Editorial: Keep the bullets for the big guns

It is impossible to overstate the importance of the leaking of what has become known as the Gordon letter. Starkly revealed was a strategy under which the Army would disown its traditional political neutrality to campaign vigorously for the biggest slice of defence spending. That the strategy worked a treat, largely at the expense of the Air Force's combat wing, is now apparent. That the Government should be embarrassed by the letter is equally obvious.

But even it could not ignore the implications. Thus began investigations which have confirmed dysfunctional relationships between the branches of the armed forces. Far worse, the Army's strategy was at least partly responsible for a dysfunctional Defence Force.

Such ramifications, and others to come, leave no doubt that leaking the letter, written in 1997 by Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Gordon, was in the public interest. Clearly, however, Brigadier Ian Marshall's passing of it to a civilian colleague - who leaked it to the Opposition - was not by the book.

Yet there is an unhealthy taint of the messenger being shot in his suspension from duty. It may, indeed, be in the Government's interest to vilify him, but no smokescreen must be thrown over questions raised by the Gordon letter. And nothing must divert attention from those senior Army officers who, more than Brigadier Marshall, warrant dismissal or court martial for their wretched behaviour.

Brigadier Marshall was in charge of assessing Defence Force requirements. As such, he was required to take a considered purview of what was best for New Zealand - not just what was best for one branch of the armed services. Angered by the Army's lobbying, he would have seen the Gordon letter as a touchstone for the ambitions of a clique of its senior officers.



Colonel Gordon, writing to fellow officers, encouraged the Army to open a "second front" to gain influence in its war with Defence Force superiors. He advocated exploiting the more vulnerable Air Force, appointing campaign supporters to senior positions, especially in the Ministry of Defence, and influencing Maori MPs and members of select committees.

The Gordon letter was variously dismissed by senior Army officers as being written by an officer seeking to make a name for himself or as a private letter. That seems unlikely. The letter was, after all, written on Defence letterhead. And certainly it did nothing to stop the author being promoted to full colonel. Most pertinently, its approach was echoed in a document subsequently prepared for the Army by a public relations company. As the strategy flowered, the Government defied military advisers to spend $677 million on armoured personnel carriers for the Army - and scrap the Air Force's jet fighters.

The public relations document was revealed when, before an inquiry, the deputy of Army chief Major-General Maurice Dodson refused an order to shred it. Instead, Brigadier Lou Gardiner filed a complaint to the Chief of Defence Force. Brigadier Marshall should have followed a similar course. The path available to whistle-blowers is laid out in the Protected Disclosures Act. In not heeding that, Brigadier Marshall breached Defence Orders and must expect censure.

His flawed approach was, however, of far lesser magnitude than that of the officers who sanctioned the Army's cynical politicisation. Their activity has not only poisoned relations between the armed forces, it influenced the Government to discard an essential cog of the country's defence machinery. They must attract the strongest possible censure.

nzherald.co.nz/defence