6

The jewel in Ted’s crown

In early September 1952, Jim Moss, one of the most senior and experienced officials in the Communisty Party’s Adelaide branch, hopped onto his motorbike to ride home from work. Having finished his usual Saturday shift, Moss loaded his closely guarded party documents into the haversack on the back of his motorbike and set off. When he arrived, however, he discovered to his horror that his papers were missing.

News of the loss of top-secret CPA documents rapidly reached ASIO’s regional director for South Australia, who alerted his superiors in the Melbourne headquarters to this almost unprecedented development.1 At the end of the month, he conveyed this assessment:

Some weeks ago … the South Australian State President of the C.P. of A. … lost a parcel of books and documents relating to C.P. of A. activity with Trade Unions in this State. MOSS has for some time been the C.P. of A. member responsible for the direction of such activity, and the documents in question are of great interest.

2. The information contained in the parcel has since become widely known in industrial circles and it was impossible for MOSS to conceal the loss from the Party.2

Ted Farrell’s surveillance operations were responsible for procuring Moss’s papers. He quickly distributed them, including ‘amongst right wing union circles in Adelaide … also … the Chamber of Manufactures is aware of the information’.3 In The Movement’s mythology this was one of its biggest coups against the communists. John Maynes, the national vice-president in charge of union affairs, related how Moss had been closely watched by Farrell’s agents, who observed that he routinely carried his files around with him on the back of his motorbike. As Maynes told the story, that day in September 1952 Moss had been followed, and the car tailing him had stopped next to the bike at a red light. In a lightning-quick strike, the papers were snatched from the haversack.4

The truth is more prosaic. Almost forty years later, Moss still considered the loss of his papers as a ‘rather painful experience’. Slight and rather stocky, with a phlegmatic approach to life and politics, Moss was described by one of ASIO’s ‘usually reliable’ sources as a methodical, careful communist, who ‘utters no hurried remarks or snap decisions’.5 Originally from Western Australia, he enlisted in the air force in 1939, and was posted to Adelaide but discharged as medically unfit at the end of 1940. Soon after, he got a job at Popes, which was manufacturing armaments for the war effort, where he met several communists. He joined the CPA in 1942, and rapidly developed into a tough and keenly observant operator.

He did not believe for one minute that his precious cargo had been ‘lifted’ by The Movement:

I used to ride a motorbike around, and on the back I had an army haversack that I’d bolted onto the frame that I could put things in and ride around fairly comfortably. Well, the stitching gave way on this haversack over a period of some time, and it was holding only by a little bit when I put this bundle in. Riding the bike home, the documents fell out. I didn’t realise they’d gone until … I got home and found there were no papers in the back. So I turned round immediately and rode off again with the off-chance that I might see them on the road somewhere. When I got to Woodville I got involved in an accident.6

It was a serious but not life-threatening crash. A car made a U-turn in front of Moss without looking, colliding with his bike. Moss was thrown off and knocked unconscious, thwarting his search.

While it is certain that the documents were lost, not stolen, there was a kernel of truth to Maynes’s story. It is clear that Farrell’s agents had kept a close eye on Moss’s movements and had probably observed him carrying his files around with him. It is also certain that he was being tailed that day, as recounted by Maynes. This was how Farrell’s man obtained the documents: by observing them falling out of the haversack and simply picking them up off the road.

At that time, David Shinnick was a relatively new member of The Show. His family had had a long involvement in the labour movement, stretching back to the industrial upheavals of the 1890s. In the 1940s, Shinnick had spent several years in a seminary, where he became steeped in the church’s social teachings. But in 1952 he quit the seminary, approached Farrell, and asked to join The Movement, taking on the key role of census officer; identifying and interviewing all known Catholics, parish by parish, was a crucial aid for recruitment and intelligence-gathering. As Farrell said, ‘From the census we are able to form groups.’7 Shinnick also put his sophisticated understanding of church teachings to propaganda use, editing the monthly magazine, Alert. His recollection was that the Moss papers had somehow come into Farrell’s hands, which he remembered as ‘a great coup’. He assumed the originals were sent for analysis to Movement head office in Melbourne.8

On the other hand, Moss surmised that it would have been miraculous if The Movement had been lucky enough just to pick up his files, so his theory was that someone must have handed them into the police, who forwarded them to ASIO, who, in turn, provided The Show with their set.

