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.

The British D Notice system of voluntary press censorship has helped protect Britain’s national security and defence secrets for over a century. In operation in Britain since 1912, the once highly classified D Notice (or Defence Notice) system offers governments and defence services a formal and confidential process to request the press refrain from publishing information that might have ‘national security’ implications. An Australian version of the system operated with little controversy throughout the early decades of the Cold War 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 D Notice system relies heavily on trust: the system is voluntary, and representatives of the media must be convinced that genuine matters of national security are at risk. When there is a suspicion that the system is used to cover political embarrassment, to maintain secrecy for secrecy’s sake or when there is a divergence of views on what constitutes ‘national security’, that trust can dissolve. Likewise, governments and defence services must have trust in the media to respect D Notices once they are agreed upon by the Committee. Where governments, intelligence agencies and defence services feel that the media’s version of the public interest coincides more with financial gain or an eye to competitive advantage, an increase in secrecy can seem a more rational response. I argue that the system of voluntary self-censorship in place in Australia during the Cold War did not simply decay through a lack of use or need but was undermined by a decrease in mutual trust and transparency between the government and the media.

In 1995, an independent intelligence inquiry into the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) conducted by Gordon Samuels investigated the decline and future viability of the D Notice system in Australia. The Samuels Report concluded that the D Notice system had ‘largely fallen into disuse’ and that the ‘description of the system as moribund seems apt’.¹ This interpretation has proven influential upon the scant scholarship devoted to the Australian scheme. Laurence Maher, for example, accepts the Samuels explanation, and concurs that the D system ‘fell into disuse’.² Though she reaches a similar conclusion, Pauline Sadler is more nuanced in her own assessment of the fall of the system. When discussing the possibility of a resurrection of the scheme, she writes that ‘it would seem to be a difficult task to successfully raise from the dead something which is regarded with such suspicion both by the media and by the government’.³ Nonetheless, she also repeats the assessment that the D Notice system ‘just fell into disuse’ with no qualification or further analysis. As this article will demonstrate, this analysis oversimplifies the increasingly contested history of the decline of the scheme.

The D Notice system was introduced in Australia in 1952, after years of sustained pressure from the governments of both the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA) to increase Australia’s security and press control measures. Allied signals intelligence in the immediate postwar years had confirmed the existence of Soviet espionage in Australia and indicated the leakage of classified documents to the Soviet Union.⁴ Both allies were seriously concerned and both governments lacked confidence in the ability of the Australian government to prevent further leakages.⁵ In view of this, the United States authorities downgraded Australia’s security rating to the ‘lowest category of any foreign power having representation in the US’, and began to heavily restrict the volume and type of classified intelligence they were sharing with Australia.⁶ Australia’s low security rating also began to impact the intelligence-sharing relationship between the US and the UK, jeopardising a number of defence research projects, including, significantly, atomic energy research and the long-range weapons program in development at Woomera.⁷

In order to secure the viability of these valuable defence projects, the British government urged Australia to introduce both a new security agency and a system of voluntary press censorship similar to the D Notice system in operation in the UK.⁸ The Defence Notice system was originally designed to protect classified military technology and operations; notices were issued by the ‘Fighting Service Departments’ and the scheme leveraged the trust and respect felt for the British defence services – particularly during the two World Wars – to ensure compliance.⁹ As the Secretary of the High Commissioner of the United Kingdom explained, ‘an understanding’ had been reached between the press and the service ministries in Britain ‘whereby the former agree not to print without prior reference any matter relating to subjects specified in Defence Notices’.¹⁰

The correspondence from the High Commissioner to the Australian government during the period 1947–52 reveals the urgency and seriousness with which the UK government viewed the need to better control press publication of defence information.¹¹ The suggestion that Australia institute a D Notice scheme was raised multiple times throughout this period and the degree to which representatives were prepared to pressure the Australian government to introduce some form of press censorship is evident throughout the available archival files. For example, one letter acknowledged that ‘it is, of course, fully understood that the Australian Government may feel that sufficient and adequate precautions’ were already in place against ‘leakage or undesirable publicity’. However, noting the absence of a formal system of press censorship or a D Notice scheme, the Commissioner then pointedly stated, ‘the United Kingdom authorities would be interested to learn on what lines in fact the press is persuaded to refrain from publicising information of this character’.¹²

