War Crime or War Winner? The Truth about the Bomb

From Murray Sayle, ‘War crime or war winner? The Truth about the Bomb,’ The Sydney Morning Herald, 15.07.95

...the head of the Manhattan Project, Major-General Leslie Groves, a determined military man feeling responsible for spending $2 billion on the bomb and worried that the war might end first, at that point was pushing strenuously for its immediate use. When Leo Szilard, who had drafted Albert Einstein’s letter to President Roosevelt warning of a German bomb six years earlier, drew up a scientists’ petition opposing the use of the atom bomb against Japanese cities, Groves had the petition classified top secret, thus restricting its impact to a tiny circle....Szilard’s petition got as far as Groves’s office, where it stayed. ...

What did the first atom bombs achieve? Well, it will be instantly answered, they ended the war, didn’t they, and so saved many lives - the estimates vary from 50,000 to several million - both American and Japanese, and considering that there was still fighting going on in Borneo and elsewhere, and ill-treated prisoners of war were still dying, probably many Australian lives as well. Anyone around at the time will remember the striking evidence for this conclusion. With the Japanese still full of fight, the first atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, another on Nagasaki on August 9, and the very next day the Japanese Government announced that it would accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration - that is, unconditional surrender, subject to some guarantee for the future of Japan’s Emperor Hirohito.

At the time (as I remember well myself) this looked like obvious, iron-clad evidence that the bombs had ended the war, thus greatly simplifying the moral question about their use. Unfortunately, 50 years on this is still the only evidence that the bombs did in fact end the war and thus save all those valuable lives. And there is much better evidence, long obscured by the Cold War, that points to quite a different conclusion.

Well, if the atom bombs did not end the war, what did? It has long been known that by mid-1945 Japan was in much worse shape, both economically and militarily, than was generally realised at the time. American submarines had sunk almost the whole Japanese merchant fleet, cutting off food, raw materials, oil and reinforcements for the home islands; American B-29 fire raids had destroyed 40 per cent of Japanese housing, most of its industry, and had burnt out 68 major cities even before Hiroshima and Nagasaki were atom-bombed. As early as June 1946, the economists of the US Strategic Bombing Survey, after visiting the ruined Japanese cities and interviewing most of the surviving Japanese leaders, gave their opinion that:

“Certainly prior to December 31, 1945, and in all probability prior to November 1, 1945 [the planned date of the American invasion of Kyushu, the southernmost home island], Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

However, Russia had indeed entered the war - at dawn on August 8, 1945, with 1.6 million men, fighter-bombers, parachute troops and a huge tank army - and although this was little-reported at the time compared with the enormous official publicity lavished on the atom bombs, modern scholarship increasingly sees the Soviet invasion of Manchuria as the real, immediate cause of Japan’s surrender. My own research, conducted over the 20 years I have been in Japan, fully endorses this conclusion.

It came about like this. While publicly declaring that Japan would fight to the end and “killing with silence” (an Oriental way of saying “no comment”) the Allies’ demand for unconditional surrender issued at Potsdam on July 26, 1945, Japan was secretly trying to arrange a negotiated peace, with the Soviet Union, still officially neutral, to act as mediator. This may seem an absurd idea until we recall that the US had mediated the end of the war between Russia and Japan in 1905. These half-hearted “secret” approaches (all the Soviets were asked to do was to receive Prince Fumimaro Konoe, a former prime minister and distant relative of Hirohito) were, however, no secret from the American leaders, who were reading the Japanese diplomatic messages passing between Tokyo and Moscow - the so-called MAGIC intercepts. Only declassified in full as recently as last year, the MAGIC summaries gave tantalising hints that there was a a pro-peace party in Tokyo, centred on the Foreign Ministry, to which Emperor Hirohito apparently belonged, but no indication of whether the peace party was strong enough to overcome the Army leaders who wanted to fight a “decisive battle for the Homeland” (after the expected American invasion) and then, having won it, to negotiate a peace that would guarantee, as a minimum, the continuation of the monarchy with Hirohito as monarch - something less than unconditional surrender.

Matters came to a head in Tokyo on the night of August 8, two days after the atom-bombing of Hiroshima. With all communications with the ruined city knocked out, very little information reached Tokyo, 1,000 km away, about what had happened. What there was came via the Japanese Army which downplayed the damage and insisted (correctly) that no military installations affecting Japan’s ability to continue the war had been damaged. Nevertheless, Hirohito, via his confidential adviser Lord Privy Seal Marquis Kido, summoned a meeting of the Supreme War Council, known as the “Big Six”, for 10am the following morning, August 9, to meet in the air-raid shelter under his burnt-out palace.

