A STUDY GUIDE by Robert lewis

http://www.metromagazine.com.au

ISBN: 978-1-74295-040-2 http://www.theeducationshop.com.au OVERVIEW infiltrate Communist Party branches officers. It casts a fresh, critical eye with undercover agents. over the spy agency’s early history, I, Spry (Peter Butt, 57 minutes) is a from its first fumbling counter- dramatised documentary about the The sensational 1954 defections of espionage operations to its evolution founding of the Australian Security Soviet Embassy officials, Vladimir beyond government scrutiny and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), and Evdokia Petrov, deliver Spry a infiltration by the KGB. and its history under its first director, great intelligence victory. But when . It explores some of the a former ASIO officer appears in From Spry’s brazen attempt to cold war politics of the period from surveillance photographs and major influence the 1958 federal election 1945 to 1972, and raises important counter-espionage cases begin to to his controversial investigation into issues about the balance between fail, Spry soon finds himself in a Liberal prime minister , security and citizens’ rights in our place spies call the ‘wilderness of Spry emerges as an enigmatic master democracy. mirrors’. Security threats appear to spy who ultimately subverts the be everywhere – from the highest very democracy he is charged with In 1949, with a nuclear arms race office in the land to within ASIO protecting. set to escalate the cold war, Prime itself. Minister Menzies appoints Colonel Curriculum Applicability Charles Spry to take charge of Based on newly declassified the fledgling ASIO. The staunchly information, including Spry’s I, Spry is a useful resource for senior anti-communist, fifth-generation secret testimony at the 1974 Royal classes (Years 10–12) in: soldier recruits new officers to fight a Commission on Intelligence and • Australian History covert war against a cunning enemy. Security, I, Spry features ASIO • Modern History – cold war

Their primary task is to investigate surveillance footage and candid • Politics SCREEN EDUCATION Australians spying for the Soviets and interviews with former intelligence • Media studies

Above and front cover: Charles Spry (Tony Llewellyn-Jones)

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1: Staff cadet Charles Spry, 1931 (Royal Military College of Archives) 2: Leader of the Soviet Union, 1922–1953 3: Lydia Mokras (Natela Dzuliashvili) 4: Series A6201, Item 62 – Royal Commission on Espionage – Evdokia Petrov at Mascot Airport, . Courtesy of the National Archives of Australia 5: Vladimir Petrov (Alex Blokh) 6: Russian Club singer (Maria Okunev) and violinist (Anna Okunev) 7: Atomic bomb test, Maralinga, South Australia (1956)

BEFORE WATCHING any Russian spies in Australia. rity information with Australia because THE FILM B Let existing police forces carry out secrets are being passed on to Russia this task. from the Soviet Embassy in Australia. Imagine that you are a decision-maker What do you do? in Australia’s security organisation. 2 The Soviet-influenced Communist Party of Australia is a legal organisation. A Use only legal powers to investigate Here are some situations that you There are many known Communists where the Soviet Embassy is might face. What would you do? We in positions of power in the union receiving this information from. know that you have limited information movement in Australia. Many others B Use illegal powers if necessary to available to you, but in each case are secretly communist, so you do find out the source of the leaks. decide which of the options seems not know who they are. Some are most appropriate. suggesting their loyalty is to the Soviet 4 You discover who the people are Union rather than to Australia. who are leaking the information to the Then watch I, Spry, and return to these What do you do? Soviets, but you do so only because situations to see if you would change you have ‘cracked’ their secret codes. If any of your decisions. A Accept that people have a demo- they know you have cracked them they cratic right to free speech, free ideas will change the codes and you will lose 1 Australia is part of the Cold War, and and freedom of movement. access to their communications. there is a great fear of the spread of the B Ban the Communist Party as being What do you do? influence of Communism in the world, treasonous and dangerous to Aus- SCREEN EDUCATION especially through the activities of the tralia’s national interest and security. A Prosecute the traitors, but reveal Soviet Union (Russia). that the evidence against them is What do you do? 3 You receive information that our from the cracked codes. most powerful allies, the United States B Do not prosecute, and allow the A Set up a new security body to find and Britain, are refusing to share secu- guilty people to stay free. 3 AUSTRALIA AND THE COLD WAR TIMELINE