Despite these missives, Prime Minister Ben Chifley and his Minister of Defence, John Dedman, remained resistant to British requests to introduce a D Notice scheme.¹³ Indeed, while the Chifley government did agree to establish the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) with MI5 assistance in 1949, it continued to hesitate regarding the request for a formal system of press censorship. In May of 1947, for example, when considering establishing a D Notice system in Australia, Dedman noted that, ‘as the proposal approximates a system of voluntary press censorship in peace, the matter is one of considerable delicacy’.¹⁴ A letter from Chifley to the High Commissioner on 20 November 1947 advised that the ‘matter is still receiving consideration’, however he would confirm less than a year later that ‘No action’ on the issue would be taken by his government.¹⁵

However, defence leaks to the press continued during 1948, including a story on the assistance provided by MI5 to establish the new Australian security service. Indeed, just ten days after the original decision to establish a new service on 20 September 1948, a journalist from the Melbourne Herald contacted the British High Commission for comment on a story that revealed Australia intended to set up its own organisation based on MI5 and that MI5 officers were currently posted to Australia to advise on this process. This alarming leak prompted MI5 officer Robert Hembley-Scales to contact Chifley directly, who then telephoned the paper in an attempt to stop the story.¹⁶ While it was too late for Chifley to place a hold on the story altogether, the Prime Minister was apparently nonetheless successful in ‘moderating the tone of the article’.¹⁷

Although Chifley was able to intervene in time and have the story altered to hide the direct involvement of the British security service, the leak caused additional pressure from the British government. In response, Chifley sent out a personal letter to the editors of all the major Australian daily newspapers requesting that each outlet refrain from ‘disclosure of or speculation as to the precise’ national security measures the government was introducing and from ‘publishing any matter with regard to security measures other than that which is given through the Government publicity channels’.¹⁸ While this request was not strictly a D Notice scheme per se, the responses to Chifley’s letter from the various proprietors are of considerable interest. While many of those consulted by Chifley felt his request was ‘well-timed and reasonable’ and were happy to assist in upholding Australia’s security measures, some, such as Frank Packer, the Managing Director of Consolidated Press Ltd, gave a much more qualified response:

Naturally we would co-operate fully with the Government, provided we were convinced that it was a security measure taken in the interests of the defence of Australia. But to give you a blanket assurance that we would not record or comment on any action taken by the Commonwealth as a security measure is asking too much.¹⁹

For Colin Bednall of Queensland Newspapers Pty Ltd, the request that his staff rely only on government information was a step too far: ‘I have never found it consistent with my conception of public responsibility as a professional journalist to rely absolutely on “publicity channels” of any kind’.²⁰

Chifley reassured those editors and directors with concerns about the request that he did not wish to censor legitimate criticism, only restrict certain specific technical or operational information that might affect the security of Australia and its allies. These assertions were accepted by at least one masthead; C.E. Davies, the Managing Editor of the Mercury, acknowledged that the Chifley government had been ‘ready and willing to keep the press informed on all matters which could affect the welfare of the country’. In return he offered his own assurance: ‘So long as such a policy is continued by whatever Government may be in power the need for the press to depart from the course which you suggest is virtually eliminated’.²¹ Davies’ response acknowledged the need for a degree of transparency on the part of the government that must lie at the heart of any voluntary press censorship scheme.

In contrast to Chifley and Dedman, conservative Liberal Prime Minister Robert Menzies was far more sympathetic to the idea of a scheme of press censorship along the lines of the British D Notice system. A series of articles published in late 1949 and early 1950 – soon after Menzies won the federal election – had caused concern amongst service chiefs, who worried that ‘doubts’ might again arise amongst Australia’s allies about the ‘adequacy of measures in Australia to protect classified information’.²² Evidence suggests that Minister of Supply, Howard Beale, had by this time decided that ‘the only remedy’ for the leakages of classified information was the D Notice system, and he resolved to take the issue up with Menzies personally.²³ Accordingly, within his first year in office, the Menzies government secured, in principle, agreement from eighteen representatives of the leading Australian press associations, companies and news services to a self-censorship scheme, and the system itself was formally established in 1952. These organisations originally included the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the Australian Newspaper Proprietors Association, the Australian Newspapers Council, Truth & Sportsman Ltd, and the Australian Federation of Commercial Broadcasting Stations.²⁴

