Alleged CIA involvement in the Whitlam dismissal

CIA involvement in the Whitlam dismissal is an allegation^[1][2] that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved in the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, which culminated in the dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.

The allegation made by several authors^[3][4][5] and some Australian politicians^[6] states that the CIA backed Governor-General and representative of Elizabeth II in Australia, John Kerr, to dismiss Whitlam, due to Whitlam's perceived left-wing policies^[7] including Australian withdrawal from the Vietnam War, as well as his views on Australian sovereignty.^[7] His conflict with the CIA is alleged^[7] to have come to a head when he discovered several CIA operations occurring in Australia, including Nugan Hand Bank, among others, leading him to threaten cancellation of the lease on the Pine Gap facility, ending the US-led (nominally joint) operation, which was integral to the United States (CIA) signals interception operations in the southern hemisphere ^[8][4][7]

His threat to not renew the lease on the Pine Gap facility was allegedly seen by the CIA as Compromising the integrity of intelligence operations pertaining to the satellite projects Rhyolite and Argus, used for monitoring and surveillance of missile launch sites in the Soviet Union and China,^[9] which were unknown to the Australian government at the time despite a blanket sharing agreement between the two countries.^[3]

Kerr denied any CIA involvement and Whitlam said Kerr did not need any encouragement from the CIA to sack him, and also denied his involvement in private communications although he allegedly maintained links to CIA-funded organisations.^[10][6][11]

The action of an unelected representative sacking an elected Prime Minister and replacing him with another caretaker prime minister caused the 1975 Australian Constitutional Crisis, referred to as "the most blatant act of external interference in Australia's affairs and its autonomy as a nation and a democracy."^[6]

On 9 December 1968,^[12] the United States and Australia signed a treaty titled "Agreement between the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia and the Government of the United States of America relating to the Establishment of a Joint Defence Space Research Facility",^[12] which was signed by Australia's Paul Hasluck and America's Edwin M. Cronk, detailing that a facility would be established in Pine Gap, ran jointly between ARPA (US) and the Australian Department of Defence, and which was created ostensibly "a facility for general defence research in the space field",^[12] which would later be revealed by spy Christopher Boyce as a CIA satellite base, which operated as a relay for information from spy satellites under the programs named Rhyolite and Argus.^[9][8]

In 1972, Gough Whitlam, the leader of the Labour Party of Australia won an election with around 50% of the vote, defeating the Liberal/Country coalition leader and former Prime Minister William McMahon. He was described as being radical and a reformer, but was not a self-affirmed leftist,^[7] had several "run-ins" with leftist members of the Labour Party, but described as "an individualist of maximal proportions".^[7] Later he described himself as a Socialist.

Previous governments had ruled on the basis of the policies of the Menzies government (1949–1966), which were heavily focused on conservative economics, trade and defence, which although popular in the 1950s and 1960s, had begun to lose popularity due to the re-emergence of "quality of life" issues, namely the quality of cities, schools and hospitals, which appealed to the baby boomer generation living in areas affected by these quality of life issues.

Previously, these "quality of life" issues were handled at the state level within Australia's governmental infrastructure, but Whitlam proposed that these should be handled by the federal Australian Government, acting under the Constitution of Australia. In addition to this, Whitlam's government was critical of the Australian involvement in the US-led Vietnam War, which led a significant amount of disaffection among the Australian population, and had by that point grown into widespread protests against the war, mirroring the public protests which were widespread in the United States against the war.

The conservative governments which had began Australia's involvement in the Vietnam war and held a close relationship with the governments of the United States, which also led to disaffected segments of the population siding with the Labour Party. The liberal parties in Australia focused on the need to contain and limit communism, but did not completely withdraw troops from Vietnam, and opposition to relations with China.

In contrast, Whitlam's policies were perceived as radical,^[13] proposing (and later following up on) establishing Medibank to reduce healthcare premiums (which was later privatised),^[13] establishing the Australian Schools Commission and free tertiary education, establishing the landmark^[13] Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976 (implemented after his tenure), no-fault divorce,^[13] maternity leave,^[13] preventing drilling in the great barrier reef,^[13] abolishing national conscription^[13] and removing the Australian Army Training Team from the Vietnam War,^[13] and establishing normalised diplomatic relations with China.^[13]

Pilger, along with Joan Coxsedge, Gerry Harant and Ken Coldicutt,^[7][14] credit Whitlam's victory due to the fact that at the time, fewer than 20% of the population of Australia was self-employed, with most Australians belonging to the working class despite efforts among academics to promote them to the middle class on the basis of home ownership.^[14][7]