1945 Atomic bombs dropped on Japan end the war. 1956 Britain is involved in secret atomic weapons tests at Maralinga in Countries of Europe are divided between those liberated from South Australia. the Germans by the Allies in the west, and those liberated by 1957 Russia launches the first space vehicle, Sputnik. the Russians in the east. These countries adopt the systems and values of the liberator. 1958 ASIO discovers former deputy director Bob Wake coming and going from CPA headquarters. An investigation dubbed ‘Operation 1946 British PM Churchill talks about the forming of an ‘Iron Curtain’ Boomerang’ discovers Wake is meeting with other former between Eastern and Western Europe. disgruntled ASIO officers, Russian intelligence and operatives, and 1947 President Truman talks about the ‘domino effect’ of countries Evatt’s private secretary, Alan Dalziel, in Evatt’s office. Spry calls falling under communist influence. on Menzies to expose the conspiracy. Menzies doesn’t take the advice. 1948 US congressman Bernard Baruch talks about a ‘cold war’ between the democracies and the communist nations. 1959 The Cuban Revolution sees communist Fidel Castro come to power. Continuing communist activity in Asian countries. The Soviet Embassy reopens in Canberra. Soon after, they start 1949 Russia successfully tests an atomic bomb; it is helped by having espionage activities. First Secretary Ivan Skripov is a prime ASIO secret documents passed to it by spies in America. target. He meets with a mature woman who acts as a courier. In The Communist Party gains control of China. reality she is an undercover ASIO agent, code-named ‘Sylvia’. ASIO established by the Chifley Government after pressure by US 1960 New security laws passed in Australia against treason in and Britain. Justice Reed from South Australia is named interim peacetime. director-general until a permanent head can be appointed. Headquarters are based in Sydney under deputy director Bob 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis Wake. Skripov case reaches high point when Sylvia is dispatched to 1950 Adelaide with a Soviet transmitter to hand to an unknown contact. Korean War sees UN troops (including Australians) fighting The contact doesn’t appear. communist North Korean and Chinese troops in Korea. Australian troops assist the British to combat communist 1963 Skripov case closes six weeks later. Hailed as a success, the case revolutionaries in Malaya. is actually a failure and hints at a mole within ASIO. An internal New prime minister appoints new director- investigation discovers no mole. general, Colonel Sir Charles Chambers Fowell Spry, the former Spry moves resources to counter-subversion. He becomes head of Australian Military Intelligence. Soon after Spry forces obsessed with ‘mind control’, especially via television. Wake’s resignation and moves HQ to . Spry is Labor Party become increasingly critical of ASIO when it ignores indoctrinated by MI5 into the top-secret reason for ASIO’s creation Croatian terrorism in Australia because it is anti-communist. – intercepted documents from the Soviet Embassy in Canberra Meanwhile Spry drinks heavily and it is obvious to staff. have suggested Australians are spying for the Soviets. Spry concentrates on investigating the spy ring and infiltrating the 1964 US combat troops sent to Vietnam to resist the communist North Communist Party of Australia. Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam. The Menzies government outlaws the Australian Communist Party. 1965 Menzies retires. 1951 Legislation outlawing the Communist Party of Australia is declared Australian combat troops sent to Vietnam. Protest age threatens invalid. status quo. A referendum to change the Australian Constitution to give the ASIO targets thousands of anti-war demonstrators. government power to outlaw the Communist Party is narrowly defeated (49.4 per cent in favour, 50.6 per cent against). 1966 Australian conscripts included in combat troops sent to Vietnam. High Court rules that there have been many illegal activities by 1968 Spry investigates prime minister John Gorton’s visit to US communist-dominated unions. Embassy with nineteen-year-old journalist Geraldine Willesee. 1952 United Kingdom becomes the third nuclear power after successful Confronts Gorton. testing in Australia’s Montebello Islands. 1969 Gorton calls for a report into Spry Spry from an officer working for 1953 One of the alleged spies – Frances Burnie – admits giving Australia’s overseas secret intelligence collection agency (ASIS) documents to CPA official Wally Clayton. who worked closely with ASIO in the early 1960s. The report suggests Spry was endangering constitutional rights. Spry resigns 1954 The communist government in North Vietnam defeats the French after a number of months on sick leave. colonial power. 1970 First moratorium – a mass protest against the Vietnam war. Australia signs the anti-communist Southeast Asia Treaty Organization pact. 1971 Announcement of withdrawal of Australian troops from Vietnam. Vladimir Petrov defects thanks to the efforts of ASIO agent Dr Michael Bialoguski. Two weeks later his wife, Evdokia defects. 1972 Labor returns to power. The Soviet Embassy closes. 1973 Labor attorney-general raids ASIO with Commonwealth Police. On the back of anti-communist sentiment, the Menzies government is returned at a Federal election. Labor leader Dr 1974 Labor calls Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security. Main Herbert Evatt claims the defections are a conspiracy between target is ASIO. New Labor director-general is Spry and Menzies to win the election. criticised by CIA. Barbour sacked. The Royal Commission on espionage exposes, via evidence from 1976 the Petrovs, explosive details of the Australian spy ring, but no Spry gives secret testimony to Royal Commission and admits prosecutions are launched. Soviet defector, Anatoliy Golitsyn, told him that ASIO was SCREEN EDUCATION penetrated by KGB in early 1960s. 1955 Evatt’s role of defending people accused of assisting the Soviets 1977 at the Royal Commission triggers a split in the Labor Party. Royal Commissioner Justice Robert Hope delivers secret findings Anti-communist Catholics form the Democratic Labor Party as an to Prime Minister . ASIO undergoes massive alternative party. Menzies protects the agency with the ASIO Act. reform. Spry is at his most powerful. Evatt declares war on ASIO and Spry. 4 2 3

