J.W. Davidson and Western Samoa University politics and the travails of a Constitutional Adviser.

J.W. Davidson, the foundation Professor of Pacific History at the Australian National University (1950-73) is best remembered as the scholar-activist who championed the cause of indigenous self-determination in the Pacific. His most important assignment involved being the Samoans' Constitutional Adviser in the run-up to independance (1959-61), and much of his later reputation rests on his book recounting the experience. What is not realised is that Davidson faced considerable obstruction from his Vice-Chancellor, who attached little importance to such work. When demands for Davidson's services in Western Samoa kept escalating, the University handed the problem to Sir John Crawford, the Director-Elect of the Research School of Pacific Studies. Instead of siding with the University, Crawford acted decisively on Davidson's behalf. Inexplicably, Crawford failed to go one step further and develope a policy covering the outside earnings of ANU academics - a problem that had just been highlighted by the Davidson affair. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]