“ Do you desire to see Gough Whitlam ’s FBI file ? ” I sound out , walking into the other way where my married woman was read .
“ Yes ! ” she enjoin excitedly . My wife ’s Australian , and she acknowledge I ’ve been obsessed with figuring out what the FBI and CIA knew about former Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam ’s bizarre ouster as loss leader of the country in 1975 . Whitlam ’s FBI file could hold clues to a mystery that ’s still as confuse today as it was 40 year ago .
When I walk into the elbow room , holding eight flimsy pageboy that had just come in the mail , my married woman laughed out loud . I get the feeling that the FBI is holding out on us .
In November of 1975 the super liberal Whitlam was spontaneously fired as the head teacher of the government by what seemed at the time like a recreant member of his own party , Governor - General John Kerr . The conservative loss leader Malcolm Fraser was set up as Prime Minister and the Australian hoi polloi were told in 1975 that the reason for Whitlam ’s release was to discover a deadlock over budget bills . Constitutionally , Kerr was within his rights to do it . But it had never occurred to anybody that he would .
There were mission of a possible CIA - backed cabal from the beginning . And many wonder what the majestic family line in England acknowledge . Australia was and is , after all , part of the British Commonwealth , and at least marginally beholden to that strange anachronism know as the British monarchy .
It has since come up out in recent years that the royals almost certainly werewarned ahead of timethat the pink slip was going to happen , though there ’s scant grounds that they directed the derangement of Whitlam . This , however , would have to signify that Kerr act alone in force out Whitlam ; a strange approximation indeed . People who believe that the CIA was necessitate period to an American defense contractile organ namedChristopher Boycewho was spying for the Soviet Union at the time . He testify that he heard CIA agent come to to John Kerr , the human beings who dismissed Whitlam , as “ our man Kerr . ”
Why would the American government want to reverse the left - leaning government of Australia in the mid-70s ? The Whitlam government activity was the most liberal of the innovative age . And perhaps most threatening to the Americans , Whitlam was n’t too keen on the American military bases in Australia . They were in effect being run as autonomous American entities on Australian soil . When a Whitlam adjutant went knocking on the door ofPine Gap , the NSA undercover agent facility that keep open track of Southeast Asia in the early 1970s , the aide was essentially tell to go fuck himself .
To my idea , there is n’t direct grounds that any arm of the US military or intelligence activity community of interests helped orchestrate the overthrow of the Australian government in 1975 . But it ’s entirely potential that they did . And even more plausibly , they in all probability bang it was go to happen before it did . And if the latter is true , it ’s probably time we found out about that . It ’s been over 40 years , after all .
The missive I received today from the FBI after file a Freedom of Information Act request says that the representation reviewed 33 varlet on Gough Whitlam and are releasing eight . The Page deal with protection for Whitlam ’s visits to the United States in the fall of 1974 and May of 1975 .
Curiously , even if you draw a blank the contention surrounding the dismissal , there is n’t a single page covering Whitlam ’s visits to the Nixon White House in December of 1972 or July of 1973 . The 1973 visit was especially cranky because by that time Whitlam was explicitly criticizing the Nixon administration ’s conclusion in the Vietnam War . Australia , it should be notice , was an friend that sent 60,000 troops to Vietnam . They push and died alongside Americans , unlike other friend of the United States like Canada . Australia set about a phased withdrawal of troops from the country in the beginning of 1973 .
Below I ’ve publishedall 8 pagesI received from the FBI . Of the redaction that the agency made for the documents that they did release , they cited privateness and interior security concerns . gratuitous to say , I ’ll be appealing the reply to my FOIA request and will keep you posted on any more entropy I receive . I have a variety of FOIA request into the CIA about the dismissal that are still pending .
Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam ’s FBI File
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