I was familiar with many of the events leading to the Dismissal on 11 November 1975. That knowledge was greatly increased by Professor Jenny Hocking with her long and successful campaign to have the Palace letters released._

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Then, in Pearls and Irritations in May this year, articles by Jon Stanford, particularly on the role of the CIA and MI6, were very helpful. And Brian Toohey added to our knowledge in shining a light in the dark world of spies. I am indebted to them all.

The revelation that came latest to me was the role of the CIA and MI6.

I was conscious of governor-general Sir John Kerr’s great interest in security matters. That was clear in the many meetings I had with him. But I discounted direct CIA/MI6 involvement.

I have changed my mind on that as more information has become available and security reports declassified. The CIA was involved, not by supporting a military coup as in Iran or Chile, but by backing a constitutional coup by Kerr in co-operation with the Palace and MI6.

I knew the CIA was in the background. I am now confident that it was very much in the foreground together with MI6.

At the time of the Cold War and its aftermath, both major parties had differing views about security/intelligence services.

During the Cold War, the Liberal Party was supportive of the political role of the US and allied intelligence/security services. The misuse of these services for political ends was revealed to me not long after the 1975 election when Malcolm Fraser instructed foreign minister Andrew Peacock to open an embassy in Baghdad so ASIS could operate under cover to investigate Gough Whitlam’s abortive attempt before the 1975 election to raise campaign funds in Iraq.

On the other political side, the ALP had been a long-term critic of ASIO, ASIS and the CIA for their partisan political behaviour. Menzies’ politicisation of the Petrov Royal Commission rankled. Although not specific about Pine Gap, Whitlam mentioned to me many times that foreign bases were unacceptable in any country unless in an emergency or under strict United Nations mandate. I also knew of Whitlam’s reservations about ASIS. As deputy leader of the Parliamentary Labor Party, he learned about ASIS not through any Australian briefing, but from the Malaysian prime minister when he visited Malaysia in 1963.That was a real shock. I was present.

In the Cold War, the US/CIA had attempted to overthrow 72 foreign governments who refused to do what they were told. Venezuela may be the next.

Both president Nixon and Kissinger, and later president Ford, had concerns about Whitlam. His comments in December 1972 about the US bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong upset them greatly, leading to their conclusion that “Australia should be regarded as a North Vietnamese collaborator”. Australia was number 2 on Nixon’s shit list, headed only by Sweden.

At the briefing before he was appointed ambassador to Australia, Nixon told Marshall Green, “Marshall I can’t stand that c**t”. Nixon contended that Whitlam was a peacenik and was setting Australia on a very dangerous course.

The Americans were also worried about Dr Jim Cairns. To assist the selective media pressure being applied to the Whitlam Government, Cairn’s ASIO dossier was leaked to The Bulletin in 1974. That confirmed in many minds that ASIO’s loyalty was not to the Australian Government.

The key US concern was Pine Gap which, in company with its sister station in the UK, could intercept almost all the world’s electronic communications. After the 1972 election, the secretary of Defence, Sir Arthur Tange, briefed Whitlam about Pine Gap and told him that the base was operated by the Pentagon in association with our Defence Department in monitoring compliance with strategic arms limitation agreements. Sir Arthur did not tell his Prime Minister that, in fact, Pine Gap was run by the CIA. On one occasion, Tange told the US ambassador that Whitlam had not followed the brief he had provided to him on Pine Gap. Full marks for disloyalty on that. Heads of departments have been sacked for far less improper behaviour.

In Parliament, in April 1974, just before the May election, Whitlam announced that “there should not be foreign military bases, stations, installations in Australia. We will honour agreements covering existing stations. We do not favour extensions or prolongation of any of those existing ones”. The lease on Pine Gap was due to expire in December 1975. The US was appalled by that.

Pine Gap was the beginning of a string of US bases around Australia, over which Australia has little or no control. Use of our real estate is of more value to the US than AUKUS submarines. Pine Gap has supported Israeli precision bombings and assassinations of Palestinians in Gaza.

The announcement in April 1974 by Whitlam did not surprise me as some loss of judgment. It was not an off the cuff comment. It was consistent with what Whitlam often told me about foreign bases in Australia. But Whitlam never specifically mentioned Pine Gap to me. However, he did focus on Pine Gap when he discovered that the CIA operated the base.

Before Nixon was forced out in August 1974, he commissioned National Security Study Memorandum 204. It was not declassified until 2014.

