Correspondence.

• Author: Matthews, Keith
• Position: Letter to the editor

Sir,

As a member of the NZIIA and a regular reader of the NZIR, I beg to call into question your publication in the January/February issue (vol 34, no 1) of a 'footnote' (so described) attributed to Mr Bruce Brown, in which the writer seems to infer that the late Dr Sutch was some sort of traitor to this country, though the only occasion when this was put to the test led to his acquittal by a jury in 1975 after a full canvassing of all the allegations and evidence against him then known to the Security Intelligence Service. I understand that when the SIS file on Dr Sutch was released to his family last year, nothing was found on it that could have produced any result other than that reached at the trial.

Since the SIS released their file on Dr Sutch, there have been several articles in daily and weekly publications expressing views similar to those Mr Brown seems to be espousing. See for example the Dominion Post of 6 June 2008. The authors of such material seem to me to be taking the opportunity to squeeze some more sensational copy out of this subject, safe in the knowledge that the key figure, being dead, can no longer call them to account for defamation in civil proceedings.

Dr Sutch was a fearless and distinguished public servant who faithfully served a succession of New Zealand governments and prime ministers of various political persuasions from Coates and Forbes through to Rowling, and also occupied a senior staff position with the United Nations. He was the author of several significant books on economic and political subjects showing compassion for the poor and suggesting remedies of a largely socialist and co-operative nature. There was nothing disloyal in that. He was also a well known lover of the arts and, as Mr Brown mentions, was chairman of the QEII Arts Council of New Zealand.

Mr Brown starts by expressing 'surprise at the acquittal' of Dr Sutch in his trial, presumably implying that Sutch was really guilty notwithstanding the verdict. He then goes on to mention a social occasion in Canberra in 1973 shortly after Australia and New Zealand had recognised the Chinese communist government when 'a major Chinese show like the Peking Opera was touring Australia', and remarks on an interest expressed by Dr Sutch in Chinese cultural activities in Australia and in 'the relative political influence in Australia of China versus the Soviet Union' as though he, Sutch, held a partisan view of the differences between those two states and...