Page 40 The New Citizen April 2004 Defeat the Synarchists—Fight for a National Bank

THE LIBERAL PARTY: THE NEW FACE OF SYNARCHISM

“It might sound melodramatic to suggest that in 1951 Australian fascism’s headquarters were in ‘the Lodge’ Canberra, but that is not so very far from the truth.” —Dr. Andrew Moore, The Right Road? A History of Right-wing Politics in Australia

The Synarchy’s Political Parties he fascist citizens leagues and Ttheir associated militias were inextricably intertwined with what historians call the “non-Labor” parties. These parties, such as the Nationalists of the 1920s, the Unit- ed Australia Party of the 1930s, and the Liberal Party from the 1940s until today, have never been anything but thinly-dis- guised fronts for a tiny cabal of financiers who created them in the first place. Like their storm troop- er associates in the Old Guard, the New Guard and the League for National Security, these parties were created for one reason: to stop the national banking, pro-nation Joseph “Honest Joe” Lyons, Prime state policies of the old ALP. Minister 1931-39. The financiers who controlled the Nationalist Party were gath- the financiers faced a real chal- ered in a secretive clique called lenge, due to a shift in the federal the National Union, based in Mel- ALP’s policy in early 1931, fol- bourne. Even the understated Age lowing the election of Jack Lang reported in 1927 on “the capture in NSW in October 1930. of the National machine by the In July 1930, when Scullin was secret and conservative National in London and E.G. Theodore, Union”, and later produced an “in- with his credit expansion and job- side story” about the “Big Four” creation proposals was temporari- New Guard mass rally at Sydney Town Hall. The fascist New Guard was instrumental in electing Lyons in 1931. Some 20 who ran Victorian politics from the ly out of the picture, former Tas- UAP MPs, including Cabinet members, were New Guardsmen. Melbourne Club: Sir William manian premier “Honest Joe” Ly- McBeath, the first chairman of the ons as Treasurer and James Fen- attempt to form a temporary gov- liam Knox, had been the brains son ran so that Menzies could de- National Union, and National Un- ton as acting PM toed the finan- ernment. The Group had already behind BHP, which was to become vote full time to politics. These ion executive members Colonel ciers’ line of “sound finance”, met with Sir Robert Knox, who the country’s wealthiest enterprise financial arrangements apparent- Albert Holdsworth, Sir Robert budget cuts, and savage austerity, had just been elected head of the and the most successful silver ly included making Menzies a Gibson, chairman of the Common- despite bitter opposition within National Union. Knox agreed that mine in the world. partner in the Ricketson-founded wealth Bank Board, and Collins the Labor cabinet. Lyons took a Lyons should now head up all In February 1931, Theodore pro- Capel Court Investments, and oth- House-associated P.C. Holmes leading role in raising the 27 mil- anti-Scullin forces. The Collins posed his note issue for job-crea- er Ricketson companies. Menzies Hunt. As of early 1931, the Nation- lion pound conversion loan in House businessman Knox was a tion, which the financiers excori- wrote to Ricketson on December al Union was headed by Collins December 1930, together with his very powerful man. He was chair- ated as “inflationary”. NSW Pre- 31, 1935, “My dear Stan, …No House businessman Sir Robert advisers in Staniforth Ricketson’s man of the board of the Victorian mier Jack Lang put forward his muddling politician ever had so Knox—the same who ran the Mel- Lang Plan the same month, which generous or so good a friend. Of bourne Citizens Committee. called for: 1) Australia to make no the way in which you have unself- The National Union’s sister further debt payments to Britain, ishly looked after my financial af- body in New South Wales, the until the British agreed to cut in- fairs I cannot speak adequately. Consultative Council, controlled terest rates on Australia’s loans But I do know that but for your the Nationalist Party in that state. from 5 per cent to 3 per cent, as advice and active work I would Between them, they financed all the Americans had done for the probably not be able to continue the other conservative parties in British, 2) All internal government in politics at all.… All things con- the country (including the Coun- interest rates should be reduced to sidered you are the finest and most try Party to some degree), with the 3 per cent, and 3) The London- loveable man I know and your in- National Union handling South rigged, Depression-inducing gold fluence upon me is increasingly Australia, Tasmania and Western standard should be replaced with great.” Australia, and the Consultative a “goods standard.” Menzies’ role as Ricketson’s Council handling Queensland. To accolades from the financier- mouthpiece was so obvious, that The two financier groups worked controlled major newspapers, ALP leader Dr. H.V. Evatt once re- very simply, as described in Victo- “Honest Joe” Lyons began a na- marked, “What Mr. Ricketson says rian Parliament by Harold Glow- tionwide tour for “sound finance” today, Mr. Menzies says not long rey, former acting secretary of the in Adelaide on April 9, sponsored after.”2 Farmers’ Union. He recounted how by the fascist South Australian Events moved rapidly in the National Union secretary John Citizens League. Robert Knox’s crucible of the Depression. The West once demanded that several National Union and Ricketson’s New Guard was founded on April smaller non-Labor parties amalga- Group wanted to anoint Lyons as 18, 1931 in Sydney. On April 18 mate with the Nationalists, against the head of all anti-Scullin forces and 19 in Melbourne, other secre- their wishes. Glowrey asked West because they figured he could tive meetings took place, among how the amalgamation would draw some Labor voters, and be- the Group of Six, Sir Robert Knox happen. West told him, “It is sim- cause he was much more persona- and E.H. Willis of the National ple. We find the money that ena- ble than the stolid John G. Latham, Union, and representatives of the bles these parties to function, and leader of the Nationalist Party. But SA Citizens League and the Vic- if they do not do it voluntarily we they had a problem: Lyons head- toria and the NSW branches of the will cut off their sources of sup- ed only a tiny group of ex-Labor AFAL. These men decided to offi- ply, and they will go out of exist- The UAP’s main constituency, apart from the New Guard. renegades in Parliament, while cially amalgamate all of these or- ence.” Latham headed the much larger ganisations (including the Nation- Financier control of the “non- Group of Six. branch of the Commercial Bank- Nationalist Party in Parliament, al Union’s puppet, the Nationalist Labor” parties has periodically When Scullin returned in Janu- ing Co. of Sydney, and the direc- discredited though it was. With Party), into the new United Aus- erupted into public scandal, and ary 1931 and made the surprise tor of some of the country’s major pressure from the Group and the tralia Movement. required the financiers to create move of reappointing Theodore as firms, including Dunlop Austral- National Union, the problem was On May 7, the parliamentary still another “non-Labor” party, to Treasurer, Lyons was the finan- ia, Vickers Australia Pty. Ltd., and quickly solved: the reluctant branch of the Nationalist Party re- replace the discredited one. Such ciers’ ace-in-the-hole for a coun- the Bank of New Zealand. He was Latham on April 17 announced his named itself the United Australia a time was October 1929, when the terattack. Lyons and Fenton re- also the first federal president of resignation, to become deputy to Party under Lyons and Latham as Nationalist Party of Stanley Mel- signed from the Cabinet. On Feb- the Australian Association of Brit- Lyons in the soon-to-be-formed leaders. The Nationalists in NSW bourne Bruce (later Lord Bruce of ruary 4, Lyons went to Melbourne ish Manufacturers in 1919-20, and United Australia Party.1 balked at uniting with the NSW Melbourne, as a member of the to hand over his portfolio, but also in 1928 was elected president of Latham was not the only politi- wing of the AFAL, many of whose British House of Lords) lost in a met secretly with Ricketson and the Melbourne Chamber of Com- cian this gang bought up. Robert members believed their own landslide to James Scullin and the the Group of Six. With Menzies as merce and vice president of the Menzies was also a bought-and- ALP. With the Nationalists dis- spokesman, the Group asked Ly- Associated Chambers of Com- paid-for puppet of Ricketson, Notes for this section appear on credited after the 1929 election, ons to leave the Labor Party and merce of Australia. His father, Wil- whose personal finances Ricket- page 48. The New Citizen April 2004 Page 41 Defeat the Synarchists—Fight for a National Bank propaganda and harshly attacked those who owned him, Menzies when unpopular, and recruiting a on the line within a few minutes. cist New Guard, including one of “political parties”, but, with aid attacked the plan because of its new Leader from the Labor Party. His voice came through as clear as its top leaders, Sir Frederick Stew- of a £1000 bribe by Collins House proposal to lower interest rates Like many a stock breeder, the a bell. I told him of my conversa- art, who became Minister for Com- businessman and AFAL executive paid to bondholders—which even Consultative Council appeared to tion with Horsfield and why I was merce. The new MPs also includ- Sir Sydney Snow, they did sign. In most of big business had agreed believe that when the flock or herd ringing. Mr. Lyons unhesitatingly ed the New Guard’s deputy com- 1932, Snow was elected deputy to! is showing the ill effects of in- confirmed Mr. Horsfield in all his mander, Herbert William “Bertie” president of the UAP, and was Throughout 1931, the purpose breeding, a radical outcross is statements and added that he was Lloyd. The Old Guard’s chief ru- chairman of the party’s executive of the UAP as the Synarchy’s new needed to infuse hybrid vigor. And four-square behind the New Guard ral organiser, C.L.A. Abbott, also and council until he resigned on front, was to drive the Scullin gov- so the new label was ‘United Aus- and hoped for its support in the won a seat. medical grounds in 1942. The in- ernment from power, and then do tralia Party’, in substitution for election campaign”, Campbell re- In November 1935, Sir Philip dividuals who controlled the NSW the same with Jack Lang in New ‘Nationalist’. The name was in- membered. The support of a high- Goldfinch, former head of the Old UAP are familiar faces, as the lead- South Wales. If necessary, the fas- spired by the gobbling-up of the ly organised force of over 30,000 Guard, took a seat in the Legisla- ers of the Old Guard: “Goldfinch, cist militias would be deployed, ‘All for Australia League’ and the men, in addition to their families tive Assembly for the UAP, prompt- Gillespie and the retailer Sydney with UAP approval. With Sir Rob- ‘Riverina Movement’ [one of the and friends, could clearly be deci- ing Jack Lang to observe that “the Snow were the principal financial ert Gibson and the Senate block- ‘new states’, separatist move- sive. ‘boss’ himself was coming on the mainstays of the State UAP party ing any measures to deal with the ments].” By arrangement with the UAP, job.” Ridiculed by ALP members machine” (Moore, Premier). UAP Depression, Australia’s economic Campbell was in a position to the New Guard packed the hall for for his spats and monocle, Gold- figures Sir Philip Goldfinch of situation became worse and worse. know. He and his New Guard had Lyons’ campaign launch in Syd- finch distinguished himself by CSR and Sir Robert Gillespie of On December 19, 1931, the UAP worked closely with the UAP. He ney with thousands of its support- defending the profits of CSR, the Bank of NSW were such fer- secured a crushing victory over recounted how UAP NSW secre- ers. Finally, Campbell recorded, while attacking unemployment vent Old Guardists, that the Old the ALP in a Federal election. The tary Horsfield had called him to “In a UAP victory we saw the real- payments, family endowment and Guard was also sometimes called financiers had poured the old Na- ask for the New Guard’s support isation of a number of New Guard other welfare payments. the “Goldfinch-Gillespie” organ- tionalist wine into new, UAP bot- in the federal election campaign. aims, and so worked with a will The new prime minister, “Hon- isation. They both would visit Nazi tles, as recorded by New Guard Campbell replied he would have and achieved a great deal. On elec- est Joe” Lyons, was, like many of Germany in the 1930s, Goldfinch leader Eric Campbell in his book, it, if Lyons pledged to run against tion day in Greater Sydney alone those who put him in office, pro- several times. The Rallying Point: The Story of communism. Horsfield not only many thousands of New Guards- fascist. He was a well-known ap- The state Premiers at their con- the New Guard: assured him Lyons would, but said men were on duty in one way and peaser and paid a friendly visit to ference of late May and early June “The Nationalist Party had re- that Campbell should call Lyons another, and fleets of cars were pro- Mussolini in 1937. Just on the eve 1931, agreed to Niemeyer’s de- cently carried out, once more, two himself for personal assurances. vided and of course free of charge.” of World War II, he chastised a vis- mands, and put them forward in of its traditional tactics—chang- “As soon as Horsfield left I put As many as twenty newly elected iting H.G. Wells for calling Hitler the Premiers Plan. Bespeaking ing its name (but not its identity) in the call to Mr. Lyons and he was UAP MPs were members of the fas- a “certifiable lunatic.” The Lying Mass Media he mass media is an essential Telement of the manipulation of the puppet show known as parlia- mentary democracy. The Synar- chy’s mass media largely created the anti-ALP Red scares of the 1920s, 30s and 40s, as well as the All for Australia and other “citi- zens leagues”. An excellent case of their orchestration of politics was their conjuring up “Honest Joe” Lyons to head the UAP. More than any other, this cam- paign was started and run through the Collins House media empire centred on the Herald and Weekly Times. W.L. Baillieu had bought the (Melbourne) Herald for £23,000 in 1902, and established Associated Newspapers managing editor R.C.