A secret CIA memo warned of the Australian Communist Party's ability to "cripple Australian production" just months before the 1949 coal miner strike.

The American intelligence agency prepared a recently declassified, 10-page dossier on communist influence on Australian trade unions and the then Labor government in April, 1949.

The CIA warned that the Chifley government could face "crippled" industries if the Communist Party of Australia intervened. Credit:National Archives of Australia

The report is one of several from the CIA to detail communist activity in Australia from the end of the Second World War through to the 1960s, which were published on the agency's Freedom of Information Act website this week.

It described the government as slow to counteract the growth of communist power in unions and "notoriously lax regarding security measures" in the past.