Mr Chris Mitchell Editor-in-Chief The Australian 2 Holt Street Surry Hills NSW 2010 8 April 2013 Dear Chris

In 2010 your newspaper published an article claiming that my father, the late John Wheeldon, was for many years a secret member of the Communist Party of Australia while serving as an ALP senator in the Federal Parliament.1 At the time, I told you that I thought it was contemptible that you would publish such a scandalous accusation on the basis of what was very flimsy evidence. I now write in response to your recent offer to have The Australian print a reply from me to that article, The covert comrades in the ALP, by Mark Aarons. Thanks for the offer but I am unable to accept it. Writing a brief response for you to publish in your paper would do you and The Australian a favour, as it would give you an easy way to wash your hands of the ethical mess you have created. But doing that would disadvantage me: I cant see you publishing anything from me other than a brief, incomplete and unsatisfactory reply. Aarons argument is shockingly weak, as you would have realised if you had fact-checked it before publication. He presents unsubstantiated gossip and innuendo as certain fact, and he cannot identify a single piece of direct evidence that Wheeldon was ever a member of any communist party or organisation. He even resorts to fabrication of evidence to bolster his anaemic case. My honest opinion, Chris, is that your newspaper slandered my father for a political purpose. You used Mark Aarons distortions of history as the basis for a partisan attack on the Australian Labor Party. Would you let me say that in the pages of The Australian? Further, John Wheeldon held a senior editorial role with The Australian for many years and is still well known to many who work there. The Australian should have known better than to publish Mark Aarons absurd claim that he was a communist infiltrator. I see no reason why I should let your disloyalty pass unmentioned. It is well-known that John Wheeldon, one of Australias earliest and fiercest opponents of the Vietnam war, had an overtly hostile relationship with ASIOs Director-General through the 1950s and 1960s, Sir Charles Spry. In the 1970s, the Hope Royal Commission found that under Spry, ASIOs pursuit of perceived subversives degenerated into a politically inspired inquiry into anyone who expressed views that challenged orthodoxy2; Spry himself would personally slip 1

gossip and tittle tattle to senior government officials, including bogus accusations of communist affiliations it was slander under privilege for which the evidence was just not there, in the words of the Royal Commissions Secretary.3 It has been common knowledge for years that John Wheeldon was, during Sprys tenure, one of the targets of ASIOs slanders. My basic argument is that Mark Aarons has, in writing about John Wheeldon, simply repackaged (with adornments) a bunch of gossip and tittle tattle that was discredited decades ago, and then sold it to the readers of The Australian as gospel truth. But your paper is itself a key part of the story, and its role cannot be ignored. Your bosss boss, a fellow called Rupert Murdoch, personally hired John Wheeldon, an old friend of Murdochs, and Murdoch created the role of Associate Editor of The Australian for Wheeldon after his retirement from the Senate in 1981. He was your newspapers lead editorial writer for many years, writing for the paper from 1981 until 1995. John Wheeldons influence is still, to this day, felt at The Australian: he hired your foreign editor, Greg Sheridan, who has described Wheeldon as his mentor4. For what its worth, Greg said after Wheeldons death in 2006 that he was a great man of unshakeable moral courage5, an opinion that is at odds with The Australians more recent allegations. Why would you print such slurs against a man who was once a valued colleague? Its an obvious question. You did not publish Aarons article because you sought the truth. The unpleasant fact is that you published it with a reckless, if not wilful, disregard for the articles accuracy. I take it that you do not deny that you failed to fact-check or verify Mark Aarons claims prior to publication. It is moreover self-evident that The Australians decision not to test the accuracy of Mark Aarons claims about John Wheeldon was calculated and deliberate. News Limiteds lawyers would never have allowed you to publish an untested, unverified and unsubstantiated hit-piece such as that article while my father was alive but the dead have no rights. A dead man cannot sue for defamation, no matter how ridiculous the falsehoods told about him might be. Your true motive for publishing these untested, unsubstantiated slurs is suggested by the very title of the article: The covert comrades in the ALP. You were not looking for historical truth. You simply wanted to put the boot in on the Labor Party, and if you had to defame a dead colleague to achieve that purpose, then so be it. That you had an overtly partisan purpose in printing your slurs is confirmed beyond any doubt by The Australians editorialising in the days immediately following publication of The covert comrades in the ALP. In an editorial published four days later, The Australian proclaimed that Aarons research was an example of insightful, primary-source history, and that it contained important revelation[s] about the connections between Labor politicians and the Soviet Union (which connections supposedly are not better understood because of Marxist domination of university history faculties), and that it prompts important questions about national security and the insidious influence of communist ideology.6 Your editorial concluded that Aarons work shows that fears about communist infiltration of the ALP were well-founded.

Chris, that editorial is a pile of shameless, hypocritical crap. Its only value is as a signal example of your newspapers low ethical standards and fraught relationship with historical truth. Your editorialist bleats about Aarons revelations of communist infiltration of the ALP without accounting for the fact that, if Aarons thesis be true, The Australian itself was infiltrated, and Rupert Murdoch and Greg Sheridan and the rest of your editorial team were similarly duped. Your newspapers decision to slander John Wheeldon, a man who was for years an honest, loyal and trusted senior member of The Australians editorial staff, was based on an assessment, first, that he was dead and you could therefore defame him with no adverse legal effect and, second, that trashing his good name would help you score some cheap political points against the Australian Labor Party. You refused to allow yourself to be restrained by truth, logic or common sense or common decency. I am not so naive as to expect that you would ever let me express these honest opinions in your newspaper. Any article you would agree to publish would only be able to respond to what you have done in a superficial and unsatisfactory manner. At the same time, allowing you to publish my response would actually let you and The Australian off the hook far too easily, and I dont see why I should do you the favour of giving you an easy out. You got your story about John Wheeldon wrong and you, Chris, have an affirmative ethical obligation to correct your newspapers material errors of fact. Basic journalistic ethics require that correction, as does clause 2.1 of News Limiteds Professional Conduct Policy, which states that serious factual errors should be corrected at the first opportunity7. Chris, it is wrong for you to seek to delegate to me your personal ethical obligation to correct your newspapers serious factual errors, and I will not draft a fig leaf for you to hold in front of your derelict reporting and editorialising. I will give my own response to your newspapers reporting and editorialising, and I will do so in my own fashion, in my own time, as I see fit, and independently of you. But it will nonetheless remain your personal obligation as editor of The Australian regardless of what I do or do not do to correct your newspapers poor journalism and to do so in the pages of The Australian itself. Now I am not saying The Australian should print a hagiography of John Wheeldon. All I am saying is that since you have of your own initiative chosen to raise the issue of the ASIO files that mention him, you are now ethically obliged, as a journalist and an editor, to provide a fair and balanced account that honestly represents those materials and that accurately describes the historical context of their production, and that you have not yet done this, and that surely you are able to do so without having me write the damn story for you. Besides, I am obviously not a disinterested observer, and thus the conclusions I present, under my own name, in defence of my fathers reputation, could be answered with: well, he would say that, wouldnt he? I have an inherent conflict of interest in reporting on this subject, so nothing I prepare can address the issue satisfactorily or definitively. Chris, The Australian must prepare its own follow-up to its deficient reporting on the contents of the ASIO files that mention John Wheeldon and it must do so honestly, objectively and without political point-scoring as its purpose. I would be gratified if in so doing you were to consider 3

what I have to say on the topic, but I am quite prepared for your research and your honest reporting to lead you wherever it may. Id imagine your newspapers Troy Bramston has the wherewithal to review the documentary evidence and write a balanced account. He has already conducted a similar exercise in respect of Arthur Gietzelt8, and my impression is that Troy is as cautious in his conclusions as Mark Aarons is reckless in his. Anyway, precisely how you handle this is, of course, for you to decide but you are subject to a clear and unambiguous ethical obligation to do more, and to do better, than you have done to date. I should say, Chris, that there is one further reason why I decided to reject your offer to print a response from me in The Australian. The reason is that I have already attempted a similar exercise with the Fairfax press, and it ended in futility. It was a total waste of my time. In April 2011, Fairfax Media published a pair of outrageously dishonest front-page articles about John Wheeldon by Dr Philip Dorling.9 Dr Dorling has a reputation for inaccuracy and yellow journalism10, and I make some general observations about Dorling and his methods, and Fairfax Medias ethical standards, towards the end of this letter (at pages 23 through 27). My mother, Judith Wheeldon AM, and I immediately complained to Fairfax about Dr Dorlings articles.11 We suggested that Fairfax should itself prepare a follow-up to Dorlings reporting that would give some balance to his egregiously inaccurate account of history. Speaking through their legal counsel, Fairfax flatly refused to revisit the issue. Eventually, after much toing-and-froing, Fairfax finally said they would print a response written by me. I submitted to Mr Mark Baker, a senior editor at Fairfax Media, a careful and thoughtful response of a few hundred words that addressed a couple of the issues as best I could in the space available. The piece I prepared did not mention Dr Dorling or Fairfax; it just gave a different and I submit more accurate account of the facts. In case you are interested, I have made a copy of this draft article available online.12 Mr Baker, who does not deny that Fairfax failed to do any fact-checking or verification of Dorlings work before publication, rejected what I wrote and retracted his invitation to print a response from me. He told me via email that he was not at all happy with the manner in which you have responded, but the actual reasons he gave for rejecting my submission were incoherent.13 In one sentence he said that they would not publish it because You have not provided evidence that challenges the basis of what we reported, then in the very next paragraph he said that he would not publish it because the draft you wrote implictly [sic] challenges the validity of our reporting.14 Clearly Baker sought to set an impossible standard for me as a means of dodging the issue of Dorlings accuracy altogether. I couldnt make heads or tails of Mark Bakers reasons for rejecting my submission, but it was perfectly clear that Fairfax had no interest in providing any meaningful balance to Dorlings salacious and misleading account of history. Mr Baker concluded: Once again, I repeat my offer for you to write a letter to the editor which details any errors of fact in our reporting and summaraises [sic] your objections to ASIO's assessments of your father. On this occasion we could extend the usual word length for letters to 300 words.15 Fairfax gave over 3,200 words to Dr Dorling on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Canberra Times to slander John Wheeldon; Mark Baker offered me less than 4

