Former ASIS boss who came in from the cold | The Australian

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The nation's foreign intelligence service had an opponent by the name of Whitlam

IN the midst of the dismissal crisis in 1975, Gough Whitlam was not the avuncular grand old man and friend of Malcolm Fraser that he appears today in his rare public outings.

These were feverish times, when the Labor government was fighting for survival, when Labor ministers despised and feared the intelligence services and suspected the hand of the CIA and its Australian counterparts in their problems -- not without reason, as we discovered when the Hope investigation of ASIO was published 30-odd years later and revealed that organisation's depth of political partisanship and its active engagement against the ALP.

The intelligence agencies privately accused the Whitlam government of leaking their secrets -- and the cabinet of including communist sympathisers -- and they were mightily relieved by the departure of the Labor government. This attitude by the broad Australian intelligence community would hardly have relieved the paranoia at the highest levels of the Nixon administration and the CIA about the Whitlam government.

Under enormous stress, as the opposition led by Fraser broke parliamentary conventions to try to force the Labor government to an election, Whitlam was angry at the start of the meeting he called with Bill Robertson, and by the end of it he was enraged.

Such rages were objects of fear and wonder among Whitlam's inner circle. Graham Freudenberg, Whitlam's colleague and confidant, in his memoir A Figure of Speech, recalls that Whitlam "was given to gusts of rage and, literally, much gnashing of the teeth" (to the point where his bold staffer Barbara Stuart -- the grande dame of the office, according to Freudenberg -- pinned on the office noticeboard a newspaper clipping that gave the medical definition of bruxism, or teeth-grinding).

Bill Morrison, his defence minister, has testified that he kept the shocking news about the Balibo Five -- the Australian journalists shot by invading Indonesian troops at the border town of Balibo in East Timor -- from Whitlam for five days because he was so engulfed by the supply crisis in the Senate. "It was on pain of death to go anywhere near his office at that stage," Morrison told the coronial inquest into the journalists' deaths.

Whitlam himself has written of the meeting with Robertson: "I have never had to dress anybody down so ferociously."

Robertson, in his archive note, says: "When I left the meeting, I was shocked and disgusted. I was shocked as I realised that I had been summarily and unfairly dismissed without any investigation of the facts, for an incident which had caused no political embarrassment; I was disgusted that anyone in Mr Whitlam's position could act in such an undignified manner in front of senior public officials."

But within a year Robertson knew he had had the last laugh, though he could not make a public point of it. He had pulled off a coup not to be boasted about, the kind much admired in the secret world. He'd turned Robert Hope into an ally, even an admirer.

His service was safe by then, indeed it was soon to be enlarged. His successor was a service professional, and not the outsider his minister had threatened to impose when he was sacked. His 25-year administration was praised by the royal commission. He was on the way to a new government security job, and a Queen's Birthday honours gong was his. Whitlam, by contrast, by February 1976 was engulfed in a further intelligence controversy when Henry Fischer, a man with connections to several intelligence agencies in the Middle East and probably the CIA, revealed in an exclusive report by Rupert Murdoch in The Australian that he had been an intermediary when the Baath party of Iraq proposed to provide Whitlam and the ALP with party funding, an adventure that permanently damaged Whitlam's reputation.

The chronology tells of Robertson's extraordinary comeback:

1974:

August: Justice Robert (Bob) Hope was appointed sole royal commissioner to carry out a comprehensive review of the entire intelligence community.

From the early days of the royal commission, Robertson built a close relationship with Hope. A special office and a personal safe with a combination of Hope's devising was provided for Hope at ASIS to hold his files, and he was invited to see officers alone: a distinct difference from interviews at ASIO, where an ASIO observer, often a lawyer, was always present. And Arthur Tange, secretary of defence, refused to brief Hope on US bases in Australia.

Robertson sent cables to the MI6 head Maurice Oldfield and CIA chief William Colby asking them to co-operate with Hope's inquiry, which they did to Hope's evident satisfaction in his repor, and presumably to the credit, in Hope's mind, of Robertson.

When the commission's secretary George Brownbill organised a "secure electronic perimeter" around the commission offices in West Block in Canberra, ASIO put up one, but Brownbill asked ASIS to install another inside the ASIO perimeter, an obvious indication of the relative faith the commission had in the two agencies and their chiefs.

1975:

October 21: Robertson is sacked by Whitlam. Robertson recalls: "He escorted me to the door, shook my hand, saying: `I will not be seeing you again.' " Whitlam telephones Hope to advise of the sacking. Hope is abroad. He has already heard from MI6 and the CIA of their respect for Robertson.

