Bill Sutch

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

William Ball Sutch (27 June 1907 - 28 September 1975) was a New Zealand writer and civil servant. He gained public recognition and notoriety when in 1974 he was accused of trying to pass New Zealand Government secrets to the Soviet Union. He was acquitted.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Sutch was born in Southport, England in 1907, but his family moved to New Zealand when he was only eight months old. His father, Ebenezer (Ted) Sutch, was a journeyman carpenter, and his mother, Ellen Sutch (née Ball), a dressmaker. He grew up in the Methodist faith, which was to have a strong influence on him throughout his life. He went to Wellington College, then the Wellington College of Education and Victoria University of Wellington where he gained a MA and BCA. Next he taught at Nelson College and Wanganui Technical College before travelling overseas. He returned to New Zealand during the Great Depression, and conditions here deeply affected his personal philosophy.

[edit] Career

Politically, Sutch was generally on the left. He was involved in a number of left-leaning organisations and associations, and helped edit and publish literature connected with them. In 1939, he was involved in the publication of Psycho-pathology in politics, written by Labour Party dissident John A. Lee as an attack on the party's leader, Michael Joseph Savage. He himself authored two books: Poverty and progress in New Zealand and The quest for security in New Zealand.

In 1933, Sutch took up a position in the office of Gordon Coates, who was Minister of Finance. When the government changed, he continued on in the office of Coates's replacement, Walter Nash of the Labour Party. He had considerable input into economic policy at the time. Eventually, Sutch's political activities were deemed incompatible with his official role, and he was transferred out of the economic sphere. In World War II, he left the civil service to join the army, becoming an instructor. At the end of the war, he took up a position with the new United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, working in Sydney. As a result of this work, he was selected to head the New Zealand delegation to the United Nations, where he held a positions with the Economic and Social Commission and UNICEF. He played a crucial role in a UN decision to continue with UNICEF, despite a United States desire to close it down.

Upon returning to New Zealand in 1951, Sutch worked for the Department of Industries and Commerce, eventually in 1958 rising to be its Secretary. In this role, Sutch advocated price controls, economic protectionism, and the emphasis of industrial capacity rather than agriculture.

Sutch’’s promotion of industrialisation, with an explicit argument that New Zealand was too dependent upon pastoral products, was anathema to much of the farming community, while some in the business community did not trust him. In March 1965 he was forced to retire after 40 years of public service employment and at the age of 57 he became a consultant. He published several more books, including Colony or Nation?, The Responsible Society in New Zealand, Takeover New Zealand, and Women with a Cause. His Festschrift, Spirit of an Age, was published in 1975. Sutch became active in the arts and architectural communities, including the Wellington Architectural Centre.

Sutch’s writing provides one of the most comprehensive accounts of, and visions for, New Zealand. While his views were often original and independent, many that were rejected at the time are now accepted. He was a nation-builder who wanted to see an economically strong and socially fair New Zealand, free from colonial ties, whether economic or political. In this way, he can be seen as being ahead of his time and a strong patriot for New Zealand.

[edit] Controversy

In September 1974, Sutch was charged under the Official Secrets Act in relation to a meeting on Holloway Road in Aro Valley he had with an official of the Soviet Union's embassy in Wellington. Sutch holds the unique ordeal of being the only New Zealander ever to stand trial under the espionage provisions of the former Official Secrets Act. The arrest of Sutch and his subsequent trial was one of the most sensational events in the history of New Zealand in the second half of the 20th century.

It was claimed by the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) that Sutch had obtained official government information for the purpose of giving it to the Soviets. Following a high-profile trial which gripped all New Zealand, Sutch was acquitted of the charges in February 1975.

Both the New Zealand police and the SIS could not find the package that Sutch was supposed to have been seen handing to the Soviet diplomat at the meeting at which Sutch was arrested (hence the curious charge that he faced, under the Official Secrets Act, of passing unspecified information to the Soviet Union). Sutch was certainly naive to be meeting a Soviet diplomat under such circumstances, he was asking for trouble. The only explanation he ever offered was that the Russian approached him, in his capacity as a stalwart of the NZ Friends of Israel, for information about who were the Zionists in New Zealand.

There were also claims that he was a member of the Communist Party, but they were not substantiated, and there is no evidence that Sutch was ever a member of the Communist Party. He once said that he could not join because he would not allow anyone to control his thinking. He had many friends with diverse politics and political views. For much of his life he was an admirer of the Soviet Union. If he was in any way a ‘‘fellow traveller’’, he walked a very independent path. Like British socialism, Bill Sutch was more influenced by Methodism than Marxism.

Sutch died in the year he was acquitted, having begun to suffer ill health at about the same time as he was arrested. He died on 28 September 1975 at Wellington, shortly after holding his just-born first grandson, Piers.

Debate over his guilt or innocence continued long after his death. A book published in 2006 by C.H (Kit) Bennetts, the SIS officer who had first observed Sutch, reasserted the claim that he was guilty, but offered no new evidence. On 9 May 2008, all SIS files on the case were declassified. The files contained no new material information, and a Top Secret 1976 report by chief ombudsman Sir Guy Powles argued that SIS actions had been unlawful[1].

The events surrounding the trial overshadowed the significance of what went before, and have muted subsequent recognition of his intellectual contributions.

[edit] Personal life

On 12 January 1934 at Wellington, Bill Sutch married Morva Milburn Williams, a schoolteacher. There were no children of the marriage. His marriage to Morva was dissolved on 2 February 1944, and he married Shirley Hilda Stanley Smith (1916 - 2008), a lecturer and later a lawyer, in Auckland on 2 June that year. They had one daughter, Helen, who rose to a prominent position with the World Bank.

[edit] References

  1. ^ New Zealand Herald. Sutch family vindicated by spy scandal file release. June 6 2008. [1]

[edit] External links