Neither Moss nor Shinnick was correct. Contrary to Moss’s surmise, the originals went in the opposite direction: from The Movement to ASIO’s Adelaide office, which ‘deposited’ them ‘in a place of safe keeping’. There they remained until March 1953, when ‘the original documents’ were dispatched to ASIO headquarters on the orders of director-general Charles Spry. Contrary to Shinnick’s assumption, The Show’s head office in Melbourne only received copies of the documents.9 There is a full set of photostats of Moss’s papers in Farrell’s archive. In light of the size of this set of documents, it seems unlikely that Farrell would have had the wherewithal to make copies for himself, for Melbourne, and for wider local distribution. It seems likely that, in return for receiving the originals, ASIO made at least two copies for The Movement, one each for Adelaide and Melbourne.

The documents were a treasure-trove for The Show, which utilised them in anti-communist propaganda, ‘publicising Communist activities and methods’.10 More especially, though, ASIO found them valuable from an intelligence angle. They consisted of typed and handwritten lists of names, mostly of CPA members, but also including supporters, contacts, and others with no connection at all to the party; several of Moss’s top-secret notebooks in which he recorded, among many other things, the details of those party members responsible for directing CPA activities in particular unions; notes detailing his own personal tasks on a range of CPA matters; notes he had taken at state executive and other party meetings; copies of inner-party correspondence, both of the South Australian branch and also from CPA national headquarters in Sydney, for example, detailing various aspects of party organisation, propaganda, finances, recruitment of new members, and directions on building branches; inner-party organisational documents outlining, for example, the role and functions of branch executives; and material dealing with the wider work of communists, for example, in the peace movement and among women.11

The jewel was a document issued by the CPA’s central committee secretariat, signed by general secretary Lance Sharkey. It dealt with a number of sensitive political matters relating to tactics and strategy, especially plans to defeat the ALP right wing and build a united workers’ party. The Movement gave this document prominence in its propaganda, highlighting its heading: ‘This document is not to be reproduced’. As Moss noted, they thought they had obtained ‘a great secret document’.12

There was a problem, however, for The Movement’s propaganda drive. As ASIO’s South Australian regional director observed in January 1953:

While the distribution of copies of the documents … in industrial and Trade Union circles presented the recipients with a considerable amount of information regarding Communist tactics, it did not cause the general outcry or receive the widespread publicity which the originators obviously desired and anticipated. The persons who received such documents generally believed them to be authentic but, lacking actual proof in that direction, treated them with a great deal of caution and took no action on them.13

According to Moss, two factors chiefly accounted for this. The first was that left-wing Labor politician Clyde Cameron publicly cast doubt on the authenticity of the documents when approached by journalists for his comments. At that time, Cameron was leading an anti-Movement campaign inside the ALP, which Moss begrudgingly conceded meant that he was ‘playing a good role’, if only to ‘look after himself’. The second factor was Moss’s own response. He steadfastly refused to confirm or deny the loss of any documents, and, as he said with some relief even four decades later, the ‘controversy fizzled out’.14

There was yet another factor working against the effective public use of the material. The lists of names contained a number of people who were not CPA members, some of whom were actually hostile to communism. A gas company employee, publicly fingered because his name was on one list, was interviewed by ASIO, and disclaimed ‘any connections with the Communist Party in this State, and cannot understand why his name should appear on a list of industrial contacts compiled by MOSS’.15 ASIO quickly discovered that he was not alone in being wrongly accused:

Investigations … have resulted in the complete identification of the majority of the persons named in the documents and several such persons have, at their own request, been interviewed. The net result of the enquiries into other than known C.P. of A. members, shows that while in some instances there may have been a reason for the inclusion of the name, in others there is apparently no connection with or sympathy for Communism.16

Much to its fury, ASIO also discovered that someone was spreading rumours around union circles that ‘Security’ had advised ‘that the original documents were not genuine and were deliberately “lost” in order to mislead the Security Service’. ASIO’s South Australian regional director assured headquarters that ‘No such advice has been given and this office has not expressed any opinion as to the authenticity of the documents.’ Even worse, the rumour was eventually published as fact in a local newspaper, but there was little that ASIO could do to counter such rumour-mongering, probably started by the CPA itself.17 Still, comfort could be found in the impact the incident had on the CPA’s political work. ‘The loss of the documents by MOSS’, one ASIO officer noted, ‘is having an obvious effect on the Party’s activities generally throughout this State and a definite lull in their programme is very evident.’18

