Historian Manning Clark recruited the most powerful cell of activists
in history while teaching at Geelong Grammar – media proprietors Rupert
Murdoch and Kerry Packer and heir to the throne of Australia, Prince Charles
of Wales.
In a year-long investigation, The Bug has established that the insidious
Clark put reds into the bed as well as under it in his pervasive revolutionary
activity.
Fortitude Valley’s unofficial poet laureate Ralph Bambridge told us
over beers at Dooleys that he had attended a dinner party at the elite school’s
“Timbertop” bush retreat in the 1950s.
There he witnessed an extraordinary ceremony – Soviet spy Vladimir
Petrov conferred the Order of Lenin upon Clark’s students Murdoch,
Packer and Charles (nee Windsor).
“Clark was there, of course, with all the Geelong Grammar commos. Quite
a party. Forty odd years ago.
"I’d had a bellyful of the laughing juice but I still remember
it distinctly.
“The young barons were thereby sworn in for the Soviet Union. I don’t
know much about medals but I know a deadset Marxist when I see one ... all
sporting their medals ... proud as a chap with two pricks.”
Bambridge, a Geelong Grammar old boy, or as he calls it, part of “Cell
Oz 1, said Clark deliberately instructed his recruits to debase all revered
institutions in Australian society in preparation for the dictatorship of
the proletariat.
"Australia was ripe you see. You know how obsessed Joe Stalin was.
Stalin was constantly muttering away in Moscow : what’s happening in
Brisbane? How goes the revolution? What are the comrades saying at the ’Gabba?
“This was why Clark was so valuable to the Communists. Go into any
pub in Brisbane and people are still discussing Manning Clark’s history.
It’s all Manning this, Manning that, at Dooley’s TAB bar."
Bambridge revealed that Clark’s codename was “Steeltrap”,
in Russian “Stinko”, for the quality of his mind.
“His history books when he was at the Australian National University
were just pinko scribblings really, just part of his effort.
“It was how he sent his troops out to bugger everything anybody ever
cared about in this country that really did the trick for the Russkies.”
Bambridge told The Bug this was the reason Packer first split and
then commercialised cricket.
“Obvious CPA tactics, old trouser button – corrupt the national
game. Think of anything more demoralising?”
And then there was the Philby connection.
For the first time Bambridge told of the microdot messages that went
from a cell in Kangaroo Point to the famous Cambridge-educated M15 spy and
mole.
“Kim Philby always went to see the Australians at the Test at Lords.
Why, I ask you? Think it was just the gentle smack of willow on leather,
the flannelled fools at play? Come on, you’re not so naive as that,
surely?”
Bambridge said Prince Charles had practically succeeded in his mission
– making Australia a republic.
“Why even the Nationals have had enough with the sexy royals and are
spruiking Eureka. Brilliant stuff! Dehumanise the royal family by having
them bang away like rabbits. Then even the bushies, the rock-hard conservatives
see them for what they really are.
" Bring 'em down to the lowest common denominator, nothing special,
no blue blood, just like the rest of us. Communism at its most pure. Beautiful.
Rosa Luxembourg couldn’t have done better.”
Bambridge said Charles had been the most effective of the cell: “He’s
undermined the monarchy very well – rooted it actually – sprouting
about architecture while Brixton’s burning, recruiting that redhead
who likes her toes sucked .... prize public relations that ... and what
about his goings on with that Camilla bird!
“He had the best job – working for the cause as well as ... having
a bloody good time doing it!
"And Murdoch? Well he did the government in a long time ago, old boy.
Murdoch’s the biggest agent of influence on the globe. Became a yank
for the greater good. Never forget – communism has no country.”
Bambridge then burst into song., The Internationale. (He was spontaneously
joined in by 20 men at Dooleys – furtive looking men, with Irish accents
and drinking Guinness on their own).
The unofficial poet laureate then continued his amazing story, that had
gold Walkley written all over it.
“Rupert, how good is he, I ask you, mate?
“Press, film ... and of course, his genius in this country was to
take over the working man’s game, rugby league
“The battlers couldn’t give two hoots when he took over the papers
– too bright to believe in what they said anyway.
"No, mucking around with footy was the thing for Godzone country –
soften the people up and give em what’s good for 'em.
"The politics is sensational. Small political minds think that’s
Rupert and Kerry’s sons stoush for control – boys and big penis
stuff. Take no mind of that bluff. The young blokes are in it too. The Conspiracy.
It’s twaddle, bosh, to think it's just corporate greed and Porsches
in this one!
“These people don’t need money. It’s about preparing the
ground for the takeover. Killing ordinary people’s confidence in what
they love. Clark taught us all that. Remember Sun Tzu – the double
spy, the-spy-within, the establishment type – he’s the best white
anter you can get in any society.”
Bambridge also said the Clark cell was also operating within the only other
media organisation in Australia: the Fairfax group
“Well, his own son, Andrew wasover there as editor of one of their
papers. One only had to read The Sun-Herald during and since his tenure
to understand. Like Pravda every Sunday. Alex Mitchell, the fifth columnist.
Fair dinkum. Trotsky would shiver at some of his derring do.
"The tentacles, old boy, are everywhere.”
Bambridge said he was relieved to be finally able to talk about what Clark
did to Australia because of recent revelations in The Courier-Mail.
“I’ve thought about it constantly. I kept it inside for a long
time. I can talk about it now that the news is out and everybody’s
dead. Not Rupert, of course. He’s still working for the common man.
But the others, Chips Rafferty, Johnny O’Keeffe, Albert Namatjira,
Dame Pattie Menzies, Melba, Errol Flynn, Dally Messenger, Victor Trumper,
Miles Franklin, Mo Rene, Sir Paul Hasluck, Cardinal Gilroy, Phar Lap –
and don’t forget Simpson and his smelly donkey.
“This lot tried to change Australia forever. They knew, as Clark inculcated
into them, the power of history in Australia.”
Bambridge said since Clark’s death, things had dropped off.
“There were great hopes for Danii Minogue. Recruited from Young Talent
Time. Get ’em young, and you got’em forever, Lenin said. She married
the Prime Minister’s son, credibility plus, personality. Then, sadly,
she went bad – starstruck, pneumatic breasts, Playboy, Hollywood, left
Julian, added a “i” to her name, turned into a capitalist running
bitch.
"Still, sometimes you have to leave agents out in the cold. Means to
an end, my good man. There was some KGB scuttlebutt that when she got the
gong – the Order of Lenin – she misunderstood and thought it was
John Lennon not wax head Vlad, but I don’t think that theory holds
water.
"Shame, such a good bit of talent.”
Bambridge told The Bug that at the end of a long life as the most
famous poet ever to come from the Valley he was most grateful to The Courier-Mail
for first exposing Manning Clark as an agent of influence.
“You’ve got to hand it to ‘em. Before them , who was effective
in fighting the commos? Bob Santamaria did his bit but Ming (The Right Honourable
Sir Robert “Pig Iron” Menzies KCMG, QC, Warden of the Cinque Ports,
minerals exporter Prime Minister of Her Majesty’s dominion of Australia
1939-40, 1948-67) couldn’t even get the Communist Party dissolution
bill through the people.
“It took guts for the Courier to run that story. Bugger all fact they
had – but they knew it was right and went ahead and printed. Published
and be damned! A high moment for Australian journalism.
“I admire them at the Bowen Hills word factory. You see, It's so hard
to attack the dead because they can’t defend themselves. You see, no-one
would have ever known the truth. Go for the hard stuff, that’s the
ticket, not the easy stuff about local corruption, who wants to read that?
“Until the Courier got into the act, everyone would have just thought
Clark was Australia’s finest historian - not what he was – the
head of the most effective political unit since Eve and the devil got together.
“The truly plucky thing about it was that they didn’t know the
Clark links went to Murdoch himself, didn’t know he was one of them,
a fellow traveller, didn’t know young pimply Rupie had the bust of
Lenin on his mantelpiece at Oxford.
"Murdoch’s now, of course, suppressed the story. Smoke would have
been coming out of his ears. Frightened the game was up."
Bambridge said that was why Murdoch’s other quality papers, The Times
of London, The Australian and The South East Advertiser weren’t going
with it with the Clark expose. “Rupert was obviously livid when he
saw the Courier’s copy, “ Bambridge told The Bug.
“But now it's all out in the open. What a paper! All I can say is:
Thank God for the Courier-Mail!.”
* John Orr is a former Courier-Mail reporter. He, too,
is proud of The Courier-Mail’s coverage of the Manning Clark story.
His interview with Ralph Bambridge is copyright with world patent pending.
Exclusive to The Bug. All rights reserved.