10% of that a couple of paragraphs to give a comprehensive response not only to Dorling but also to the ASIO files themselves. Of course I dismissed this meaningless offer out of hand. My annoyance at Mark Bakers arrogance, recalcitrance and manifest bad faith has no doubt coloured my decision to reject your very similar offer. As a wise man once said, fool me once, shame on you cant get fooled again.16 Having said all of that, I am happy to share with you the following assessment that I have prepared in good faith and to the best of my ability. It is based on my personal knowledge to some extent but primarily on a review of the primary documents and historical accounts. As I say, Id be gratified if you would take my views into account. I have indicated by way of endnotes when I have made materials referred to in this letter available online; my aim has been to facilitate wherever possible independent scrutiny and review of my research. *** My view is that The Australians conduct today is a pathetic repeat the mirror image of a shameful series of events in the 1960s, when John Wheeldon was the subject of what could fairly be described as a McCarthy-esque smear campaign by ASIO and its director-general, Sir Charles Spry. During the 1960s, ASIOs methods of collecting and reporting intelligence were systemically flawed, and Spry himself misrepresented evidence at least recklessly, and probably intentionally in order to achieve improper political objectives. Half a century later, we find The Australian mindlessly repeating ASIOs well documented errors, and, as ASIO under Sir Charles Spry did before it, misrepresenting evidence in an effort to score partisan political points. Now the fact that ASIO under Spry acted improperly in pursuit of those who challenged political orthodoxy is not in serious dispute. In 1977, the Hon. Mr Justice Robert Hope of the New South Wales Supreme Court issued the Fourth Report of the Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security known as the Hope Royal Commission. Among other criticisms, Justice Hope concluded that ASIO during the 1960s was more concerned with counter subversion (the pursuit of perceived domestic enemies) than counter-intelligence (the pursuit of foreign spies): Particularly during the Vietnam war, great attention was paid to every part of the protest movement; protest meetings and demonstrations were covered minutely. It is my opinion that ASIO has pursued radicals beyond what is required to obtain security intelligence relating to subversion. The touchstone of subversion has frequently been lost sight of, and replaced by omnibus inquiries into all views (and people espousing them) that challenge orthodoxy17 This compromised ASIOs ability to do its job: All of this investigation has gone on at the expense of counter-intelligence work It is hard to escape the conclusion that ASIO accepted the soft options until quite recently, ASIO could not be taken seriously as an efficient organisation, still less an effective security organisation.18 And much of the blame rested with the leadership: ASIOs morale has been very bad. The causes are complex but include the following: (a) Poor leadership over many years.19 5

That is unambiguously a reference to the time at which Spry was Director-General. George Brownbill, Secretary to the Hope Royal Commission, spoke on the occasion of the public release in 2008 of the Commissions public records: A close reading of our Fourth Report will see references to the practice of the late Charles Spry, who for far too long was Director-General of ASIO, of slipping little bits of gossip to the prime minister or attorney-general. The ASIO files disclosed numerous cases where gossip and tittle-tattle about people and their so-called Communist sympathies was recounted to certain figures in the Menzies governments and then revealed in some cases under parliamentary privilege. As we found with later and more detailed enquiry, much of this was no more than slander under privilege. That is, the evidence was just not there.20 Echoing the Hope Royal Commissions conclusions, this is what one commentator on historical subjects has recently said about ASIOs conduct during the Vietnam war period: They many, many times crossed the professional line from being intelligence agents to political actors and much of what they did, particularly against dissent and not just dissent involving communists but a much broader penumbra of dissenters, was in my view politically motivated, harsh and gravely unjust.21 Those are Mark Aarons words. He was speaking to ABC Radio two days after The Australian published The covert comrades in the ALP. Bizarrely, none of Aarons well-founded scepticism of ASIOs methods during the 1960s is reflected in The covert comrades in the ALP, let alone in The Australians brain-dead editorialising no doubt because to do so would have made clear the weakness of Aarons analysis and thus undermined the strength of The Australians partisan assault on the ALP. Now if ASIO was suspicious of those with views that challenged orthodoxy, then John Wheeldon would have induced a paranoid fever in Spry. For one thing, Wheeldon was a very fierce opponent of the Vietnam war from very early on. Jim McClelland, one of Wheeldons Senate colleagues, described Wheeldon as a verbal pyrotechnist with a formidable intellect: In full flight in the Senate, speaking entirely without notes on a subject such as the Vietnam War, his was a hard act to beat.22 In March 1966, a few months after taking his Senate seat, Wheeldon offered his judgment on the war: By our participation in this war we are having the worst of all possible worlds. We are making not the slightest difference to the outcome of the war. We are making not the slightest difference to future policies that might be followed by the United States Government which will, as would any sensible government I exclude the present Australian Government act in the best interests of its own people. We are setting ourselves against the great mass of the people of South Vietnam and against the whole of South East Asia indeed, against the whole of the underdeveloped areas of the world. Not one major country in the underdeveloped parts of the world supports the policy of America or Australia in South Vietnam. 6

We are depriving a number of our citizens of an opportunity to lead useful lives. We are sending them to death inside Vietnam in a futile and useless conflict. This conflict is causing much suffering to a certain section of the Australian people and is bringing not one single benefit to the Australian nation.23 Senator Wheeldon was often sarcastic and cutting in his remarks. In March 1969, he asked the Senate: Will the Leader of the Government consider suggesting to those Government senators who are of the age for military service but who have not yet seen military service that, on the principle that example is more effective than precept, and as they are so concerned about various persons attempting to evade military service, they themselves volunteer for service in Vietnam so that persons who are reluctant to serve may be inspired to follow their brilliant example?24 As an opponent of the war, he felt that he was constantly required to defend his patriotism. In November 1965, he told the Senate that at the present time there is an organised campaign of intimidation, sneering and McCarthyism against any person who wishes to disagree with the policy of the Government in relation to Vietnam.25 In a lengthy March 1969 speech on defence policy and the conflict in South East Asia, he told the Senate: It is very difficult indeed to have a rational discussion on this subject because of constant allegations which are made against those people who do not share the ideas of the government... The easiest way to acquire one's bona fides as a patriotic citizen is to urge that somebody else be sent off to Vietnam.26 From November 1968: I wish to ask the Leader of the Government in the Senate a question: As the United States Government has now announced that it intends to stop bombing North Vietnam and to enter into direct negotiations with the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front, and as the Australian Government reluctantly or otherwise has agreed to follow this course of action will the Minister on behalf of the Government issue an apology to the Australians who have been advocating in the past those very policies and were accused of being unpatriotic, subversive, or in some way disloyal to Australia?27 Sir Charles Spry may not have welcomed the fact that ASIO itself was a frequent subject of Wheeldons attention during the 1960s. Hansard shows Wheeldon repeatedly asked questions of Government ministers about ASIOs methods and objectives, and here too sarcasm was one of his preferred rhetorical devices. In October 1968, on learning that the Special Branch of the Victoria Police Force had security dossiers on 250,000 people, he asked the Attorney-General how many similar dossiers were held by ASIO: I ask this question not so that the names of all these thousands of people will become public knowledge but so that the few remaining patriotic citizens will be able to take due precautions in future in their dealings with fellow Australians.28 Wheeldon was, moreover, plainly one of Parliaments most consistent libertarians at a time when, in the minds of some, there was little distinction between advocacy of civil liberties and outright subversion. He was regularly mocked by Government senators for daring to ask why Australia 7

banned so many books and films of serious artistic and literary value; Wheeldon did not back down from his position that Australia had ludicrously oppressive censorship laws.29 At times his rhetoric seemed calculated to provoke those of more orthodox dispositions. He spoke to the Senate in May 1967 about the banning of books in Australia in the following terms: De Sade is a controversial author. He is an author who has written about incidents which in themselves I suppose would be regarded as rather revolting. I must confess that I have read a number of his works while I was not in this country. There may be those who would suggest that I am at the present time rather morally corrupted. If they would suggest that, then the only thing I can say is that I am no more morally corrupted now than I was before I read those books.30 Wheeldon was also one of the earliest advocates for the decriminalisation of homosexuality, and the position he held decades ago on the reform of drug laws would still be considered radical today.31 He advocated reform of divorce laws and abolition of the death penalty. But his opposition to political orthodoxy was never that of a revolutionary. John Wheeldon was a lawyer with a passionate commitment to the democratic institution of Parliament. He was, for decades, a principled defender of Australias constitutional federalism.32 The son of a bank manager, he joined the Western Australia branch of the Young Liberals when he was 17 (in 1946); by age 20, he was the state President.33 He quit the Liberal Party over Menzies Communist Party Dissolution Bill, which, as Kim Beazley would later put it, Wheeldon considered a direct attack on democratic liberties, which he strongly upheld.34 As the political commentator Don Whitington said: [Wheeldon] decided the men behind the Liberal Party were not the freedom fighters he had fondly imagined them to be, but just another group of hard-headed businessmen protecting their vested interests.35 The historical precedents that he used to defend his patriotic opposition to the Vietnam war reveal much about his ideological outlook. In a March 1969 Senate speech36, Wheeldon cited Charles James Fox, who was assailed for his opposition to Britains involvement in wars against revolutionary France in the 18th century: he described Fox as one of the greatest Prime Ministers of England and one of the greatest liberal thinkers England has ever produced. He cited Abraham Lincoln, who was driven from Congress in the 1840s on account of his opposition to the United States war against Mexico. He cited Gladstone, who was assailed for being a less enthusiastic imperialist than Disraeli: with hindsight, said Wheeldon, one sees that Gladstone, the man who was accused of lack of patriotism, is easily the more outstanding statesman. He cited Lloyd George, who was almost lynched for his opposition to Britains part in the Boer War but who was ultimately remembered, despite many failings, as having been a great patriotic Prime Minister of Great Britain. He cited John Curtin, who was gaoled for sedition on account of his opposition to Australias role in the First World War. These were John Wheeldons heroes: democratic parliamentarians who constituted a vocal but loyal and patriotic opposition in times when the government of the day embarked on wrongheaded policies. While he was opposed to US and Australian involvement in Vietnam, Wheeldon was in no way a supporter of the Soviet Union or its methods. He spoke out vehemently and immediately against the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.37 In a searing address in September 1969, he spoke 8

to the Senate of the sort of imperialism for which unfortunately the Soviet Union has become notorious ever since its attack on Hungary in 1956, an action which was repeated last year in its brutal attack upon the people of Czechoslovakia.38 He was no more enthused by China. His colleague, the former Senator Barry Cohen, says Wheeldon failed to share the enthusiasm of some of his ALP colleagues for what Mao had achieved: To say that John was less than impressed by stories of The Great Leap Forward was to put it mildly.39 During the Vietnam war, Wheeldon sarcastically lambasted the Government for shipping steel to China while Australia was fighting Chinese-supported forces in South East Asia: [The government parties] say that we are involved in the war in Vietnam in order to stop the downward thrust of Chinese Communism, but at the same time they say that it is quite in order for supporters of the Government to make very large sums of money from trading with China. When the Government talks about wheat and wool sales it talks about mainland China but when it talks about the war in Vietnam it talks about Communist China.40 On the other hand, his affection for the United States was real. He married an American. He visited the US almost every year, sometimes for months at a time. He ensured that I was born in the United States so that there could be no doubt that I was a natural born citizen under the US Constitution. He probably knew as much about US history and politics as any Australian; anyone who witnessed his performance at the Chester A. Arthur Societys quiz nights could attest to that fact. The only t-shirt I ever saw him wear was a faded McGovern for President shirt, and in his wallet when he died in 2006 was his accreditation for the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach. It is safe to say that whatever criticisms he made of US foreign policy from time to time, no Australian was a stronger or better informed admirer of the American political system than Senator John Wheeldon. Wheeldon criticised the United States over the Vietnam war, but that was because he considered it a bad war and not because he wanted a communist revolution in the United States or anywhere else. He was completely consistent over the course of decades in his opposition to what he considered colonialism or imperialism, whoever was its proponent. He was a passionate believer in the principle of self-determination which, in my view, is completely consistent with his belief in democratic institutions of liberal government. As Prime Minister Howard would later say of him: He was a very fierce opponent of the war in Vietnam, he was a prodigious critic of the Soviet Union and the totalitarianism involved, and he was a very fierce opponent of the acquiescence of the Whitlam government, the Fraser government and the Hawke government in the incorporation of East Timor into the Republic of Indonesia. I remember that on one occasion, when I interviewed him for a radio program in the early 1980s, he gave me a memorable blast, collectively speaking, in relation to the incorporation of East Timor into Indonesia. John Wheeldon believed his greatest achievement in parliament was his involvement in a report on human rights in the Soviet Union which gave exposure to a range of significant humanitarian issues.41 9

