"In March 1963 when the Labor Party?s decision-making body ? the Federal Conference ? met at Canberra?s Hotel Kingston, Whitlam and Arthur Calwell were involved in an inadvertent demonstration of the need for party reform. The two men walked over to the hotel late one evening to hear the decision reached by the 36 delegates regarding party policy on the government?s plan to allow the United States to build a communications base at North West Cape in Western Australia. The meeting had not finished and, as the party leaders were not members of the conference, they waited outside the hotel. Among the journalists also gathered there was Alan Reid, who quickly sent for a photographer and produced the telling image of the leaders of the party?s parliamentary wing waiting for the party?s organisational delegates ? the ?36 faceless men? ? to give them a policy.
When Robert Menzies called a snap election in November 1963, he made much of Labor?s difficulty in forming a policy on the US base and of the ?36 faceless men? caricature. After Labor lost ground in the election, Whitlam launched a stinging attack on his party?s ?failure to devise modern, relevant and acceptable methods of formulating and publicising policy? and demanded reforms to the machinery and processes. Moves to include the leaders of the federal parliamentary party on the federal executive were initiated, and a compromise arrangement was achieved at the party?s conference in Adelaide in 1967."