This would have been of little comfort to The Movement. Farrell and Maynes clearly hoped that the circulation of the Moss papers would deal a crushing blow to the South Australian CPA branch. Their disappointment at the relatively limited news coverage and scepticism of the documents by other anti-communists was compensated for by numerous intelligence gems. Foremost among these was the level of detail about CPA activities in unions — especially confirmation that Harry Krantz, the South Australian branch secretary of the clerks’ union, was an undercover CPA member. Krantz was on the top of Maynes’s list to be removed from his position, and this intelligence was central to his plans.

One of Moss’s notebooks contained a list of communist union officials, detailing their responsibilities for CPA work in their own and related unions. In line with communist security consciousness, Moss only wrote the initials — not the name itself — including ‘HK’, whose responsibilities were listed as the clerks’, shop assistants’, and public servants’ unions. Another of Moss’s handwritten notes was a list of stories to be written for the CPA newspaper, Tribune, with the initials of the proposed authors beside them. In this case, Moss had written ‘Harry K’ next to one story, which provided a more convincing smoking gun for Maynes. Moss confirmed that ‘HK’ and ‘Harry K’ referred to Harry Krantz, although proving this — even in the court of public opinion — proved difficult in the early 1950s.19

Krantz was a particularly effective opponent, resisting all Maynes’s efforts to remove him from office. Indeed, despite the proof that Farrell and Maynes believed they possessed that contradicted Krantz’s public denials of his CPA membership, he was never defeated in clerks’ union branch elections, retiring in 1984 after serving as secretary for over forty years. He was a secret CPA member during much of that period, and was the only communist to survive The Show’s effective campaign in the clerks’ union.20

Farrell did, however, give in-depth attention to the numerous names in Moss’s papers. Considerable effort was expended to establish the details of these people, for example: ‘Attached list of some included Moss papers. Addresses, occupations etc checked by [obscured name].’21 There are long lists demonstrating the care that Farrell took to track down the precise workplaces and union memberships of dozens of those named in Moss’s lists.22 He kept track of names for years afterwards: ‘PEARL P in the Moss papers was a Pearl Parfit an invalid who died recently. Obituary appears in [CPA paper] Tribune 6/6/56.’23

In its excitement, The Show under-estimated Moss, who displayed a steely resolve under immense pressure, simply playing a dead bat to the many bouncers he faced during the crisis. This allowed him — and the CPA — to tough out what at first looked like a disaster. His combative nature was also useful in fending off the anger of sections of the CPA membership, who were horrified that their names had been publicised as a consequence of his lapse in the carrying out of the party’s strict security protocols. As ASIO’s director-general noted, ‘Moss’ lapse has been strongly criticised’ in these circles.24

Despite what would have been considered a major breach of its internal security measures, the CPA national leadership supported Moss through the crisis, recognising his talents and leadership skills. To temporarily take him out of circulation, he and his wife were called to Sydney for an extended ‘holiday’. On his return, as ASIO noted, ‘He resumed the position and duties which he had held prior to the loss of the documents; has apparently lost none of his normal self-assurance; and, as far as can be ascertained, was not subjected to disciplinary action.’25

THE MOVEMENT KNEW a great deal about Moss, but he knew practically nothing about it. Prior to reading a large selection of Farrell’s papers in 1991, he had not even heard his name, nor those of Farrell’s staff. This was the ultimate compliment to the success of the ‘conspiratorial method’. As Moss said, their ‘activities were very hush-hush’. The South Australian CPA branch ‘did not wake up to them … in the way we should have’ for several years, he conceded. Even the big union battles during the final war years of 1944–45 were viewed as struggles against individuals, not an organisation. It was not until the late 1940s — when The Show’s ultimately successful campaign to take over the shop assistants’ union ramped up — that the CPA’s South Australian branch finally perceived that they confronted a well-run, if opaque, machine.26

Having reviewed key elements of Farrell’s extensive archives, Moss was complimentary. He had no doubt that The Movement was ‘quite a solid organisation’ consisting of good operators. Farrell, especially, was ‘a pretty shrewd fella’:

