5
The conspiratorial method
In September 1952, ASIO’s Western Australian office stumbled onto one of the many conspiratorial methods used by The Movement to shield its clandestine operations. In the dark art of secrecy, The Show mimicked — and surpassed — the communists’ extraordinary security techniques.
Like all affiliates of the international communist movement, the CPA embraced many of the covert practices developed by the Bolsheviks during the last decades of Czarist rule. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Czar’s secret police, the Okhrana, routinely repressed the Russian labour movement. Operating illegally, the Bolsheviks were by necessity a clandestine organisation, utilising tightly organised cells to stymie the Okhrana’s numerous penetration agents. A byzantine conspiratorial methodology was developed to protect the revolutionaries’ secrets from the state’s prying eyes. The organisation was effectively compartmentalised, so that if one cell was compromised, its members could not reveal the identities of those operating in other cells, thereby limiting the damage. After seizing power in 1917, the Bolsheviks — re-named the Communist Party of the Soviet Union — imposed a similar methodology on affiliated parties, including Australia’s.
In adopting Santamaria’s recommendation to model their Movement on the CPA, the bishops also tacitly approved this aspect of communist organisational practice.
ASIO became perhaps the first outsider to discover one of the key techniques used to protect the security of communications between Show headquarters in Melbourne and state and regional offices. This occurred when several envelopes addressed to ‘Mr. R. OLIVER, C/- T.A.A., Perth’ remained uncollected and were eventually ‘handed to the G.P.O. Dead Letter Office’. They were then transferred to ASIO’s Perth office, which was astounded to find that they mostly consisted of half-letters that had been cut vertically.1 Without the other half, it was impossible to comprehend the correspondence. This method of communication was used by The Show nationwide, and there are many examples of re-assembled letters in the surviving archives of the Adelaide branch.2
Inquiries with The Movement’s recently appointed Perth representative quickly established that the mysterious ‘R. Oliver’ was ‘a cover name’ and that ‘the letters had been inadvertently misdirected’. The man in charge of The Show’s Perth operations at that time was Frank Malone.3 He was keen to obtain the missing material so he could re-assemble the letters by sticky-taping the two halves together. ASIO promptly complied with his request to act as postman. In return for delivering the envelopes of half-letters, Malone assured ASIO that ‘all information of security interest’ crossing his desk would be passed on.4
This sudden burst of activity in Perth had been sparked by Father Lalor’s recent visit, after a six-year absence in the eastern states as one of Santamaria’s senior operatives. At short notice, the local priests were summoned to a specially convened meeting in the ‘Archbishop’s Palace’ to hear Lalor declaiming in typically dramatic style on the dangers of the CPA linking up ‘with the communist forces spreading from China down into south-east Asia and onto Australia’. Many of those assembled became chaplains to parish groups, boosting the crusade in Western Australia, where The Movement had previously failed to gain widespread traction among Catholics. Conspiratorial methods were soon de rigueur, just as they had been in other states for some years.5
Conspiracy sprang from several different requirements. The CPA’s influential pamphlet Catholic Action At Work — based on Santamaria’s 1945 report to the bishops — demonstrated the effectiveness of well-directed, sectarian propaganda. If The Movement behaved like a normal political machine, Santamaria believed, it would be constantly exposed to such negative publicity. By the early 1950s, there was an emerging belief among non-Catholic anti-communists that The Show’s modus operandi was just as distasteful as the CPA’s. This sentiment grew over the following years, contradictorily prompting an even tighter focus on secrecy. As one long-time member commented, ‘A lot of people who inadvertently, or perhaps without knowing it, work with the [Movement], wouldn’t be doing that if they knew that they were acting on behalf of the [Movement]. So it is a secretive organisation.’6
An integral part of the conspiratorial methodology was the adoption of codes for internal communications. For example, people were classified according to an alpha-numerical code: an M1 was a completely trusted member, often also referred to as an SM, or Show Member. ‘A communist, on the other hand, would go to the other end of the spectrum and be referred to as a Z.’7 Individuals in between these two extremes were assigned alpha-numeric codes depending on how they were assessed, such as Movement sympathiser, or hostile non-CPA leftist.
