These matters, and their backstories, may seem relatively minor, but warrant attention to prevent them from becoming harbingers of more serious infractions.

The first two official war history series, Bean’s on World War I and Gavin Long’s on World War II (1952–77), covered military operations in considerable detail, as well as Australian domestic politics and medical aspects, but included only limited coverage of higher strategic decisions.

In the 1980s, Robert O’Neill, the official historian of Australia’s involvement in the Korean War of 1950–53, realised that the strategic and diplomatic aspects of Australia’s commitment were at least as important as the military operations. With governmental approval, he divided the history into two volumes, one on strategy and diplomacy (including the origins of the ANZUS Treaty) and the other on operations. O’Neill, who died in April, was the author of both volumes, whereas the earlier and subsequent official war historians wrote some but not all the volumes in their respective series. Notwithstanding this expansion into sensitive international relations, governments continued to respect the principles of unrestricted access to all relevant sources and publication without official or political censorship. The texts of each volume were submitted to the relevant departments – Prime Minister and Cabinet, Defence and Foreign Affairs – but the only material that official agencies could withhold was information not yet released by a foreign government or anything that might reveal intelligence ‘sources and methods’.

Shortly after the strategic-diplomatic volume of O’Neill’s history was published, I was appointed Australia’s fourth official war historian. The series was originally designated to cover Australia’s involvement in the Malayan Emergency (1948–60) and the Vietnam War, but for some years governments refused to include Konfrontasi, the Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation of 1963–66. This commitment, too often overlooked, was important both in its own right and as a significant part of Australia’s Vietnam story.

The exclusion of Confrontation was not to cover up a failure. On the contrary, the commitment was handled with greater political, diplomatic, and military skill than the Vietnam War and had a more successful outcome. As a hint of what was to come, some agencies seemed to regard anything to do with Australian-Indonesian relations as too sensitive to discuss publicly, but at least governments consistently maintained an ‘all or nothing’ approach. At first, Confrontation was completely excluded from the Malaya-Vietnam history, rather than allowing only an incomplete or censored account. When the decision was reversed and Confrontation included, the principles governing access and censorship were faithfully applied.

The Cabinet minute appointing David Horner as official historian of a fifth series, covering peacekeeping and post-Cold War operations, indicated that the same conditions of unrestricted access and absence of censorship would apply. DFAT, however, objected to Horner’s reference in one volume to the political and military struggle in Cambodia in 1997, which led to Hun Sen’s complete dominance, as a ‘coup’. This was the term used by United Nations and other authorities but, in what appears to have been a ‘pre-emptive buckle’, DFAT tried to prevent its publication. Horner’s vigorous insistence on his independence led to DFAT’s being reminded that, under the Cabinet authority, diplomatic sensitivity was not a valid reason for such censorship. The reference to a coup survived.

From his appointment in 2015 as the official historian of a sixth series, on military and peacekeeping operations in Timor, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Craig Stockings was determined to maintain the traditions established by his predecessors, ensuring that the strategic and diplomatic context of Australian operations was described and that the volumes were published without official or political censorship, withholding only matters of genuine national security.

Accordingly, the first half of Born of Fire and Ash, the first volume in the series, recounts in comprehensive detail how the longstanding policy of Australian politicians and officials, to maintain the closest possible relations with the authorities in Indonesia, came into conflict with Australian public opinion, which reacted to evidence of Indonesian atrocities by turning with unexpected speed and strength towards support for the Timorese independence movement.

Much of this has long been known and recounted in Australian as well as other international accounts. Nevertheless, DFAT for three years sought to withhold from publication all or most of that section. According to Stockings, the objection was based not on genuine national security grounds, but on the possibility of diplomatic or political embarrassment. When the book was finally published in a form acceptable to Stockings, DFAT neither launched nor promoted it.

It is disappointing that DFAT, which for fifty years has done much to encourage well-informed discussion on past and contemporary Australian foreign policy, has appeared in recent years to see its primary role as to protect current ministerial interests and to implement the policies that emerge from the Prime Minister’s Office and other agencies. For many observers, the nadir of this process was the appointment as departmental head of Kathryn Campbell, the public servant heavily criticised in the Robodebt royal commission, but that appointment followed years of gradual erosion of the department’s stature and policymaking role, which the current minister, Penny Wong, is clearly seeking to redress.

