Australian Broadcasting Corporation NOTE: This transcript is typed from a recording and not from the original script. Because of the difficulties of mishearing and the difficulties in some cases of identifying individual speakers, the ABC cannot vouch for its accuracy. "CODE NAME MANTRA" 21ST FEBRUARY, 1994 REPORTER: ROSS COULTHART PRODUCER: MARK CORCORAN NOT FOR PUBLICATION OPENING THEME AND TITLES ANDREW OLLE (STUDIO) Welcome to the program... and to what we believe is a first on Australian television. Tonight, two former spies speak out about their under cover work for Australia. Their revelations raise serious questions about the conduct and priorities of our overseas intelligence operations. As a result, we're holding over our advertised program. The Australian Secret Intelligence Service - ASIS - is by necessity a shadowy organisation. Its job is to gather information abroad that could be important to Australia ... in other words, to spy on other countries. Few would suggest that we should never indulge in such covert activities. At times, it's clearly vital. But as you'll see tonight, spying is also fraught with danger ... for the agents ... and for the broader interest they're supposed to serve. The two senior ex-ASIS operatives at the heart of our story have their own reasons for unburdening these national secrets. However, Four Corners is confident that their disclosures - though often alarming - do not threaten our national security. On the contrary, it's hoped that bringing them out into the open might head off future excesses. ANDREW OLLE (Continued) Ross Coulthart and Producer Mark Corcoran take us into the sometimes bizarre world of intrigue inhabited by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service. FILM: BUDDHIST TEMPLE, MONKS CHANTING MANTRA ROSS COULTHART (VOICE OVER) In the shadowy wilderness of mirrors that is the world of espionage, the files of Australia s secret overseas spy service, ASIS, are never referred to by name. The spies, bureaucrats and select Government Ministers who deal daily with the ASIS secrets refer to them only as MANTRA. For a Hindu or a Buddhist a MANTRA is a vedic hymn, a devotional incantation to the Gods. Inside Australia s secret service MANTRA is now the code word used to shield the activities of our most covert arm of Government. ROSS COULTHART (TO CAMERA) Through the stories of its spies Four Corners will help decipher the ASIS MANTRA. We reveal what s really going on behind the walls of our secret service. Never before have ex-ASIS officers spoken so candidly on television. They say Australians are being poorly served by their secret service. Their allegations raise very serious questions about the operations and accountability of ASIS. FILM: OFFICER #1 WALKING THROUGH SYDNEY ROSS COULTHART This man worked as a spy for Australia until 1985. Sent to the elite British Secret Intelligence Service - better known as MI6 - he did a training course there in 1976 and later spied for Australia while posing as a diplomat. Because he now works as a senior executive in the corporate sector, he doesn t want his name revealed. He knows his old ASIS bosses will know who he is, but he doesn t want to jeopardise the organisation he works for by identifying himself any more than he has to. So we ll call him Officer One. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER ONE IN SILHOUETTE ROSS COULTHART Q: How long were you a spy?A: For nine years.Q: And in that time what regions of the world did you work in?A: Well around the Asian area and in the Middle East. ROSS COULTHART Officer One knows he risks criminal prosecution by telling his story. It s a breach of the Crimes Act for him to even talk about what he did for ASIS. FILM: OFFICER #2 ON FERRY ROSS COULTHART This man was also a spy for Australia. He quit ten months ago, in April 1993, after a posting as chief of the ASIS station in Delhi, India. He was, at one time, the deputy head of ASIS counter-intelligence and operational controller for Indo-China, Burma and India. Before that he worked for Australia s domestic spy service, ASIO. We ll call him Officer Two. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER NUMBER TWO IN SILHOUETTE OFFICER #2 I'm a former officer of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service - ASIS - and I'm speaking to you today because I believe that there are problems within ASIS and within the administration of ASIS that urgently need to be addressed. FILM - GRAPHIC OF DIPLOMATIC PASSPORTS ROSS COULTHART We ve established that these two former spies are who they say they are. They served under diplomatic cover in Australia s foreign embassies. They both have personal grievances with ASIS, but their allegations go well beyond their personal battles. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 OFFICER # 2 ASIS itself is a very small organisation and, as you'll see in the course of the discussions, ah ..... the impropriety in which its conducted itself is at this stage restricted to a fairly small circle. But it does have potential and has in the past jumped across into the mainstream of public activity and its ... its done so as part of ... or in response to a culture within ASIS that essentially operates outside the normal rules which govern all other government agencies and departments. FILM - FOREIGN AFFAIRS BUILDING, CANBERRAROSS COULTHART ASIS headquarters sits on the fourth and fifth floors of the Department of Foreign Affairs here in Canberra. It s so secret its existence wasn t even admitted to Parliament until 1977. ASIS is Australia s equivalent of the American CIA or the British MI6. It s completely separate from Australia s domestic security organisation, ASIO. It s a small service with a budget of about 32 million dollars. Of the 300 staff, only about 45 are spies. ROSS COULTHART (TO CAMERA) The shadowy nature of espionage makes it almost impossible to test the truth of much of the allegations these former officers make about ASIS operations. But they re risking jail to blow the whistle on what they claim is Australia s disturbing secret involvement in wars, coups and political intrigue. Those operations they detail are often of dubious benefit to Australia s national interest. Here s just a few: FILM - SOLDIERS FIGHTING ON THE STREETS OF MANILA ROSS COULTHART (VOICE OVER) The Philippines, 1987. ASIS officers are secretly paying thousands of dollars to an agent inside Opposition army movement, RAM. In August RAM leader Colonel Gringo Honasan leads RAM in a coup attempt on the Aquino Government. Despite the coup attempt, ASIS continued to make payments to the rebels. FILM - FALKLANDS WAR ROSS COULTHART (VOICE OVER) The Falklands War, 1982. Despite Australia s supposed neutrality, the close ties between ASIS and Britain s MI6 are reaffirmed. Australia s Secret Service plays a critical covert role for the British in Argentina. An ASIS officer is sent to Buenos Aires. He provides a vital communications link between British agents in Argentina and MI6 headquarters in London. Had his role been revealed, the Australian Embassy would almost certainly have been seized by the Argentinians. FILM - HONG KONG ROSS COULTHART (VOICE OVER Hong Kong, 1993. As Chinese control of this tiny British colonial outpost in 1997 draws nearer, Britain s MI6 has made intelligence gathering on Chinese intentions for the colony a maximum priority. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH FORMER M16 (BRITISH SIS) CONTROLLER, BARONESS PARK BARONESS PARK China of course a great country and a major target and I think you can be absolutely sure that the Service will have been enabled to put what effort is necessary into covering what HMG wants to know about that part of the world. INTERVIEWER Using all traditional methods? BARONESS PARK And a few new ones as well, I think. (laughs) ROSS COULTHART But what this MI6 officer doesn t reveal in her authorised interview is that Australian "tech-ops" experts are doing much of the bugging for the British in Hong Kong. Four Corners has learned Australians have bugged many offices in the colony for the British. FILM: HONG KONG ROSS COULTHART It s unlikely Australia gets any of the commercial intelligence the British obtain by using our bugging experts. FILM - IRAQI CONVOYS OUTSIDE KUWAIT AFTER GULF WAR ROSS COULTHART Kuwait, 1991. In the wake of the Gulf War, international business follows hard on the heels of the victorious allied forces. The ruined infrastructure of Kuwait is a grabfest for companies eager to win the huge petro-dollar backed contracts needed to rebuild the country. FILM - AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS DELEGATION TRADE MINISTER NEAL BLEWETT ROSS COULTHART Australian businessmen were there, led by Trade Minister Neal Blewett. FILM - ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE - INTERVIEW WITH NEAL BLEWETT IN KUWAIT AFTER GULF WAR NEAL BLEWETT Our business people have to get in here. They have to get in here quickly and, like this delegation, I think they have to take a few risks.... ROSS COULTHART Vying for a piece of the action. Competing to get a commercial edge against other countries - including the British. Yet, at the same time as the delegation makes its bid, an ASIS officer is helping the British bug many Kuwaiti offices to obtain vital intelligence on contracts. Again, It s intelligence that went to Britain but not Australia. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE ASIS maintains a technical section ... ah ... as part and parcel of that technical section officers are sent on secondment to the UK. SIS. While they're with the UK SIS they're used by the British for the purpose of mounting technical operations. Q. Bugging? A. Bugging... and I understand that in the aftermath of the Iraq War the British sent teams out to ah ... Kuwait to fit up various offices in support of their business initiatives ah ... an Australian technician accompanied these ... ah ... one or other of these teams and was instrumental in mounting an operation or operations which secured intelligence in support of British business. The problem was of course that Australian businesses were also competing in Kuwait for the same contracts so there's a clear example of where Australian interests were jeopardised. Q. Was Australia getting any of that information from the bugs that its technical operators placed for the UK? A. Well the benefits of the bugs installed with the assistance of our officers ... no, not to my knowledge... FILM - KUWAIT ROSS COULTHART It s highly likely Australia s Secret Service doesn t even realise the consequences of its actions in loaning its tech-ops men to the British. When ASIS bugging experts do work for the British or Americans, they re often ordered not to tell Australia about their activities. FILM - MI6 H.Q.ROSS COULTHART This is the headquarters of Britain s MI6 in London. It s a measure of how close the British and Australian Secret Services are that ASIS officers refer to this place as "Head Office". Until recently, Australia sent its top trainees to MI6 to learn the tradecraft, including Officer One. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 1 IN SILHOUETTE And undoubtedly by the most professional intelligence service in the World. The Brits are really good at that.Q: What sort of training do they give you?A: Well, naturally one would ... would never talk about that in any detail, but its pretty obvious the sorts of things you do, they range from ... from using your intellect and your personality and what-not to recruit agents and glean information from them right across to the other side of the spectrum which is ah ... demolition work and coastal landings and secret writing and a lot of pistol work and ... all sorts of things like that.Q It all sounds very "Boy's Own Adventure" sort of stuff.A: Well in a way I suppose it would, but you ... you're trained in those sorts of things not because you're expected, particularly when you're on a diplomatic cover, and that's usually what you go away under, to be using those sorts of things every day. You know, one hardly does many demolitions around Sydney - so those things are just there in store in case you need that at some time.Q: What was it like to be a bloke in his twenties doing that sort of thing?A: Exciting. And exciting not just in the sense that you were riding a Harley Davidson down a deserted ocean beach or something like that ... there was that sort of exhilaration in it the Boys Own thing, there's a dimension of that and ... one should hardly be ashamed of that .. but it was with a purpose, that you were doing this to .. to rally all your skills and forces so that you should work for your country in a very creative way. FILM - ABC NEWS STORY ON SHERATON HOTEL RAID, 1983 ROSS COULTHART But Officer One joined ASIS at an inauspicious time for the organisation. In November 1983, in a now notorious training exercise, a number of machinegun-toting ASIS trainees smashed their way into a room at Melbourne s Sheraton Hotel - only to be caught by Police. FILM - NEWS CONFERENCE WITH FOREIGN MINISTER BILL HAYDEN, 1983 BILL HAYDEN Certainly there should hot have been a resort to force or a presentation of what was supposed to be force to Members of the Parliament. ROSS COULTHART The incident fuelled an already deep-seated feud between the diplomats in Foreign Affairs and the so-called ASIS spooks who share Australian embassies under diplomatic cover. FILM - CAIROROSS COULTHART The same day as the Sheraton raid, Officer One began his posting as an ASIS spy in Cairo. His first meeting with one of our Embassy s diplomats was to be a bitter portent of things to come. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 1 IN SILHOUETTE He had this long cable that he had just received from Canberra outlining what had happened at the Sheraton Hotel in Melbourne and of course we were totally unknowing. We walked into the room and I was introduced and he held this long cable up and was slapping it with his hands saying 'Well you're the sorts of ninnies I have to put up with here hey!' ... 'These are the sorts of hopeless so and sos that you are!' FILM - CAIROROSS COULTHART Many Australian diplomats resented the ASIS presence in such a volatile region. There were considerable doubts about the benefits to Australia in having spies in the Middle East. In fact we re told one of the main reasons the Cairo Station was established was to help British intelligence - following a disastrous setback for MI6 in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 1 IN SILHOUETTE Our colleagues there were nabbed and the local intelligence service followed their movements and tracked down many of their key agents. And it s said that our colleagues there from this friendly country were pulled into a warehouse on the outskirts of the capital and they had arrayed before them the various agents that they'd been running and those agents were stripped and there were wires hanging from rafters in the warehouse and they were all men ... and were strung up by wire around the testicles and they were killed in front of the faces of the foreign operators and they were told you lot better get out and don't ever come back here. ROSS COULTHART Whether ASIS sent a spy to Cairo as a favour to the British or not, Officer One had big doubts it was worth the risk. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 1 IN SILHOUETTE Overall I d have to say I don t think we should ever have been there and ah to a great degree we were really trying to contrive a role or justify a role for ourselves. FILM - BILL HAYDEN WALKING THROUGH CAIRO HOTEL FOYER IN 1984 ROSS COULTHART He seemed to find some sympathy from the then Foreign Minister Bill Hayden. On a visit to Cairo, Hayden, as Minister responsible for the Secret Service, asked Officer One for a private briefing. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 1 IN SILHOUETTE I was puzzled when he said well ... I mean... God mate what the hell is ASIS doing in this bloody part of the world. I said 'Well don't really ask me ... there are stories.' but you know its not really reassuring to have your Minister come through ... because the Minister for Foreign Affairs is in charge of ASIS ... to come through and ask you that question. But whatever, you know, we're here and we're doing what we are and we work pretty hard at it and ah ... he did something which I'll never forget ... which at the time I believe was really quite genuine he ... he said 'Well mate ... you're here and doing what your doing but don't forget if you ...that . if you ever need anything I'm back there. I'm always there.' And he slapped me on the back and gave me a hug. I found it quite a moving thing at the time. I feel it was very genuine and I think it was. ROSS COULTHART But Officer One says some foreign affairs diplomats in the Cairo Embassy simply went too far in their hostility. He alleges they nearly got him and his assistant killed by deliberately blowing his cover - revealing his real role to the Egyptians as an Australian spy. He was tipped off by Egyptian friends. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 1 IN SILHOUETTE Some of those people came to me and warned me that these two Australian officials were openly talking whilst travelling in embassy cars and ah on other occasions about how we ll get that ASIS bastard out and that spy and naming me ah.... Q: What was said?A: Well that this bloke s a spook and we ll get him out.Q: And this was said in front of Egyptian officials?A: Yes FILM - RE-ENACTMENT OF ASIS HQ - TELEX ROSS COULTHART Officer One cabled ASIS HQ in Canberra, appealing to his bosses to get the diplomats under control before the entire ASIS station was blown. He even sent a message directly to Foreign Minister Hayden. But his frantic messages weren t acted on and the leaks continued. FILM - PLO ON TRAINING EXERCISE ROSS COULTHART It was the mid eighties. The Palestine Liberation Organisation was one of the hottest intelligence targets in the Middle East. Officer One was running a well-placed PLO agent. His reports went straight to the American CIA. It appears the Americans wanted his intelligence at almost any cost. Officer One claims things got so serious a CIA officer offered to assassinate the Australian diplomat who was blowing his cover. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 1 IN SILHOUETTE He was amazed that something like this could happen and we worked fairly closely, had a good relationship and ah ... yes he offered ah ...this is not something that ah ... one enjoys alluding to ... he offered to bring that situation with that official to a pretty sort of rapid termination.Q: He offered to kill him, didn't he?A:Yes. But we don't get into things like that and ah ... so ah ... my immediate reaction without even thinking was no ... please don't do that and so it wasn't done. FILM - CAIRO ROSS COULTHART Officer One soon found out just how badly his cover was blown. One night returning home, he was beaten in an alleyway by thugs he suspects were from Egyptian Intelligence. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 1 IN SILHOUETTE I was suddenly set upon by five or six people, blokes, and pummelled and bashed and nothing was stolen and one ah said in rather halting English...ah.. It wasn t native English but anyhow how the message was you get out you get out or we ll kill you. INTERVIEW (Cont'd) You can't run deep cover, sensitive ASIS operations in that part of the world unless you have a good solid cover to fall back on Um ... once that's withdrawn you just can't carry on. So it was tense because we were having to decide whether we could ah ... go out ... particularly myself ... go out on any given night or whatever hour to meet agents who are people who sometimes with positions of trust and ... great trust ... and one has to be concerned about their ... their safety ROSS COULTHART His cover blown, Officer One was convinced he and his ASIS assistant were in danger. With the agreement of ASIS headquarters, he returned to Australia. where he discovered he was blamed for overreacting in Cairo and not getting on with Embassy staff. It was suggested that his cover wasn t really blown at all. When he complained to the Intelligence Service Ombudsman - the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security - his concerns were dismissed. After months of unhappy battles with ASIS management, Officer One quit the service in disgust. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 1 IN SILHOUETTE They failed to perform to protect their own officers in the field when they came under fire, ironically from their own side. They would instinctively portray the officer concerned and this has happened on a number of occasions this is why we are all lodging complaints - as nut cases. FILM - SWAN ISLAND ROSS COULTHART Unlike Officer One, Officer Two was trained here at Swan Island in Melbourne s Port Phillip Bay. It s here where ASIS officers do much of their paramilitary training- mastering the Service s complex coding and filing systems which are identical to those in the British Secret Service, how to survive an interrogation, how to disable or kill an enemy. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE Frankly you never experience conditions as bad as you do on training. The idea is to make you make all the mistakes in training that you could ever possibly make so that you know then hopefully what not to do overseas. Um .... the training course is very good. I think the ... one exercise alone requires the assistance of something like three hundred and eighty people. It's an immensely complicated exercise. Bearing in mind ASIS is a very small organisation and it probably only trains four ... four to six officers a year and the training costs would probably exceed four or five million dollars. ROSS COULTHART (TO CAMERA) Officer Two topped his course. But, after ten years, he feels as angry and disillusioned as Officer One does about our Secret Service. His story raises real concerns that in its zeal to be a major player in the intelligence club with Britain and America ASIS compromises Australia s national interest. He also charges that ASIS management is missing vital intelligence opportunities. FILM - DELHI, INDIA ROSS COULTHART Officer Two was posted to Delhi in 1987 to be a "declared" intelligence officer - known to friendly intelligence services, but still working under a cover role as a diplomat. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE Well the real purpose was to liaise with the Indians but ... on top of that... Australia was clearly very concerned with the prospects of the Indians developing nuclear weapons. FILM - INDIAN NUCLEAR PLANTS ROSS COULTHART Officer Two is also a scientific expert. He had great success in prying out India s nuclear secrets. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE We re seen as a very benign influence in the region in which ASIS operates, which is the Pacific and in Asia and um... people will tell Australians the sort of things they would simply never dream of telling the Americans. FILM - NEWS REPORT ON ALEXANDER BARBIY IN 1987 ROSS COULTHART In December 1987, a diplomatic incident involving this young Russian student - Alexander Barbiy - sparked the events which were to turn Officer Two s time in New Delhi into the stuff of a cold war thriller. Barbiy walked into the Australian mission and asked to defect to Australia.. FILM - PRESS CONFERENCE ALEXANDER BARBIY, 1987 And I gradually came to the conclusion that since I shouldn't change the Soviet Union, I should change my place of resident. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE A very nasty diplomatic situation ensued.After a period of a week or maybe two weeks of negotiations. The student was given a visa for Australia and left. The upshot of this was that any Russian or bloc official in Delhi who was thinking of getting out had a fairly good idea that Australians would take. FILM - NEW DELHI, INDIA ROSS COULTHART India s non-aligned status, but close friendship with the Soviets, made Delhi a magnet for Eastern Bloc spies. In 1988 the writing was on the wall for the Soviet Empire. And the Barbiy case signalled to many disillusioned Eastern Bloc spies that Australia would take defectors. Suddenly Officer Two s intelligence role changed. He found himself an unwilling gatekeeper, handling a traffic of disgruntled spies willing to sell their country s secrets for a new life in Australia. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE I might as well have put a shingle out. I think it must have been seven or eight months later ah I had a telephone call from the Consul-General and subsequently advised me that an Iraqi, a claimed Iraqi intelligence officer had a plan to defect to Australia. FILM - SADDAM HUSSEIN AND SOLDIERS ROSS COULTHART This Iraqi spy was very close to Saddam Hussein. His approach to Australia came in early 1989, 18 months before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Officer Two realised that if this Iraqi could be persuaded to work as an agent for Australia inside Iraq, his intelligence would be highly valuable to the CIA. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE I think there's a ... a big problem in assuming that the big ... that the big intelligence agencies such as the CIA have spies everywhere. They frankly don't. The Americans had no assets, no life source assets in Baghdad prior to the decision to invade Kuwait. Um ... if this officer had been ... if he had been handled properly its likely that he would have been induced to perhaps ah ... to stay in place and provide information. If he had done so it is possible that he may have been in a position of access prior to the Iraq decision to invade Kuwait and may have been able to give sufficient prior warning to prevent that invasion from having taken place. His information could have been unique and and of most critical value to .... not just Australia but to the entire west. ROSS COULTHART (TO CAMERA) It s clear that in Delhi, as in Cairo, the presence of an ASIS spy was bitterly resented by many in the Embassy . To be fair, in a country like India, the diplomatic trouble caused by espionage and repeated requests for defection can be enormous. So, against Officer Two s recommendation, Foreign Affairs decided to knock back the Iraqi s defection. FILM - CAIRO ROSS COULTHART Then, disaster. Officer Two accuses a diplomat in the Embassy of an indiscretion so serious that he s sure the potential Iraqi defector was executed as a result. