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There is no definitive evidence that US Intelligence sought to bring down the progressive ALP government of Australia in the mid 1970s but one needs only to join the dots.
First the track record of the US since WW2 has been to discourage independence and to this end there have been numerous regime change efforts over the last 70 years. South America and Africa have both been targets of frequent US interference and when Australia looked like slipping the dog chain 50 years ago, it too joined the list. The motivation was Whitlam's determination to reinstate Australia's sovereignty after the disastrous Vietnam defeat. Let's look at the sequence of events after Whitlam recognised the People's Republic of China.
Whitlam made an extended visit to China in July 1971 when he was still Opposition Leader, which paved the way for the swift changes that followed after the 1972 election. That trip also set initial alarm-bells ringing in Washington.
After requesting ASIO information on Right Wing extremist activity in Australia and being stonewalled, the Government raided ASIO HQ raising concerns among our own Security "services" and those in Washington. Those concerns only increased with the Government's threats to close down Pine Gap because of the opacity regarding its real function.
Australia’s foremost investigative journalist, John Pilger, writing in the Guardian in 2014, said that a former CIA officer, Victor Marchetti, told him that a “kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion” by 1975, after Whitlam had demanded to know if the CIA were running a major spy-base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs in central Australia, intimating that his government might close this base down. This, according to Marchetti, “caused apoplexy in the White House”. (The base remains fully operational, with over 800 staff, to this day. It is still of vital importance to the US.). The Dismissal took place on the eve of the parliamentary debate on the question of whether or not it should remain.
On Nov 11, 1975, the Queen’s formal representative in Australia, the Governor General, Sir John Kerr controversially sacked Whitlam as Prime Minister relying on archaic, vice-regal reserve powers. Kerr, who had been appointed by Whitlam, was known to have enduring connections with the Australian security services and with the CIA.
Malcolm Fraser subsequently formed essentially the same view as Whitlam about the way that Canberra’s extremely close relationship with Washington fundamentally undermined Australian sovereignty. Fraser was no fool. He would have sensed, uneasily, the offshore influences that had delivered the position of Prime Minister to him.
In 2014, Fraser published a book called Dangerous Allies. One reviewer described it as a 360-page polemic calling for an immediate end to Australia’s paradoxical relationship with the US. In a related interview Fraser maintained that, “We need the United States for defence, but we only need defence because of the United States”. In the same interview he argued that the biggest danger to Australia’s national interest arose from maintaining its very close, strategic dependence on America. “I happen to believe”, said Fraser, “that giving America the power to say when Australia goes to war is the most dangerous position that Australia can bear.” Fraser also presciently argued, at that time, that: “Moving NATO east [to the] very borders of Russia, was bound to be regarded as a totally hostile act”.
Malcolm Fraser thought it was plainly wrong for successive governments in Canberra, Liberal and ALP, to have allowed US Marines to be stationed in Australia and for Pine Gap to be used for America’s extensive (and regularly lethal) drone program. He sharply asked, “If America [unilaterally] uses forces deployed out of Australia, how can an Australian Prime Minister say we are not involved?”
Both Whitlam and Fraser would have been appalled by the recent agreement to station nuclear capable US bombers near Darwin and the AUKUS decision, which has committed Australia to purchasing a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines at immense and rising cost. And all of this antagonistic military expenditure is primarily directed at Australia’s best ever, long-term trading partner. Both leaders would understand, deeply, that flicking the switch to glaring Sino-hostility is plainly not in Australia’s best interests but it is, above all, serving the interests of the US, which is gripped by a deeply disturbed project to suppress the rise – and very success – of China.
The war-hawks in Australia and Washington still sing robustly from the same khaki song sheet but Fraser envisioned Australia as, “An independent power cooperating with other middle powers to try and build a better and safer world and to espouse the principles of the United Nations.” not as a super-glued ally of the US.
First the track record of the US since WW2 has been to discourage independence and to this end there have been numerous regime change efforts over the last 70 years. South America and Africa have both been targets of frequent US interference and when Australia looked like slipping the dog chain 50 years ago, it too joined the list. The motivation was Whitlam's determination to reinstate Australia's sovereignty after the disastrous Vietnam defeat. Let's look at the sequence of events after Whitlam recognised the People's Republic of China.
Whitlam made an extended visit to China in July 1971 when he was still Opposition Leader, which paved the way for the swift changes that followed after the 1972 election. That trip also set initial alarm-bells ringing in Washington.
After requesting ASIO information on Right Wing extremist activity in Australia and being stonewalled, the Government raided ASIO HQ raising concerns among our own Security "services" and those in Washington. Those concerns only increased with the Government's threats to close down Pine Gap because of the opacity regarding its real function.
Australia’s foremost investigative journalist, John Pilger, writing in the Guardian in 2014, said that a former CIA officer, Victor Marchetti, told him that a “kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion” by 1975, after Whitlam had demanded to know if the CIA were running a major spy-base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs in central Australia, intimating that his government might close this base down. This, according to Marchetti, “caused apoplexy in the White House”. (The base remains fully operational, with over 800 staff, to this day. It is still of vital importance to the US.). The Dismissal took place on the eve of the parliamentary debate on the question of whether or not it should remain.
On Nov 11, 1975, the Queen’s formal representative in Australia, the Governor General, Sir John Kerr controversially sacked Whitlam as Prime Minister relying on archaic, vice-regal reserve powers. Kerr, who had been appointed by Whitlam, was known to have enduring connections with the Australian security services and with the CIA.
Malcolm Fraser subsequently formed essentially the same view as Whitlam about the way that Canberra’s extremely close relationship with Washington fundamentally undermined Australian sovereignty. Fraser was no fool. He would have sensed, uneasily, the offshore influences that had delivered the position of Prime Minister to him.
In 2014, Fraser published a book called Dangerous Allies. One reviewer described it as a 360-page polemic calling for an immediate end to Australia’s paradoxical relationship with the US. In a related interview Fraser maintained that, “We need the United States for defence, but we only need defence because of the United States”. In the same interview he argued that the biggest danger to Australia’s national interest arose from maintaining its very close, strategic dependence on America. “I happen to believe”, said Fraser, “that giving America the power to say when Australia goes to war is the most dangerous position that Australia can bear.” Fraser also presciently argued, at that time, that: “Moving NATO east [to the] very borders of Russia, was bound to be regarded as a totally hostile act”.
Malcolm Fraser thought it was plainly wrong for successive governments in Canberra, Liberal and ALP, to have allowed US Marines to be stationed in Australia and for Pine Gap to be used for America’s extensive (and regularly lethal) drone program. He sharply asked, “If America [unilaterally] uses forces deployed out of Australia, how can an Australian Prime Minister say we are not involved?”
Both Whitlam and Fraser would have been appalled by the recent agreement to station nuclear capable US bombers near Darwin and the AUKUS decision, which has committed Australia to purchasing a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines at immense and rising cost. And all of this antagonistic military expenditure is primarily directed at Australia’s best ever, long-term trading partner. Both leaders would understand, deeply, that flicking the switch to glaring Sino-hostility is plainly not in Australia’s best interests but it is, above all, serving the interests of the US, which is gripped by a deeply disturbed project to suppress the rise – and very success – of China.
The war-hawks in Australia and Washington still sing robustly from the same khaki song sheet but Fraser envisioned Australia as, “An independent power cooperating with other middle powers to try and build a better and safer world and to espouse the principles of the United Nations.” not as a super-glued ally of the US.
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