A Double Agent Down Under: Australian Security and the Infiltration of the Left

Because of its clandestine character, the world of the undercover agent has remained murky. This article attempts to illuminate this shadowy feature of intelligence operations. It examines the activities of one double agent, the Czech-born Maximilian Wechsler, who successfully infiltrated two socialist organizations, in the early 1970s. Wechsler was engaged by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. However, he was ‘unreliable’: he came in from the cold and went public. The article uses his exposés to recreate his undercover role. It seeks to throw some light on the recruitment methods of ASIO, on the techniques of infiltration, on the relationship between ASIO and the Liberal Party during a period of political volatility in Australia, and on the contradictory position of the Labor Government towards the security services

Political Activism, Academic Freedom and the Cold War: an American Experience

Professor Lyman Bradley was chairman of the German Department at New York University and an executive member of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, listed by the Attorney General as a subversive organization. In 1951 he was fired and his long academic career ended. His dismissal, the first by the New York University on political grounds, raises broader concerns about the character of university governance and the fragility of academic freedom in the modern age. In most accounts of academic McCarthyism there have been two historiographical tendencies. One emphasises the overwhelming power of institutions that were allied with McCarthyism; such political power rendered impotent any academic resistance. The other argues that academic McCarthyism was only effective because professors were too timid or frightened to act publicly or collectively in defence of academic freedom. This study will demonstrate that neither can solely explain Bradley’s political persecution. The denial of civil liberties and the violation of academic freedom required three interlocking factors: a powerful Congressional Committee, a determined University administration and a complicit academic staff

Multiorgan MRI findings after hospitalisation with COVID-19 in the UK (C-MORE): a prospective, multicentre, observational cohort study

Introduction: The multiorgan impact of moderate to severe coronavirus infections in the post-acute phase is still poorly understood. We aimed to evaluate the excess burden of multiorgan abnormalities after hospitalisation with COVID-19, evaluate their determinants, and explore associations with patient-related outcome measures. Methods: In a prospective, UK-wide, multicentre MRI follow-up study (C-MORE), adults (aged ≥18 years) discharged from hospital following COVID-19 who were included in Tier 2 of the Post-hospitalisation COVID-19 study (PHOSP-COVID) and contemporary controls with no evidence of previous COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid antibody negative) underwent multiorgan MRI (lungs, heart, brain, liver, and kidneys) with quantitative and qualitative assessment of images and clinical adjudication when relevant. Individuals with end-stage renal failure or contraindications to MRI were excluded. Participants also underwent detailed recording of symptoms, and physiological and biochemical tests. The primary outcome was the excess burden of multiorgan abnormalities (two or more organs) relative to controls, with further adjustments for potential confounders. The C-MORE study is ongoing and is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04510025. Findings: Of 2710 participants in Tier 2 of PHOSP-COVID, 531 were recruited across 13 UK-wide C-MORE sites. After exclusions, 259 C-MORE patients (mean age 57 years [SD 12]; 158 [61%] male and 101 [39%] female) who were discharged from hospital with PCR-confirmed or clinically diagnosed COVID-19 between March 1, 2020, and Nov 1, 2021, and 52 non-COVID-19 controls from the community (mean age 49 years [SD 14]; 30 [58%] male and 22 [42%] female) were included in the analysis. Patients were assessed at a median of 5·0 months (IQR 4·2–6·3) after hospital discharge. Compared with non-COVID-19 controls, patients were older, living with more obesity, and had more comorbidities. Multiorgan abnormalities on MRI were more frequent in patients than in controls (157 [61%] of 259 vs 14 [27%] of 52; p<0·0001) and independently associated with COVID-19 status (odds ratio [OR] 2·9 [95% CI 1·5–5·8]; padjusted=0·0023) after adjusting for relevant confounders. Compared with controls, patients were more likely to have MRI evidence of lung abnormalities (p=0·0001; parenchymal abnormalities), brain abnormalities (p<0·0001; more white matter hyperintensities and regional brain volume reduction), and kidney abnormalities (p=0·014; lower medullary T1 and loss of corticomedullary differentiation), whereas cardiac and liver MRI abnormalities were similar between patients and controls. Patients with multiorgan abnormalities were older (difference in mean age 7 years [95% CI 4–10]; mean age of 59·8 years [SD 11·7] with multiorgan abnormalities vs mean age of 52·8 years [11·9] without multiorgan abnormalities; p<0·0001), more likely to have three or more comorbidities (OR 2·47 [1·32–4·82]; padjusted=0·0059), and more likely to have a more severe acute infection (acute CRP >5mg/L, OR 3·55 [1·23–11·88]; padjusted=0·025) than those without multiorgan abnormalities. Presence of lung MRI abnormalities was associated with a two-fold higher risk of chest tightness, and multiorgan MRI abnormalities were associated with severe and very severe persistent physical and mental health impairment (PHOSP-COVID symptom clusters) after hospitalisation. Interpretation: After hospitalisation for COVID-19, people are at risk of multiorgan abnormalities in the medium term. Our findings emphasise the need for proactive multidisciplinary care pathways, with the potential for imaging to guide surveillance frequency and therapeutic stratification

