Gerard Henderson, and here we go again, down the rabbit hole to the nineteen fifties cold war ...

(Above: the execution of R. G. Menzies, as imagined by Gerard Henderson in his proposed new drama doc for ABC Television, more correctly titled The Persecution and Assassination of Robert Gordon Menzies as Performed by the basket weaving Inmates of the Asylum of Callan Park under the Direction of Gerard Henderson).

Here at the pond we waited with bated breath (perhaps baited is more evocative) to hear what our resident prattling Polonius, Gerard Henderson, columnist for Fairfax Media, might scribble about jolly Joe Hockey and the regulation of deviant banks.

After all, there was Scott Morrison shouting from the high heavens that jolly Joe was correct in every detail in his regulatory plans for the banks, as outlined in Banks can complain all they want but Hockey's right, and citing an highly esteemed, respected academic who's come out all guns blazing in support of Hockey:

... contrary to Julia Gillard’s facile claims that this is economically irresponsible, the Coalition’s nine point plan is, in the words of respected Harvard and Melbourne University economics professor Joshua Gans, actually “very consistent with mainstream economic thinking on the subject.”

Ah the nine point plan. So reminiscent of the three principles of the people much loved by the Chinese government, not forgetting the nine principles issued back in 2006 or indeed the five principles of peaceful co-existence, or the seven principles of Qian Qichen or the one country two systems principle. Hint: if you're ever selling to the Chinese government, make sure you have a well regarded number in front of a set of dot points, and always call them a plan or a principle. It's good that jolly Joe is in tune with international thinking ...

But as for Professor Gans, who can forget Gerard Henderson's withering assessment of him as a lickspittle Labor-ite, foolishly promoting the notion that the ABC was biased towards the coalition, and urging him to do ground breaking research into the cubicle protocol in female public toilets (here). Now jolly Joe has garnered and gathered the go ahead from Gans and the Greens!

Lordy, what does Henderson think of all this? Well, sadly we won't know this week, because instead we're back down the rabbit hole for another history lesson, along with yet another lecture about the ABC.

Oh the humanity, the humanity. Put it another way, the horror, the horror ...

What's got Henderson tugging his forelock in exasperation this day, as he furiously scribbles Scott needs to take control to ensure ABC represents diverse views?

Regular readers will be able to decode this header, which to be more obvious to the lay reader should be Scott needs to take control to ensure ABC represents Gerard Henderson's views.

Because, as usual for this sharp shooting cold war warrior, we're back with Menzies in the nineteen fifties, fighting the evil communists, reliving the Petrov Affair one more time, celebrating ASIO, and berating the documentary I, Spry, scheduled to air this Friday.

Well nobody sends the pond screeners, so we'll just have to wait until Thursday for the full depravity of I, Spry to be unveiled.

As usual, Henderson demonstrates tough love in his piece, praising Scott for his extension of contract, before slamming ABC News 24/7/12/365/∞, The Drum, The Beast, and the doc.

Oh and Graeme Blundell for swallowing the kool aid leftie cordial in his review A Rake's progress.

It turns out that Blundell's review is much more informative than Henderson's because he reveals it's in dramatised documentary format, and therefore as close to the truth as any fictional account of events, with Tony Llewellyn-Jones, fresh from his life long service in Paul Cox films, turning out as Colonel Charles Spry ...

And Blundell's main crime is to confirm that as a documentary I, Spry is wonderfully adept at deploying dramatic devices, including but not limited to ambiguities, arresting dramatic principles, quizzicality, quirkiness and moments of odd poetry.

History as drama? Why that's why you need look no further than Gone with the Wind for the truth about the civil war, lordy lordy, I do declare, and you listen here missy ...

Dear lord, how I dislike dramatised docs, and so reading Blundell's evocation of the piece is way more useful than the inept, bumbling Henderson, but let's get back to Henderson, as he makes his usual odd assortment of bizarre claims, including this:

The Petrovs were perhaps the most significant defectors from the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

No, "the perhaps" doesn't get you out of the patent absurdity and exaggeration of that quintessentially big frog in a small nineteen fifties notion. If you want a decent batch of defectors head off to the CIA's files, and On the Soviet Nuclear Scent.

