The ABC and Indo-Pacific psychological warfare

Written by: (Contributed) on 23 July 2024

(Source: pacificausttv.com )

A major funding boost for the ABC has coincided with Canberra announcing the Pacific AUS TV Initiative designed to provide extensive media coverage across the Pacific, in line with traditional psychological warfare techniques.

Fears have arisen about China having upgraded their regional media coverage in recent years, enabling Beijing to enhance its diplomatic position in a more favourable light.

The Australian initiative, however, is not original and remains remarkably similar to previous initiatives designed to protect the UK Commonwealth and US hegemonic diplomatic positions and 'interests' through compliant Australian involvement.

In mid-July Canberra announced a $40.5 million upgrade with the ABC, Australia's national broadcaster; a total of $28.4 million has already been allocated over the next five years for the Pacific-Aus TV Initiative marked by enhancing ties between Australian and Pacific Islands media outlets to enable 'Pacific Islands people to access Australian content … and … creating additional news content for Pacific audiences'. (1)

The initiative has placed the Pacific region into the larger Indo-Pacific area 'with efforts to bolster Indo-Pacific media capacity and its ties to Australian-based media … the ABC will also provide support for media partners in the Pacific, South-east Asia and South Asia, and boost its radio transmission across the region'. (2)

The initiative has been established following fears arising about China's 'media foot-print in the Indo-Pacific region … and … to fend off growing Chinese cultural influence across the region'. (3) The initiative forms part of a classic psychological warfare technique, designed to shape favourable opinion toward the US and its allies, to the detriment of adversaries. (4)

The initiative, furthermore, fits comfortably and is best assessed in the context of the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) where 'the US, Japan, India, and Australia form the Quad hemming China in from all sides' while other countries allied with US-led diplomacy are included as lower-level partners. (5) Australia, historically, has been a close US ally with strong involvement in surrounding Asia and Pacific countries. As US diplomatic hostilities with China have increased in recent years, Australia's importance has been elevated.

The Australian initiative, however, is not new; in fact, it is merely a continuation of similar moves by both the US and UK to use Australia as a regional conduit through which hegemonic diplomacy has been conducted. Australia, it should be noted, has historically maintained the diplomatic position of being a sub-imperial power. (6) The AUKUS relationship is best viewed in that light.

Recent research following the declassification of various government documents about the highly secretive Information Research Department (IRD) has revealed how Australia was quietly drawn into the organisation; initially established as Britain's 'covert Cold War propaganda arm between 1948 and 1977 … the IRD covertly collected and disseminated material to the media to discredit human rights figures, undermine political opponents overseas, help overthrow governments, and promote UK influence and commercial interests around the world'. (7)

The IRD also 'maintained a strong relationship with the BBC. It supplied material, 'provided it was neither quoted directly, nor attributed to the government as being official policy. The BBC was an ideal conduit for IRD material because it was … in a class by itself'. (8) The stifling nature of British society with class privilege merging with state power, was also an ideal recruiting ground for spooks whose designated role was to use Commonwealth positions for ulterior motives and spurious agendas; the past Cold War and merged with the present one, as seen with the recent 'Australian' initiative.

Australia was initially drawn into the IRD network following a visit by Norman Reddaway to Canberra in late 1970 for a Four Power Information Meeting 'on defence and security strategy in the SE Asia, involving Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the US'. (9) Reddaway was an influential British spook: having served in the Second World War he was recruited to the Foreign Office and was influential in the creation of the IRD. (10) During the 1960s he was assigned to Indonesia as 'the co-ordinator of political warfare', designed to overthrow the progressive and pro-Chinese Sukarno presidential administration. (11)

By 1970, Reddaway was increasingly concerned about threats to traditional hegemonic positions in Asia, which had become a theatre of war and Cold War diplomatic tensions. The Vietnam War was, at that time, well under-way and regarded as a component part of the far-right domino theory of spreading influences across the region; Australian military involvement has been well recorded. The political position of the Labor administrations of Gough Whitlam and their troubled diplomatic relationship with their US counterparts has been well recorded elsewhere.

