As in the UK, D-notices in Australia operated without a legislative foundation. They began in the UK as a peacetime mechanism, less onerous than more restrictive wartime media controls, and this remains the case. In their heyday (and particularly during the Cold War), D-notices flattered media organisations by treating them as equals with as much a stake in patriotism and national honour as the government. D-notices also provided an orderly mechanism whereby media could publish agreed information on national security matters without risking litigation or being harried by security authorities generally. D-notices in Australia are largely unknown, even after they were publicly revealed in 1967. They never became an entrenched feature in Australia. One scholar, Pauline Sadler, believed this was partly because ‘the print and electronic media in Australia never had specialist military correspondents of the calibre of those in the U.K., such as Chapman Pincher’. (Pincher, who lived to be 100, tested the limits of the British D-notice system of media self-censorship with a 1967 story on the interception of communications by UK security authorities. Ultimately no action was taken, though, because he had not actually broken the UK Official Secrets Act.)
The British Government had exerted pressure on the Chifley government to adopt a D-notice system in Australia when it decided to test missiles at Woomera. Chifley acted to control the coverage of the missile program by ensuring public statements about it could come from only himself or his Defence minister John Dedman, but he was reluctant to commit to a D-notice system. After several informal approaches, Edward Williams, the UK high commissioner, made a formal approach on 28 January 1947. A subsequent discussion between Chifley, Williams and Lieutenant-General JF Evetts, the British officer in charge of Woomera, led to some action on publicity arrangements for the Woomera project, but nothing regarding D-notices. An account of this discussion later prepared for Menzies noted that the British high commissioner had inquired whether D-notices could be extended to Australia since, like Canada, the government was ‘in possession of much secret information supplied by the U.K.’ and was ‘responsible for trials and defence research based thereon’. He had also pointed out that in December 1949, the Australian Defence Committee had suggested ‘that every endeavour should be made to obtain the co-operation of the Press in the adoption of a system of “D” notices’.
Despite the pressure being applied by the British, the Chifley government was unreceptive, possibly because of a perception that the D-notice committee itself might leak information. Security issues continued to dog the government as the Cold War worsened, but D-notices progressed no further until Menzies came to power.
One of the most painful episodes in the dying days of the Chifley government concerned the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), forerunner to the current Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s leading scientific research agency. CSIR under its chair David Rivett became mired in controversy over its role in defence science and the adequacy of its security controls. Rivett famously gave a speech titled ‘Science and responsibility’ in 1947 saying CSIR should not be involved in any research that could not be openly published and discussed in scientific fora. A political and media debate ensued around the loyalty of CSIR’s scientists and management in light of the allegations of communist infiltration. This ultimately led to legislation to create CSIRO, removing the capacity to carry out defence science. Defence science was shifted to an organisation within the Department of Defence now known as the Defence Science and Technology Group. Nuclear weaponry, its associated espionage and official secrets imposed new limits on what scientists could do and say.
For the British, plans to test nuclear weapons in Australia made the issue increasingly urgent, so the UK stepped up its pressure on the more amenable Menzies. The secretary of the Australian Department of Defence Sir Frederick Shedden – a long-time supporter of an Australian D-notice system – secured Menzies’ agreement.
Menzies had previously approved mechanisms limiting the media. During his wartime prime ministership, he had placed the entire Australian media under the control of the director-general of information. The influential Australian newspaper proprietor Keith Murdoch, father of long-time News Corp head Rupert Murdoch, held this position briefly. (Wartime restrictions placed upon Australian newspapers were maintained – possibly even strengthened – by Menzies’ Labor successor, John Curtin, straining the relationship between Curtin and the press.) Even by wartime standards many deemed this measure excessive. An editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald commented:
The new regulations give the Director-General, subject only to the direction of the Minister – the Prime Minister, Mr Menzies, in this case – absolute power to compel any newspaper or periodical to publish any statement or material supplied on his behalf in whatever position is required and without limit in respect of the space occupied … These regulations, if they were literally and arbitrarily enforced, would render the Press of Australia completely subservient to the will of the Government and the Director-General.