We will never know what they might have decided about Hiroshima because overnight news came through that the Soviets had invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria, scattering the poorly equipped Japanese armies there. This meant that virtually the entire world was now fighting Japan but, more immediately, the plan to ask the Soviets to mediate peace negotiations with the Allies was now in ruins and there was now a real threat that Japan itself might be partitioned and partly communised, as had just happened to Germany.

News of the atom-bombing of Nagasaki came through while the meeting was in progress but had no effect on the deliberations. The “Big Six” were still unable to agree and the same thing happened when the full Cabinet met that afternoon. Finally, late that night, the still-divided Cabinet agreed to ask Hirohito, who had not said a word, what he thought. Asked for his opinion (against all Japanese constitutional practice), Hirohito said the time had come to “endure the unendurable” and accept the Potsdam terms. After a last appeal to continue the fight from the War Minister, General Korechika Anami (“We can still achieve something and get better terms than these,” he claimed), the Emperor helped draft the surrender declaration. It was Anami who, in Hirohito’s name, issued the orders to Japanese units in the field to lay down their arms. His duty to his Emperor done, as he saw it, Anami killed himself.

What part did the atom bomb play in all this? According to the Strategic Bombing Survey, “the atom bombs did not change a single vote on the Supreme War Council, although they did add to the general gloom”. The problem here is that Japan’s surrender was, as historians say, “over-determined”; there was quite enough gloom in Japan already, without the need to add more. The view that the Japanese military was intimidated by either the atom bombs or Truman’s threat of more and more powerful ones (a piece of bluff) into seeking peace is simply an exercise in ill-informed guesswork.

If World War II taught us one lesson, it is that military leaders safe in bunkers can accept enormous civilian casualties without flinching, and no-one asks the bombed civilians whether they are in favour of peace or not (but, even in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the survivors were ready to fight on). What really ended the war was a threat to something the Japanese leaders saw as more important than the deaths of mere civilians (more than half a million had already died in the fire raids) - the political destruction of the Japanese nation itself. A quick surrender before the Soviets arrived seemed the best way out, and history, and the Cold War, have proved that they guessed correctly.

What can be said for atom bombs on their one use in real war? Against an already beaten opponent, who was universally detested, facing starvation, without any allies or means of reprisal - and whose flimsy cities were made of inflammable wood, paper and straw - they might have added something to the imminent and inevitable outcome, but at the cost of resentment and guilt feelings which still fester today half a century on. These preconditions occur very seldom in the real world, not surprisingly, so no-one has found another situation in which the use of nuclear weapons seemed to outweigh their enormous downside of universal revulsion, plus the risk of uncontrolled escalation.

Against a non-nuclear opponent, their use discredits any cause they are supposed to be upholding, particularly if the cause is the democratic one of personal justice and individual, rather than group, racial or national responsibility. Against a nuclear opponent, they promise universal, mutually assured destruction, known by the appropriate acronym MAD. Atom bombs are not, in short, practicable weapons of war, except for the purposes of terror, or terrorists, their likeliest next users. Robert Oppenheimer once said that unless nuclear weapons were controlled, or better still eliminated, men would one day curse the name of Los Alamos. All too probably, he may yet be proved right.

The Lucky Country: Part 8 - A Laid-Back, Happy People Help their Friends

Tom Allard, ‘East Timor to take Australia to International Court of Justice’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 20.12.13

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/east-timor-to-take-australia-to-international-court-of-justice-20131219-2zo19.html

Attorney-General George Brandis is refusing to return ''highly sensitive'' legal advice to the East Timor government from an eminent international law expert seized during ASIO raids this month, prompting the fledgling nation to launch action in the International Court of Justice.

East Timor and Australia are in the midst of a dispute, currently before arbitration in The Hague, over a treaty governing oil and gas deposits in the Timor Sea worth about $40 billion and the advice from British QC Vaughan Lowe outlines the strengths and weaknesses of East Timor's case.

Stephen Webb, head of energy at global law firm DLA Piper and its lead partner advising the East Timor government, said the advice from Mr Lowe on the ''prospects'' of the case was vital.

''Such internal advice documents would never be shown to the other side, in this case the Australian government, during legal proceedings,'' he said.

As it launched the proceedings for the return of the documents, East Timor also asked the ICJ to secure an undertaking from Australia not to intercept communications between the tiny country and its advisers, and apologise.

East Timor's case relies on allegations that Australian spies bugged its cabinet offices during negotiations over the treaty on the instruction of former foreign minister Alexander Downer.

