People Australia

Jimmy McPhee, alias Jimmy Creighton (?-?) informer within Communist Party

Birth: details unknown. Death: Details unknown. 

• Name could have been pseudonym. Not be be confused with other Communist Part cadre in the health union in Victoria.
• Petty officer naval reserve and activist of Young Communist League, in the 1930s. Enjoyed high standing among activists of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), organising secret pre-war work of CPA in the armed forces. Had been branded ‘Red’ with nitrate of acid on his forehead by the New Guard.
• Following his arrest and blackmail threat, he is thought to have become a spy, informant for Commonwealth Investigation Branch/police on Communist influence on armed forces. Bill Callen told McKnight: “During a demo of the unemployed Jimmy was pinched and sentenced to twelve months jail, but got out on appeal. The price of him getting out was that he became an informer”.
• He was unmasked in 1942 when the release of Wally Clayton’s security file showed existence of highly placed informer within CPA.

Sources
Eric Aarons, What's left? memoirs of an Australian communist (Ringwood, 1993); David McKnight, Australia’s spies and their secrets (Sydney, 1996) and Espionage and the roots of the Cold War: the conspiratorial heritage, (London, 2002).