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1: Russian Club singer 2: Russian Club accordionist (Eddie Bronson) 3: Burst transmitter 4: Russian Club ASIO undercover agent Dr Michael Bialoguski (Gary Deirmendjian) 5: Prime minister Robert Menzies 5: Walter Clayton (codename Klod) 7: Parliament House, Canberra 8: Anti Vietnam Conscription Protest, 1966

5 There is a Soviet official ready to A Announce it before the election. their careers to positions of public defect. There is also an election about B Announce it after the election. influence. to be held. C Do not announce it at all. What do you do? Come back to these questions after you 7 There is considerable social unrest have watched and discussed I, Spry A Announce the defection before the because of government polices. Some and see if you would change any of election, knowing that it may influ- of the leaders of the unrest are com- your answers. ence the way some people vote. munists, many of the protesters are not, B Announce it after the election, and in many cases you do not know if while WATCHING knowing that if some people had they are secretly communist or being THE FILM known about this before the election used by the communists or not. it may have changed their vote. What do you do? EXPLORING IDEAS AND C Do not announce it at all, keep it ISSUES IN THE FILM secret. A Let the protests happen; this is part of the democratic system. The following questions have been 6 You discover evidence that there is a B Investigate all those who are designed to help students follow the traitor within your own security service, prominent in the protests to find structure of I, Spry and discuss issues but you are not sure who it is, and the who are secret risks, even accepting as they arise, as well as then providing evidence is not conclusive. If you make unreliable gossip and rumours a set of final issues to reflect on. The SCREEN EDUCATION the charges known you might end up against them as evidence. approximate times for each of the sec- with the case being thrown out of court. C Only investigate the known leaders. tions is provided to help teachers stop Another election is near. D Make sure the ones that you are the film at key discussion points if they What do you do? not sure of do not progress in want to. The timeline, on the following 5 2 3

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1: Senior ASIO officer Ron Richards (Kim Knuckey) & Charles Spry 2: ASIO surveillance officers 3: Alan Dalziel (John Grinston) 4: Australian Frances Bernie who admitted spying for Soviets (Leanne Mauro) 5: Former deputy director of ASIO Bob Wake (Bob Baines) 6: ASIO officers listening in on Russian Journalist 7: Dr Herbert Evatt (Gary Files) and private secretary Alan Dalziel at Espionage Royal Commission 1955

