How are we to know that something may not be clearly audible and visible from the mainland and be seen and heard by scores or hundreds of observers who may include representatives of foreign, even Russian, newsagencies? Why should we be asked to agree not to publish tomorrow something already known to, possibly, hundreds of West Australian civilians and may-be to dozens of foreign or Communist observers?
Despite de Burgh’s heated letter, the wording of D-notice No. 8 was not further changed before it was issued in the lead-up to Operation Hurricane. On 10 November 1952, after Hurricane was over, Buchanan cancelled this first atomic-related D-notice and thanked the media for their co-operation, ‘which was an important contribution towards safeguarding defence information in connection with these tests’.
While the Australian media generally accepted the D-notice system without qualms, there were some hiccoughs. Press agencies such as United Australian Press and Australian Associated Press, which gathered and sold stories to a wide variety of outlets including those overseas, refused to co-operate with the new atomic weapons D-notice, leading to a prickly relationship. In a minute paper sent to Shedden, committee secretary Buchanan wrote that in response to his direct inquiry whether they would co-operate in D-notice No. 8, Mr Richards from United Australian Press said ‘no’, while Mr Hooper from Australian Associated Press ‘gave an equivocal answer, that was in fact a negative’.
The agencies sold stories to outlets overseas that were not bound by the Australian D-notice system. If they limited their coverage, visiting and unfettered foreign journalists could trump them. Of the eight D-notices agreed by the committee, the British tests were of greatest interest outside Australia. The agencies would participate only in D-notices that applied to other defence matters and not to the big, newsworthy story that most interested them. To get around this, Buchanan suggested, and Shedden agreed, that the main news agencies ‘including American agencies but omitting other foreigners’ be asked to participate in the D-notice system after Operation Hurricane had concluded. The position of the Australian agencies remained ambiguous, and their representatives did not join the D-notice committee in 1952 or subsequently. Also, negotiations with the American agencies broke down, and they were never included in the D-notice system.
The British had had the same problems with the US press agencies in relation to their own D-notice system. Even so, in practice the British D-notice committee had found the US agencies tended to abide by D-notices sent to them informally, while making an outward show of their independence. However, George Thomson pointed out some exceptions, including two US air journals with a fairly large sale in Britain which were constantly publishing information about British military aircraft that British editors and air correspondents knew perfectly well but did not publish because of the D-notice. A well-known Swiss air journal was an even worse offender. ‘All this caused much complaint and bad feeling among British editors.’ Thomson recounted a remark made to him by the head of the United Press of America, who acknowledged that the US press gave the Russians ‘a great deal of confidential information about the U.S. armed forces’ but said he would still ‘fight anybody who attempted to restrict the freedom of the press in any way’. Thomson added two exclamation marks at the end of this quote.
The establishment of D-notices was a logical step for the Menzies government, to please Britain and to keep the Australian media under a measure of control. However, publicity also had propaganda benefits. Exactly where to draw the boundary between public and secret information was a difficult task that exercised Menzies and his colleagues – especially difficult since they had to adhere to the wishes of the UK authorities. Media information was often initiated in Britain for later distribution in Australia, and the British D-notice committee issued its own notice for the atomic tests, applicable to British journalists. The British and Australian committees consulted closely and synchronised their activities in relation to the nuclear tests (and possibly other things too).
Sometimes these mechanisms created frustration for all media, particularly overseas representatives. Indeed, for officials from the Australian Department of Supply (which managed the Australian Government public relations for the tests) relations were frequently more strained with the overseas press than with domestic media, and foreign media representatives were not above a bit of manipulation to get access to information. For example, in a letter to an Australian Government public relations official, the chief correspondent and South Pacific manager for the US agency United Press Associations GE McCadden objected to plans for strict exclusion of media from the Hurricane test: ‘If such a policy is pursued, it is my belief that the U.S. Press is most unlikely to devote as much space to the tests as it would utilize were your authorities to relax these announced restrictions’. McCadden went on to point out the benefits of gaining well-informed American media coverage, one suspects in much the same way that American media made their case domestically:
If one of your ultimate major objectives of these tests is to impress upon American public opinion a spectacular achievement of our major ally which contributes to our common strength, then the best means of reaching such public opinion is through the eyes and ears of American reporters, including United Press.
McCadden also said that the 1200 newspapers, 1100 radio stations and 50 television stations served by his agency would all take the United Press Association’s news stories about the tests ‘regardless of how [the agency] gets the information about them’.
This forceful, eloquent and at times impassioned case for media access to Hurricane comments on the generous access granted to British and Australian correspondents to the US atomic tests at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. He concluded, ‘I want to stress… that all I can tell you now is how the strategic U.S. Press will react to a continued news blackout on one hand, and a new policy of relaxing that blackout on the other hand’. The thrust of this letter was unmistakable: the potentially positive message of the atomic tests could be distorted if the Australian authorities did not provide the media with what they wanted. In the 1950s American reporting of their own atomic tests was more thorough and critical than any coverage that appeared in Australia.
In 1953, after a period of negotiation, the Australian Government had to admit defeat. Frank O’Connor, secretary of the Department of Supply, said in a letter to Major General EL Sheehan, Australian defence representative, that because of the unfavourable attitude of the US press agencies, the D-notice ‘Committee’s recommendation, with which the Minister concurred, was that the United States Press Agencies should not be included in the “D” Notice system at this stage’. D-notices were to be confined to UK and Australian media. The Americans were exempt.
Buchanan issued a new D-notice for the Totem tests at Emu Field in October 1953. It had a similar structure to the Hurricane notice but added a more specific restriction, on ‘nuclear efficiency and measurements relating to weapon efficiency’, further limiting the dissemination of technical detail as the design of British nuclear weapons became more sophisticated. This D-notice also listed a number of new things that would be provided to reporters as background material, including an initial survey of the area by Sir William Penney, the work of construction personnel, assistance given by the LRWE at Woomera, air-lift operations by Yorks and Bristols, boring operations for water and study of geology, the work of Australian scientists in checking margins of safety, the transport of aircraft and war stores to the site and the co-operation of pastoral lessees.