In the Name of National Security: Press Censorship in Cold War Australia

Abstract

Though little known, a system of voluntary press censorship based on the British D Notice system operated in Australia during the Cold War. The Australian D Notice system, while successful in the early decades of the Cold War, became increasingly contested throughout the 1970s before apparently falling into disuse in the 1980s. The belief that Australia’s D Notice system simply decayed through lack of use is generally accepted by scholars; however, this explanation does not sufficiently convey the complexity behind the breakdown of the system. The system relies heavily on trust and requires a degree of transparency between governments and the press. This article makes the case that a broadening of the definition of national security combined with the simultaneous growth of both investigative journalism and the perception of increased government secrecy was the ultimate cause of the failure of the D Notice system in Australia.

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors of Australian Historical Studies for their thoughtful and helpful comments. Julie Fedor and Nicole Davis provided invaluable advice on earlier drafts of this article. Peter Greste’s insight on issues of press censorship was of great value, as was the support and advice of Sean Scalmer and Leith Davis.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Gordon Samuels and Michael Codd, Report on the Australian Secret Intelligence Service/Commission of Inquiry into the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (Canberra: Australian Govt. Pub. Service, 1995) [hereafter ‘Samuels Report’], 114.

2 Laurence W. Maher, ‘National Security and Mass Media Self Censorship: The Origins, Disclosure, Decline and Revival of the Australian D Notice System’, Australian Journal of Legal History 3, no. 2 (1997): 200.

3 Pauline Sadler, National Security and the D Notice System (Aldershot: Ashgate Dartmouth, 2001), 83.

4 Ball and Horner’s Breaking the Codes remains the most comprehensive discussion of signals intelligence and Soviet espionage during this period. See Desmond Ball and David Horner, Breaking the Codes: Australia’s KGB Network, 1944–1950 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1998).

5 David Horner, The Spy Catchers: The Official History of ASIO 1949–1963 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2014), 74–5.

6 ‘Chronology of Events’, A12383, A/1, National Archives of Australia [hereafter NAA].

7 ‘Defence Research and Development Policy: Note on the Effect of Recent Developments on the Policy Approved by the Government in Relation to Defence Research and Development’, A5954, 848/4, NAA.

8 ‘Draft Letter to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from the Prime Minister’, A5954, 848/1, NAA.

9 Letter, Thomson to Buchanan, 30 September 1947, A816, 10/301/130, NAA.

10 ‘Letter, Official Secretary, Office of the High Commission for the UK to Secretary, Prime Minister’s Department’, 28 January 1947, A816, 10/301/128, NAA.

11 For example, records suggest letters were sent to the Prime Minister’s Department from the UK High Commission regarding a D Notice scheme on 28 January 1947, 12 May 1947 and 18 October 1947. See A816, 10/301/128, NAA. The pressure was maintained until the introduction of the scheme; an inwards teleprinter message to the Defence Department regarding the D Notice scheme reads ‘Greatly appreciate earliest advice. United Kingdom pressing me’. Message, McKnight, Prime Minister’s Department to Landau, Defence Department, 24 March 1952, A816, 10/301/128, NAA.

12 Letter, Official Secretary, Office of the High Commission for the UK to Secretary, Prime Minister’s Department, 28 January 1947, A816, 10/301/128, NAA.

13 See Horner, Spy Catchers, for a discussion of the circumstances surrounding the establishment of ASIO.

14 Minute, Minister for Defence, ‘Confidential Defence Notices to the Press’, 10 May 1947, A5954, 1956/6, NAA.

15 Letter, Chifley to High Commissioner for the United Kingdom, 20 November 1947, A816, 10/301/128, NAA; Minute Paper, ‘Security of Defence Information – Confidential “D” Notices to the Press’, F. Shedden, 17 June 1950, A816, 10/301/128, NAA.

16 Horner, Official History, 81. References to the Herald are also made in a Department of Defence Minute Paper, ‘Security Service’, 30 September 1948, A5954, 848/1, 81, NAA.

17 Horner, Official History, 81. Horner references a letter from Hembley-Scales to Sillitoe, dated 4 October 1948.

18 Letter, Prime Minister to Ezra Norton, 6 October 1948, A5954, 850/2, NAA.

19 Letter, C.P. Smith to Prime Minister, 8 October 1948, A5954, 850/2, NAA; Letter, F. Packer to Prime Minister, 11 October 1948, A5954, 850/2, NAA.

