The most significant "smoking gun" was the confirmation Kerr was work-shopping worst case scenarios with the palace in a series of very friendly letters back and forth, and seeking advice on the use of the reserve powers.

This is something Professor Jenny Hocking, who fought all the way to the High Court for the letters to be made public, believes "seems to be improper in that context".

That said, and while accepting closer examination of the 1200 pages of letters may turn up other questionable confidences, initial scrutiny of the epistles sent before and after the dismissal turned up little to contradict the then governor-general's own account of what took place.

That was that he did not advise the palace of his decision to withdraw the commission of the Whitlam government prior to the event because of the complications that would have almost certainly have arisen.

The wisdom of that decision was confirmed in a letter to Kerr from the Queen's then private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, who wrote on November 25, 1975, that: "I believe in not informing the Queen of what you intended to do before doing it, you acted not only with constitutional propriety, but also with admirable consideration for Her Majesty's position". Kerr had previously written to Charteris indicating that he had no choice but to act in order to prevent the unedifying spectacle of a "race to the palace" after he became aware Whitlam was considering dismissing him: "If, in the period of say 24 hours, during which he [Mr Whitlam] was considering his position, he advised the Queen in the strongest of terms that I should be immediately dismissed, the position would then have been that either I would, in fact, be trying to dismiss him while he was trying to dismiss me - an impossible situation for the Queen".

It could be argued Kerr spared Australia from the more divisive constitutional crisis that would have resulted if the legitimacy of both the governor-general, and the government, were called into doubt. While nobody can say how a situation in which the the government had sacked the governor-general and the governor-general had sacked the government, and both refused to go, would have played out, it would have been far from pretty.

The fact that the letters appear to vindicate Kerr's version of events, while giving the lie to two generations of myths and conspiracy theories, should not come as a shock to anybody. Kerr, who gave the documents to the National Archives of Australia in the first place, was reportedly never opposed to them being published.

If there is a surprise, it is that in his early morning (London time) phone call to Charteris on the day of the dismissal Whitlam appeared to be looking to the palace to intervene in Australian political affairs. He suggested that Charteris have a word with Kerr in the hope that the original decision could be withdrawn, the egg unscrambled, and his appointment as prime minister reinstated.

It seems unlikely Anthony Albanese's efforts to use the letters to reignite the republic push will gain much traction. There will always be debate over whether or not Kerr did the "right thing".

But any claim the letters prove powers on the other side of the world brought down an elected Australian government may be hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt.