CGI's Dave404: THE CIA, PINE GAP, AND A SACKED AUST. GOVT.
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THE CIA, PINE GAP, AND A SACKED AUST. GOVT. A startling transcript from a 1986 Public Radio News Services documentary sheds some light on the Whitlam government sacking of 1973, and the power of foreign governments and spy agencies in our country. This was one of the most monumental events in Australia’s political history, and to think it was orchestrated by a foreign power, and as far back as 1973, shows just how embedded the CIA is in Australia. Lots of references to the CIA, ASIO and Pine Gap. For those unfamiliar with Pine Gap, it is a massive satellite data collection tool smack bang in the middle of the Australian continent. From my info, it is at least nine stories deep, and all employees and contractors live on base, a great majority from the US. You can’t go anywhere near it, over it or around it without being arrested, or shot down. The weapons testing grounds of Woomera and Maralinga, are in the same state. Wikipedia link below – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap Transcript below – http://www.serendipity.li/cia/cia_oz/cia_oz3.htm Jane Lanbrook: “Welcome to the second part of Watching Brief this week. I'm Jane Lanbrook and now in the third part of our series examining the activities of the CIA in Australia we look at the role of the Pine Gap military communications base in connection with the fall of the Whitlam government.” Tony Douglas: “So the first Labor government for a generation was gone. It had been in office for three years but hadn't really been given the opportunity to govern. Twice in that time the conservative parties blocked supply and countless other pieces of legislation were also defeated in the Senate. As his government came under daily assault through the building up of the Loans Affairs, the Marosi Affair and other diversions, Whitlam struck back at his enemies blowing away some of the secrecy surrounding Pine Gap. Former Whitlam Cabinet Minister Clyde Cameron recalls.” Clyde Cameron: “We were never told that Pine Gap was a CIA installation and it wasn't until Gough Whitlam publicly declared that Richard Stallings was a CIA operative and that he had been in charge of the Pine Gap installation that we knew that Pine Gap was a CIA installation and I believe that at the very beginning Gough Withlam and the Minister for Defence were led to believe that it was a pretty harmless sort of operation. But you've got to remember that just about the time the dismissal took place, the Australian government had to make a decision as to whether it would renew the leases of these American installations on Australian soil and there is every reason to believe that the Americans were fearful that the leases wouldn't be renewed. That would be a good enough reason, in their view, for moving in to destabilise the government and to bring about its overthrow to say nothing of any threat that our policies may have for their Australian investments in the multinational area.” Tony Douglas: “Whitlam's exposure of Stallings also revealed another interesting fact and that was that Stallings was staying at National Party Leader Dough Anthony's flat in Canberra. From November 2 to November 6, 1975, Whitlam repeated these charges and demanded a list of all CIA agents in Australia. The CIA in turn demanded that ASIO report to them on what Whitlam was up to. A cable from a senior CIA official and Task Force 157 member, Ted Shackley, on November 10 accused Whitlam of being a security risk and asked ASIO to do something about it. The Head of the Defence Department, Arthur Thang, described him as "the greatest risk to our nation's security that there has ever been." Meanwhile Whitlam said he would detail the operations of Pine Gap in Parliament on the afternoon of November 11. It wasn't until years later that details about the Pine Gap base and American fears that its top secret role would be disclosed were linked to the downfall of the Whitlam government. That link came to light when Chris Boyce, a cipher clerk at TRW -- a California-based aerospace corporation, was charged with espionage in 1977. Boyce was working in the black vault where information from Australia was directed to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Kelly Johnson of the Christopher Boyce Alliance takes up the story.” Kelly Johnson: “The information was mostly coming from Pine Gap, Nurrungar and Canberra, from the CIA stations there. It's difficult to know actually what the content was, it's obviously very secret what the content was, but it came into the communications relay room where Boyce worked. He then sent the information on to CIA headquarters in Langley and sent certain information back to Australia.” http://www.serendipity.li/cia/cia_oz/cia_oz3.htm Dave404. http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=279665 |
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