The star witness for East Timor is a former Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) officer who allegedly led the eavesdropping operation. Knowing East Timor would request assurances that the former spy and other witnesses not be arrested or prevented from testifying, Senator Brandis approved ASIO agents raiding the man's property and the seizure of his passport on December 3, just days before the arbitral tribunal was due to hear argument.

Also raided was the office of lawyer Bernard Collaery, who is representing East Timor and from whose office Mr Lowe's legal advice was taken.

Senator Brandis told Parliament the raids were due to national security concerns around the alleged leak of classified intelligence information, and not related to the arbitration in The Hague.

He said any material obtained would not be passed on to the Solicitor-General and other lawyers running Australia's case in the The Hague. But the Australian government had known about the allegations of espionage against East Timor for at least a year before the raids, suggesting it was linked to the arbitration.

East Timor will argue the seizure by Australia of the documents and data is a violation of its sovereignty, property and other rights under international law.

Its lawyers wrote to Senator Brandis on December 10 requesting a list of the documents seized in the raids, the return of the documents, and the destruction of any copies, including any passed on to third parties and other nations. They also want a copy of the search warrant ASIO used for the raids.

Mr Webb pointed out that what the Timorese hope for is a ''sensible discussion'' on finding a permanent solution over the dispute over the Timor Sea oil and gas reserves. Senator Brandis declined to comment.

Part Eight/To be continued…

Do as I Say, Not as I Do

Pilita Clark, ‘US confesses secret N-tests near Australia’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 09.12.93

The United States secretly tested 48 nuclear bombs on Australia’s doorstep in the Pacific Ocean after 1945.

It appears the tests were kept secret to mislead not only Washington’s Cold War foes in the former Soviet Union, but also its formal allies, Australia and New Zealand.

The newly released information reveals the US Government concealed a total of more than 250 nuclear weapons tests since the 1940s, 204 of which were done at its Nevada test site, the rest in the Pacific. Most of the tests were done in the 1960s and 1970s but 17 were done in the 1980s and one in 1990. All were described as being relatively small, that is, less than 20 kilotons.

The Energy Secretary, Ms Hazel O’Leary, who released this information yesterday, also confessed that 18 US citizens had been injected with plutonium during the 1940s without their knowledge or consent - a discovery she said had left her with “an ache in my gut and my heart”. 

The revelations came at a special news conference Ms O’Leary called to release the biggest batch of previously classified nuclear secrets in her department’s history.

“The Cold War is over - we’re coming clean,” she said, adding that there was more information to come and the day’s release was “just a foot in the tub”. 

Ms O’Leary said the department was looking at releasing full details of the Pacific tests, such as precisely when they were done; how big the fallout range was and what size of bomb was tested.

“We have to strike a balance between telling the public what they should know, now that the Cold War is behind us, [and] not making available information to allow nations to build their own bombs,” she said.

Of the previously secret nuclear bomb tests, the department said 36 had accidentally sent small quantities of radioactive gas into the atmosphere but said “there was no lasting environmental impact, even in the immediate areas”.

The New York Times said private analysts were especially intrigued by 18 unannounced tests conducted during the Reagan and Bush Administrations, the last one in 1990, a time when more sensitive seismological instruments could detect all but the smallest tests.

The Times said the Pacific tests were conducted at tiny atolls before atmospheric tests were halted in the late 1950s.

As Ms O’Leary conceded, the number of secret tests was some 50 per cent greater than that estimated by private researchers and academics.

Some 800 tests were conducted on human beings, including 18 people who were injected with highly radioactive plutonium in the 1940s to see how much exposure workers could safely handle.

The 18 are now dead but yesterday some of their relatives, contacted by reporters, expressed profound bitterness at the revelations.

Ms O’Leary’s revelations overshadowed a speech by the Defence Secretary, Mr Les Aspin, who suggested the US was simply unable to stop the proliferation of “loose nukes” in the former Soviet Union and other countries, including those controlled by terrorist regimes.

Announcing a range of new “protective” counter-proliferation measures, Mr Aspin said the US faced a bigger nuclear proliferation threat “than we have ever faced before”.

In Canberra, a spokeswoman for the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Gareth Evans, said it was a “positive development” that the US had finally announced the tests had taken place.

 * * *

Tom Post with Douglas Waller, ‘The Dirty Little Secrets of the Atomic Age’, Newsweek, 16.12.93

It was time to “come clean,” Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary reckoned last week. What she revealed was a shocking, if incomplete, tale of deceit and lingering peril. Beginning in 1963, just after the two superpowers agreed not to detonate nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, until 1990, the United States conducted 204 underground tests, but never publicly acknowledged them. Beginning in the 1940s, the government subjected some 600 Americans to radiation experiments. More than a dozen received injections of plutonium, most without their consent. And the deadly legacy lives on. Nearly 34 metric tons of bomb-grade plutonium remain warehoused in six states, posing a colossal problem of disposal; almost 6 million pounds of radioactive waste are in rusted, leaky basins.

Why choose this moment to ‘fess up? Loose nukes have the Clinton administration more worried than ever before. Last week Secretary of Defense Les Aspin unveiled a “counter-proliferation initiative” that directs military commanders to draw up battle plans against rogue nations with newly acquired nuclear capability, instead of former Warsaw Pact countries. This week, Newsweek has learned, President Clinton will meet with senior advisers to consider the threat of terrorism and nuclear weapons. And O’Leary, on a visit to Moscow this week, will press the Russians to come clean about their dirty nuclear history, too.

The DOE’s sins of the past continue to haunt the present - perhaps none more ominously than the experiments on human subjects. According to a six-year investigation by The Albuquerque Tribune, 18 people - including house-wives, three African-Americans, teenagers, elderly retirees, even a 4-year-old boy - were part of a nationwide study from 1945 to 1947 to determine how quickly plutonium travelled through the body. One of them was John Mousso, a 45-year-old, blue-collar worker who checked into Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York, in 1946, after a diagnosis of Addison’s disease. Doctors told him he’d receive an experimental drug, but actually injected him with plutonium 239 - 46 times the radiation a normal person receives in a lifetime, the Tribune reported. Mousso lived until 1984, plagued by skin diseases, digestive ailments and lethargy. His family went on welfare because he couldn’t work. The DOE never let on. “I equate it with some of the things the Nazis were tried and executed for in World War II,” Gerald Mousso, his nephew, told Newsweek.

With a huge and costly cleanup on its hands, the DOE must do more than atone. Its own survey of spent fuel at nuclear-weapons sites found appalling conditions at three facilities. Many storage tanks, built mostly in the 1940s, are severely corroded and leaking radioactive water. The debris from rusting parts could trigger a nuclear reaction. More horror stories will undoubtedly emerge as the DOE releases more of the 32 million pages of still-classified documents. By the time its all over, O’Leary may end up letting loose as many demons as she exorcises.

The Sickness at the Heart of Australian Culture

‘Bruce Ruxton is right: we should embrace the legends of defeat,’ Richard Glover, The Sydney Morning Herald, 20.04.90

I arrived home to find my partner ashen-faced. The cat was wailing in the kitchen and the kid was clearly upset. The words came gushing out as soon as she saw me: “I don’t know what to do. I just found myself agreeing with Bruce Ruxton.”

Since she had confessed, I thought I could too. A healthy marriage, after all, is based on sharing such dark secrets. “Yep,” I said, “I agree with him too.” 

The issue, you understand, wasn’t Asian immigration, gay rights, or whether environmentalists are all dole-bludging hippies. It was Anzac Day.

Ruxton, the Victorian president of the RSL, is currently doing battle with the journalist Phillip Knightley, who has expressed the view that next Wednesday should be Australia’s last Anzac Day.

It is absurd, argues Knightley, that the battle at Gallipoli should provide our key national image of war. Gallipoli, he says, was a defeat; and a defeat in a battle waged for British interests. 

Better to celebrate, he says, the taking of Damascus by the Australian Light Horse, or the victorious battle by General Sir John Monash’s troops on the Western Front in the last months of war.

“Monash’s scientific breakthrough tactics,” he says, “were a powerful factor in the German decision to ask for an armistice and  thus a real turning point in history. Yet the Australians who fought on the Western Front appear doomed to live forever in the shadow of Gallipoli”.

But Mr Ruxton replies that these triumphs, along with others, are already marked by Anzac Day, and that traditions, once established, carry their own weight and importance.

But we can take the argument further. Knightley is right: Anzac Day does mark a defeat. But as such it is in keeping with one of the most consistent themes in the Australian legend: the celebration (or at least worldly-wise acknowledgement) of failure.

Any country can make hoopla about its victories. What makes Australia unique is the way it has always preferred to remember the brave-but-defeated, the underdog and the loser.

Consider, for example, some of the subjects of Australia’s successful historical films: Phar Lap, the story of a horse with  international promise who was poisoned; Les Darcy, the story of a boxer with promise who was killed; Breaker Morant, the story of soldier with promise who was shot.

And, of course, Peter Weir’s Gallipoli, the story of fighters of promise who were misled and misused.

Dad and Dave never expanded and made it rich, they just battled on against flood and rain - two steps forward, three steps back. The heroes of Lawson and Paterson were triers more than they were doers; just as the great national bards were humourists rather than battle-balladeers.

