This request was sent out on behalf of the Director General oif ASIO after Author Frank Hardy was acquited of criminal libel in Melbourne in 1951. The trial had been conducted in a storm of publicity at a time when Cold War tension were high and PM Robert Menzies was openly suggesting that a World War was in the offing. The jury took seventeen minutes to acquite Hardy and the document below clearly reflects ASIO's paranoia at the time. This extraordinary request reflects ASIO's sense of it's own power and the possiblitiy that the rule of law did not apply to it.