page, can help students appreciate Soviets and their influence links between the Soviets and the Com- more details of the period. in Australia (02:03 – 17:30) munist Party of Australia, which in turn also had great influence within the trade The Cold War atmosphere 4 The film starts by looking at ASIO’s union movement in Australia, and in the (00:00 – 02:03) attempts to find out about Soviet ALP. Do you agree that this created a activities in Australia. How justified was serious security threat to Australia? 1 The film calls the world of spying a Spry in spying on the Soviets? ‘wilderness of mirrors’. What do you The Petrov defection think this might mean? 5 Was he justified in believing that (17:30 – 28:40) there was a serious threat to Australia 2 The film is set during the cold war. from Soviet spying activities? 9 Why was the defection of Petrov so This was a time of great rivalry between important? the USA and its allies in the ‘free world’, 6 Why do you think some Australian and the Soviet Union and its allies in citizens would have been loyal to the 10 How did it allow ASIO to make the the communist world. What does the Soviet government rather than to the accusation publicly in a way they had film establish as the social and political Australian one? not before? atmosphere of cold war Australia, and especially the attitude towards 7 What was the significance of 11 Evatt and many historians since communism? Alan Dalziel’s involvement in the have claimed it was a set-up, and SCREEN EDUCATION investigations? (Try to think of what stage-managed to win the election for 3 Why do you think the two sides would be a modern equivalent today, Menzies. Most modern research shows feared and opposed each other so and what the reaction might be!) that it was genuine. Was Menzies strongly? justified in revealing it just before an 8 ASIO investigations showed strong election? 6 2 3

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1: Charles Spry 2: ASIO surveillance of journalist Nosov (Serge Makrooussov) and his wife (Rosalie Babicheva) 3: Frances Bernie 4: Frances Bernie at Espionage Royal Commission 1955 5: Charles Spry 6: Ron Richards & Charles Spry 7 (L–R): Ainslie Gotto (Octavia Barron-Martin), Charles Spry, prime minister JohnGorton (John Thomson)

‘Operation Boomerang’ ASIO looks inwards 22 What do you think were Spry’s (28:40 – 36:40) (42:30 – 57:00) main strengths or qualities, and his main weaknesses? 12 What was ‘Operation Boomerang’? 17 The film claims that ASIO was now becoming unable to distinguish 23 During the film the claim is made 13 Why was it such a dangerous between dissent and disloyalty. Discuss that if you deal with an enemy you’ve operation to make public? the difference between these. got to be very careful that your methods don’t become worse than the disease Skripov and infiltration 18 Why was ASIO not looking at right- they’re meant to cure. Do you agree (36:40 – 42:30) wing violence? that there is a need for checks and bal- ances on a security force in a democ- 14 Why would this have been seen to 19 Do you think ASIO was justified in racy? How do you do so while protect- be a successful operation? questioning Prime Minister Gorton’s be- ing the organisation’s need for secrecy? haviour at the United States embassy? Research how the Australian system 15 Why was it in fact unsuccessful? does this today. 20 In 1972 Labor came to power. How 16 An estimated 10,000 Australians did that affect ASIO? 24 How far are you prepared to sacri- were on a list to be interned if a war fice right to privacy for security? broke out with the Soviet Union. Do you Reflections SCREEN EDUCATION think it is justified to intern citizens in 25 Go back to your initial interpreta- wartime based on a suspicion that they 21 What does I, Spry suggest to you tion of the phrase ‘a wilderness of mir- may be disloyal? about the influence of a leader on an rors’. Would you now change anything organisation? in your answer? 7 2

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1: Prime minister Robert Menzies (Christopher Clark) 2: Vladimir Petrov at Espionage Royal Commission 1955 3: ‘Sylvia’ working undercover for ASIO, 1961 4: Dr Herbert Evatt at Espionage Royal Commission 1955 5: Charles Spry

