Alan Douglas Joseph Reid (19 December 1914 – 1 September 1987), nicknamed the Red Fox,[1] was an Australian political journalist, who worked in the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery from 1937 to 1985.
[1] After leaving school, he did several odd jobs in the outback regions of New South Wales and Queensland, until he was hired as a copy boy for The Sun, Sydney's afternoon newspaper, by Robert Clyde Packer.
Reid commented favourably on his decisiveness after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and developed a close relationship with both Curtin and the Labor prime minister Ben Chifley.
Reid initially resented his efforts to limit media access to sensitive information, and in 1954 he published an article claiming that the announcement of the Petrov Affair was orchestrated to coincide with Labor leader H. V. Evatt's absence from Canberra.
A. Santamaria, writing, "In the tense melodrama of politics there are mysterious figures who stand virtually unnoticed in the wings, invisible to all but a few of the audience, as they cue, Svengali-like, among the actors out on the stage."
[2] In his book The Power Struggle, Reid alleged that Governor-General Richard Casey had improperly intervened in political affairs by preventing McMahon from becoming prime minister after Holt's death.
The manuscript was found in Reid's papers at the Mitchell Library by his biographer Ross Fitzgerald, who edited it and arranged its publication over 27 years after the author's death.