Pilger describes Whitlam's oratory was described as being "inspiring, withering, ironic and funny" and as a "fine orator" when at his best, but at his worst "[went] on and on",^[7] but above all Whitlam was seen as a leader who stuck firmly to his principles. His campaign slogan, "It's Time" was broadly successful, along with the strategy of sitting back and letting their opponents make mistakes,^[15] and broadly opposing the draft for Vietnam. ^[7] He was also supported by then owner of News Limited, Rupert Murdoch.^[16] His opponent, McMahon, after a protracted campaign against Whitlam was losing so resoundingly that Whitlam's own advisers urged him to stop joking about him as voters had begun to feel sorry for him.^[16]

Whitlam won the election with a popular vote of 3.2 million votes, 67 seats, and 49.58% of the vote, with McMahon's Liberal/Country Coalition retaining 58 seas but losing with 41.48% of the vote. This left Whitlam with a majority in the House of Representatives, but without control of the Senate which had previously been elected in half-elections in 1967 and 1970.

On 5 December 1972, the McMahon government dissolved, and an interim government was established from the 5th of December to the 19th of December, formed of Whitlam, the leader of the Labour Party, and the deputy leader, Lance Barnard, who shared between them 27 positions in a duumvirate, due to complexities with the process of selecting ministers within the Labour Party's bylaws, Whitlam could only allocate positions, which he did to himself (13) and Barnard (14). This was later resolved by vote within the party on 18 December 1972, and the next day they were sworn in.

During the two weeks that Whitlam and Barnard held office, Whitlam sought to fulfil campaign promises that did not require legislation, and exercised the power it had at its disposal, effecting the immediate release of all draft resisters,^[17] removal of troops from Vietnam,^[17] and diplomatic recognition of China.^[17]

In his further time in office during his second ministry, he focused his efforts on implementing "The Program", a series of wide-reaching reforms to every area of government, such as, health, housing, and education and crucially even to the Monarchy; transferring many of these concerns from the state to the Australian Federal Government, and abolishing royal patronage, honorific titles. ^[17] The name of the country was also renamed from The Commonwealth Government to The Government of Australia in line with a "patriotic image" of Australia,^[18][7] and its national anthem was changed

Whitlam's government raised reforms including:

• Establishment of Medibank, a public healthcare system (later privatised).^[7]
• Establishment of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976 and the establishment of an elected National Aboriginal Consultative Committee.^[17]
• Establishment of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, giving the Australian government responsibility to make laws for Aboriginal people^[17]
• Re-opened the embassy of Australia in Peking, resuming diplomatic relations with China after a pause of 24 years.^[17] (Whitlam made his state visit on 31 October 1973)
• Combination of several defence departments into a single agency^[17]
• Established a national Legal Aid office, and sister offices in each state capital.^[17][7]

These were also buttressed by reforms to laws including equal pay for women, increases in unemployment benefits and pensions, funding to the arts and incentives to bring creatives back to Australia. ^[7]

In the realm of diplomacy and public affairs, Whitlam's government moved towards placing Australia within the Non-Aligned Movement, and expressed support for the Zone of peace in the Indian ocean, which was opposed by the United States, and gave diplomatic recognition to China, Cuba, North Korea, and East Germany. ^[7]

This approach was criticised by Suzanne Rutland in The Australian Journal of Jewish Studies as "moving from the United States' orbit towards that of the Communist and Third World powers",^[19] although Whitlam's approach towards the Palestinians was one of even-handedness, which infuriated Australian Jewish leaders, as the previous government positions as well as that of the United States was uniformly pro-israel.^[20] Whitlam did not support recognition of Palestine. ^[20]

Whitlam was also critical of the Nixon Administration's positions in Indo-China, particularly in Vietnam. ^[7]

There were a number of points of tension between Whitlam's government and the United States intelligence apparatus. Whitlam had close ties with the United States, in 1964 receiving a "Leader" travel grant from the U.S. Department of State to spend three months studying under U.S. government and military officials.^[21]

After coming to power, Whitlam quickly removed the last Australian troops from Vietnam.^[22] Whitlam government ministers, including Jim Cairns, Clyde Cameron and Tom Uren, criticised the US bombing of North Vietnam at the end of 1972. The US complained diplomatically about the criticism.^[23][24] In March 1973, US assistant secretary of State William Rogers told Richard Nixon that "the leftists [within the Labor Party would] try to throw overboard all military alliances and eject our highly classified US defence space installations from Australia".^[23]

In 1973, Whitlam ordered the Australian security organisation ASIS to close its operation in Chile, where it was working as a proxy for the CIA in opposition to Chile's president Salvador Allende.^[23]

