> ... the Whitlam Government's attempt to nationalise the oil industry was
>>thwarted by a hostile press in the early 1970's. Rob Schaap might be
>able >confirm a much rumoured American CIA link with this event.
It gets a convincing mention in 'Falcon and the Snowman', and at the site from which the below is excerpted http://serendipity.magnet.ch/cia/cia_oz/cia_oz1.htm
Cheers, Rob.
Tony Douglas: Over the years there have been many reports linking CIA activities with the downfall of the Whitlam government. Does Ralph McGehee think they were involved?
Ralph McGehee: Well, my views are as though what's the problem? I mean, we had a whole series of Agency spokesmen said, `oh, yes, there was an Agency role in the overthrow of the Whitlam government'. I just don't know why Australians can't accept that. I did just a little bit of research before I came out and you had Ray Cline, a former Deputy Director of the CIA, saying `when Whitlam came to power there was a period of turbulence and the CIA will go so far as to provide information to people who will bring it to the surface in Australia, say a Whitlam error which they were willing to pump into the system so it may be to his damage and we may provide a particular piece of information to the Australian intelligence services so that they make use of it'. And then the CIA National Intelligence Daily said, `some of the most incriminating evidence in that period against the ministers in the Whitlam government may have been fabricated.' This is about as strong as you get them to say so. It is quite obvious that information was being leaked about ministers Rex O'Connor and Jim Cairns and some of it was being forged which is a standard CIA process. Jim Flynn, who was associated with elements who were involved with the Nugan-Hand bank, he said that he was involved in manufacturing the cables and leaking them to the press. Now he would not be a very credible source except that he worked for Nugan-Hand. Admiral Bobby Inman, former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency and Deputy Director of the CIA, said on two occasions that he expressed deep concern that investigations of Nugan-Hand would lead to disclosure of a range of dirty tricks played against the Whitlam government. You have the statements by Christopher Boyce who was in a relay point for information from the CIA and in his trial he said that `if you think what the Agency did in Chile was bad, in which they spent 80 million dollars overturning the government of Chile there, the Allende government, you should see what they are doing in Australia'. On the Shackley Cable, which was a virtual ultimatum to the head of ASIO to do something about the Whitlam government, it is sort of prima facie evidence of CIA interference in the Whitlam government. This was on November 10. On November 11, Governor-General John Kerr dismissed the Whitlam government on a parliamentary technicality. John Kerr earlier had been the founder of Law Asia, a CIA-front organisation.
Tony Douglas: The question in most Australians' minds is why would the CIA want to bring down the government of a loyal ally, after all it was the wartime Labour administrations who build up the special relationship with America. Jerry Aaron, co-author of Rooted in Secrecy, a book that examines the clandestine element in Australian politics looks back at the early days of the Whitlam government.
Jerry Aaron: There was immediately a reaction about a Labour government coming to power and the initial acts of Whitlam in the first few weeks did probably fuel their worst fears that here was a government dedicated to social reform and, of course, from then on they would have looked for further evidence of misdemeanour against the right-wing ethics of the CIA and of the U.S. administration. And those were of course coming because it was quite clear that certain ministers, and you had to remember that ministers in the Whitlam government had some stature, contrary to those of Labour governments, and certain ministers particularly Connor was obviously out to as he called it, to `buy back the farm for Australia'.
In other words, to get back some of the resources which were dominated by the overseas companies which had purchased them earlier. And no doubt they got even more worried when a person like as Jim Cairns was made Treasurer -- Jim Cairns was a very well known anti-Vietnam war activist. So there were probably a whole heap of things which the CIA could blow up to demonstrate that this was a raving red alert that had been projected into power in Australia and had to be get rid of at all costs.
Tony Douglas: It would seem that a lot of the statements about the Vietnam war made by Labour ministers, particularly the bombing of Hanoi by the Nixon administration, and the well-known anti-Vietnam record of people like Jim Cairns specifically upset Henry Kissinger.
Jerry Aaron: Yes, well, that's very true. In fact, Kissinger had a personal hatred for Whitlam. Certainly, more than a political fear which sprang from the domino theory and similar nonsense and one must assume that the fact, for instance, Task Force 157 was set up separately from the CIA sprang from the fact that they didn't even trust the CIA to do the right thing by Australia.
Tony Douglas: What is Task Force 157?
Jerry Aaron: The Task Force 157 was a group set up by Henry Kissinger and it was set up in a quite strange way. It was a mini-CIA which was actually separate from the CIA and probably was set up by Kissinger so he could deny any connection between what the Task Force 157 was doing and the CIA. Nevertheless, the personnel of Task Force 157 included Ted Shackley, who was one of the head of sabotage operations against Cuba, he was Station Chief in Saigon during the Vietnam War, and he was the Chief of the CIA Western Hemisphere Division, so with an impeccable CIA record like that it would be very difficult to disassociate him from what the CIA was doing. The concept of Task Force 157 seems to have been two-fold: firstly, to set up operations against the Whitlam government. And secondly, to go ahead with using Australia as a base for certain clandestine U.S. operations such as arms dealing and smuggling of contraband goods.
Tony Douglas: The subsequent inquiries have established the Nugan-Hand bank was to be the organisation used as cover for the operations of Task Force 157. According to Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer and author of The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, the Nugan-Hand bank is typical of the organisations used by the CIA in their style of operations ...