Atomic Thunder
Page 24
» UK atomic tests in Australia;
» aspects of naval shipbuilding;
» official ciphering;
» the number and deployment of Centurion tanks;
» troop movements in the Korean War;
» weapons and equipment information not officially released;
» aspects of air defence; and
» certain aerial photographs.
The D-notice applying to the Hurricane test at Monte Bello, originally D-notice No. 1, was ultimately designated D-notice No. 8 after being altered to take into account media objections both at the meeting and in subsequent correspondence. Shedden reported just after the meeting, ‘Everything went well except that, as expected, the arrangements for publicity in connection with the atomic test were somewhat critically discussed … [The media at the meeting were informed] that we were seeking to liberalise the United Kingdom outlook in so far as treatment of the Australian press is concerned’.
The hard line that the UK authorities took on co-operating with the media applied particularly to the Australian media. The British media – arguably because of more sophisticated reporting skills – displayed a greater depth of coverage in their stories of the tests and regularly ‘scooped’ Australian reporters, a fact that caused problems for the minister for Supply Howard Beale, who faced complaints from Australian journalists.
Following resolution of the criticisms aired at the first meeting, the revised and re-numbered D-notice No. 8 was officially distributed to the media just before the Hurricane test. In it Captain AE Buchanan, secretary and executive officer of the committee, set out a number of restrictions in reporting the Monte Bello test. These included that there be ‘no disclosure of, or speculation concerning’ information regarding the technical details of the weapon design, the precise form and date of the trials, the results to be obtained and the passage arrangements for the fissile material and for ‘the Main Force after leaving the United Kingdom, until released by the United Kingdom authorities’.
These were sweeping restrictions. The notice also spelled out what information would be made available ‘unofficially’ to the media by the navy’s public relations office, including such items as the transfer of a construction squadron of the RAAF to Monte Bello and the build-up of stores at Fremantle to the south of the test site. The statement exempted from the notice matters of ‘observable facts which must inevitably be known to foreign observers and the press’. These included arrivals and departures from ports and airfields but excluded anything taking place within the ‘prohibited area’ of the test itself.
The notice, in effect, limited the media to what they could directly observe by stationing themselves close to the test site, and to what the test authorities chose to tell them. It specifically, and not surprisingly, precluded any technical detail about the atomic device itself. Obviously, it did not restrict political speculations about the wider meaning of the bomb test and the development on Australian soil of a British nuclear deterrent, although few such broad stories appeared in the media. The primary purpose was to restrict the promulgation of technical and strategic information.
Some Australian media organisations quibbled over the delivery of information, appeals that did not go completely unheeded in Canberra. Menzies wrote to all media organisations in August 1952 to assure them that their views on media coverage of Hurricane were being taken into account. ‘As the test is of great public interest the Government expressed to the United Kingdom Government its view that any possible information that could be given to the press without prejudice to security, should be made available.’ The Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee had discussed this issue at its first meeting the month before.
Menzies also claimed that the problem of the UK media gaining access to bomb test stories before the Australian media had been solved through his government’s representations. The Australian press should now receive the same treatment as the UK press regarding ‘the release of official information and photographs’. (Despite Menzies’ intervention, though, the Australian media continued to complain about perceived preferential treatment for the British media.) He attached the revised D-notice, which Buchanan had issued a little earlier. The first, disputed version had omitted the list of ‘background information’ items included in the final version, which gave media access to substantially more information than originally offered. The changes were reasonably well received, although the notice still had a sticking point, namely the line that restricted reporting on ‘anything on or taking place in the prohibited area’. As the editor of the West Australian newspaper EC de Burgh pointed out:
How are we to know that something may not be clearly audible and visible from the mainland and be seen and heard by scores or hundreds of observers who may include representatives of foreign, even Russian, newsagencies? Why should we be asked to agree not to publish tomorrow something already known to, possibly, hundreds of West Australian civilians and may-be to dozens of foreign or Communist observers?
Despite de Burgh’s heated letter, the wording of D-notice No. 8 was not further changed before it was issued in the lead-up to Operation Hurricane. On 10 November 1952, after Hurricane was over, Buchanan cancelled this first atomic-related D-notice and thanked the media for their co-operation, ‘which was an important contribution towards safeguarding defence information in connection with these tests’.
While the Australian media generally accepted the D-notice system without qualms, there were some hiccoughs. Press agencies such as United Australian Press and Australian Associated Press, which gathered and sold stories to a wide variety of outlets including those overseas, refused to co-operate with the new atomic weapons D-notice, leading to a prickly relationship. In a minute paper sent to Shedden, committee secretary Buchanan wrote that in response to his direct inquiry whether they would co-operate in D-notice No. 8, Mr Richards from United Australian Press said ‘no’, while Mr Hooper from Australian Associated Press ‘gave an equivocal answer, that was in fact a negative’.