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE Q. What happened?A. Um ... I understand from one of the senior officers in the Mission that an officer in the Mission got on the telephone to Canberra and deliberately blew the defection. Q. So rather than go through the normal coded message system ...A. Oh .... the coded message system went through anyway but it takes time but you've got to write a very lengthy report, it's got to be fixed up so that it can be sent securely, it's got to be sent and received and opened and generally distributed. Telephones as everyone knows are much easier than writing a letter. Um by the time the cable came through, which I think ... it must have taken four or five hours, the telephone conversation had taken place and the Foreign Affairs desk officer had a response ready which rejected the requested defection. Q. So what you're saying is that a potential Iraqi defector was discussed by Australian diplomats on an open telephone line? A. That's exactly what I was told Q. What are the implications of talking on an open telephone line about a potential defection? A. Well I think in this particular case given that the officer claimed to have been KGB trained you could probably have measured his life span in terms of days.Q. So you think he was killed?A. That would be my guess. I'd be staggered if the telephone call hadn't been intercepted since it came out of a major foreign mission in Delhi. FILM - NEW DELHI ROSS COULTHART Australia quite literally showed this Iraqi the door. Officer Two never saw him again. FILM - AFGHANISTAN WAR ROSS COULTHART Another country, another war. It s 1989. The withdrawing Soviet Army in Afghanistan is still propping up the regime of President Najibullah. Mujahadeen rebels are based over the border in neighbouring Pakistan. The next man to arrive at Officer Two s door was a Soviet trained Afghan army officer. He d been running a terror campaign against the Mujahadeen in the markets and border camps of Northern Pakistan. Many innocent refugees were killed. Yet he had more luck getting to Australia than the unfortunate Iraqi FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE He did have very strong political connections in Australia and I think he's ... after hunger strikes and some considerable publicity on the part of relatives in Australia he was allowed to come here. I felt that it was a mistake because during my investigations into the man and my interviews with him I'd ascertained to my satisfaction that he'd been involved in ah .... the forwarding of bombs ah ... through using refugee channels across the borders of his country into a foreign country and ah ... a bombing campaign in which I expect peoples lives were lost or injuries were sustained. I was very ah ... upset at the thought that he would be allowed into Australia as a matter of course ROSS COULTHART (TO CAMERA) But Officer Two soon found himself involved in a far riskier operation to put Australia in the big league of Cold War espionage. In an operation which has remained secret until now, Officer Two organised the recruitment and running of a high-ranking KGB-trained spy. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE He was from a Middle Eastern country but he was an intelligence officer. He'd been trained by the KGB. Well.... he claimed that and we subsequently managed to verify this. The Embassy Officer who'd made so much trouble with the Iraqi was in hospital... in hospital, I think at that particular stage and was unable to interfere with time. Um... so the proper routine processing of such a request was able to be made in full security. ROSS COULTHART As with other potential defectors, Canberra knocked back this agent s initial request for defection. To protect this man, who s now living in Australia, we can t reveal his nationality. But, after some agonising he agreed to spy for Australia on the promise he might eventually be allowed to come and settle here. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE >From that point for a period of about 12 months he also provided information of considerable value to the Australian Government and through the Australian Government to other friendly foreign governments. He blew the names of all their operatives ah... he blew high level policy decisions between ah ... senior government figures to whom he had access to through family links. He was a source of considerable value ... ah. Because the Americans had no sources in the country ... that was one of the first things they asked me was "What had happened to their sources?" And I had to go back and tell them they'd all been shot. Q. And this bloke was the only Western intelligence agent in this country? A. Effectively. Q. Was this also the first time that ASIS had ever run a KGB trained block officer? A. Yeah... it was the first time. There had been a couple of intelligence officers being recruited, but this was the first case of a bloc intelligence officer being recruited and run in place. And it was certainly the first case of any ... in thirty years that ASIS had ever had to exfiltrate ... that is to say get an individual and his family away from a country and back to Australia. FILM - DELHI HOTEL ROSS COULTHART Banned from using diplomats in operations, Officer Two used his wife and secretary to smuggle the agent out of a top Delhi Hotel. Following an intricate plan - with back-ups in case anything went wrong, and surveillance along the route - the defector and his family were spirited into a blacked out car and hidden over night in an apartment. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE If the fellow's colleagues had found out what was going on they would have come looking for him with guns. There is absolutely no doubt about that. Absolutely no doubt. Because one of these fellows colleagues went missing and I think it was suspected of having been ... done a bunk form this chap's Embassy previously he himself had gone out after him ... loaded for bear. They don't ... they don't mess around. FILM - QANTAS JET LANDING ROSS COULTHART Bundled on to a direct QANTAS flight to Australia at the last minute, the man who d been one of the western alliance s top Middle East agents for eighteen months made it to Perth. Today he s living safely in Australia under a new identity. FILM - OFFICER # 2 AND WIFE ROSS COULTHART But ironically the man who made it possible has found little peace back in Australia. Officer Two returned to a senior position in ASIS but within a year, he and his wife found themselves under attack for a number of security breaches, including criticism for using his wife in an operation. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE I would not do something like that again, I would not risk it.Q: You wouldn't risk your family?A: I certainly wouldn't risk my family. I didn't expect to be promoted or patted on the back or all those sorts of things. But I certainly didn't expect to be subsequently villified.Q: The irony was...A: The irony was that my wife subsequently was accused of being over involved in operational work. She was criticised in a sense for her involvement in this case. I mean that's absolutely extraordinary.Q: In fact that's been one the allegations against youA: Yes that's right.Q:How do you feel about that?A:Very bitter. Extremely bitter. I asked her to be involved in good faith because I needed help. I thought that we owed it .... owed this particular individual to give him the best possible chance of arriving in Australia in one piece. I was forbidden as a matter of policy from using Mission staff so I ... I sought the assistance of my wife and then ... it turns out that she was vilified for ... assisting. That's absolutely extraordinary. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2'S WIFE IN SILHOUETTE Q: Did you husband ever say anything to you about what might happen if you were caught by another intelligence service doing what you were doing?A. Yes. He told me that a lot of the things that could happen were not very pleasant. But I never questioned what he was doing because I've always believed that he's done everything in the best interests of Australia. ROSS COULTHART The investigations went on for two years. Eventually the Service s allegations against Officer Two were found to be overwhelmingly baseless and their internal enquiry "biased". FILM - LETTER FROM IGIS TO OFFICER # 2 'S WIFE ROSS COULTHART The Inspector-General of the Intelligence Services ordered ASIS to pay compensation for ruining its agent s career and made an official apology to his wife. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE I've read stories, you know Kafka-like stories of the ... the impact on families of the purges in the Soviet Union during the late '30's, the concept of secret denunciations and secret trials and people being forced to implicate themselves through testimony without being advised of charges. This is how we feel ... we've been through it. We know what it is like. We've been there, we've done it. It's terrible, believe you me ROSS COULTHART And their trials weren t over. Last year Officer Two s home was burgled under very suspicious circumstances. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE It turned out that every paper, every drawer had been opened, every piece of paper had been taken out and left in neat piles right down to my marriage certificate which had been taken from its folder and left unfolded on the floor. Now I should say that I don't believe for a second that the Service conducted a break-in through legal channels. They wouldn't get a warrant. But I think it's certainly possible that individuals connected with this case may well have found it a desirable idea to seize whatever papers.... ROSS COULTHART The Secret Service s treatment of its officers highlights the fact that ASIS operates virtually as a law unto itself. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 1 IN SILHOUETTE I think it s simply because the intelligence service for many decades, namely four, has not been subject to the sort of scrutiny that any intelligence service must be subjected to. And along the way, as things have gone wrong, as they always will in any human organisation, instinctive reaction of management has been to cover up and almost always define one or more scapegoats. ROSS COULTHART (TO CAMERA) When the spies start saying Australia's Secret Service needs to be made more accountable then we ve got a problem. Our domestic intelligence service, ASIO has to report annually to Parliament. ASIS doesn t. This resistance to scrutiny has always been justified on the grounds that we need to keep the confidence of our friendly cousins: Britain's MI6 and the American CIA. FILM - HONG KONG - LISTENING ANTENNAE IN HONG KONG HARBOUR - AERIALS ROSS COULTHART That intelligence cringe has drawn ASIS into compromising foreign adventures like the ones detailed tonight by our disaffected officers. FILM - HONG KONG ROSS COULTHART Why risk our vital growing relationship with Beijing by doing the dirty work for a Britain actively retreating from our region? What did Australia really stand to gain by spying for the British and the Americans in Argentina, India and the Middle East? ASIS won t tell us. Ironically one principle of Western intelligence we haven t slavishly adopted is accountability. FILM - U.K. PARLIAMENT ROSS COULTHART Both the CIA and MI6 have now come in from the Cold with reforms making them more accountable to the Congress or