The role of the United States in the dismissal of the Whitlam Government

In 1975 Australia lost more than a prime minister; lost its independence. The CIA’s secret involvement in Whitlam’s dismissal still resonates today. Bevan Ramsden reports.

THIS IS NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY.

United States intervention in Australia’s domestic politics has been confirmed by no less a person than the President of the United States. Jimmy Carterapologetically Gough Whitlam Through the President’s envoy at a breakfast meeting in the Qantas lounge in 1977. Whitlam transmitted the contents of the meeting to Parliament in 1977 and it was recorded in Hansard.

The memory of this sacking and the determination to avoid a repeat has kept the ALP leadership “in line” ever since.

The Whitlam Government of 1972-1975 responded to a wave of progressive sentiment and ushered in a new political era for Australia. In short, Australia became an independent state.

Whitlam ended colonial slavery.

He abolished royal patronage; There was no such thing as Masters and Ladies.

He led Australia towards the non-aligned movement, supported peace zones and opposed nuclear weapons testing.

Although he was not considered “leftist” by his party, he was a freewheeling social democrat in principle.

He believed that a foreign power should not control his country’s resources or dictate its economic and foreign policies.

Its government recognized the People’s Republic of China diplomatically.

The government prepared the first draft Aboriginal Land Rights policy.

When he was elected, one of his first actions was to end this period. National Service Act and the release of those imprisoned for conscription and offenses within the scope of this Act; He actually went to prison himself and shook hands with the first of the draft resisters when he was released. Of course, Australia withdrew the rest of its troops from Vietnam, just as the United States did with its own troops.

Although the ALP, including Whitlam, did not openly support the Vietnam Moratorium anti-war movement, some senior members of his party who later became ministers in his government did support it. Tom Uren in Sydney was imprisoned at least once for his anti-conscription activities. Dr Jim Cairns led massive moratorium marches in Melbourne in May 1970, when 100,000 people engaged in civil disobedience by sitting down, blocking roads and occupying the city to protest the war.

After the election of the Whitlam Government, when some of its Ministers openly condemned the US bombing of North Vietnam. “Corrupt and barbaric”.

John Pilger ‘A Secret Country’, Frank Nepp, the CIA officer in Saigon at the time in question:

“We were told that the Australians could be seen as North Vietnamese collaborators”.

Whitlam was aware of the risks he was taking.

The day after his election, he ordered that his staff “not be scrutinized” or “harassed” by ASIO.

He also wanted to know whether and why the CIA operated a spy base with a giant “vacuum cleaner” at Pine Gap near Alice Springs. Edward Snowden This recently revealed document allows the US to spy on everyone. Snowden also revealed in transcripts of his conversation with the US Ambassador that Mr Whitlam warned:

“Try to fuck us or make us jump and Pine Gap will become a moot point.”

Victor MarchettiThe journalist told me the CIA officer who helped set up Pine Gap John Pilger:

“The threat of closing the Pine gap caused paralysis in the White House… and a sort of Chilean Coup was set in motion.”

Joan Coxsedge, in her article on Nugan Hand, the CIA and the overthrow of the Whitlam Government, says:

But there has been no statement of intent from Whitlam that his government intends to close Pine Gap. The Pine Gap Agreement was signed in December 1966 for an initial nine-year period, after which either party may terminate the Agreement by giving one year’s notice. The critical date to proceed or report was December 9, 1975. Whitlam announced his government’s policy on foreign military bases in Parliament on 3 April 1974, and is recorded in Hansard as follows:

‘The Australian Government maintains that there should be no foreign military bases, stations or facilities in Australia. We respect agreements covering existing stations. We are not in favor of extending or extending any of the existing ones.

On December 9, 1975, Whitlam would have been given the authority to take action on Pine Gap, but he did not get the chance because he had been fired a month earlier.

Pine Gap’s most important secrets have been solved by CIA contractor TRW. One of the decryptors was Christopher Boyce; He was later tried by the US for espionage for revealing that the CIA had infiltrated Australian political and Union elites and referred to the Australian Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, as “our man Kerr”.

When Whitlam learned that ASIO personnel were working as CIA proxies to destabilize the Allende Government in Chile, he angrily ordered them to return home. At least some of the spies ignored him.

Whitlam then ordered ASIO to cut off all communications with the CIA. But ASIO Chief Peter Barbour ignored the Prime Minister’s order.

Matters began to come to a head in 1975 when Whitlam sacked the chairmen of ASIS and ASIO. He was head of ASIS because he secretly aided the CIA in covert operations in East Timor during the brief civil war there.

Then, in early November ’75, it was revealed in the press that Richard Stallings, a former CIA officer, had transferred money to Doug Anthony, leader of the Country Party, which was then the Opposition to the Whitlam government.

Ray AitchisonHe published a book in 1974, ‘When we look at liberals‘ Here he claimed that the CIA had offered unlimited funds to opposition parties to defeat the ALP government in the 1974 elections.

Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer, confirmed to journalist John Pilger that the CIA had indeed funded both opposition parties and a Sydney newspaper (Sydney Sun, 4 May 1977), noting that the Liberals had benefited from CIA funds since the late 1960s.

When Whitlam repeated the accusations against Stallings and insisted on an investigation to pinpoint the true purpose of Pine Gap, and also requested a list of CIA agents in Australia, alarm bells began to ring at CIA headquarters in Langley, USA.

At this point, the Australian military-industrial complex appears to have been thrown into a flurry of activity.

On 6 November, it was reported that the head of the Ministry of Defense met with Governor-General Sir John Kerr and held talks afterwards. declared publicly:

“This is the greatest risk to the nation’s security that has ever occurred.”

On 8 November, another senior defense official held a meeting with Kerr and was briefed on CIA allegations that Whitlam had compromised the security of American Bases in Australia.

On the same day, the CIA in Washington informed the ASIO station chief that unless a satisfactory explanation was given for Mr Whitlam’s behaviour, all intelligence contacts with Australia would be cut off.

(The reason for these issues arose in 1977 and will become clear in the epilogue at the end of this article).

At this stage, it is useful to look at Sir’s past. John Kerr.

In the 1950s, Kerr was a member and later director of the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, an organization that grew out of the CIA’s own front organization, the Congress for Cultural Freedom. In the organization’s publication he regularly wrote: ‘Quarter’. One such article he wrote was: ‘The fight against communism in the unions’ In 1960.

In 1966, Kerr helped establish the Lawasia foundation, the CIA’s propaganda front in Asia. He became its first president. By the way According to Christopher Boyce, who was a code breaker at Pine Gap until he was tried for espionage, the CIA often referred to Kerr as “our guy.” Boyce also reported that the CIA had infiltrated Australian unions and “Manipulating leadership”.

Jonathon Kwitny Wall Street Magazine, in his book ‘Crimes of Patriots‘, He stated that the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, of which Kerr is an executive member, was funded by the CIA, and that the CIA also covered Kerr’s travel expenses and helped increase his prestige.

When Whitlam was re-elected to a second term in 1974, the White House sent Marshal Green to Canberra as Ambassador. Green was an authoritarian and sinister figure known as the “coup master.”

He played a central role in the 1965 coup against President Sukarno in Indonesia, which cost a million lives. One of the first speeches he gave in Australia, at the Australian Institute of Management, was: explained by a panicked member of the audience. “Encouragement of the country’s businessmen to revolt against the government”.

On 10 November 1975, Whitlam was shown a top-secret message sent from ASIO’s office in Washington, whose source was Theodore Shackley, the infamous head of the CIA’s East Asia division who had helped stage a coup against Salvador Allende in Chile two years earlier.

Shackley’s message was read to Whitlam. It was stated that the Australian prime minister poses a security risk in his own country. The previous day, Kerr visited the headquarters of Australia’s NSA, Defense Signals Directorate, where he was briefed about the “security crisis”.

The day on 11 November, when Whitlam was to brief parliament on the secret CIA presence in Australia, was summoned by Kerr, who invoked little-known “reserve powers” to depose the democratically elected Prime Minister and government. The “Whitlam problem” was resolved and neither Australian politics nor the nation achieved true independence.

There is no doubt that the USA had a hand in the dismissal of the Whitlam Government. We received this confirmation from the mouth of US President Jimmy Carter.

The following is taken from the Federal Parliamentary Hansard two years later in 1977.

Whitlam was speaking in the House of Representatives:

“I never met President Carter, but I had an important meeting with the Assistant Secretary of State for Asia and the South Pacific, Warren Christopher. At 8 a.m. on Wednesday, July 27, 1977, Alston had arranged a breakfast meeting in the Qantas VIP room at Sydney Airport. Present were Alston, Christopher, his Deputy, Deputy Richard Butler, and myself.

Whitlam continues to speak Warren Christopher:

“He made it clear to us that he had made a special detour in his route to talk to me. The President wanted him to say that he understood that the Democratic Party and the ALP were sister parties. The United States deeply respected the democratic rights of its allies.”

I ask esteemed MPs to take note of what he said next: “THE US ADMINISTRATION WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN” – I repeat these words:

He said he would “never AGAIN interfere in domestic political processes in Australia” and that he would “work with the government chosen by the Australian people”.

Mr. Vice President intervenes and says:

“Order. Dear member’s term has expired.”

Whitlam made the prediction at the Australian National University on 29 October 1975, just 11 days before he was dismissed.

HE in question:

“…the question is whether any duly elected reformist government will be allowed to govern the country in the future? What is at stake is whether people seeking change and reform can ever again have confidence that this can be achieved through normal parliamentary processes”.

Bevan Ramsden is a long-time peace activist who returned to full-time volunteer organizing work with the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign, where he served on the National Vietnam Moratorium Campaign committee with Victoria representative Jim Cairns. He has since continued his peace activities, most recently as a member of the national co-ordinating committee of the Independence and Peaceful Australia network and editor of its monthly publication, Voice.

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