Extracted with permission from "The Enemy Within: The Human Cost Of State Surveillance In Aotearoa/ New Zealand" by Maire Leadbeater. Published by Potton & Burton; $39.99 RRP

Subheadings have been added by CAFCA. Greg Waite's review of this book is elsewhere in this issue. Ed

Murray Horton

Murray Horton is a long-term friend and fellow activist, although we did not meet at Christchurch's Canterbury University where we both studied in the 1960s. I had already left the University and the city when he started his studies and his initiation into radical politics. By the late 1960s, student activism was at a peak and Horton became immersed in it. His student political engagement then morphed into a lifelong commitment to campaigns for justice and peace. These days he divides his time between CAFCA and the Anti Bases Campaign. Horton edits the CAFCA journal Watchdog, one of the few remaining Leftwing journals of record and a source of much material in this book.

Murray Horton is a good-humoured and unflappable campaigner, a careful - if not meticulous - organiser of events such as the annual Waihopai spy base protest, which is designed to be both peaceful and non-confrontational. I learned new things about him from reading his SIS (Security Intelligence Service) file, but when I asked him about some of the more edgy events in his past he was matter of fact and not about to bathe in memories of past glory. So, the record will have to speak for itself.

PYM

The SIS paid close attention to Horton because of his involvement in militant youth protest as a member of the PYM (Progressive Youth Movement) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He attracted serious notice when "as leader of the Christchurch branch of the PYM" he attended the first Radical Activists' Congress, held in Dunedin in 1969. The SIS had an informer at the Congress to record Horton's fired-up address in which he announced that the PYM wanted to "incite and provoke a revolutionary situation in this country".

However, he had been on the NZSS* radar two years earlier when he and a fellow 16-year-old Shirley Boys' High School student wrote - entirely on their own initiative - a 100,000-word manuscript on Chinese history. The Christchurch Star wrote up the story, including praise from the boys' history teacher for their mammoth effort. Why was this of security concern?

The only clue is in the paragraph in the Star story that someone in the service has underlined - a quote from Horton's co-author: "Generally we have sympathised with the (Chinese) Communist Party during the period when it was gathering supporters, but the Communists have become corrupt since they came to power" (*NZSS = NZ Security Service, which then became the Security Intelligence Service. Ed.).

At the time, media coverage of anti-war and other protest was limited, and unsympathetic or even hostile. The Commissioner for the New Zealand Boy Scouts Association, SO Field, for example, is on record as describing PYM activists as "extremists" and encouraging parents to get their boys involved in Scouts so they will not be tempted to take part. The PYM began life in the mid-1960s, when its feisty protest actions against the Vietnam War and apartheid South Africa stood in contrast to the more sober marches and mass actions of the wider protest movement. PYMers were more confrontational and undertook spontaneous picketing; their anti-war actions could excite national controversy.

Anzac Day Protests

A striking example took place every year on Anzac Day. PYM supporters wanted to honour victims of the war in Vietnam, but this was unacceptable to members of the RSA (Returned Services Association), for whom the commemoration was about the two world wars only. Horton was reminded of these events in 2008 when he learned that former Christchurch Mayor Ron Guthrey had died.

The PYM's clashes with Guthrey in the years 1970-71 were spectacular, Horton wrote in Foreign Control Watchdog: "A]t Cathedral Square's War Memorial on Anzac Day two years running we laid a protest wreath depicting some of the hundreds of civilian victims of the Americans' My Lai Massacre, dedicated 'To the Victims of Fascism in Vietnam'. The Mayor threw away our wreath and the whole thing caused major national uproar".

PYM activists offended some with their counter-culture dress and lifestyle, but they were also serious thinkers, with a vision of a better world beyond the constraints of capitalism. The PYM actions were sometimes framed as violent or extreme but participant evidence shows that any violent outcomes were frequently instigated by police tactics such as baton charges.