Wheeldon once described himself as a 19th-century Liberal with social democratic tendencies.42 He was in no way a revolutionary throughout his career, from beginning to end, he was what communists such as Mark Aarons would contemptuously refer to as a bourgeois reformist. He believed in gradual improvement of societys flaws through the democratic process, not through violent upheaval. Nowhere in Wheeldons private or public speech will you find a word in advocacy of the overthrow of a democratic government, and nor will you find anywhere a word in admiration of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin or Mao. I cant put it better than your foreign editor, Greg Sheridan, did: He was a passionate opponent of totalitarianism, whether of the Left or the Right.43 Mark Aarons, by contrast, has written that his family of communists belonged to the revolutionary tendency and opposed the reformists who wanted to introduce socialism gradually through parliamentary elections; Aarons explains that the Bolshevik Revolution was the [Aarons] familys inspiration.44 Things were very different in the Wheeldon family. I remember when, as a teenager, I first studied Russian history: my father sternly instructed me that, contrary to what my high school history textbook said, there was no such thing as the November revolution: November 1917 was a Bolshevik coup dtat, the triumph of a violent and intolerant clique. The fundamental and irreconcilable difference in outlook between a parliamentary democrat such as John Wheeldon and a self-proclaimed lapsed communist revolutionary such as Mark Aarons could not be clearer. Despite the fact that Wheeldon was without question a patriotic Australian and a committed democrat, ASIOs files show that on at least two occasions Sir Charles Spry personally used patently unreliable evidence in futile efforts to tar John Wheeldon as disloyal. Sprys repeated attempts to smear Wheeldon, and the circumstances and consequences of their abject failure, are of central significance to any analysis of the ASIO files that mention Wheeldon but none of this history is so much as mentioned by Mark Aarons. It is as if it never happened. ASIOs efforts to undermine John Wheeldon came to a head, and then an abrupt halt, in early 1968, when Prime Minister Sir John Gorton a good friend of Wheeldon despite their sharp political differences over Vietnam and other issues overruled Spry when Spry sought to prevent Wheeldons American fiance (Judith Werner, ne Shaw) from entering Australia. Spry objected to Werners admission to the country on the grounds that she posed an unacceptable threat to national security. Her father was a member of the Communist Party, USA, and Spry had formulated a ludicrous theory unsupported, to the best of my knowledge, by any actual evidence that Werners father was the conduit for the passage of confidential Australian defence information to Gus Hall, the leader of the CPUSA.45 Wheeldon took his appeal of ASIOs decision directly to the prime minister, and on 12 September 1968, Spry was called on to explain to Gorton his reasons for seeking to deny a visa to Judith Werner. I am aware of three accounts each consistent with the others of what transpired at the meeting between the spymaster and the prime minister: First, according to Sprys own notes of his discussions with Gorton, The Prime Minister expressed the view that the case against her [Werner] was pretty slim.46 10

Second, according to Gortons biographer, Ian Hancock, Gorton brusquely dismissed the spy chief and his file on Judith Werner.47 Third, according to my father, who was later told by Gorton himself what had transpired, Spry pleaded with Gorton, But, sir, you should take a look at my file; to which Gorton responded: I dont want to see your fucking file.

Whatever the precise words Gorton used to convey his lack of confidence in Sprys precious file, it is beyond doubt that Gorton had a dim view of Sprys methods, as well as his conclusions: according to Hancock, there was a clear distinction in Gortons mind between a left-winger and a traitor, and ASIOs file left him unimpressed. The prime minister would have none of it. Hancock says Gorton thought ASIOs effort was petty, and that Gorton had no time for public servants such as Spry who acted as a law unto themselves.48 Decades later, Gorton was quoted as judging ASIO under Sprys leadership in the following terms: I found ASIO, in the little I had to do with it, to be completely sort of stumble bums. They would tell you things and then say its not right I gave up relying on them for anything.49 Thanks to Gorton, Judith Werner who would be my mother was allowed to come to Australia in 1968, and she has lived here ever since. As Judith Wheeldon, she went on to have a distinguished career in education, before retiring as headmistress of Abbotsleigh, the Anglican girls school on Sydneys north shore, in 2005. She is now an Australian citizen, and in 2006, on the recommendation of the Howard government, she was made a member of the Order of Australia for services to education. A threat to national security? Not so much. Recently declassified ASIO files show that the September 1968 encounter between Spry and Gorton over my mothers visa to Australia was in fact the second time in only a matter of months that Spry had taken files of dubious quality and integrity to Prime Minister Gorton with a view to damaging Sprys perceived political opponent, John Wheeldon. Here is the background to the other incident in which Spry took complaints about John Wheeldon to Gorton:50 In March 1967, a young Frenchwoman, Cecile Arnaud, came to Canberra to work in the French embassy as an assistant in the embassys cinema, radio and TV section. An article in the Canberra Times announcing her arrival (Novelist keen to ski, 11 March 1967) described her as a vivacious graduate of the Sorbonne who had previously edited a womans programme on Radio Luxembourg covering subjects from films to fashion.51 She had achieved minor celebrity in France for her 1963 existentialist novel, published in English translation as The Gift of Indifference. She was a journalist and writer by occupation. She was not a diplomat: her ASIO file explicitly notes that she was in no way a regular member of the French Foreign Service.52 Somehow she crossed paths with John Wheeldon. At the time, he was recently separated from his first wife and had not yet met his second wife (my mother). Ms Arnaud came to ASIOs attention when she suffered what appears to have been some sort of emotional breakdown, which the file is far from clear may have been precipitated by the termination of her employment at the embassy and her resulting forced departure from Australia. According to ASIOs files, her boss the cultural councillor of the French embassy was dissatisfied with her work and thought she 11

seemed to be psychologically unbalanced. 53 Her interaction with members of the Australian public who made inquiries about French cinema had been most unsatisfactory, and she had in fact been rude to Dr Daryll Killeen who had complained.54 ASIO noticed Ms Arnaud when she made distressed calls to a suspected KGB officer at the Soviet embassy in Canberra over telephone lines ASIO was monitoring; ASIOs transcript of her call to the Soviet diplomat suggests some emotional intimacy between them, but their actual relationship is far from clear.55 ASIO immediately brought Ms Arnaud in for interrogation.56 This was early August 1967. There is no public record of what she actually told ASIO under interrogation, but the files seem to suggest she claimed to have had some sort of relationship with John Wheeldon, with a French diplomat, and with Stenin, the suspected KGB man. (I dont know, and dont particularly care, what relationship John Wheeldon had with Cecile Arnaud; they were certainly friendly and kept in touch for years to come. He never tried to hide his friendship with her from anyone. In the mid-1980s, my father, my mother and I had a very pleasant dinner with Ms Arnaud in Paris. I had no idea at the time that their friendship had once been the source of so much feverish excitement at the highest levels of Australias security apparatus.) Ms Arnaud left Australia for England days after being interrogated. On arrival in England, according to ASIOs records, she checked into a psychiatric hospital.57 She had spent an eventful 150 days in Australia. Some months after her departure, on 1 February 1968, Spry gave Gorton his version of what Arnaud had said under interrogation.58 This was an important day for Gorton: he had become prime minister less than three weeks earlier, following Harold Holts disappearance, and 1 February 1968 was the date that he left the Senate to assume his seat in the House of Representatives. In fact, it seems that Spry raised the Arnaud affair with Gorton on the very first occasion that he briefed him as prime minister, and immediately after the spy chief had acquainted Gorton for the first time with the procedures for organisational and functional control of ASIO. As part of his briefing on the Arnaud affair, Spry gave Gorton a top secret document marked NOTE FOR PRIME MINISTER.59 It seems from this note which remains heavily redacted that Spry had no evidence or useful information to point to other than what Ms Arnaud had said under interrogation, but the spy chief considered that sufficient for him to inform the prime minister that Ms Arnaud was "probably recruited by Soviet intelligence prior to her arrival in Australia and that he regarded John Wheeldons part in these activities as consistent with those of at least a collaborator with Soviet intelligence, and that Wheeldon may be a recruited agent.60 As evidence of Wheeldons espionage, Sprys note for Gorton claimed that John Wheeldon had discussed French politics with Ms Arnaud, and that he "often turned the conversation" to Marxist literature a rubric that could presumably include the works of Sartre, de Beauvoir, Genet and Camus. 61 Spry says that Wheeldon questioned her on French atomic experiments, their plans and Frances use of atomic power.62 But it is not at all clear from the file why Sir Charles would consider their discussions of politics, literature and foreign policy to constitute evidence of a threat to Australias national security.

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Indeed, this is the closest Sprys note gets to evidencing espionage: During the month of April, WEELDON [sic] asked [Arnaud] if she could discreetly make photocopies in the Embassy. She replied that this was possible as she had access at any time and the use of the equipment. However, WEELDON [sic] never said what sort of documents he wanted photocopied.63 Perhaps WEELDON wanted Ms Arnaud to make him a free copy of the latest edition of Cahiers du Cinema? While Sprys file is long on casual innuendo and unsupported speculation, it is entirely silent on the sort of espionage assistance Ms Arnaud could actually provide the Senator. It does not explain why on earth the KGB would use an Australian federal parliamentarian as the spyhandler for an assistant in the French embassys cinema department. But maybe I have it all backwards: the file is really quite mysterious on these points, and I honestly cannot even begin to understand exactly what Sprys theory was, or even who was supposed to be spying on whom. Sprys note to Gorton does acknowledge that WEELDON [sic] was more interested in the progress of [Arnauds] relations with the ambassador than in the political nature of any information she could obtain64, which supports my assessment that Spry had embarked on a gossipy smear campaign based on innuendo, rather than anything that could be considered a serious or sensible counter-intelligence operation. Bear in mind that Sprys evidence as incoherent and unconvincing as it is is nothing more than unsupported hearsay gathered during the course of an interrogation of a clearly distressed foreign national who had just been fired from her job and was now being investigated by Australias spy agency, and who was soon to check into a psychiatric hospital. And also bear in mind that the transcript of what Ms Arnaud actually said has never been made publicly available, and thus our knowledge of what she was asked by ASIO and what answers she gave is based entirely on what can be gleaned from the unredacted portions of the note that Spry himself prepared. It is disturbing that Spry would level such grave charges against a member of Parliament on the basis of such silly evidence. His conduct is even more troubling in light of a recently declassified June 1974 ASIO Minute Paper, addressed to the Deputy Director-General of ASIO, and marked TOP SECRET.65 The 1974 Minute Paper reviews the Arnaud file, and specifically refers to Sprys briefing of Gorton on 1 February 1968. The Minute Paper concludes that, in retrospect, there are considerable doubts about Ms Arnauds truthfulness that were not reflected in the file prepared under Sprys direction, but that only emerged later, through discussions with the relevant ASIO case officers. In other words, ASIOs own internal review of the Arnaud affair conducted some years after Sprys departure clearly shows that Spry briefed Sir John Gorton on the basis of a flawed and misleading file. By ASIOs own reckoning, Spry was at least careless with the facts, and certainly withheld material information from the Prime Minister. The spy chiefs ludicrous theory flopped, as was inevitable. It was the dampest of damp squibs. There appears to have been no follow up by Gorton of any kind. Senator Wheeldon was never so much as asked to give a response to Sprys claim that he was a Soviet agent.

