John Gorton, 90; Australian Leader

Former Australian Prime Minister Sir John Gorton, a war hero and maverick conservative who voted himself out of office, has died at age 90.

Gorton died Sunday of pneumonia and respiratory failure in a Sydney hospice.

Almost everything about Gorton and his term as prime minister from 1968 to 1971 was unconventional.

“Sir John was fearless in the expression of his views and honest and forthright in his dealings,” said Lynton Crosby, federal secretary of Gorton’s conservative Liberal Party. “He was both a great Liberal and a great prime minister.”

Born in Melbourne on Sept. 9, 1911, Gorton was the second child born out of wedlock to John Gorton, a British businessman who made his fortune in South Africa.

After their mother died, Gorton’s father moved the children in with his legal wife in Sydney, where Gorton was educated at private schools before studying at Oxford University in England. His first marriage was to an American, Bettina Brown, who died in 1983.

During World War II, he joined the Royal Australian Air Force and served in Britain, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea. He was shot down twice by the Japanese and suffered severe facial injuries that left him scarred for life.

Gorton was elected to the Senate in 1949, promoted to the Cabinet in 1958 and served as government leader in the Senate.

Often called “the accidental prime minister,” Gorton became leader of the country and the Liberal Party on Jan. 10, 1968, a month after Prime Minister Harold Holt mysteriously disappeared while swimming at a Melbourne beach.

Gorton’s breezy style made him popular with voters but also made him some powerful enemies, including members of his own party and the government bureaucracy, as well as Australia’s most powerful media baron, Sir Frank Packer.

“He was bold, uncompromising, sometimes impetuous, but he was never afraid. He did things his way,” said Tony Eggleton, a former federal secretary of the party.

That familiar appraisal was incorporated into the title of an authorized biography, “John Gorton: He Did It His Way,” written by Ian Hancock and published in March. The book emerged at a time when the Liberal Party seemed interested in rehabilitating Gorton’s standing in history.

Hancock attributed part of Gorton’s unpopularity to bad timing--that he was prime minister during a period between those of two charismatic titans, Robert Menzies and Gough Whitlam.

Gorton’s womanizing--he admitted in the biography to at least one extramarital affair while prime minister--and drinking binges may have made him popular with the populace, but not with politicians.

His reputation among conservatives also suffered from repeated conflict with the United States over its refusal to share information about the Vietnam War, to which Australia committed more than 50,000 troops.

In 1971, Defense Minister Malcolm Fraser, a future prime minister, resigned in disgust at Gorton’s leadership, sparking a challenge. When the ballot among Liberal lawmakers split 33 to 33, Gorton used his ballot to vote himself out of the party leadership and prime minister’s office. He retired from Parliament in 1975 and later became a patron of the movement to legalize marijuana.

Gorton’s family has accepted an offer of a state funeral. The date has not been determined. He is survived by his second wife, Nancy; three children; 12 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.