Hawke doubts Pilger’s competence

Press, 26 January 1988, Page 6

Hawke doubts Pilger’s competence

NZPA-AAP Canberra The office of the Australian Prime Minister yesterday questioned the competence of the expatriate Australian jour- . nalist, John Pilger, over his claims of C.I.A. and .British intelligence involvement in the 1975 dismissal of the then Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam. A spokesman for the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, told AAP Mr Pilger was “not renowned for getting things right.” “The Prime Minister never places reliance on anything he (Mr Pilger) says,” the spokesman said. Relations between Mr Hawke and Mr Pilger were strained last year by an ABC television interview in which Mr Pilger questioned the Prime Minister over his commitment to traditional Labour values and his Government’s media ownership policies, among other issues. After the interview was broadcast, Mr Hawke’s office complained to the 'ABC that the editing of the interview had been unfair to Mr Hawke. A former Minister in the Whitlam Government, Clyde Cameron, said in Adelaide that allegations that British intelligence was involved in the

dismissal of the Whitlam Government came as no surprise. Mr Cameron said he always suspected Mls and Ml 6 had a part to play in the sacking of Mr Whitlam by the then Gover-nor-General, Sir JohnKerr.

In Canberra, the former Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, rejected Pilger’s claims as “absurd.” The United States Embassy in Canberra declined to comment on the allegations. “The embassy does not comment on any allegations of C.LA. activity,” an Embassy spokesman told AAP.

A spokesman for the British High Commission could not be contacted for comment.

“Intelligence services from Allied countries do not operate this way in relation to an ally,” Mr Fraser said on a radio programme.

“It would emerge in the future and lead to a great deal of ill will between people who ought to be friends,” he said.

“It (the allegation) is an absurdity.”

Mr Fraser said if he had had any knowledge of foreign intelligence involvement in the weeks before the dismissal he would have exposed it “forthwith”.