[9][4][3] Whitlam's threat to not renew the lease on the Pine Gap facility was allegedly seen by the CIA as compromising the integrity of intelligence operations pertaining to the satellite projects Rhyolite and Argus, used for monitoring and surveillance of missile launch sites in the Soviet Union and China,[10] which were unknown to the Australian government at the time despite a blanket sharing agreement between the two countries.
[11][8][12] The action of an unelected representative sacking an elected Prime Minister and replacing him with a caretaker prime minister caused the 1975 Australian Constitutional Crisis, referred to by Australian Labor Party and former Member of the House of Representatives Peter Staples as "the most blatant act of external interference in Australia's affairs and its autonomy as a nation and a democracy".
[8] On 9 December 1966,[13] the United States and Australia signed a treaty titled "Agreement between the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia and the Government of the United States of America relating to the Establishment of a Joint Defence Space Research Facility",[13] which was signed by Australia's Paul Hasluck and America's Edwin M. Cronk, detailing that a facility would be established in Pine Gap, ran jointly between ARPA (US) and the Australian Department of Defence, and which was created ostensibly "a facility for general defence research in the space field",[13] which would later be revealed by spy Christopher Boyce as a CIA satellite base, which operated as a relay for information from spy satellites under the programs named Rhyolite and Argus.
[15] On 23 December 1968, The Canberra Times wrote a summary of an article stating that Cooksey had used technical journals on ballistic missile technology to inform his work, and that originally Pine Gap was conceived as an orbital bombardment system but was abandoned following the 27 January 1967 Outer Space Treaty signed between the USSR and the United States,[16] prohibiting "plac[ing] nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station[ing] them in outer space in any other manner".
[15] During 1969, the topic of Pine Gap was widely discussed among politicians, the public and the press in Australia, with most criticism of the base being around the secrecy, lack of transparency and the risk its perceived role as a spying station played in placing Australia at risk of nuclear attack from the Soviet Union or China based on its political alignment with the United States.
[21] On 12 May 1969, The Canberra Times reported that Lance Barnard attacked the Liberal Party government for not allowing them to access Pine Gap, but that the facility was open for United States Senators to visit should they wish to do so.
The liberal parties in Australia focused on the need to contain and limit communism, but did not completely withdraw troops from Vietnam, and opposition to relations with China.
On 5 December 1972, the McMahon government dissolved, and an interim government was established from 5 to 19 December, formed of Whitlam, the leader of the Labor Party, and the deputy leader, Lance Barnard, who shared between them 27 positions in a duumvirate, due to complexities with the process of selecting ministers within the Labor Party's bylaws, Whitlam could only allocate positions, which he did to himself (13) and Barnard (14).
[3] In the realm of diplomacy and public affairs, Whitlam's government moved towards placing Australia within the Non-Aligned Movement, and expressed support for the Zone of peace in the Indian Ocean, which was opposed by the United States, and gave diplomatic recognition to China, Cuba, North Korea, and East Germany.
[34] Whitlam government ministers, including Jim Cairns, Clyde Cameron and Tom Uren, criticised the US bombing of North Vietnam at the end of 1972.
[35][36] In March 1973, US assistant secretary of State William Rogers told Richard Nixon that "the leftists [within the Labor Party would] try to throw overboard all military alliances and eject our highly classified US defence space installations from Australia".
[34] In a statement to parliament on 3 April 1974, Whitlam said: "The Australian government takes the attitude that there should not be foreign military bases, stations, installations in Australia.
In October 1975, Whitlam asked the Department of Foreign Affairs for a list of all declared CIA officials in Australia for the past 10 years, information to which he was entitled.
Whitlam stated when being fired that he would contact the Queen, to which Kerr responded that he had already signed the papers for his dismissal and he was no longer Prime Minister, despite being elected by the people of Australia.
Kerr later cited this, stating: "There is a grey area, or twilight zone for personal discretion about the seriousness of the situation warranting a forced dissolution.
