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Clip description
Radio and television carries news of Harold Holt’s disappearance. Holt’s widow, Dame Zara Bate, remembers the day her husband vanished.
Curator’s notes
The archival footage in this segment provides a vivid picture of a day without precedent in Australian history. Primitive by today’s standards, outside broadcast technology brings grainy black-and-white television pictures live from Cheviot Beach. It is an almost surreal scene, with helicopters, navy divers and the army arriving at Cheviot to search for Harold Holt. Holt’s widow, Dame Zara Bate, gives a disarmingly honest account of how she reacted at the time. Tony Eggleton, Holt’s press secretary, served as Federal Director of the Liberal Party from 1975–90.
