Dr H.V. Evatt--part II: the question of loyalty.

• Author: Campbell, Andrew A.
• Position: Herbert Vere Evatt - Report
• Pages: 33(23)

This article (1) focuses on a question that haunted Evatt's political career during the Cold War--his loyalty to the Labor Party and, above all, his loyalty to Australia and its national security interests. Despite his tactical and opportunistic rejection of selected communist policies, there are indications that he believed a form of communism was inevitable, although he never publicly professed this belief. (2)

Evatt and the case of Egon Kisch

In November 1934, the Lyons Government's Attorney-General, Robert Menzies, declared the visiting Czech Comintern agent Egon Kisch (3) to be an "undesirable" migrant and prohibited him from landing. (4) Kisch jumped from the ship to the wharf at Melbourne dock, breaking his leg.

His "jump" was a political stunt recommended to him by Joan Rosanove, a Melbourne barrister engaged by the International Labour Defence (ILD), an organisation based in Western Europe which was part of the legendary communist propagandist Willi Munzenberg's apparatus to promote pro-Soviet causes around the world. (5)

According to Australian historian Peter Cochrane: (6)

The ILD had a long reach. Its Australian branch was able to come to Kisch's assistance, engaging the Sydney legal firm of Christine (sic) Jollie-Smith, a member of the Communist Party of Australia ....

At the time no one in the government realised that Kisch was being defended with the assistance of ILD funds. But the ILD's role was exposed, some six months after Kisch left Australia.

Christian Jollie Smith (1885-1963) was one of the foundation members of the Australian Communist Party. In 1917, she was briefly employed at the Commonwealth Crown Solicitors Office and came to adverse notice for leaking information concerning a deportation case to a defence counsel. In 1934-1935, she secured a writ of habeas corpus for Egon Kisch and briefed A.B. Piddington who acted for Kisch. (In 1951, Smith briefed Evatt for the anti-Communist referendum.) (7)

On 15 and 16 November 1934, Evatt, sitting on the High Court, ruled that he was not satisfied that the information on which the Commonwealth Government's decision on Kisch had been based on section 3 (gh) Immigration Act had been received through official channels, and directed that Kisch be released from the ship in which he arrived in Fremantle, the SS Strathaird. (8)

According to Evatt's most recent biographer: (9)

Such was his fervour that he [Evatt] could not maintain even a facade of impartiality. Evatt neglected his judicial responsibilities by calling Parsonage [counsel for Kisch] to explain that a different kind of approach would be more persuasive ... Evatt's allegiance was patent. Kisch was accorded the distinguished title of 'alien friend'.

The Australian Government was constrained from revealing its confidential British sources of information, which, predictably, Evatt demanded. Evatt used their unavailability to find in Kisch's favour. (10)

In his second appeal and affidavit to the High Court, signed on 16 November 1934, Kisch claimed he "was he was not a communist or a member of a communist organisation". (11) Both claims were patently false. (12) Kisch's most recent biographer described them as a "pack of lies", and added: "Kisch learned quickly that he could get away with fabricating the truth in Australia." (13)

The Kisch affair ended in a compromise. Kisch agreed to abandon further appeals and left Australia, forbidden ever to return. (14)

Upon returning to Europe, Kisch wrote a letter to the ILD in Amsterdam, thanking them for their generous backing. (15)

Evatt's pro-Kisch judgement established his reputation as a "progressive" amongst pacifists, fellow-travellers, leftist members of the legal fraternity and the Labor Party, (16) including Evatt's future friend, the ubiquitous Communist Party member and Soviet agent, (17) the writer Katharine Susannah Prichard, who was prominent in the Kisch Defence Committee in both Perth and Melbourne. (18)

Evatt's staff and associates

On 1 February 1943, the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (USASIS) launched the code-breaking exercise codenamed "Venona", which focused on decrypting Soviet diplomatic codes from Moscow to Soviet spy residencies and agents throughout the world and which, after World War II, succeeded in identifying many Soviet agents worldwide. (19) Many Australians mentioned in the Venona cables who were Soviet agents remain unidentified. Only five per cent of the Canberra-Moscow Venona link has been deciphered. Between 1943 and 1948, nearly 5,000 coded messages were sent between Moscow and Canberra. Only 189 have been published. (20)

During his time as Minister for External Affairs (1941-49), both Evatt's department and his personal staff--due to his gross ministerial irresponsibility or approval--were penetrated by Soviet agents. (21) Venona-decrypted messages from Canberra to Moscow from mid-1943 to 1948 eventually led to the identification of Ian Milner (codenamed Bur/ Dvorak), Katharine Susannah Prichard's son Ric Throssell (Academician's Son/ Ferro), Jim Hill (Khill/ Tourist), Frances Bernie (Sestra/ Sister), Allan Dalziel (Denis), Fergan O'Sullivan (Zemliak), (22) and others as yet unidentified.