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Spry announced his retirement as director-general not long after his run-in with Gorton over Judith Werners visa, and, to the best of my knowledge, ASIOs imprecations against John Wheeldon ceased when Spry departed. Indeed, a review of John Wheeldons slender ASIO file66 about fifty-odd pages, covering a couple of decades shows that in the post-Spry era, Wheeldon mostly came to ASIOs attention only inadvertently, as a supporter of Israel. ASIO closely scrutinised Bill Hartley, a fervent PLO supporter who came into frequent conflict with the pro-Zionist John Wheeldon, and Wheeldon was thus tangentially mentioned in several ASIO reports on Hartley, including a number of reports suggesting that Hartley was preparing counter-demonstrations to protest Wheeldons support of Israel.67 And just as ASIOs attitude towards Wheeldon completely changed following Sprys departure, so did Wheeldons attitude towards ASIO. An ASIO officers report titled Action for Privacy Committee describes Wheeldons appearance at a public meeting in June 1977: Senator John WHEELDON addressed the audience and said that he believed there was a need for ASIO, and that it was unrealistic to consider otherwise. He spoke highly of Mr Justice WOODWARD [Sprys eventual successor as Director-General of ASIO] and frequently re-iterated his view that ASIO was essential to Australias security Senator WHEELDON said that he had not always held this view but had changed his mind Some members of the audience asked questions for about thirty minutes, mostly of Senator WHEELDON, who continued to defend the role of ASIO Senator WHEELDONs comments clearly were not expected by the Committee and this is the reason for attempting to close the meeting...68 Now, Chris, the history of Sprys antagonistic relationship with John Wheeldon is not obscure. Kim Beazley Jr specifically referred to Gortons defence of Wheeldon against ASIO in speaking to a parliamentary condolence motion following Wheeldons death in 2006.69 The Sydney Morning Herald, in its obituary for John Wheeldon, also discussed the incident, mentioning Sir Charles Spry by name.70 Ian Hancock discussed it at length in his biography of Gorton. And Gorton himself frequently told the story of his run in with Spry over my mothers visa. Of course, if the truth happens to be that Spry personally led a witch-hunt for an ALP senator which failed because John Gorton had concluded that Spry was an unreliable stumble bum, then that does little to advance The Australians chosen narrative of communist infiltration of the ALP. So Sprys name does not appear once in The covert comrades in the ALP or A secret tale worth uncovering. Instead, Mark Aarons makes this bold assertion: Both Wheeldon and [Tom] Uren became ministers after the 1972 election, arousing ASIO's deep suspicions about communist influence in the Whitlam government.71 This particular claim offers a perfect test of Aarons reliability; nowhere can the contrast between Mark Aarons interpretation of the historical record and mine be more clearly seen. My view is that the evidence clearly indicates that ASIOs suspicion of John Wheeldon was the product of Sprys fevered imagination, and of ASIOs tendency under Sprys leadership to blur any distinction between those who were politically unorthodox and those who were in fact disloyal to Australia. 14

On the other hand, Aarons states explicitly that ASIOs suspicion of Wheeldon continued after Sprys tenure, and well into the 1970s. So lets cut to the chase: does Aarons theory stand up? First of all, if The Australian had bothered to fact-check his article before publication, you would have picked up on the fact that Wheeldon was appointed to the ministry in 1974, not after the 1972 election. But its worse than that: even if you had merely asked Mark Aarons to list the documents he claims to have relied on in the course of his research, you would have discovered that he cannot point to a single piece of evidence in support of his assertion that ASIO had deep suspicions about John Wheeldon in the 1970s. Now, as you know, The covert comrades in the ALP is an edited extract from Mark Aarons 2010 book The Family File.72 His book refers repeatedly to the ASIO files as well as various other primary and secondary historical documents, but it contains not a single footnote or reference. Thus his readers must take everything that he says about the contents of the ASIO files on trust, and this is a trust that he abuses. I have reviewed John Wheeldons ASIO files, and there is absolutely nothing in those files, or elsewhere, to support Mark Aarons claim that John Wheeldon aroused ASIOs deep suspicions about communist influence in the Whitlam government. I have had extensive email communications with Mark Aarons, and I have pressed him to support his claim that John Wheeldon was the subject of ASIO suspicion when he joined the Whitlam ministry: he is completely unable to back up what he said in print. I can only conclude that this particular claim is a pure fabrication a lie. And it is a material lie, presented in support of the conclusion that ASIOs suspicion of John Wheeldon persisted after Sir Charles Sprys departure. If it were true instead of a lie, it would deal a significant blow to my interpretation of the record. But it is a demonstrable lie. In fact, it is a patently ridiculous lie that The Australian should have detected and should not have published, for if Aarons is correct in saying that ASIO had deep suspicions about John Wheeldon that persisted until the Whitlam era, then how is it that in 1980 John Wheeldon was made a Parliamentary Advisor to Australias permanent delegation to the United Nations?73 Why did not anyone from the spy agency have a word in Prime Minister Frasers ear in 1980 to ensure that John Wheeldon was barred from appointment to such a sensitive posting at the height of the Cold War? Of course, Mark Aarons does not mention the well-known fact that Wheeldon was an advisor to Australias UN delegation in New York City during the term of the Fraser government. To have done so would have rendered his tale of persistent ASIO suspicion of Wheeldon incoherent. But it is fatuous for The Australian, in printing Mark Aarons article, to pretend to ignore the fact that John Wheeldon was an advisor to Australias UN delegation late in his career: not only was his diplomatic role a matter of public record, specifically mentioned by Prime Minister Howard in the parliamentary condolence motions following Wheeldons death74 as well as in his newspaper obituaries75, but it was while John Wheeldon was in New York City as part of Australias UN delegation that he renewed his friendship with Mr Murdoch, which led to Murdoch offering him that senior editorial position at The Australian76.

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I will now respond, for the sake of completeness and as briefly as possible, to each other piece of evidence that Mark Aarons puts forward in support of his claim that John Wheeldon was a "secret member" of the CPA. Aaron's first piece of evidence is derived from an internal ASIO file. In The Family File, he wrote as follows: ASIO established his connection with the CPA in mid-1960 during an investigation into the 'illegal apparatus: Those concerned with the lower level responsibility in the I.A. [Illegal apparatus of the CPA] were still in the process of being selected but amongst those who had given assistance was John WHEELDON who is an undercover member of the C.P.A.77 When The Australian printed The covert comrades in the ALP, someone had edited Aarons words to make them pithier: ASIO established his connection with the CPA in mid-1960 as an undercover member of the CPA.78 What your readers were not told is this: The text referring to John Wheeldon that Aarons cited in The Family File is taken from a June 1960 ASIO case report.79 The name of the ASIO officer who prepared the report is redacted, as is the identity of the source. As you can see from the copy of the file that I have made available online80, the words that Mark Aarons cited are not the words of the ASIO officer who prepared the report; rather, they are what the unknown ASIO officer said that the unknown source had said when reporting what one Keith McCallum Dowding was said to have said about John Wheeldon, but it is impossible to tell who is responsible for the specific assertion that John Wheeldon was an undercover member of the C.P.A.. In other words, the file Aarons cites as proof of Wheeldons CPA membership consists of (anonymous) hearsay upon (anonymous) hearsay upon hearsay, together with some unsubstantiated hearsay commentary from an unknown person. The paragraph cited by Mark Aarons is the last of eleven summary statements attributed to Dowding, according to the ASIO officers account of what his agent said that Dowding had said. It is only in this eleventh paragraph that Wheeldons name is mentioned, and even then only in passing. In no way is Wheeldon the focus of either the report or what the officer said the agent had said that Dowding had said about John Wheeldon. Underneath these eleven statements that the officer said the source had attributed to Dowding, there is a section entitled "Source's comments", where the following appears: Source stated that DOWDING was probably exaggerating the situation concerning the degree of organisation of the illegal Apparatus planning in W.A.... So the entire thing is not just triple hearsay with two levels of anonymity and no evidence to support it, its also probably an exaggeration to begin with. But Mark Aarons insists, without qualification, that it is all entirely true. How does that work? The fact is that Mark Aarons simply cannot be trusted to report the ASIO files accurately. If you actually look at those files all of which I have made available online you can see that the so16

called evidence he relies on is just gossip, innuendo and hearsay that would not be admissible as evidence in any court of law in the civilised world, for the simple reason that it is patently unreliable. Moreover, the passage that Aarons cites conveys much less information than a casual reader might think. The officer says the source said that Dowding said that Wheeldon had given unspecified assistance to Dowding, but without, it appears, accepting even "lower level responsibility" in the CPA's apparatus. So what if that is true? At the time 1960 John Wheeldon was a young lawyer with political aspirations. Keith Dowding, on the other hand, was a well-known senior member of the Western Australian ALP.81 Dowding himself may have had pro-Soviet leanings maybe Dowding was himself a secret communist, I have no idea but he was certainly a prominent member in good standing of the ALP. Dowding was also Janet Holmes Courts Sunday school teacher, and the father of the future premier of Western Australia, Peter Dowding. I dont think either of those associates of Keith Dowding is a communist, so the fact that John Wheeldon, as a young ALP man, also knew Dowding doesnt make Wheeldon a communist, either. As a matter of fact, my mother tells me and I mean no disrespect to the Dowding family that my father could not stand Keith Dowding, so whatever friendship or association existed between the two men was short-lived. On the other hand, and for whatever its worth, Kim Beazley Sr, who was unsuccessfully challenged by Dowding for the pre-selection for the seat of Swan in 1958, was a very good friend and close political ally of Wheeldons. To be sure, the ASIO report does suggest that some unknown person, for some unknown reason, had at some point in time expressed the view that John Wheeldon was an under cover member of the CPA, but reading this document more than half a century after the fact there is no way to know who is responsible for the words John WHEELDON who is an under cover member of the C.P. of A., and there is nothing to suggest that it was a statement based on personal knowledge, rather than the unknown author's mere supposition. The statement is not attributed to Dowding himself, and it very well may have been commentary added by the anonymous case officer or the anonymous source, or it may be nothing but pure, baseless speculation. It is entirely plausible to suspect that it is just gossip. In any event, no foundation is provided for the statement none. It is anonymous and unsubstantiated and given without any supporting evidence or any basis for assessing its reliability. This is what Justice Hope reported in the Royal Commission about ASIOs use of agents reports such as this one: Testing the reliability of the sources report is a matter calling for the exercise of considerable judgement, as wall as careful checking with any available collateral material. The report of the ASIO officer about what the source has told him itself involves issues of reliability. It is for this reason that, so far as practicable, any notes which are provided by sources, or are made by ASIO officers in respect of sources reports, should be obtained or retained by ASIO as a check against what the ASIO officer in due course reports the source has told him...82 I stress objectivity because there is a tendency, especially with those running agents, to think that their agent must be reliable. He may not be. He may be a clever liar. Other 17