In a way typical of the gulling of Henderson by lefties on a regular basis, Henderson accepts the essence of what has been said by the likes of Robert Manne and Mark Aarons in his "compelling book" The Family File. But let's go to the wiki for a short summary of what Manne said about Petrov:

He (Manne) showed that Evatt's suspicions were unfounded, that Menzies and Spry had been telling the truth, that there had been no conspiracy, and that Evatt's own conduct had been mainly responsible for subsequent political events.

But Manne also showed that although there had been some Soviet espionage in Australia, there was no major Soviet spy ring, and that most of the documents given by Petrov to ASIO contained little more than political gossip which could have been compiled by any journalist. This included the notorious "Document J", which had been written by Rupert Lockwood, a member of the Communist Party of Australia expressing his beliefs on the matter. (more here).

Meanwhile, Henderson flails away at Hungry Beast, a comedy show, for an immature, angry, leftist rant about ASIO, and tries to find balance in his usual way:

ASIO made errors but it essentially protected Australia against espionage directed by the nation's enemies.

Yes, yes, it did sterling work supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa, and who knows, I might still have an ASIO file, but really you have to have a deluded notion of the cold war to think it cut the mustard in the antipodes when the real action was in the United States and Russia, and of course the splendidly inept British, who with Burgess, Maclean, Blake and Philby (indexed here), not to mention the Profumo scandal, took spying and defections to levels worthy of Inspector Clouseau.

Meanwhile, Henderson wants to pump up the volume about the Petrov affair, after dismissing others for delivering misleading travesties or mere hyperbole, and finds himself quoting Eric Aarons approvingly:

And it (ASIO) kept a watch on communists, who, as Eric Aarons acknowledged in his 1993 book What's Left?, would have "executed people" if they had come to power.

Indeed. And so might the Japanese if they'd invaded Australia, after their highly successful midget submarine attacks, or the Nazis, if they'd decided not to invade Russia but instead sent an expeditionary force against Darwin, or come to think of it so might Stalin, always a dab hand at executions, if he'd come to power, and if only the Australian people hadn't voted against the banning of the Communist party, and so kept it as an ineffectual rump, a quaint oddity, whose main political impact was to be the reason for the ALP splitting and the DLP forming ...

But then you know you're in a topsy turvy world when Gerard Henderson quotes Eric Aarons and Robert Manne approvingly simply so he can have a go at the ABC for not presenting a diversity of views.

Well if they're going to spend cash on dramatised documentaries, please let them not be Gerard Henderson's views. Though I see now a splendid dramatised scene, with Laurie Aarons as the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Australian's Central Committee, and a quivering Robert Menzies brought before a show trial for summary justice.

"Off with his head", says Aarons, "and there's more to come", he adds with an ominous sneer (CU to camera please), and then we spend all our money on the one crowd scene (money's always tight doing drama docs) which shows Menzies in back of horse and cart, hands tied, white shirt rent, drums rolling relentlessly, women and children weeping, until the shadow of the guillotine falls over Menzies. CU of severed head rolling into basket please, blood spurting. Why this could be bigger than Wolf Creek ...

Sorry, went a little over the top and far away there, just wanted you to know what ASIO and Sir Charles Spry saved Australia from, including rampant Commie executions, not that we're in to hyperbole in any way, though lord knows, it seems nothing will ever save us from the scribbles of Gerard Henderson ...

(Below: second thoughts Gerard, we want you to scrap the guillotine scene. I know, I know, you shot the sheet, and no overtime, well just the usual ten hour day, and the value's up on the screen, but someone just told us that's the sort of thing the cheese eating surrender monkeys would do. Let's just re-shoot in the style of a Ned Kelly hanging, with a glowering chairman Aarons watching as the Communists execute Australians in dinky di Aussie style. No need for a big crowd at the hanging, so we can pay for the stuntie. We'll still get good value, jerking feet, cracking necks, convulsions, perhaps a touch of William Burroughs, and a splendid sequence showing how the Communists would have behaved had they came to power, and never you mind about the 'what if' of alternative history. Let's do it for Ned and ASIO and Charlie Spry and the Australian way ... I can smell an AFI award just waiting, just like teen spirit, and Charlie will supply drinks for all. Ah Ned, and Robert Menzies, such is alternative life).