Wartime intelligence operative John Robert Kerr’s work for Australia’s Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs will later gave rise to many conspiracy theories.

Kerr was born in Balmain, a working-class suburb of Sydney, where his father was a boilermaker.

After graduating the Fort Street High School (formerly Fort Street Boys' High School), he won scholarships to the University of Sydney and graduated in law with first class honors and the University Medal, being called to the New South Wales bar in 1938.

At Fort Street, he met Dr H.V.

Evatt, who would later became a judge of the High Court of Australia, and became a protégé of his for many years.

In 1938, Kerr had married Alison Worstead, generally known as Peggy, with whom he had had three children.

In 1946, he had become principal of the Australian School of Pacific Administration and the first Secretary-General of the South Pacific Commission.

Returning to the bar in 1948, he becomes a prominent lawyer representing trade union clients and a member of the Australian Labor Party.

Intending to seek Labor endorsement for a parliamentary seat at the 1951 election, he withdraws in favor of another candidate.

After the Labor split of 1955, however, he becomes disillusioned with party politics.

He dislikes what he sees as the leftward trend of the Australian Labor Party under Evatt's leadership, but is not attracted to the breakaway group, the Democratic Labor Party.

During the decade of the 1950s, he joins the anticommunist advocacy group established by the United States' CIA, the Association for Cultural Freedom, joining its Executive Board in 1957.

Kerr becomes a regular contributor to the ASCF’s house organ, Quadrant.