information, from independent sources, is needed to establish objectively the truth of any and every agent report.83 [Emphasis in original] Without checking information supplied by agents against independently verified information, and without having regular assessments made of the agent operations, I do not see how ASIO can place reliance on its agent reports.84 It is my impression that little attention has been devoted by ASIO to testing objectively the credibility of its human sources, including agents, and the reliability of their reports. Credibility assessments apparently tend to be made subjectively, on the basis of a judgment by the agent master about the character of the agent. Such a procedure is fraught with dangers85 ASIOs use of intelligence is unprofessional and more attention needs to be paid to assessing the reliability of sources, the credibility of information, as well as its relevance.86 Mark Aarons holds himself out as a reliable interpreter of ASIO documents, yet he wantonly ignore Justice Hopes clear warnings about the reliability of unsupported agents reports. Instead, Aarons simply assumes that whatever is contained in the files that mention John Wheeldon must be true, even if there is not a single piece of supporting evidence. The second piece of evidence of John Wheeldons secret membership of the CPA that Mark Aarons provides this is in his book87, but was edited out of The covert comrades in the ALP is taken from an ASIO summary transcript of a conversation Marks uncle, Sam Aarons, had in 1963 at the Belmont, WA, branch of the CPA88. In the transcript, a certain Roy Stanton asked Sam Aarons if he had considered asking "Don (John Murray) Wheeldon [sic] to join the Party". Sam's response was that "he was not sure of that set up and as far as he was concerned WHEELDON was quite alright where he was. In addition he was not reactionary and had quite a good line". Appended in the files to this summary transcript is a "comment from source" to the effect that Sam Aarons was "slightly embarrassed" by Stanton's request and "didn't appreciate" that Wheeldon's name had been brought up, and that Stanton sensed this discomfort and made no further mention of my father. Mark Aarons tersely summarises this as follows: As CPA state secretary, Sam knew [Wheeldon's] real status.89 In other words, Mark Aarons considers that a transcript of a senior CPA member (Sam Aarons) telling a fellow CPA member (Roy Stanton) that John Wheeldon was not a CPA member is evidence that John Wheeldon was, in fact, a CPA member. This tortured interpretation of the evidence is frankly just silly. In fact, Mark makes it clear in his book that he barely knew Sam Aarons: "sadly, I rarely spent much time with him", Mark reports.90 Sam died in 1971, when Mark was twenty. This was two years before the single occasion on which Mark met my father. It is highly unlikely that Mark and Sam ever discussed John Wheeldon. That he considered this meaningless anecdote worthy of inclusion in his book shows just how weak indeed is Mark Aarons evidence. The third piece of evidence Aarons provides is taken from a 1967 ASIO report, headlined "SOVIET EMBASSY CONTACT WITH MEMBERS OF FEDERAL PARLIAMENT". 18

Aarons cites from this report a summary transcript of a telephone conversation my father had with a certain Vladimir Georgievich Beliaev, First Secretary of the Soviet Embassy: Senator WHEELDON spoke to BELIAEV... and said, "How are you, comrade", BELIAEV replied that he was well and WHEELDON then asked, "How is the class struggle proceeding round the corner there, are we in front?" BELIAEV said no, and WHEELDON then replied, "Oh well we will be some day".91 Aarons provides no commentary on this particular item, other than to state (quite correctly) that "Wheeldon was an amiable and very witty man with a dry sense of humour".92 But within the context of Aarons tales of perfidy, deception and betrayal, the insinuation Aarons wishes to convey is clear: John Wheeldon was too chummy with a Soviet official. Given that the whole point of The Australians reporting was to show that Wheeldon was a "secret member" of the CPA a covert comrade the clear insinuation is that John Wheeldon talks to Soviet diplomats and his loyalty to Australia is questionable. But who is actually compromised in this intercepted conversation? John Wheeldon asks Beliaev if the class struggle is being won "around the corner there", presumably a reference to the Soviet Union. What is noteworthy is not Wheeldons typically provocative question, but rather Beliaev's monosyllabic response: "No". Here we have the First Secretary of the Soviet Embassy conceding to a cheeky Australian federal parliamentarian that the class struggle is not being won in the Soviet Union. Wheeldons response to this "Oh well, we will be some day" suggests that he was wryly amused but not surprised by Beliaev's response; it seems reasonable to assume that this was not the first conversation between the two men in which a lack of confidence in Soviet propaganda had been expressed. I fail to see how this snippet of conversation supports the claim that John Wheeldon was a covert comrade. The fourth piece of evidence Aarons cites in his book is a conversation Aarons supposedly had with my father. As Aarons tells it in his book: I only met Wheeldon once, in 1973. He quietly informed me that he was thoroughly disillusioned with the ALP and that he intended resigning to become the first communist senator. A few years later he did the opposite: instead of declaring his long-time communist affiliations, Wheeldon went to the Right. After leaving the Senate in 1981 he became an editorial writer for The Australian, and also contributed to the anti-communist magazine, Quadrant.93 Aarons was 22 in 1973. In an email to me, Aarons described the encounter further as follows: In the early 1970s my father told me that he had a very close and warm friendship with your father, who was also very close to the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). In 1973 I saw your father by chance in Martin Place, and knowing what my father had said about him, stopped him and introduced myself. We had a delightful and very friendly conversation for about half an hour. At this time I was already working at the ABC and we talked about what was happening in the Whitlam government. Your father expressed great disappointment in the direction of the new government and told me that, as I would know, his real allegiances lay with my party (I was then a CPA member). He went on to say that he was so disillusioned with the ALP and the Whitlam government that he was seriously

19

considering leaving the ALP and openly joining the CPA to become the first communist senator.94 Aarons account of this conversation held 37 years earlier beggars belief. I accept that my father may have expressed to Mark his disappointment in the ALP he openly expressed that disappointment to anyone who would listen but the suggestion that he might have said to Aarons that he was, as Aarons would know, truly a communist is absurd. If he was truly a communist, this was something he never said at any time to his wife of several decades, or for that matter to his card-carrying communist father-in-law with whom he bitterly argued, or to any other family member. I was only two years old in 1973, but during the thousands of hours I spent discussing politics with my father over the course of decades he never suggested anything to me that was remotely consistent with what he supposedly told Mark Aarons on the sole occasion he met him. No one else is on record as ever having had a remotely similar conversation with John Wheeldon, or ever having heard him declare an allegiance to the CPA or any other communist organisation. No one. Michael Easson, a good friend of my father and a prominent figure in the ALP and the trade union movement, wrote in Quadrant that the idea that John Wheeldon toyed with becoming a communist senator sounds and is fanciful.95 It is Mark Aarons against the world. And Aarons himself has admitted to me by email that Perhaps your father was pulling my leg about becoming the first communist senator, but I did not think so at the time.96 Bear in mind, Chris, that Mark Aarons sat on this story for 37 years. He didnt disclose his damaging revelation when my father was writing for Quadrant or for The Australian, and he didn't disclose it while my father was a federal minister, or while he was an advisor to Australia's delegation to the United Nations in New York City. Instead, Aarons very conveniently waited for several decades, until John Wheeldon had died and could no longer contest Aarons account or sue for defamation. The fifth piece of evidence cited by Aarons that Wheeldon was a covert comrade is a 1971 ASIO report. The report apparently offers no analysis or conclusions but rather contains the following purely factual account: On Wednesday September 29th, 1971 Laurie AARONS and Bernie TAFT were selling Tribune at the Peoples Parliament in Canberra, when they were approached by Senator WHEELDON and Tom UREN M.H.R., both of whom invited them to Parliament House for a talk. According to AARONS they were taken to the Dining Room for a cup of tea Altogether AARONS and TAFT were in Parliament House for about an hour and a half. But so what if John Wheeldon once had a cup of tea with Laurie Aarons at Parliament House? What on earth does that prove? As Peter Coleman, the former Liberal Party parliamentarian, has remarked: [Wheeldon] was above all a free spirit irrepressible, outspoken, intelligent, wellinformed and very funny. I have no trouble in believing that he had long talks with Laurie Aarons of the Communist party, just as he did with Bob Santamaria (to whose magazine he contributed), Bill Wentworth, or former Labor colleagues (although he told me that the Labor Caucus made him feel nauseous) 20

He was always ready to engage anyone in debate.97 Indeed, there is little indication that John Wheeldon and Laurie Aarons ever spent much time together at all. The cup of tea at Parliament House is, to the best of my knowledge, the only meeting between the two men recorded anywhere in the ASIO files. My mother tells me that she recalls my father telling her once that he had met Laurie Aarons on a couple of occasions, and that would seem to be correct. It is crucial to note that Mark Aarons is absolutely certain that Tom Uren who joined Laurie Aarons and John Wheeldon for that infamous cup of tea at Parliament House was never a communist. As Aarons put it in an article in The Australian a few days after you published The covert comrades in the ALP: [I]n Uren's ASIO file I found one agent's report claiming he had been a CPA member from 1948 to 1958. If that were true there most certainly would have been other reports from that period, as in similar files. ASIO's coverage of the CPA at this time was ubiquitous; it would have been impossible to hide Uren's "membership" from ever-present agents and telephone bugs. The official record substantiates Uren's denial. 98 In a July 2010 interview with Jeff Sparrow of Slow TV99, it was put to Mark Aarons that historical ASIO files are notoriously inaccurate and, as Sparrow put it, littered with suppositions, with slander and gossip of the worst kind. Sparrow asked Aarons, why, given that level of inaccuracy, and given their previous position to think that everyone is a communist, should we pay any particular merit to [ASIOs] assertions about who in the Labor Party was a Communist and who wasnt? Aarons response to this question is fascinating: Well, I think that there is an art form in itself to the interpretation of ASIO files. They are an extraordinary important primary source, but like all primary sources you need to evaluate each document and try to give what is in that document due weight... What comes through is that if you have an agent who is close to somebody, you need to try and evaluate the authenticity and professionalism of what that agent is saying If we take someone like Tom Uren, who you mentioned, I am absolutely convinced that Tom Uren was not a member, a secret member, of the Communist Party. And the only document in his file that says that he was, mentions explicitly that he was a member for ten years, and that his shop was used as the propaganda depot for the local party branch. Well if that was true, there would be dozens, if not hundreds, of agents' reports on Tom Uren's membership. And there is none.100 But all there is in John Wheeldon's ASIO file is the Dowding report, and one other anonymous report from 1960 perhaps overlooked by Aarons which states without any context or substantiation that WHEELDON and FORD have been reliably reported as members of the C.P. of A.101 No evidence is offered in support of this statement, and, as Justice Hope noted, Expressions like a reliable source are used by ASIO inexactly.102 So there are exactly two reports, each from 1960, each anonymous and totally lacking in foundation or documentation, which tangentially refer in an off-hand manner to John Wheeldon as a member of the CPA. Each of these reports is much less detailed than the ASIO report on 21

