Print this page The Politics of State Secrets

Authoritarian governments are not the only ones that keep secrets. Democratic governments also keep secrets and refuse to release classified documents despite freedom of information (FOI) laws, which, in theory, grant access to historians and investigative journalists. Files relating to the royal family, including former Prince Andrew, are kept under tight security in the Windsor Castle archives, which are separate from the British National Archives at Kew.

Since the Australian government spied on cabinet meetings in Timor-Leste to gain a commercial advantage in oil and gas negotiations in 2004, successive governments have conducted legal proceedings against whistleblowers and their lawyers in secret. The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), established by the Albanese government in 2023, conducts much of its work in camera, away from journalists and media commentators.

World War II ended 81 years ago, yet we still do not have access to the full official files concerning Rudolf Hess's flight to Scotland in 1941, the death of Prince George, Duke of Kent, in a remote area of Scotland in 1942, and the apparent suicide of Heinrich Himmler in British custody in May 1945. The Russian government has not yet released the entire file on the massacre of approximately 20,000 Polish military officers, academics, and teachers by Soviet forces in the Katyn Forest in 1940.

Learning Resources

• Mark Felton, State Secrets, Still Classified, documentary, Youtube 2024
• Lord Peter Hennessy, The Secret State, Whitehall and the Cold War, Penguin, 2002
• Scott Horton, Lords of Secrecy, Bold Type Books, 2016

Course Outline

1. Motives for keeping records, documents, films, recordings classified by various democratic governments
2. Files still classified or redacted including significant files from World War II, British royal family and the fallout from the Collaery legal case in Australia about spying on Timor Leste in 2006
3. Some of the files on Operation Paperclip, the repatriation of Nazi war criminals, scientists and espionage operatives so they could work in the USA from 1945 are still classified

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

1. Discuss the main factors involved in the classification of key evidence of past events and the government motives for doing so
2. Gain an understanding of events surrounding the historical episodes which prompted security classifications in the first place