Parliament. FILM - QUEEN ELIZABETH'S SPEECH TO THE U.K. PARLIAMENT STATE OPENING My Government will introduce legislation to place the Secret Intelligence Service and Government communications headquarters on a statutory basis and to make further provision for the oversight and accountability of them and the security service. FILM - "BUG PROOF" HEARING ROOM, U.S. CONGRESS SIRC ROSS COULTHART For years, the United States Senate Intelligence Review Committee made up of selected politicians has been able to hear details of the most secretive operations engaged in by the CIA - a useful curb on the previously notorious activities of the agency. FILM - AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL PARLIAMENT ROSS COULTHART But here in Australia, there s precious little about ASIS that isn t secret. The Minister in charge of Australia s secret service, Senator Gareth Evans, has repeatedly refused to comment in Parliament when questioned about these matters by the Federal Opposition. FILM - SEN. GARETH EVANS IN PARLIAMENT Might I say simply this. It's the long established practice of successive Australian Governments to make no comment on matters relating to ASIS - however much we might like to be able to clear the air on this occasion, our position has to be that the Australian Government simply won't comment on this substantive allegations. Might I say more generally though that a number of enquiries have of course reported on ASIS in recent years and I have confidence in the present comprehensive arrangements for its oversight including the establishment of the office of Inspector General of Intelligence and Security that was established by the Government. FILM - COMPUTER DATABASE ROSS COULTHART Most Australian Government files like these are subject to strict Privacy legislation. But perhaps the most concerning aspect for all Australians should be that ASIS secretly holds tens of thousands of files on Australian citizens. A database completely outside Privacy laws. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 1 IN SILHOUETTE Now these things are never scrutinised. A lot of information that goes on to these cards will just be hearsay. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE If ASIS provided information to ASIO which led to the refusal of a visa or a job, my understanding is that the ah...the individual would not be told that on the grounds that he would not realise the information came from ASIS.Q: So information could be held of a deleterious nature on an Australian citizen inside ASIS and they wouldn t have any, they wouldn t know anything about it.A: No....No come back at all. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 1 IN SILHOUETTE These people know that they'll never be scrutinised, they'll never be disciplined and that's the risk. You see what needs to be understood that in ... in a democracy when you have an organisation that's exempt from the law to that degree and is not being regularly scrutinised and no it has never been disciplined you have in effect the beginnings of a thought police. Now that seed is already germinated in ASIS. Its not a nice thing to say and to say it is disrespectful to a large number of good people who work in ASIS and a large number of very good people who work in Foreign Affairs alongside them but that seed has germinated and there's a plant emerging. That's what we're worried about. That's what we're fighting for. FILM - FEDERAL PARLIAMENT ROSS COULTHART The former spies, who ve broken the ASIS code of secrecy tonight, risk being pilloried for their actions. There s no doubt though their concerns about ASIS go well beyond their personal grievances to fundamental questions of accountability and national interest. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE If it s to operate effectively, it must have secrecy of its actions. I don t dispute that for a minute. But it must also remain absolutely within the realms of propriety and where improprieties exist and come to light, they must be seriously dealt with. ROSS COULTHART Officer Two, takes solace from one of his heroes: the American physicist J Robert Oppenheimer. During the McCarthyist purges of the 1950 s Oppenheimer spoke out against the threat to democracy with words which should serve as a timely reminder to all Australians. FILM - INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER # 2 IN SILHOUETTE We believe no man or group of men adequate enough or good enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to be free to identify impropriety is to be free to inquire. And that only in secrecy will ignorance flourish and subvert' and I think that that last sentence basically says it all ... only in secrecy will ignorance flourish and subvert. ANDREW OLLE (STUDIO) However strong the principles they're standing on, those two old ASIS hands have taken a big risk in speaking out tonight. Our story was produced by Mark Corcoran, with Ross Coulthart the reporter. ANDREW OLLE (Cont'd) Next week, we're staying very much in the world of intrigue. We unmask the shadowy figures who pushed Russian fire-brand Vladimir Zhirinovsky from obscurity onto the international stage. "Wild Bear" ... next Monday. Goodnight. CLOSING THEME AND CREDITS ______________________________________________ FREE Personalized Email at Mail.com Sign up at http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. 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