The codes extended to the organisational structure. A clear example of this is found in The Show’s Adelaide files:
D.O. refers to propaganda, and is the abbreviation for the title of Distribution Officer …
C.O., meaning Census Officer …
V.G., meaning vocational group, is the title we use for Trade Unions. Inner V.G. means Union Group in the Movement. Outer V.G. refers to the Union itself.
N.M.S. — New members’ school.
S.S. — Social Survey [the ISO journal].
I.G. refers to Industrial Group …
E.O. means Education Officer.
M.O., membership Officer and membership.
F.O., finance officer, and finance.8
Some of these codes evolved over time. For example, ‘G.O.’ [Government Officer] was originally used in the period when the ALP was in office in Canberra, but after the 1949 change of government it referred to the ‘S.M. [Show Member] in charge of A.L.P. affairs’.9
As the organisation rapidly expanded into an efficient intelligence agency, sophisticated filing systems were adopted, using meticulous cross-referencing and index cards to record key information. For example, the Sydney branch used a system of six cards: one ‘used for a church census’, in which an entire parish would be canvassed to record all Catholics, their loyalty to the church’s teachings and practice, their political views and activities, place of employment, and trade union membership, etc.; another card recorded ‘the number of our people in each place of employment’; a third recorded ‘the number of our people in individual unions’; a Movement membership card also recorded who were ALP members, using the code ‘words “sporting club” — that refers to the political party’; and another ‘census card [was] used to record details of all Communists or fellow travellers we have on our files’.10
The use of codenames in official correspondence was compulsory from the beginning. For example, the regional officer of the South Australian branch, Ted Farrell, signed his letters ‘Jack’, ‘J. Edwards’, or ‘J.E.’, but received letters addressed to ‘F. Wilson’. When writing to the national secretary in Melbourne (Norm Lauritz, Santamaria’s ‘first “recruit”’ to The Movement),11 Farrell addressed him as ‘L. Norman’, while his principal contact in NSW used the codename ‘F. Kayes’ to receive correspondence, although he really was Roy Boylan. Commenting on a letter in which Farrell addressed Lauritz as ‘Dear Norm’, a former Adelaide Movement member described it as a ‘breach of security’.12
The Adelaide operation was relatively insignificant, compared to the large and powerful branches in Melbourne (head office) and Sydney, and even Brisbane. In this, it mirrored its opponent, which, although wielding a disproportionate influence in South Australia’s unions, had a small membership and little impact outside industrial affairs. When The Movement got into its first strides in 1943–44, the South Australian CPA controlled the ironworkers’, clerks’, seamen’s, gas workers’, and shop assistants’ unions, and had a significant presence on the wharves, in the railways and engineering unions, and in the Holden car plant.13 Within a decade, The Show had captured the ironworkers’ and shop assistants’ unions — severe, but not lethal, blows to the CPA.