Whitlam's Attorney-General Lionel Murphy used the Australian Federal Police to conduct a raid on the headquarters of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) in March 1973. CIA Chief of Counter-Intelligence, James Angleton, later said Murphy had "barged in and tried to destroy the delicate mechanism of internal security".^[24] Australian journalist Brian Toohey said that Angleton considered then Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam a "serious threat" to the US and was concerned after the 1973 raid on ASIO headquarters. In 1974, Angleton sought to instigate the removal of Whitlam from office by having CIA station chief in Canberra, John Walker, ask the director general of ASIO, Peter Barbour, to make a declaration that Whitlam had lied to the Parliament about the raid. Barbour considered the statement to be false and refused to make it.^[25]

Journalist Ray Aitchison wrote in his 1974 book, Looking at the Liberals, that the CIA offered the opposition Liberal and National unlimited funding to help them defeat Whitlam's Labor Party in the 1974 elections.^[5]

In 1974, Whitlam ordered the head of ASIO, Peter Barbour, to sever all ties with the CIA. Barbour ignored Whitlam's order and contact between Australian and US security agencies was driven underground. Whitlam later established a royal commission into intelligence and security.^[22]

In a statement to parliament on 3 April, 1974, Whitlam said: "The Australian government takes the attitude that there should not be foreign military bases, stations, installations in Australia. We honour agreements covering existing stations. We do not favour the extension or prolongation of any of those existing ones."^[26] He also threatened not to renew the lease of the US spy base at Pine Gap, which was due to expire on 10 December 1975.^[27] The US was also concerned about Whitlam's intentions towards its spy base at Nurrungar.^[23] Whitlam also threatened to reveal the identities of CIA agents working in Australia.^[27]

Jim Cairns became Deputy Prime Minister after the 1974 election. According to a senior US embassy official, he was viewed by US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and defence secretary James Schlesinger as "a radical with strong anti-American and pro-Chinese sympathies".^[22] The US administration was concerned that he would have access to classified United States intelligence.^[22]

Whitlam instantly dismissed ASIS Director-General Bill Robertson in 1975 after discovering ASIS, along with the CIA,^[28] had assisted the Timorese Democratic Union in an attempted coup against the Portuguese administration in Timor-Leste, without informing Whitlam's government.^[24]

In the second half of 1975, Whitlam learned of rumours that Richard Stallings, a former CIA head of Pine Gap, knew that the CIA had some involvement in Australian politics. In October 1975, Whitlam asked the Department of Foreign Affairs for a list of all declared CIA officials in Australia for the past 10 years, information to which he was entitled. When he saw that Stallings' name was not on the list, Whitlam asked Arthur Tange, head of the Department of Defence, what Stallings' role was and Tange reluctantly admitted Stallings worked for the CIA. According to Victor Marchetti, a former CIA employee, Stallings worked for the CIA's covert action division.^[29]

The head of the CIA's East Asia division, Ted Shackley, sent a telex message to ASIO on 8 November 1975, in which he threatened to cut off the intelligence relationship between Australia and the US unless ASIO provided a satisfactory explanation for Whitlam's comments on CIA activities in Australia.^[29]

Prior to the Dismissal, Kerr requested and received a briefing from senior defence officials on a CIA threat to end intelligence co-operation with Australia.^[30] During the crisis, Whitlam alleged that Country Party leader Doug Anthony had close links to the CIA.^[31] In early November 1975, the Australian Financial Review wrote that Richard Lee Stallings, a former CIA officer, had been channelling money to Anthony, a friend and former landlord.^[32]

The most common allegation is that the CIA influenced Kerr's decision.^[33] Later evidence of this fact was supplied in the book "Killing Hope" by William Blum, who elaborated on Kerr's involvement with CIA-linked Front organizations such as the Western Europe chapter of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which was initially funded by the CIA,^[34] and to which he was appointed to the board of in 1957^[28] and also was an author for its magazine Quadrant,^[35] for which he wrote the article "The struggle against communism in the trade unions: The legal aspect" in 1960.^[11] Later in 1966, Kerr was one of the founders of Lawasia (Law Asia), which was funded by The Asia Foundation since its inaugural conference^[10][36] which itself was founded by the CIA.^[37]

Later in 1970, these allegations were confirmed by Christopher John Boyce (later jailed for selling of documents to the Soviet Union) who revealed that, as a Telex Operator for TRW Inc., he had worked in a cryptographic communications centre which bridged communications between the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and the satellite communications network in Australia including Pine Gap. Kerr, who had physical access to misrouted Telex communications between the CIA in Langley and Australia which detailed efforts to remove Whitlam, with the CIA resident within the TRW secure area referring to him as "our man Kerr".^[28][9][6]