In his second stint as prime minister, Menzies was alive to the potential problems of free-ranging media under Cold War conditions. He took a central role in the implementation of the D-notice system and attended the first meeting of the committee that guided its development. He wrote personally to editors of newspapers and heads of media associations requesting their co-operation before the system was implemented. For example, in November 1950 he wrote to Eric Kennedy, the president of the Australian Newspaper Proprietors’ Association (and influential owner of the Sun newspaper chain), to ascertain how an attempt to introduce D-notices would be received. He wrote in similar terms to the president of the Australian Newspapers Council, the general manager of the ABC and the president of the Australian Commercial Broadcasting Stations. In his letter to Kennedy, Menzies confirmed that the UK had suggested the D-notice system for Australia, and gave an overview: ‘For many years there has been an understanding in the United Kingdom between the press and publishers on one hand, and the Defence Ministries on the other, whereby the former agree not to print, without prior reference, any matter relating to subjects specified in “D” notices’.
In Kennedy’s absence, the acting president R Doutreband replied. Doutreband said he had gauged the attitude of members, which he summed up thus:
All members are anxious to co-operate with your Government to the fullest extent in ensuring the security of secret information. Their only concern has always been that measures designed to safeguard the genuine interests of national security should be used to cover political matters that have no relation to national security. Members, however, feel that the proposals you now put forward offer the prospect of a real and lasting co-operation between the Service Departments and the Press in these important matters and they will be glad to assist in the introduction and smooth working of the scheme.
Doutreband’s comments captured the mood of media proprietors at the time, all of whom seemed remarkably unfazed by the imposition of information controls. There was no such equanimity in the US, where the media actively and openly opposed any governmental controls on reporting its nuclear test program. Doutreband was rather more effusive than some, though. President of the Australian Newspapers Council Frank Packer replied rather more briefly:
Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
Further to your letter of November 22, regarding Security of Defence Information, the members of my Council are agreeable to this proposed Committee.
The new Australian system given the go-ahead by Australia’s media proprietors was to be managed by a committee co-ordinated by a civilian from the Department of Defence – AE Buchanan was eventually appointed to this role – and chaired by the minister for Defence Philip McBride. Menzies insisted that the existence of the committee and its D-notices be kept secret (as it was until 1967) and requested that only senior representatives of media organisations be invited to join the committee. The plan was to give all the leading media organisation
s of the day a seat at the table, including representatives of the principal daily and periodical press associations, news services, the ABC and commercial broadcasting interests that ran independent news services. The organisations that provided the bulk of public information to the average Australian quickly and readily agreed to censor what they published.
A secret cable from Frederick Shedden to Major General Rudolph Bierwirth, the Australian Defence Department’s representative in London, reported the positive response of media proprietors. Shedden said that ‘consideration is at present being given to the constitution of machinery for introduction and operation of scheme’ and requested that Bierwirth obtain copies of current UK D-notices to use as a guide for formulating Australia’s own notices. He suggested that Rear Admiral (retired) GP Thompson, secretary of the UK committee charged with overseeing D-notices, would be able to assist. The Australian system was to be modelled closely on the UK system, and the two committees maintained close coordination for many years.
The Australian Government seemed prepared initially for the media to be less willing. A Department of Defence file containing information about the process to establish D-notices contains documents relating to the US that reveal some fundamental differences in approach. A resolution adopted unanimously by senior US media representatives in the late 1940s, as Cold War tensions increased and the US stepped up its atomic weapons test program, expressed a commitment to unhindered coverage of matters of national importance, while recognising a responsibility not to give away secrets that might harm the national interest.
Conditions in the world today require the perfection of our national defense, an important part of which lies in the fields of scientific research and development of new military weapons. Protection of necessary military secrecy in such fields in a country rightfully jealous of its free and uncontrolled media of communications presents a problem in national security. We recognize the existence of such a problem. Its wise solution is the responsibility of the National Military Establishment. But it is shared to a degree by all media of public information. As representatives of such media we have willingly assumed our proper part of that responsibility. We do not believe that any kind of censorship in peacetime is workable or desirable in the public interest. If any exists, we would not be sympathetic with an intent, on the part of the Military Establishment, to propose peacetime censorship [emphasis added].
While explicitly rejecting peacetime censorship, the US media representatives recommended regular consultation about national security issues between the media and the US security services through a Security Advisory Council. However, the Melbourne Herald reported on 8 March 1948 that there were some objections in the US to a regular security consultation: ‘It is complained that it would open the door to Government censorship in peacetime’.
Nevertheless, the heads of the major American press and broadcasting associations, along with representatives of specialist media sectors such as Perry Githens, editor of Popular Science Monthly, agreed to the resolution and, in doing so, specifically rejected censorship. The first secretary of Defense James Forrestal issued a statement to coincide with this declaration, endorsing a policy that would ensure ‘full release of all possible information to the American people’, while at the same time protecting ‘information which should not be revealed to potential enemies’. Secretary Forrestal also ‘expressed himself as in accord with the declaration against censorship, since it coincided with his own views’.
