by Brian Toohey
19 Brian Toohey, ‘Trump is a fool, but not a traitor’, AFR, 17 July 2017.
20 Glenn Greenwald, ‘Empowering the “Deep State” to undermine Trump is a prescription for destroying democracy’, Democracy Now, 16 February 2017.
21 Glenn Greenwald, ‘CNN journalists resign: Latest example of media recklessness on the Russian threat’, The Intercept, 27 June 2017.
22 Glenn Greenwald, ‘Yet another major Russia story falls apart. Is scepticism permissible yet?’, The Intercept, 29 September 2017.
23 Greenwald, ‘CNN journalists resign’, op. cit.
24 ‘Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election’, US Department of Justice, p. 2.
25 More detail in Chapter 59 in this book.
26 Armin Rosen, ‘Here’s how David Petraeus got off with only a misdemeanour’, Business Insider, 28 January 2016.
27 Jane Norman, ‘South China Sea: Former CIA director David Petraeus says Australia must “be firm” with China’, ABC News, 24 June 2017.
Chapter 7: Medical support for trials to keep the Asian hordes at bay
1 Brendan Nicholson, ‘Burnet’s solution: The plan to poison S-E Asia’, Sunday Age, 10 March 2002.
2 Churchill used chemical weapons against Russia in 1919: see Giles Milton, ‘Winston Churchill’s shocking use of chemical weapons’, The Guardian, 2 September 2013.
3 Mark Weber, ‘Churchill wanted to “drench” Germany with poison gas’, Institute for Historical Review, Winter edition, 1985–86, pp. 501–50.
4 Barton Bernstein, ‘Why we didn’t use poison gas in World War II’, American Heritage, August–September 1985.
5 Mark Weber, ‘American leaders planned poison gas attack against Japan’, Journal of Historical Review, May–June 1997, pp. 1, 13.
6 Ibid.
7 Michael Pembroke, Korea: Where the American Century Began, Hardie Grant, 2018, p. 143.
8 Richard Overy, ‘China’s war with Japan, 1937–1945’, The Guardian, 6 June 2013.
9 These include Sheldon Harris’s book Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932–45, and the American Cover-up, Routledge, 1995, and Hal Gold’s Unit 731: Testimony, Tuttle Publishing, 2004.
10 Ibid.
11 Brandi Altheide, ‘Biohazard: Unit 731 and the American cover-up’, University of Michigan-Flint, n.d.
12 Bernstein, op. cit.
13 Pembroke, pp. 172, 173.
14 Russell Working, ‘The trial of Unit 431’, Japan Times, 5 June 2001.
15 Much has been published on this. As well as Pembroke, examples include Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman, The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea, Indiana University Press, 1999; Julian Ryall, ‘Did the US wage germ warfare in Korea?’, The Telegraph, 10 June 2010; and ‘No US biological warfare in Korean War, Soviet documents show’, CNN, 11 March 1999.
16 This topic is covered extensively in Geoff Plunkett, Chemical Warfare in Australia, Leech Cup Books, 2013.
17 Nicholson, op. cit.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 Willy Bach, ‘Britain, Australia, the United States and Agent Orange in the Indochina Wars: Re-defining chemical biological warfare’, Honest History, 6 March 2015.
22 ‘US projects: Chemical warfare testing in Australia’, NAA Series A1838, TS 694/7/37.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
25 Nicholas M. Horrock, ‘Colby describes CIA poison work’, NYT, 17 September 1975.
26 Madeleine Kalb, ‘The CIA and Lumumba’, NYT Magazine, 2 August 1981.
27 Deborah Smith, ‘Australia aided toxin research’, NT, 11 April 1982. Smith reported that Defence scientist Dr Shirley Freeman published a paper on shellfish toxin in 1970 comparing its toxicity with that of blue-ringed octopus toxin.
28 John Playford, ‘CBW research in Australia’, Australian Left Review, June–July 1969.
29 Cited by Playford, ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Kate Robson, ‘Deans of a distant past’, medicine150.mdhs.unimelb.edu.au (accessed 14 April 2015).
33 Ross L. Jones, ‘Sunderland, Sir Sydney (1910–1993)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, ANU, 2017.
Chapter 8: The best place to test the deadliest nerve agents
1 ‘US projects: Chemical warfare testing in Australia’, NAA Series A1838, TS 694/7/37.
2 Unless otherwise stated, the information in this chapter comes from ‘US projects: Chemical warfare testing in Australia’, NAA Series A1838, TS 694/7/37.
