Alleged CIA involvement in the Whitlam dismissal

Common card · No. 313191

It is alleged that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved with the events leading up to the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, in which Prime Minister of Australia Gough Whitlam was dismissed by Governor-General of Australia John Kerr, who had several ties to the CIA and its predecessor. CIA contractor and convicted Soviet spy Christopher John Boyce, several authors, including John Pilger, as well as some Australian politicians, allege that the CIA backed Kerr to dismiss Whitlam, due to Whitlam's perceived left-wing policies including Australian withdrawal from the Vietnam War, as well as his views on Australian sovereignty. His conflict with the CIA is alleged to have come to a head when he discovered several CIA-led operations occurring in Australia and overseas conducted by ASIO and ASIS, leading him to threaten cancellation of the lease on the Pine Gap facility, ending the US-led (nominally joint) operation, which was integral to the CIA's signals interception...

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