Tom Uren that Aarons has referred to: the Uren report at least proposed specific dates of Urens membership of the CPA and referred to specific acts that Uren supposedly took in connection with this alleged CPA membership. But nowhere is there a single piece of evidence either in John Wheeldons slender ASIO file, or elsewhere, that would be admissible in a court of law that suggests or indicates that Wheeldon was ever a member, secret or otherwise, of the Communist Party of Australia or of any other communist organisation. So far as I am aware, there is no evidence anywhere none that John Wheeldon ever attended a communist party meeting of any kind, or that he ever carried a members ticket, or that he ever pledged allegiance to the CPA or any communist group, or that he ever paid dues to the CPA or any other communist group, or that he otherwise ever engaged in any activity that would amount to membership of a communist organisation. To the best of my knowledge, there is not a single human being living or dead other than Mark Aarons who claims to have heard John Wheeldon declare himself to be a member of the CPA or any communist organisation. Yet for some reason Mark Aarons is absolutely certain that John Wheeldon was a secret member of the CPA, while he is absolutely certain that Tom Uren was not. Chris, tell me please where are the "dozens, if not hundreds" of ASIO agents reports on John Wheeldon's CPA membership that Mark Aarons insists must exist if Wheeldon was in fact a secret member of the CPA? Did you ever ask Mark that question? Or did you just publish whatever garbage he handed you, so long as it suited your ideological agenda? I have asked Mark to explain why the standard of proof that he applies to Tom Uren does not apply to John Wheeldon, but he has refused to answer me. The sixth and final piece of evidence Aarons provides is as follows: Both Wheeldon and Uren became ministers after the 1972 election, arousing ASIO's deep suspicions about communist influence in the Whitlam government.103 As noted above, this claim is nothing more than a lie. Chris, Mark Aarons case is so incoherent, that it is not even clear what he means when he writes that John Wheeldon was a secret member of the CPA. In an email to me, Aarons said that Wheeldon was a CPA member who could never openly attend meetings or formally carry a membership card. But again this is just silly if you dont attend meetings or carry a membership card, then how can you be said to be a member of the party? Membership of a political party consists of undertaking specific acts. You commence membership when you pay your dues, affirm your willingness to abide by the partys rules, and sign your members ticket. But Aarons has no evidence that John Wheeldon ever did any of these things, and when pressed, he tells me via email but not his readers or The Australians that when speaking of John Wheeldon he has used his own private definition of party membership, which requires neither holding a membership card nor attending meetings. Thats the entirety of what Mark Aarons relied on as proof of John Wheeldons secret membership of the Communist Party of Australia. And The Australian unquestioningly accepted and republished everything that Aarons said, and used it as the basis for a partisan attack on the ALP. 22

Unfortunately, it is not only The Australian that has acted dishonestly in its recent reporting on John Wheeldon. As noted above, in April 2011 the Fairfax press ran a pair of articles about John Wheeldon on front-pages across Australia. Fairfax Medias Dr Philip Dorling had picked up Mark Aarons slippery ball and ran with it.104 Dr Dorling has a background. By his own admission, he became quite unemployable in Canberra after he was set upon by the Australian Federal Police in 2000.105 The AFP had raided his house as part of what Dr Dorling describes as a witch-hunt; it seems they were seeking to trace the source of some leaked documents.106 No charges were laid. The AFP raided his house again in 2008 in another apparent quest for leaked documents. Again, no charges were laid.107 Unable to find work in Canberra, Dr Dorling set himself up as a journalist in 2008, specialising in analysis of official secrets.108 Dr Dorlings method is simple: First, he gets his hands on official documents. He has received many documents from Julian Assange, with whom he entered into an arrangement that apparently gave him some sort of exclusivity to Wikileaks material.109 He receives other documents directly from government on the basis of freedom of information requests. And it seems the AFP has on a couple of occasions suspected that he has obtained official documents illegally, although, as noted above, he has never been charged with any offence. Second, having obtained his documents, Dr Dorling then proceeds to misrepresent their contents for salacious and sensational effect. Third, he then hoards the documents and does what he can to prevent any independent scrutiny or review of his work. Fairfax is quite okay with Dr Dorlings methods. In a recent email to me, Mark Baker of Fairfax told me that Dr Dorling is an employee of Fairfax and a very experienced and highly-regarded one.110 I can only imagine that Mr Baker tolerates Dr Dorling because Dorlings instinct for the sensational and his willingness to bend the truth in pursuit of a story sells papers. I think Fairfaxs tolerance betrays poor judgment; Dr Dorling routinely misleads his readers, and, contrary to Bakers assertion that Dorling is highly regarded, his competence and honesty have been called into question on numerous occasions. If Fairfax were a responsible news organisation, it would realise how dangerous a buffoon such as Dorling is to their reputation, and how irresponsible it is for them to give Dorling free reign. According to a 2009 US embassy cable that was released by Wikileaks, Stephen Merchant, Australias Deputy Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, spoke to US embassy officials to emphatically deny the substance of some adverse reporting by Dr Dorling: Merchant intimated the episode was a fabrication by a journalist [Dr Dorling] known for distorting the truth Mr. Merchant explained that the original articles pertaining to DSD's alleged involvement in spying on the minister were penned by Canberra Times journalist Philip Dorling. Dorling, according to Merchant, is no stranger to yellow journalism; he is especially known for investigative journalism efforts to discredit the government 23

(regardless of the party in power). He's been proven wrong in several of his investigative journalist forays. He's begun admitting in his more recent articles that he was wrong about the DSD angle, but has buried such admissions at the end of long pieces. Mr. Merchant was deliberate--and emphatic--in stressing the history of sensational media reporting, especially with regard to defense and intelligence issues. He made a point of differentiating this episode from other stories, specifically drawing a line between a media culture of selective "leaks" versus outright fiction in the form of "mischief making."111 The contents of this cable only came to light when Wikileaks itself made it available in August 2011. What is truly amazing, however, is the fact that Fairfax allowed Dr Dorling himself to report on this very cable some months earlier, on 14 December 2010, and Dorling did so without so much as mentioning the sharp personal criticisms levelled directly against him. Instead, in reporting on the cable Dorling selectively quoted the document in order to avoid any indication that he had been personally criticised and so as to generally present himself and his reporting in the least unfavourable light. Here is how Dr Dorling reported on that cable: Mr Merchant also criticised Fairfax journalists. Mr Merchant was deliberate and emphatic in stressing the history of sensational media reporting... [but] other aspects of the press articles pertaining to the 16-year relationship between Fitzgibbon and Australian based, Chinese born Helen Liu aka Liu Haiyan remain noteworthy.112 That is an egregious and wilful misrepresentation of what the cable said. Merchant did not criticise Fairfax journalists; he criticised exactly one Fairfax journalist Dr Philip Dorling. And Merchant did not merely refer to a general history of sensational media reporting. He quite specifically accused Dr Dorling of yellow journalism, and Merchant made a point of differentiating this episode, which he described as an example of outright fiction in the form of mischief making. Instead of telling his readers the truth, Dorling cherry-picked the cable to make it appear as anodyne as possible. It is self-evidently dishonest and unethical for Fairfax not to disclose to its readers the inherent conflict of interest that arises when a journalist such as Dr Dorling reports on events in which Dr Dorling himself plays a central role. I read in your newspaper, Chris, that Mark Baker had defended Dr Dorlings reporting on this cable, and Baker seems to have no issue with Dr Dorlings conflicted reporting.113 If that is the case, then Mr Baker obviously does not understand the basic ethical obligations of a journalist. In my dealings with Mr Baker, he has been flippant about Dorlings defects as a journalist, and I find it disappointing but unsurprising to hear of Bakers breezy attitude towards Dorlings ethical lapses as regards reporting on the WikiLeaks cables. To be fair, it seems that Dr Dorling sometimes misleads through simple incompetence rather than intentionally. The result is the same, however: he deceives his readers and misses the true story. A typical example of Dr Dorlings bungling is his 27 September 2012 effort, published in the Sydney Morning Herald under the headline, US calls Assange enemy of state. As the headline suggests, Dorlings thesis is that documents he had obtained show that the US military 24

has designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as enemies of the United States the same legal category as the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban insurgency.114 Dorlings article is sheer bunkum and twaddle, based on abject ignorance of widely reported aspects of the legal theory behind WikiLeaks-related prosecution of Private Bradley Manning. At the time Dr Dorling wrote his article, it had already been common knowledge and the subject of a great deal of press comment around the world for more than a year and a half since March 2011, to be precise that Manning has been charged with the offence of aiding the enemy, which includes not only direct communication with the enemy but also, as a reading of the relevant statute makes clear, indirect communication with the enemy.115 It is well known to people who have been following the story that the controversial legal theory underpinning Mannings prosecution is an argument that when Manning gave material to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, Manning knew that the information communicated could ultimately be made public by WikiLeaks and thereby indirectly made available to the enemy, i.e. al Qaeda or the Taliban. Contrary to Dr Dorlings assertion, the US governments theory, as reflected in the documents that were the subject of his article, is not that Assange or WikiLeaks are themselves the enemy for the purposes of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are the enemy. Julian Assange is not the enemy referred to in the charges laid against military personnel who have given information to WikiLeaks; he is merely the conduit for the information passing to Americas enemies. So it is absolutely untrue to say that the US has designated Assange or WikiLeaks as an enemy of the state. Dr Dorlings entire article is based on ignorance of the law and what other, more competent journalists had accurately reported about the case more than a year and half earlier. Thus in an effort to grasp a sensational but false story US calls Assange an enemy of the state!!! Dr Dorling and his handlers at Fairfax completely missed the less sensational but much more important true story, namely that the US government might consider a leak of a military secret to any person (whether Wikileaks or The New York Times) to amount to indirect communication with the enemy, which is a capital offence.116 It reflects poorly on Fairfax Media that their designated expert on all things WikiLeaks Dr Phillip Dorling has such a shaky grasp of the basic facts relating to the situation. One would have thought that a serious news organisation would want to get this story right. Dr Dorling followed his standard MO get some documents, misrepresent their contents and then try to hide them from inspection when he decided to write about John Wheeldon. On 23 April 2011, Fairfax papers around Australia published not one but two articles by Dr Dorling that were based on his analysis of the recently released ASIO files that I discussed above relating to Sir Charles Sprys 1 February 1968 briefing of John Gorton about Cecile Arnaud and John Wheeldon.117 Just as Mark Aarons had done before him, Dr Dorling intentionally misrepresented the substance of the ASIO files and failed to disclose material that did not support his chosen narrative. Aarons probably set out to boost the reputation of his father Laurie at the expense of my father; Dr Dorlings only detectable motive was prurience and sensationalism. But neither Aarons nor Dorling could be said to have acted in furtherance of anything that could be considered a serious or good faith exploration of the real and substantial issues raised by the ASIO materials.

