The Twentieth Man

by Tony Jones

By the time she spoke to her father, Anna’s career in the ABC was on unstable ground. The shifting sands of her relationship with Peter McHugh had eroded to the point where she knew they could not work together for much longer. She felt his simmering resentment when he demanded she put aside her ‘obsession’ with the Croats to work on other stories.

  So she continued her investigations after hours. Late one night she stole into the phone-recording booth and rang the number in Vienna. One of Wiesenthal’s assistants put the call through to him and Anna explained who she was.

  ‘I remember your father,’ said Wiesenthal. His accent was a sweet blend of Central Europe and further East, somewhere in the Pale of Settlement. ‘How is Frank?’

  ‘He is very well, Mr Wiesenthal. I’m surprised you remember him. That was a long time ago.’

  ‘I have good memory. Anyway, Frank is hard to forget. He was first Australian I ever met. A Jew from “down under”, ja, and a communist! Of course, if he’d been a Stalinist I would not speak to him.’

  Anna smiled at that. ‘He’s still fighting against the Stalinists.’

  ‘And your mother, how is she?’

  ‘She’s still fighting against her memories.’

  Wiesenthal said nothing. She heard his laboured breathing down the phone line. ‘Like so many others,’ he said quietly. ‘And what about you, Anna—you’re a journalist?’

  ‘Yes, I am. This is why I’m calling you. In my work I have found Nazis who came to Australia after the war.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘People who should not have been allowed to come here. War criminals.’

  ‘Anna, you should know that we have here in Vienna files—open files, on two thousand cases. But this is just a small number, tip of iceberg. We believe that more than one hundred and fifty thousand Nazis have done war crimes in the Holocaust. Only forty thousand have been put on trial so far. The others live peacefully among us, as if nothing happened. And many escape to other countries—to South America, to the US, to Britain, Canada. And, yes, is true, to Australia.’

  ‘Mr Wiesenthal, can I interrupt you there? I have a tape recorder here. Do you mind if I record our conversation?’

  ‘No, of course not. People must hear this.’

  Anna had adjusted the levels while Wiesenthal had been talking. Now she set the machine to record.

  ‘Mr Wiesenthal, can I start by asking for your advice? I am writing about one of these men who came to Australia. He was in the Ustasha, in Bosnia. He was close to the Ustasha leader, Ante Pavelic. He’s a terrible man and I want to expose him. I know some of what he did and I know what he is, but he will just deny everything and it’s such a long time ago. What can I do?’

  ‘Pavelic was their führer—they call him Poglavnik, you know this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Perhaps you know too that Pavelic was indicted at the Nuremberg Trials for war crimes. They made many documentations during the trials about what happens in Croatia during the war. You can find everything of this in Washington now. All the Nuremberg documents are there in a great vault in the national archives. That can be a starting point.’

  ‘They let journalists access those documents?’

  ‘Sure, why not. You have problem, I write letter for you. Also there are documents in Yugoslavia. In the archives in Zagreb and Sarajevo. The Ustasha had its own newspapers. They publish in them their racial decrees. In all things they follow the Nazis. Pavelic enacted racial laws in the first weeks after Hitler kindly permitted him to set up his puppet state. Yellow stars for Jews, blue armbands for Serbs. Mixed marriages were banned, non-Aryans were forbidden to work in Aryan houses. All these new laws they publish in their own newspapers. And they publish lists of those they execute. Why do they do this? It sounds crazy, ja? Meshuggah. But at that time they are simply arrogant, proud of these acts.’

  ‘The man I’m writing about, his name is Ivo Katich. He came from Sarajevo.’

  ‘Ah, then you must go there. If he was with the Ustasha in Sarajevo in the summer of 1941 then he must have been part of the pogrom there. After the Nazi occupation, they let the Ustasha do their dirty work. And Pavelic set up his own extermination camp. I’m sure you’ve heard of Jasenovac? You will find records of all of this in the Nuremberg files in Washington. You should remember, Anna, with documents you can build a case, but you need also to find living witnesses. Discovering witnesses is just as important as catching criminals, and you will have to go to Yugoslavia to do that.’

  Anna knew he was right, and she also knew how Ivo Katich and his cohort would defend themselves. ‘They will call the witnesses liars, Mr Wiesenthal. They will say the communists forged the documents.’