The Menzies government was guided heavily by the British when formulating the Australian system, and the two D Notice schemes had a similar structure and operated on similar principles. Significantly, the very existence of the D Notice system itself was highly classified, as were each of the individual notices. D Notices were to be agreed upon and confirmed by a committee consisting of the owner or chief executive of each of the media bodies as well as representatives from the government and defence services. By design, representatives of the press would outnumber those of the government, and those D Notices that were formalised were ‘strictly limited to matters of national security, and the press representatives have first to be convinced of the necessity for the notice from this point of view before they assent to it’.²⁵ The scheme was entirely voluntary; although, as Menzies noted, ‘information protected by these notices is usually, but not of necessity, confined to information coming within the scope of the British “Official Secrets Act,” [and] the Commonwealth “Crimes Act”’, cooperation was not intended to be based on legal sanctions.²⁶ In line with the gentlemanly nature of the scheme’s design, infringement of D Notices earned only a ‘personal letter’ from the Secretary of the Committee to the ‘offending editor’, which ‘invariably stops further infringements of the particular subject in question and produces an expression of regret’.²⁷ Nonetheless, it is worth highlighting Maher’s observation that the D Notice scheme may have appeared in some way to offer the press a form of insurance against prosecution for the publication of classified material.²⁸ These key principles were accepted and formalised in the first meeting of the D Notice Committee, formally named the ‘Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee’, and reaffirmed in a further meeting in 1960. While the matters covered by D Notices varied during the three decades of the system’s operation, the principles guiding the press did not.

Australia’s adoption of the British system was not entirely seamless, however. While in the UK it was possible to limit the scheme to the establishment press proprietors, reducing involvement in the scheme to the major press associations in Australia meant the exclusion of the more than 400 provincial mastheads and a number of independent commercial broadcasting stations. Involving each of these broadcasting agencies and press titles in the D Notice system carried significant risk: as E.G. Bonney, Director-General of the Department of Information, highlighted, their inclusion ‘would mean that some hundreds of persons would be made aware of the subject concerning which secrecy was deemed essential, and the object [of the D Notice system] might be defeated’. The decision was therefore taken to confine D Notices to the principal metropolitan newspapers, in the hope that secret information ‘would not leak out through any other channel’.²⁹

Moreover, neither of the West Australian daily newspapers – the West Australian and the Daily News (1882–1989) – were members of the Australian Newspaper Proprietors Association or the Australian Newspapers Council and were therefore not amongst the initial members of the Committee. This situation caused consternation in Australia’s westernmost state and had to be remedied by a personal telegram from Prime Minister Menzies and the last-minute inclusion of West Australian editor Ernest De Burgh at the first meeting of the Committee.³⁰ The inclusion of independent and provincial publications remained an ongoing issue in the early months of the Committee, and a discussion as to the possibility of including more of the provincial press was an item on the agenda of that first meeting.³¹ While the Committee decided to exclude the provincial press at this time, this stance would not last long. After a petition by W.R. Rolph and Sons of Launceston, Defence Secretary Frederick Shedden informed the Prime Minister’s Department in mid-November that the question of provincial representation had received ‘further consideration’ and that the recommendation to exclude them had been reversed.³²

Another key difference between the British and Australian schemes was the difficulty that arose in Australia of appointing an appropriate secretary to the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee. In fact, the delay between press agreement to the scheme in 1950 and its establishment in 1952 was in part attributed to the ‘difficulty of obtaining a suitable officer to run it’.³³ It was essential that the secretary of any D Notice Committee hold a high security clearance, be trusted by the press to provide truthful and accurate advice and be regarded as independent of the service agencies he represented.³⁴ As the scheme was entirely voluntary, it was recognised at its inception that the ‘success of the scheme may well depend on the experience and personality of the person selected for this position’.³⁵ In the UK, the part-time role was filled by a retired senior officer from the armed services, Admiral George Thomson, who had earned the respect of the press members of the British Admiralty, War Office Air Ministry and Press during his long term in the position, from 1940 to 1963.³⁶ In Australia, the original plan was to give the role to a public relations officer from the Defence Department who would take on the duties of Secretary of the Committee on a part-time basis in addition to discharging their normal duties. This solution, argued Minister for Defence, Philip McBride, offered the best chance of securing the ‘services of a good man to undertake the important and delicate duties involved’.³⁷ However, searches for a ‘suitable journalist’ fell apart when it became clear that someone ‘of adequate status and experience cannot be readily obtained at a salary range which could be offered for this position’.³⁸ While it was determined that a press relations officer ‘would be more appropriate’, an alternative proposal was eventually accepted in which A.E. Buchanan, the Defence Department War Book Officer, would take on the role.³⁹

