8

Spy versus spy: part two

It was no coincidence that Vic Campbell had stopped talking to CPA waterfront organiser Don Morcom after August 1957: he had, indeed, clandestinely defected to the Groupers, making contact with Jim Macken, a senior Sydney-based NCC member and official of the clerks’ union. Macken had spent time in Movement headquarters in Melbourne before going on the full-time payroll in his hometown of Sydney at the end of 1948 where, in the early 1950s, he was one of Father Ryan’s liaison agents with ASIO.1

In September 1957, Macken worked closely with Maynes on union affairs. When Campbell turned up, he did not like the look of him, and ‘was very circumspect’ because he did not trust him. But he concluded that Campbell had not been ‘sent in by the CPA’. He judged that Campbell ‘was under immense psychological pressure and had contacts with criminal elements’, so he sent him ‘off to Maynes and Alford’ as quickly as possible — ‘they could have him’.2 Gus Alford was the most prominent, effective, and popular Show activist on the waterfront, who was running the 1958 WWF campaign, closely supervised by the NCC’s industrial supremo, John Maynes.

Around this time, Campbell also approached Bill Brooks. The two had remained friends, and Campbell knew that Brooks retained considerable personal popularity, which would be crucial in defeating Tom Nelson, who by this time was Campbell’s personal bête noire. According to Brooks, at least part of Campbell’s alienation from the CPA was deeply personal. ‘Campbell fell out with Nelson over Carol Knox,’ he stated, ‘whose husband Charlie was a wharfie, but she went off to live with Campbell, and Nelson was hostile about it.’ According to Brooks, ‘Nelson and Campbell finished with one another … Campbell was very hostile to Nelson, and he came to me and said he was going to break with them and go into opposition.’3

On the other hand, a long-time communist wharfie experienced Nelson’s hostility to Campbell in a different context. These two men had an altercation over the allocation of tickets to the union’s annual sports carnival. According to this wharfie’s vivid recollections, Campbell ‘grabbed me by the throat. So I kneed him in the groin and there was a terrible row … Nelson came in as Campbell pulled the gun … a big gun, which I saw him pull three times, an old-fashioned gun … Nelson really told Vic off that day … He said: “I’ve had enough of you, Vic, you just cut it out.”’4

In January 1958, Macken dispatched Campbell to Maynes and Alford in Melbourne, where he formally offered his defection. Before leaving Sydney he created a powerful bargaining chip, meeting with the group of wharfies who would form the core of Sydney’s team to oppose the CPA in the local branch election. (National and branch ballots were conducted simultaneously.)5 Sydney was critical, as the CPA’s vote was strong there, while Alford’s team had built a solid base in Melbourne. Campbell promised to deliver the most influential ALP supporters from the CPA’s unity ticket to the Groupers, who would then be able to run their own ‘unity ticket’. Campbell’s second bargaining chip was his vast — and successful — experience in organising union election campaigns, which Maynes and Alford were only too eager to embrace.

In mid-February, the first public skirmishes began, with the Groupers bombarding the Sydney waterfront with posters attacking Nelson:

“TRAFALGAR”

NELSON’S

ONLY

VICTORY

PUT THE

RED EXECUTIVE

OUT

NEXT JULY6

But, just as Maynes’s and Alford’s campaign was gathering momentum, the CPA sprang its trap. By early February, Healy, Nelson, and Morcom had enough evidence to conclude that Campbell had defected. They were worried; if he could not be pulled back into line, the election result might be too close for comfort. So, according to a well-placed communist wharfie, a simple but brutal plan was hatched: they would stand over the arch standover merchant. The man chosen to confront Campbell was another CPA wharfie, Jack Hartley. He was one of the rare breed who could go toe-to-toe with Campbell in a brawl and survive the battering, as one of his comrades remembered: ‘Jack had been to sea on American ships during the war, so he spoke with an American accent. They called him the “Woolloomooloo Yank”, but he was able to handle himself in a street brawl. He was a big bloke, quite fearless.’ Returning to Sydney after the war, Hartley became ‘a close associate of Nelson’.7

