In Australia's Spies and Their Secrets, author David McKnight uncovers a shadowy hand behind the events which shaped Australian politics from the end of the second world war to the 1970s. In this period the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) acted as an arm of the Liberal and Country parties in the cause of unbending ultra-conservatism. From its hidden role in promoting military intervention in Vietnam in 1964-65; to feeding illegally gained material to media proprietors and journalists, in an effort to discredit those with non-conformist ideas; to working with Liberal opposition leader Billy Snedden against the Whitlam Labor government — ASIO and the conservative political establishment combined to undermine the Australian parliamentary democracy they were pledged to defend.
We reprint here extracts from Australia's Spies and Their Secrets. ASIO's prime target was the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). Pursuing the CPA into the peace movement, the spooks discovered many non-CPA radicals. ASIO broadened its brief to take in all manner of non-conformists:
At its origin in 1949, ASIO was seen as a Labor creation and was somewhat suspect by the conservatives. Six years later it had taken on the agenda of zealous anti-communism and become the darling of the conservatives. This process deepened during the long period of Liberal-Country Party rule which lasted until 1972 ...
Menzies' election pledge to ban the CPA and commitment of troops to Korea set the tone for the war on subversion for decades ...
Throughout this period the one crucial political question for communists was their relationship with the ALP. Both sprang from the same soil of the labour movement and when both chose to co-operate they were a strong social force. Except for a period of ultra-leftism in 1948 to 1951, the CPA sought co-operation with what it termed "broader forces" — ALP members, Christians and independent radicals — from 1945 onwards. This made sense in Australia and was also in line with Soviet policy. From around 1951 this took the form of building a movement to prevent nuclear war.
A very secret part of ASIO's counter-subversion work was the preparation of lists of subversives to be arrested and interned in camps in the event of war or other "national emergency". Also on the list for arrest and internment were many of Australia's migrants who came from "potential enemy countries". Ironically, many of these were virulent anti-communists, having left Eastern Europe for Australia to escape communism. So secret was this process that Menzies' succeeding cabinets were not consulted. A small cabal of ministers authorised the "emergency measures" and the planning of them fell to ASIO and Military Intelligence. Plans for internment of left-wing Australians continued at least until 1971 when a review was carried out. The number of people destined for internment at various times during the Cold War varied but between 5 and 10,000 people were nominated at different times. The main purpose of the exercise was to neutralise a potential "fifth column" once war broke out and prevent anti-war sentiment from taking hold ...
To [ASIO boss Charles] Spry and the military chiefs who were making ready to fight the third world war, the activities of the peace movement were treachery pure and simple. When war broke out, they reasoned, its propaganda would demoralise the Australian side. The motivation of the communists in the peace movement, they believed, was nothing to do with the prevention of war but rather to undermine Australia's ability to fight a war ...
ASIO's role, as "the fourth arm of defence", was to prepare the names, addresses, physical descriptions and other clues to assist the police to arrest them as soon as possible ...
[A] decision on "Aliens (Non Enemy)" ordered that "all those with an adverse pro-communist security record should be listed automatically ..." but that "it is not intended at this stage to intern former Nazis and Fascists". Of the Russians living in Australia, [Spry] ordered that all were to be listed automatically "exclusive of White Russians who are anti-communist".
The main task of [ASIO section] B1 was to make up-to-date analyses of the raw material on subversion which flooded in to ASIO via phone taps and agents. It had an important role in preparing lists of subversives to be interned in wartime or an emergency and worked with [ASIO's] S branch in preparing "spoiling operations".
By the mid 1950s when the war danger had ebbed and through the 1960s when the CPA numerically declined and split, ASIO's war on subversion seemed to grow stronger and more powerful. For while the CPA was declining, radical ideas and non-conformism were growing in the Australian community. Inevitably the two met in the peace movement, the unions, the early support movement for Aborigines and a host of smaller progressive groups. Because all such groups contained communists, whole organisations were deemed tainted. It was as if Marxism was a foreign disease whose carriers infected everyone and every organisation with whom they came in contact. Inevitably this meant the ASIO dragnet scooped wider and wider.
A telling example concerned schools and the education system. A major campaign in the 1950s and 1960s initiated by both communists and liberal intellectuals was to promote education and increase funding for schools. This was identified by B1 branch as a subversive ploy. In 1954, a B1 officer reported on the annual meeting of the Kilsyth (Victoria) preschool. One of its vice presidents:
"stated that she belonged also to the North Croydon Kindergarten and that the Secretary thereat is a Mrs R.S. Barrett of Barina Crescent, Croydon, Phone 804. Whilst no one had ever heard that she was a communist, a number had reason to wonder, in that this Mrs Barrett was a very outspoken person who had indicated that she could not be bothered to see the Queen during her tour, and thinks it unnecessary to sing 'God Save the Queen' at their functions. Her husband works in the Bank in Croydon. Neither Barrett nor her husband have previously come to the notice of this Office."
A similar report on the Victorian Federation of Mothers Clubs noted the disturbing news that the federation, representing nearly 700 Mothers Clubs had asked the federal government to petition the United Nations for the outlawing of atomic and hydrogen bombs.
"Spoiling operations" were designed to penetrate, disrupt and damage the political activities and personal lives of individual left-wing targets. Of all the activities of ASIO studied by this author, this is the area about which former officers are most reluctant to talk. One man who presided over such antics from 1964 to 1966 was Billy Snedden, then attorney-general. In later years Snedden recalled his high regard for Spry whom he described as "a soldier [who] expected casualties: a person reckless enough to associate with persons who were suspected of being interested in subversion took a risk of guilt by association ..." He also praised the officers under Spry whom he said "would have been prepared to undertake criminal actions, under direction, if they believed that they were the interests of Australia ..." Certainly many of the operational activities of the 1960s were either illegal, such as breaking and entering, or outside the law, such as electronic bugging ...
When hundreds of thousands of troops finally landed in Vietnam, ASIO had a stake in ensuring the domestic opposition to the decision was kept in place. To do this it turned to the tried and true methods of exposure and counter measures against the peace movement. Leading members of the peace organisations were named in parliament as communists and the lineage of the anti-war movement was traced back to decisions taken in Moscow or by the Soviet-dominated World Peace Council. But this time the counter measures, so powerful in the 1950s and early 60s, began to fail. Instead of being cowed by virulent anti-communism, the student component of the anti-war movement simply held the anti-communists up to ridicule and redoubled their open defiance of the RSL, the police and the Liberal Party. As the Sixties turned into the Seventies, the old peace movement, with its taint of disloyalty, had turned into the anti-war movement, capturing the libertarian impulse of a new Australia. It was a change which began to junk the old notions of security and which held no place for an internal security organisation.
[Next week: an interview with author David McKnight.]