26 Go back to the hypothetical situa- Read these two statements from Peter recreation of the Russian Social Club tion where you made decisions about a Butt, the director/writer of I, Spry. These of 1951. This was the location, under- series of circumstances that appear in will help your discussions of some of ground in George Street, Sydney, where I, Spry. Would you now change any of these elements. Petrov first met undercover ASIO agent your answers? Dr Bialoguski. We knew our production A designer Craig Mandile and his team Making the film could capture the atmosphere, but we One of most daunting aspects of the also wanted to fill the club with music 27 I, Spry is a dramatised documenta- film production was to find locations to and Russian extras. ry. What do you think would be the main recreate Sydney of the 1950s, where difficulties in making such a film? How much of Australia’s espionage history A telephone call to Russian acting have the filmmakers tried to overcome took place. teacher, Natela Dzuliashvili, led me them? How successfully? down an amazing path. She suggested We were fortunate to gain permission to writing to a website called Russian Here are some aspects to consider in film in the apartment block where ASIO Connection, which helps Australian developing your answer: agent, Dr Michael Bialoguski lived and Russians keep in contact. Less than an entertained Vladimir Petrov. We also hour after emailing the website, I had • Narration discovered that the foyer and lifts of 17 enthusiastic people offering to be • Dramatic reconstructions the Potts Point building called Cahors extras. Within three days there were

• Historic footage where Petrov defected was still largely over 70 applications – even some from SCREEN EDUCATION • Interviews unchanged. The current occupants had Russian- Australians visiting Moscow! • Music little idea what history was made in their • Editing building. Some mentioned their interests. Maria • Narrative structure Okunev said she could sing, which The most exciting challenge was the proved to be an understatement. She 8 3

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Behind the scenes – 1: DOP Calvin Gardiner ACS 2: Filming Lydia Mokras Russian Club 3: Peter Butt and 1st Assistant Director Ian Astridge 4: Peter Butt with Tony Llewellyn-Jones 5: Peter Butt 6: I, Spry crew 7: Wardrobe designer Beverley Freeman (centre) with Mrs Petrov (Halina Abramowicz)

is a superb singer and with her violinist Lydia Mokras. he was alone. If any other ASIO officer sister, Anna, has a wonderful quartet, had done this, he would have been playing around Sydney. One of the coups of the research phase dismissed. Lydia told me Spry always was the discovery of the real Lydia came with oysters and alcohol. This As it happened, they regularly per- Mokras. She was the woman who intro- one intriguing fact proved for me that formed the two songs I had planned duced Petrov to ASIO agent Bialoguski her story was legitimate. There was no for the film, Dark Eyes and Moscow at the Russian Club. way she could have guessed what Spry Nights. Soon Maria and Anna were drank or that he had a taste for oysters. recording the songs with our composer Scanning hundreds of pages of her Indeed, it was exactly the same extrav- and arranger, Guy Gross, at Trackdown ASIO files, I discovered the name of a agant fare he provided Vladimir Petrov Studios. person she associated with in the early the day he defected! 1950s. In a matter of hours I tracked For all of us, their performance in our him down living a few streets away from Lydia’s story of Spry asking her to agree recreated Russian Club at the Peter- my home. He said Lydia was still alive to a microphone in her wardrobe is a sham town hall – beautifully costumed and after much negotiation she agreed fascinating insight into ASIO’s surveil- by Beverley Freeman – was one of the to meet me. Her interview – the first she lance methods. But it also revealed how highlights of the production. had ever given – provided a unique in- little ASIO knew about their ultimate sight into Spry and his modus operandi. target, Alan Dalziel, the Private Secre- As well as providing extras, my simple tary to the Leader of the Opposition, Dr enquiry for extras connected me with I was surprised to learn Spry visited Herbert Evatt. The final irony delivered SCREEN EDUCATION people wonderfully suited for major Lydia on three separate occasions in in the film makes one wonder what nine Russian parts in the story – Petrov, Mr the late 1950s. This was the Director- years of surveillance and phone taps and Mrs Nosov and Dr Bialoguski. And General of a spy agency visiting an really achieved. acting teacher, Natela Dzuliashvili, was attractive Russian woman whom he perfect for the alluring and mysterious believed to be spying for the KGB. And Of course, the most important decision 9 3

