30 June 2012

Soviet penetration of ASIO

The context is a Quadrant article on Chinese spying in Australia, especially cyber spying, but the backgrounder on Soviet penetration of ASIO was fascinating.
Australia was rather poorly served during the Cold War by its counter-intelligence services, in large measure because they were deeply penetrated by the Soviet Union. This remains a subject that the Australian government is extraordinarily reticent about. That makes it possible for the Left to get away with the old Cold War canard that ASIO was a right-wing organisation obsessed with allegedly mythical reds under the bed. It turns out that the reds were not merely under the bed; they were in it...
...the KGB files on Australia have somehow never seen the light of day, despite the publication of two fat volumes, in 1999 and 2005, on the Mitrokhin revelations from the KGB archive. I noted that there were, indeed, revelations to be had about Soviet spies in Australia, but that these had apparently been suppressed, for no clear reason. I claimed that this had been done at the request of the Keating government. I added that, as prime minister, Paul Keating had, nonetheless, quietly set up two inquiries into Soviet penetration of Canberra and specifically of ASIO. ... 

...I have been informed that ... up to ten suspected moles were quietly retired and that one of these individuals had worked inside ASIO from 1952 until 1985, ending up as head of security vetting. ...

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