Free Jacks and Jokers by Matthew Condon Page B

will be made Commissioner within a few days.’
    On Monday 22 November, just six months after Lewis and Bjelke-Petersen had chinwagged at that lonely airstrip out in Cunnamulla, state Cabinet took ten minutes to crown Lewis the new Queensland Police Commissioner. Lewis was the only name submitted to and discussed by Cabinet.
    Bjelke-Petersen said: ‘He’s a straight-shooter.’
    Minister Newbery added: ‘I am confident he is the right person to take over a very difficult and demanding job.’
    Needless to say, the Premier wanted him to step into his new role immediately. The congratulations poured in. Ray ‘Gunner’ Kelly wrote a note, asking if Terry could help out an old friend who had fallen on hard times. New South Wales Police Commissioner Fred Hanson rang to offer his fullest cooperation. Jack Roberts of the National Hotel wrote in a telegram: ‘Best wishes many true words said in jest.’ Bob Sparkes also telegrammed: ‘Hearty congratulations on your well merited elevation.’ Judge Eddie Broad wrote a note out of his District Court chambers: ‘… best wishes for a successful career as Commissioner.’
    And Wally Wright, the former policeman who urged Lewis to move from the Fuel Board and join the ranks in the late 1940s, sent a one-page typed letter. ‘Congratulations of the most sincere feelings,’ said Wally. ‘No one was more enthused than I was of learning of your appointment which can be understood when I claim some involvement in your entering the police and your later appointment to the CIB. Best of luck, but you have no worries.’
    Wright’s touching letter was an example that some saw Lewis’s meteoric elevation to the top position as some sort of Horatio Alger rags-to-riches fable. The poor boy from Ipswich climbs to the top of the mountain. While that was technically a part of the story, what was not understood at the time was the relentless, well-organised and vicious campaign that had been waged to unseat Whitrod since his first weeks as Commissioner.
    This was an assault by stealth on several fronts over many years, involving senior police, the powerful Police Union and a network of anonymous informants from within and outside the government. It involved personal harassment, public slanging and the ceaseless shovelling of private harmful chatter. (Drug dealer and Hallahan informant John Edward Milligan would later, in a police interview, describe the campaign against Whitrod as ‘a coup’ and a ‘political overthrow’.)
    The eloquent and educated member for South Brisbane, Colin Lamont, had befriended Whitrod and admired his honesty and integrity. Lamont had his own theories about the resignation of Whitrod and the meteoric rise of Lewis.
    ‘He [Whitrod] … believes he was treated very badly,’ Lamont reflected later in an interview. ‘He believes that he stood in the way of Joh’s ambitions. And he was allowed to go. I mean … Joh … out of the blue somebody came up with the name of Terry Lewis. He was an Inspector in Charleville. I mean, that’s nearly as nondescript as being … a chemist in Thargomindah. And I mean, suddenly this inspector is to jump all these ranks and become Deputy Commissioner. Why?’
    Lamont initially suspected the member for Merthyr, Don Lane, being a former police officer and ‘part of what we think was the Rat Pack’, had a hand in Lewis’s elevation. ‘[But] Lane didn’t have any influence with Joh at all at the time,’ Lamont later said. ‘In fact, Lane didn’t get on with Joh at the time.
    ‘Lane was [Bill] Knox’s man. He … Lane kicked heads to get support for Knox, as Knox had tried to do for Lane. And I … therefore have to conclude that it was Knox who pulled the name Terry Lewis out of the hat and said to Joh, “This bloke will do what you want him to do. This bloke will take instructions.” ’
    When Whitrod did resign, Lamont spoke out in his defence. ‘I went on television that night … and suggested that the people of