Despite its relatively tiny membership, Ted Farrell built a well-oiled, efficient, and highly successful espionage apparatus and a solid industrial organisation that caused the communists significant problems in all the unions in which they were active. Farrell was well educated, having obtained a Bachelor of Arts in History and English at Adelaide University after attending the Christian Brothers and Rostrevor Colleges. He then taught primary school students in the public school system, and was president of the Assisian Guild of Catholic Teachers. In early 1946, Adelaide’s Bishop Matthew Beovich recruited him to full-time work for The Show, which he had been organising part-time for the previous two years. His broad remit was described as being to ‘bring influence to bear on the trade union movement, on the ALP, and, by propaganda, on the … working community’. Specifically, he was to ‘de-louse 4 or 5 trade unions’. Two years later, Beovich appointed him to head the Newman Institute of Christian Studies, which acted as cover for the clandestine political operation. Both bodies were housed in cramped quarters in the Todd Building in central Adelaide, adjacent to St Francis Xavier cathedral. For his services to the church — and his work for The Movement and the Newman Institute — Farrell received the papal Cross of Honour.14
A significant portion of the records of the South Australian branch survive, thanks to Professor John Warhurst; they are the only operational Movement archives publicly available. As a young academic at Flinders University in Adelaide in the early 1970s, Warhurst received these files from a youthful priest who had obtained them from some of his older colleagues.15 They were keen to see them preserved, in defiance of superior instructions issued by Adelaide’s Archbishop James Gleeson, who apparently (and correctly) feared they would expose his role in Movement activities. Subsequently, Warhurst deposited them in what was then the Australian National University’s Archives of Business and Labour in Canberra (now the Noel Butlin Archives Centre).16 Even taking account of the fact that they are incomplete, they are a massive record, spanning the period from 1944 to 1961, and containing voluminous correspondence between Farrell in Adelaide and Lauritz in Melbourne and, especially, between Farrell and Boylan in Sydney, who developed a very close relationship.
They also contain a huge, cross-indexed collection of newspaper clippings filed in alphabetical order by subject, covering everything from the Aborigines Advancement League (which begins the collection) and ending with the Zionist Youth League (cross-indexed to the CPA youth wing, the Eureka Youth League), with all manner of subjects covered in between. There are also significant collections of printed material, leaflets, and pamphlets; research reports compiled by Farrell’s office; extensive notes on individual trade unions; photographs; and files dealing with prominent South Australian personalities (such as left-wing ALP federal parliamentarian Clyde Cameron, who was decidedly hostile to The Show’s operations).
The centrepiece of this archive, however, is the voluminous material collected by The Movement’s agents and informants on known or suspected communists, fellow travellers, and sympathisers. Much of this is in the form of handwritten notes, often on scraps of paper held together by rusting pins and paperclips (at the time they were accessed for this book in the early 1990s). This intelligence was compiled in The Show’s office on the basis of surveillance reports made by members after observing the movements of suspects, tailing their vehicles, and staking out their meeting places, homes, and workplaces. In this sense, it reflects a classic intelligence operation. One former Movement member recalled that a map of greater Adelaide hung on the office wall, ‘in which pins had been stuck to identify where known communists lived’.17
The records demonstrate that Farrell was an inspirational speaker who could lead groups of men (and a very few women), with a deep understanding of church teachings and the intersection between religion and practical politics. Above all, he was an excellent political organiser. An insight into Farrell’s intelligence-gathering methods is contained in his document dealing with the cultivation of contacts. It is an astute guide, specifically designed for Movement members to demonstrate how to establish and develop contacts to determine the factual state of affairs — such as in particular places of work, and in community and sporting organisations — and then to undertake ‘Enquiries’ on specific issues of interest to The Show. The purposes of this elaborate system of contacts were to surreptitiously lead such people and use the intelligence gathered to formulate strategies for action.
