Quadrant: Keith Windschuttle and Australian culture wars

Written by: (Contributed) on 5 May 2025

The passing of a former senior member of the Quadrant publication has provided a glimpse of how a section of the far-right managed to hide their political associations and masquerade under a mantle of respectability in order to influence public opinion. The group aimed primarily at influencing decision-makers inside the corridors of power, academia and other related bodies. A closer study of the group, however, would tend to portray them as relatively naive people manipulated by powerful political forces acting as paymasters and puppet-masters from behind the scenes.

The Quadrant publication was established during the early days of the previous Cold War by the CIA-funded Committee for Cultural Freedom (CCF); it has continued throughout the period to the present day as a right-wing magazine, attracting a long list of contributors and associates in influential positions driving right-wing political agendas and issues. (1) It has been said that 'Quadrant was on the American payroll in the service of American foreign policy'. (2)

Not all those involved with Quadrant knew about the role of the CIA as both paymaster and puppet-master. In fact, while CIA involvement was direct through the CCF, where it was noted they were responsible for 'large contributions', their support for Quadrant was deemed indirect and conducted along the lines of 'covert support of a large number of activities which it judged to be valuable'. (3) Intelligence-gathering was but one.

The CCF role in intelligence-gathering was not confined to right-wing and business organisation; in fact, the CCF launched the Encounter publication in London in 1953, which became 'one of the most influential journals of liberal opinion in the West'. (4) It was noted that those associated with the CCF network 'embraced many prominent figures in the British Labour Party' during the previous Cold War. (5)

The role of Quadrant should be studied in the context of US intelligence interference in Australian society; it has a long history. While the link between the CCF and the CIA was exposed in 1966, the Australian branch had been established in 1954 through the Paris headquarters of the organisation. (6) Quadrant was subsequently launched in 1956, heavily supported by the CCF and their CIA funding; estimates as large as $100,000 of financial assistance to 1967 have been used in serious and credible publications. (7)

The mindset of those knowingly on the payroll have been noted to adhere to the following political position: that the maintenance of Australia's defence and security was best served by the US alliance, and therefore, there was nothing intrinsically wrong or unethical in accepting financial support for a good political cause and its maintenance. (8)

Studies of the Nugan Hand Bank in the 1970s, likewise, leave little to the imagination. Those associated with the bank were caught attempting to blackmail an Australian state minister while transferring $2.4 million to the Liberal Party. (9) The bank collapsed in 1980 with huge debts; its intelligence links are still subject to official denial by Washington and the Pentagon. As they do.

The role of the US intelligence services in Australia has been marked by a huge involvement in intelligence-gathering. Declassified documents reveal planning and methods of operation. A Clandestine Operation, for example, is established in secrecy with 'plausible denial by the sponsor'. (10) A Cover is designed to conceal the 'true nature of its acts and its existence'. (11) An Agent is 'any individual who, on a controlled basis, is engaged in the clandestine collection of intelligence or counter-intelligence, information or in support thereof, either wittingly or unwittingly'. (12)

Quadrant provided a convenient cover and mantle of respectability for those associated with the publication. The magazine pushed right-wing political agendas; its other roles and agendas were not so apparent and hidden.

The recent passing of long-time editor of the publication and chairman of the Quadrant board, Keith Windschuttle (1945-2025), has enabled those contributors and associates the opportunity of praising his role in the culture wars waged by the Quadrant against progressive and left-wing activists and movements.

It is interesting to note, therefore, that Windschuttle began a career as part of the academic left; he eventually broke with his colleagues to assume a right-wing political position. (13) Can it, perhaps, be explained by the paymasters and puppet-masters wanting him employed in another, more useful, capacity?

The Australian newspaper, long a right-wing mouthpiece of Canberra, used its editorial column to label Windschuttle as 'a poster person for what this newspaper stands for'. (14) He was a leading figure and thinker of the Conservative right. A quick read of the letters page of the newspaper reveals, quite adequately, the limited and appalling mindset of the bulk of its readership.

Others praising Windschuttle have drawn attention to his role as a historian and 'principled, fearless and absolutely dedicated to getting the facts right'. (15)

None of the commentary, however, drew any attention to the philosophical consideration that 'history means interpretation'. (16) Facts may be one aspect for consideration, how they are interpreted by analysis is what a historian does when studying the past through the eyes of later generations. Every age produces its own history, as interpretations change with the times. The context in which facts occur remains crucial for our understanding of the past.

One only has to consider the ongoing controversy surrounding Ned Kelly. To some, he was nothing more than a common criminal. To others, there were other factors worthy of consideration; his ethnicity and the dominant British class and state power of the period in Ireland and elsewhere. To be a supporter of Irish republicanism, was to challenge the class and state power of the British elsewhere, including Australia. Kelly, for some, was a hero.

Windschuttle was best known for his studies of early settlement in Australia and the Aboriginal issue. He was a well-known figure of controversy surrounding the white colonial treatment of the Indigenous Aboriginal people. Windschuttle's constant nit-picking approach to his historical account of the period did not take into account the fact that Aboriginal history is largely oral, and that Dreamtime was, and remains, a real concept. A historian? At no time was Windschuttle challenged for his white supremacist approach; to study the period accurately, however, a historian would have to take into account the colonialism of Britain during the period which was thoroughly racist.

