Gough Whitlam's policies endured, press secretary Eric Walsh says

Gough Whitlam's former press secretary, Eric Walsh, said on Tuesday the testament of the strength of Mr Whitlam's legacy was that his policies were not overturned by successive Liberal governments.

Mr Walsh, now a Canberra-based political lobbyist, pointed out the only major change – ending free tertiary education – was made by Labor prime minister Bob Hawke.

He said he had information, which he declined to make public, on alleged US involvement in the sacking of Mr Whitlam.

Mr Walsh spent 12 years in the federal parliamentary press gallery before joining the Whitlam Labor campaign in June 1972, working with then federal secretary Mick Young and later joining Mr Whitlam's staff as press secretary.

Mr Walsh criticised the Liberal Party for referring to the former Labor government s as the "worst government since the Whitlam government".

"They've had 20 years of Liberal government since 1975 and they haven't change one major thing," he said.

"The only major change was to free university tuition and that was done by Hawke and Dawkins, not by a Liberal government, the Libs weren't game to touch that.

"[Malcolm] Fraser was there seven and a half years and the free universities remained.

"It's terrific to say it was a crook government, but if all of these things shouldn't have been done, why haven't they undone them?"

Mr Walsh said Mr Whitlam was saddled with a second-rate ministry, which was chosen by caucus.

"With a couple of exceptions, he had a lame-duck ministry; he wasn't responsible for picking the ministry – the caucus elected them – but there wasn't a real pool of talent from which to elect," he said.

"Apart from that, he actually changed the operation of the Labour Party to make it acceptable."

Mr Walsh said he gave some credence to theories about US involvement in the sacking of Mr Whitlam.

"I actually know something about it, which I'm not going to go into now," he said.

"They were not responsible – it was a local thing – but it was encouraged by them.

"The bloke who really upset was Sir Arthur Tange, who was head of the Defence Department. He was worried if Gough did the things he said he was going to do, we'd lose our intelligence links with the United States, so obviously they were in there somewhere.

"I am choosing not to [disclose information] but it's along the lines of what I said: the Americans were not responsible for it [the sacking] but it was encouraged and I know that because of Tange's panic, saying the Americans are going to chop off our intelligence arrangements.

"That's why he wasn't worried about losing a prime minister. He was worried about losing the Yanks and the only way he'd know that was if the Yanks were on to him and said, 'hey sport, you better do something'."

Mr Walsh said a CIA officer was staying in the house of National Party leader Doug Anthony at the time.

"So they were very close to the CIA."

Sir David Smith, former official secretary to governor-general John Kerr – who sacked Mr Whitlam – declined to comment on Mr Whitlam's death.