Including ‘good men’ in the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee was also deemed important to the success of the D Notice system. Despite the emphasis on maintaining secrecy, it was often necessary to provide Committee members with highly classified information in order to convince the press that a D Notice was required. As a result of the ‘delicate nature of the subject’, it was therefore considered necessary to restrict membership of the Committee to masthead owners or senior executive officers. ‘It is essential’, stated Menzies, ‘that the status of the Committee should be kept at the highest level possible’.⁴⁰ Shedden emphasised in a later memorandum that this decision was taken because the ‘reliability’ of senior press executives, perhaps in contrast to the majority of journalists, ‘was beyond question’.⁴¹ In this way, the Australian D Notice system mimicked the British version, which emphasised establishment connections between government, the defence services and owners of the major press and broadcasting businesses, rather than directing attention toward salaried staff.⁴² Maher highlights these connections in his own earlier examination of Australia’s D Notice system, arguing that the British system ‘played on’ the proprietor’s ‘sense of personal honour, their patriotism, the proprietor’s involvement in the British establishment, their deference to military authority, and their willingness to be flattered, if not manipulated by the defence establishment’.⁴³ However, this observation misses a key point: restricting knowledge of the scheme and the topics of the D Notices in this way would significantly limit the coverage of the scheme.

Nonetheless, as Maher notes, the ‘gentlemanly’ positioning may have assisted in the success of the scheme and the willingness of the Australian press barons to participate. Certainly, Menzies’ proposals received a warm response from those owners and managing directors chosen as representatives for the D Notice Committee. Even those who had previously expressed concerns about the concept of government censorship, such as Frank Packer, readily declared themselves ‘agreeable’ to the proposal.⁴⁴ It appears, however, that some lingering suspicions remained; the representative of the Australian Newspaper Proprietors Association advised that – although members were ‘anxious to co-operate … to the fullest extent in ensuring the security of secret information’ – there were some concerns that ‘measures designed to safeguard the genuine interests of national security should not be used to cover political matters that have no relation to national security’. However, if members could be convinced that there was no political motivation behind the D Notices, ‘the proposals you now put forward offer the prospect of a real and lasting co-operation between the Service Departments and the Press in these important matters’.⁴⁵

Another issue that arose in the early few months of the scheme was the necessity of reassuring the press that newsworthy information that they voluntarily chose to withhold would not be published elsewhere. This issue arose in the first meeting of the Committee, when the representative of the Australian Newspaper Proprietors Association made a pointed reference to the fact that while Australian newspapers had refrained from publishing information about the planned UK atomic tests in Australia, that information was subsequently published in British newspapers. In response, McBride assured the assembled press representatives that D Notices would be updated regularly, and the Australian press would not lose their competitive advantage.

Despite the assurance that the D Notice system would not disadvantage individual press participants of the scheme, a similar situation arose just a few months later. Army press officers leaked to selected journalists information on the Centurion tanks that was otherwise covered by a D Notice. Correspondence regarding the issue demonstrates the seriousness with which this breach was taken by the government: Defence Department Deputy Secretary Frederick Chilton advised all service departments that in future all D Notices must be ‘modified or cancelled before a press release is made which contravenes its terms’.⁴⁶ It was feared that the release of information covered by D Notices might undermine the system, leading to ‘some doubt’ among the press of ‘the validity of the “D” Notice, and could discredit in some measure the scheme as a whole’.⁴⁷ This incident makes explicit the government’s recognition that ensuring press trust in government motives was crucial to the success of the scheme.

Aside from these early hiccups, the cooperation promised by the D Notice system in Australia was as stable as the long prime ministership of Menzies himself, who retired from the role after a record sixteen years in January 1966. Prior to Menzies’ retirement, the D Notice Committee met rarely, and there was little scandal and even fewer records of any breaches of the scheme. The Committee was designed to meet infrequently: only those notices which were a departure from established practice or where there was some disagreement about the proposed draft of the notice required a meeting, and during the first decade of its operation the Committee convened only a handful of times.⁴⁸ The success of the D Notice system in Australia during this period can perhaps be attributed to the fact that the scheme was used for ‘genuine matters of defence’, and Committee members could trust that the scheme was not used to cover embarrassing political matters or for political purposes beyond security.⁴⁹