3 These JIC quotes come from extracts cited in ‘US projects: Chemical warfare testing in Australia’, ibid. The NAA could not locate the full JIC reports.
4 Jeffrey Lockwood, Six-legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War, OUP, 2009, p. 193.
5 ‘VX nerve agent in North Korean murder: How does it work?’, Scientific American, 24 February 2017.
6 Hanson Baldwin, ‘The Pentagon states the case for CB in Vietnam’, NYT, 25 September 1966.
7 Brian Toohey, ‘Just between friends’, The Eye, May 1988.
8 Letter from Jim Dollimore to the author, Public Affairs Branch, 23 March 1988.
9 ‘US military planned nerve gas test on Aust troops’, ABC News, 6 July 2008. Coulthart told me the Nine Network has sold its archives, which are no longer readily available for citation.
Chapter 9: Fighting the good fight against chemical and biological warfare
1 Gareth Evans, ‘Weapons of mass destruction: Maintaining the rage’, Dr John Gee Memorial Lecture, ANU, 16 August 2007.
2 Scott Shane, ‘FBI laying out the evidence, closes anthrax case’, NYT, 20 February 2010.
3 Ibid.
4 ‘Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988)’, GlobalSecurity.org, n.d.
5 Evans, op. cit.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Paul May, ‘Novichok, the notorious nerve agent’, Molecule of the Month, August 2018.
9 Ryan De Vooght-Johnson, ‘Iranian chemists identify Russian chemical warfare agents’. SpectroscopyNOW.com, 1 January 2017.
10 Jamie Dettmer, ‘Russian nerve agent scientist admits selling deadly toxin to Chechen gangsters’, Voice of America, 23 March 2018.
11 ‘VX nerve agent in North Korean murder: How does it work?’, Scientific American, 24 February 2017.
12 ‘Skripal suspects confirmed as GRU operatives: Prior European operations disclosed’, Bellingcat, 29 September 2018.
Chapter 10: Menzies’ gift
1 Menzies speaking in parliament, 21 October 1953.
2 Unless otherwise stated, basic information on the tests in this and subsequent chapters comes from James McClelland, The Report of the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia, AGPS, 1985; Elizabeth Tynan, Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga Story, NewSouth, 2016; Frank Walker, Maralinga, Hachette Australia, 2014; and Robert Milliken, No Conceivable Injury, Penguin, 1986.
3 Arthur Macey Cox, The Myths of National Security, Beacon Press, 1975, pp. 75–85.
4 Quoted in Brian Toohey, ‘Killen warns on plutonium’, AFR, 5 October 1978.
5 Tynan, p. 87.
6 Sue Rabbitt Roff, ‘The dark side of the nuclear family’, New Statesman, 13 January 1999.
7 Milliken, pp. 87–90.
8 McClelland, p. 413.
9 Ibid., p. 393.
10 Fission bombs release energy by using high explosives to split heavy atoms of plutonium or highly enriched uranium. Thermonuclear weapons fuse together isotopes of light elements (hydrogen and lithium) to briefly create temperatures of over 10 million degrees Celsius. A fission reaction is required to trigger the fusion reaction.
11 Tynan, p. 87.
12 Gallup opinion poll, The Sun, 1 June 1957.
13 Tynan, ch. 1
0 gives a fuller account of the media shortcomings.
14 Walker, p. 190.
15 Ibid., p. 191.
16 Ibid., pp. 192–5.
17 Milliken, p. 94. See also Sue Davenport, Peter Johnson and Yuwali, Cleared Out: First Contact in the Western Desert, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2005.
18 W.A.S. Butement, Native Patrol Officer Files, Department of Defence, 14 March 1956; reported in Canberra Times, 27 May 1984.
19 H.J. Brown, Memorandum for Chief Scientist re Welfare of Aborigines: Maralinga Project Meteorological Station etc., 7 March 1956, Native Patrol Officer Files, Department of Defence.
20 W.A.S. Butement, Welfare of Aborigines: Maralinga Project Meteorological Station etc., 16 March 1956; reported in Canberra Times, 27 May 1984.
21 Milliken, pp. 272–3.
22 Patrick Barkham, ‘Britain accused of using troops for nuclear tests’, The Guardian, 12 May 2001.
23 Walker, pp. 218–30.
24 Walker, ch. 12 gives more information.
25 Alan Parkinson, ‘Maralinga: The clean-up of a nuclear test site’, Medicine and Global Survival, 7(2), February 2002, pp. 77–81.