Farrell’s methodology owed much to the Young Christian Workers’ Movement (YCW), which stressed the role of independent activity by both individuals and small groups of Catholics — for example, to improve working and social conditions. From The Show’s inception, Santamaria had advocated that YCW members be centrally involved in his operations in factories and unions, but he met increasingly fierce resistance from the YCW, which opposed his authoritarian version of the communists’ ‘democratic centralism’. They were also uncomfortable with The Movement’s involvement in politics, in particular its attempts to control the ALP after the communist threat had receded by the early 1950s. But they were especially and vehemently opposed to the rigid discipline imposed on Show members, believing it undermined the independent action of individual Catholics, which was at the core of the YCW’s method of operations.18
Farrell’s adaptation of the YCW model would, however, have met with approval from ASIO’s professional agent-handlers, as his document demonstrates:
The contacts should be sought either at the member’s place of employment or in a sporting or social club or some other association where he sees him regularly … Eventually a member should aim to have several contacts, according to his position in
A good man can handle five contacts, but for the moment we will put ours on a quota of 2, but starting with one.19
Farrell then gave a detailed, step-by-step account of how members were to be given a practical education on developing their contacts in a series of in-house ‘meetings’. He described the purpose of what was, effectively, a training course:
We must have influence on people, but this can only be done through a series of steps — they must be brought to the stage where they will accept your leadership. You must carefully select the people you wish to influence, gradually develop a friendship with them, and then through your friendship … influence them to your way of thinking. There is an order through which this can be done, namely Contact, Friendship, Influence … until you reach a stage … where you can bring him nearer to Christ.20
The final class in the training course was a practical test for members to elaborate on:
After members had demonstrated their capacity for this practical work, they were ready for Farrell’s ultimate purpose — ‘the use of contacts in an Enquiry. In order to answer the questions in an Enquiry effectively, three steps are necessary’:
The enquiry questions could then be phrased:
In a big factory where there are several workshops, a member’s first contact should be in his own shop, and he could even have further contacts … at the same place of employment, but in different parts of it.
How to take up the matter of your Enquiries. The OBSERVE (or SEE) Section is designed to produce facts, not impressions, on which Judgment is to be made for ACTION to follow.22
The intelligence obtained by these means — and by the many Movement members detailed to specific surveillance targets — was extraordinary for a civilian spy apparatus. Taken as a whole, The Show’s Adelaide archives resemble ASIO’s own files, if in a more primitive, amateurish form. Like ASIO, The Movement clearly made use of official sources to confirm intelligence received from its agents and to gather further information — for example, by using a car-registration plate to obtain the name and personal details of a vehicle’s owner. While it is not revealed how such official information was procured, presumably either Show members or sympathisers in government employ were engaged in providing such assistance — or friendly ASIO or Police Special Branch officers may have done so.
As in the case of The Movement’s Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth offices, there is clear evidence in these files of a close connection between Farrell and ASIO’s Adelaide office.
FARRELL’S OPERATION WAS up and running in early 1944, well before the bishops as a body gave their official imprimatur in September of the following year. In early April 1944, Lauritz wrote to Farrell from Melbourne on several union matters, one concerning the political orientation of a suspected communist. Farrell replied that he had ‘made enquiries’ concerning the target [a Mr McCallum], ‘from a reliable source, and the information is that he is a very strong suspect … he invariably supports moves made by our “friends” in T.L.C. [Trades and Labour Council] etc. I will make further enquiries … in the meantime regard him as being extremely doubtful.’23
By August 1944, Farrell had adopted his codename and was signing correspondence as ‘Jack’, and there already was extensive correspondence and a considerable movement of personnel between Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide as operations in the unions ramped up. Important inner-union documents were already being dispatched from one branch to another.24 By the end of the year, significant amounts of propaganda were flowing to and from Adelaide, as well as reams of intelligence on communist activities in various unions.25 One early campaign is recorded in some detail: The Show’s effort to stymie the CPA’s drive to amalgamate the ironworkers’ and munition workers’ unions, in which Adelaide provided reliable intelligence to Melbourne.26
By mid-1948, Sydney and Adelaide were regularly exchanging information obtained by their respective intelligence-gathering apparatuses. One gem conveyed from Boylan to Farrell was headed ‘confidential & unfortunately gospel truth’. Sydney reported that ‘Ferguson, State President A.L.P. stated that he would support Communism against Catholic Action. He stated this at a private dinner with three others during an adjournment at the Annual Conference … This must be used in a whispering campaign as widely as possible.’27 This demonstrated The Show’s already formidable ability to place its agents in delicate situations to overhear significant political conversations. It also illustrated the type of dirty tactics to be used against its ‘enemies’.