The words of Land of Hope and Glory epitomise dominant thinking of the period: Wider still, and wider, shall thy bounds be set, God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet! The period was marked by imperialist thinking, swashbuckling bravado and theft of artefacts and land by those seeking to extend the role of Britain into the wider world. Their apologists continue, to the present day, to depict Britain's invasion of Australia in 1788 as nothing other than justifiable.

When assessing the role of Quadrant, it is important to place it into a context of association of members with other, like-minded, right-wing organisations. There are overlapping areas of influence amongst conspicuous personnel; Slow Horses, (British slang for MI5 service rejects who have seriously failed a task but not badly enough to get sacked) however, remain behind the scenes, maintaining a low profile while representing elite patronage systems for the well initiated, their families and siblings.

Windschuttle was close to John Howard, who in turn, held the chair of the International Democrat Union (IDU) for over a decade leading to the ending of his tenure in 2014. (17)

A newcomer to the IDU board has been Scott Morrison. (18) IDU treasurer is Mike Roman, a former employee of the Koch Brothers, a far-right organisation which spent $900 million getting Donald Trump elected in 2016. (19)

John Howard is also well-known inside the shadowy World League for Freedom and Democracy (WLFD), formerly the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). (20) The origins of the organisation are particularly significant when viewed in the context of the previous Cold War and its present functions in the new Cold War. It was created in 1954 by South Korean intelligence agents together with their Taiwanese counterparts. (21) It quickly grew into a global organisation and central body of far-right associates, including Australia.

The WACL Australian section was noted as being 'represented largely by conservative members of parliament, interspersed with neo-Nazis, racists, and Eastern European immigrants whose roots lay in the fascist collaborationist armies of World War 2'. (22)

John Howard and his right-wing cronies were to prove a comfortable fit into such bodies.

Another figure associated with Quadrant, Tony Abbott, likewise, is no stranger to the far-right. As a board member of Quadrant, Abbott 'praised Windschuttle as one of Australia's best and bravest historians. His greatest and most unique achievement was the intellectual rigour he brought to the history of Aboriginal people and their interaction with settler society'. (23) The context in which the interaction took place, however, was not elaborated on by Abbott. The reasons, nevertheless, remain quite apparent, particularly when viewed in the context of his statement that Quadrant was 'one of Australia's premier intellectual magazines'. (24)

Both Howard and Abbott remain close and their involvement with the new right Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) was noted during their London conference in 2023. (25) Official agenda items discussed at the conference included: foundational freedoms, the importance of the family, the scientific method, market-based economics, the free exchange of ideas and a realist geo-strategy. (26) Their unofficial agenda was not publicised openly although existed all the way from the conference floor to the corridors of power in Westminster and beyond, and into the darkest corners of Washington and the Pentagon.

In conclusion, it is not difficult to establish the right-wing credentials of such people and their Quadrant associates. Some of their agendas remain quite apparent; it is, however, the other agendas which they continue to pursue which remain worthy of greater scrutiny! Serious studies of the US intelligence services, for example, have invariably concluded with the note that 'the CIA is perfectly ready to reward it friends'. (27) And it has, and does.

We need an independent foreign policy!

1. About Us, Quadrant, 13 September 2009; and, The CIA as Culture Vultures, Jacket 12, Cassandra Pybus, July 2000.
2. CIA as culture vultures, ibid.
3. Evatt – Politics and Justice, Kylie Tennant, (Australia, 1970), Appendix E, pp. 380-82; and, The CIA's Australian Connection. Denis Freney, (Sydney, 1977).
4. Who were they travelling with? The CIA and the British Labour Movement, CIA Infiltration of the Labour Movement, (London, 1982), pp. 50-62.
5. Ibid.
6. The Secret State, Richard Hall, (NSW, 1978), page 197.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., page 192.
9. The Nugan-Hand Bank, 1975, Australia: Overthrowing Whitlam's Labour Party, A People's History of the CIA., (Ottawa, 2000), Issue 43, pp. 29-30; and, The CIA's Australian Connection, Denis Freney, (Sydney, 1977).
10. Instructions for the coordination and control of Navy's clandestine intelligence collection program, Top Secret, 7 December 1965, Declassified: 13 July 1990.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. The final chapter for courageous historian, Obituary, Australian, 10 April 2025.
14. Windschuttle a fierce intellect, Editorial, Australian, 11 April 2025.
15. Windschuttle shunned political agenda for evidence, Australian, 11 April 2025.
16. The historian and his facts, What is History? E.H. Carr, (London, 1961), pp. 7-30.
17. Scott Morrison signs on with global political network, The New Daily, 14 September 2022.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Website: WACL., 9 January 1990.
21. Inside the League, Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson, (New York, 1986), page 47; and, The WACL: Origins, Structure and Activities, Pierre Abramovici, (2014).
22. Inside the League, ibid., page 59.
23. Culture wars warrior Windschuttle gone at 83, but intellectual impact lives on, Australian, 10 April 2025.
24. Ibid.
25. Howard, Abbott at global summit, Australian, 9 March 2023.
26. Ibid.
27. The CIA and the cult of intelligence, Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, (London, 1976), page 396.