It was very much mixed up with the church’s teachings, too. He was strong on the idea of combining the apostolate with his work. I would say he’d be a pretty good churchman, but he was also a pretty understanding tactician about what was to be done in the unions — from their point of view. He’s quite an interesting character. Wherever he got his training, he was a pretty shrewd character.27

Moss was especially struck by Farrell’s sophisticated fusion of religion and politics. He quickly discerned that having the church permeate their work was ‘very powerful stuff’. He also highlighted the role of the parish census as a ‘very important and astute method of keeping in touch with Catholics’.28

Farrell ran a school for Show members in June 1947. The idea of such ‘schools’ was probably adopted from the CPA, which regularly conducted extensive members’ courses in Marxist theory and practice. Santamaria made education of members a high priority from the very inception of The Movement, establishing ‘a planned educational organisation’, including ‘a regular course with examinations and diplomas for those qualifying’. These schools consisted of ‘systematic lectures on topics such as the general Australian background, social history from the Christian viewpoint, Christian social principles, their application to Australian conditions, actual conditions in Australian factories, union laws and procedure etc’.29

As Moss correctly noted, The Movement was alarmed by the CPA’s ‘materialism’, which is ‘why they were so focussed on the religious aspects’.30 The antidote to ‘materialism’ was evident at Farrell’s school, demonstrated by his own inspirational contribution, in which he sharply criticised members for not giving due weight to formal ‘Gospel Discussion’:

That is why we do the Gospel Discussion, to help to sustain you, not only in your own section meetings, at the place of work, but so that you can stand up against the filth … Further, if we are to go from the place of meeting to the districts in which we live, to our places of employment, to the unions, we need [a] link to bridge the gap and that bridge is an intense love of our neighbour. Now you cannot do things unless you have some sustaining force behind you, unless you feel convinced that what you do will not bring you back any extra cash, will not bring you back rewards, but it is the purpose for which you were created. Now I put it to you that the sections are not functioning as well as they ought. How many of them are bridging the distance between them and the rest of the district? … the function of the section is to work within the district, to Christianise the district. The first job of Christianising the district is to Christianise the Catholics in it.31

There was, however, a political point. In criticising members for leaving too much of the workload on too few shoulders, he likened the key activists to the Apostles. ‘I think that we can thank a few apostles in the sections for enlightening these sections and keeping them going,’ he proclaimed, ‘a few men who are at it night and day, a few men who believe that the [Movement] pledge means something to them. These men are the men you can imitate, they are the ones who are going to save this country for you.’32 Farrell’s reference to the pledge was to the oath taken by Show members, repeated ritually at the commencement of every meeting:

I pledge myself faithfully to fulfil all the obligations of Movement membership; in particular to attend meetings regularly and to be active in the Union or Association to which I belong.

I pledge myself not to disclose to any person whatever, not being a member of the Movement, any information concerning its existence or activities, either during my membership or subsequently should I cease to be a member.

I make this solemn pledge voluntarily, realising that any breach of it will render me guilty of a serious breach of faith.33

‘Faith’ clearly implied loyalty unto death to The Show as an organisation, but it also had an even more powerful connotation — implying, as it was surely meant to, that a devout Catholic who betrayed this solemn pledge would also betray his or her religious faith, joining those who had rejected Christ’s true path.

Farrell’s message was reinforced by Father Patrick (Paddy) Kelly, a diocesan priest who edited the local church newspaper, the Southern Cross.34 Having listed Marx, Lenin, and Stalin as communist leaders, Kelly declared, ‘Christ is greater than Marx’:

In addition I might say that another leader that they have is the devil. I say that in all seriousness. One would naturally expect to find the devil behind any movement that was denying God and dooming souls … We have as our Leader a Living Christ … You have to be united with our Blessed Lord not merely in Holy Communion but throughout the day. You will be a saint if you do it continuously. But perhaps not many of you will achieve that, but all of you can from time to time, turn to Christ in your factory, office, wherever you may be. Turn to him in a renewed pledge of loyalty, with a renewed appeal of love of Christ, even at your Union Meetings say a little prayer to Our Blessed Lord.35

