© The Author(s) [2019]. Published by the Collaborative Research Centre in Australian History, Federation University Australia. All rights reserved. ideological contest between communism and capitalism, as advanced by the report, would provide an agreeable context for global economic colonisation over the succeeding decades. No doubt the Soviet Union had spies in Australia and had in the leadership of the Communist Party of Australia a willing servant. But the suppression of a political party, the labour movement and proponents of the ideology of communism was blatantly anti-democratic, albeit his- torically consistent. ASIO’s Cold War fanaticism, mirroring the personality traits of Spry, had profound consequences. It must have understood that its actions would help the Coalition at the polls. To attest, as Horner does, to its in- nocence in the events of 1954-55, which lef the Labor ship listing, is to declare it utterly incompetent. Spy Catchers cannot be viewed as benign history. Conveying a subject’s perspective is very different from embracing with the occasional slight criticism. This is a successful panegyric that netted some $45,000 in prize money. It was not until Horner wrote the Australian Dictionary of Biography entry on Spry that we learn of his alcoholism in the 1960s. It is nevertheless important for understanding ASIO in the time of Menzies. ‘Reading against the grain’ one can almost fashion gallows from its pages. Certainly, an expanded edition would include its thirteen steps. But the political ramifications of Spy Catchers are not lost on Horner: ‘ASIO’s officers were, and are, normal, dedicated Australians’. The book attracted positive reviews from former Labor leader Kim Beazley and former prime minister John Howard. We are told by George Brandis, the former Attorney-General, that Spry was ‘a very great Australian… who did more than almost any other official in the service of the Commonwealth to protect our democratic institutions’. 2 It is telling that the Official History is listed by the government as public relations expenditure. Edward Bernays is not spinning in his grave but rather from it. 1 Paul O’Sullivan, “Director-General’s Speech for the Release of Records of the Hope Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security,” (speech, public address, Can- berra, May 27, 2008). 2 George Brandis, “Launch of The Spy Catchers: the Official History of ASIO 1949-1963,” (speech, book launch, Canberra, October 7, 2014). Reviewer: C J Coventry, PhD candidate, CRCAH, Federation University Australia. Churchill Clive Ponting, Sinclair-Stevenson, London, 1994, 960pp. ISBN: 978- 1856195737 Clive Ponting had been a senior bu- reaucrat when he sensationally leaked various documents which resulted in the Belgrano affair. Persona non grata at court he took up the historian’s sword and earned notoriety as a ‘re- visionist’, seeing the dynamic nature of the discipline as it continuously responds to new evidence and new perspec- tives. His biography of Winston Churchill came at a time of sober reflection on the great man. In the intoxicating atmosphere of nostalgia at present it is easy to forget the person who was Churchill. Films depicting the man or his actions draw heavily from his autobiographical work. But there is nothing harmless in offering a fading actor a chance at career redemption by portraying the Churchillian caricature, inspiring a nation with momentous speeches and refusing to negotiate peace. The audience does not see the man who killed enemy combatants ‘in cold blood’ with expanding bullets (dumdum) or who ar- rogantly and incompetently sent many thousands to their deaths. Ponting shows that the Battle of Britain was not won by inspired oratory – the vast majority of people having not heard Churchill’s speeches until afer the war – but by the preparatory actions of the Baldwin and Cham- berlain governments. But Churchill’s role was transformative in a personal sense: his doctor noted the sudden wartime transformation of his sexagenarian patient into a lisping, hunched, bulldog. Ponting’s deeply researched account demonstrates that Churchill’s long career was professionally successful but disastrous for most others. Suffering from an unsubstantiated narcissism, he was an elitist who thought women, workers and non-Anglo Saxons genetically deficient. He held a lifelong distain for democracy, explaining his admiration for fascism; in the 1930s he believed it would replace liberalism as the organising principle of civilised society. He frequently – and quite ironically – advocated for the usurpa- tion of the rule of law and did so whenever he was in power. His obsession was the preservation and resurrection of the aristocracy, which faced a global conspiracy against it (so he believed). As contemporaries observed, his fascism and rigid belief in the centralised power of the British Empire – even in the case of white-dominated colonies – were entirely complementary. So entitled did Churchill feel he always reached for the vinegar, not the honey. He orchestrated the creation of a brutal arsenal of chemical weapons, which he utilised, ad- vocated the continuance of war in Europe to defeat the Bolsheviks afer the First World War and Soviets afer the second, and generally sought to violently supress the working class. As Chancellor of the Exchequer he shifed wealth to the moneyed classes and ensured that most Britishers entered the Great Depression battered by austerity. Untold carnage was caused, especially if you consider that austerity in the United Kingdom, 2010-2014, resulted in the deaths of some 120 thousand people. 1 BEFORE / NOW | Vol. 1 No. 1 | REVIEWS 78 /