“Clyde” Packer (above left) (Ker- the Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. ry’s grandfather) and Sir Keith Murdoch (above right) of Collins House (Rupert’s For decades, with only brief excep- father) ran media “red scares” that built up the fascist militias and their political tions, the Herald was the only front, the UAP. Packer himself was a New Guard member, as shown in a evening paper in Melbourne; as of military intelligence report (r.). 1960, over three-quarters of all papers sold outside Sydney were ginnings of the Murdoch empire, promoting “Honest Joe”, the Her- printed by companies owned or which is today one of the pillars of ald attacked the Scullin govern- controlled by the Herald and Week- the global neo-con apparatus. ment so violently that its sales ly Times Ltd. In 1921, Baillieu in- The Herald started the “Honest dropped significantly in working stalled his children’s former play- Joe” campaign in conjunction with class areas in early 1931. The pa- mate, Keith Murdoch, as manag- agitating in favour of the loan con- per’s role in the election was noto- ing editor of the Herald. Murdoch version of December 1930, and rious. As the ALP’s Jack Beasley was fresh from training in the sen- quickly spread the campaign to observed in Parliament in 1935, “It sationalist “sex-and-crime” style Adelaide and Brisbane, where the is claimed that the Baillieus, of Lord Northcliffe in London, Herald and Weekly-owned papers through the Melbourne Herald, which he brought with him to Mel- dominated the market. Even his which they control, made Mr. Ly- ister as his puppy dog, often sum- a fierce British empire loyalist, bourne (and which his son Rupert official biographer notes, “Murdo- ons Prime Minister of Australia.” moning him at a moment’s notice also had enormous clout in Syd- has continued), which earned him ch was not often an objective re- After the Collins House press em- to give him orders, or to dress him ney through the two morning, two the nickname “Lord Southcliffe”. porter; he was most of the time a pire put Lyons in power, Murdoch down like an errant child. evening, and four Sunday papers Thus Collins House created the be- propagandist.” While endlessly treated Australia’s new prime min- The other major press in Mel- he controlled there through his bourne was the Argus, in which the Associated Newspapers Ltd. These Spowers family had been leading included the Sun and the Daily Tel- figures for generations. In the egraph. In the crucial years 1929- 1930s, Colonel Allan Spowers was 1931, AFAL leader Sir Sydney Snow a member of Staniforth Ricket- was deputy chairman of Associated son’s Capel Group of Investments, Newspapers. Another of Denison’s and Ricketson himself became directors, Sir Frederick Tout, was on chairman of the Argus in 1936 the Old Guard-linked Primary Pro- until World War II. ducers Association. Still another In Sydney, the Fairfax Sydney Associated director, Sir Frederick Morning Herald praised fascism Stewart, was a member of the New and shrieked against the “Soviet- Guard, as military intelligence re- ism” of the ALP. The Fairfaxes were ports indicated his managing edi- intermarried with the Baillieus, tor, Clyde Packer (father of Sir and held directorships in the Old Keith and grandfather of Kerry) Guard’s sponsoring institutions, also was. Packer carried out such CSR and the Bank of New South an unrelenting campaign against Wales. Six months after Jack Lang Jack Lang, that Lang attempted to was elected, the SMH trumpeted, pass a bill through the NSW par- “The evil menace of Sovietism in liament designed to bankrupt this land, of governance not by Packer personally. With this board popularly elected representatives, of directors, it is no surprise that but by a secret junta planning civil the Sun conducted a public fund- strife and disruption, must be over- raising campaign for the New thrown and stamped out”. And It- Guard’s Col. Francis de Groot af- aly, it editorialised, “was only ter his ribbon-slashing stunt at the saved from Red Dominance by the Harbour Bridge, and that it claimed Melbourne’s Herald Sun building, former home of the Baillieus’ Herald and Weekly Times company. They gave Sir Keith Murdoch his start at their Herald; son Rupert now publishes its successor, the Herald Sun, Australia’s biggest daily, and heroic remedy of Fascism.” Theodore’s proposed note issue was owns the H&WT. Media baron Sir Hugh Denison, “Bolshevik.” Page 42 The New Citizen April 2004 Defeat the Synarchists—Fight for a National Bank Robert Gordon Menzies: the Would-be Petain of Britain he Synarchy created the fascist said. No one expressed even the Tmilitias in Australia as part of faintest flicker of dissent.… It is its stable of fascist movements and quite clear that whereas the Old governments around the globe. In Umbrella [Neville Chamber- Great Britain, they intended to re- lain]—neither he nor other place the anti-Nazi PM Winston members of the War Cabinet were Churchill with an outspoken ap- at this meeting—wanted to run peaser. One of the top candidates very early, Winston’s bias is all for this role would be imported the other way.” from Australia: Robert Menzies. One of those who intended to With their way prepared by the “run very early” was Australian French Synarchists’ extensive sab- Prime Minister Robert Gordon otage and treason against their own Menzies. Hitler’s Panzers paused country, Germany’s Panzer-led at Dunkirk and did not destroy the forces swept through the Low BEF, only because Hitler was ne- Countries and France in May of gotiating with a faction in Britain 1940 and pinned the British Ex- that wanted to strike a deal with peditionary Force (BEF) against him, as the Synarchists in France the sea at Dunkirk in northern associated with Marshal Petain and France. As the BEF faced near-cer- Pierre Laval had done. These cir- tain extinction, Hugh Dalton, a cles included the notorious pro- member of British Prime Minister fascist Cliveden Set of Lord and Left: Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s War Cabinet; Aviation Minister (and Synarchist press baron) Lord Beaverbrook Winston Churchill’s “Outer Cabi- Lady Astor, press magnate Lord is second from right in back row. Right: Beaverbook, who tried to overthrow Churchill in favour of Robert Menzies or net” (as opposed to the inner core Beaverbrook, and former Prime another pro-Hitler figure. In the 1950s, Beaverbrook trained Rupert Murdoch. “War Cabinet”) recorded in his di- Minister David Lloyd George. This ary a fateful meeting of the Outer group schemed to either weaken Cabinet on May 28, 1940: Churchill or, preferably, to replace “[Churchill] was determined him with a British Petain, but in to prepare public opinion for bad either case to make a deal with Hit- tidings, and it would of course ler. With the aid of City of London be said, and with some truth, that magnates and the press empires what was now happening in they controlled (of which Beaver- Northern France [Dunkirk] brook was the kingpin), this group would be the greatest British built up a willing Menzies as one military defeat for many centu- candidate for the role. The official ries.… decision of Churchill’s Cabinet to “[Churchill said] ‘I have fight notwithstanding, the Synar- thought carefully in these last chist schemes for a deal with Hit- days whether it was part of my ler would continue throughout the duty to consider entering nego- rest of 1940 and 1941, particular- tiations with That Man [Hit- ly after April 1941, as serious Brit- ler]’.… ish (and Australian) reverses in “It was idle to think that, if we North Africa and Greece followed tried to make peace now, we the early successes in North Africa. should get better terms from Ger- The London-centred Synarchist many than if we went on and financier cabal that controlled fought it out. The Germans Menzies had installed Hitler and The Melbourne Herald, Nov. 14 and 17, 1933. Wilfred Kent Hughes was Menzies’ bosom buddy, with whom he co- would demand our fleet—that Mussolini in power, and intended founded the Young Nationalists. To this day, the Young Liberals praise the self-proclaimed fascist Hughes as one of their would be called ‘disarma- to establish a world Synarchist dic- Founding Fathers (see websites below). ment’—our naval bases, and tatorship through the Axis powers land and France. recent Germany history”, but that chist cabal, and its boss, Sir Henri much else. We should become a (including Japan), which would Though Latham had to be a bit it was also “intelligible”. Further- Deterding, had financed the Nazi slave state, though a British gov- operate through Petains and Quis- more circumspect in his public pro- more, he said, “It should be remem- Party already in the 1920s. Men- ernment which would be Hitler’s lings in Europe, including in Brit- nouncements after becoming Chief bered that Mussolini, now consid- zies repeatedly championed Hit- puppet would be set up—‘under ain itself. Once Russia were con- Justice of the High Court in 1935, ered one of the greatest statesmen ler as a “bulwark against commu- [British Fascist leader Oswald] quered, the combined fleets and the others did not hide their pro- of the age, was once considered in nism”, the same rationale used for Mosley or some such person.’ armies of all these powers would Mussolini, pro-Hitler sympathies. much the same light as Hitler.” the establishment of the fascist And where should we be at the be turned against the United States, And, while Menzies never public- Wilfrid Kent Hughes is lauded militias in Australia in the early end of all that? On the other and Synarchist world rule would ly called himself a fascist, his close still today, along with Menzies, as 1930s. side, we had immense reserves be assured. friend and later fellow federal Cab- a founder of the Young National- Menzies made two trips to Nazi and advantages. Therefore, he The activities of this cabal’s po- inet member Wilfrid Kent Hughes ists and of the Liberal Party itself, Germany, the first in 1935 and the said, ‘We shall go on and we litical stooges in Australia, such certainly did, as in his four-part as seen on the web sites of the second in late July 1938 during an shall fight it out, here or else- men as J.G. Latham, “Honest Joe” series in the Herald of November Young Liberals of Australia and the April-to-July trip to London. In where, and if at last the long sto- Lyons, Stanley Melbourne Bruce, 14-17, 1933, “Why I Have Become Young Liberals of New South Berlin, he met the financial wizard ry is to end, it were better it Wilfrid Kent Hughes (the Young a Fascist”. Hughes lauded Musso- Wales. Hughes became a minister of the Nazi regime, Reichsbank should end, not through surren- Nationalists co-founder with Men- lini and his fascist “corporate in Menzies’ Cabinet after the 1949 head Hjalmar Schacht, whom we der, but only when we are roll- zies), and Menzies himself, reflect- state”, this at a time when Musso- election. have already seen as the featured ing senseless on the ground.’ ed these goals. Under the ostensi- lini was notorious for assassinat- Menzies’ Synarchist roots ran speaker at meetings of the Vene- “There was a murmur of ap- ble policy of “keeping the peace”, ing his political enemies. He also deep. As a KC [King's Council], in tian Count Coudenhove-Kalergi’s proval round the table, in which they intended to make a deal with made apologies for Hitler’s assaults 1935 he represented Shell Oil in Synarchist Pan-European Union. I think Amery, Lord Lloyd and I the same Hitler who had already on the Jews, saying that it was “lam- Australia. Shell was a leading ele- The Menzies-Schacht meeting were loudest. Not much more was swallowed Czechoslovakia, Po- entable to anyone in touch with ment of the international Synar- would clearly have been set up by The New Citizen April 2004 Page 43 Defeat the Synarchists—Fight for a National Bank