Many of Evatt's other associations remain to be traced, notably one with Sergeant Alfred Thompson Hughes (codename Ben), a New South Wales-based intelligence officer charged with monitoring Communist Party and Soviet officials. Hughes was a Soviet agent, (23) and a friend of Evatt's in the 1930s, and possibly as early as the 1920s. (24)

Evatt warns Katharine Susannah Prichard of surveillance

Evatt's friendship with Australia's leading pro-Soviet communists has been well documented. (25) A longstanding confidante of Evatt's was Katharine Susannah Prichard (codename "Academician"), who was a foundation member of the Australian Communist Party and a key identity, if not the founder, of a major Soviet intelligence network in Australia. (26)

Her novel Working Bullocks (1926) was the first work of Australian fiction translated in the Soviet Union since the Revolution. (27) Writing provided Prichard with cover and legitimacy and a source of funds in the form of royalties from the Soviet Union. Her polemical pamphlet The Real Russia (1934) was a glowing account of her guided tour of Stalin's Soviet Union from July to November 1933. (28)

Prichard was a lifelong and committed Soviet propagandist and agent of influence. She was also a talent-spotter and courier for Soviet intelligence officers. She was integral to the running of the important Walter Clayton (codename Klod/ Claud) espionage network, targeted at the Department of External Affairs, (29) and provided operational support for Clayton and his network who used her flat (a "conspiratorial apartment", to use Soviet jargon) in Darlinghurst, Sydney. The official historian of ASIO has noted, "The full extent to which she has assisted the cause of international Communism will probably never be known." (30)

Evatt regarded Prichard as a confidante and informed her of his intention to resign from the judiciary in 1940 and enter federal politics. (31) In October 1941, the Curtin Labor Government came to power, and Evatt was made both Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs. A couple of months afterwards, in December, Evatt invited Prichard to dinner with his wife. At the dinner Prichard started to explain to Evatt where she had been and what she had been doing. According to her son's account of the conversation, Evatt stopped her. "You needn't tell me .... I've been kept informed by the Security lads of all your movements; had an almost hourly report on where you were going and what you've been saying. I told them I don't want information about Mrs Throssell." (32)

Evatt's disclosure to a dedicated Soviet agent undoubtedly assisted her and her Soviet contacts to adopt counter-measures to avoid surveillance in Sydney, her base of espionage operations. (33)

Prichard used her influence on Evatt to ensure that her son Ric Throssell was (in her son's words) removed "from the war zone to the security of External Affairs", (34) a decision which was relayed by the Clayton espionage network from Canberra to Moscow. Moscow Centre was puzzled at Throssell's subsequent appointment to Moscow in November 1945, (35) as the Australian Communist Party wanted him to take a posting in Europe: (36)

Claude [Walter Seddon Clayton], in a conversation with Prichard, clearly hinted to her that, from the point of view of the [Communist] Party, it would be better if he went to a post in Europe .... Prichard, however, very much wanted her son to go to the Soviet Union and had her way.

Moscow Centre commented: (37)

Throssell's appointment is rather strange in ... that Evatt is well aware who Prichard is. It may be possible abroad to establish clearly the significance of Evatt's move. 'Claude' [Klod] has been given the task of discovering the real ulterior motive for Throssell's appointment ...

However, even Moscow Centre underestimated Prichard's devotion to the Soviet Union and her plan that her son could be of future use to the Soviet Union. The most revealing phrase here is Moscow Centre's assessment that "Evatt is well aware who Prichard is".

Prichard introduced her son to visitors to her Sydney flat, stating: "Ric will the first foreign minister of Soviet Australia". (38) From 1943-1947, he was "being used unwittingly by his mother" as a source of information which was passed to Clayton, and hence to Moscow. (39) In 1948 he also provided information to Clayton. From 1949, when he was stationed in Brazil, he was "an active agent for the Soviet". (40) However, he lacked the ruthlessness to be a long-term penetration agent, although the Soviets still regarded him as an agent of great promise as late as 1954. In 1952, the MVD (later KGB) tasked one of its officers in Australia to make Throssell operational again. (41)

Evatt's relationship with Soviet intelligence...