It is one of the incidents that caused a confrontation between Whitlam and Bill Robertson, the director-general of ASIS, resulting in Robertson's sacking on 21 October 1975, with effect on 7 November, just four days before Whitlam's own dismissal in the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis. Whitlam said Robertson had disobeyed instructions by delaying the closure of the ASIS station in Chile. Robertson disputes the details in documents lodged with the National Archives in 2009.