Chapter 22

There had been two prior moratorium protests to try to stop the involvements of Australians in the Vietnam War. These had a broad range of support from church groups, trade unions, radical and moderate student organizations, pacifist groups and anti-war groups. Two hundred thousand people across Australia had participated in the first one in April 1970 and about a quarter of that number in September 1970. However, the rumour going around and information streaming in to the JIO was that the biggest one was about to happen and planned for next month. Cities we were advised would be closed by the amount of people on the street. Politicians had openly come out in support of the movement and the media was in a feeding frenzy as more and more celebrities offered their backing as well.

I wondered why the JIO was so interested, but then again, they seemed interested in everything. The issue I had was, that wasn’t what they were supposed to be all about. I supposed the justification could be that it could drastically affect the defence department, its budget and troop deployment. But these decisions were political rather than the province of the defence force. Was the JIO about to become involved in attitude changing within the Australian community? Had they been all along anyway? Were we just an information gathering unit or something much more? These questions were doing my head in.

To make some sense of things I began writing a journal of sorts. It wasn’t a diary because they I believed were manifestly stupid. ‘This morning I got up, went to the toilet, had a shower, had breakfast went to work, worked, ate lunch……’ That seemed innately stupid. I suppose some people wrote them or even took pictures of themselves doing these things but to me that made no sense. At one point it would become like some ongoing Russian doll thing. ‘I wrote in my diary that I wrote in my diary that I wrote in my diary….’ So a journal of thoughts made more sense and allowed me to get some sleep without thinking all night. In the back of the book I put a series of letters with arrows attached that led to other letters as I tried to disentangle the links between people and when new links became clearer. No names appeared in the journal. In fact, anyone reading it would not understand it at all and recommend me for a lifetime vacancy at the funny farm.

Mapping it out pictorially became complex and I cast my mind back to the maths I learnt at secondary school. Turning it into some sort of formula was beyond my meagre understanding but I did remember some basic set theory that had been introduced and strange things called Venn diagrams. Once I started grouping people loosely then some connections became clearer. Just as the groupings on the day of the barbeque were patently obvious so were my circles of letters. For example, each politician’s circle had several letters inside. The commonality between them based on the pictures alone that Colonel Atkinson had taken began to stand out. In each circle there was at least one public servant; not the head of the department but some undersecretary. Also, there was a ‘civilian’ political advisor; again, not the chief political advisor to the politician in the circle. It became apparent that these were the people that were being targeted. These people were like me, underlings who could be manipulated to influence the thoughts and information provided to their superiors and thus the politicians who would make the ultimate decisions. It was very clever, very crafty and entirely workable. It could also be entirely wrong. To disguise my Venn diagrams, I turned the circles into balloons that were attached to strings in turn held by a clown. The fact that the clown had a passing resemblance to Colonel Atkinson may not have been entirely accidental.

My journal was kept hidden inside the mattress of my room. I had carefully slit the covering with a fine blade and made a slot in the foam that was almost undetectable. By habit I made my bed very precisely every day and could tell if it had been disturbed in any way. Because I was a lowly lieutenant, I was a nothing to most people around. I was not attached to a platoon or any real group at the base except the JIO and even then, specifically to Colonel Atkinson. If I could make myself less noticeable to him then I felt pretty safe.

However, that hope remained stillborn. He still had some faith in my ability, accepting sometimes that I got things wrong or that the audio wasn’t clear enough. I had never questioned where he got the audio from. He had made it clear at the outset that was beyond my scope of need to know. My job was to merely analyse it. I assumed that there was an active section of the JIO who had infiltrated their way into office staff or cleaning staff in Parliament House itself and placed listening devices where directed. I wondered whether they ever queried why they were doing these things.

I was summoned to the colonel’s office one morning late in June 1971. What he said stunned me. “I want you to be in Melbourne on the 29^th of June. There will be a huge protest march the next day and I want you to observe what is going on. Participate in it, talk to people. In fact, talk to people the night before. Try to mix in with those leading the various groups and get a feel for what their plans may be. Of course, you won’t be in uniform. I will send you off to another department before you go and they will kit you out. No time to let your hair grow or gain a beard but they have their ways. You will also be carrying a listening device of some sort,” he stroked his chin, “We could send you as a young newspaper reporter and you could legitimately carry a tape recorder and ask questions. Yes, that will be the best way. I’ll get the boys to make you up some press credentials that will easily pass muster. A clean-cut innocent cub reporter might drop some people’s defences and may get you close to the people we want to know more about.”

He gave me a set of named photos of persons of interest and instructed me to go to a section of the building after three that afternoon. It was in I had never been. I was amazed when I entered it. It was like a props and costume area of a theatre. In one corner was a whole lot of electrical equipment that a number of technicians were busily working. I looked around, staring blankly, half expecting Sean Connery to emerge from a change room. A sergeant came directly towards me and saluted. Without a word he took my letter from the colonel and went over to someone dressed in civvies. That person nodded as he read the letter, looked in my direction and then walked over towards me. Flounced would be a better word to use than walked I suppose. I half expected his voice to be high pitched and effeminate but it had a surprisingly deep rich bass tone.

Within an hour I was kitted out in what was almost made to measure apparel comprising a suit of poor quality and somewhat used. The tie was broad and garish but I was told very fashionable at the moment. My shoes were scuffed and the heels were worn. The technicians gave me a miniature camera that had a muffled shutter and the lens was hidden in my tie. The cable from the lens ran through my slip-on tie and into my jacket where a button could be pushed from the bottom pocket. They showed me how to load the miniature film, the spare reels of which were hidden in the shoulder pads of my jacket and accessed by a flap inside the jacket. It was all very beyond my understanding. I was handed a package containing my plane tickets, press credentials, a wallet that held some worn notes, old cinema ticket stubs and a Victorian driving licence.

There was no discussion of what all this was needed for. The people in there were following orders. They didn’t question the orders. They didn’t pry. What they were doing seemed pretty commonplace to them as if I was just another mannequin to dress and send off. I left carrying a suitcase with all my ‘goodies’ in it and went straight back to the barracks. Secret agent and spy, Ray Downs reporting for duty, sir.

The plane left at 2:30 pm on the 29^th and on arrival at Tullamarine airport in Melbourne I took a taxi to my previously booked hotel room at the Federal Hotel on the corner of Collins and King St. It was building from a totally different era and was slated for demolition as Melbourne’s architecture moved into modernism. The notes were quickly disappearing from my wallet. The taxi fare was quite expensive but my room had been paid for. I set aside some money for the taxi fare back in two days’ time and realised that my meals would be pretty meagre between now and then. No chance of spending up big on grog either. Cunning bastards in the JIO.

My evening was spent lugging a tape recorder in and out of coffee shops and pubs at the northern end of Swanston St in the hope of ‘getting a scoop’ in my role as a budding journalist. In reality I was scanning groups and trying to match the people in them to the faces of those in the photographs I had been given. I noticed a few but when approached by me, their conversation dried up, they were very reticent to talk to me and others in the group moved away. I realised that acting wasn’t my greatest skill and disappointed I made my way back to the hotel room wondering what the next day would bring.