On the other hand, it is pleasing to note that the Australian War Memorial, the subject of much criticism in recent years over its costly expansion, its coverage of the Frontier Wars, and its representation of alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, was on the side of the angels in this controversy. In his foreword to Born of Fire and Ash and in his public presentations, Stockings has consistently expressed gratitude for the unwavering support he received from successive Directors and Councils of the AWM. This culminated in an event in March 2023, a substitute for the launch that DFAT had declined to present.

Since then, Stockings has discussed the book, and the attempt to censor it, on prominent platforms, ranging from Phillip Adams’s Late Night Live on Radio National to Gerard Henderson’s Sydney Institute, and his ‘fiery history’ has received a long, glowing review in a leading foreign policy journal. The attempt to censor the history has succeeded only in drawing more attention to the subject.

At the function in March, the AWM Director, Matt Anderson, affirmed that the post of official historian is an important national position, appointed by Cabinet. This marks a significant difference from another category of books about national security agencies which are sometimes designated as official histories, but more appropriately as authorised histories. These authorised histories are not initiated by a Cabinet decision but by a single agency, which retains much greater rights over what does and does not get published. Historians (including this writer) engaged by departments or agencies to write historical accounts invariably urge their sponsors to recognise that granting the greatest possible access to records and freedom of publication is in the agencies’ own best interests: a balanced and candid account carries more credibility than ‘an inside job’. In most cases, the historians are pushing on an open door, but if there is any dispute they cannot cite a Cabinet minute as a defence against departmental constraints.

In Australia, as in Britain and the United States, several intelligence agencies have commissioned histories as part of a concerted effort to restore and maintain public trust, especially after the Edward Snowden revelations in 2013. In 2019, the head of the Australian Signals Directorate, Mike Burgess, commissioned John Blaxland to prepare a two-volume official history. When Burgess moved to ASIO in 2020, his successor, Rachel Noble, terminated Blaxland’s contract and commissioned a former ‘siginter’, John Fahey, to prepare a two-volume history. Noble later told a parliamentary committee that she had cancelled Blaxland’s appointment not for national security reasons but because the draft chapters of his first volume devoted too much space to the early history of cryptography rather than to Australian signals intelligence.

Blaxland and his co-author, Clare Birgin, were given permission to retain and publish what they had researched and written on the period to 1945, but could only complete the work from public sources. The result is the ‘unofficial history’ Revealing Secrets (NewSouth, 2023), which has received glowing endorsements from respected figures, positive reviews, and prominent articles and presentations by the co-authors. By contrast, The Factory (Allen & Unwin, 2023), the first volume of the official history, has the air of an ‘inside job’ and has received little public attention.

Commentators on political scandals have often observed that the attempted cover-up does more damage than the original wrongdoing. Something similar is the case with official or authorised histories. Attempts to control the narrative for political or diplomatic reasons not only contravene established and valuable principles; they are more likely than not to be counter-productive, attracting more attention to the subject of controversy. Whether DFAT and other agencies have learned those lessons will be tested by later volumes in Stockings’ series, on Australian operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially in their coverage of the political and diplomatic context of those controversial commitments.

Endnotes

1. A full listing of the official war histories, including those that have been digitised, is available on the Australian War Memorial website at: https://www.awm.gov.au/learn/understanding-military-history/official-histories .
2. Craig Stockings, Born of Fire and Ash: Australian operations in response to the East Timor crisis, 1999-2000, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2022.
3. David Horner and John Connor, The Good International Citizen: Australian Peacekeeping in Asia, Africa and Europe, 1991-93, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2014, p. 252 ff.
4. Stockings, Born of Fire and Ash, pp. 3-419.
5. John Blaxland, ‘Craig Stockings’ fiery official history of the East Timor crisis’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, vol. 77, no.3, pp. 333-344.
6. Anthony Galloway, ‘Spy agency says dumping historian had nothing to do with national security’, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 October 2020.
7. John Blaxland and Clare Birgin, Revealing Secrets: An Unofficial History of Australian Signals Intelligence and the Advent of Cyber, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2023. See also the review article by David Schaefer, ‘Sigint and Cyber Power Down Under’, Intelligence and National Security, published online 31 May 2023, accessed at DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2023.2219442 .
8. John Fahey, The Factory: The Official History of the Australian Signals Directorate, Vol. 1, 1947 to 1972, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2023.