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Behind the scenes – 1: Peter Butt 2: Peter Butt with Tony Llewellyn-Jones and 16mm projector 3: Producer Anna Grieve as an extra at the Russian Social Club 4: Peter Butt 5: Peter Butt 6: Peter Butt

my co-producer, Anna Grieve, and I protests and those who participated in als’. Such files are fascinating to read, had to make was the casting of Charles the protests were conscious that ASIO but it is quite sobering to think that peo- Spry. We had cast Tony Llewellyn-Jones men were probably in the crowd. ple’s lives and careers were affected by to play Deputy Prime Minister and information that they couldn’t contest. Country Party Leader, John McEwen, in In my working life, many of the docu- our previous film The Prime Minister is mentaries I have made about Australia’s The impetus for a film on the early years Missing and on the launch of that film secret history seemed to lead to ASIO of ASIO came with the 2008 public discussed the possibility that he could documents in the archives. ASIO’s meth- release of findings of the Hope Royal play the ASIO Director-General. Read- ods of gathering information – surveil- Commission on Intelligence and Secu- ing Spry’s Royal Commission testimony lance, telephone tapping, interviewing rity in the mid 1970s. The Commission on its release in May 2008, I knew we friends, enemies and colleagues of their was called soon after the Labor Attor- couldn’t go past Tony. We knew he targets – were standard practice amongst ney General raided ASIO could deliver gravitas and drama to spy agencies around the world. But with the Commonwealth Police in tow. every line. By the time we had started much of the information contained in so- Justice Hope’s findings were so damn- filming, Tony had done his own exten- called ‘personal files’ troubled me. The ing that it is a wonder ASIO survived. sive research into the enigmatic master contents often seemed to be based on spy. It is difficult to imagine anyone else rumour, innuendo and assumption, little I went to the National Archives in Canber- in the role. He was brilliant. of which would stand up in court. ra to trawl through the Commission files. The most intriguing document was that

B Historically, they do give a unique of Sir Charles Spry’s testimony. In 1976, SCREEN EDUCATION insight into the attitudes of the time. the head of ASIO for two decades was I have long been interested in how the In the 1950s, women were particularly interviewed ‘in camera’ at a secret loca- cold war shaped the Australia I grew up hard done by. If they weren’t married tion in Sydney to prevent ASIO interfer- in. My late teenage years were marked or seen with more than one man, they ence. Rich with political overtones, Spry’s by anti-Vietnam war and anti-nuclear were often described as ‘of loose mor- testimony reads like a confessional. 10 2

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Behind the scenes – 1: Peter Butt 2: Preparing crane shot outside location used as ASIO headquarters 3: Wardrobe and makeup, Beverley Freeman applying makeup 4: Spry with Natela Dzuliashvili & Calvin Gardiner 5: Peter Butt with Natela Dzuliashvili 6: Camera operator Tony Gardiner with Natela Dzuliashvili and Ian Astridge