[42] - Sir John Kerr, 11th November 1975 in correspondence with John KerrIn a letter from 24 November 1975 to the Private Secretary Martin Charteris, Baron Charteris of Amisfield, Kerr noted that there was a particular feeling among the people of rage at his decision to sack Whitlam,[42] and cited that he felt a majority of people supported his position, later citing a study of only swing voters.
When mentioning the suggestion that he should face people who had demanded, he stated simply that he must remain silent,[42] referring back to the article which was written about him by John Ashbolt[42] calling him as "mad as George III".
The CIA And Whitlam's Dismissal", which he obliquely denied[42] stating that the article "in an absurdly tenuous way [suggested] that the C.I.A conceivably might have been associated with events here",[42] concluding that:"At no stage in my military career, in the last war, nor before or since that time, have I ever had direct or indirect connections with Intelligence organisations".
[48] In early November 1975, the Australian Financial Review wrote that Richard Lee Stallings, a former CIA officer, had been channelling money to Anthony, a friend and former landlord.
[5] In the 1950s, Kerr was a member of the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, which was exposed in 1967 by the U.S. Congress as being founded, funded, and "generally run" by the CIA.
[55] Kwitny, quoting former CIA officer Victor Marchetti, that the Asia Foundation, its funder, "often served as a cover for clandestine operations [though] its main purpose was to promote the spread of ideas which were anti-communist and pro-American.
Kerr invoked long-disused penal powers under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, which were used to imprison the Victorian State Secretary of the then Australian Tramway and Motor Omnibus Employees' Association, and communist, Clarrie O'Shea, for contempt of court for refusing to pay $8,100 AUD, fines which had accumulated since January 1966 due to Clarrie's fight for equal pay and recognition for female train workers.
[63] Former Aboriginal Affairs advisor for the Whitlam government and writer, Dick Hall, wrote in his book "The Secret State",[64] that following on from Whitlam's refusal to vet his staff through the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), a CIA agent and US Embassy Political Officer stated "Your Prime Minister has just cut off one of his options,[64] with Pilger referencing a 1988 interview of William Pinwill in the program "The Last Dream" that a CIA officer (Frank Snepp) had told him that the Australians "might as well be regarded as North Vietnamese collaborators".
[65] The dossier also claimed that Cairns' wished for a populist, participatory democracy and aimed to bring about the downfall of the parliament through the use of student actions and non-violent political action, referring to the concept as "the supremacy of the will of the people", which it claimed was a re-formulation of the Communist Party of Australia's similar program to establish participatory democracy and worker control of industry through similar means, [65] due to the fact that Cairns had contributed to the Australian Left Review in May 1971.
[66] As subsequent interview to Australian TV program 60 Minutes, detailed that TWD relayed messages between the United States and the Pine Gap facility in the northern territory in Australia.
The contents of the Telex were:TOP SECRET Following message received from ASIO liaison officer Washington: Begins: For Director General.
On 4 November the U.S. Embassy in Australia approached the Australian Government at the highest level and categorically denied that CIA had given money to the National Country Party or its leader, nor any other U.S. Government agency had given or passed funds to an organisation or candidate for political office in Australia and to this effect was delivered to Roland at (DFA) Department of Foreign Affairs Canberra on 5 November.
On November 6, the Prime Minister publicly repeated the allegation that he knew of two instances in which CIA money had been used to influence domestic Australian politics.
"[73] Several journalists, historians and political commentators have endorsed the theory that the CIA was involved in Whitlam's dismissal, including John Pilger,[7] William Blum,[4] Joan Coxsedge[74] Jonathan Kwitny[75] and Jordan Shanks.
[79] In 2015, Australian diplomatic and military historian Peter Edwards dismissed the claim that Kerr's action was instigated by US and UK intelligence agencies, which he called an "enduring conspiracy theory".