The agencies sold stories to outlets overseas that were not bound by the Australian D-notice system. If they limited their coverage, visiting and unfettered foreign journalists could trump them. Of the eight D-notices agreed by the committee, the British tests were of greatest interest outside Australia. The agencies would participate only in D-notices that applied to other defence matters and not to the big, newsworthy story that most interested them. To get around this, Buchanan suggested, and Shedden agreed, that the main news agencies ‘including American agencies but omitting other foreigners’ be asked to participate in the D-notice system after Operation Hurricane had concluded. The position of the Australian agencies remained ambiguous, and their representatives did not join the D-notice committee in 1952 or subsequently. Also, negotiations with the American agencies broke down, and they were never included in the D-notice system.
The British had had the same problems with the US press agencies in relation to their own D-notice system. Even so, in practice the British D-notice committee had found the US agencies tended to abide by D-notices sent to them informally, while making an outward show of their independence. However, George Thomson pointed out some exceptions, including two US air journals with a fairly large sale in Britain which were constantly publishing information about British military aircraft that British editors and air correspondents knew perfectly well but did not publish because of the D-notice. A well-known Swiss air journal was an even worse offender. ‘All this caused much complaint and bad feeling among British editors.’ Thomson recounted a remark made to him by the head of the United Press of America, who acknowledged that the US press gave the Russians ‘a great deal of confidential information about the U.S. armed forces’ but said he would still ‘fight anybody who attempted to restrict the freedom of the press in any way’. Thomson added two exclamation marks at the end of this quote.
The establishment of D-notices was a logical step for the Menzies government, to please Britain and
to keep the Australian media under a measure of control. However, publicity also had propaganda benefits. Exactly where to draw the boundary between public and secret information was a difficult task that exercised Menzies and his colleagues – especially difficult since they had to adhere to the wishes of the UK authorities. Media information was often initiated in Britain for later distribution in Australia, and the British D-notice committee issued its own notice for the atomic tests, applicable to British journalists. The British and Australian committees consulted closely and synchronised their activities in relation to the nuclear tests (and possibly other things too).
Sometimes these mechanisms created frustration for all media, particularly overseas representatives. Indeed, for officials from the Australian Department of Supply (which managed the Australian Government public relations for the tests) relations were frequently more strained with the overseas press than with domestic media, and foreign media representatives were not above a bit of manipulation to get access to information. For example, in a letter to an Australian Government public relations official, the chief correspondent and South Pacific manager for the US agency United Press Associations GE McCadden objected to plans for strict exclusion of media from the Hurricane test: ‘If such a policy is pursued, it is my belief that the U.S. Press is most unlikely to devote as much space to the tests as it would utilize were your authorities to relax these announced restrictions’. McCadden went on to point out the benefits of gaining well-informed American media coverage, one suspects in much the same way that American media made their case domestically:
If one of your ultimate major objectives of these tests is to impress upon American public opinion a spectacular achievement of our major ally which contributes to our common strength, then the best means of reaching such public opinion is through the eyes and ears of American reporters, including United Press.
McCadden also said that the 1200 newspapers, 1100 radio stations and 50 television stations served by his agency would all take the United Press Association’s news stories about the tests ‘regardless of how [the agency] gets the information about them’.
This forceful, eloquent and at times impassioned case for media access to Hurricane comments on the generous access granted to British and Australian correspondents to the US atomic tests at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. He concluded, ‘I want to stress … that all I can tell you now is how the strategic U.S. Press will react to a continued news blackout on one hand, and a new policy of relaxing that blackout on the other hand’. The thrust of this letter was unmistakable: the potentially positive message of the atomic tests could be distorted if the Australian authorities did not provide the media with what they wanted. In the 1950s American reporting of their own atomic tests was more thorough and critical than any coverage that appeared in Australia.
In 1953, after a period of negotiation, the Australian Government had to admit defeat. Frank O’Connor, secretary of the Department of Supply, said in a letter to Major General EL Sheehan, Australian defence representative, that because of the unfavourable attitude of the US press agencies, the D-notice ‘Committee’s recommendation, with which the Minister concurred, was that the United States Press Agencies should not be included in the “D” Notice system at this stage’. D-notices were to be confined to UK and Australian media. The Americans were exempt.
Buchanan issued a new D-notice for the Totem tests at Emu Field in October 1953. It had a similar structure to the Hurricane notice but added a more specific restriction, on ‘nuclear efficiency and measurements relating to weapon efficiency’, further limiting the dissemination of technical detail as the design of British nuclear weapons became more sophisticated. This D-notice also listed a number of new things that would be provided to reporters as background material, including an initial survey of the area by Sir William Penney, the work of construction personnel, assistance given by the LRWE at Woomera, air-lift operations by Yorks and Bristols, boring operations for water and study of geology, the work of Australian scientists in checking margins of safety, the transport of aircraft and war stores to the site and the co-operation of pastoral lessees.