Boyce decided to sell documents to the Soviet Union after he initially saw Nixon's government "go down in flames",^[9] but stated his motivations went beyond that, and he saw the "general drift" of the United States government as "a threat to mankind", stating his opposition to the United States' use, stockpiling and testing of nuclear weapons, as well as the United States' early stockpiling of nuclear weapons which was later met after several decades of lagging behind the US by the USSR.^[9] He also stated that the US was to increase its stockpiles even after the USSR reached parity with them, although modern retrospective evidence on stockpiles shows this not to be the case.^[38]

Boyce had photographed the physical telex copies with these communications outside and inside of the TRW offices, smuggling them out in a satchel intended to make "beer runs" for the guards inside the TRW secure area, and then later sold them on to the USSR.^[9]

As subsequent interview to Australian TV program 60 Minutes, detailed that TWD relayed messages between the United States and the Pine Gap facility in the northern territory in Australia.^[9] Boyce's lawyer Dougherty stated that Boyce's father had been an FBI agent and was involved with TRW, and through an "old boy network" had gotten him access to the job, and that there was no security whatsoever in the vault in TRW where the messages were relayed via Telex, including an unsecured telephone which Boyce could have used to communicate the telexes as they were received, although did not do so.^[9]

According to the documentary, the Australian government and the United States had an executive agreement to share the results from research programmes conducted by both countries due to the vital part the Pine Gap played on the part of the Australians, leading to the agreement being made in Canberra on 9 December 1966.^[9] Boyce had access to Telexes along with his accomplice, Andrew Dalton-Lee, and had sold secrets about the Rylite and Argus satellite projects, which would detect launches and military bases and missile launches in the Soviet Union and China, which was not, according to Boyce, shared with Australia, with Boyce stating he was told directly by Rick Smith, Security Project Director and former CIA [employee]:^[9]

"When I went to work for the project, the initial security briefing that I had.. err, I was told that in fact we weren't willing to live up to that agreement, and we haven't been -- and that there was information which was being withheld, and that also the advanced Argus project, which was the advanced Rylite Project, was to be hidden from Australia"^[9]

When interviewed, Boyce stated that he was unaware of the extent to which the American bases in Australia were a hot-button political issue, but he noted that in the black vault, the secure area in TRW, there were conversations held among members of TRW security, stating that "Mr Whitlam was not a popular figure at all",^[9] stating that his politics was not favoured and that his inquiries about what was going on at the base (Pine Gap) were "compromising the integrity of the project". He stated "Mr Whitlam's government was a threat." and that there was a lot of celebration among the CIA after the sacking of Whitlam and his government by John Kerr. ^[9]

The program also stated that 2 days before an Parliamentary debate was due in Australia on the Satellite bases which the United States had installed there stated that a Telex was received stating that Whitlam was in danger of "blowing the lid off Pine Gap", and the next day Whitlam was dismissed.^[9] Boyce stated that in addition to Whitlam's dismissal, the CIA had "hardware and software to ship out to Alice Springs",^[9] and that the strikes among airport staff had been suppressed by the CIA, paraphrasing a Telex he raid which had said: "Pilot [codename for the CIA] will continue to suppress the strikes. Continue shipments on schedule".^[9][3][39]

Former Aboriginal Affairs advisor for the Whitlam government and writer, Dick Hall, wrote in his book "The Secret State",^[40] that following on from Whitlam's refusal to vet his staff through the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), a CIA agent and US Embassy Political Officer stated "Your Prime Minister has just cut off one of his options."^[40], with Pilger referencing a 1988 interview of William Pinwill in the program "The Last Dream" that a CIA officer (Frank Snepp) had told him that the Australians "might as well be regarded as North Vietnamese collaborators".^[7]

An article in Australian Periodical The Bulletin on 22 June 1974 published an article by reporter Peter Samuel detailed that he had been provided with a 12-page foolscap dossier on the then-Deputy Prime-Minister, Jim Cairns, written by the ASIO itself, an Australian intelligence organisation.^[41] The report, which had been produced in 1971, was based upon public works from Cairns, who the ASIO described in "ASIO's traditional right-wing standpoint" as wanting to work towards the destruction of the parliamentary system and bring about "anarchy and in due course, left-wing fascism [sic]".^[41]