Farrell’s special guest speaker conveyed the key political messages. Underlining the secrecy with which The Show operated, he did not use his real name. He was referred to as ‘Mr Norman’, whereas, in reality, he was Norm Lauritz, Santamaria’s handpicked national secretary.36 Like Farrell, Lauritz was an inspirational speaker, and his address demonstrated his charisma and commitment, aiming to reinforce members’ belief that they were part of a secret national organisation whose mission was to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat:

We are a democracy, we believe in government of the people by the people for the people. We hope that by our work we will make Australia safe for Australians and safe for Catholicism … as an official of this organisation I have never been one to boast, but I do say this and say it quite deliberately, that had it not been for the setup of this organisation, for the work it has done … this country would be under the control of the Communists. I say that very definitely and deliberately, because it is the only organisation which is fighting the Communists. Just as you are listening to me tonight in Adelaide just so tonight and in [sic] every night of the week throughout Australia, from the top of Queensland right around the coast, there are meetings similar to this, going on … We came in when the fight was almost lost, just before the door was slammed, and it is to the credit of this organisation that the Communist Party is no stronger today than it was 12 months or 2 years ago. In fact it is not quite as strong.37

Perhaps Lauritz’s most important message was that members were not alone. They were part of a noble, larger Movement of committed Catholics secretly working nationwide: ‘Every time you get a knock-back, in your Union meeting or A.L.P. meeting, remember that that little set-back is going on all over Australia, you are not in the fight on your own.’38

The centrality of religion to The Show’s politics was one thing. But practical assistance from the temporal world was gratefully accepted. For example, in March 1953, the Sydney office advised Farrell that 16,000 copies ‘of propaganda … made available to us by an outside body, free of charge’ had been dispatched to Adelaide.39

This was the start of a lucrative co-operative arrangement with the US embassy to clandestinely supply massive quantities of high-quality anti-communist literature to The Movement — a subsidy worth huge amounts of money at that time. A few months later, Adelaide ordered 10,000 copies of each of four new US propaganda booklets, samples of which Sydney had sent over.40 It turned out that Sydney had developed a cosy relationship ‘with the officer in charge of the embassy’ and the US Information Service. By June 1954, Adelaide had upped its orders to ‘25,000 and upwards’ of US embassy-supplied propaganda, with titles including The Magnificent Accomplishments of the Soviets, Behind the Curtain, and Who is the Imperialist?41

The supply of such US propaganda to The Movement became a political scandal in April 1955, when the Labor member for the NSW federal seat of Parkes, Leslie Haylen, made allegations during the Victorian state election campaign that resulted in the defeat of John Cain senior’s ALP government. One involved his allegation that the Industrial Groups (which were effectively controlled by The Show) had received £7,000 [$340,000] from the US labour attaché Herbert Weiner, who worked out of the US embassy.42 Such labour attachés operated worldwide under diplomatic cover, and were invariably operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). They were often appointed after being vetted by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organisations (AFL–CIO), the equivalent national peak body to the ACTU.43 As discussed in detail in chapter ten, during the Cold War the AFL–CIO’s international department operated as a wing of US government policy, often participating directly in the CIA’s clandestine operations against governments and unions considered to be hostile to US interests.

Another claim made by Haylen concerned what he said was a ‘link between the United States Information Service in Australia and “The Movement” in subsidising the issue of American foreign policy propaganda’.44 Santamaria adamantly denied such US assistance had ever been received by The Movement, declaring in 1971 that, ‘No money or any similar aid was ever received from U.S. agencies.’45 The claim concerning Weiner’s cash donation remains unproven, but Santamaria was lying about ‘similar aid’. In this, too, The Show had adapted the CPA’s methodology, which, in its case, involved distributing heavily subsidised propaganda from the Soviet Union, China, and other communist nations. This was also an effective way to launder money to the party, which sold such material to members and supporters, contributing to its coffers, which by the early 1950s were in dire straits, as membership was in an ever-downwards spiral.46

The subterranean struggle between the two organisations led to many coups and counter-coups similar to the story of Jim Moss’s lost papers. For example, a few years later, in 1958, the CPA would turn the tables on The Movement, pulling off its greatest coup: repelling John Maynes’s concerted campaign to wrest one of the biggest jewels from the communists’ by- then battered union crown. US-supplied propaganda played a significant part in the CPA’s surveillance operations directed against The Show and in the CPA’s own propaganda offensive to link it with ‘Yankee imperialism’.