The Disappearing Prime Minister - Australian Mystery

What happened to Harold Holt?

On a Sunday in December 1967, the Prime Minister of Australia went for a swim off a beach near Portsea and never came out. More than three hundred people searched the water for him, and no trace of his body was ever found.

Fifty-eight years later, depending on who you ask, Harold Holt drowned, was killed by the CIA, ran off with his lover, or was dragged under by Chinese frogmen and carried away to Beijing in a submarine.

In this episode of Strewth we work through the theories, from the frankly ridiculous to the one a coroner finally signed off on in 2005, and ask why a man who had nearly drowned off that same beach seven months earlier swam straight back out past the breakers.

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Sources:

National Archives of Australia. Harold Holt's disappearance, Fact sheet 144. https://www.naa.gov.au/help-your-research/fact-sheets/harold-holts-disappearance

Victoria Police and Commonwealth Police. Joint report into the disappearance of Harold Holt, January 1968, including witness statements. National Archives of Australia, A1209, 1968/8063. https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4982285

Johnstone, Graeme (State Coroner of Victoria). Finding into the death of Harold Edward Holt, 2 September 2005. Coroners Court of Victoria. (Quoted via ABC reporting below.)