CHARGES OF CIA SABOTAGE SEEN THREATENING U.S.-AUSTRALIA TIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201960001-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 4, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201960001-4
ASSOCIATED PRESS
4 DECEMBER 1982
Charges of CIA Sabotage Seen Threatening U. S. -A~
By ROBERT PARRY
WASHINGTON
Recurring charges that the CIA sabotaged a Labor Party government in
Australia in the 19705 are endangering U.S.-Australian relations, a foreign
policy scholar says in a magazine article to be published Sunday.
James A. Nathan, a University of Delaware political science professor who
returned recently from Australia, said it might take a congressional
investigation to get to the truth about the alleged CIA actions and to
reassure Australians about future U.S. conduct.
"In Australia a plausible case is being developed that CIA officials may
have also done in Australia what they managed to achieve in Iran, Guatemala and
Chile: destroy an elected government," Nathan said in the article in Foreign
Policy magazine.
The CIA has flatly denied engaging in "operations against the Australian
government" or having ties to the mysterious Nugan Hand bank. The bank is
alleged to have been run by former U.S. military and intelligence officials and
to have financed the alleged CIA activities.
Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., vice chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, said through a spokesman that the panel has received
information about the Australian allegations ahd "feels there is no reason to
pursue these charges further."
Nathan said the Australian controversy dates back to 1972 when the Labor
Party's Gough Whitlam was elected prime minister and took ante-U.S. positions.
Whitlam pulled Australian troops out of Southeast Asia and /nounced President
Nixon's 1972 Christmas bombing of Hanoi. /
"Whitlam ... aroused deep hostility within the U.S. intelligence community,"
Nathan said. "It viewed his party and politics as, at best, benighted
accomplices to Soviet undertakings."
By 1975, the Whitlam government was beset by a financial scandal that forced
the resignation of a top official. Ultimately, Governor-General John Kerr,
representative of the British Crown, used powers never before exercised to
dismiss Whitlam from office.
A conservative government, headed by current Prime' Minister Malcolm Fraser,
was subsequently elected.
Since then, a string of "allegations have surfaced claiming that the CIA
played a role in Whitlam's downfall.
In one published report, Joseph Flynn, described as a CIA contract
employee, claimed he manufactured some of evidence cited in the financial
scandal under.direction of former CIA agent Edwin Wilson, who has since been
convicted of smuggling weapons to Libya.
STAT
J 1 H1
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201960001-4