Agnew Demo: Assaulted, Arrested, Convicted

In January 1970 Horton was in Auckland for a demonstration against the visit of US Vice-President Spiro Agnew. The protest outside Agnew's State dinner at the Intercontinental Hotel has gone down in history because of the way it ended in a violent clash between protestors and police. Horton was arrested before the worst of the violence occurred, on a charge of disorderly behaviour. He recalls:

"... one cop lined me up and punched me in the face. I later learned that he was part of the Christchurch contingent, so, presumably, he targeted me. I made a mental note to not again be in the front row when demos got aggro, although that was certainly not the only time in the years that followed that things were to get physical involving cops on both sides of the Tasman". He pleaded guilty to the charge of disorderly behaviour, despite being a victim of violence himself. Why? Horton doesn't remember exactly, but says it was probably because at that time "I wanted little or nothing to do with the bourgeois capitalist legal system and therefore opted to get it over and done with as soon as possible".

Activists collected over 70 witness statements testifying to the late-evening (11.45pm) violent dispersal of 150 seated protestors. Demonstrators were dragged by the hair, kicked and punched as they tried to flee. A subsequent Ombudsman's inquiry criticised police conduct and procedures, while concluding that there had been fault on both sides.

A six-page SIS briefing document written in 1971 paints an alarming picture of the PYM. The writer saw signs that members were becoming more militant and radical. Articles in PYM publications could be interpreted as "containing incitements to violence". Four PYMers had been on a six-week study tour to Albania and the SIS feared they had been inspired by a visit to a military training camp and the "martial atmosphere that prevailed" there. This might encourage "some members and associates towards increased militancy".

The SIS also kept a close eye on any links between the PYM and the Communist Party. Horton was observed to have attended Marxist study evenings and worked with Party members to organise demonstrations. The SIS concluded that Horton was a likely recruit: "Politically, HORTON's Leftwing tendencies have become more prominent since his undergraduate days, and it seems not unlikely that it will be his destiny eventually to join the CPNZ (Communist Party of New Zealand)". According to the SIS, my father (Jack Locke) suggested Horton as a possible recruit. However, Horton's recollection of this time is that the CPNZ was a bit suspicious of the PYM and tended to see its youthful activists as "bourgeois individualists".

When he had a sojourn in Australia 1975-76, the SIS liaised with its Australian counterpart, ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation), which duly informed the SIS Director that he had been involved with the Australian Campaign against Foreign Military Bases and a committee organising against a visit of US Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller - both organisations "to some degree influenced by the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)".

Resistance Bookshop; Resistance Ride

Another development that clearly concerned both the SIS and the police was the establishment of Resistance Bookshops. The Christchurch shop opened in Ferry Road in 1973, following the example of shops in Auckland (1969) and Wellington (1970). All three were described by the SIS as "radical spaces", supplying Leftwing literature and providing a venue and support for campaigns and activism challenging the establishment. Many of the publications on offer "advocated widespread social change through a radical overthrow of societal conventions".

Murray Horton, Bill Rosenberg and Owen Wilkes were all involved with setting up the Christchurch Resistance Bookshop and Action Centre, so anti-bases activists in CAFMANZ (Campaign against Foreign Military Activities in New Zealand, later CAFCINZ, Campaign against Foreign Control in New Zealand) made good use of the bookshop. It was an organising base for a significant 1975 protest activity called the Resistance Ride - an activist bus tour of the National government's controversial Think Big projects in the South Island: the proposed Clutha River power scheme and controversial Clyde Dam, and the projected expansion of the Bluff aluminium smelter.