It is worth reiterating that the D Notice system was established in the immediate postwar period and firmly framed as aiding and protecting Australia’s defence and military capabilities. Indeed, when establishing the scheme, the Australian authorities were warned that the ‘British press will only accept notices sponsored by service repeat service depts for defence purposes’ and that ‘press members have agreed to be guided by the advice of the Fighting Service Departments only, because, they say, the scope of D Notices should be restricted entirely to questions of military security’.⁵⁰ By focusing on military matters, the D Notice system in both Australia and Britain leveraged the broad respect and trust accorded to the defence services to ensure compliance. Thus, although the language used at the time of its establishment noted that D Notices were designed to protect Australia’s ‘national security’, this meant something quite different from how it might presently be understood. In the early Cold War period, ‘national security’ was more closely linked to military and defence needs rather than carrying the far broader meaning it has today, encompassing intelligence, cyber, defence and border security elements. Consequently, as both the term ‘national security’ and the range of topics it covered began to shift in the latter years of the Cold War, the D Notices would no longer be able to rely on respect and the ‘deference to military authority’ that supported the scheme in its first decade.⁵¹

Despite the apparent stability in the D Notice system in the early to mid-1960s, this was not reflected in Australian society, which was undergoing a period of rapid political change that would only accelerate towards the end of the decade. Political movements such as the rise of women’s rights, Indigenous rights, the peace movement and anti-Vietnam demonstrations were growing in popularity and influence – not only amongst students and the left but also amongst the middle classes. In response, ASIO and the various state Police Special Branches broadened the scope and method of their attempt to monitor potentially subversive activity – on occasion extending the bounds of their legal remit.⁵² These actions caused increasing unease and distrust towards both intelligence operations and intelligence agencies within significant sections of the Australian population.⁵³

It was in this environment that the journalist Richard Farmer revealed the existence of the D Notice system in Nation magazine – a fortnightly title owned by journalist Tom Fitzgerald with no involvement in the D Notice Committee – in July of 1967.⁵⁴ When further rumours began to circulate that the D Notice Committee had squashed a story due for publication in the Australian, then Prime Minister Harold Holt was forced to confirm the existence of the D Notice system. While admitting the existence of a voluntary scheme of press censorship, he refused to reveal any details regarding the membership of the Committee or the number and content of the notices, claiming that it was not in the national interest to do so.⁵⁵

Nonetheless, the revelation of the D Notice system in 1967 was the beginning of a series of breaches of the D Notices. In 1972, confirmation of the existence of Australia’s hitherto highly classified foreign intelligence service, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), was published in the Daily Telegraph.⁵⁶ In response, most major press outlets and mastheads followed the story, including the ABC.⁵⁷ The incident highlighted some of the problems caused by excessive secrecy regarding both ASIS and the system of censorship set up to protect it. While the D Notice scheme may have helped the government to prevent the publication of the report, prior to the Daily Telegraph story, ASIS was deemed to be of such high classification that its existence could not be shared with members of the Committee, and a deliberate decision was taken not to include ASIS in the D Notice system. Moreover, as ASIS was administered by the Department of Foreign Affairs, the agency fell outside the strict ‘fighting services only’ remit of the D Notice scheme as it was originally designed. Nonetheless, Bill Robertson, Director-General of ASIS, seems to have initially assumed that a D Notice prohibited reporting the existence of ASIS, and upon discovering that no such order existed, advocated strongly that one be implemented. Without a formal D Notice in place, he feared, ‘the ratbag fringe of journalists’ could identify present and former officers or even reveal specific operations or countries of interest.⁵⁸ It is clear that the increase in investigative journalism during this period – often turned toward intelligence scandals and intelligence agencies – was beginning to test the patience and trust of the government.

Even more significantly, although the government debated pressing charges against ex-ASIS officer turned journalist Major Peter Young, from whom many of the revelations stemmed, no such prosecutions were undertaken. It was agreed that legal action against Young was by no means guaranteed to be successful, and, as Robertson made clear, would only entail ‘further exposure’. As a result, Robertson recorded that,

much as I think Ex-Major Peter Young should be prosecuted and much as I would like to see this done, I do not think that the interests of MO9 [the codename used for ASIS] would necessarily be served by so doing.⁵⁹

The lack of action against Young may have had an unintended consequence, however. By choosing not to prosecute Young, the government may have sent a signal to the press that compliance with the D Notice system was no longer necessary ‘insurance’ against prosecution, a factor which may have formed a part of its earlier appeal.⁶⁰