October 29: Robertson is advised over lunch by his former deputy R.W.L. (Dickie) Austin, by then a personal assistant to Rod Carnegie, the chief executive of mining house Conzinc Rio Tinto of Australia, that Malcolm Fraser is angry about his sacking. At Austin's request Robertson assists in preparing an aide memoire for Austin to give to the Coalition's foreign affairs spokesman Andrew Peacock. (Austin, an urbane and extremely well-connected ASIS officer and a former station chief in Japan, at one time headed the Rio Tinto office in Japan, which may or may not have puzzled the Japanese trade department and steel mills, as ASIS had a history of its agents being involved in trade and resources negotiations.)

November 7: Robertson formally leaves the service in the hands of his trusted deputy Ian Kennison, despite the government's threats to close it or impose an outsider.

Soon after, Robertson receives a warm note from Hope through the ASIS communications system, regretting his departure.

November 17: Robertson is doing jury service in a Melbourne court when the judge asks an associate to pass on a message to him. It is an invitation from Hope to join him at the ASIS staff Christmas party. Brownbill escorts the former director, now lacking a security pass, to the party. Robertson comments in his note: "The party was in full swing and I received a very warm reception. I was struck by the thoughtfulness of Mr Justice Hope's invitation and his demonstration of support."

This is less than a month after Hope was advised by the prime minister that Robertson has been sacked for misconduct.

1976:

January 6: In the new year, with Whitlam and the ALP crushed by the December election that gave Fraser a massive majority, Robertson lunches with the new foreign minister, Peacock. This, though Robertson does not say it, is another firm expression of support.

January 29: Lunch with Hope in his chambers where a position on the commission staff is discussed.

February 13: In Melbourne, Brownbill formally offers Robertson a position as consultant. Brownbill says the appointment has the approval of Fraser.

April: Robertson starts work with the royal commission -- according to one source, reading documents and draft proposals by the commission on his old service, and providing advice on relationships with foreign services and on certain aspects of service morale and work conditions.

June: Robertson adds a CBE -- Commander of the British Empire -- to the Military Cross and OBE after his name, in Fraser's first Queen's Birthday honours list.

December 24: Hope delivers his reports on ASIO and ASIS.

ASIO is found badly wanting and a complete reform and reconstruction is recommended. Following on from the Hope recommendations, a top ASIS officer, Harvey Barnett, in 1977 is made effective head of operations at ASIO, and later becomes director.

ASIS, Hope found, was "a singularly well-run and well-managed agency" -- vindication for Robertson. Hope, according to the leaked version of his report, said overseas posts should be expanded and it should be acknowledged that ASIS would break the law when operating in foreign countries. The new ASIS -- bigger, more confident and a fully accepted institution -- is conceived.

1979:

Some time later Hope, in severe judicial mode, interrogates Robertson -- though not on oath -- about the circumstances of his dismissal, and as a result of another Hope inquiry, Fraser appoints Robertson to head a new institution to co-ordinate anti-terrorism intelligence and training among federal and state authorities, the Protective Services Co-ordination Centre.

1983:

Bill Hayden, foreign minister and the supervisor of ASIS in the new Labor government of Bob Hawke, despite his past suspicions of the organisation, increases the staff and budget of the service.

2004:

Robertson is selected as one of a small official delegation of veterans to go to the celebrations in Normandy of D-Day, in which he participated after serving in New Guinea with distinction and winning the MC on Crete.

2008:

In the expurgated Hope reports that are released, the long reference to the sacking of Robertson is completely blacked out.

However, the affection Hope and his staff felt for Robertson is summed up by Brownbill: "In late 1975, Bill [Robertson] was unjustly dismissed by the then government. The judge [Hope] sought the incoming prime minister's agreement to our engaging Bill, who has a lifetime's experience of intelligence business. Mr Fraser agreed. I record with admiration and appreciation Bill's many contributions to the work of the [royal commission]."

2010:

Robertson is today seen as a founding father of ASIS. His photograph hangs alongside those pictures of other directors in the organisation's Canberra HQ.

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The roles of our security services
ASIS: The Australian Secret Intelligence Service is an overseas secret collection agency for human intelligence, responsible to the foreign affairs minister: "Our mission is to protect and promote Australia's vital interests through the provision of unique foreign intelligence services as directed by government."

ASIO: The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation seeks to investigate threats to national security, wherever they arise.