gence at the time. Prominent members of this So- ciety included the fiercely anti-na- tional banking High Court Chief Justice Sir John G. Latham; Sir Arthur Rickard, the wealthy real- tor, whose son, Major Arthur Rick- ard, had been a member of the New Guard; financier and Old Guard leader Sir Henry Braddon; Harold Darling, chairman of directors of BHP, whose company supported the Old Guard; and Jack Scott, the chief of staff of the fascist Old Guard some ten years earlier! Latham sent the fanatically pro- Japanese Scott to Japan for “trade and cultural work”. As noted above, Scott later became known for helping the Japanese incarcer- ate and punish Australians on Ambon and Hainan. Had Menzies merely been a “naïve appeaser”, the German con- quest of Czechoslovakia, followed by the Nazi invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 and the fall of France in May 1940 might have shaken his trust in Hitler, as those events did with many others. But Menzies was a Synarchist puppet. Lyons died on April 7, 1939. Menzies narrowly won the vote to succeed him as UAP leader, and thus as Prime Minister. After tak- ing over, Menzies tried to con- vince the Cabinet not even to or- ganise the absurdly low force of 1,571 regular soldiers, which the Lyons government had authorised to form the nucleus of a regular army. Menzies vetoed the idea based on “economy” and the “dif- The British Round Table schemed to overthrow Churchill and replace him with head of the Synarchist Lazard Freres and a pillar of the Round Table. Bottom ficulty of readjustments” when the former British PM David Lloyd George or Australian PM Robert Menzies, who right: Menzies (l.) said he would “abandon everything” to follow Lloyd George war danger had passed. Mean- would make a deal with Hitler. Left: Lloyd George greets his mate, Hitler. Top (r.) in his plot to overthrow Churchill. while, his Minister for External right: Robert (Lord) Brand and his wife Phyllis, sister of Lady Astor. Brand was Affairs, Sir Henry Gullett, contin- ued to hail Mussolini’s “genius, Menzies’ financier controllers, eon of the Old Melbournians, “how [after the German trade union nents by the thousands, thrown his patriotism … and almost su- likely by Beaverbrook himself, a difficult it is for most people to re- movement had been crushed and tens of thousands of the rest of them perhuman capacity”, as well as frequent visitor to Nazi Germany alise that there are two sides to eve- its leaders assassinated or in- into concentration camps, and Hitler’s “shining record of service throughout the 1930s. During the ry question”. The Argus newspa- terned in concentration camps – closed down all political parties to his people.” course of Menzies’ 1938 trip, the per of November 15, 1938 summa- ed.] but the Nazis, to remain in power! On January 24, 1941, Menzies “Czechoslovakia crisis” was rised Menzies’ speech: “From talks “It was no good sitting back G.W. Mahoney, M.H.R., gave the left Australia for four months, two building up. Germany, using a se- with leaders in Great Britain and and thanking God that we were following speech in Parliament on and a half of which were spent in ries of staged incidents and provo- Germany he had concluded that better than the Germans or the April 22, 1940 on his firsthand London. His chief interlocutors cations on the German-Czech bor- Germany had some real grievanc- Italians,” Mr. Menzies said. “De- knowledge of Menzies’ views of there were the Synarchist cabal der, was demanding the Sudeten- es against Czechoslovakia.” More- mocracy might be the form of Hitler: that wanted to make a deal with land province from Czechoslova- over, Menzies accused Hitler’s op- government which suited Aus- “Some time ago the right hon- Hitler, including City of London kia, as the first step towards swal- ponents of being the ones “caus- tralia, but that did not mean that ourable gentleman [Menzies] financiers, the City’s newspaper lowing the entire country. “He ing trouble”. “Those who thought it suited everyone else. Before a visited England, and I under- magnates, and a powerful section [Menzies] seems to have identified that France [which was supporting dictatorship had been intro- stand that he also went to Ger- of the British aristocracy typified himself completely with the circles Czech sovereignty] was always duced in Italy democracy had many, for after his return to Aus- by the Round Table group around in London which supported the right and Germany was always sunk to the lowest level of cor- tralia he spoke to the people of the Astors. Lord Hankey, an old appeasement of Germany,” report- wrong were the type who perpetu- ruption and incompetence. Ita- Australia from one of the Chris- Menzies acquaintance and lead- ed Prof. E.M. Andrews. ated international trouble”, he pro- ly was fundamentally more pros- tian churches and told them that ing Chamberlain supporter, was Menzies argued for pressuring claimed. perous and better governed than the Germans were a wonderful part of this cabal, as were other Czechoslovak president Benes to The rest of his address was a pae- it was 10 or 15 years ago. people, and that the Nazi organ- Chamberlainites (who still had sig- capitulate to Hitler’s outrageous an of praise to Nazi Germany and “As for Germany, the majority isation was playing a great part nificant power in the Churchill- demands: “I am more than ever fascist Italy. The Argus reported: of people there were satisfied in world civilisation. But the led government), and Cabinet impressed with the view that this “Dictatorship in Germany had with their Government,” Mr. Nazi was just the same then as minister Lord Beaverbrook and problem requires a very firm hand been guilty of unspeakably bad Menzies continued. “The young now. At that time Germany was his co-plotter, ex-PM Lloyd at Prague, otherwise Benes will things, but there were also points men and young women particu- preparing to destroy the smaller George (now in his mid-70s, but continue to bluff at the expense of in the dictatorship from which larly were enthusiastic followers nations of the world by force, still very active). Menzies was ac- much more important nations, in- Australia could learn. In his re- of Herr Hitler and armed govern- but the right honourable gentle- companied by the secretary of the cluding our own.” cent visit to Germany he had ment, and regarded the State as man was captured by Nazi-ism Australian Defence Department Sir Upon his return to Australia, been impressed with German in- all-powerful and all-glorified. because at heart he is a Nazi. He Frederick Shedden, who firmly Menzies propagandised for Hitler dustrial efficiency and with the This Government had produced is responsible for encouraging supported his scheming to replace to grab what he wanted of Czecho- attitude of responsibility of the the most dreadful injustice and the Nazi organisations that ex- Churchill. Menzies’ main booster slovakia. “I am constantly as- big industrial enterprises to their medieval barbarism and at the ist in Australia today, using was Beaverbrook. tounded to realise”, he told a lunch- employees and their children same time had produced an ex- mean and contemptible methods Beaverbrook had first met Hit- alted and almost spiritual wor- to destroy the nation. When I ler in 1931. Between that time and ship of the state by many walked along one of Canberra’s the outbreak of World War II, he Germans.…We can learn even streets with him some time ago met Hitler, Deputy Fuehrer Rudolf from an implacable enemy.” he said, ‘I have a great admira- Hess, and Nazi Foreign Minister tion for the Nazi organisation of Ribbentrop several times. The In Perth in 1939, one of Men- Germany. There is a case for Ger- Beaverbook press correspondent zies’ typical eulogies of Nazi Ger- many against Czechoslovakia. in Berlin, Sefton Delmer, was on many shocked one well-dressed We must not destroy Hitlerism intimate terms with Hitler, and was woman, who interrupted him with or talk about shooting Hitler.…” the only foreign correspondent the an anguished cry, “Concentration Nazis invited to cover the notori- camps, my God!” Reflecting Men- Menzies was a notorious ap- ous Reichstag Fire, which they set zies’ advice, on top of the natural peaser on the Pacific front, as well, on February 27, 1933 to stage a inclinations of the financier cabal where he became known as “Pig pretext for seizing power. Delm- that had installed the Lyons gov- Iron Bob” for forcing wharfies at er’s dispatch claiming that the ernment in power, that government Port Kembla to load scrap iron for Communists had set the fire was “did its best to urge the British Japan. The wharfies argued that the sent around the world, and provid- government to appease Hitler” scrap iron would come back to ed crucial support for the Nazi take- (Andrews). Menzies himself pro- Australia as bombs, as indeed it over against a mythical “commu- claimed his “unqualified regard” did. Meanwhile, some of Menzies’ nist insurgency”. Beaverbrook’s me- for Chamberlain’s approach of ap- fellow appeasers in the Australia- dia had also staunchly supported peasement. Japan Society were actually spy- the Hoare-Laval Pact in 1935 Indeed, Menzies desired Hitler, Cliveden, home of Lord and Lady Astor and their pro-Nazi “Cliveden Set”, and ing for the Japanese, according which ratified Mussolini’s seizure meeting place of the Round Table. who had assassinated his oppo- to reports of Australian intelli- of Abyssinia, and Beaverbrook was Page 44 The New Citizen April 2004 Defeat the Synarchists—Fight for a National Bank