A D-notice system in the US would have been unthinkable. The apparent eagerness of senior Australian media representatives to join the D-notice committee suggests a distinctly different media culture in Australia. Media freedom in the US, of course, accorded with its constitutional guarantees of free speech – guarantees that do not exist in Australia. And while declarations may not necessarily reflect what happens in reality, it does seem that the American media enjoyed greater (though not total) access to nuclear test information than their Australian counterparts. They were also more assertive in pursuing their rights to this information and less hindered by official mechanisms such as D-notices.
Despite across-the-board approval, the process to adopt a D-notice system in Australia took nearly two years. The delays were caused in part by the difficulty in finding a suitable secretary for the committee, disagreements as to whether the proposed system would apply to foreign media agencies operating in Australia and the exact wording of the first atomic tests D-notice.
The mechanism for the release of official information in the first D-notice, for the Hurricane test in October 1952 at Monte Bello, was initially so confused it even drew in the prime minister, who showed direct interest in the smooth working of the embryonic system. The general manager of John Fairfax & Sons, publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, among others, wrote to Menzies in August 1952 to complain that the navy’s public relations team in Sydney had rebuffed his reporters when they had attempted to obtain officially approved information about the first atomic test. The system fell apart because the contact person, Lieutenant Commander Dollard, was on leave. The general manager wrote that they would ‘give the utmost co-operation to the Government in preserving security on all secret information about the tests, but it is essential that the fullest facilities should be available for us to consult responsible officers at all hours’. In a handwritten comment at the bottom his copy, Menzies wrote, ‘Ask Mr. McBride to enquire into this urgently. It sounds very bad’.
As Defence minister, McBride had primary ministerial responsibility for establishing the D-notice system (with a surprisingly large amount of interest and input from Menzies), and he advised his Cabinet colleagues on the proposed system in a briefing letter dated July 1952. He listed the members of the committee as the permanent heads, or their senior deputies, of Commonwealth departments of Defence, Navy, Army, Air, Defence Production and Supply, as well as senior executive officers of the press and broadcasting associations.
The first meeting of the committee, to be known as the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee, was held on 14 July 1952 at Victoria Barracks in Melbourne. Before the meeting, the Joint Intelligence Committee (the directors of security for all branches of the Australian armed services) had devised draft D-notices for the new committee to consider. These were presented as one of the main orders of business at the meeting. McBride chaired the meeting, and Menzies, who also attended, addressed it to express ‘the Government’s appreciation of their willingness to co-operate with the Defence Authorities in the introduction and operation of a system of “D” Notices’.
In addition to the initial set of D-notices, McBride had advised in his briefing that the first meeting would ‘consider the principles upon which the organisation is based’ and ‘the procedure for its operation’. The seven principles adopted by the committee in due course emphasised the need to prevent dissemination of information ‘detrimental to national security’ and the voluntary nature of the notices, among other things. This voluntary principle has been affirmed throughout the life of the D-notice system in Australia. The most recent documentation from the D-notice committee, dating from its last meeting in 1982, stated, ‘The system is an entirely voluntary one, offering advice and guidance only. Non-observance of a request contained in a Notice carries no penalties. In the end, it is for an editor to decide whether to publish an item of information, having regard to national security requirements’.
The principles noted that the media representatives on the committee would have access to information ‘of a secret nature’, even though only information classified ‘confidential’ would appear in the official notices. This trust of participating media representatives appears to have been justified. Throughout the British tests there were no known Australian breaches of the atomic test D-notices.
A major agenda item at the inaugural meeting was Operation Hurricane, the first nuclear test in Western Australia. McBride explained that it was primarily a British operation and that Aust
ralia would play a secondary role. But while the UK Government would lay down security conditions, there were some issues around media liaison that needed clarifying, and ‘the Australian Government was consulting the United Kingdom Government in regard to the release of certain background information regarding activity in Australia in respect of which the Australian press had a special interest’. The Australian media were endlessly frustrated with the fact that the British media seemed to have privileged access to information about the British nuclear test program.
At the first meeting, this problem, which was already apparent and would become more so, came to the surface: British media were getting hold of information ahead of Australian media. The Australian government officials undertook to ensure that any release of information was simultaneous. (Issues over the perceived preferential treatment given to UK media festered throughout the British atomic test program in Australia and were never really resolved.) The media also asked to be present as observers, something of which Defence Minister McBride ‘took note’, while maintaining that under the present arrangements even he was not allowed to be present. The committee agreed on eight D-notices to be issued. These covered:
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