Waltzing Matilda, the real national song, is about a tramp who can only find freedom through suicide. The Dog on the Tucker Box comes from a poem reciting the multiple disasters of an accident-prone bullocky.

Oh, to live in a country that makes a national icon of a dog that relieved himself in a bullocky’s food hamper.

But not, it seems, for Knightley.

He wants Australia to follow every other nation: to edit the defeats out of history and concentrate on the victories; to puff itself up and worship the tall poppies.

His Dog on the Tucker Box would be straight from Walt Disney - a heroic pup who saved the bullocky’s life rather than spoilt his dinner.

But I rather like Australia’s curious traditions: I like being part of the land of the rising inflection, where every statement is turned into a question; I like a tradition that sees the grim absurdity of life and embraces legends of defeat with a wry smile.

There are many who have argued against Australia’s traditions: arguing our lack of self confidence has held us back; that we have driven away our talented by rejecting a culture of success.

There  may be some truth in this, and certainly we face continuing battles to wean ourselves from cultural and economic cringes of various kinds.

Of course, we do need to wave the flag and be proud. But my problem remains: how can you be flag-wavingly proud when what you’re proudest of is the lack of a pompous, flag-waving pride? 

All in all, it seems to me a perfect symbol. And that’s why Bruce Ruxton -  just this once - is right.

The Lucky Country: Part 7 - What Can be Changed and What Can't

From the skirts of one nation to the coat-tails of another, from ‘I did but see her passing by...’ to ‘All the way with LBJ.’

In 1908 when Roosevelt’s ‘Great White Fleet’ came to Sydney, Pitt Street was renamed ‘America Avenue’ and the American sailors and marines marched along it.

From: 
http://www.antarctic-anare.info/Sydney.pdf:

'Friday morning the 28th was planned for the parade. Initially the authorities expected the bluejackets and marines to parade without arms. When Admiral Sperry found out, he interceded letting it be known that it would be something of a clownish charter to have 2,500 men march through the city without arms. They would probably end up throwing kisses to pretty girls and raising high jinks despite the efforts of their officers. He won the day and sailors got their arms. Landing a naval brigade at Farm Cove and Woolloomooloo Bay the next day, sailors were mustered at the public domain, a short distance from the Government House and waited for the public reception to end. Upon which they were marched up Pitt Street, which had been renamed America Avenue during fleet week, and the leading thoroughfares of the city in the presence of a madly cheering crowd. No such enthusiasm had been witnessed by Americans in any parade since the day George Dewey came back and marched down 5th Avenue in New York City.'

In 1942, during the ‘desperate and vicious’ fighting of the Kokoda Track campaign in Papua New Guinea ‘approximately 625 Australians were killed...and over 1,600 were wounded. Casualties due to sickness exceeded 4,000.' 
(http://www.awm.gov.au/units/event_291.asp) 

In 1957, the American title ‘Kokoda Trail’ ‘was adopted by the Battles Nomenclature Committee as the official British Commonwealth battle honour’ (http://www.awm.gov.au/units/event_247.asp). ‘Trail’ is the word used in article headings on the War Memorial website.

Yet, in the article ‘The Kokoda “Track” or “Trail”?' (http://www.awm.gov.au/blog/2009/07/27/the-kokoda-track-or-trail/) it states ‘The overwhelming majority of soldiers who fought the campaign also used “track”. In a survey of unit war diaries, letters and personal diaries written during the campaign, Peter Provis, a Memorial summer scholar, found that the word “trail” was used only once in a war diary, in the 2/31st Battalion on 11 September 1942. There were, however, also references to “track”.’

* * *

From:
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/theatre/dobber-brings-down-curtain-on-belvoirs-take-on-miller-20121016-27p4w.html
The Sydney Morning Herald, 17.10.12
‘Dobber brings down curtain on Belvoir’s take on Miller’ 
‘Popular theatre company Belvoir raises the ire of one of the biggest holders of theatrical rights in the world with ‘cavalier’ change.
Sydney's Belvoir theatre company has been forced to reinstate the final scene of Arthur Miller's famed Death of a Salesman after an anonymous tip-off to the US agent that handles the rights about changes made to the local production. …’

* * *

Part Seven/To be continued…

The Lucky Country: Part 6 - A Laid-Back, Happy People Help their Friends

‘More details revealed over allegations of Australia spying on East Timor’, ABC Radio/The World Today 04.12.13 
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2013/s3904632.htm

ELEANOR HALL: But we begin today with the rapidly developing story of the retired spy who's come forward to back up claims by the Timorese government that Australia's former foreign minister Alexander Downer ordered Australia's overseas spy agency ASIS to carry out a bugging operation against the Timorese cabinet.

