Episode 18 - Maintain Your Rage

Conspiracy You Can Believe In

On November 11, 1975, Gough Whitlam was removed from office as Prime Minister of Australia. He was dismissed by his own Governor-General, John Kerr, a man who held what was largely believed to be a ceremonial position as the representative of the British Crown. The Dismissal would spark decades of debate in Australia. But recently unearthed records show that Kerr did not act on his own. He had the full support of the country's conservative establishment, encouragement from US and Australian intelligence, and advice from Buckingham Palace.
SOURCES

The Palace Letters: The Queen, the governor-general, and the plot to dismiss Gough Whitlam by Jenny Hocking

https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/the-palace-letters-9781922310248

The Dismissal: 40 years on by Paul Daley

https://dismissed.moadoph.gov.au/hashtag-dismissal-1975.html

The Dismissal - 10th Anniversary by Australia Channel 9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm8HFJ9ZC8U

The Kerr Palace Letters - National Archives of Australia

https://www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/kerr-palace-letters

In the 1970s, a Soft Coup Removed Australia’s Left-Wing Prime Minister by Guy Rundle

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/07/gough-whitlam-dismissal-letters-john-kerr-australia

Gough Whitlam’s Government Was the Victim of a Right-Wing Coup by Conor Flynn

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/06/gough-whitlam-australian-labor-party-right-wing-coup-john-kerr

Rundle: proving the CIA-backed conspiracy that brought down Whitlam by Guy Rundle

https://www.crikey.com.au/2015/11/25/rundle-proving-the-cia-backed-conspiracy-that-brought-down-whitlam/

CIA, Kerr, Barwick and 1975 by Humphrey McQueen

https://labourhistorycanberra.org/2016/07/cia-kerr-barwick-and-1975/

Australian House of Representatives Debates - 4 May 1977

http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1977/19770504_reps_30_hor105/

CIA Issue Enters Australian Crisis by Fox Butterfield special to the New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/1975/11/06/archives/cia-issue-enters-australian-crisis-whitlam-says-an-opposition-chief.html

How Australia Won Universal Healthcare - and How Workers Saved it with a General Strike by Anthony O'Donnell

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/08/australia-universal-health-care-whitlam-administration-medibank-medicare-alp-actu-strike