Chamberlain’s most vocal support- er at Munich. The day after Cham- berlain’s third meeting with Hit- ler, which concluded the infamous Munich Pact, Beaverbrook proud- ly ran the headline “PEACE” in the biggest type ever used in an English newspaper. The plotters intended to replace Churchill with either the notori- ous appeaser Lloyd George, or perhaps with the fresh young “Do- minions” man, Menzies. When someone proposed Lloyd George as British Ambassador to the U.S., President Franklin Roosevelt sharply criticised the idea, stating that his presence would strength- en the isolationists (i.e. the pro- Hitler appeasers, who were fund- ed by the Morgan, Mellon and Du- W.S. Robinson of Collins House, Pont Wall St. interests). founder of CRA (RTZ) and Western The Synarchist plots against Mining. The Synarchist Robinson Churchill failed, and he rallied the pushed Menzies to meet with anti- Churchill coup plotter David Lloyd British people to fight. With the George. military defeats of early 1941 (3,000 Australians were killed or wounded in Greece, among oth- ers), however, murmurs of a “ne- plot. As the Synarchist and Bea- gotiated peace” were heard ever verbrook ally Sir Robert Bruce more loudly, many of them origi- Lockhart—among many others— nating from the Synarchist crowd observed, Menzies was very much who had wished to surrender to under the influence of Beaver- Hitler in the first place. Simulta- brook. neously with their appeasement Details of the plot to install Men- track, the Synarchists agitated to zies in the British government are push Churchill from office on the recorded in David Day’s Menzies grounds that he was not fighting & Churchill at War. Surveying the the war vigorously enough! De- evidence including the extensive classified U.S. intelligence docu- diaries kept by many of the partic- ments recount the plot to dump ipants, Day concluded that “Men- Churchill and replace him with zies was to make a determined at- Beaverbrook. One such docu- tempt to wrest the British Prime ment, entitled, “Synarchie and the Ministership from Churchill’s Policy of the Banque Worms grasp.” As Day summarised the Group”, gave some background to matter at the end of his book: the plot. Banque Worms was “It was on the British Prime closely associated with the Lazard Ministership that Menzies had Freres banking group of Paris, New set his sights. He was certainly York, and London, where its man- aware that a political vacuum aging director, Lord Brand, was a would follow Churchill’s fall and Shedden’s diary indicates brother-in-law of Lady Astor of the A wartime U.S. intelligence document on the one-worldist Synarchy (“Synarchie”) movement in France, spon- Cliveden set. The intelligence doc- that Menzies saw himself filling sored by the Lazard Freres affiliate, Banque Worms. The Synarchy intended to overthrow Churchill and ument stated: this void. Many observers in replace him with a Hitler-appeaser such as Menzies or Lloyd George. “Similarity of the ‘Synarchie’ London and Canberra clearly and Banque Worms recognised the extent of Men- stead we are faced with a rapidly vised, but kept the visit quiet, sus- welcome him back to London with (i) The reactionary movement zies’ ambition and acknowl- spreading ‘Red Flood’ and this to- pecting that his contact with such “much more enthusiasm than any known as ‘Synarchie’ has been edged it to be within the bounds day is civilisation’s and our own a notorious appeaser would not other visitor from any other part in existence in France for near- of possibility. Though Menzies greatest menace”. Therefore, he sell well either in Britain or at of the Empire” and hoped that ly a century. Its aim has always himself realised that he could said at that time, “I hope, pray home. Australia would “decide to send been to carry out a bloodless rev- not expect to depose Churchill and work for peace.” In his mem- Menzies’ diary entry for the vis- you soon and keep you here for as olution, inspired by the upper immediately, it was his eventu- oirs, If I Remember Rightly, Rob- it was the longest one he made long as the war lasts”. That day classes, aimed at producing a al aim. His desperate attempt to inson attempted to portray him- during his entire trip. It summa- Beaverbrook’s Daily Express form of government by ‘techni- call an Imperial Conference and self as anti-appeasement. In fact, rised many complaints about wrote that Menzies “should be re- cians’ (the founder of the move- obtain a seat in the War Cabinet he and the Collins House crowd Churchill which he and Lloyd lieved of political anxieties so that ment was a ‘polytechnicien’), reveal the method by which were part of an international George shared, including their he can come to Britain and work under which home and foreign Menzies hoped to secure Synarchist nexus, which support- agreement on the need for a non- in the cause of democracy and free- policy would be subordinated Churchill’s downfall and his ac- ed Hitler, but also kept their fin- executive War cabinet to contain dom”. to international economy. cession to power.… The proc- gers in other pies at the same a “Dominions man [Menzies], for Though Beaverbrook’s press (ii) The aim of the Banque ess … was to be step by step; time—as Robinson was notori- the Dominions type of mind is es- empire kept up that drumbeat for Worms group are the same as the gaining of a seat in a re- ous for doing. sential.… L-G frankly does not see weeks, Britain’s Dominions Min- those of ‘Synarchie’, and the formed War Cabinet as Austral- Many of these figures switched how we will win the war, though ister Lord Cranbourne expressed leaders of the two groups are, in ian Prime Minister, the carving horses to go with Churchill after he agrees we will not lose it,” Men- relief, in his diary for August 31, most cases, identical.” out of a place of prominence the Nazi invasion of France, zies wrote. “He rates Hitler’s abili- that Churchill had blocked Men- The document related that “In within the confines of the Cabi- while still keeping open their ty very high, and comes back to zies’ return. It was better, he regard to Great Britain the more net, and then resignation from pro-Hitler options. In his diary the melancholy truth that the Ger- wrote, that Menzies was out of particular aims of the group are the Australian Prime Minister- entry of April 18, 1941, Oliver mans in their hearts like us much the way, as “his intriguing was a as follows: ship in order to propel himself Harvey, a confidant of Church- more than the French ever did.” constant danger”. [Emphasis “(a) to bring about the fall of into British politics from the ill’s wartime Foreign Secretary Menzies wrote that if Lloyd added.] Efforts by his friend W.S. the Churchill government by already elevated post of War (and future PM) Anthony Eden, George “said to me ‘Menzies, I Robinson of Collins House to creating the belief in the coun- Cabinet member. Menzies recorded his anxiety at the ris- want you to abandon everything use his contacts in Britain to try that a more energetic gov- clearly expected that he would ing criticism of the Churchill that you are doing and follow override Churchill failed. Men- ernment is needed to prosecute rapidly become heir apparent government. He blamed it on the me’, I think I probably would.” zies stayed in Australia. the war; it is recognized that an to Churchill, and take over “remnants of the Chamber- As Menzies well knew, there was Lawfully enough, though one effective means of creating sus- when the war took another turn lainites”, who were using the only one thing Lloyd George was of his ostensible purposes for the picion of the Government’s ef- for the worse, as he clearly ex- military setbacks as a “dishon- 3 doing at that time: which was London junket had been to se- ficiency would be to induce the pected that it would.” est cloak for defeatism—at the scheming to overthrow Church- cure British help for Australia, resignation of Lord Beaver- end of that road lies L.G. [Lloyd ill to make a separate peace with Menzies had nothing but empty brook; On April 16, 1941, in the wake George], who, abetted by that ass Hitler. This is the man—and the promises to show for it. In fact, he “(b) to bring about the forma- of the British reverses in Libya Liddell Hart [Lloyd George’s plot—for which Menzies would secured worse than nothing. The tion of a new Government in- and looming defeats in Crete and military adviser] would readily “abandon everything.” British Cabinet had refused to al- cluding Sir Samuel Hoare, Lord Greece, Collins House magnate be a Petain to us, with the sup- Finally, however, the Austral- low British industrialists to set up Beaverbrook and Mr. Hore-Be- W.S. Robinson, who was based port of the press barons and the ian Cabinet demanded that Men- airplane manufacture in Australia, lisha.… in London and had extensive city magnates.” [Emphasis add- zies return. As he left New Zea- though it was urgently needed in “(c) through the medium of Sir contacts in politics and finance ed.] The same crowd was simulta- land on May 23 for the last leg face of Japan’s obvious intentions Samuel Hoare to bring about an there, wrote to Menzies, advising neously preparing the “Menzies of the trip back to Australia, toward Australia. But when Amer- agreement between British in- him to meet with coup-plotter option”, while Menzies himself Menzies wrote of a “sick feeling ican industrialists inquired of Act- dustry and the Franco-German Lloyd George. As Hitler’s armies was apparently willing to subor- of repugnance and apprehension” ing PM Artie Fadden about estab- ‘bloc’; marched into Poland in 1939, dinate even his own short-term that grew on him as he neared Aus- lishing airplane manufacture in “(d) to protect Anglo-Saxon Robinson’s own views had been ambitions to putting the pro-Hit- tralia, and as his dreams of glory Australia, Menzies had flown into interests on the continent.” that, “Wise leadership should have ler Lloyd George in power. in Britain faded. Already the fol- a rage, and cabled Fadden from Menzies gladly jumped into this enabled us to live it up with Ger- On April 26, Menzies visited lowing day, Beaverbrook cabled London not to allow it under any Beaverbrook-centred Synarchist many and crush Bolshevism. In- Lloyd George as Robinson had ad- Menzies assurances that he would circumstances. The New Citizen April 2004 Page 45 Defeat the Synarchists—Fight for a National Bank The “New Liberalism”: the Old Fascism n July 28, 1941, an utterly dis- over the economy), be hard to imagine Australia”. The list of “leading fi- Ocredited Robert Menzies quit under the rubric of whose views nancial men” Wright cited in his as Prime Minister of Australia, to “free enterprise” would prevail, if a letter to Old Guard boss Gillespie, be replaced by Arthur Fadden. In against the ALP’s dispute happened included most members of the in- October 1941, John Curtin and the alleged “social- to arise between augural Council of the Institute of Labor Party won the federal elec- ism”. the “office boy” Public Affairs. tion. As the prospect of an ultimate This last was ul- and the chairman The new IPAs subsumed the Na- Allied victory took shape, the timately the most of the board. tional Union and the Consultative Synarchist financiers and corpora- important issue. It To lead this new Council. The IPA Council in NSW tions that had created the Old Guard, was a battle that in political party, consisted of 27 members, 11 of the New Guard, the League of Na- 1942-43 was raging these financiers re- whom were from the old Consulta- tional Security and the United Aus- not only in Austral- vived their stooge, tive Council. Even IPA founding tralia Party, began already in 1942 ia, but also world- Robert Menzies. secretary C.D. Kemp’s son David to plan the form of their next, post- wide, as it became Throughout noted in his B.A. Honours thesis, war assault against Labor and La- clear that the U.S. 1942, Menzies’ “The New South Wales Institute [of bor’s reconstruction plans to run the and its allies would In the early 1940s, former Collins House executive and Mussolini ad- devoted supporter Public Affairs] … had completely national economy for the Common defeat the fascist re- mirer Herbert Gepp (l.) deployed his assistant, C.D. Kemp (r.), to help F.H. Wright, the replaced the old finance commit- set up the Big Business front, the Institute for Public Affairs. The IPA Good. The Synarchists had three gimes created by the begat the Liberal Party. prominent insur- tee—the Consultative Council— goals: Synarchists. The ance broker, had and had become the sole body for 1) to create a new party to re- Synarchists had to regroup. In Aus- an intimate collaborator of Collins been organising to fund a politi- the collection of funds for the Unit- place the rapidly crumbling UAP, tralia they did so in the newly House financier W.S. Baillieu for cal comeback for the highly un- ed Australia Party throughout the while hiding the control the Mon- formed Institutes for Public Affairs, over two decades, took the point popular Menzies. Wright wrote to state.” In Victoria, the Institute’s 14- ey Power had notoriously exer- which would soon create the Liber- on creating this new vehicle, soon Sir Robert Gillespie, President of person Council included five from cised over the UAP (as over the al Party. The key issue was, who to be known as the Institute for the Bank of New South Wales and the smaller National Union, which Nationalists before them), in order would create credit, and for what pur- Public Affairs. Its secretary and former chairman of the central com- only had a maximum of six mem- to make such a new party appear poses? chief organiser would be his own mittee of the Old Guard, that “first bers at any one time. “independent”; As we have seen, throughout the personal assistant at Australian Pa- class men” were needed “to take In both cases, the IPAs re- 2) to fight any attempts by La- 1920s and 1930s these Australian per Manufacturers for the previous charge of the organisation”. The grouped precisely the forces, bor to make permanent the newly fascist financiers controlled the seven years, C.D. Kemp. President of the Melbourne Cham- which had created the Old and strengthened wartime powers of the anti-Labor political parties nation- Back in the early 1930s, Gepp ber of Commerce, Wright in- New Guards, the League for Na- federal government, lest such pow- wide, through Victoria’s National had called for a fascist-style cor- formed Gillespie, had just formed tional Security, and the UAP. Jack ers be deployed for economic de- Union and the Consultative Coun- porativist “parliament of industry”, a committee of “leading financial Lang had rightly stated that the velopment on a grand scale; and cil of New South Wales. In 1941, where “the office boy could meet men” to start to organise against Consultative Council of NSW was 3) to wage an intensive “hearts they moved to create a new, more with the Chairman of the Board and Labor. “I write to you”, he said, “identical” to the Old Guard. and minds” propaganda war powerful—but also more dis- together they could solve indus- “because you have a sympathetic Since the IPA of New South Wales against the population at large for creet—funding vehicle, along with trial and political problems.” In understanding of these problems subsumed the Consultative Coun- the “new liberalism” (meaning their project for a new political such a utopian fascist parliament, and you are really the head of the cil, men from the Old Guard turned continued private financier control party. In Victoria, Sir Herbert Gepp, as in Mussolini’s Italy, it would not greatest financial organisation in up in leadership of the NSW IPA. NSW IPA Council: The Old Guard in Mufti he NSW IPA’s Council President was Mr. by his own account the “civilian wing” son was the son of Old Guard leader fred Davidson was a leading financier T(later Sir) Charles Lloyd Jones, a found- of the New Guard; E.P. Simpson; of the IPA, as he had been of the Old er of the Sydney Rotary Club in 1921, which • Sir Norman Kater, who was also a mem- • F.N.Yarwood, chairman of the Perma- Guard. A President of the IPA at one gave birth to the AFAL some years later. Jones ber of the Primary Producers’ Advisory nent Trustee Co. Ltd. of NSW, deputy point was Sir Philip Street, the uncle of was also the founding Chairman of the ABC Council and Chairman of the IPA in chairman of the Australian Bank of Old Guard chief of staff and suspected in 1932, and a close friend of Robert Men- 1951; Commerce and director of other com- Japanese spy Jack Scott. Sir Philip had zies, who gave Jones’ funeral oration. (ADB • Edward Telford Simpson, the 1936-41 panies, who was a former councillor of threatened NSW Governor Sir Philip Jones) The IPA’s Director was Mr. A.E. Heath, Chairman of the Consultative Coun- the Herbert Brookes-spawned 1920s Game, that if he did not sack Jack Lang, a member of the Primary Producers Adviso- cil, and a partner in Minter, Simpson fascist militia, the King and Empire that “citizens may get violent”. Sir ry Council, which ran the Old Guard. Other and Co., the solicitors firm which Alliance. Yarwood’s Australian Bank of Philip was later a leader in the Japa- Council members included: served as a “pass-through” for CSR Commerce had been a key funder of nese spy-infested Japan-Australia So- • Sir Sydney Snow, longtime UAP Presi- funds to the New Guard, the Old Guard the Old Guard. ciety, along with his nephew Jack. dent and leader of the AFAL, which was and other fascist organisations. Simp- • Bank of NSW general manager Sir Al- The Victoria IPA Council: The League for National Security in Mufti?

