Harold Edward Holt, CH ( 5 August 190817 December 1967 ) was an Australian politician and the 17th Prime Minister of Australia.

Holt spent 32 years in Parliament, including many years as a senior Cabinet Minister, but was Prime Minister for only 22 months.

As Minister for Immigration ( 1949 – 1956 ), Holt was responsible for the relaxation of the White Australia policy and as Treasurer under Menzies he initiated major fiscal reforms including the establishment of the Reserve Bank of Australia and launched and guided the process to convert Australia to decimal currency.

Harold Holt was the elder of Thomas and Olive ( Williams ) Holt's two children.

Tom Frame's biography reveals that Holt was the twins ' biological father.

Holt was drawn to politics in the early 1930s and joined the Prahran branch of the United Australia Party ( UAP ) in 1933.

In October 1940 Holt was elevated to Cabinet, becoming Minister for Labour and National Service, and one of his most significant achievements in this portfolio was the introduction of the Child Endowment Act, passed in April 1941.

Holt was among those who withdrew their support, although he never revealed his reasons for doing so.

Holt was one of the first members to join the Liberal Party's Prahran branch.

The seat was created as a safe Liberal seat, and Holt won it easily.

In December 1958, following the retirement of Arthur Fadden, Holt was appointed Treasurer.

Holt was roundly criticised, his public profile was damaged, and he later described 1960 – 61 as " my most difficult year in public life ".

With Menzies ' support, Holt was elected leader of the Liberal Party, thus becoming Prime Minister.

Holt was sworn in as Prime Minister on Australia Day, 26 January 1966.

The transfer of power from Menzies to Holt in February 1966 was smooth and unproblematic, and at the federal election later that year the electorate overwhelmingly endorsed Holt, giving the Holt-McEwen Coalition government a 41-seat majority, the largest in Australian history at the time.

Although all the preparatory work for the decimal changeover had been done while Menzies was Prime Minister, Holt had particular responsibility as Treasurer for currency matters, and he was centrally involved in both the decision to change and its implementation.

In 1967 the Holt government made the historic decision not to depreciate the Australian dollar in line with Britain's depreciation of the pound sterling, a custom that Australia had previously always followed, but this decision created considerable dissent within the Coalition ; Country Party leader John McEwen was particularly angered by the move — he saw it as a threat to Australia's balance of payments and feared that it would lead to increased production costs for primary industry.

Whilst Holt stated that his friendship with Johnson was reflected in the strong relationship between Australia and the US, former Australian diplomat and foreign affairs expert Alan Renouf was more cynical in his assessment of the situation.

In the chapter on Vietnam in The Frightened Country, his 1979 book on Australian foreign policy, Renouf bluntly suggested that Holt was in effect " seduced " by Johnson, and notes that the Johnson administration criticized the Holt government for not doing enough and repeatedly pressured Australia to increase its troop commitment in Vietnam.

Holt tractors were also the inspiration for the development of the British and French tanks, which profoundly altered ground warfare tactics.

That month, Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, the publishers of collections of Doonesbury until the mid-1980s, took out an ad in the New York Times Book Review, marking the occasion by saying: It ’ s nice for Trudeau and Doonesbury to be so honored, " but it ’ s quite another thing when the Establishment clutches all of Walden Commune to its bosom.

Felix Holt, the Radical and The Legend of Jubal were overtly political, and political crisis is at the heart of Middlemarch, in which she presents the stories of a number of denizens of a small English town on the eve of the Reform Bill of 1832 ; the novel is notable for its deep psychological insight and sophisticated character portraits.

Today, Holt is mainly remembered for his somewhat controversial role in expanding Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, for his famous " All the way with LBJ " quote, and for the sensational circumstances of his death.

At the 1934 federal election Holt unsuccessfully contested the safe Labor seat of Yarra for the UAP, running against former Prime Minister James Scullin.

Holt stood again for the federal House of Representatives on 17 August 1935, at a by-election for the marginally conservative seat of Fawkner, this time successfully.

From this point on Holt dedicated himself single-mindedly to a career in politics and he reportedly had few outside interests, apart from his well-known passion for sport and the sea.

Menzies recalled Holt from the army, appointing him Minister without Portfolio assisting the Minister for Trade and Customs, and his recall earned him the ironic nickname " Gunner Holt.

Holt as Minister for Labour at a Raymond Terrace, New South Wales Masonite factory in 1954.

Support for his leadership was eroded even further by his refusal to sack the Minister for Air Peter Howson in order to defuse the scandal, fuelling criticism from within the party that Holt was " weak " and lacked Menzies ' ruthlessness.

The notes Erwin made for his planned meeting with Holt ( which he evidently provided to Reid ) indicate that he and others were worried that Holt was too susceptible to traps set for him by the ALP over issues like the VIP jets scandal, and that he had repeatedly let himself become the target of Opposition " harassment " instead of letting his ministers take the heat on controversial issues.

The original plan to complete the Ellesmere Canal was to connect Chester directly to the Wrexham coalfields by building a broad-gauge waterway with a branch to the River Dee at Holt.

The bridge at Holt was the first crossing point south of the city of Chester and hence was of major strategic importance.

Holt became Columbia Pictures ' most reliable leading man, and scored personal successes in three Frank Capra action dramas, Submarine ( 1928 ), Flight ( 1929 ), and Dirigible ( 1931 ), Holt's no-nonsense characterizations were eclipsed by those of younger, tough-talking actors like James Cagney and Chester Morris, but Holt continued to work in low-budget action features, almost always for Columbia, through 1940.

Retired numbers displayed on the west facade of Carter-Finley Stadium include those of Roman Gabriel ( 18 ), Torry Holt ( 81 ), Philip Rivers ( 17 ), Bill Yoest ( 63 ), Dennis Byrd ( 77 ), Dick Christy ( 40 ), Jim Ritcher ( 51 ), and Ted Brown ( 23 ).

Tracy Ann Austin Holt ( born December 12, 1962, in Palos Verdes, California ) is a former World No. 1 professional tennis player from the United States who won the women's singles title at the US Open in 1979 and 1981 and the mixed doubles title at Wimbledon in 1980, before a series of injuries cut her career short.

But the disappointing film version, directed by George Cukor at MGM Elstree in 1949, instead starred the miscast Spencer Tracy, who turned Holt, an unscrupulous English businessman, into a blustering Canadian expatriate.

She photographed attractively opposite leading men who were also at advanced ages and later stages in their careers: Neil Hamilton in Producers Releasing Corporation's production Dangerous Lady, Lee Tracy in the same studio's The Payoff, and Jack Holt in the serial Holt of the Secret Service, produced by Larry Darmour for Columbia Pictures.

* Capp, Al, The Best of Li ' l Abner ( 1978 ) Holt, Rinehart & Winston ISBN 0-03-045516-2

* Capp, Al, The Best of Li ' l Abner ( 1978 ) Holt, Rinehart & Winston ISBN 0-03-045516-2

* Capp, Al, The Best of Li ' l Abner ( 1978 ) Holt, Rinehart & Winston ISBN 0-03-045516-2

His partners have been Al Trautwig ( 1990-1991, 1993 ), Bud Collins ( 1992 ), Joe Garagiola ( 1994-2002 ), Mark McEwen ( 2003-2004 ), Lester Holt ( 2005, 2007-2008 ), Debbye Turner ( 2006 ), Mary Carillo ( 2009, 2011-Present ), and Tamron Hall ( 2010 ).

On February 26, 2004, WMAQ-TV garnered national attention when Katie Couric, Al Roker, and Lester Holt hosted the Today Show on Cityfront Plaza to debut the station's streetside studio.