  The old man sighed down the phone line. ‘Yes, they will do that. I know this better than anyone. You must make a case that you could take to court. It must be … What is word in English? Watertight. One mistake and they will try to destroy you. We owe it to the dead to get this right. The new generation has to hear what the older generation refuses to tell it. I have said many times that the history of man is the history of crimes, and history can repeat. So information is defence. Through this we can build, and we must build, a case against this repetition. There is no denying that the monsters are alive today. They are waiting for us to forget. Forgetting is what makes possible their resurrection.’

  After this conversation, Anna had thought about Wiesenthal’s advice. She decided to put the Katich book aside, but in the meantime she wrote letters to the National Archives in Washington, and to the archives in Zagreb and Sarajevo, and put a visa request to the Yugoslavian Embassy. She began planning a trip to the US and Yugoslavia for July 1973, during the northern summer.

  When she’d accepted the Herald’s offer to go to Canberra, she insisted they agree to her taking a month off at that time. Steven Boyce, the editor, had pressured her to reconsider the trip and only gave in with a show of reluctance.

  ‘You owe me one, Anna,’ he had told her. ‘Don’t make me regret it.’

  Daphne Newman swore that, even from behind the closed door, she could tell when Lionel Murphy was coming halfway down the corridor. She imagined a force field—some form of radiated energy—pushing ahead of him, like the air driven down a tunnel by an underground train. People talked about force of personality, about different-coloured auras, but she’d never heard of one that got there before the actual person. That was a Lionel thing.

  Maybe she was imagining it; perhaps it was just his distinctive heavy tread that she heard or felt without realising it. Regardless of the cause, she was expecting the door to fly open and it did. And there he was, beaming at her like she was the best friend he hadn’t seen for years.

  ‘Daphne, good morning, what a beautiful day,’ Murphy exclaimed with unfeigned enthusiasm, as if he hadn’t been dictating letters to her at 10.30 the night before—or polished off half a bottle of whisky while doing so.

  Not that she minded. Lionel had repaid her, a thousand-fold, with his loyalty when ASIO had come after her over her meetings with that Russian lothario, Ivan Stenin. If only she hadn’t left her bloody briefcase in the man’s car. That was done and dusted now, thanks to Murphy.

  ‘You’re a little late,’ she told him.

  ‘It’s never too late to change the world, Daphne,’ said Murphy, handing her a stem he’d plucked from the Senate rose garden. She looked at the crimson flower and was mollified; she got up to find a vase.

  Maureen Barron came out from the kitchenette holding the electric jug. ‘You missed your meeting this morning with Clarrie Harders,’ she said sternly. ‘I tried ringing you, but it was constantly engaged.’

  Murphy nodded at the jug. ‘Careful, Maureen, that would be assault with a deadly weapon.’

  ‘Don’t tempt me.’

  ‘I’m sorry I missed Clarrie. Will you ring and apologise? I had to take a call from Peter Wilenski. Gough’s going to announce the decision to establish diplomatic relations with China later today.’

 
‘Really?’ Maureen was intrigued. ‘That’s a lot earlier than we thought, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ Murphy nodded. ‘We’ll also be recognising East Germany. You could call this a red-letter day.’

  ‘An early Christmas present for the atheist commies?’

  ‘It’ll keep the Americans on their toes anyway, and perhaps push Jim Cairns off the front pages. Oh, before I forget, don’t mention this to George, will you? Wilenski doesn’t want the whole gallery to know about it before the announcement.’

  ‘George wouldn’t like being singled out like that.’

  Murphy shrugged. ‘They think he’s a blabbermouth, Maureen, and, to be honest, he does like a chat.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Maureen sighed. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t say anything to him.’

  Daphne walked past them and settled the vase on her desk. ‘George has already rung in,’ she said. ‘He wants to see you as soon as possible. He didn’t say why.’

  Murphy turned to his private secretary. ‘What else have I got on, Maureen?’

  ‘You’ve got a meeting in half an hour with the Family Law reform working group. Harry Messel’s keen to sit in on that. I suspect Clarrie Harders wanted to talk to you about who’ll be drafting the legislation.’