he NSW IPA was merely an expanded the early days of the Guard and League of National Security TConsultative Council, which in turn had UAP, but in reality was in the form of The Association (see below), been identical with the fascist Old Guard. the Treasurer, since founded to take over the country if Chif- The same pattern would almost certainly have Lyons kept that post ley’s bank nationalisation were successful, held for the relationship among the Victori- himself, and relied on one is forced to ask if Sir Leslie were the an IPA, the National Union, and the League Massey-Greene to tell source of at least some of those funds. for National Security.4 The Victorian IPA’s him what to do. Mas- • Geoffrey Grimwade. His uncle, Maj. founding Chairman was Sir George J. Coles, sey-Greene also Gen. Harold Grimwade, had called for Chairman of Directors of G.J. Coles Ltd., helped coordinate the Sir John Monash to seize power as “dic- who had been the co-vice chairman of the preparations for the tator” in 1930-31. Geoffrey Grimwade Melbourne wing of the AFAL, and whose military assault on replaced Maj. Gen. Grimwade on the fellow director at Coles, Col. Francis Plum- Jack Lang’s office by board of Drug Houses, following the lat- ley Derham, was a leader of the LNS. The the fascist Old Guard. ter’s retirement in 1942. In 1958, IPA’s Council members and/or other lead- All the way back in Grimwade was elected president of the ing figures included: 1910, Greene had Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medi- Harold G. Darling, Chairman of Direc- been an outspoken op- cal Research, a sort of central committee • Two IPA leaders were retail magnate G.J. Coles (l.) and BHP chairman tors of BHP. BHP representatives attend- ponent of PM Andrew Harold Darling (r.). The Victorian IPA regrouped the same forces which of Melbourne’s financial oligarchy. ed Old Guard meetings; Fisher’s Australian had set up the pro-fascist AFAL and the LNS. Grimwade headed the IPA’s “Industrial • Walter Massey-Greene, who was a driv- Notes Issue of 1910, Committee”, and “was appointed with ing force behind the IPA as a Founda- and then of King O’Malley’s Common- secretary Kemp, “He became the unques- the specific assignment of producing a tion Member of the IPA’s Council and wealth National Bank the following year.; tioned leader of the cause of the banks, detailed post-war policy for industry, a frequent chair of Council meetings. He • Sir Herbert Gepp, a longtime W.L. Bail- so much so that his fellow chief manag- progamme which would hold out a prac- was a director of 40 companies, was lieu associate who had been “prime cre- ers in the other banks often seemed like ticable alternative to the policies being Chairman of several major Collins House ator” of the flagship Collins House com- reluctant followers.” And, Kemp accu- advocated by the socialists.” Grimwade firms, including Associated Pulp and pany, Electrolytic Zinc. Gepp later be- rately observed, “There is little doubt became chairman of Drug Houses, Chair- Paper Mills, Metal Manufacturers, Dun- came managing director of Australian that this was the most vital political strug- man of the Victorian branch of the AMP lop Rubber Company, and Western Min- Paper Manufacturers (APPM), where his gle since Federation.” Interestingly, the Society in 1945 and was later appointed ing Company, which latter controlled assistant was C.D. Kemp, founder (at Melbourne City Council was a custom- to its ruling board in Sydney. In the words numbers of subsidiary mining compa- Gepp’s instigation) of the IPA. Chairman er of Sir Leslie’s bank, and it was that of C.D. Kemp, “Grimwade exerted a tre- nies. He was perhaps the “leading com- of APPM was Sir Hugh Denison, whose Council’s High Court appeal of Chifley’s mendous, indeed a decisive influence on pany director of his day,” in the words of Sun newspaper had vociferously sup- 1945 Banking legislation that led to the the affairs of the Institute throughout its his admirer, the founding and longtime ported the New Guard. Gepp admired High Court overturning part of it, which early years.” secretary of the Victoria IPA, C.D. Kemp. Mussolini and had advocated bringing in turn led to Chifley’s decision for na- • Sir Keith Murdoch. Chairman of the Di- He was also a director of several of the to Australia the Italian model of a fascist tionalisation. The McConnan commit- rectors, of the Collins House’s Herald and Baillieus’ pastoral interests. In 1946 he corporativist parliament, in 1930. tee’s document, “Looking Forward” was Weekly Times, and leader of the press became the Chairman of the Collins • Sir Leslie McConnan. McConnan was “to be a bible of reference for those of campaigns that made “Honest Joe” Ly- House flagship, the Electrolytic Zinc chief executive of the National Bank of liberal political persuasion and eventu- ons and the UAP, not to mention the Company of Australasia, “of which [fel- Australasia. He chaired the committee ally for the newly-formed Liberal Party AFAL. low IPA leader Sir Herbert] Gepp was the to draft a set of objectives for the IPA itself.” McConnan raised a ton of money • W. Ian Potter. Perhaps the leading Aus- prime creator” (by C.D. Kemp’s account). and led the private banks’ 1948 cam- for the IPA. And, given that Melbourne tralian stockbroker and merchant bank- Massey-Greene had been Assistant Treas- paign against Ben Chifley’s plans to na- Lord Mayor Sir Frank Connelly raised er of the post-WWII era, and for decades urer under PM “Honest Joe” Lyons in tionalise the banks. In the words of IPA £100,000 for the reincarnation of the Old a top financier of the Liberal Party. Page 46 The New Citizen April 2004 Defeat the Synarchists—Fight for a National Bank