“A blot upon liberty”: McCarthyism, Dr Barsky and the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee

The aim of this paper is to use the assault on the JAFRC, and Barsky’s individual story within that, to illuminate the mechanisms of political repression during the early Cold War. The JAFRC was the first to be subpoenaed by HUAC, the first to challenge its legitimacy, and the first to set the pattern for Cold War inquisitions. In 1950, after three years of unsuccessful legal appeals, the Committee’s entire Executive Board was jailed. Barsky received the most severe sentence. It was the biggest single incarceration of political prisoners in America during the early Cold War. Upon release, Barsky lost his right to practise medicine. By early 1955, the JAFRC had dissolved: like Barsky’s career, it had been crippled by McCarthyism

Scientific Freedom and Post-war Politics: Australia, 1945-55

The Cold War was a tough time for some scientists. Most stayed in the no-man's-land of political neutrality. Others bunkered down with the Left. A few went further and joined, openly, the Communist Party. This provided cold war warriors with abundant and usually lethal ammunition. This article examines the position of two Australian scientists whose professional lives were blighted or thwarted due to that explosive mixture of Cold War politics and Communist Party membership.\ud The international literature on left-wing scientists during the Cold War is bountiful but the Australian literature is sparse and inadequate. There is no equivalent, for example, of Werskey's pioneering work on British communist scientists (Hyman Levy, J.D. Bernal and J.B.S. Haldane)1, or Whitaker and Marcuse's exhaustive study of Canadian scientists under surveillance. What we have, instead, are brief discussions of the political impact of Cold War pressures on Australian science in biographies, organisational studies and other works with unrelated themes. Indeed the most systematic analyses can be found in unpublished studies by Rasmussen and Moran. Thus, the main objective of this article is to redress this oversight and, hopefully, illuminate some ways in which the politics of the Cold War impinged upon the lives of left-wing Australian scientists. In order to give sharper focus, the tale of only two scientists, Dr R.E.B. Makinson and Dr T.R. Kaiser, both of whom were members of the Communist Party, will be unravelled. There were, of course, a great many other Australian scientists, of whom the most notable was Marcus Oliphant, who believed their careers were diverted or derailed as a result of the Cold War atmosphere.8 Most were communist or left-leaning; some, as in Oliphant's case, merely liberal. Usually, evidence of discrimination remains circumstantial, conjectural or anecdotal. Victimisers rarely wish to leave footprints. But what is different in the case of Makinson and Kaiser is the existence of archival documents that provide explicit evidence of the political intrusion of the Cold War

No lasting peace: Labor, Communism and the Cominform, Australia and Great Britain, 1945-50

The formation of the Cominform in 1947 was a decisive moment in the Cold War. Although many rank-and-file activists in the Labor and Communist parties in Great Britain and Australia continued to cooperate with each other, the formal relationship between the two parties sharply deteriorated. In Britain, the formation of the Cominform shattered the Communist Party's hopes of post-war class peace. Communists' critical attitude to the Labour Party became openly hostile. However, no fundamental change to Communist Party policy occurred. In industry, the Party became more militant but, generally, continued to pursue an approach that involved collaboration more than confrontation. In Australia, the situation was different. Cominform perspectives significantly altered the position of the Communist Party, which shifted from conciliation to intransigence, from a desire to cooperate with the Labor Party to an intention to 'liquidate' reformism. Enmity was mutual: influenced by both the Cold War environment and the increasingly powerful anti-communist Industrial Groups, the hostility of Labor to communism became palpable. The article examines the post-war decline of both communist parties in the context of the interplay between Communist Party policy, Labor Party antagonism, and the international environment of the early Cold War

'Behind Enemy Lines' Menzies, Evatt and Passports for Peking

This article focuses primarily on Australian government responses to the 1952 Peace Conference for Asia and the Pacific Regions. Because the conference was to be held in Peking, it was the subject of immense controversy: Chinese\ud communists were fighting Australian soldiers in Korea and Australian peace activists, most communist or 'fellow travellers', sought to travel behind the 'bamboo curtain'. In this context, the Menzies government's policies on passports were sharply silhouetted. Although this conference has been overlooked in the literature, we can infer from the trajectory of relevant Cold War historiography that Prime Minister Menzies would adopt restrictive, even draconian, policies.\ud This article argues otherwise. It suggests that it was that consistent champion of civil liberties, former deputy prime minister, attorney-general and secretary of the General Assembly of the United Nations and now, in 1952, Leader of the Opposition, Dr Evatt, who favoured more repressive action towards prospective delegates. In contrast, Menzies and his Cabinet were more lenient and shifted towards a harsher policy belatedly and reluctantly. This episode, therefore, challenges some comfortable assumptions about how the early Cold War was fought in Australia