These and other revelations highlighted an increasing appetite for information on Australia’s secret intelligence infrastructure on the part of the Australian public; an appetite the press was more than happy to feed. Intelligence leaks abounded – many stemming from the agencies themselves – and although many mastheads, such as the National Times, continued to publish classified information and restricted documents, they were subject to little sanction. In 1973, the Fairfax-owned National Times published details on the operations of the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) (an agency now known as the Australian Signals Division or ASD). Although Fairfax was a participant in the D Notice Committee, appeals to the notice covering DSD held little persuasive power given the existence of the agency had been revealed by Ramparts magazine in the United States the year previously.⁶¹ The fear that the D Notice scheme would be used to censor within Australia information freely available across the globe and thus damage participants’ competitive advantage was a side effect of the D Notice system the original press representatives had raised concerns about.⁶² Moreover, if the existence of the agency was already known by Australia’s enemies, the very need for ongoing censorship regarding the existence of the agency came into question.

Moreover, despite this flagrant breach of the D Notice system, little formal action was taken. Deputy Prime Minister Lance Barnard contacted the Minister for the Media, Douglas McClelland, and after first informing him of the existence and background of the D Notice scheme, urged him to contact the Fairfax representative and remind him of ‘the restraints accepted under the D Notice system’.⁶³ An updated D Notice was issued to cover ciphering and monitoring activities, though it was apparently accepted by the press at the time ‘with some reluctance’.⁶⁴

Partly in response to the signals intelligence leak, a thorough review of the D Notice system was undertaken in 1973. To better increase press participation in and compliance with the scheme, it was determined that existing D Notices should be reduced from seven to four and that the remaining D Notices would be publicly acknowledged and distributed much more widely to media outlets and newsrooms. Members were encouraged to consult with the Secretary of the Committee for any advice regarding ‘whether to publish an item of information’. The D Notice system would remain voluntary, and the executive Secretary was there to ‘offer guidance and advice only’.⁶⁵ Such a system, the report acknowledged, ‘cannot guarantee that mistakes or breaches will not occur’, and non-observance of a request contained in a notice continued to carry ‘no penalties’.⁶⁶

Following the national mood – which had grown increasingly concerned about the methods employed by ASIO and the rest of Australia’s intelligence infrastructure – the then Whitlam Labor government announced a Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security (RCIS) in 1974, led by Justice Robert Hope. A 1975 report on the D Notice system submitted to the RCIS by the Defence Department stated that, ‘on the whole the system has worked well’, and as a result of the 1973 reforms, ‘the system now operates with considerably more cohesion, understanding and efficiency’. ‘Where government departments have been able to show convincingly that national security interests are at stake in the issue of a Notice’, the report continued, ‘the great majority of the media have co-operated’.⁶⁷ This report is an early indication of the extent to which the D Notice system was shifting from protecting the technological secrets of Australia’s postwar defence services to protecting Australia’s increasingly maligned intelligence services. The Committee would meet for the last time seven years after this submission.

The Royal Commission did not report until 1977, and it did little to stem community unease and distrust towards intelligence agencies. Rather than recommending the replacement or abolition of the intelligence agencies, as some Australians, including those in the media, had hoped, Hope recommended that the powers and budget of the intelligence agencies be increased to better enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the Australian intelligence community.⁶⁸ Of note, Hope made clear that the intention of his recommendations and reforms was to rehabilitate the reputation of Australia’s intelligence organisations, particularly ASIO. Hope believed Australia’s intelligence community deserved to be accorded the trust and respect given to the defence forces. That they were not – in fact, as Hope would observe, ASIO was subject to ‘ridicule and contempt’ – would become increasingly significant to the ongoing viability of the D Notice scheme.⁶⁹

The RCIS had a more immediate consequence on the relationship between the media and the government. The Liberal Fraser government, which gained power after the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975, accepted the majority of Hope’s recommendations and announced a package of legislation to implement changes – including the imposition of $1,000 fines or the threat of jail time for the publication of information regarding ASIO or ASIO staff. While this legislation was aimed at small groups such as the Committee for the Abolition of the Political Police (CAPP), which had been publishing the names and addresses of ASIO staff, many members of the Australian press were alarmed by the threat to free speech implied by the legislation.⁷⁰ In the Sydney Morning Herald, Andrew Kruger drew attention to possible implications for ongoing cooperation between the press and the government: ‘The government recognises the media’s roles and responsibilities under the D notice system not to report certain subjects on defence and national security. Unless it carries this trust into the ASIO Bill’, he warned, ‘it could jeopardise the future of such voluntary censorship’.⁷¹ Indeed, by 1977, certain members of the public service advised the Fraser government that they had begun to suspect that some media representatives ‘had developed strong views in opposition to the present D Notice arrangements’, and the Department of Defence warned that there were ‘certain people who might wish to overturn the D notice system’.⁷²