The SIS and the Police both conducted surveillance of the Resistance Ride and its organising meetings. It was clear during the ride itself that the Police had advance notice of the protest plans and had even attempted to sabotage activities, for example by arranging for a hall booking to be cancelled. The SIS involvement was confirmed in 2008 when Murray Horton received the declassified organisational CAFCA/CAFCINZ file from the SIS. In a comprehensive summary of the contents of this file Horton noted:

"... earliest reports include features such as complete reproduction of minutes of our meetings (held at the former Resistance Bookshop and Action Centre) and the full two-page list of names, addresses and phone numbers of all Resistance Ride participants (including Australians). At the bottom it reads: 'Please note: This list has been compiled from the original addresses given to CAFCINZ for the Resistance Ride'".

Mt John Protest

Horton's file also confirms that the SIS closely watched the anti-bases movement. A source reported on the 1972 demonstration at Washdyke (a US logistics centre near Timaru) and the associated Mt John (US satellite tracking station) one of several high-profile anti-bases' events of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The source report bears little resemblance to other participant versions of the protest.

Owen Wilkes reported that during a spontaneous demonstration on the evening of the main action, two demonstrators were badly injured when the gathering was violently dispersed by police using dogs. A high school student, Derek Bunn, spent several weeks in hospital with a broken jaw, and Wellington Resistance Bookshop manager Richard Suggate was bitten in the genitals by a police dog.

With the help of lawyer George Rosenberg, Suggate made a compensation claim against the police and received an out-of-court settlement. Suggate recalled much later: "The settlement was $500 damages and $100 costs but no acceptance of liability by the Crown. I was paid $365 after lawyer's fees. Of that I donated $40 to CAFCINZ and $40 to Derek Bunn's legal fund. He took the Police to court after he had his jaw broken by the boot of a policeman". Suggate also took action against Minister of Police Percy Allen, who had suggested on television that demonstrators deserved what they got because some had thrown stones. The Minister apologised publicly to Suggate on the Gallery current affairs television programme.

However, the SIS source, who apparently did not join the evening action, minimised the event, describing the police dispersal as a "scuffle" between police and demonstrators. He noted that one demonstrator claimed to have been injured but did not mention that Derek Bunn had had to be helped down the mountain and taken to Fairlie for urgent medical assistance. His general conclusion was that the protest was "poorly organised, poorly run". Perhaps he or she was surprised when the University of Canterbury, which held the lease over the land, decided to sever its connection with the US Air Force operation.

"Outing" ChCh SIS Head

The most colourful episode included in Horton's file is about the outing of the Christchurch SIS head, Mr AEV Lane. The Christchurch office was co-situated with a legal practice on the fifth floor of a central Christchurch office building, but it had no identifying plaque at ground level. The only sign on the fifth floor outside two locked doors and a locked slide window was a sign reading "Ring for Attention".

On 19 April 1974 Murray Horton, accompanied by photographer and Canta reporter Brian Rooney, visited the Christchurch office and asked to speak to Mr Lane (in 1974 I was Editor of Canta, the University of Canterbury student paper. MH). A reasonably convivial interchange then followed in the office's interviewing room. Lane declined to answer questions, explaining he had no delegated authority to do so and gave out the contact details for the Wellington office. Writing up the story in Canta, Horton described a "non-interview", and quoted a few of the bland general replies: "Every country, East or West has got a Service ... We only try to do a job, quietly and unobtrusively".

A discomforted Lane wrote up the incident for head office, disputing some of the facts stated in the article. "I did not tell them to write to the Director or the Prime Minister ... I told them that it was their prerogative to so write if they so wished". He had shaken hands with Horton but only because Horton put out his hand, and so on. Lane reflected ruefully on the design of his offices.

There was an aperture or slide window which could be opened to engage with the public in a cautious way, but it was so small it was "virtually impossible to conduct any kind of conversation through it". Lane explained that to avoid a disturbance in the lobby it was necessary to open the door in order to engage with an unexpected visitor. Lane was upset that his photograph had been taken despite his efforts to avoid this, and he recommended that the slide window should be enlarged to avoid a similar happening in the future.