ASIO has now cancelled the man's passport, stopping him from leaving Australia to give evidence in a case that starts in The Hague on Thursday.

In a series of dramatic raids, ASIO also seized documents from his Canberra home in what some observers say is a search for evidence to enable the Commonwealth to prosecute the former spy for revealing official secrets, and prevent him from giving evidence against Australia.

Mr Downer has declined a request to respond on this program. But a lawyer involved in the case is calling for him to face a judicial inquiry into his actions.

With the latest, reporter Peter Lloyd joins me now in the studio.

Firstly Peter, what new information do you have about the alleged bugging of the Timorese?

PETER LLOYD: Eleanor, we now know more details about the way the operation was carried out. It's been confirmed to me that the affidavit of the retired spy lays out in detail his personal involvement in this secret mission to Timor that he says was ordered by Alexander Downer.

Back in 2004 the Government was paying for an aid project to refurbish the palace of government in Dili. It's on the waterfront, it's a two storey Portuguese style architecture building which was in some disrepair after the troubles and the transition. And now that is the working offices of the prime minister, Xanana Gusmao, senior ministers and officials and the cabinet room which is two doors, two offices down from the prime minister's office, across the carpark from the parliament.

This is very much the heart and centre of government in Dili.

There were three visits in May, June and August 2004 to the cabinet offices by agents of ASIS, posing in some fashion as members of that work party to renovate this space. These were visits to install, test, operate and run these bugging devices.

They were finally removed, my sources tell me, in December 2004 at the completion of their mission. Now that mission was to spy on the Timorese, say the Timorese, about their tactics, their strategy, their bargaining situation in the 2004 negotiations with the Australian Government over a very rich field of oil and gas called the Sunrise Field, between Timor and Australia. It's worth $20 billion.

And very much at the centre of that isn't just the interests of the Australian Government, but the company that was set to, and still is, set to exploit that field exclusively - Woodside Petroleum. At the time these bugging devices were in these offices, Don Voelte was then the head of Woodside.

The Labor backbencher from WA, Gary Gray, was working for Woodside as senior communications strategist. They were attending meetings in that room, along with Australian government officials - the minister Alexander Downer and the Australian negotiating team. They all held meetings in and out of those offices that the Timorese now say had been bugged by Mr Downer.

Now, the question that many people are wondering today is how does this all connect to an inappropriate use of Australia's overseas spy agency by Mr Downer. Now, the context is this. Is that it wasn't a negotiation just about treaties and boundaries. It was about the Australian Government hand in glove, very much a nexus between Woodside and the Australian diplomatic effort to structure a deal that got the best result against East Timor.

One of the best experts to go to on this topic is a guy called Professor Damien Kingsbury from Deakin University. I got him to set it out for me a short while ago.

DAMIEN KINGSBURY: Woodside essentially got out of having to deal with the Timorese government. It got a very good deal with the Australian Government. Had it had to deal with the Timorese government I think it believes it would have had to have paid more taxes or more royalties for the extraction of gas from the Greater Sunrise field.

And it would have been obliged to go with the Timorese government as to what the Timorese government wanted in terms of the processing of the liquid natural gas. That is onshore processing within East Timor, which the Timorese government wants because it will boost the establishment of the petrochemical industry in that country.

PETER LLOYD: What then is the national interest that Mr Downer and others will talk about in their defence of their position in these treaty negotiations?

DAMIEN KINGSBURY: Well Australia already benefits from having oil refined in Australia, from the Timor Sea. There was some hope from the Australian perspective that Woodside would come onshore with the liquid natural gas processing, which would be a big boost to top end development. It looks like the proposition at the moment is for offshore processing which doesn't benefit either Australia or East Timor. Although Australia would benefit probably more than East Timor on balance.

But really the benefit to Australia is that it's assistance for a large Australian company. It's basically a deal between mates for economic benefit. And not on the basis of national sovereignty.

ELEANOR HALL: That's Professor Damien Kingsbury from Deakin University.

What about the connection now between Mr Downer, the former foreign minister, and Woodside?

PETER LLOYD: That's a very interesting question. It's been confirmed to me that in May 2009 on Independence Day in East Timor, Alexander Downer went to see Xanana Gusmao and disclosed to him that he was now no longer a politician and since 2007 wasn't the foreign minister, but was now acting for Woodside as an advisor. I'm told Xanana Gusmao was extremely unhappy at hearing this and that's the first time in May 2009 that they learnt that the former foreign minister had become a lobbyist for the oil and gas company which they were having so many difficulties with.

