The interview with John Menadue (Head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet when Whitlam was sacked by John Kerr) is long but a very interesting read.

Menadue is probably the only remaining significant figure on the inside of the Whitlam Government still alive (Keating was promoted from the back bench to a junior minister position a few weeks before the Dismissal and would have his own views).

There is a fair bit of contrasting Whitlam versus Albanese included. I am left with the feeling that Whitlam is the better of the two and would have done a lot more if he had the stonking majority that Albanese has.

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Quote:

Whitlam’s reservations about the American alliance were firming but he was conscious of the politics: of being wedged by conservatives on the issue. What concerned him towards the end was when he found out that Pine Gap was not run by the Pentagon, but by the CIA. That produced quite an outraged response because Whitlam had been deceived for three years into believing it was run by the Pentagon and not by the CIA. That became an issue in the subsequent election and in the American response. I’ve got no doubt that the CIA was directly involved in the dismissal of the Whitlam Government. I had assumed and known they were standing in the background, and I’ve subsequently learned they were very much in the foreground.
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#Auspol #Whitlam #TheDismisal #50Years #History

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/what-would-whitlam-think-of-the-albanese-government/