THE COMMUNIST GLOBAL OFFENSIVE CONTINUES

"London, March 14 - An estimated 72 percent, of the Soviet diplomats accredited to West European capitals are spies, a prestigious British study group reports. Russian intelligence operations in Western Europe are increasing, the report says, despite the current atmosphere of East-West detente." - Fred Coleman of Associated Press in The Age, Melbourne, March 15th.

The report mentioned, "This Peacetime Strategy of the Soviet Union", is a study of the Soviet's espionage methods. It confirms a warning by NATO security spokesmen, that there is no evidence that the Soviet strategists have modified in any way their broad global strategy, directed towards ultimate World Domination. At a time when the press everywhere carries comments to the effect that the "Cold war now only exists in the minds of right-wing reactionaries and professional anti-Communists", "This Peacetime Strategy of the Soviet Union" brings a much-needed dash of cold realism.

Published by the London-based Institute for the Study of Conflict, the study group responsible includes some of the top British experts on the Soviet Union. One of the contributors is the well-known military correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, Brigadier W.F.K. Thompson. The authors of this report conclude that in Soviet terms, detente and "peaceful co-existence" mean an intensification of the war against the free society, using all methods just short of military conflict.

The British security situation was improved following the expulsion in 1971 of 105 Soviet spies masquerading as diplomats. But the position is serious in all other Western European NATO nations, with the exception of Belgium, which expelled 32 Soviet spies last year. The total number of Soviet officials in Western Europe has grown by about 50 per cent, over the past ten years, from 1485 to 2146. More than half of the present number is employed either by the KGB, the civilian intelligence organisation, or by the GRU, the military intelligence organisation.

Australians might ponder on the significance of the British report at a time when not only is the Soviet Union seeking to increase its trading relations with Australia, but Red China is doing likewise. The establishment of diplomatic relations with East Germany and North Vietnam will bring more Communist agents into Australia. Prime Minister Whitlam, Attorney-General Murphy, Trade Minister Dr. Jim Cairns and many of their Labor Party colleagues are clearly quite pleased with the direction in which they are taking Australia. If there is no change of that direction over the next few years, Australians are now living in the twilight of the free society.

BEHIND THE ATTACK ON ASIO

"Canberra - The sword of Damocles has hung for nearly two years over the head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation... The Prime Minister (Mr. Whitlam) called the Director-General of ASIO (Mr. Peter Barbour) to Canberra within a fortnight of the election of the new Labor Government last December. In polite, but firm terms, Mr. Whitlam told Mr. Barbour of the new Government's approach to the security service. He explained that the A.L.P. Federal conference in Launceston in June, 1971, had declared that a Labor Government must place ASIO under Ministerial control." - Allan Barnes, Chief Political Correspondent, The Age, Melbourne, March 17th.

The Communists have campaigned relentlessly over the years for the abolition of ASIO. As on so many other issues, they relied upon the more revolutionary Marxists inside the ALP to advance their anti-ASIO cause. It was Marxist Bob Gould of New South Wales who moved the motion for the abolition of ASIO at the 1971 Launceston Conference of the ALP. The vote was 22-22, with Senator Murphy voting against the motion, which was ruled lost" by President T.J. Burne. However, Senator Murphy told the Conference that if elected to Ministerial office, he would place ASIO under firm control.

We do not propose to analyse the ASIO affair in detail at present. But we point out that there has been considerable hysteria generated by certain journalists and commentators who dislike ASIO. They have created a false picture of ASIO. There is, we feel, a long-term objective in all this. A classical example of hysteria was provided with a front-page story in the Melbourne Observer of March 18th. Under the sensational heading,
"HOW THEY'LL MURDER THE PM." the story read:
"Highly trained elite assassination squads of three are leaving Melbourne for Canberra today. They will lie in wait for the Yugoslav Prime Minister, Mr. Bijedic, who arrives on Tuesday. Their orders are to assassinate Mr. Bijedic, at any price. The 'troikas' are specially trained in the use of explosives and booby traps. An unofficial spokesman for the Australian Croats, Mr. Merjan Jurjevic, of Carlton, says the Ustashi assassins are determined to kill."

Mr. Jurjevic has been featured in the Australian Communist press over many years. He is neither an unofficial nor any other type of spokesman for Australian Croats, the overwhelming majority of who reject him. He has not proved a very reliable authority on the subject of Croatian terrorists. We are not qualified to express an opinion on the relative competence of the Federal Police, ASIO or the Victorian Special Branch (which we note Victorian Labor leader Holding says he wants to abolish) but we find it an insult to commonsense that these three organisations between them cannot locate in Melbourne elite assassination squads whom Mr. Jurjevic bluntly states were leaving last Sunday to murder the Yugoslav Prime Minister.

As is now known the demonstration by Croats in Canberra last Sunday was peaceful. One of the sidelights of last Sunday's demonstration was a ring to the Melbourne office of the Australian League of Rights, last Monday, by a representative of radio station 2GB Sydney, checking on a report that League National Director, Mr. Eric Butler, was at the Canberra demonstration. Mr. Butler spent last Sunday on his property.

A headline in the Sunday Telegraph of March 18th read: "ASIO DEFIED ME TOO: GREENWOOD". The story underneath, by Paul Kelly, started:
"The former Attorney-General, Senator Greenwood, revealed yesterday that ASIO had withheld information from him last year on the activities of Croatian terrorists in Australia, " Senator Greenwood has flatly disputed that he ever made any such allegations against ASIO, stressing that he had the utmost confidence in the organisation and had always found Mr. Barbour co-operative. Mr. Barbour's "crime" in Senator Murphy's eyes, was that he could not provide any evidence to support the wild allegations being made about Ustasha terrorist organisations operating in Australia. There may be such organisations. But we flatly disbelieve that ASIO would have refused to provide evidence of such organisations if this evidence was available.