As set out by James Curran in his book _Unholy Fury_: Whitlam and Nixon at War, published in 2015, US defence secretary James Schlesinger a former CIA head, in Option 1 in the National Security Study Memorandum 204 took the “hardest line” on Whitlam, Curran said. Option 1 recommended that the White House,

“begin immediately to attenuate certain ties in the US-Australia relationship on the assumption that this will induce the Whitlam Government to reverse those major elements of its foreign policy which are inimical to US interests”. Option 1 continued that if this was unsuccessful (the US) “could undermine (the Labor Government) with the Australian people, setting the stage for opposition victory”.

That could hardly be more specific. The former head of the CIA and then defence secretary was proposing “setting the stage for Opposition victory”.

Option 1 was ultimately rejected. Curran says the White House then decided to persevere with the Labor Government, to “test and clarify Whitlam’s intentions over the remainder of 1974” and make “selective use of pressure on Whitlam, if necessary”.

Toohey, in advice from a former station CIA chief in Canberra, wrote, “the pressure suddenly increased, with a new CIA station chief Milton Wonus in charge in the latter half of 1975, as well as being head of Pine Gap. He had never held a job in the covert action side of the CIA before he had been assigned the task of bringing Whitlam down”.

On 16 October 1975, Sir Michael Palliser, permanent secretary of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, arrived in Australia to meet the governor-general. He also saw the NSW governor Sir Rodan Cutler As Hocking relates from a study of FCO records, by October 1975, [the FCO] was actively considering possible intervention in Australian politics. The very limited nature of this visit to Australia was revealed in the fact that Sir Michael did not see either the foreign minister Don Willesee, the secretary of Foreign Affairs Alan Renouf or the secretary of PM&C – me!

What an unusual visit! A meeting with Kerr, Cutler and no one else. It seems unlikely that Sir Michael was acting on behalf of MI6, although it operated within the Foreign Office portfolio. It is more likely that he was acting to safeguard the interests of the Queen with plausible deniability.

After the May 1974 election, Justice Hope was commissioned by the Whitlam Government to lead a review of intelligence services. As part of that review Whitlam signalled to Justice Hope that he wanted the Australian intelligence agencies to distance themselves from the CIA and MI6.

Whitlam did not know that Hope was improperly passing this information on to the Five Eyes.

Hope and Robertson, the head of ASIS and Oldfield of MI6 became pivotal players in undermining the Whitlam Government. Jon Stanford describes ASIS as a branch office of MI6, sharing office accommodation and training facilities around the world.

Both ASIS and MI6 were, and are, dependent on the CIA for about 95% of their source material. So, there is no surprise that advice to our ministers is mainly recycled material from the CIA. Imperialism takes many forms!

When Hope was later conducting an inquiry into our intelligence services for the Fraser Government, he interviewed me. I outlined the ASIS/Iraqi political collaboration. In anger, Hope told me that he did not want to hear about it. I was then secretary of Trade. Hope had a love affair with ASIS.

Having been introduced by ASIS head Bill Robertson, Oldfield, chief of MI6, had developed a close working relationship with Hope. This contact with MI6 would be useful for the CIA because it needed to be careful in acting against a Commonwealth country that was a member of the Five Eyes. MI6 guidance would be helpful.

Significantly, Oldfield had previously worked in military intelligence with Martin Charteris, the Queen’s principal private secretary, who was a critical player in advising the Queen and Kerr on the Dismissal. MI6 regularly briefed the Palace on sensitive matters.

When on 21 October 1975, Whitlam dismissed Bill Robertson, the head of ASIS, over alleged activities in East Timor, he also threatened to abolish ASIS. Whitlam was very angry with Robertson. This would have been seen by Oldfield and Hope as an attack on the Five Eyes.

Whitlam advised Fraser of Robertson’s dismissal. When Fraser was later justifying his unprecedented actions in deferring supply, the main circumstance he cited was not the Loans Affair, but the dismissal of Robertson.

Robertson’s sacking also concerned the governor-general, who requested advice from the solicitor-general before he would sign the notice of dismissal. Robertson had regularly briefed Kerr on intelligence issues.

The security services in both the US and the UK were getting primed for action and to apply pressure on Kerr.

Whitlam’s speech at Port Augusta on 2 November 1975 brought out all the spooky spiders from under the rocks.

As Hocking, in Gough Whitlam, _His Time_ Vol 2, p 293, put it:

“… Whitlam accused the CIA of channelling funds into domestic Australian political matters specifically funding the National Country Party.”

