Gough Whitlam believed John Kerr’s wife played a key role in The Dismissal. Did she?

Sir John and Lady Anne Kerr National Archives of Australia, CC BY

The Dismissal still looms as Australia’s greatest political crisis, 50 years on. The familiar story centres on four figures. Governor general Sir John Kerr – who, on November 11 1975, sacked prime minister Gough Whitlam. Malcolm Fraser, the opposition leader who blocked the budget to force the election he would soon win. And the queen.

But Whitlam, Nobel Prize winning Australian novelist Patrick White and others suspected a quieter influence behind the scenes: Kerr’s wife, Anne.