The IPA Creates the Liberal Party he IPA took over the funding at the Masonic Hall in Canberra. Tduties of the National Union There, the Old Guard’s Sir Norman and the Consultative Council. It Kater, the major power behind almost entirely funded the UAP in NSW’s Country Party, stood up and the 1943 Federal and Victorian appealed for “unified support” for state elections. In that Federal elec- the old pro-Nazi and Synarchist tion, the UAP was crushed, winning puppet Menzies as “the most capa- only 14 out of 74 seats in the House ble leader of the forces opposed to and lost control of the Senate. C.D. socialism and communism.” Kemp admitted that the UAP’s col- The main difference between the lapse was driven by the fact that LPA and the major “non-Labor” the party, as well as Menzies per- parties that preceded it, was that sonally, were generally seen to be the LPA more carefully hid its con- “uncompromising, reactionary, trol by the Money Power. Accord- obstructive … [and] saturated in ing to Peter Aimer’s account, “No the capitalist big-employer atmos- innovation has done more to dis- Sir Ian Potter, IPA stalwart and La- phere.” The Synarchists needed a tinguish the Liberal Party from its zard’s “man in Australia”. He led the new political front. private banks’ drive to oust PM Ben discredited predecessors than the The IPA initiated and financed the meeting at the Canberra Masonic Temple in Chifley, and financed the Liberal Par- While funding the disintegrat- effective channeling of political 1944 which established the Liberal Party. They anointed Menzies as the Liber- ty for decades. ing UAP, the IPA called a series of money from private enterprise di- als’ “founding father.” meetings in 1943-44 to unify the rect to the party through its for- non-Labor opposition. Just as mally constituted finance commit- had not had the support of power- bourne was dominated economi- owned merchant bank, Anglo-Aus- “Honest Joe” Lyons had been the tees and elected treasurers.…”, in- ful interests, and the ‘amazing’ suc- cally by a number of prominent tralian Corporation, which was a Synarchists’ stooge in 1931, so a stead of through the National Un- cess of the conference would prob- families and their associates whose partnership of two London mer- retooled Robert Gordon Menzies ion and the Consultative Council. ably have been much less so had approval was necessary to gain chant banks, Morgan Grenfell and was their front man in 1944. Yet, this was obviously a thin dis- the Institute not taken the role it business with the main companies Lazard Bros., with the backing of Menzies attended two of these guise, and the Synarchist control did.” and institutions,” report authors the Collins House firm, Consoli- IPA meetings. The IPA minutes of the main anti-Labor party con- The IPA continued to own the Appleyard and Schedvin. By the dated Zinc Corporation Ltd. La- record that he “strongly impressed tinued as usual—in the early days new anti-Labor party, the Liberals, late 1930s, Potter had become very zard was dead centre in the inter- all present and there seemed little through the direct financing of the through control of their finances; close with Menzies, whom he used national Synarchist command doubt that a new party organisa- LPA. Thereafter, “By judicious the IPA also campaigned in its own to frequently meet at the offices of structure around the Synarchy’s tion must look to him as the main choice of personnel for the key right against Labor measures for Leslie McConnan, general manag- Banque Worms in France. Lazard’s focal point” (D.A. Kemp). The positions of federal president and the Common Good. Both tracks er of the National Bank of Australia. longtime managing director in Menzies-backing Victorian IPA, as federal treasurer the Liberal Party were exemplified in the person of On the day of Chifley’s bank London, Robert Henry (Lord) one history records, “went on to retained an effective attachment to W. Ian Potter, whose stockbroker- nationalisation announcement, Brand was at the very pinnacle of have a direct and decisive role in its customary supporting interests age firm was to replace Ricketson’s IPA members Potter and McCon- the British Round Table organisa- the formation of the LPA. Its func- while bypassing any intermediary J.B. Were and Son as the leading nan met to plan the private banks’ tion and its pro-Nazi activities. tions were threefold: to act as an bodies and so avoiding the adverse stockbroker in Australia by the campaign to get rid of Labor. The Lady Astor was his sister-in-law. interim finance collector for non- publicity suffered by the UAP. 1950s. Potter was to be a mainstay two of them would spearhead it. Potter’s linkage with the Anglo- Labor political interests…; to ini- Thus the first federal president, (along with J.B. Were & Son) of As the book, A Century of Change Australian Corporation produced tiate the unification of the non- T.M. Ritchie, was able personally Liberal Party fundraising for thir- recorded, Potter “worked day and what the Reserve Bank’s history Labor organisations in Victoria on the basis of his status as a lead- ty years. Potter got his start work- night with Leslie McConnan, the called “the dominant merchant (Services and Citizens Party, the ing businessman to solicit substan- ing for stockbroker Edward Dya- chief manager of the National bank of the next two decades, Aus- Middle Class Party and such like) tial donations in Victoria and son, the Synarchist founder of the Bank of Australasia who was chair- tralian United Corporation”. Un- and then to mediate amongst them N.S.W.…” Round Table in Australia. After man of the Associated Banks, in der Potter’s leadership, AUC ar- and to keep constant liaison with As for Menzies’ own mythic sta- working in the Treasury in Can- preparing the private banks’ de- ranged finance for BHP, CSR, Carl- Menzies; and, finally, to provide tus as the “founder” of the Liberal berra as an adviser to the fiercely fence.” Potter’s labour paid off: ton and United Breweries Ltd. and much of the content of the federal Party, D.A. Kemp noted in an un- anti-Labor R.G. Casey, Potter was “The banks’ appreciation and this for oil and mining companies, platform of the LPA and propagan- derstated fashion about the IPA’s offered positions by both Ricket- association are said to have been among others. Aside from arrang- da for political campaigns (elec- rigging of the founding conference son and E.L. & C. Baillieu, but of inestimable value in attracting ing finance for British-owned or tions and the 1944 and 1946 refer- of the Liberals: “[T]his [IPA sup- declined in favour of striking out floats to Potter in the post-war pe- allied firms in Australia, Potter was enda).” (Marian Simms). port—ed.] enabled Menzies to go on his own. By 1931 he had riod”. Beyond that, records the Re- also to become notorious in con- As Parliamentary leader of the before the Unity Conference in the bought a seat on the stock ex- serve Bank history, “Potter’s role nection with a series of scams: UAP, Menzies convoked the Octo- knowledge that in his desire for a change. The Federal Reserve Bank as a catalyst pervades most of the stock-price rigging in 1966, and ber 13-16, 1944 meeting that re- democratic organisation and finan- of Australia-commissioned histo- important developments in the fi- then, more notoriously, the late- sulted in the founding of the Lib- cial independence he was support- ry, Australian Financiers, observes nancial sector in the two decades 1989 crash of the Tricontinental eral Party. All the work, including ed by the most powerful in terms that would have been impossible after 1945.” In these developments, Bank, which he had founded. paying for the Victorian delegates of finance backing, and recent without the okay of Melbourne’s Potter was acting as a direct agent While the state of Victoria was to attend, and drafting the Federal achievement of the Victorian or- business community. “The process of the highest levels of the Synar- stuck with as much as $2 billion in and Victorian state platforms for ganisation. His confident assertion of penetrating the dominant busi- chy in the City of London. bad debt, numerous of Potter’s as- the new party, was done by the Vic- of financial independence may ness networks was made difficult In 1949, Potter linked up with sociates made a killing through torian IPA. The meeting was held well have been less confident if he by their tight intermeshing. Mel- the Melbourne-based, but British- Tricontinental’s loans to them.5

Left: Melbourne’s Stock Exchange. Above, center: First chairman of the Australian Stock Exchange, Ian Roach, son of L.N. Roach, head of intelligence for the League of National Security. Above right: Maurice New- man, former chairman of the Austral- ian Stock Exchange, member of the Mont Pelerin Society. Right: 333 Col- lins House, which Potter’s Tricontinen- tal planned as HQ for itself and the Stock Exchange, before Trico col- lapsed. The stock exchanges have been a hotbed of Synarchism, exem- plified by Ricketson, Potter, Roach, and Newman, among others. The New Citizen April 2004 Page 47 Defeat the Synarchists—Fight for a National Bank

Friedrich von Hayek, Fascist Ideologue: The Real Founding Father of the Liberal Party

“Von Hayek…[was] the most successful, if unheralded political puppet-master of the past century.” —“The Austrian school of thought that packs massive political punch”, Sydney Morn- ing Herald August 13, 2002. “F.A. Hayek is one of the greatest minds in the Western World. He is not only an eminent econo- mist—he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974—he is possibly an even more emi- nent political philosopher and scientist. His works, The Road to Serfdom, The Constitution of Liberty, and Law, Legislation and Liberty rank among the greatest books on liberty ever written.” —C.D. Kemp, founding secretary of the IPA, IPA Review, Spring 1986.

