Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_CIA_involvement_in_the_Whitlam_dismissal
Like I guess we all just collectively agreed to not talk about this?
Apparently the Queen and the CIA thought Australia was getting a little too progressive in 1975. They were pulling out of Viet Nam and doing things like welcoming refugees from Chile (who were fleeing a different coup engineered by the CIA).
The 50th anniversary of the coup just passed (Nov. 11th), and Consortium News republished an article originally written in 2020:
Gough Whitlam was driven from government on Nov. 11, 1975. When he died six years ago (2014), his achievements were recognised, if grudgingly, his mistakes noted in false sorrow. The truth of the coup against him, it was hoped, would be buried with him.
During the Whitlam years, 1972-75, Australia briefly achieved independence and became intolerably progressive.
The last Australian troops were ordered home from their mercenary service to the American assault on Vietnam. Whitlam’s ministers publicly condemned U.S. barbarities as “mass murder” and the crimes of “maniacs.” The Nixon administration was corrupt, said the Deputy Prime Minister, Jim Cairns, and called for a boycott of American trade. In response, Australian dockers refused to unload American ships.
Whitlam moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement and called for a Zone of Peace in the Indian ocean, which the U.S. and Britain opposed. He demanded France cease its nuclear testing in the Pacific. In the U.N., Australia spoke up for the Palestinians. Refugees fleeing the C.I.A.-engineered coup in Chile were welcomed into Australia.
Nah the leading scholars on the crisis consider this a conspiracy theory. In reality our governer general (basically an unelected president whose job is to mostly just do what the elected PM wants) decided that the progressive government’s impending potential of not funding the government due to political deadlock under a PM who would do anything to run out his term in government regardless was untenable, and so basically put the opposition in charge so they could immediately call an election to settle this. I don’t think he made the right decision, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some Americans and Brits the GG invariably spoke to as part of his job thought he should do that or something like it, but I think it was wholly his decision in line with his known political modus operandi.
The idea that there was some underhanded plot from the US though is a conspiracy that has rapidly grown recently due to various unscrupulous political commentators.
The “conspiracy theory” was an almost open secret at the time, only confirmed later by the released letters.
Lack of supply is a trigger for a double-dissolution election, but certainly not grounds for firing the PM and putting the opposition leader in charge. Anyone who thinks that is standard practice needs their head examined.
I’m not familiar with this situation. Who are these political commentators and what do you think their motivation is for pushing the conspiracy theory?