The publication of leaks continued over the next five years, with outlets such as the National Times and Nation Review causing consternation within government and defence circles for continuing to publish classified intelligence information.⁷³ Despite the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee agreeing to an updated D Notice to cover ASIS in 1977, the National Times continued to publish stories about the highly secret agency, and repeated appeals to cease publication of classified material had little to no effect.⁷⁴ The government and intelligence services were increasingly losing their trust in the press to exercise restraint when determining whether to publish secret information. This was highlighted in a rare speech by outgoing ASIO Director-General, Edward Woodward. In 1981, Woodward spoke at length at the National Press Club, criticising the media for their ‘juvenile’ coverage of intelligence issues. He bemoaned the rise of what he termed the ‘culture of the leak’ and urged that the media take greater care before publishing intelligence which could have national security implications. Reprimanding them for complicity in the leaks, he observed that,

I have been able to see no evidence that there is any attempt or any willingness on the part of the press of Australia to do anything other than to reproduce in full the material which happens to fall into their lap.⁷⁵

The Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee met for the last time in 1982. At the time, there were five current D Notices and the Committee itself consisted of sixteen media representatives and four defence representatives.⁷⁶ While the D Notice scheme was never formally terminated, it was by this time increasingly divorced from the needs of the defence services and increasingly linked to the protection of Australia’s secret intelligence services. As a consequence, the scheme could no longer rely on the broad respect accorded to the defence services and their staff.

Despite the repeated breaches of the D Notice system during the late 1970s, the Fraser Liberal government chose not to prosecute or take legal action against any title or journalist for the publication of secret information. This was to change with the election of the Bob Hawke Labor government in 1983. Soon after the election, the National Times began the publication of the so-called ‘AUSTEO papers’ in early May, a collection of classified intelligence documents obtained by then editor Brian Toohey.⁷⁷ The first set of disclosures, published on 6 May 1983, covered issues as broad as DSD satellite spying efforts on China and reports critical of the Office of National Assessments (ONA), as well as the publication of details contained within the highly classified supplement to the Fourth Report of the RCIS.⁷⁸ These leaks alone were highly damaging, but the National Times claimed that there were numerous other revelations to come. The Hawke government was determined to prove its strength on national security issues and immediately began a High Court challenge to prevent the publication of further documents; in doing so, they were signalling a significant change from Chifley’s commitment to transparency.⁷⁹ Toohey subsequently claimed to have destroyed the majority of the documents, and a settlement was eventually reached in which John Fairfax and Sons Ltd, the publisher of the National Times, agreed to allow the government to ‘vet’ some of the remaining documents before publication on 20 May.⁸⁰

The decreasing lack of trust and respect between the media and the government was again on display later the same year, during the Combe-Ivanov Affair and subsequent Royal Commission on Australia’s Security and Intelligence Agencies (RCASIA). On 22 April, Soviet diplomat Valeriy Ivanov was expelled from Australia on suspicion of espionage, a feat that was considered a major success within ASIO. David Combe, the ex-Labor Party National Secretary turned lobbyist whom ASIO believed to have been the target of Ivanov’s attempts to cultivate an ‘agent of influence’, was put under surveillance and ‘blacklisted’ by the Hawke Ministry.⁸¹ After two weeks of increasing gossip and rumour throughout the corridors of Canberra, on Tuesday 10 May the Daily Telegraph broke the story of Combe’s involvement with Ivanov.⁸² From the very beginning, the press portrayed the Combe-Ivanov affair not as the story of the successful expulsion of a KGB agent, but as a graphic example both of the ways in which ASIO impinged on the civil liberties of ordinary and innocent Australians and of the secrecy of the Hawke Ministry.