he IPA founded the Liberal Par- Tty. But the ideological leader of the IPA, as the latter frequently proclaimed, was the Austrian no- bleman and economist Friedrich von Hayek, founder of the radical “free market” Mont Pelerin Socie- ty (MPS). The MPS, in turn, has been the flagship institution for all privatisation, deregulation, and globalisation policies, since its founding in 1947 in Switzerland. Von Hayek later took a personal interest in Australia, traveling here for several days in 1976 to help set up MPS front organisations. He served on the board of one of these, the CIS, until his death. The programmatic document The IPA was set up around the ideas of two leading Synarchists, the “right- bankers. Von Hayek despised the notion of the “Common Good”, and is revered wing” founder of the Mont Pelerin Society, Friedrich von Hayek (l.), and the “left- by the Big Business crowd which owns the Liberal Party. upon which the Liberal Party was wing” economist John Maynard Keynes. Both insisted on world rule by private founded was the Victorian IPA’s “Looking Forward” document of wide. Within a month or so of its that the individual could not do himself, whose families had gov- be one of the best safeguards of 1944, inspired by von Hayek and publication in the U.K., it came whatever he liked. erned Europe for centuries, and who peace.” He is also very upset about by British economist John May- out in Australia. The “liberal” Key- While the economic rationalists hated the institution of the sover- the prospect of nations maintaining nard Keynes.6 Despite the defeat nes wrote of von Hayek’s archcon- and globalists worship von Hayek eign nation-state. MPS founders in- sovereignty over their own resourc- of the War Powers Referendum, servative book, “In my opinion, it as if he were a god, he in turn wor- cluded: es, as opposed to opening them— public sentiment was overwhelm- is a grand book… . Morally and shipped the Dutch-born British phi- • Otto von Hapsburg, of the rul- like Australia’s vast mineral resourc- ingly in favour of full employ- philosophically, I find myself in losopher Bernard de Mandeville ing dynasty of the recently-ex- es—to the looting of the “free mar- ment, a decent standard of living, agreement with virtually the (1670-1733), whom he constantly pired Austro-Hungarian Em- ket”, and even argues, as do all one- a good standard of health care, whole of it, and not only in agree- praised in speeches and writings. pire, and a leading figure in worldists, that national sovereignty etc.—things only a strong central ment with it, but in deeply moved Who was Mandeville, this “grand- Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan- causes wars: “If the resources of dif- government could guarantee. agreement. Von Hayek, too, empha- father” of the MPS? The short an- European Union; ferent nations are treated as exclu- Therefore the Synarchists could sised that the two apparently oppo- swer is, he was a Satanist. He found- • Max von Thurn und Taxis, sive properties of these nations as not return to the slash-and-burn site economists were in reality soul ed the notorious devil-worshipping MPS president, whose family, wholes, if international economic free enterprise policies of the 1920s brothers, “If he [Keynes] had not Hell Fire Clubs of Eighteenth Cen- originally Venetian (“Torre e relations, instead of being relations and 1930s, as von Hayek advo- died so soon he would have become tury Britain, which exerted an ex- Tasso”) had relocated to south- between individuals, become in- cated, at least not right away. The one of the leaders in the fight against traordinary influence over British ern Germany in the 15th Cen- creasingly relations between whole case for “free enterprise” (Synar- inflation”. IPA founding secretary governments of that period. Man- tury, from where it ran the post- nations organised as trading bod- chist control of the economy and C.D. Kemp observed, “There can be deville’s best-known work is, The al and intelligence services for ies, they inevitably become the politics) had to be couched in little doubt that Keynes was just as Fable of the Bees: Private Vices, the Hapsburg Emperors for source of friction and envy between more “progressive” terms, as the unrelenting an opponent of infla- Public Benefits, in which he ex- centuries; whole nations.” Victorian IPA recognised. There- tion as is Hayek.” This “fight against pounds on man’s nature as a beast, • Ludwig von Mises, a PEU lead- MPS members were some of Eu- fore, the IPA blended the fanati- inflation” was identical to Common- inherently evil and dominated by er and also the leader of the rope’s most dedicated fascists of the cally “anti-socialist” Friedrich wealth Bank board president Sir the uncontrollable passions of bitterly anti-American Revo- interwar era. They included Max von Hayek with the “liberal” John Robert Gibson’s “fight against in- greed, lust and rage. But, says Man- lution “Austrian School” of von Thurn und Taxis, whose family Maynard Keynes. flation” in the early 1930s—that deville, those evil impulses, “which economics founded by Carl had sponsored the Thule Society As Marian Simms observed in A is, to make sure that credit is not we all pretend to be asham’d of, are Menger, a pre-war retainer for which gave birth to the Nazi party, Liberal Nation, “Keynes and Hay- used for economic growth. the great support of a flourishing the Hapsburg and Wittelsbach and Otto von Hapsburg himself, ek provided the intellectual tools The title of von Hayek’s, The Society.” This is where Adam Smith (southern Germany and Aus- whose son-in-law, Otto von Sko- for the reformulation of Liberal Road to Serfdom was an inside got his idea of the “Invisible Hand”: tria) royal houses; rzeny was the notorious Nazi com- policy in the mid-1940s. It was joke, since he and the feudal Eu- just go about doing evil, and it will • Sir John Clapham, a senior of- mando and organiser of postwar in- here that the IPA (Vic) had a cru- ropean oligarchs he represented in all work out for the best, since God ficial of the Bank of England ternational terrorism from his and cial role to play with its forward- fact intended the return of man- designed things that way. Here are a and president of Britain’s pre- von Hapsburg’s base in Spain. And looking amalgam of the two think- kind to the Middle Ages, the era few lines from Mandeville’s Fable eminent academic body, the in Australia, those who cynically ers”. Both, in fact, were fascists. before nation-states. His book is of the Bees: Royal Society. gathered around the IPA’s banner of Hayek’s Mont Pelerin Society was one long, lying polemic against Thus every Part was full of Vice, Professor Milton Friedman, an- “liberty” and “individual freedoms” simply the “economic arm” of the existence of nation-states, in Yet the whole Mass a Paradise other notorious fascist, who later included some of the founders of Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan-Euro- particular the American Revolu- Flatter’d in Peace, and fear’d in designed the brutal policies of the Old and New Guards and the pean Union, and the MPS re- tion and the notion of the Com- Wars Chile’s military dictator General LNS. grouped some of those who had mon Good. Von Hayek’s argument They were th’Esteem of Foreign- Pinochet, was a founder, as well. The affinity of the fanatically pro- openly sponsored fascism in the rests upon what he calls “the phi- ers, Von Hayek agreed entirely with British, “Anglo-Australian” IPA 1920s and 1930s.7 As for the “lib- losophy of individualism”, de- And lavish of the Wealth and Lives Coudenhove-Kalergi’s propaganda founders for von Hayek was hardly eral” Keynes, he admired Hitler’s fined as instincts men share with The Balance of all other Hives. for a feudal “Europe of the regions” surprising, given its philosophy and finance minister (and Pan Europe- beasts, as opposed to the unique- Such were the blessings of that (small ethnic enclaves) to replace a connections: von Hayek’s MPS an Union supporter) Hjalmar Sch- ly human notion of the Common State; Europe of nation-states. Von Hayek moved to London soon after its acht, and wrote in the introduc- Good. He devotes an entire chap- Their Crimes conspired to make wrote in his 1944 book, “We shall founding, and was sponsored by the tion to the 1936 German-language ter to an explicit denunciation of ‘em Great; not rebuild civilisation on the large personal financier of the Crown, edition of his General Theory of this concept: “The ‘social goal’, And Vertue, who from Politicks scale. It is no accident that on the City of London magnate Harley Employment, that Germany’s po- or ‘common purpose’, for which had learn’d a thousand Cunning whole there is more beauty and de- Drayton. Hayek was made a Com- litical system, under Schacht and society is to be organised, is usu- Tricks, cency to be found in the life of the panion of Honour by the Queen, Hitler, provided the ideal condi- ally vaguely described as the ‘com- Was, by their happy influence, small peoples, and that among the one of only 60 in the world at a giv- tions for the exercise of his theo- mon good’, or the ‘general wel- Made friends with Vice: And ever large ones there was more happiness en time. He was an unabashed apol- ries.8 Like all good fascists, both fare’, or the ‘general interest’. It since and content in proportion as they ogist for the British Empire, includ- Keynes and von Hayek were en- does not need much reflection to The Worst of all the Multitude had avoided the deadly blight of ing British imperial rule over India, tirely committed to private finan- see that these terms have no suffi- Did Something for the common centralisation.” and took all of his economics from cier control of the economy ciently definite meaning to deter- Good. While cynically denouncing the the “classical economists” of 18th through central banking (as op- mine a particular course of action.” Von Hayek usually dropped the nation-state as “tyrannical”, von Century Britain, such as Adam posed to national banking). He constantly raves against “the “von” from his name, in order to Hayek devoted his entire conclud- Smith, David Ricardo, and Thomas Hayek published his best- adoption of a common ethical hide his origins as an Austrian no- ing chapter to a call for a one-world Malthus—all employees of the known work, The Road to Serf- code comprehensive enough to bleman and seem like part of 20th empire: “An international authority British East India Company—the dom, in 1944, which became the determine a unitary economic Century “democracy”. But the MPS which effectively limits the powers founding institution of modern bible of the Synarchists world- plan”, because that would mean was full of pro-fascist noblemen like of the state over the individual will Synarchism. Page 48 The New Citizen April 2004 Defeat the Synarchists—Fight for a National Bank “The Association”: The Old Guard and the LNS Regroup

