Author adamant — book will not be cut

Press, 15 September 1976, Page 6

Author adamant — book will not be cut

PA Auckland The controversial biography of the late Sir Walter Nash will be published uncensored.

This unequivocal statement was made yesterday from the book’s author, Professor Keith Sinclair, interviewed at Auckland University history department. Professor Sinclair said he only had one thing to say: “As far as I know, the book is going to be published on its due date — and we don’t intend to censor it.”

The Security Intelligence Service is said to be demanding that three passages be deleted from the book. Professor Sinclair’s stand has had moral support from the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Rowling).

There was no need now to sustain security by deleting the three disputed passages from the biography, he said. At a press conference in Wellington yesterday on the eve of his overseas trip, Mr

Rowling said most of the people involved at that time had either died, or were now out of positions of responsibility. The Security Intelligence Service has had no “direct” contact with Professor Sinclair or his publishers, the Auckland University Press, in an effort to have the material excised.

This was said yesterday by an S.I.S. spokesman, who would give no name, and who was “not prepared to comment further.”

It has been reported that there are three passages in the proposed biography which are being “appealed against,” and that one relates to attempts by British and United States security agencies to block the appointment of the late Dr W. B. Sutch as head of the Department of Industries and Commerce in 1958, on the ground that he was a security risk. The S.I.S. spokesman had no comment either when asked whether the service was still pursuing the matter, and “no comment” again — with a chuckle — when asked if the service had been upset about the publicity given the matter in the last two days. Miss Shirley Smith, wife of the late Dr Stuch, said in an interview yesterday that she knew of nothing which could have prompted the latest controversy.

It was learned on Monday that Professor Sinclair had discovered among the mountain of papers left by the late Prime Minister that Dr Sutch was under suspicion in 1937 when he accompanied Sir Walter on a 10-month round of negotiations on reciprocal trade with the British and other European Governments.

During the long negotiations, British Intelligence, it has been apparently suggested in the papers, blamed Dr Sutch, one of Sir Walter’s key advisers, for a leak to newspapers.

This was apparently never proved, and Miss Smith said yesterday she had never heard the suggestion until this week. Her husband, however, had leaked to the press at that time the fact that Sir Anthony Eden had run a blue pencil through a prepared speech of the then

New Zealand High Commissioner, (Mr W. Jordan).

The speech had been intended for delivery to the League of Nations, and was blue-pencilled because at a time Britain was taking its appeasement line. New Zealand was apparently about to pursue an independent foreign policy.

Miss Smith did not meet Dr Sutch until several years after this. But she was in England at the time, and remembers the “furore” of the time.

‘However, I never heard any suggestion of a reprimand for Bill over this,” she said.

The suggestion that Dr Sutch was blocked from becoming Secretary of Industries and Commerce in 1958 also surprised her.