The dismissal of the Whitlam Government by Governor-General John Kerr on 11/11/1975 still rankles at the heart of Australian democracy.

Overtly, the dismissal was all-Australian affair: Malcolm Fraser pursuing power, John Kerr’s self-obsessed view of his constitutional powers, and Gough Whitlam seeking to crash through with a progressive agenda that had roused powerful opponents.

Yet one intriguing question remains: was the CIA involved?

Will we ever find the smoking gun, the indisputable evidence that foreign interests were at play with no regard for Australian sovereignty?

Recently I’ve been writing 1975: The Ballads of the Whitlam Dismissal, retelling those troubling events in rollicking bush ballad style.

I had the opportunity to review available evidence, particularly material from US presidential libraries, and I have found that the smoking gun is there, in plain sight, and has been for a decade.

It is all there in the Gerald Ford Presidential Library in the report to National Security Study Memorandum 204 which reviewed US policy about Australia in mid-1974. ( Part 1; Part 2)

Whitlam’s double dissolution election on 18 May 1974 produced a left-wing caucus which........

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