ELEANOR HALL: And how does that connection between Mr Downer and Woodside influence the motivation of the whistleblower or the former spy, coming forward to make these allegations?

PETER LLOYD: Bernard Collaery is the lawyer for the East Timorese. He told me that the reason this spy, retired spy, has decided to come forward and tell what he knows about this operation, is because he feels a sense of betrayal. He says that in hindsight what he did wasn't in the Australian national interest, but was in fact to benefit a corporate big oil and gas company's interests and that he believes is not an appropriate use of the agency's time and capacity.

He describes it as wrong and he wants his day in court. He's furious that yesterday he was the target of a raid by ASIO officers in Canberra, who simultaneously took down his house and took from it documents and other records and at the same time also there was a raid on the offices of the lawyer Bernard Collaery whilst he was in The Hague.

Now the question is what happens to this guy? This is a man who potentially could be prosecuted for being, for revealing the secrets of a spy agency that he worked for. The argument being put forward by Bernard Collaery and co is that he will claim whistleblower status under the federal legislation and that that will protect him from any prosecution.

The problem is is that there's great debate now that there's been a raid. What happens to this guy in the future - he's lost his passport. Will he lose his liberty? No-one knows for sure. But Frank Brennan, the lawyer, priest and expert on all matters Timor, certainly has his thoughts about what may happen.

FRANK BRENNAN: I think it's a very ineffective means of trying to silence the whistleblower in that it's already known that he has sworn an affidavit. That affidavit is in the possession of the lawyers in The Hague. On Thursday there are supposed to be preliminary proceedings where both parties - Timor and Australia - the lawyers were concerned to ensure that the security and the anonymity of any Australian agents would be maintained.

I would have thought the more sensible way to proceed would be to have the lawyers do that behind closed doors rather than this provocative act, which though it might force other agents into silence, risks retaliation, which would be very unhelpful.

PETER LLOYD: That's Frank Brennan speaking there in Canberra a short while ago. Frank Brennan also says that he believes that this act by ASIO is an act really of public intimidation, that any other whistleblowers who might be thinking about coming forward will now know what happens to them.

FRANK BRENNAN: There clearly must be a strategy. In part I think it would be to try and silence other agents who might have been minded to give evidence. It could also be that the Australian authorities were not aware of how advanced was the preparation by the Timorese lawyers in terms of the affidavit having been prepared of their primary witness.

ELEANOR HALL: That's Father Frank Brennan, Professor of Law at the Australian Catholic University. Now Peter, this relates to a court case in The Hague on Thursday. Tell us about the significance of that.

PETER LLOYD: Indeed it does. Bernard Collaery, the lawyer for the East Timorese, is concerned about this. This is his smoking gun against Australia in a case where he wants to overturn the treaty that he thinks was obtained through foul means by the spying on the Timorese. He wants to invalidate that treaty and go back to the drawing board, which has all sorts of huge financial penalties and consequences for the Woodside company and others involved. And of course for the Australian Government a huge loss of face.

He is beginning that case on Thursday in The Hague. It's a three person arbitration panel. Each country, Australia and Timor, has chosen their advocate. There's been a third one agreed by both of them. The case will begin on Thursday as I say.

The first thing they have to do is establish that this is the forum that accepts this is the place to have the argument. Then there'll be a long running fight and at the end of it the Timorese believe the treaty will be invalidated. Australia will have to renegotiate that treaty.

Woodside will have to go back to the Timorese and renegotiate the terms of their deal, possibly face rival bidders, a different oil and gas commodity price market and at the end of the day the sea boundary between Australia and Timor will, in their view, be redrawn as it is with other countries, down the middle, instead of this wonky little road of the map which is structured around oil treaties which doesn't do a great benefit to the Timorese. And they say is a great and gross act of natural injustice.

ELEANOR HALL: Peter Lloyd, our reporter there, thank you. And Peter did work for the Timorese government for six months in 2012 on an unrelated project to do with reform of global aid and development.

And The World Today invited former prime minister John Howard and former foreign minister Alexander Downer onto the program. Both declined our offer. We also sought responses from the former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr and former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard.

* * *

Strongly recommended:

> Video of Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans toasting Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alitas on 11.12.89 in a plane above Timor Gap to celebrate the signing of the Timor Gap Treaty between the two nations for the exploitation of the oil and gas resources below

> Shakedown - Australia’s grab for Timor oil, Paul Cleary, Allen & Unwin, 2007

Part Six/To be continued…

The Lucky Country: Part 5 - The Luck of a Happy People is Getting Squeezed

Peter Hartcher, ‘China vents its anger at Australia's stand on airspace rights’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 03.12.13

China is angry at Australia, and when the doors closed on the meeting room in Canberra on Friday, its delegates let the anger show. The third annual Australia-China Forum was designed to strengthen the relationship. Instead, the Chinese used it to pressure Australia.