26 Arjun Makhijani, ‘A readiness to harm: The health effects of nuclear weapons complexes’, Arms Control Today, 29 August 2008.
27 For further detail see Walker, Chapters 10, 13 and 15.
Chapter 11: The deceptively named minor trials
1 James McClelland, The Report of the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia, AGPS, 1985, p. 405.
2 Ibid., p. 415.
3 Ibid.
4 Brian Toohey and Deborah Smith, ‘Still in the dark on Maralinga’, NT, 25 May 1984.
5 Robert Milliken, No Conceivable Injury, Penguin, 1986, p. 241.
6 More detail on this problem is given in the next chapter.
7 J.L. Symonds, A History of British Atomic Tests in Australia, AGPS, 1985, pp. 501–2. For more, see John R. Walker, British Nuclear Weapons and the Test Ban 1954–1973, Routledge, 2010.
8 Symonds, p. 406.
9 Elizabeth Tynan, Atomic Thunder, NewSouth, 2016, p. 122.
10 NAA Series A6648, 17, McClelland Royal Commission transcript, p. 6352.
11 Ibid., p. 6304.
12 McClelland, p. 413.
13 Ibid., p. 414.
14 Ibid.
Chapter 12: British perfidy, Australian timidity
1 Robert Oppenheimer, speech to the Association of Los Alamos Scientists, New Mexico, 2 November 1945.
2 Elizabeth Tynan, Atomic Thunder, NewSouth, 2016, p. 244.
3 Brian Toohey, ‘Plutonium on the wind: The terrible legacy of Maralinga’, NT, 4 May 1984.
4 Brian Toohey and Deborah Smith, ‘Still in the dark on Maralinga’, NT, 25 May 1984.
5 Brian Toohey and Deborah Smith, ‘Secrecy muscles science’, NT, 8 June 1984.
6 Robert Milliken, No Conceivable Injury, Penguin, 1986, p. 321.
7 Tynan, p. 122.
8 Ibid., p. 87.
9 Ian Anderson, ‘Britain’s dirty deeds at Maralinga’, New Scientist, 12 June 1993.
10 Tynan, pp. 274–96.
11 Alan Parkinson, ‘Maralinga: The clean-up of a nuclear test site’, Medicine and Global Survival, 7(2), February 2002, pp. 77–81.
12 Milliken, p. 270.
13 Alan Parkinson, Maralinga, HarperCollins, 2016, p. 60.
Chapter 13: The struggle to reveal Maralinga’s malign secrets
1 Brian Toohey, ‘Killen warns on plutonium pile: Terrorist threat to British atomic waste’, AFR, 5 October 1978.
2 Frank Walker, Maralinga, Hachette Australia, 2014, p. 197.
3 ‘Nuclear waste dump in SA: Ex-RAAF man’, The Advertiser, 3 December 1976.
4 Walker, p. 198.
5 Robert Milliken, No Conceivable Injury, Penguin, 1986, p. 263.
6 Ibid., p. 264.
7 Brian Toohey, ‘Tighter security wanted at Maralinga’, AFR, 16 December 1976.
8 John Farrands, Secretary [Arthur Tange], ‘Article by Toohey, Financial Review, December 16, 1976’, NAA Series A10060.
9 NAA Series A6648, 17, McClelland Royal Commission transcript, pp. 6325, 6304.
10 Ibid.
11 Toohey, ‘Killen warns on plutonium pile’, op. cit.
12 Ibid.
13 Brian Toohey, ‘Maralinga: The “do nothing” solution’, AFR, 11 October 1978.
14 Chapter 13 in this book shows that Killen simultaneously denied a media report while privately confirming its accuracy in correspondence with the US.
15 Milliken, p. 269.
Chapter 14: A wise mandarin ignores leaks
1 Mike Codd, rejecting a prime ministerial request to investigate a leak: ‘Leak of classified documents’, NAA Series A937/1992/5814.
2 The account that follows, including quotes from documents in this chapter, is from NAA Series A937/1992/5814.
Chapter 15: How Australia joined the nuclear war club
1 Clark speaking on 16 September 1967 at the official opening of the North West Cape base.
2 Brian Toohey, ‘Menzies and the US envoy’s sweetheart deal’, NT, 4 May 1980. Unless otherwise stated, all quotes from cables to and from the US embassy in Canberra are from originals held in the Kennedy Library, as are all quotes from White House briefing papers and correspondence.