"MI5"

How did the pair know to ask for Mr Lane? Simple, as Sherlock Holmes might say: Horton had recently had a Christmas holiday job in the mailroom at the Christchurch Central Post Office. There he noted that Post Box 2654 had an added informal label: "MI5". Naturally this piqued his curiosity, so that when he was sorting the mail and spotted a garden-party invitation addressed to Mr AEV Lane he put two and two together.

A few months later Lane reported that Murray Horton had observed him collecting an office car from a nearby carpark and apparently taken the opportunity to note down the number plate. This was noted in the file as "another in the series of activities by HORTON and his CANTA and Resistance cohorts to investigate and perhaps harass this organisation." A handwritten addition to the memo records: "We also have reason to believe that some of Horton's friends have been watching the entrance to our building lately".

In a letter to the Director of Security after receiving his file, Horton clarified that he had spotted Lane by chance and taken the opportunity to follow him. When he obtained the car registration number, he had then sought his address from the vehicle registration authorities. From Horton's point of view this was a "public education campaign, indeed a public service. There was nothing illegal in 1974 about identifying individual SIS officers or where they worked and lived".

The "outing" of SIS officers must be understood in the context of activist frustration with the brick wall around the SIS and individuals' justified concern that it was probing into their lives. In Horton's case, as with other activists, this extended to dealings with his employer. In the CAFCA/CAFCINZ file is a report that an unnamed representative of his one-time employer, the Railways, had been in touch with the SIS, describing Horton as one of four union troublemakers and asking for any evidence that he was connected to the Socialist Unity Party. Which he never was.

MURRAY HORTON COMMENTS

I thank Maire for writing up my SIS Personal File, something that I have never done myself (but I have written up the much more important SIS file on CAFCA, which has a degree of overlap with my one. See my article "SIS Spied On CAFCA For Quarter Of A Century", in Watchdog 120, May 2009). She spent hours wading through a file box of paper in early 2022. It's always interesting to see yourself through others' eyes. For example, I wouldn't necessarily describe myself as "unflappable". I can be quite flappable at times.

Spying On The Spies

Just to fill out a couple of the stories from Maire's book extract. When I got the licence plate number of the Christchurch head of the SIS, I not only "observed" him, I actually followed right behind him through central city streets to the car park building, proving how slack he was at counter-surveillance when knocking off early on a Friday afternoon (he knew what I looked like from when I'd ambush interviewed him at the SIS office, as described by Maire). I duly filed a Post Office form (I think it cost ten cents) asking for the driver's name and address. It was supplied - and turned out to be a non-existent street number. What a surprise!

Not to be outdone, I wrote a letter of complaint to the Post Office Vehicle Registration Branch and got an apology from an investigator, supplying the correct address. As Editor, I duly published his name, address and phone number in Canta. In those days the mainstream media picked up a lot of stories from Canta. A long-gone local mainstream radio station rang the number live on air and broadcast the flustered "neither confirm nor deny" response from the poor old spy's wife (who then hung up). Priceless!

Being Spied On At Work

As for the story of the SIS receiving a tip from somebody in the Railways that I was one of four named troublemakers at that Christchurch workplace: that informant was not "unnamed". The SIS inadvertently left a name in the document it released to me (the only such example in many hundreds of pages). The name meant nothing to me - the Railways had a huge staff in those days - but I wrote to the SIS Director about it. He replied saying that the SIS had a longstanding policy of never commenting on informants, living or dead.

That particular SIS document went on to say "I (SIS Officer, name deleted) told (name withheld by me) that some of these people were known to us in the context of CAFCINZ but that none of them were members of or associated directly with the SUPNZ" (the Socialist Unity Party. The report is entitled "SUPNZ- ACTIVITY IN INDUSTRY"). For the record, I have never been a member of any political party. Regarding people named in Maire's extract, my obituary of her father, Jack Locke, is in is in Watchdog 84, May 1997 And my obituary of Owen Wilkes is in Watchdog 109, August 2005.

Watchdog - 168 April 2025