The dossier also claimed that Cairns' wished for a populist, participatory democracy and aimed to bring about the downfall of the parliament through the use of student actions and non-violent political action, referring to the concept as "the supremacy of the will of the people", which it claimed was a re-formulation of the Communist Party of Australia's similar program to establish participatory democracy and worker control of industry through similar means, ^[41] due to the fact that Cairns had contributed to the Australian Left Review in May 1971.^[41]

This claim was then further compounded by claims published 1983 by Brian Toohey of the National Times, who published extracts from several thousand classified documents produced by ASIO in an article titled "How ASIO Betrayed Australia To The Americans", stating that ASIO gathered information about Australian politicians and senior officials that it saw as unfavourable, and handed them over to the CIA to later be used as ammunition against them.^[7]

Pilger claims that while leader of the opposition and visiting then-Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Abdul Razak Hussein, Whitlam was informed of the existence of ASIS, which was the counterpart to ASIO which conducted operations overseas, and claims that on two occasions, in Chile, they were discovered aiding the CIA in 'de-stabilising' the Allende government, and that Whitlam fired the head of ASIS on the grounds of their secret involvement in operations in East Timor,^[7] and that the sackings of ASIS heads as well as transferring the head of ASIO contributed towards the sacking of Whitlam.^[7]

Victor Marchetti, a CIA officer turned critic of the US intelligence community^[42] who had helped set up the Pine Gap facility, said that the threatened closure of US bases in Australia "caused apoplexy in the White House, [and] a kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion", with the CIA and MI6 working together to get rid of the Prime Minister.^[43][44] Jonathan Kwitny wrote in his book The Crimes of Patriots that the CIA "paid for Kerr's travel, built his prestige ... Kerr continued to go to the CIA for money".

In 1974, the White House sent as ambassador to Australia Marshall Green, who was known as "the coupmaster"^{[to whom?]} for his central role in the 1965 coup against Indonesian President Sukarno.^[3]

In 1977, United States Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher made a special trip to Sydney to meet with Whitlam and told him, on behalf of US President Jimmy Carter, of his willingness to work with whatever government Australians elected, and that the US would never again interfere with Australia's democratic processes.^[45] The use of the word "again" has been interpreted by some as evidence that the US encouraged, or actively intervened, in Whitlam's dismissal. Richard Butler, who was present at the meeting as Whitlam’s principal private secretary, believed at the time, and remained convinced, that Christopher's wording was an admission that the US had intervened in Whitlam's dismissal.^[23]

William Blum wrote that the Nugan Hand Bank, which allegedly had connections to the CIA, allegedly transferred $2.4 million to the opposition Liberal Party of Australia.^[46] The CIA responded to these allegations with an emphatic denial: "The CIA has not engaged in operations against the Australian Government, has no ties with Nugan Hand and does not involve itself in drug trafficking."^[47]

Several journalists, historians and political commentators have endorsed the theory that the CIA was involved in Whitlam's dismissal, including John Pilger,^[3] William Blum,^[4] Joan Coxsedge^[48] Jonathan Kwitny^[49] and Jordan Shanks.^[50]

Kerr denied being involved with the CIA and there is no evidence for it in his private writings ^{[contradictory][51]} Confidential correspondence between Kerr and the Queen's Private Secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, released in July 2020 indicates that Kerr said that his alleged involvement with the CIA was "nonsense" and that he consistently reaffirmed his "continued loyalty" to the Crown.^[52] Whitlam himself later wrote that Kerr, "fascinated as he had long been with intelligence matters", did not need any encouragement from the CIA.^[53][51]

Edward Woodward, who was ASIO chief from 1976 and 1981, dismissed the notion of CIA involvement.^[54]

In 2015, Australian diplomatic and military historian Peter Edwards dismissed the claim that Kerr’s action was instigated by US and UK intelligence agencies, which he called an "enduring conspiracy theory".^[55]

• United States involvement in regime change
• Palace letters

• Blum, William (2014), Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Bloomsbury Academic, ISBN 978-1-7836-0177-6
• Coxsedge, Joan (2017). Nugan Hand: A Tale of Drugs, Dirty Money, the CIA and the Ousting of the Whitlam Government : an "unbank" and Its CIA Connections. Communist Party of Australia. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
• Curran, James (5 November 2014). "Gough Whitlam's Pine Gap problem". www.ussc.edu.au. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
• Kwitny, Jonathan (August 1987). The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-33665-8. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
• Stanford, Jon (24 November 2023). "Covert forces and the overthrow of Edward Gough Whitlam: The Series". Pearls and Irritations. Retrieved 25 November 2023.
• Whitlam, Gough (1997), Abiding Interests, University of Queensland Press, ISBN 978-0-7022-2879-7