By the early 1950s, Farrell was liaising with ASIO, both sharing his own intelligence and requesting information. For example, one of his agents, Bert Kildea, had reported that ‘Mr Jack Inspector of Light Houses is a Comm, and also many Keepers.’ The comment on this report was ‘Good dope for Security’. Another piece of the Light House jigsaw concerned ‘Schroeder Mt Lawly Light House. Supposed to be good ALP man, but is frequently visited by Comms.’ Then there was the case of Franz Dezman, a recent immigrant from Central Europe, a ‘Dachau refugee [who] claims he escaped from Yugoslavia with Map … is inordinately interested our affairs. Worth check with Security.’28
Kildea was a prolific agent, reporting in 1953 that ‘A particularly active Greek movement in S.A. coupled with other States is working independently of the Australian C.P., but very well supplied with funds, and supplies the Party with funds when they are short. The Leader (name unknown at the moment) is a very low type, and the general run of the Greeks in it are very bad type.’29
Dennis Morrisey, another of Farrell’s agents, reported in mid-1955: ‘Meeting of local gathering of Reds on Tuesday nights at Margate Street Brighton.’ The file recorded that Morrisey ‘Will find out person’s home from his brother-in-law who lives opposite.’ As good as his word, he soon conveyed the required information: ‘R.A.J. Dale 25 Margate St Brighton. He owns house where … meetings [held] every Tuesday night about 9PM. Dale’s wife … married out of church. She is a doctor’s receptionist. Dr unknown. DM will inquire.’30
As time passed, Farrell’s spying activities expanded, both geographically and politically. One of his obsessions was Clyde Cameron, whose opposition to The Movement and work for the Fabian Society rendered him very suspect. On at least one occasion, one of Farrell’s agents rifled through Cameron’s papers. ‘Noted from C.R Camerons (sic) Diary in a quick look is meeting for Fabian Society on Tuesdays, roughly every fortnight — could be twice monthly’.31
As his organisation developed in the early 1950s, Farrell’s surveillance operations spread well beyond Adelaide. Port Augusta had an active CPA branch, and the Show agent tasked with gathering intelligence there was meticulous:
Pearl Beatrice BROWN — Teacher Pt Augusta Primary — has been known to loan her car (Vanguard — grey — 262–833) to [prominent CPA member] Elliott Frank Johnson (sic) on occasions of his visits to Pt Augusta … Karl Gustav Eckberg … At nights leaves his house with wife & takes devious courses apparently to attend meetings, apparently taking different course each night … James Webb Holdsworth — MacKay St. Cabinet Maker … 55 years 5’9” … fair compl[exion] grey hair. Stooper long arms … Charles … Jarrett — 67 Flinders Terrace … 5’4”. Strong bld. med comp. grey hair. Associates with members of Com Party. His house held out to be a meeting place for members of Com Party … [Henry Maurice] Stockdale … 7/5/1917. 5’11”. Strong bld. Pale comp. brown hair. Hazel eyes. Scar leftside chest. Assisted members of Com Party during last Elections when Elliott Johnson (sic) stood.32
This agent’s information was largely accurate. Jim Moss was the long-time president of the South Australian CPA branch with a detailed knowledge of its membership. Forty years later, Moss spent ten days closely reading Farrell’s archives. Asked about this account of the CPA’s Port Augusta branch, he confirmed that it was ‘fairly accurate’. He drily observed that the story of Pearl Brown lending her car to Elliott Johnston ‘might be right’, and that Stockdale, Holdsworth, and Jarrett were CPA members. Moss insisted, however, that Farrell’s extensive lists of suspects were not wholly accurate: ‘Their net was thrown very broad, their lists are very broad, containing all sorts of people that have got no connection with the party and would be horrified to see their names associated with it.’33
For example, Moss did not recognise Hector Goodman, reported by one of Farrell’s agents as:
Assistant Station Master Adelaide Railway Station This man is suspected of having Red tendencies at least. According to Dan Laverton he is a subscriber to the [CPA newspaper] Tribune … about 12 days ago a poisonous screed attacking Dan, the New Group, the Church, BAS [Santamaria], etc was typed and placed on the Notice Board. Dan … suspected it was typed on the [Assistant Station Master’s] typewriter with his connivance.