n the 1930s, the fascist armies Ihad been founded when Labor governments came to power, spe- cifically to pre-empt any possibil- ity of their interfering with private control over the nation’s credit sys- tem. When Ben Chifley’s Labor government threatened that con- trol again, in 1945-47, IPA found- ers McConnan and Potter took up the political struggle to save the private banks. Just as in the early 1930s, the banks and major corpo- rations created public “front organ- istions”. And, once again, the An- glo-Australian Synarchy created a fallback plan of drastic measures for the eventuality that Chifley would win the federal election of 1949 and consolidate the govern- ment’s nationalisation policy. A new, nationwide fascist militia was established, based upon the lead- ership and structures of the Old and New Guards, and the LNS. It was Leaders of the nation’s eight nationwide private banks meet to plot against PM Osborne (Commercial Banking Company); A.R.L. Wiltshire (Bank of Australa- dubbed The Association. Number- Chifley’s 1947 plan to nationalise the banks. The Synarchy relaunched the Old sia); O. I. Isaachsen (Bank of Adelaide); P.F.G. Gordon (Commercial Bank of Guard and the LNS in the guise of a new 100,000-man private army called The Australia); T.B. Heffer (Bank of New South Wales); and L.J. McConnan (Nation- ing some 100,000, this new fascist Association, to stop the Chifley-led ALP. Left to right: E.G. Wilson (English, al Bank of Australasia), presiding. army planned to take over the Scottish and Australian Bank); W.H. Thomas (Union Bank of Australia); A.E. country, if necessary. NSW Depu- ty Director of the CIB warned, Cormack,” (Moore); Cormack is to overthrow Jack Lang. the founding president of Legacy, a Melbourne- mans (two of the clan)—$24.32 million; George memorialised in the secretive fund- 2. During the 1950s and 1960s, when Menzies centred nationwide servicemen’s club. One of Herscu—$7.4 million. The bank’s downfall, re- “they plan to act independently as was prime minister, his brother Frank was a part- Legacy’s first endeavours after its founding in marked the Sun-Herald of Sept. 7, 1990, was the a separate body answerable to no- ing conduit for the Victorian Lib- ner with Ricketson in a number of companies, late 1923, was to find jobs for servicemen who result of the “aggressive loans policy” of Ian eral Party, the Cormack Founda- which should have sparked a royal commission had acted as “special constables” in breaking the Johns, who became managing director in January body but their leaders.” into influence-buying by Ricketson with respect police strike. Cohen remained active in Legacy 1986 at age 32. Said the Sun-Herald, “Trico cul- The leader of The Association tion. Sir Frank Connolly, Lord to the prime minister, especially since Frank was throughout the decade, where his fellow mem- tivated ‘relationship banking’, first with a group was General Sir Thomas Blamey, Mayor of Melbourne, raised a war apparently looking after any of his brother’s fi- bers included several members of the LNS, in- of successful Melbourne businessmen including chest for The Association of nancial details which Ricketson had left unat- cluding his Collins House associate Hugh G. Solomon Lew, Marc Besen, George Herscu, John Australia’s highest-ranking soldier tended. So much for “sane and honourable fi- Brain, Legacy founder Donovan Joynt and Sir Gandel and Abe Goldberg, then with a widening during World War II. Blamey had £100,000. nance”. In fact, as Ricketson admitted to a 1941 Alfred Kemsley, president of Legacy in 1932-35, pool of growth-driven businessmen and compa- The Association was a financier- Royal Commission on secret financing in poli- and Collins House’s Ernest Turnbull, head of the nies.” John Gandel, Solomon Lew, Marc Besen and led the LNS under General tics, he had launched Menzies’ career in politics. AFAL. In 1926, Cohen was also the president of Liberman family patriarch Jack Liberman were all Brudenell White in the early directed insurgency of the Anglo- Menzies’ biographer A.W. Martin observed, “In the Melbourne Constitutional Club, established at one time members of the Advisory Committee 1930s, and it had been Brudenell phile intelligence and military the transformation of Menzies the politician in the previous year (during the famous maritime of the pro-West Bank settlers, anti-Yitzhak Rabin leaders against the lawfully elect- the crucial first half of the 1930s Ricketson was strike), in response to a call by Anglophile PM Isi Leibler’s Australian Institute for Jewish Af- White who secured Blamey’s ap- perhaps the primary influence”, adding that Stanley Melbourne Bruce to “defend the coun- fairs. After the collapse, Arnold Bloch Leibler pointment as commander of the ed Chifley government. Lt. Gen- “Dame Pattie Menzies avers that Ricketson’s man- try” against reds and socialists. The various Con- represented Trico’s managing director Ian Johns. eral Sturdee, chief of the general agement of Menzies’ affairs was of crucial impor- stitutional Clubs also provided manpower for the 6. Gerard Henderson, executive Director of the AIF at the outset of World War II. tance in releasing his energies for politics.” early 1930s fascist armies and their associated Sydney Institute, the renamed NSW IPA, wrote a The Association’s chief of staff, staff, unabashedly addressed the 3. Day attributes Menzies’ designs on becom- citizens leagues. It is difficult not to conclude book titled Menzies’ Child. The Liberal Party of Major General C.H. Simpson, was secretive organisation. The Asso- ing prime minister of Britain and negotiating a that many of the members of Legacy had either Australia, in which he attempted to downplay ciation faded out about 1952 be- “peace settlement” with Hitler, as being motivat- been special constables or members of the secre- the IPA’s influence on Menzies. Though his “re- in the pharmaceuticals business in ed, at least in part, by a desire to “save the Em- tive White Guard, set up at the same time by Gen- visionist” account of the IPA’s influence on the Melbourne. Simpson had been cause, in the words of one of its pire”, which Churchill was willing to sacrifice in eral Sir Brudenell White; many White Guardists, Liberal Party has been accepted by some thought- supporters, ASIO chief and Anglo- order to save Britain through an alliance with the like White himself, popped up as members of the less historians as gospel, Gerry was either extraor- Blamey’s chief signals officer dur- U.S. The real issue was Synarchism. Menzies was LNS in the early 1930s. dinarily uninformed about the overall impact of ing the war, but before that—his phile former Military Intelligence a puppet of a Synarchist cabal which aimed for Harold G. Darling. Chairman of the Board of the IPA on that Liberal Party which the IPA itself confederate in the LNS. The Asso- chief Sir Charles Spry, “the need world fascist rule as its goal, a cabal of which Day Directors of Broken Hill Pty. Ltd., head of John had set up, or was covering his own IPA behind for it was taken over by a demo- either has no knowledge, or at least did not men- Darling and Son, grain merchant and a director of and those of his IPA friends. It is notable that he ciation occasionally met in the tion in his book, but which is abundantly docu- Imperial Chemical Industries. BHP representa- was asked to write his account by some wealthy boardroom of the Mercantile Mu- cratic agency—the Australian Se- mented in the 1930s and 1940s files of U.S. intel- tives attended Old Guard meetings in NSW. Liberal Party businessmen, who also financed the curity Service”, which was estab- ligence agencies. Sir George Fairbairn. President of the Nation- book. tual building in Sydney; Mercan- 4. The leadership of the LNS is one of the most al Union after McBeath. A top pastoralist, with 7. On the considerable overlap of the MPA and tile Mutual’s Sir Kelso King and lished by Chifley under heavy closely guarded secrets in all Australian history, directorships in Dalgety and Co., AMP Society, the PEU, see Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. and David Sir Selwyn King, had been lead- Anglo-American pressure in 1949, so no firm proof exists linking the leading fig- Union Trustee Co. of Australia. P. Goldman, The Ugly Truth About Milton Fried- and quickly taken over by Anglo- ures of the National Union to the League of Na- Sir Robert Knox. Fairbairn’s successor as head man, New York: The New Benjamin Franklin House, ing figures in the Old Guard. Col. tional Security. But, for the record, the National of the National Union, director of numerous lead- 1980. Frank Goldenstedt was one of The philes. Today that same “demo- Union leaders were: ing firms including Dunlop (Aust), Collins 8. In 1971 economist Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. cratic agency”, ASIO, has been Brigadier Harold Edward Cohen. Senior House’s Commonwealth Steel Company Ltd. defeated leading Keynesian Abba Lerner in a de- Association’s few paid staffers; sev- partner in the law firm, Pavey, Wilson and Cohen, Commercial Banking Company of Sydney (Vic- bate at Queens College, New York, when La- enteen years before, he had been granted Hitlerian powers under the which was based at Collins House. As noted ear- torian Board) President of the Associated Cham- Rouche’s relentless questioning of the “liberal” Howard government. lier, one of the top figures in the firm which pro- ber of Commerce of Australia 1934-36, and Pres- Lerner caused the latter to exclaim, “But, if Sch- an organiser for the Old Guard’s vided the directors and secretaries for most of the ident of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce in acht’s theories had been applied, Hitler would front organisation, the AFAL. Nu- Collins House firms, Sir Hugh Brain, was a mem- the fateful years of 1928-31. not have been necessary!” The audience gasped merous other Old and New Guard Notes ber of the League of National Security. It is almost 5. In mid-1989, the Tricontinental Bank col- in horror. Shortly afterwards, the late Sidney Hook 1. Latham got his pay-off. Four years later, he unthinkable that the organisation providing all lapsed with as much as $2 billion in bad loans. noted that LaRouche had “won the debate but lost leaders populated the leading was appointed Chief Justice of the High Court. the directors and secretaries of the Collins House The Royal Commission into its failure noted in the war”, and that no Establishment economist ranks of The Association. Liberal Earlier, as Nationalist Attorney General during companies would have been involved in the its July 30, 1991 report, “A significant amount of would ever debate him again. Indeed, shortly there- the 1920s, he had been notorious for accepting League of National Security without the approv- total loans is provided to the Jewish community after, the FBI oversaw an attempt to have LaRouche Party leader R.G. Casey “acted as retainers from a wide range of shipping, mining al of other leading Collins House figures, nota- and in loans for property development.” More physically “eliminated”, according to FBI docu- an intermediary between The As- and other corporate enterprises directly affected bly the Baillieus. Cohen was Chairman of the specifically, Tricontinental’s borrowers looked ments later released under the Freedom of Infor- sociation, the Industrial Groups of by his decisions. As Attorney General, he was to Board of Directors of Electrolytic Zinc, the main like a Who’s Who of the clients list of neo-con mation Act. And no Establishment economist has draft the Financial Assistance Enforcement Act Collins House firm, as well as a director of several fanatic Mark Leibler’s law firm, Arnold Bloch dared to debate LaRouche since. B.A. Santamaria and Liberal Party of 1932, authorising the federal government to other Collins House and other prominent firms. Leibler. These included John Gandel ($20 mil- leaders R.G. Menzies and Magnus seize the finances of New South Wales, the legal He had been a member of the Australian Intelli- lion); Marc Besen (Gandel’s brother-in-law)— pretext under which the Lyons government moved gence Corps (AIC) during World War I and was $74.8 million; Abe Goldberg ($62 million); Liber-

Sources for Section III, Part 2, “The Liberal Party” Adams, Philip. “Beware the Lyons Sanctuary”, Weekend Australian, May 3-4, 1997. Coulthard-Clark, C.D. The Citizen General Staff. The Australian Intelligence Moore, Andrew. “Fascism Revived? The Association Stands Guard, 1947-52”, Adamson, Graeme. A Century of Change: The First Hundred Years of the Stock Corps 1907-1914, Canberra: Military Historical Society of Australia, 1976. Labour History, Number 74, May 1998. Exchange in Melbourne, South Yarra:Curry O'Neil, 1984 CPD, Oct. 2, 1935; April 27, 1940. — The Right Road? A History of Right-wing Politics in Australia, Melbourne: Aimer, Peter. Menzies and the Birth of the Liberal Party, in Cameron Hazlehurst Day, David, Menzies & Churchill at War, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, Oxford University Press, 1995. (ed.), Australian Conservatism, Canberra: ANU Press, 1979. 1993. — The Secret Army and the Premier. Conservative Paramilitary Organisations in Amos, Keith. The New Guard Movement 1931-1935. Graham, B.D. “The Place of Finance Committees in Non-Labor Politics, 1910- New South Wales 1930-32, Kensington, NSW: NSW University Press, 1989. Andrews, E.M. “The Australian Government and Appeasement”, The Australian 1930”, in Colin A. Hughes (ed.), Readings in Australian Government, St. Lucia, Qld.: Munster, George. Rupert Murdoch. A Paper Prince. Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin Books, Journal of Politics and History, April 1967. University of Queensland Press, 1968. 1987. — Isolation and Appeasement in Australia. Reactions to the European Crises, Kemp, C.D. Big Businessmen. Four Biographical Essays, Melbourne: IPA, 1964. The Nation, Oct 2, 1965. 1935-39, ANUP, 1970. — “Hayek: A Supreme Intellect”, IPA Review, Spring 1986. Quigley, Carroll. Tragedy and Hope. A History of The World in Our Time, New York: Appleyard, R.T. and C.B. Schedvin (eds.) Australian Financiers. Biographical Kemp, D.A. “The Institute of Public Affairs—Victoria 1942-47”, B.A. Honours Macmillan, 1966. Essays, South Melbourne: Reserve Bank of Australia, the Macmillan Company of Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1963. Simms, Marian. A Liberal Nation: The Liberal Party and Australian Politics, Australia Pty. Ltd. Martin, A.W. Robert Menzies: A Life, Carlton South, Vic.: Melbourne University Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1982. Australian Dictionary of Biography. Press, 1993. Watson, Lex. “The United Australia Party and its Sponsors”, in Cameron Hazle- Blatchford, Claude. Legacy, Melbourne: W.D. Joynt, 1932. McCarthy, John. “ ‘All for Australia’. Some Right Wing Responses to the Depres- hurst (ed.), op.cit. Cathcart, Michael. Defending the National Tuckshop. Australia’s secret army sion in New South Wales, 1929-1932”, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Were, J.B. Papers, Melbourne University Archive. intrigue of 1931, Fitzroy/Ringwood, Vic.: McPhee Gribble/Penguin Books, 1988. Society, June 1971. Clarke, Duncan. Meet the Press, 1962. McQueen, H. Australia’s Media Monopolies, Melbourne: Visa Books, 1973.

AUTHORS

This Special Report, “Defeat the Synarchists—Fight for a National Bank”, was researched and written by Allen Douglas, Robert Barwick, Robert Butler, Kelvin Heslop, and Gabrielle Peut. Scholars or other researchers needing references for material not footnoted or sourced directly in the text, may contact the CEC.