3 The 10 July 1963 memo to Kennedy’s national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy, from William Brubeck attached briefing and background papers for the meeting, plus a CIA biographical sketch of Calwell.
4 Desmond Ball, A Suitable Piece of Real Estate, Hale & Iremonger, 1980, p. 50.
5 ‘Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt (North West Cape)’, Nautilus Institute, 8 March 2011.
6 ‘NAVSECGRU stations past and present’, NavyCTHistory.com.
7 ‘Uncle Sam and his 40,000 snoopers’, Nation Review, 5 October 1972.
8 Frank Cranston, ‘Value of base to US operations’, Canberra Times, 12 April 1973.
Chapter 16: Dangerous advice from ignorant Australian officials
1 Congressional testimony from Schlesinger, 11 September 1974.
2 See Chapters 19 and 20 in this book.
3 Brian Toohey, ‘Barnard’s doomed mission on NW Cape’, AFR, 3 April 1973.
4 J.R. Walsh and G.J. Munster (eds), Documents on Australian Defence and Foreign Policy, 1968–1975, self-published, 1980, p. 34.
5 Ibid., p. 49.
6 Ibid., p. 41.
7 Ibid., p. 51.
8 Philip Dorling, ‘Secret’s out: Soviets did not target cities’, SMH, 6 August 2012.
9 Walsh and Munster, p. 54.
10 Brian Toohey, ‘America’s secret nuclear strategy’, AFR, 31 August 1976.
11 Ibid.
12 See Part 9 of this book.
13 Walsh and Munster, p. 65.
14 Ibid.
15 NAA Series A10060, p. 146.
16 Ibid., p. 147.
17 ‘Executive summary’, Report of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 1996, p. 1. The Keating Government set up the commission.
Chapter 17: Bluster and belligerence
1 NAA Series A10060, Freedom of Information request: Brian Toohey, p. 50.
2 Chapter 13 in this book noted that Killen publicly denied that plutonium was buried at Maralinga after the AFR published an accurate report that it was—a reality he knew the government would have to acknowledge.
3 Brian Toohey, ‘Australia gets new US defence station’, AFR, 8 May 1978.
4 Military construction appropriations for fiscal year 1978 [1977]: Hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, US Senate 95th Congress First Session. Part 2, pp. 182–3.
5 NAA Series A10060, op. cit., p. 50.
6 Ibid, pp. 53, 54.
7 Ibid., pp. 55–7.
8 Brian Toohey, ‘Russell Hill kept the ball’, AFR, 23
May 1978.
9 NAA Series A10060, pp. 108–10.
10 Ibid., pp. 96–7.
11 Ibid., p. 91.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., pp. 76–7.
14 Ibid., p. 70.
Chapter 18: North West Cape: More dangerous than ever
1 Joel Fitzgibbon, Minister for Defence, media release, 18 July 2008.
2 Kim Beazley, ‘North West Cape: The joint facility that changed Australian politics’, The Strategist, 20 December 2017.
3 Hamish MacDonald, ‘The wired seas of Asia: China, Japan, the US and Australia’, Asia-Pacific Journal, April 2015.
4 See chapters on the risk of nuclear war.
5 Cheryl Pellerin, ‘US to locate key space systems in Australia’, American Forces Press Service, 14 November 2012.
6 ‘Australia-United States Space Situational Awareness Partnership AUSMIN 2010’, DFAT, n.d.
7 Richard Tanter, ‘North by North West Cape: Eyes on China’, Austral Policy Forum 10-02A, 14 December 2010.
8 ‘Donald Trump launches new military “Space Force”’, ABC News, 19 June 2018.
9 ‘Donald Trump sets goal to create US military space force by 2020’, ABC News, 10 August 2018.
Chapter 19: The man who thought he owned the secrets
1 Robert Lindsey, The Falcon and the Snowman, Simon & Schuster, 1979, p. 69.
2 This, and most of what follows, is now in the public domain, or is based on confidential sources.
3 Snowden Surveillance Archive.
4 Arthur Tange, Defence Policy-Making, ANU Press, 2008, p. 75.
5 Testimony of Professor Des Ball to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, Reference: Pine Gap, Hansard, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 9 August 1999, p. 3.
6 Author’s conversation with Marshall Green, Metropolitan Club, Washington, DC, 12 January 1981. Shortly after the AFR published these priorities, Green gave the same list to the SMH’s foreign affairs writer, Peter Hastings.