While conceding that he did not personally know every CPA member, Goodman was one of many examples Moss gave of either incorrect or doubtful identifications.34
There was no doubt about Elliott Johnston, however, who was a special target for Farrell. A prominent, effective, and highly regarded barrister, he was in the CPA’s inner sanctum from the 1940s to the 1980s. In 1983, he resigned from the party when he was appointed to the South Australian Supreme Court; later, he headed the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. He and his wife, Elizabeth, were under close surveillance by Farrell’s agents: ‘Mrs Elliot (sic) Johnson (sic), apparently returning from meeting — waiting at [corner] Taylors Rd & H. B. Rd Theb[arton], 10.5pm July 26–54. Information from L. Quinn.’35 Other agents compiled information that Farrell fashioned into a personality profile:
PROFILE ON ELIZABETH JOHNSTON.
Formerly Elizabeth Teesdale Smith. Was disowned by family when she married Elliot (sic) Johnston in about 1942 …
CHARACTERISTICS. Brilliant speaker. Never rattled. Analytical mind. Very good appearance. Could be beautiful if took more care over appearance. Even though dresses very dowdily still manages to make other women look nothing beside her. Good personality. Good leader.36
Surveillance of targets extended to suspects’ homes. For example, on 14 October 1955, one of Farrell’s agents was stationed outside Ern Iversen’s house in Highgate. Elsewhere in the files, Iversen is characterised as ‘believed Red — Secty AEU [engineering union] Political C/tee … Behaves and speaks like a Red … Slim Medium height, sallow complexion — oily manner — dirty fighter.’37
The agent took down the car-registration numbers observed nearby, which were ‘Given to [name crossed out] 7/11/55’. This contact then provided the full details of the owners’ names, addresses, make of vehicle, registration date, occupation of owner, date issued a driving licence, and physical description, for example, ‘Age 40. 5ft. 6in. Blue Eyes, Brown Hair.’ This information was probably supplied by a friendly Catholic at the motor registry office, although the possibility exists that ASIO or Police Special Branch was its source. There is no doubt that the information was from an official source, as in one case it was reported that ‘Other details not available, as index card missing.’ The intelligence from this source was then passed to The Show’s Parkside section.38
The files also indicate that one Movement branch would frequently request another to take action on intelligence gathered on a suspect. One instance concerned Hans Bandler, whose wife, Faith, was a prominent activist in Indigenous affairs. In late 1952, Boylan in Sydney wrote to Farrell:
According to reliable information we have received, a certain HANS BANDLER has applied for an engineer’s position with the South Australian School of Mines and Industries. This gentleman was formerly employed as an engineer with the New South Wales Public Works dept. He is a suspected Communist Party member and security should have quite a file on him. In view of the close connection between the South Australian School of Mines and Industries and Uranium and Atomic Research, Bandler’s appointment would constitute the gravest security risk. I am sending you this information in the hope that you might be able to take steps to prevent it.39
It is not recorded in the files what action was taken by Farrell in this case, but Bandler never moved to South Australia.40 In light of the attention Farrell paid to detail and to implementing The Show’s conspiratorial methodology, it seems probable that he may have played a role in stymying Bandler’s job application.
Much of Farrell’s work consisted in monitoring the everyday, often humdrum, industrial and political affairs of factories, offices, and parishes, and meticulously recording the reports of his agents and their contacts. But his dedication to such intelligence-gathering paid handsome dividends in September 1952, when he pulled off a rare and invaluable coup against local CPA president Jim Moss, who had committed a grave breach of the the party’s tight security protocols.