Thoughtful Australians are left with the disturbed feeling that the visit of the Yugoslav Prime Minister has been exploited to create a situation in which the Government could move against ASIO, with a view to destroying its effectiveness. The Communists are delighted with what has happened. Prime Minister Whitlam has promised the visiting Yugoslav Prime Minister that he will take more vigorous action against local "Croatian terrorists". Does this mean in fact the intimidation of Croatians in Australia who naturally look forward to the independence of Croatia when Tito dies?

Do Australians really need to grovel to Communist Yugoslavia as well as to Communist China, Communist North Vietnam and Communist East Germany? What a strange type of new "independent" Australia.

AUSTRALIA'S MOMENT OF TRUTH: A TIME TO STAND TO BE COUNTED

With every day that passes now the totalitarian knocks grow louder. Prime Minister Whitlam recently said on the ABC programme, "Monday conference", that he regarded the Monarchy as "outmoded" and "irrelevant". There is a campaign to tear down the Australian flag. The Prime Minister also says that State boundaries "are largely irrelevant" which means that the Federal Constitution is also scheduled for destruction.

Now is the moment when every red-blooded Australian must stand up to be counted and join the patriotic counter-offensive. Every reader within DRIVING DISTANCE should be present at the I. Younger Ross Hall, Keppel Street, Carlton, Melbourne, on Friday, March 30 at 8 p.m to hear two brilliant speakers, Mr. Jeremy Lee and Mr. Eric Butler, defend the essential Australian heritage, and suggest constructive action. Chairman: Mr. Horton Davies. Chairman of the Christian Institute for Individual Freedom. Be present WITH YOUR FAMILY. It is their future now at stake. And tell all your friends and everyone else who should be interested. Every seat filled is a vote against the subverters, traitors, and vandals.

A NOTE ON THOSE "BOOM" WOOL PRICES

"Official: wool prices have hit the roof. The average price for wool this week has equaled the average price for wool sold during the 1950-51 boom." Kevin Boyle, Primary Industries Reporter, in The Age, Melbourne, March 12th.

This is the type of report which gives many urban Australians a false picture concerning Australia's rural industries. The current price of wool may be approximately the same as the prices obtained twenty years ago, but in those twenty years the value of the monetary unit has been eroded by at least 60 percent. Many of those woolgrowers who managed to survive the recent rural crisis will require a number of years of present prices in order to liquidate their massive debts. And there is no certainty that present prices will continue. The only certainty is that unless present financial policies are changed inflation and increasing financial costs are goring to continue rising. Treasurer Crean offers no solution to the growing inflation problem.

SOUTHERN AFRICA A NEW VIETNAM?

"Lusaka, Thurs. AAP. - President Kaunda claimed today that South Africa and Rhodesia had hatched a plot which would give them an excuse to attack Zambia." - The Herald, Melbourne, March 16th.

Faced with irrefutable evidence that Zambia is being used as a base from which terrorists are launching attacks on Rhodesians, anti-Rhodesians often try to argue that these terrorist attacks are the direct result of the Rhodesian declaration of complete independence from the United Kingdom in 1965. Terrorist attacks from Zambia began in September 1964, nine months before the British severed Rhodesia (Southern Rhodesia) and Zambia (Northern Rhodesia).

President Kaunda has charged the Rhodesians with laying land mines inside Zambia, but there has been little or no international publicity of the fact that Zambian police arrested Zambians for laying these mines. President Kaunda has serious internal troubles and operates what is a virtual one-party dictatorship. The creators of "world opinion" studiously ignore this fact."

In the security trials taking place in South Africa at present, evidence has been presented of how guerrillas trained in the Soviet Union had planned to land on the coast of South Africa and overthrow the South African Government. Four Africans being charged under the South African Terrorism Act were among a group of 24 given guerrilla training in the Soviet. Guerrilla activities against the whole of Southern Africa are becoming increasingly sophisticated. When President Kaunda talks of a "Vietnam type of conflict" developing, he believes that United Nations intervention might be encouraged if the propaganda line can be developed that it is the Europeans of Southern Africa who are threatening Zambia. The UN Security Council has recently approved a resolution calling for economic aid to assist Zambia. Australia under the Whitlam Government is becoming increasingly important in the pattern of developments against Southern Africa.

A recent, but comparatively unpublicised visitor to Australia was Tanzanian Foreign Minister Mr. John Malecela, who strongly defends the mounting guerrilla attacks against Southern Africa. Graham Williams-reports Mr. Malecela as saying (vide The Australian, March 17th),
"These guerrillas can't fight the soldiers of Ian Smith with bows and arrows but they can't get weapons from the West. Fortunately we have people in the Eastern world who understand what we mean - China and Russia who give us these arms."

Mr. Malecela had private discussions with Prime Minister Whitlam but declined to say what was discussed. We have no doubt that the Tanzanian Foreign Minister, whose country is a major base for the Red Chinese, received firm assurances that the Labor-Socialist Government will do all in its power to support the "liberation" of Southern Africa. We have consistently warned for years that one of the major front lines of the Free World was on the Zambesis, and that Australians would be contributing towards their own destruction as an independent European nation if they contributed in any way to the overthrow of stable, civilised Government in Southern Africa.