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Strangely, Dr Dorling would have us all believe that when the Australian Federal Police twice obtained search-warrants for his own premises, that was an unjustified overreach by federal security authorities a witch-hunt as he put it. But he nonetheless presents every last smear and innuendo contained in the ASIO files that mention John Wheeldon as truth. Chris, I wont waste your time with a detailed rebuttal of each of Dorlings misstatements if he disputes the reasonableness of my characterisation of him as incompetent, dishonest, unethical and untrustworthy, I strongly urge him to commence a defamation action against me so that we can settle it in a court of law but Ill just list a few points: First, nowhere in the thousands of words Dorling spends discussing John Wheeldon across two articles does he even mention the Hope Royal Commission or its adverse findings against Sir Charles Spry. Instead, Dorling unquestioningly assumes the validity of Sprys failed smear job. Thoroughly embracing Spry and his discredited methods, Dorling concludes: Certainly Wheeldon's involvement with Arnaud appears consistent with the role of an intelligence ''talent scout'', a person used to identify and study individuals who may be recruited as intelligence sources an agent-navodchik, in the operational parlance of the KGB. What a ridiculous statement from this wanna-be James Bond. Dorling is a coward: he would never have dared to make such a preposterous accusation during my fathers lifetime. Second, Dorling presents every statement attributed to Ms Arnaud as certain truth, and he dishonestly fails to acknowledge the existence of the June 1974 ASIO Minute Paper discussed above. The 1974 Minute Paper destroys the entire foundation of Dorlings silly theory. It is prominently located in Ms Arnauds file, and Dorling deliberately ignored it when he was writing his hatchet-job. Third, Dorling does not acknowledge that it has been known for years that Spry had tried to smear John Wheeldon, or that it is also common knowledge that Sir John Gorton defended John Wheeldon against Spry. Instead, this is what Dr Dorling tells his readers: Whether Gorton was tempted to exploit the affair to embarrass the Labor Party is not known. That is utter drivel. As discussed above, Gortons position as regards Wheeldon and Spry is very well known: Wheeldon was Gortons friend, and Gorton thought Spry was an unreliable stumble bum. Gortons defence of Wheeldon against Spry was explicitly discussed in an obituary that Fairfax itself published for John Wheeldon in 2006, but it was ignored by Dorling.118 Fourth, Dorling makes a misleading reference in his articles to an August 1977 records review by ASIO of Wheeldons file.119 He does not tell his readers that this review does not so much as refer to Sprys accusations against Wheeldon. Clearly, by 1977 ASIO itself considered Sprys claims to be unworthy of even a mention as part of a review of Wheeldons file, but Dorling dishonestly implies that ASIO as of 1977 still thought there was something to it. 26

Fifth, Dorling repeatedly says that Cecile Arnaud was a diplomat, when her ASIO file makes it abundantly clear that she was no such thing.120 I cannot conceive of any honest explanation for how Dr Dorling got such a basic fact wrong. Of course, falsely describing Ms Arnaud as a diplomat adds some lustre to his breathless tale of cloak-and-dagger shenanigans. Sixth, Dorling says that John Wheeldon quickly embarked on an affair with Ms Arnaud, when he must know that there is no basis in the evidence to say that with certainty. I am not saying that there was no affair I dont know what happened but I do say that it was dishonest for Dr Dorling to represent to his readers that the files established this as a certain fact. Dorlings sensational and salacious intent is as obvious as his disregard for the truth. Seventh, Dorling repeatedly implied in his articles that John Wheeldon was a liar and a moral hypocrite, and he explicitly says that Wheeldon was involved in a in a sex-espionage scandal. Dorlings insinuations that Wheeldon was a hypocrite are despicable and cowardly. John Wheeldon was separated from his first wife and had not met his second wife when he met Ms Arnaud. Further, Wheeldon was not a scold. His only political view on issues such as divorce or adultery was that regulation of private household matters was in no way the business of the secular state. So contrary to Dr Dorlings salacious insinuations, even if John Wheeldon did have a physical relationship with Ms Arnaud, which is far from proven, in no way did this relationship amount to a betrayal of anyone, or a lie, or scandalous behaviour of either a public or personal nature. Eighth, Dr Dorling made no effort to obtain my views on the matter, despite referring to me by name in one of his articles. Clearly he had no interest in giving a balanced account; he was only interested in maximising the sensational impact of his slanderous attack on John Wheeldons integrity. Philip Dorling is an unethical coward. When he reported on the classified US embassy cable in which he himself was mentioned, he lied to his readers and obscured facts in order to minimise the damage to his own reputation. On the other hand, when he reported on declassified documents in which Senator John Wheeldon was mentioned, he again lied to his readers and obscured facts but this time in order to bolster his fatuous claims of a sex-espionage scandal. Dr Dorling has refused even to tell me what documentary materials he used in preparing his articles. I consider his deliberate efforts to evade scrutiny of his research to be inconsistent with responsible journalism. And I am absolutely disgusted, Chris, that you and your newspaper have allowed this incompetent, dishonest buffoon to defame John Wheeldon with impunity. Dorlings facile slanders are simple to demolish, yet The Australian has not made the least effort to defend the reputation of its former senior editorialist, or even to discuss the issues with any degree of diligence or honesty. I actually had a telephone conversation with your reporter Sid Maher sometime after Dorling published his hit-pieces on John Wheeldon, and Sid said he would get back to me about doing a story responding to what Dorling had written about The Australians former Associate Editor. Of course I never heard another word from him.

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Chris, I am depressed and appalled by what this whole affair says about the state of journalism in Australia today. Both Fairfax Media and The Australian have portrayed John Wheeldon as a fundamentally dishonest and deceptive man who lied about his political beliefs for decades. You the Australian print media have made Wheeldon out to be a charlatan and a traitor. You and Fairfax have insinuated that he was effectively an agent of the Soviet Union. It is hard to imagine a more serious set of charges that could be levelled against a public servant. There has not been the least attempt by any of you to engage seriously or honestly with the underlying documents or the issues raised. And this about a man who was himself a senior journalist and politician, and a personal friend of Rupert Murdoch; what chance does any ordinary citizen have when you the print media will so casually defame a man such as John Wheeldon? While I thoroughly disagree with the concept of press regulation, I understand the sentiment of those who are repelled by your wanton disregard for the truth and feel that you the print media can not be trusted to deal honestly with important issues. And your slanders of John Wheeldon are all the more degrading of what passes for serious political discussion in this country in that it is hard to think of any Australian politician who has had a better reputation for frankness and honesty in his conduct and in his political speech than Wheeldon did. He was a human being and he had his faults, but by all accounts he was particularly regarded for his intellectual honesty. Prime Minister Howard told Parliament after John Wheeldons death: [John Wheeldon] was in every sense of the word an independent intellect. You could not predict him. Although I naturally did not share all of his positions on the issues on which he spoke, he took what can fairly be described as a very intellectually honest position.121 Kim Beazley Jr agreed: He was a politician of a completely different era, with a completely different standard of intellectual honesty and an absolute determination to be his own man and to speak his own mind.122 Tony Abbott said he was a man of rare moral courage who annoyed lesser men because he thought that truth was more important than diplomacy. 123 As noted above, Greg Sheridan spoke of Wheeldons unshakable moral courage, and said that he was never a man to hold a fashionable, or even the career-advancing, opinion He thought about every issue on its merits.124 I am not suggesting that Wheeldon had a perfect reputation, and nor am I saying that it is wrong to speak ill of the dead. Senator John Faulkner, when speaking to the Senates condolence motion, said that as his political career lengthened, Wheeldon would be considered more a dilettante, undisciplined, less than engaged in the political process and more carping than constructive in his criticism of colleagues and party. Faulkner went on to say that John Wheeldon did not apply his extraordinary talents with discipline and dedication and that he did not fulfil his political promise.125 Faulkners criticisms strike me as entirely appropriate sorts of things to say about a public figure a politician when summing up his career for the benefit of Hansard.

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But Senator Faulkner also acknowledged that Wheeldon held strong views and beliefs and he had the courage to express those views He was his own man. 126 My aim here, Chris, is not to say that my father was beyond reproach, or to argue that adverse yet honest press coverage of public figures is inappropriate, but rather to point out that the claims of your newspaper and of the Fairfax press that Wheeldon lied for years about his true beliefs and true allegiances contradicts his universal reputation among his colleagues. At a time when honesty in politics is in such short supply, it is just contemptible that a pair of hacks like Mark Aarons and Dr Dorling would have set out to slander John Wheeldon, of all men, as dishonest, and that they would have used such pathetic, discredited evidence to do so, and I cannot begin to convey my disgust that The Australian would be such an enthusiastic participant in the whole fraudulent performance. Peter Coleman said it best: It is disappointing that The Australian has remained silent on the revival by the Fairfax papers of the scandalous allegation that the late John Wheeldon for 14 years The Australians principal adviser on foreign affairs and one of Rupert Murdochs sources on Australian politics had been a Soviet spy. Indeed, if you follow the Fairfax papers, Wheeldon must have been one of the greatest spies in Australia, if not the world: a Soviet agent in the Senate, in the Whitlam ministry and in the United Nations, not to mention the Murdoch press. I disagreed with Wheeldon on many issues, but it is outrageous that he should be so grossly defamed.127 Its over to you now, Chris. Yours faithfully

James Wheeldon
cc: Mr Rupert Murdoch Chairman and Chief Executive Officer News Corporation 1211 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10036 United States of America Mr Kim Williams Chief Executive Officer News Limited 2 Holt Street Surry Hills NSW 2010 Mr Paul Kelly Editor-at-Large The Australian 2 Holt Street Surry Hills NSW 2010

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Endnotes
1

The covert comrades in the ALP, by Mark Aarons, The Australian, 3 July 2010. Available online at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/the-covert-comrades-in-the-alp/story-e6frg6zo-1225887087909 See, for example, the Fourth Report of the Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security (RCIS), Vol III at paragraphs 491 492. See The RCIS An insiders perspective, an address by Mr George Brownbill, former Secretary to the RCIS, on the occasion of the public release of the records of the RCIS. Available online at: http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/publications/papers-andpodcasts/intelligence-and-security/rcis-brownbill.aspx Wheeldons wit, intelligence remembered, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 June 2006. Available online at: http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Wheeldons-wit-intelligence-remembered/2006/06/02/1148956534878.html A complete original with wit and wisdom, by Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 26 May 2006. Available on the internet at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/133796755/Greg-Sheridan-Wheeldon-Obit A secret past worth uncovering, editorial, The Australian, 7 July 2010. Available online at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/a-secret-past-worth-uncovering/story-e6frg71x-1225888697123 See http://www.theaustralian.com.au/help/editorial-code-of-conduct See for example Former ALP minister Arthur Gietzelt's alleged secret life, by Troy Bramston, The Australian, 5 January 2013. Available online at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/former-alp-minister-arthur-gietzelts-alleged-secretlife/story-e6frg6z6-1226547567267 The headlines chosen by Fairfax for these articles hints at the sensational impact that was sought: The Labor senator, the French consort and the KGB, by Philip Dorling, The Saturday Age, 22 April 2011. This article had the all caps strapline: REVEALED: SECRET ASIO FILES EXPOSE AUSTRALIAS OWN PROFUMO AFFAIR. Available online at: http://www.theage.com.au/frontpage/2011/04/23/frontpage.pdf and at http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-labor-senator-the-french-consort-and-the-kgb-20110422-1drjf.html Spies, lies and archives, by Philip Dorling, The Saturday Age, 22 April 2011. Available online at: http://www.theage.com.au/national/spies-lies-and-archives-20110422-1drfm.html Senator's reds-in-beds foreign affair, by Philip Dorling, The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 April 2011. Available online at: http://www.smh.com.au/national/senators-redsinbeds-foreign-affair-20110422-1drj3.html Sex, spies and Labor senator exposed in security files, by Philip Dorling, The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 April 2011. Available online at: http://www.smh.com.au/national/sex-spies-and-labor-senator-exposed-in-security-files-201104221drgh.html#ixzz2PJQIt4sR

7 8

10

See, for example: http://www.danbymp.com/recent/1548-assange-more-bazza-mckenzie-than-bakunin.html http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/fairfax-got-its-facts-wrong-reporting-from-wikileaks-cable/storyfn59niix-1225972992028 http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=09CANBERRA336