He knew of two instances, he said, where the CIA had provided money for domestic political influence. Most recently the leader of the NCP, Doug Anthony, had received money — Whitlam claimed — from a CIA operative who rented Anthony’s house. While Whitlam did not name the CIA employee, Anthony soon did so. In a personal statement to Parliament, Anthony acknowledged his friendship with the former CIA operative, Richard Stallings, that he had rented his house to him and that their two families had taken holidays together, but denied any knowledge of Stallings working for the CIA.

In Washington, the US secretary of state Henry Kissinger fired off a furious telegram to the ambassador in Canberra: “Such a charge against the NCP leader Anthony could have damaging fallout on other aspects of US-Australia relations.”

Stallings, who had helped establish and was the first head of the American base at Pine Gap, had indeed worked for the CIA, but his name had not been included on the official department of foreign affairs list of declared CIA officials provided to Whitlam at his request.

“…Furious that the department had placed him in the position of potentially misleading Parliament, … he would continue to restate the allegation until the correct response was given …

“As Whitlam repeated his claims, Anthony challenged him to prove that Starlings was a former CIA operative. Whitlam prepared to do just that using the information previously provided to him by the Department of Defence … Despite the most concerted efforts of [Sir Arthur] Tange to convince both Anthony and Whitlam that they must withdraw on the grounds of national security, neither would yield.

“Tange could see no way of preventing what seemed certain to unfold over the next few days …the prime minister would answer the leader of the National Party’s question, confirming that the former head of Pine Gap had worked for the CIA and, by implication, revealing Pine Gap to be a CIA operation. The flinty Tange was horrified. This is the greatest breach of security ever, he told John Menadue. “The country will be cut adrift.”

Following Kissinger’s fury about Whitlam, which he expressed to his US ambassador, Ted Shackley, chief of the CIA East Asia Division, who had been deeply involved with Kissinger in the overthrow of the Allende Government in Chile, sent a demarche to ASIO on 8 November. He had Kissinger’s permission, he told Toohey. It said the US could not see how the issues raised by Whitlam could do other than blow the lid off installations in Australia and unless the problems could be resolved, the Americans could not see how its mutually beneficial relationships could continue.

The demarche from Shackley was sent via intermediaries to Kerr. I never saw it. I was excluded. I was not one of the Austral American club, even though I was head of the Prime Minister’s Department.

Tange received it and interpreted it as an ultimatum with the alliance at risk.

He instructed John Farrands to deliver the message to Kerr immediately, three days before the Dismissal. Farrands was Defence’s chief scientist and the Australian official most associated with, and knowledgeable about, Pine Gap. He advised Toohey of the meeting, but told Toohey that he would deny it.

The pressures were building on both the domestic and foreign fronts to sack the Whitlam Government. Kerr was ready to strike. With CIA and MI6 encouragement, he pushed Whitlam over the cliff.

Interestingly Government House guestbooks for the period went missing.

Whitlam’s ASIO file, as well as mine, have also been “culled”.

I have found intelligence agencies are prone to believe that they are better informed and more patriotic, even than prime ministers. These agencies handle a lot of material, but in my experience have poor judgment.

There is little effective oversight and accountability. There is a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, but members are invariably seduced by “secret” and recycled CIA material. They join the insiders club that they should be supervising. It is known as regulatory capture.

I have been grievously deceived by these agencies on several occasions.

In the House of Representatives in 1977, Gough Whitlam said,

“There is profoundly increasing evidence that foreign espionage and intelligence activities are being practised in Australia on a wide scale… I believe the evidence is so grave and so alarming in its implications that it demands the fullest explanation. The deception over the CIA and the activities of foreign installations on our soil… are an onslaught on Australia’s sovereignty.”

In July 1977, Warren Christopher, deputy secretary of state under the new Democrat president, Jimmy Carter, flew into Sydney exclusively for a brief meeting at the airport with the leader of the Opposition, Gough Whitlam. As Whitlam records in his memoirs, Christopher told me that President Carter had instructed him to say that:

“The Democratic Party and the ALP were fraternal parties. He respected deeply the democratic rights of the allies of the United States. The US administration would never again interfere in the domestic political processes of Australia. He would work with whatever government the people of Australia elected.”

Could anything be clearer than that?

On becoming prime minister, one of the first things Fraser did was to renew the Pine Gap lease.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.