In mid-February, just as the Groupers’ posters were plastered up, Hartley was ordered to shirt-front Campbell when he was drinking at the workers’ club. Hartley was primed for the confrontation:

The word was out that Campbell was mixed up in some funny business, and he complained to Jack about it, and he said: ‘What’s this all about me being a copper?’ And ‘Big Jack’ said: ‘Well, you are, ain’t you?’ By this time they’d accumulated evidence, and Jack had knowledge of it. So Jack laid it on the line and Campbell went to water, because his other associations outside the waterfront meant that he was in extreme jeopardy … because he was a gangster, and gangsters don’t muck around, they’ll fill you full of lead. If the union had dropped the fact that he was working with the coppers, it would’ve been public knowledge, so everyone would’ve known, including his associates … So they did a deal — Nelson and the others involved … and the result was that Campbell made this statement, and to cover Campbell they said they’d asked him to go in and spy on the Groupers … Campbell blew his guts and told them a lot about what the Groupers had been doing.8

In fact, from this point onwards, Campbell revealed everything to Hartley about the Groupers’ plans.9 Hartley’s initial report to the CPA indicated the extent to which he had ‘spilled his guts’. For example, Hartley listened in while Campbell spoke to key Show organisers on the phone, reporting in particular on his call to Jim Macken, who informed him that Maynes ‘would be arriving in Sydney on Wednesday next, February 19th’ for a meeting at the Metropole hotel ‘to organise opponents to the Federal Officers. C[ampbell] is alleged to have the job to produce people to contest these positions — 1 from Fremantle and two from Sydney … C. got a list of names from Makin [sic] of Group supporters who have indicated that they will support the groupers. This of course was placed in the hands of the G[eneral]. S[ecretary].’10

From this time onwards, Jim Healy knew the names of the Groupers’ key supporters, receiving detailed reports about their plans soon after they were decided. Under tight CPA control, Campbell continued to act out the role of bona fide Grouper, picking up Brooks on 19 February and driving him to the Metropole, where Maynes reported ‘that he had had a discussion on the previous night with the … Group in Melbourne and they had asked him to find out the present position in Sydney and what progress had been made in working out the nominations for National positions in the Waterside Workers’ Federation elections’, and whether someone had been lined up to go to the national conference in Melbourne in early March to finalise the campaign. Maynes reported that he was on his way to Brisbane and Rockhampton on clerks’ union business, and would arrange for delegates from those ports to attend the Melbourne meeting, and that Adelaide, Hobart, and Launceston would send representatives. Campbell outlined the arrangements he had made for a Fremantle delegate, and reported that four would attend from Sydney.11

Maynes was clearly impressed, believing that for the first time a truly national campaign — uniting the anti-communist forces — could credibly challenge Jim Healy’s team. He announced that the Melbourne meeting would decide the candidates for national officials, reporting that the Melbourne Groupers proposed that Sydney should field candidates against Healy and also for federal president. Brooks got down to business, pointedly asking where the money would come from. Maynes assured them there was ‘unlimited finance coming in’. He reported that £1,000 [$30,000] was available for the campaign, but ‘stressed that money would have to be raised also by the various branches, that this was essential in case questions were asked as to where the money for the campaign was coming from’. Melbourne proposed that Alford do a national tour after nominations closed, to ‘ginger-up’ the campaign; according to Maynes, ‘he had research and legal people preparing statements’ on the team’s policies, which ‘would be available a few months before the elections’.12

Unwittingly, Brooks greatly assisted the CPA by insisting that Sydney should be independent of Melbourne, which ‘was well known as the Industrial Group, but the Industrial Group had practically no support in Sydney. If the Sydney organisation were to be openly known as the Industrial Group it would be doomed.’ He appreciated the financial and other support of the Groupers, but was adamant Sydney should not be publicly associated with them, although the clandestine link should continue. He proposed establishing a ‘central force in Sydney’ and, while he would attend the Melbourne meeting, was emphatic that it ‘should be kept quiet’.13 In one single contribution he had given the communists all the ammunition they needed to publicly destroy his credibility.

