Fire and flood

by Henry Farrell on December 27, 2017

Relevant to the scandal in Britain about material being ‘lost’ from the National Archives, this bit from Margaret Levi’s book, _Consent, Dissent and Patriotism_ (p.13)

More arcane is the account of a small fire that destroyed relevant materials from World War I and World War II in the Australian War Memorial. The representatives of the British government operate under strict rules of secrecy concerning a very large amount of military-related material and they uphold these rules rigorously. The Australian government operates with a greater openness. The problem arose because in the Australian war memorial were records that the British deemed secret and the Australians did not. The problem was resolved by the British, or so my reliable source tells me, by planting a mole archivist in the War Memorial. This mole lit a small fire in the relevant stacks and disappeared.