  ‘Half an hour? All right.’ Murphy turned back to Daphne. ‘Ask George to come in now, will you?’

  ‘Since I can’t brain you with this jug,’ said Maureen, ‘do you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘Does the pope shit in the woods?’ asked the attorney-general, and gave her a wink before disappearing into his office.

  Negus knocked and walked straight into the attorney’s office. Murphy was on the phone. He’d swung his chair around to look out into the gardens beyond the French windows. He hung up the phone and looked at his press secretary.

  ‘Daphne said you needed to see me urgently. What is it?’

  ‘I had a visit this morning from Anna Rosen,’ Negus said. ‘She’s quit the ABC and joined the press gallery with the Herald.’

  ‘Really? She’s smart as a whip that one, but that’s a turn-up. Why’d she leave the ABC?’

  ‘She wouldn’t say. Sounds like personal issues. But, more to the point, someone has leaked to her the details of your meeting with Peter Barbour last week. At the very least she’s got you calling for an end to ASIO bugging operations and getting stuck into him about lack of action over Croat terrorism.’

  Murphy hit the table with an open hand. ‘Bloody hell, that’s the last thing we need!’ he thundered. ‘Three weeks in government and the outfit’s leaking like a sieve.’

  ‘Look, we don’t know where she got this from.’

  Murphy fixed Negus with a steely look. ‘It wasn’t you, was it, George?’

  Negus stared back, his face flushing not with embarrassment but a deep sense of injustice. Did they have a trust issue? ‘For fuck’s sake, Lionel,’ he said angrily. ‘I’m here trying to shut this down.’

  Murphy paused before speaking. Perhaps he’d been too rash in assuming the worst. ‘I’m sorry, George. Go on.’

  ‘Rosen reckons she’s got enough to publish an account of the ASIO meeting. I thought that would probably hurt relations with the director-general, so I offered her a deal if she agrees to hold off for a few days until we can prepare the ground, maybe put out a joint statement with ASIO.’

  ‘What sort of deal?’

  ‘I told her you’d hired Kerry Milte and that we could organise a briefing with him.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘She also wants an interview with you.’

  Murphy weighed up the idea. ‘Is that wise? With what she knows?’

  ‘We’d have to put out the ASIO statement first, to get ahead of it,’ said Negus. ‘But, look, the last interview you did with her worked out pretty well. I think we should give her this. With what she knows about the Croats, we should keep her in the camp. But she obviously wants to start off in Canberra with a bang.’

  Murphy looked at his young charge shrewdly, then surprised him with a wink. ‘I’m sure you’d like to oblige her in that, George.’

  Negus was confused. ‘What?’ he asked. Then: ‘Oh, get your hand off it, Lionel.’

  ‘You’re both healthy young animals,’ said Murphy. ‘It would only be natural. Anyway, you can go ahead and set it up in the interest of damage control. And you better get moving on the ASIO statement.’

  *

  Anna was back at her desk when the phone rang. She snatched it up. It was Negus.

  ‘You’ve got your meeting with Milte,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks, George. When can I see him?’

  ‘He’ll be free at lunchtime. I’ll give you his number.’

  She wrote it down. ‘What about the interview with Murphy?’

  ‘Look, he’ll do it. But it’s Saturday tomorrow. Christmas is on Monday, and everyone needs a holiday. Let’s do it after the New Year—there’s not much happening now anyway.’

  Anna was sceptical about the timing. ‘The ASIO story won’t wait until then,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll put out a short statement after Christmas. I’ll make sure you get it first.’

  ‘If I know about the ASIO meeting, someone else will.’

  ‘Lionel won’t speak about it,’ said Negus. ‘No one will get anything but the statement.’

  ‘I’ll have to go with what I know if someone else breaks the story.’

  ‘Look, Anna, I’m doing you a favour here.’ Negus sounded impatient. ‘Just go see Milte, will you? I’ve set it up for you. I can’t do any more than that.’

  17.

  Anna was on the phone to Kerry Milte when the other journalists started arriving at the office. One of them bumped hard against the back of her chair.

  ‘Ooops, sorry!’ he said as Anna lurched forward.