Maynes’s role was pivotal, demonstrated by the fact that, in early March, Campbell took delivery of a clerks’ union car for use during the campaign.14 Maynes thoroughly trusted him, leaving it up to him to select two additional Sydney delegates to attend the Melbourne meeting (along with Campbell and Brooks). The CPA ordered Campbell to take two low-key party members, John Burraston and Jim O’Brien. Thirty-six years later, Burraston was still perplexed by his involvement, recounting how communist WWF official Bobbie Bolger had approached him:

He said: ‘Would you do something for the party?’ I said: ‘Yeah.’ I thought it was just handing out leaflets or something. He said: ‘Do you think you could go down to Melbourne tonight or tomorrow morning?’ I said: ‘Oh yeah.’ I probably met them at the airport, and that was where I met Vic Campbell … They just explained to us that the Groupers were being supported by Shell Oil Company for somebody to oppose the communists. And they said: ‘We want it to be you.’ Well, I couldn’t speak. I don’t know why they ever picked me — it was stupid. So we went down to Melbourne, and there were all these people there, and I had to get up and say that I hated communists, and that was it … We had a good time while we were there, drinking and lairing up.15

On 7 March, the Sydney delegation flew to Melbourne, staying at the Parade hotel in Fitzroy with all travel, accommodation, and living expenses paid by the Groupers.16 When the meeting convened, Campbell was elected chairman, and a national committee was appointed with Alford as secretary and Campbell as president. A bemused Burraston was endorsed to stand for general secretary against ‘Big Jim’, and O’Brien for president.17 Two CPA members had been endorsed by the Groupers to stand for the most senior national positions. Burraston recounted the surreal experience:

I was picked to oppose Jim Healy … You see, I had no politics … for me to oppose Jim Healy was just too silly for words … The Groupers didn’t seem to be suspicious … We were accepted as genuine anti-communists trying to get rid of the WWF leadership.

The best-known actual Grouper, Alford, was picked to contest the position of national organiser.18

Alford delivered the finance report, ‘but first appealed to delegates to not allow any of his report to go outside the meeting, indicating that if the “comms” got hold of it, it would destroy the groups’. It was dynamite. About £42 [$1,250] per week was collected on the Melbourne waterfront, he reported, but this was Group money, whereas ‘the organisations to be now set up in the other ports are to be completely divorced from the Industrial Groups’. Alford’s wages and work expenses were said to be £600 [$18,000] per year, and the Melbourne committee established for the campaign had £800 [$24,000] in hand. Alford then dealt with the most damaging aspects of the money’s real source, which would prove deadly when later publicised by the CPA.

The advertisement regularly placed in the Groupers’ waterfront newspaper Vigilante ‘by Shell Oil Company brought in £28 [$835] per issue, and Shell Oil also donated to their funds. He stated that in view of the criticisms of the advertisement that it may be adviseable [sic] to withdraw it, but the company had assured him that the donation would continue.’ He then revealed another bombshell, reporting that they also received donations from members of the Liberal Party, assuring ‘delegates that there was plenty of finance coming’, and appealing ‘to delegates to approach business people and shipping companies in their ports who were sympathetic to them’.19

There could be no doubt that the bosses were bankrolling the campaign. This was underlined by the relationship the Groupers had with Jim Shortell, a former senior right-wing union official who had been supported by The Movement (as a non-Catholic) before being appointed by the Menzies government to the Australian Stevedoring Industry Authority (ASIA). Maynes arranged with Shortell for the Sydney campaign to be provided with an ASIA office, handily located in Customs House at Circular Quay.20 His role in Maynes’s plans would be used to devastating effect among the membership, who saw ASIA as a tool of the government and the bosses.21