On 26 June 1953, just before the Totem D-notice and when Menzies was overseas, the acting prime minister Arthur Fadden distributed a letter to the press representatives on the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee. This letter expanded upon their need to restrict information about the new mainland test series and explained that journalists would not be allowed to witness the Emu Field tests. Fadden made the case that press exclusion from the test site was intended to eliminate media pressure to hold the test before the conditions were right:
It is desirable that the man in charge of the operation should have a considerable margin of time to play with as to when the test should take place. The presence of the press has a tendency to lead to attempts to meet a scheduled date and this could cause a reduction in the value to be derived from the test.
While delays in testing, particularly during Totem and later Buffalo, did make the media restive, the media did not influence the exact timing of any tests, although they probably exerted indirect pressure. Howard Beale was asked a question in parliament on this issue at the height of media unrest at the time of Buffalo in 1956 and replied, ‘I can say that there will be no change in the standards of safety which have been, and will be, maintained from first to last in conducting the tests’.
Fadden’s argument did not convince the media chiefs, who lobbied to gain access to the test site to view Totem, and on 10 September permission was granted. The D-notice system had already done its job by drawing the media into the preparations for test publicity. This concession to media demands suggests a powerful co-operative process that seems to have been working the way it was intended.
After Totem, the operation of D-notices becomes less clear. In 1955, Frank O’Connor sought clarification on the arrangements for a D-notice for Operation Buffalo in September 1956. He wrote to his counterpart at the Prime Minister’s Department, Allen Brown, to find out what was happening. ‘It is highly desirable that any such “D” notice contemplated for “Buffalo” or any other similar operation should be accepted by the Committee well in advance of any public announcements of the trials, and before activity has reached a level which draws attention and subsequent press comment.’
A variety of almost indecipherable squiggles in different hands festoons the lower portion of this letter, including one stating, ‘This matter can’t be dealt with until …’ followed by a tantalising but unreadable reference to the 1956 Monte Bello tests, Operation Mosaic. This frustrating note is tagged with what looks like the date ‘29/8/55’. The final handwritten comment states, ‘Matter Completed 16/9/55’, which was a year before the first Buffalo shot at Maralinga. The official National Archives D-notice files contain no further documentation on D-notices for the British nuclear test series, and it seems likely that the notices were specifically issued only for the earlier tests (definitely Hurricane and Totem, and possibly Mosaic). The earlier D-notices may have been deemed to be current for the later tests. Arthur Fadden in his letter to press chiefs indicated that the Hurricane D-notice also applied to Totem, despite the fact that it had already been explicitly cancelled.
Once the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee decided on its early D-notices, it rarely met again. The committee operated independently of other Australian security authorities, so its concerns were mostly those of its parent organisation, the Department of Defence, not those of the other government entities concerned with security. The British D-notice committee regularly consulted with MI5, but Australia’s D-notice committee never seems to have had a similar relationship with ASIO. Indeed, the Joint Intelligence Committee reported that ASIO rebuffed its suggestion that it participate in the formulation of the initial draft D-notices: ‘The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation did not propose to submit draft “D” Notices at this stage because only in the most exceptional circumstances would the need arise for that
organisation to sponsor a “D” Notice’.
The D-notice system remained secret until Prime Minister Harold Holt confirmed its existence in October 1967 in response to a media article by the journalist and lobbyist Richard Farmer. In November, Holt answered a series of questions in parliament about D-notices. In fact, Holt’s comments on D-notices must be among the last parliamentary questions he answered before he drowned in mysterious circumstances in December 1967. One presumes there was no connection.
The Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee still notionally exists but has not met since 1982 and is unlikely to do so again. At the 1982 meeting, the committee considered all seven remaining D-notices, which did not include atomic tests, and reduced them to four. Those four are still, technically, in effect and refer to the capabilities of the Australian Defence Force, including aircraft, ships, weapons and other equipment; the whereabouts of Mr and Mrs Vladimir Petrov (no longer relevant as both are now dead); signals intelligence and communications security; and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service. Perhaps not surprisingly, the intelligence service submitted to the 1995 commission of inquiry into its operations that a replacement for the old D-notice system was needed. In a rather sour official submission to the inquiry, the service said:
The current D-notice [system] is inadequate because it relies on voluntary media restraint, which no longer exists. Changes in Australian society since the 1950s have led to debate as to how principles of public perception and independence of the media can be reconciled with secrecy required for the sake of national interest. This debate has engendered increasing disagreement on what constitutes the national interest. The media organisations have shown by their actions that they will decide what the public interest is in any given situation without assistance from those affected. The media organisation’s [sic] perception of the national interest appears to coincide with its own journalistic interests.