They had a specific grievance: the government's rejection of Beijing's announcement that it was asserting new rights over airspace in the East China Sea.

But they quickly turned the specific into the general, a full-court fusillade of complaints and urgings.

It was an illustration, a case study and a premonition of the difficulty at the heart of Australia's relationship with its biggest trading partner.

What started the ructions was Beijing's abrupt announcement on November 23 that all aircraft flying over the islands subject to its dispute with Japan needed to give prior notice to authorities or risk "emergency defensive measures".

The new air defence identification zone not only covered the disputed islands that the Japanese call the Senkaku and the Chinese call the Diaoyu, it also overlapped the existing air defence identification zones of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

These three last week rejected Beijing's authority to make such a declaration without consultation.

So did the US. Flouting China's claim, it immediately flew two B-52 bombers unhindered through the zone without notifying Beijing.

China had committed a "destabilising attempt to alter the status quo in the region," US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said.

It was now in an invidious position - it was taking criticism from the rest of world for being provocative, and from its citizens at home for being impotent.

Australia objected to China's declaration of the zone too, Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop said, because Canberra was opposed to "any coercive or unilateral actions to change the status quo in the East China Sea".

China's foreign affairs ministry countered by urging "the Australian side to immediately correct its mistakes so as to avoid hurting the co-operative relationship between China and Australia".

Rather than correct its position, Australia reaffirmed it. Asked for his view by a reporter, Tony Abbott said: "We are a strong ally of the US, we are a strong ally of Japan, we have a very strong view that international disputes should be settled peacefully."

Chinese officials believed the Prime Minister had escalated the disagreement merely by restating the government's position.

The opening session of the Australia-China Forum took place the next morning at the Australian National University.

Ostensibly, it was devoted to "advancing the strategic partnership" struck between Julia Gillard and Chinese President Xi Jinping in April. Instead, the Chinese delegates used it to challenge the value of the partnership.

The forum is a so-called "one-and-a-half track" initiative. This means it's a meeting between the two governments - the one track - but broadened to include non-officials such as business people, retired officials, academics and journalists, comprising the half-track.

China sent 19 delegates; four were serving or former ambassadors, one of whom was also a retiree at the vice-premier level. They wield little direct power in Beijing, yet all are influential.

Australia's 31 delegates included two serving cabinet ministers, three former cabinet ministers, and three serving senior officials.

Six of the Chinese spoke in the first session; of these, five challenged Australia's strategic stance. The sixth emphasised the strength of the trade link: the two economies were "cut out for each other".

As a participant, I'm permitted to report what was said but not to identify who said it, the Chatham House rule.

The first Chinese strike was directed at Australia's alliance with the US: "The Sino-American relationship has many high and lows but you may not be clear on just how good it is.

"The Americans sometimes want to put pressure on us so they ask their friends to put pressure on us. When they do, you should sit down and think about it." The US, the Chinese speaker said, frequently changed its approach to Asia policy, and "Australians need to realise the Americans change what they say without thinking about other people's interests."

In other words, if it were merely an American lapdog, Australia could end up alienating China only to be abandoned by its US master.

The second Chinese speaker said the relationship with Australia hinged on strategic trust; with it, there would be a cinematic ending of the Crocodile Dundee type, with two loving partners living happily ever after. Without it, there would be a Thorn Birds-style outcome, ending in tears.

The third said the conception of America as the strategic ally and China as the primary economic partner was wrong-headed; China and the US were both important to regional security. If Australia wanted a strategic partnership with China, it had to include both security and economic aspects.

The fourth called on Australia to beware a growing bellicosity in Japan, and urged Canberra to persuade Tokyo to change its position.

The fifth sought to relegate Australia's US alliance to history. It was "a product of the Cold War," he said. And although China would not normally offer its view on Australia's alliances, it now was affecting China's "core interests, its sovereignty and its territorial interests".

This is a tough critique, claiming that Australia's US alliance infringes on China's sovereignty.

This speaker went on to hold out a "dream" of China's relations with Australia, with trade trebling, tourism booming, young people moving freely between the two countries. But he said the dream had a long way to go.

And the responses? The Australians were on the defensive. Some firmly defended the US alliance. Some assured that Australia acted in its own interests, not America's. One challenged the Chinese to explain what they were doing to ease the tensions. Some tried to change the subject.

But the Chinese were single-minded. And their plans to ease the escalations in their border disputes? They had nothing to say.

Part Five/To be continued…