The Melbourne meeting was the endgame for Maynes’s dream of wresting control of the WWF from the CPA. The icing on the cake was information Campbell provided to Hartley about anti-communist propaganda supplied to Macken by the US labour attaché (technically a diplomat, but usually a career CIA officer), ‘proving’ the involvement of US imperialism in plotting against the union.22 The propaganda value of the US connection was demonstrated in an official union leaflet distributed on 13 March calling a general members’ meeting for the following Sunday in the union hall. The leaflet was the first public indication of the devastating attack about to be launched, utilising Campbell’s intelligence as conveyed to Hartley. After recounting earlier incidents of the Groupers’ ‘anti-union’ activities, the leaflet levelled a series of damaging allegations:

They now have organised a secretly controlled nerve centre; a conspiratorial body with U.S.A. backing to pull the strings and unite, on top level, shipowners, the A.S.I.A. and notorious reactionary forces outside the W.W.F. such as Maynes and Co. of the Clerks Union …

And of course they are responsible for the organisation of groupings, enemy agents, disgruntled and ambitious people and sponsorship of lying, rumourmongering [sic] to confuse the membership as to who is responsible for the many attacks upon their precious work conditions … and trade union rights.

To consider all these matters, fellow members, a meeting has been called in the Union Rooms … this Sunday 16th March where Jim Healy … will make exposures of the organised attack.23

The same day that this leaflet hit the waterfront, the CPA bulletin, Wharfie, launched its own attack, claiming that the ship-owners and ASIA ‘finance and give material support to their “Vigilantes” in the ranks of the workers who seek to split the workers and turn them against their leaders. For this reason, Wharfie welcomes the special meeting which has been called to expose the splitters and disruptors within the Federation.’24

Maynes, Alford, and Macken still did not suspect Campbell’s hand in this decidedly disastrous turn of events.25 The next phase of the trap was sprung on 15 March. Macken went to Campbell’s home, where a heated argument occurred during a lengthy telephone conversation with Alford and Maynes in Melbourne. The CPA had orchestrated a letter to Maynes and Alford from the Sydney candidates, ‘demanding that Alford … not run on the ticket’. Alford and Maynes insisted he should, but they capitulated three days later, fearing that their ‘unity ticket’ would otherwise disintegrate.26

The Groupers had been comprehensively out-manoeuvred and were in disarray, but the penny had not yet fully dropped. Campbell concluded that his double game was at an end. On 26 March, Alford arrived from Melbourne, confused, uncomprehending, and still blindly trusting Campbell. At a meeting with Alford and Macken, Campbell was actually given control over the Groupers’ nominations. The CPA’s WWF National Bureau was hastily convened, deciding to lodge the nominations but to then have Burraston and O’Brien ‘go to the Federal Office and make a statement for the reasons for them not standing’.27 The Groupers would then have to scramble to assemble a full ticket, ensuring it would be Melbourne dominated. (Alford was forced to nominate against Healy, meaning that three candidates were Melbourne based.) Even more damaging, their ticket would be openly Grouper dominated, because the candidates who were supposed to provide their ‘unity ticket’ had withdrawn.28

On 29 March, Campbell informed Alford that the Sydney candidates were pulling out, and, ‘after pleading with him’, Alford ‘thanked him for letting him know and stated that he would come up to Sydney to nominate against the General Secretary’. In response to Alford’s question about the withdrawals, Campbell stated they ‘did not want to be mixed up with the people from outside, such as Shortell, Makin [sic] and Maynes … Alford pleaded with him not to mention anything about Shortell.’29

Macken was very upset at the withdrawals, and ‘continually phoned C[ampbell] over the week-end but he would not answer the phone’.30 On 31 March, Campbell finally rang Macken, who told him that Alford’s nomination had been officially lodged.31 The two men met for one last drink in the Dumbarton Castle hotel. ‘Campbell was very apologetic about the whole thing and claimed that he’d been stood over by the party, and been threatened with exposure as having been a provo during the war.’32

