alleged by Australian journalist Malcolm Salmon, writing in the matique.
This was reAll Whitlam's former out of the ordinary came in the early days of the constitutional crisis, when Whitlam accused Richard Lee Stallings, an American resident in Australia, of Deino a cia operative. otalines is a cros: personal friend of Douglas Anthony. leader of the National Country Party (the junior partner in the present coal ition), and according to the Australian Rally Financial Review was responsible for the installation of the ultra-secret US communications gase ar rine sao if On 6 November, The Australian quoted a US State Department official as denying that Stallings had any intellithought now.
According to the Australian Finan cial Review of 5 December, Defence Ministry officials immediately tried to prevent Whitlam from answering this question on the grounds of 'national security. Apparently they were worried not by what he might say about Stall ings, but by fear that Whitlam might let the cat out of the bag over Pine Gap.
Pine Gap has been described as the most important US communications Dase outsice me us itsel. one or iTs main functions is to monitor Soviet naval movements in me soutern nem! sphere with the apparent purpose of developing a 'first strike' nuclear cap acity une goreement was cue to Du re-negotiated in mid-December, and any secret derans or tne ase s activitie revealed by Whitlam could have vitprejudiced the US's position in this area.
Whitlam was due to give his apswer in Parliament on the afternoon of 1 November. But before he could do so he was removed trom oTTice on tE orders of the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr.
Kerr is widely known as a brilliant lawyer. Less well known is the fact that -in me ivous ne reoresentee me beno cratic Labour Party, a right-wing split from the Labour Party, in a series of court cases designed to remove Communist and left Labour officials from the trade unions. The links between DLE leaders and the US Embassy in Canberra were an open secret.
Old Links Kerr also has other less publicised connections. He has been closely asso iated with bodies known to have received CIA funds, such as the Associa tion for Cultural Freedom and the Law Association for Asia and the Pacific loi which he was president in 1966-70). He also has US business links, being a con sultant for Esso and a director of the Australian subsidiary of General Motors.
•As Tor nis intendence connections these go back to the Second World War, during which he was responsible for the establishment of police, military and spy systems in New Guinea. One of his colleagues in the War, Francis James, commented in an open letter at the time of Kerr's appointment as Governor-Genera that the post would require 'a firm grasp of the democratic principle, a moral courage and a kind of political integrity which from your past - the real past, unknown to the public - I know you to be lacking'.
one can us only aoree with salmon s conclusion - that if the US was aiming to play a role in Australian political events it could hardly have found a better coll aborator than Sir John Kerr.