speculates on what might have happened had he come back to the family from the war.

James Ford Cairns (1914 – 2003)

Pride Before the Fall

Jim Cairns’s sureness of self enabled biographer Paul Ormonde to get unusually close to him, a relationship that tripped Cairns up when Ormonde discovered the true fate of Cairns’s father, shrouded for years in family […]

James Ford Cairns (1914 – 2003)

Missing Believed Killed

Jim Cairns confronts evidence that his father deserted and hands the military record to his biographer Paul Ormonde. Cairns tells Gough Whitlam in Parliament about the news and Whitlam is profoundly moved.

James Ford Cairns (1914 – 2003)

A Foolish Passionate Man

Biographer Paul Ormonde reflects on the title for his book on Jim Cairns – the inspirational leader of Australia’s anti-Vietnam war movement. Cairns, a controversial figure, rose to the position of Treasurer and Deputy Prime […]