Bill Brooks heard a similar story, and was sure the CPA must have had something on Campbell:

I believe he definitely was with us. A man couldn’t act that well. He was too sincere — in everything — that he had to be with us. I did hear later … that they got over the top of him because they had too much on him … concerning his intrigues … I genuinely believed he had defected from the CPA and was a big help because he was a good organiser and the type of bloke we wanted … he would have pulled a lot of left-wing votes away from the CPA.33

In the end, the reverse was the case: the CPA–ALP unity ticket pulled a lot of votes away from the Groupers. In the months between the exposure of the Groupers’ plans in mid-March and the ballot in early July, the communists drilled it into the rank and file that Alford and company were in the pockets of US imperialism, the Menzies government, and the bosses, in the pay of big business, and aimed to undermine their hard-fought-for working conditions.34 The last word was left to ‘Big Jim’ Healy when he presented his report to the union’s Seventh All Ports Biennial Conference on 22 September 1958:

Before proceeding with my report let me first express my appreciation of the very encouraging vote of confidence expressed in both the leadership and our national policy at the recent Federation ballot.

I have now been General Secretary of the Federation since November 1937 … The 17,228 votes accorded to me out of a total of 22,544 votes recorded, which equals 76 per cent or ¾ of the members’ voting is an all-time record. It provides a complete answer to the daily press and other enemies of the Federation who were prophesying that the membership was tired of the present leadership and opposed to the national policy. Their wishful thinking even caused them to express the belief that I was old, tired and ill and that I might not live long enough to hear the result of the election. The facts speak for themselves. The overwhelming support given to myself and the other federal officers shows quite clearly that the policy we have followed and the results obtained therefrom have been satisfactory to the overwhelming majority of the membership.35

In light of Healy’s popularity among the membership, due in large part to his legendary common touch with ordinary wharfies, it seems probable that he would have won without the huge leg-up provided (under duress) by Vic Campbell. The result may have been far closer and, had a Grouper unity ticket stood, as envisaged by John Maynes, other members of Healy’s ticket may well have been defeated; there was a distinct possibility that Campbell would have ousted the rather aloof Tom Nelson as Sydney branch secretary.

Healy’s victory at the subsequent election in 1960 would be his last; in July 1961, he died from a stroke at the tragically young age of 63. The CPA’s decision to stand Nelson in the by-election to replace him was a disaster; he was not that well known, or well liked, outside his Sydney base, and was defeated by ALP unionist Charlie Fitzgibbon. As the popular and charismatic WWF national industrial officer Norm Docker remarked, if he [Docker] had been the CPA’s candidate, Fitzgibbon had stated he would not even have run, and the communists would have retained control of the union’s federal office. In the end, neither they nor their sworn enemy, The Movement, won the ultimate battle. Fitzgibbon stayed in office until 1983, when Docker finally succeeded him, but by then the CPA was a shadow of its once-powerful self.36

The man at the centre of this story of intrigue, blackmail, and double dealing was also a shadow of the once influential communist he had been for almost a decade from the late 1940s. In the wake of the election, it seems the CPA allowed Campbell to quietly let his membership lapse, only to mysteriously re-admit him a year or so later. Although he was briefly involved in some industrial matters for the union, he spent most of the next few years engaged in menial tasks, such as collecting unsold goods from fundraising events, on behalf of the party in which he had once exercised considerable political authority.37

He ended his days a broken man, ravaged by alcohol, and kept at arm’s length by both his old CPA comrades and The Show, to which he had genuinely defected. By the second half of the 1960s, Vic Campbell was a resident in the somewhat Dickensian-era Morissett psychiatric hospital (originally called the ‘Asylum for the Insane’) on the shores of Lake Macquarie, south of Newcastle. From there he wrote to one of the Groupers’ supporters, promising to reveal everything about his role as a double agent in the 1958 union election. His offer was never taken up; after all, he was in a mental institution, and who would believe the ramblings of a mad man?38