Australia’s first true spy master openly ang’, which had all the hallmarks of an to be exposed in Parliament. detailed his obsessions, not merely with attempt by Spry to directly influence Soviet espionage and the Communist Australian politics – and it was directly But it was clear from the documents that Party of Australia, but also with politi- related to the Petrov Affair. all of the conspirators knew they were cians and even former ASIO officers. At being monitored by ASIO and did eve- that moment, I realised this was the story I spoke with a number of cold war histori- rything they could to catch its attention. I wanted to research further. ans. Only one had heard of the operation It seems Menzies also sensed that Spry but had not looked into it. I requested had fallen into a trap. If he had followed Spry sincerely believed that he was the ASIO’s ‘Operation Boomerang’ files from Spry’s advice, he could have exposed glue that kept Australia from political the archives. They contained a fascinat- his government to ridicule and possibly turmoil. Yet the high point in his career, ing, explosive story set in the eve of the damaged his re-election prospects. the Petrov Affair, helped split the Labor 1958 Federal election. Had the story Wisely, Menzies never acted upon it. party – an event which still reverberates become public, it may have eclipsed the through modern politics. The then Labor Petrov Affair in controversy. To me ‘Operation Boomerang’ leader, Dr Evatt, claimed the timing of represented a major crack in Spry’s Vladimir Petrov’s defection was triggered The documents reveal an investigation façade of ‘political impartiality’ and by Spry to damage Labor and help win into a group of disgruntled ex-ASIO offic- revealed a serious lack of judgment. Menzies the 1954 election. The accepted ers and former Russian intelligence op- After the success of the Petrov academic view is that there was no con- eratives who allegedly met regularly in Dr defections in 1954, it seemed Spry was SCREEN EDUCATION spiracy between Spry and Menzies. Evatt’s office. Spry concluded that they on a downward trajectory by 1958. were involved in a conspiracy to destroy But in his Royal Commission testimony, ASIO, as payback for the Petrov Affair. In In researching ASIO files, I discovered Spry mentioned a top secret ASIO a letter to Prime Minister Menzies, Spry that senior officers in the early 1960s investigation called ‘Operation Boomer- called for Dr Evatt and the conspirators were concerned that all their major 11 counter-espionage investigations were even worthy of note. More importantly, film would be sourced from documents, falling apart. They wondered whether criticising the government could put you letters, tape recordings and interviews. ASIO could have been infiltrated. An on the ASIO surveillance list and poten- The central plank of the film would be internal investigation was carried out tially affect your chances of promotion. Spry’s testimony at the Hope Royal but no ‘mole’ was ever found. Commission, in which he makes many Spry also damaged the careers of extraordinary admissions – including Intriguingly, at the same time, Spry public servants with alleged ‘Serious that ASIO had indeed been infiltrated turned his ASIO’s resources away from Character Defects’ such as homosexu- by the KGB, a fact he never shared with preventing espionage, toward tack- ality and drunkenness. He believed they the government. ling subversion and what he termed were open to blackmail and therefore ‘mind control’. Thousands of influential security risks. Former ASIO officers The Royal Commission discovered that Australians – writers, actors, ministers from the 50s and 60s all pointed out the ASIO had become dysfunctional under of religion, university lecturers, filmmak- hypocrisy – Spry, himself, was an alco- Spry. And somewhat ironically, the grav- ers, artists, scientists – were targeted holic. Therefore, by his own standards, est risk to Australian national security and in some cases had their careers Spry was a security risk. during his reign existed not in the uni- and reputations ruined. As the Royal versities, media or even the Communist Commission discovered Spry leaked The most telling documents in Spry’s Party, but within ASIO itself. ASIO files to politicians and sympa- story detail his fallout with Prime Min- thetic journalists. Some of these people ister John Gorton over what became FURTHER INFORMATION may have been added to ASIO’s list of known as the ‘Willesee Affair’. One 10,000 Australians to be interned in the night in late 1968, Gorton visited the US David McKnight, Australia’s Spies event of war with the Soviet Union. Embassy in the company of 19-year-old and their Secrets, Allen & Unwin, journalist Geraldine Willesee. But some- Sydney, 1994. Spry’s view of the world seemed to where in the shadows that night lurked Desmond Ball & David Horner, Breaking be out of step with an open, healthy an ASIO agent. His debriefing at ASIO the Codes, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, democracy and more in tune with Sena- headquarters led to a confrontation be- 1998. tor Joseph McCarthy and FBI chief, J. tween Spry and Prime Minister Gorton. Richard Hall, The Secret State, Cassell Edgar Hoover, in the US. Movie star and It was a remarkable political drama of Australia, Sydney, 1978. quintessential Australian, Chips Raf- which few Australians are aware and led Jenny Hocking, Terror Laws. ASIO, ferty, worked as a wharfie between films. to Gorton calling for a report on Spry. Counter-terrorism and the Threat to His ASIO file records that he was to be Democracy, UNSW Press, Sydney, denied access to ‘classified documents With these insights, Co-Producer Anna 2004. and equipment’. Grieve and I were convinced we had the Robert Manne, The Petrov Affair, material to make a film about a power- Pergamon, Sydney, 1987. ASIO also compiled dossiers called ful, yet flawed spymaster and his impact Frank Cain, Terrorism and Intelligence ‘Spoiling Operations’, which contained on Australian politics and democracy. in Australia, Australian Scholarly personal details about journalists. It Publishing, Melbourne, 2008. seems ASIO recruited staff within broad- As ASIO’s cameras were always point- http://www.asio.gov.au casters, radio stations and newspapers ing at someone else rather than Charles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_ to inform on their colleagues’ political Spry, we decided that dramatisation Security_Intelligence_Organisation beliefs and sexual relationships. Inside was the only way to bring his story to the ABC, the wearing of a red tie was television. Most of the dialogue for the

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I, Spry production photography by Louise Whelan – http://www.louisewhelan.com.au 12