20 Letter, Colin Bednall to Prime Minister, 8 October 1948, A5954, 850/2, NAA.

21 Letter, C.E. Davies to Prime Minister, 21 October 1948, A5954, 850/2, NAA.

22 Minute by Defence Committee at Meeting Held on Thursday 1 December 1949, A816, 10/301/128, NAA.

23 F.O. Chilton, Memorandum for the Secretary, ‘Press Disclosure of Defence Information’, 11 May 1950, A816, 10/301/128, NAA.

24 Letter, P.A. McBride to Prime Minister, ‘Security of Defence Information – Confidential “D” Notices to the Press’, 28 March 1952, A1209, 1957/5486, NAA.

25 Letter, Prime Minister to Mr E. Kennedy, 22 November 1950, A1209, 1957/5486, NAA.

26 Ibid.

27 Letter, Admiral G.F. Thomson (ret.) to Captain A.E. Buchanan, ‘Admiralty, War Office Air Ministry and Press Committee’, 13 August 1947, A816, 10/301/130, NAA.

28 Maher judged that the ‘premium paid for that cover was self-censorship’. Maher, 199.

29 Memorandum for the Secretary, Prime Minister’s Department from E.G. Bonney, Director-General Department of Information, 15 May 1947, A816 10/301/128, NAA.

30 Telegram, Prime Minister to Macartney, 13 July 1952, A1209, 1957/5486, NAA.

31 ‘After discussion, it was agreed not to add to the Committee’. Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee, Minutes of First Meeting held at Victoria Barracks on Monday, 14 July 1952, A1209, 1957/5486, NAA.

32 Telegram, Secretary Defence to Secretary Prime Minister, 17 November 1952, A1209, 1957/5486, NAA.

33 Note for Secretary, ‘Public Relations Officer’, S. Landau, 23 November 1951, A816, 10/301/128, NAA.

34 Nicholas Wilkinson, ‘Balancing National Security and the Media: The D Notice Committee’, in Spinning Intelligence: Why Intelligence Needs the Media, Why Media Needs Intelligence, eds Robert Dover and Michael S. Goodman (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 138.

35 Letter, P.A. McBride to Prime Minister, ‘Security of Defence Information – Confidential “D” Notices to the Press’, 28 March 1952, A1209, 1957/5486, NAA.

36 Wilkinson, 137.

37 Letter, P.A. McBride to Prime Minister, ‘Security of Defence Information – Confidential “D” Notices to the Press’, 28 March 1952, A1209, 1957/5486, NAA.

38 Letter, P.A. McBride to Acting Prime Minister, ‘Security of Defence Information – Confidential “D” Notices to the Press’, 27 June 1952, A816, 10/301/128, NAA.

39 Ibid.; S. Landau, Note for Secretary, ‘Public Relations Officer’, 23 November 1951, A816, 10/301/128, NAA.

40 Letter, Prime Minister to Mr Kennedy, 22 November 1950, A816, 10/301/128, NAA.

41 Memorandum, Shedden to Acting Minister, 17 June 1950, A816, 10/301/128, NAA.

42 Maher, 173, 190.

43 Ibid., 173.

44 Letter, Frank Packer to Prime Minister, 4 December 1950, A1209, 1957/5486, NAA. This difference in response can also be attributed to Packer’s political sympathies with the Menzies government, whom he sought to ‘cultivate’, and his ‘mounting hostility to Labor’ during Chifley’s leadership. See Bridget Griffen-Foley, Sir Frank Packer: A Biography (Sydney: University of Sydney Press, 2014), 172, 179.

45 Letter, R. Doutreband to Prime Minister, 5 December 1950, A1209, 1957/5486, NAA.

46 The files do not include the press response to the breach, if any. Letter, F.O. Chilton to F.R. Sinclair, ‘Security of Defence Information – “D” Notices’, 16 January 1953, A816, 10/301/128, NAA.

47 Ibid.

48 Maher, 194.

49 Sadler, 67, 85–6.

50 Letter, Thomson to Buchanan, 30 September 1947, A816, 10/301/130, NAA.

51 Maher, 173.

52 John Blaxland describes ‘the methods and procedures followed by ASIO officers … which were not covered by extant legislation’. John Blaxland, The Protest Years: The Official History of ASIO, 1963–1975 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2015), 180.

53 Deputy Labor Leader Lance Barnard argued that the ‘cloak and dagger’ methods of Australia’s intelligence agencies were ‘increasingly difficult to stomach’ in the 1970s and that unless greater accountability measures were introduced, ‘there will be increasing suspicion and uneasiness about what ASIO is doing’. ‘Cut Security Powers, Says Barnard’, Age, 22 December 1969.

