SLEEPERS AND MOLES...

BEN

THE MOLE

WW2 was an interesting time in Australia, especially in NSW. They had the Headquarters of the Communist Party of Australia to contend with.

The CPA had its offices at 695-7 Geroge Street Sydney, it had been purchased in 1944 by Clarence Hart Campbell and Ralph Joseph Gottliebsen, but, the purpose of this post is not to explore the history of the CPA in Australia so much as it is to look at the link between the occupants of that building and a member of the NSW Police Special Branch. For those interested, Clarence had an exciting adventure in 1947 related to the setting up of an airline that was to fly between Singapore and Australia, but that, too, is another story.

During and after WW2, BEN, his code name, had control over the counter-espionage efforts of Australia against the Soviets. As you can imagine, he had full access to all of the files on all of the various CPA members including one Wally Clayton, (KLOD), in fact he was a very good friend to Wally, he was to later show him the file that Intelligence had kept on him and the files of others in the party.

BEN, real name Alfred Thompson Hughes was a mole for the CPA and had been from the mid-1940s onward.

THE SLEEPER

Jess was, to all accounts, a member of the CPA and it would seem to be likely that she had joined that organisation whilst she was in Sydney sometime between 1942 and 1946.

The CPA established it's presence in George Street in 1944.

The supposed meeting at the Clifton Gardens Hotel with Alf Boxall had taken place in August 1945.

According to Alf, it was at such a meeting that Jess handed Alf a copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam which contained a handwritten inscription of Verse 70 from that book.

We have shown how that verse, illustrations, printed words, and even parts of the book cover contained microcode.

Alf, in his interview with Stuart Littlemore in 1978, agreed that he had been a member of an intelligence unit at some time prior to the 1945 Clifton Gardens meeting.

Was Jess recruited by Military Intelligence specifically to spy on the activities of the CPA in Sydney at some time between 1944 and 1945? (We should be mindful that the CPA had other premises prior to the move to George Street but George Street was very convenient for the RNSH)

Did she then obtain and pass information to Australian Intelligence between1944 and 1946, the year she suddenly left Sydney on finding she was pregnant? It is known that the intelligence services had obtained quantities of information on the CPA including copies of documents and plans. Some of those documents had somehow found their way into the hands of The Association. Likewise, documents from the Association came into the possession of the CPA. Add to that BEN's helpful work in support of his friend Wally and what a tangled web of intrigue you would have.

There is very little doubt that a mole or even 2 were at work amongst these organisations and it would not be surprising to find that some of the documents were knowingly leaked to others as part of a strategy to mislead and confuse the opposing side.

But back to Jess, was she instructed to keep her connection to the CPA alive after she moved?  When she landed in Adelaide, did she renew her links with the CPA? DID she become a 'sleeper' to be called upon when her services were needed? More to the point, was she asked by a CPA contact to lend her nursing and other skills in late November 1948? She would not have been in a position where she could have refused that request otherwise that would have aroused suspicion.

In this was the case, it would explain the perfunctory nature of her later interview with SAPOL officers and the convenient corroboration of her story by Alf Boxall.

Some facts and some assumptions were used in this post but there is still a chance that we will be able to gain access to further information that will add weight to the theory.