The press coverage of the Royal Commission inquiry into the Combe-Ivanov Affair highlights the strained relationship between the Australian government, ASIO and the press. The scepticism of the media toward government claims of secrecy on ‘national security’ grounds was widespread, and the suppression of information throughout the hearings routinely criticised.⁸³ As the Age’s Chief Political Correspondent Michelle Grattan observed, while several documents were initially withheld from publication by the government on ‘security grounds’, these were subsequently released with ‘presumably no great danger to our national security … the nation remains safe’.⁸⁴ Moreover, Richard McGregor argued in the Sydney Morning Herald that the delayed release of classified documents during the Royal Commission demonstrated how slippery the concept of ‘national security’ was, and how much it was used to suit government needs: ‘as the Commission has progressed, so it seems has the position of national security’.⁸⁵ By 1983, then, the term ‘national security’ was becoming increasingly contested, and had all but lost its close connection to post-World War II defence efforts. Any remaining trust on the part of the press that ‘genuine national security’ considerations lay behind the government requests for censorship was evaporating.

The collapse of the ‘moribund’ D Notice system was complete by 1994, when controversy erupted around critical and widespread reporting of ASIS operations.⁸⁶ The most ‘damaging’ revelations were broadcast in an episode of the ABC investigative news and current affairs program, Four Corners, in which former ASIS employees alleged the agency was ‘uncontrolled and unaccountable’.⁸⁷ Although ASIS was still technically covered by D Notice No. 4 in 1994, neither the Committee Secretary nor the government contacted the ABC to remind it of its obligations, and nor did the D Notice dissuade the ABC from broadcasting the episode.⁸⁸ When the breaches of the D Notice system were raised with the various editors who followed the ASIS story, most claimed ignorance either of the system itself, or of the content of those notices that remained.

A 1995 Commission of Inquiry into ASIS, established in the aftermath of the Four Corners report, re-examined the viability of Australia’s D Notice system. It concluded that the Australian press remained supportive of a voluntary censorship scheme, and all agreed in principle that the rationale for the D Notice system was valid. However, they also asserted the need for publication of classified information in the ‘public interest’ where there was evidence of ‘illegality or serious impropriety’.⁸⁹ Perhaps surprisingly, a much more negative view of the D Notice system was offered by ASIS, who questioned the ability of the system to curb the publication of damaging material. The organisation argued within its own submission that the D Notice system ‘suffered from fundamental problems’ and that relying on ‘voluntary media restraint’ was ‘inadequate’ because such restraint ‘no longer exists’.⁹⁰ With no shared understanding between government, intelligence agencies and the media of what exactly constituted the ‘public interest’, ASIS felt the media too often equated the national interest with their own ‘journalistic interests’.⁹¹

The report of the Commission of Inquiry into ASIS recommended the revitalisation of the D Notice system. The report argued that a voluntary system – with consent and not coercion at its core – had both ‘symbolic and practical’ benefits: ‘In accepting the D Notices, the media are acknowledging that, in the field of security and intelligence as in others, the right to publish is not absolute and that there are competing public interests’.⁹² Moreover, rather than restricting press knowledge of the system to the executive level, the report suggested it was editors, not owners, that should be involved in the decision-making. ‘After all, the key decisions from day to day about whether or not publication is permitted under the terms of a D Notice rest with editors, not owners’.⁹³ It was further determined that representatives should be drawn from as broad a cross-section of the media and publishing industry as possible and that government representation should broaden to include all intelligence agencies and organisations.⁹⁴ This last recommendation clearly reflects the transition of the D Notice system, by the end of the Cold War, from protecting Australia’s military capabilities to protecting its intelligence and security activities. Despite this strong recommendation that the D Notice system be re-established, no concrete steps were taken, and the system has not been successfully revived in the years since.⁹⁵

The D Notice system in Australia did not simply fall into disuse. As the Cold War wore on and the system of press censorship was increasingly called upon to protect Australia’s intelligence agencies, it could no longer leverage the trust accorded to the country’s defence and fighting services to ensure compliance. The pervasive secrecy surrounding Australia’s intelligence community meant that too few Australians recognised the value and importance of its work; a development which may have increased the willingness of journalists to expose classified intelligence secrets. As Australians – and their media – became concerned about the powers and secrecy surrounding intelligence, journalists and organisations became less willing to protect those services and to participate in the scheme. Moreover, the secrecy surrounding the D Notice system meant that too few journalists knew of its purpose and existence. As breaches of the D Notice scheme increased, the tentative trust of governments and intelligence agencies in the press further deteriorated, and this only encouraged more secrecy. The D Notice system is based on trust and such trust is dependent on a degree of transparency. Both were vital for the early success of the D Notice system in Cold War Australia, and it was the decay of both which led to the failure of the scheme.

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.

Additional information

Funding

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

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.