54 Richard Farmer, ‘D-Noticed Out of Print’, Nation, 15 July 1967. Other mastheads complied with the strict classification around the D Notice system and the story was not picked up by other major Australian daily news services.

55 Samuels Report, 113.

56 ‘School for Australian Spies: Graduates Signed Up for Espionage’, Daily Telegraph, 1 November 1972.

57 ‘Extract from “A Current Affair” compered by Michael Willesee’, 1 November 1972, A7542, A83, NAA.

58 Telegram, Director MO9 to Secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs, Secretary, Prime Minister’s Department, Acting Secretary, Defence, 2 November 1972, A7452, A83, NAA; Telegram, Director MO9 to Secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs, Secretary, Prime Minister’s Department, Acting Secretary, Defence, 3 November 1972, A7452, A83, NAA.

59 Note for File, ‘Alleged Publication of Official Information – Major Peter Young’, G.J. Yeend, 16 November 1972, A7452, A83, NAA; Telegram, Director MO9 to Secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs, Secretary, Prime Minister’s Department, Acting Secretary, Defence, 8 November 1972, A7452, A83, NAA.

60 In an interview with Michael Willesee on the Channel 9 current affairs program, A Current Affair, Farmer and Young admitted that ‘the Crimes Act [was] weighing heavily on all of us … ’. ‘Extract from “A Current Affair” compered by Michael Willesee’, 1 November 1972, A7542, A83, NAA.

61 Sadler, 71.

62 Minutes of the First Meeting of the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee, 14 July 1952, A1209, 1957/5486, NAA.

63 Letter, Barnard to McClelland, undated, A7542, A66, NAA.

64 ‘The D Notice System’, Submission by the Department of Defence to the Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security, May 1975, A12389, D18, NAA.

65 Ibid., 3–4.

66 Ibid., 2.

67 Ibid., 5, 3.

68 ‘More ASIO Power’, The Age, 9 March 1979.

69 ‘Note for File: Meeting with Attorney-General’, 25 March 1976, A12381, 20/2, 145, NAA; RCIS, Fourth Report, Vol. 3, A8908, 4C, NAA.

70 John Blaxland and Rhys Crawley, The Secret Cold War: The Official History of ASIO, 1975–1989 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2016), 34.

71 Andrew Kruger, ‘Fines, Jail Part of Canberra’s Plan to Protect ASIO’, Sydney Morning Herald, 1 May 1979.

72 Letter, D.J. Killen to the Prime Minister, 8 September 1977, A7452, A66, NAA; Note for File, J.D. Anderson, Intelligence and Security Branch, Dept. of Prime Minister and Cabinet, 11 November 1977, A7452, A66, NAA.

73 Sadler, 70–3.

74 Memorandum, J.D. Anderson to the Prime Minister, 3 October 1979, A7452, A66, NAA.

75 ‘Director-General’s Press Club’, A1209, 1983/726, part 1, 45, NAA.

76 Sadler, 79.

77 AUSTEO is a classification code meaning ‘Australian Eyes Only’. ‘The AUSTEO Papers’, National Times, 5–12 May 1983, 3–7.

78 Ibid.

79 Peter Edwards, Law, Politics and Intelligence: A Life of Robert Hope (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2020), 259.

80 ‘Settlement of the “National Times” security articles case’, Press release by the Attorney-General, 17 May 1983, A463, 1983/894, NAA; ‘How Electronic Espionage Was Exposed Four Decades Ago’, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 October 2013.

81 Frank Bongiorno, The Eighties: The Decade That Transformed Australia (Melbourne: Black Inc., 2015), 22, 23.

82 ‘Russian Spy, Labor Official Named’, Daily Telegraph, 10 May 1983; David Marr, The Ivanov Trail (Melbourne: Thomas Nelson, 1984), 55.

83 Richard McGregor, ‘The Spy Story That Won’t Make the Silver Screen’, Sydney Morning Herald, 6 July 1983.

84 Michelle Grattan, ‘Secrecy and a Vision of Justice Done’, The Age, 4 July 1983.

85 McGregor.

86 ‘The description of the system as moribund seems apt’. Samuels Report, 115.

87 Ibid., xx; Four Corners, ABC, 21 February 1994.

88 Samuels Report, 114.

89 Ibid., 115.

90 Ibid.

91 Ibid., 116.

92 Ibid., 117.

93 Ibid., 118.

94 Ibid., 119.

95 Sadler notes that attempts to revive the system by the Howard government did not get off the ground and stalled by 2000. Sadler, 82.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship