On 4 November 2010, the lavishly produced docudrama I, Spry: The Rise and Fall of a Master Spy was screened nationally on ABC television. Considerable controversy swirled around the program. In the Sydney Morning Herald, Gerard Henderson rejected as ‘mere hyperbole’ the insinuation that Sir Charles Spry, ASIO’s director-general from 1950 to 1970, used ‘the weapons of the communists against Australian citizens’.