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Email from James Wheeldon to Gail Hambly, general counsel of Fairfax Media, 1 May 2011. See http://www.scribd.com/doc/134563028/Article-for-Fairfax-20-June-J-Wheeldon Email from Mark Baker to James Wheeldon, 24 June 2011. Email from Mark Baker to James Wheeldon, 29 June 2011. Email from Mark Baker to James Wheeldon, 29 June 2011. See for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjmjqlOPd6A Fourth Report of the RCIS, Vol III, paragraph 491 Fourth Report of the RCIS, Vol III, paragraph 492. Fourth Report of the RCIS, Vol III, at paragraph 719. See http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/publications/papers-and-podcasts/intelligence-and-security/rcis-brownbill.aspx Interview of Mark Aarons by Mark Colvin, PM, ABC Radio, 5 July 2010. Transcript available online at: http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2010/s2945312.htm

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John Wheeldon, ex-Liberal, ex-Labor, is still a moving target, by James McLelland, The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 April 1986. Available online at: http://tinyurl.com/d2x33p9 Senate Hansard, 30 March 1966. Available online at: http://tinyurl.com/d937sbg Senate Hansard, 27 March 1969. Available online at: http://tinyurl.com/cb6njsk Senate Hansard, 18 November 1965. Available online at: http://tinyurl.com/bm3m9f5 Senate Hansard, 19 March 1969. Available online at: http://tinyurl.com/clq2knf Senate Hansard, 5 November 1968. Available online at: http://tinyurl.com/cpqf4s9 Senate Hansard, 9 October 1968. Available online at: http://tinyurl.com/cck5c4m WHEELDON, John Murray (1929-2006), by Bobbie Oliver, in The Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate, Vol 3, Ann Millar and Geoffrey Browne (eds), University of New South Wales, 2010, pp 517-8. Senate Hansard, 17 May 1967. Available online at: http://tinyurl.com/ca88yc4 The Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate, Vol 3, p 517. See, for example, Wheeldons 1997 address to the Samuel Griffith Society, Federalism: One of Democracys Best Friends. Available online at: http://www.samuelgriffith.org.au/papers/html/volume8/v8chap9.htm The Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate, pp 515-6. House of Representatives Hansard, 30 May 2006. Available online at http://www.scribd.com/doc/133776920/Hansard-Houseof-Reps-Condolences The Witless Men, Don Whitington, Sun Books, 1975, p 78 Senate Hansard, 19 March 1969. Available online at: http://tinyurl.com/clq2knf See, for example, Senate Hansard of 27 August 1968. Available online at: http://tinyurl.com/cqqkbae Senate Hansard, 10 September 1969. Available online at: http://tinyurl.com/cvtmxl4 After the Party, by Barry Cohen, Penguin Books, 1988, p 75. Senate Hansard, 6 September 1967. Available online at: http://tinyurl.com/bw4vwub House of Representatives Hansard, 30 May 2006. Available online at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/133776928/Hansard-SenateCondolences John Wheeldon, ex-Liberal, ex-Labor, is still a moving target, by James McLelland, The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 April 1986. Available online at: http://tinyurl.com/d2x33p9 A complete original with wit and wisdom, by Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 26 May 2006. Available on the internet at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/133796755/Greg-Sheridan-Wheeldon-Obit Mark Aarons, The Family File, Black Inc., 2010, p ix. For a thorough discussion of this incident, see Ian Hancock, John Gorton: He Did It His Way, Hodder, 2002, pp 190-192 See Notes of Discussion: Prime Minister, Mr J.G. GORTON / Director-General of Security, 12 September 1968. Available online at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/133778069/Spry-Memo-12-September-1968 John Gorton: He Did It His Way, pp 192. Ibid. Quoted in Peter Butt, In defence of I, Spry, The Drum Opinion, 3 November 2010. Available online at: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/40694.html This file (the Arnaud File) is accessible through the National Archives website. For ease of reference, I have uploaded a copy of the Arnaud File as made available through the naa.gov.au website at the following address: http://www.scribd.com/doc/133778819/Cecile-Arnaud-Hartmann-ASIO-File Arnaud File, p. 34. Arnaud File, p. 41. Arnaud File, p. 41. Arnaud File, p. 54.

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30 31 32

33 34

35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42

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44 45 46

47 48 49

50

51 52 53 54

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55 56 57 58 59

See for example Arnaud File at pages 66-68. See for example Arnaud File at pages 29-31. See for example Arnaud File at p. 18. Arnaud File, p 28. A heavily redacted version of Sprys note to Gorton is contained in the Arnaud File at pp 29-31. I have made a less heavily redacted version of the note (the Spry Note) available online at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/133780635/Spry-Note-forGorton-1-February-1968 Spry Note, p 3. Spry Note, p 2. Spry Note, p 3. Spry Note, p 3. Spry Note, p 3. This Minute Paper is contained in the Arnaud File at p 14. I have uploaded the Minute Paper separately at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/133781371/ASIO-Minute-Paper-24-June-1974 I have John Wheeldons ASIO file (the Wheeldon File), as made publicly available through the National Archives website, available online at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/133781898/John-Wheeldon-ASIO-File See for example the Wheeldon File at p 15. The Wheeldon File at p 21. House of Representatives Hansard, 30 May 2006. Available online at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/133776928/Hansard-SenateCondolences Erudite senator from the Whitlam days, obituary, The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 May 2006. Available online at: http://www.smh.com.au/news/obituaries/erudite-senator-from-the-whitlamdays/2006/05/28/1148754869322.html?page=fullpage The covert comrades in the ALP, ibid. The Family File, Black Inc., 2010. See, for example, The Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate, Vol 3, at p 520. House of Representatives Hansard, 30 May 2006. Available online at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/133776920/Hansard-Houseof-Reps-Condolences See for example Erudite senator from the Whitlam days, obituary, The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 May 2006. Available online at: http://www.smh.com.au/news/obituaries/erudite-senator-from-the-whitlamdays/2006/05/28/1148754869322.html?page=fullpage The Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate, ibid., at p 520. The Family File, p 302. The covert comrades in the ALP, ibid. I have made this file (the Sam Aarons File) available on the internet at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/133785471/Sam-AaronsASIO-File Sam Aarons File. The following account of Keith Dowdings career is taken from Crusader for politics of good, obituary, The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 October 2008. Available online at: http://www.smh.com.au/news/obituaries/crusader-for-politics-ofgood/2008/10/06/1223145260054.html Ibid. at paragraph 179. Ibid. at paragraph 219. Ibid. at paragraph 221. RCIS Fourth Report, Volume III, at paragraph 582. Ibid. at paragraph 722.

60 61 62 63 64 65

66

67 68 69

70

71 72 73 74

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76 77 78 79

80 81

82 83 84 85 86

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87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

The Family File, p 302. See Sam Aarons File, at p 2. The Family File, p 302. The Family File, p 40. See the Wheeldon File, p 40. Covert comrades in the ALP; The Family File, p 302. The Family File, p 303. Email from Mark Aarons to James Wheeldon, 6 July 2010. Michael Easson, Red Confession with a Twist, Quadrant, September 2010. Available online at: http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2010/9/red-confession-with-a-twist Email from Mark Aarons to James Wheeldon, 6 July 2010. Peter Coleman, Australian Notes, The Spectator, 17 July 2010. Available online at: http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/6163618/australian-notes-92/ Mark Aarons, Holes in Carr's revisionist history, The Australian, 7 July 2010. Available online at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/holes-in-carrs-revisionist-history/story-e6frg6zo-1225888685802 Available online at: http://blip.tv/slowtv/mark-aarons-on-his-family-file-3935335 Ibid. Wheeldon File, p 47. RCIS Fourth Report, Vol III at paragraph 581. The covert comrades in the ALP; The Family File p 304. See endnote 9 above.

96 97

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100 101 102 103 104 105

Philip Dorling on leaks, whistleblowing, archives, access to information and the behaviour of governments, Transcript of talk by Dr Philip Dorling from a Recordkeeping Roundtable panel discussion, February 29 2012. Available online at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/133791999/Philip-Dorling-on-Leaks-Whistleblowing-Archives-Access-to-Information Philip Dorling, Secrets, lies and the perils of a whistleblower, The Age, 18 February 2012. Available online at: http://www.theage.com.au/national/secrets-lies-and-perils-of-a-whistleblower-20120217-1tecx.html Police raid journalists home, The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 September 2008. Available online at: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/police-raid-journalists-home/2008/09/23/1221935609095.html See Dorlings address to Recordkeeping Roundtable referred to in endnote 105 above.

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How I met Julian Assange and secured the American embassy cables, by Philip Dorling, The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 December 2010. Available online at: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/how-i-met-julian-assange-andsecured-the-american-embassy-cables-20101210-18sxj.html Email from Mark Baker to James Wheeldon, 27 March 2013.

110 111

AUSTRALIAN DEPSEC DENIES DSD INVESTIGATED DEFENSE MINISTER FITZGIBBON, US Embassy cable released through WikiLeaks, dated 3 April 2009. Available online at: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/04/09CANBERRA336.html Fitzgibbons fall declared a blessing in disguise, by Philip Dorling and Nick McKenzie, The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 December 2010. Available online at: http://www.smh.com.au/national/fitzgibbons-fall-declared-a-blessing-in-disguise20101213-18vjw.html Fairfax reporter was often proven wrong, says WikiLeaks cable, by Sid Maher, The Australian, 31 August 2011. Available online at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/fairfax-reporter-was-often-proven-wrong-says-wikileaks-cable/storye6frg996-1226125913098 US calls Assange enemy of state, by Philip Dorling, The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 September 2012. Available online at: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/us-calls-assange-enemy-of-state-20120927-26m7s.html See for example the following detailed report published in The New York Times on 2 March 2011, some 19 months before Dorlings muddle-headed analysis of the same issue: Soldier faces 22 new WikiLeaks charges, by Charlie Savage, The New

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York Times, 2 March 2011. Available online at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/us/03manning.html?_r=2&ref=us&&pagewanted=all

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See for example Private Mannings Confidant, by Bill Keller, The New York Times, 10 March 2013. Available online at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/11/opinion/keller-private-mannings-confidant.html?pagewanted=all See endnote 9 above.

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Erudite senator from the Whitlam days, obituary, The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 May 2006. Available online at: http://www.smh.com.au/news/obituaries/erudite-senator-from-the-whitlamdays/2006/05/28/1148754869322.html?page=fullpage The ASIO security review document can be found in the Wheeldon file at p 20.

119 120

In her ASIO file, Ms Arnaud is variously described as a journalist, a writer, a novelist and a secretary but never once as a diplomat. In fact the file expressly states that she was in no way a regular member of the French Foreign Service; Arnaud File at p 41. House of Representatives Hansard, 30 May 2006. Available online at http://www.scribd.com/doc/133776920/Hansard-Houseof-Reps-Condolences House of Representatives Hansard, 30 May 2006. Available online at http://www.scribd.com/doc/133776920/Hansard-Houseof-Reps-Condolences House of Representatives Hansard, 30 May 2006. Available online at http://www.scribd.com/doc/133776920/Hansard-Houseof-Reps-Condolences A complete original with wit and wisdom, by Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 26 May 2006. Available on the internet at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/133796755/Greg-Sheridan-Wheeldon-Obit Senate Hansard, 13 June 2006. Available online at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/133776928/Hansard-Senate-Condolences Senate Hansard, 13 June 2006. Available online at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/133776928/Hansard-Senate-Condolences

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Peter Coleman, Australian Notes, The Spectator, 7 May 2011. Available online at: http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/6919253/australian-notes-52/

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