Letter
Security services and government allegiance
Jon Stanford makes a good case for Gough Whitllam. But I disagree with his view on Whitlam’s sacking of ASIS head Bill Robertson in 1975. Whitlam had to ask Robertson twice to shut down ASIS work for the CIA in Chile seeking to install the murderous General Pinochet by destabilisation. (A future female Chilean government member had to escape here).
Then in 1975 Foreign Minister Don Willesee had not been briefed that ASIS was running a spy in East Timor. Whitlam had every right to be angry. It was this sacking, not the petroleum nationalisation loans affair that Malcolm Fraser in November cited as his reason for backing John Kerr.
Robertson’s case may have had a parallel in the issue between South Australian premier Don Dunstan and police chief Harold Salisbury. Salisbury apparently believed he answered to a higher authority than the elected government. Vice-regal, royal, judicial (and MI6 and CIA) links may have persuaded Robertson likewise.
We have to remember that in 50 years, nothing concrete has been done to ensure a government with the confidence of the Lower House cannot be ousted by the unelected governor-general – though in 1977 the US Government assured Gough it wouldn’t interfere again.
— Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)