Following further high-level diplomatic meetings between Australia, the UK and US, a Department of Foreign Affairs official, Ross Smith, was selected as Principal Research officer for the newly established 'secret propaganda unit', in October 1971. (12) Smith, not surprisingly, had been previously employed as the Information Attache in the Australian embassy in Jakarta during 1962-65, 'providing contacts and information to Australian reporters and media outlets. His time there had coincided with the period when the IRD was very active in Indonesia producing propaganda designed to undermine left-leaning President Sukarno'. (13) Gross human rights abuses following the 1965 Suharto military coup did not appear to have caused either Smith, or his Australian employers, any concern whatsoever.

Declassified documents from the Australian national archive have revealed that involvement from Canberra was largely concentrated on the South-west Pacific area where the main IRD lacked contacts. It was noted, however, 'the Australians are working up distribution of their material in South-east Asia, and beginning to cultivate potential recipients in the UK through Australia House, who have sought our advice'. (14)

Once operational the Australian IRD 'distributed … unattributed research briefs and articles written for newspapers and journals, and the potential recipients would have been co-operative journalists writing on the region'. (15) A declassified document from the period has shown how Australia was supposed to organise 'information operations', spoon-feeding
journalists with material designed to influence events in the Western Pacific and South-east Asia region. (16)

Following the elevation of Smith to the position of Consul-General in Lae, PNG, in October, 1974, shortly before independence, control of the IRD passed through the hands of two further spooks who were both well versed in Indonesian affairs. Richard Butler took immediate control of the unit, having been appointed by Richard Woolcott, who later served as Australian ambassador to Indonesia during the period of the brutal invasion of East Timor. Australian support for the military invasion was well known, and despite over 180,000 East Timorese losing their lives in massacres and genocide, the 'problem' was glossed over and subject to diplomatic silence for decades. Canberra, subsequently, only declassified intelligence documents from the period very reluctantly and has proved hesitant about openly discussing any of the revelations, including those surrounding the deaths of the Balibo Five.

It is interesting to note the main IRD organisation was subsequently closed by then British Foreign Secretary Dr. David Owen, in 1977, due to its 'contacts with right-wing journalists and propagandists who were actively anti-Labour'; those involved in the shadowy, spooky world in which they operated, merely took further, and similar, appointments and moved elsewhere. (17)

Its Australian IRD partner also appears to have ceased operations at the same time. It is important to note the whole period of its existence coincided with the rise and fall of Gough Whitlam and his Labor administrations, together with the unification of Vietnam.

It has now, however, been resurrected; to serve similar objectives. But then, that is what they do.

It is also interesting to note official media releases from Canberra about the Pacific Aus TV Initiative have drawn specific attention to the assessed problem of the Solomon Islands, one of Canberra's favourite countries of interest and obsession. They allege the Solomon Star has been accepting funding from China for favourable coverage. No doubt Solomon Islanders, together with their Pacific Island counterparts, are now eagerly awaiting endless streams of dubious Australian media commentary ...

1. TV push to combat China play for power, The Weekend Australian, 13-14 July 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. See: The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, Victor Marchetti and John D, Marks, (London, 1976), with specific reference to Sub-section Part 2, Number 6, Propaganda and Disinformation, pp. 183-209.
5. See: The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
6. See: Sub-imperial power, Clinton Fernandez, (Victoria, 2022); and, Island off the coast of Asia, Clinton Fernandez, (Victoria, 2018).
7. Revealed: Australia's Secret Propaganda Unit, John Mcevoy and Peter Cronau, 16 June 2022, website: https://declassifiedaus.org/2022/06/16/revealed-australias-secret-propaganda-unit/
8. MI6, Stephen Dorril, (London, 2002), page 78.
9. Revealed, op.cit.
10. MI6, Dorril, op.cit., which contains numerous references to both Reddaway and the
IRD.
11. Revealed, op.cit.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Copy: Australian IRD, Mr Reddaway, Secret, Declassified, ibid., page 7.
15. Ibid.
16. See: Secret IRD, 1971, File – FCO168/4481, Reference – 36/11/1 1972, Declassified.
17. MI6, Dorril, op.cit., page 80.