  ‘Kerry, it’s starting to get a bit crowded in here,’ she said. ‘Let’s meet in King’s Hall at 12.30 and we can head off from there? I’ve got a car … Yep, you won’t miss me. I’ll be the woman with the notepad.’

  She hung up and stood to greet the two young men who’d just arrived with varying degrees of clumsiness. Harry Lang had been right about Led Zeppelin. If you overlooked the cheap suits, they both had the dissolute rock star image—sallow complexions, shoulder-length hair and deep-sunken eyes. But perhaps that was just a consequence of working in the gallery.

  ‘I’m Anna Rosen,’ she said, shaking their hands.

  ‘I almost didn’t recognise you without your notepad,’ said the taller of the two. ‘I’m Dave Olney.’

  ‘Bruce McKillop,’ said the other, holding her hand a few beats too long. ‘You on to something already, are you, Anna?’

  She released herself from McKillop’s damp grip and shook her head. ‘Just trying to find a story.’

  ‘It’s pretty cutthroat around here, Anna,’ said Olney. ‘Keep your cards close to your chest, if I were you.’

  ‘Or just keep me there if you like,’ said McKillop.

  Anna turned and sized up Bruce McKillop: the shaving rash, the watery red eyes, his skin’s greenish hue, the stench of tobacco and stale booze that clung to his crumpled suit.

  ‘Up late, working on that line, were you, Bruce?’ she asked, and got a glimpse of his incisors as he tried not to snarl.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about Bruce,’ said Olney. ‘He’s only half a wit when he’s hungover.’

  ‘Fuck off, Olney, you try and keep up with that bloody Walsh.’

  McKillop shrugged off his jacket and hung it over the back of his chair before slumping into it. He put his head into his hands.

  ‘That’s Eric Walsh he’s talking about,’ Olney explained. ‘You know him?’

  ‘Whitlam’s press secretary?’

  ‘That’s him. He’ll feed you stories if he likes you, but you have to follow him around half the drinking holes in Canberra.’

  McKillop groaned, then retraced his day like an amnesiac trying to pick up lost clues. ‘I was at the Non-Member
s’ Bar from 11, then lunch at The Lobby—must have gone through a case of wine. Back to the Non-Members’. I might have even filed a story in there somewhere, fucked if I can remember. Then I ended up with the PM’s staffers at The Lotus for a Chinese meal. There was a mob from DeeFA there, too. All I can remember is at the end of the night they were all doing toasts to Chairman Mao.’

  Anna became alert. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said. ‘Maybe they’re about to announce the recognition of China.’

  ‘What’s that?’ a voice boomed from the doorway.

  A tall, thin, dapper man in his thirties walked in and stopped in front of Anna.

  ‘Who are you?’

  When Anna introduced herself he shook her hand.

  ‘Peter Tennant,’ he said and she recognised the by-line of the bureau’s chief political correspondent. ‘So, what’s this about China?’

  ‘I was just speculating about a strange incident that Bruce told us about.’

  ‘Bruce got on the ran-tan with Eric Walsh last night,’ Olney chipped in. ‘Whitlam’s staff were out late at The Lotus with a bunch of foreign affairs bods and they were all doing toasts to Chairman Mao.’

  ‘You saw this, Bruce?’ Tennant asked.

  ‘I might have been hallucinating,’ said McKillop.

  ‘Mate, that’s a fucken story. Anna here’s right, sounds like they’ve sewed up the China deal and they were out celebrating. This might well be today’s story. I’m gonna go see Walsh right now. See if I can shake something out of him. Tell Barton where I’ve gone, will you?’ Tennant turned back to Anna. ‘Well done, new girl,’ he said.

  Anna held her tongue and watched him leave.

  ‘Yeah, thanks a lot, “new girl”,’ said McKillop.

  Anna refused to let him off the hook.

  ‘Don’t call me a girl, Bruce.’

  King’s Hall was crowded as a busy railway station even though parliament was in recess. Freshly sworn-in ministers patrolled the space with their staff like schools of fish in a new tank. Favoured journalists interrupted their progress from time to time to ask questions. It brought to Anna’s mind descriptions of the Forum in ancient Rome. White-haired senators milled around in the public space, having forgone their robes for sober suits, while the MPs, the people’s representatives, mostly younger and consciously in tune with the times, joined the lunchtime passeggiata.