AUSTRALIA

General

I - Z

Ilardi, Gaetano Joe. "The Whitlam Government's 1973 Clash with Australian Intelligence." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 14, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 62-88.

The victory of the Australian Labor Party at the polls in 1972 brought swift change to the Australian political scene. The "Murphy raids" on ASIO brought more difficulties for the ALP government than it did for Australian intelligence.

Lustgarten, Laurence. "Security Services, Constitutional Structure, and the Varieties of Accountability in Canada and Australia." In Accountability for Criminal Justice, ed. Philip Stenning, 162-184. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995.

Marr, David. The Ivanov Trail. Melbourne, Australia: Nelson, 1984.

ASIO bugs in the home of a Soviet diplomat, Valeri Ivanov, recorded conversations between Ivanov and a businessman and former Australian Labor Party official, David Combe. Banned from contact with the government, it took Combe some years and effort to clear himself from suspicion of being a conduit from the Labor Party to the KGB.

Martin, Geoffrey Lee. "Spying Agency in the Red." Electronic Telegraph, 17 May 1996. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk]

"Australia's overseas espionage agency, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, has had to cut back on routine spying after ending up £2 million in the red this year."

Mathams, Robert H. Sub Rosa: Memoirs of an Australian Intelligence Analyst. Sydney and London: Allyn & Unwin, 1982. Winchester, MA: Allyn & Unwin, 1983.

Pforzheimer: The author was Director, Scientific and Technical Intelligence, Joint Intelligence Organization. "This important book is unique in the recent literature in dealing with scientific and technical intelligence as an essential aspect of strategic or national intelligence."

McKnight, David. Australia's Spies and Their Secrets. London: UCL Press, 1994. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994. St. Leonards, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1995. [pb]

Unsinger, IJI&C 9.4, opines that McKnight's study of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) "hurts the chances for a good study of ASIO to appear." The reviewer has trouble with the author's extensive use of "unnamed sources," with other aspects of his sourcing, and with the book's polemical approach.

On the other hand, Gill, I&NS 11.4, calls the book an "excellent survey" of ASIO's history. However, "it is frustrating that the author has not provided a fuller analysis of the Hope reports and their impact on ASIO."

McKnight, David. "The Moscow-Canberra Cables: How Soviet Intelligence Obtained British Secrets through the Back Door." Intelligence and National Security 13, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 159-170.

The Venona releases include over 200 decoded cables between Canberra and Moscow. The author draws three major conclusions from his analysis of the materials: (1) that communists in the Australian public service did give classified documents to the KGB; (2) that the testimony of the Petrovs "was largely accurate"; and (3) that the work of the 1954 Royal Commission on Espionage was not a politically motivated frameup of the Labor opposition.

McLennan, A.D. "National Intelligence Assessment: Australia's Experience." Intelligence and National Security 10, no. 4 (Oct. 1995): 72- 91.

The focus here is on the Office of National Assessment (ONA), which the author views as a hybrid. Functionally, it is similar to the American central intelligence arrangement, but constitutionally it operates within a system more like the British which embeds the executive in Parliament. In essence, ONA reflects the environment in which it developed.

Mitchell, Ben. "Aspiring to Spy? No Dry Martinis or Sports Car Required." The Age (Melbourne), 19 Aug. 1997. [http://www.theage.com.au]

The Australian Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) is "advertising for spies" [this phraseology shows that it is not just American journalists who fail to understand even elemental intelligence terminology]. DSD is hiring people who can decipher encrypted cables, translate foreign languages, and analyze international telecommunications.

Pfennigwerth, Ian. A Man of Intelligence: The Life of Captain Theodore Eric Nave, Australian Codebreaker Extraordinary. NSW, Australia: Rosenberg Publishing, 2006.

According to Kruh, Cryptologia 30.4 (Oct. 2006), Neve's skills gained him "widespread respect and admiration within the closed confines of Allied codebreaking before, during, and after World War Two."

Peake, Studies 52.2 (Jun. 2008) and Intelligencer 16.1 (Spring 2008), comments that "conspiracy devotees" will ignore this book, because the author shows that the critical parts of Rusbridger and Nave's Betrayal at Pearl Harbor (1991) were written without Nave's involvement. The biography will, however, be "accepted with gratitude by intelligence historians and clear-thinking readers."

Richelson, Jeffrey T., and Desmond Ball. The Ties That Bind: Intelligence Cooperation Between the UKUSA Countries. Boston & London: Allen & Unwin, 1985. The Ties That Bind: Intelligence Cooperation Between the UKUSA Countries--the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada, Australian and New Zealand. 2d ed. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990.

Clark comment: In this work, the prolific and knowledgeable Richelson combines with Ball, Australia's preeminent intelligence scholar, to lay out the development and maintenance of intelligence cooperation and coordination among the so-called UKUSA countries, particularly in the area of signals intelligence, from World War II to the present. There are brief reviews of the British, Australia, New Zealand, Canadian, and U.S. "security and intelligence" communities.

According to Surveillant 1.2, the second edition "updates the state of the UKUSA network, incorporating events since 1985 as well as new information ... regarding pre-1985 events." But, as Wark, I&NS 7.2, notes, the revisions are minimal and fail to focus on significant changes in New Zealand's status and on sweeping changes in the structure of Canadian intelligence.

Sexton refers to The Ties That Bind as an "essential source for those seeking to understand the genesis of the Anglo-American intelligence and security network fostered by the Cold War." On the other hand, Lowenthal finds the account "[m]arred by an evident hostility" to some of the activities on which the countries collaborate and an "occasional analysis by innuendo." And Gelber, I&NS 2.1, questions whether all the facts stuffed into the book are of equal importance.

Sydney Morning Herald. "How Menzies Covered Up Spy Scandal." 21 Jan. 2000. [http://www.smh.com.au]

According to files released to the UK Public Record Office, former Australian prime minister Robert Menzies and UK prime minister Harold Macmillan "secretly colluded to cover up an embarrassing spy scandal.... [They] were terrified the Americans would discover an RAF trainee [named only as Brown in the files] had sold secrets to the communists from guided missile trials being carried out by the two countries in Woomera, South Australia."

See also, Penelope Debelle, "Murdoch's Cover-Up Role In Spy Scandal," Sydney Morning Herald, 22 Jan. 2000. [http://www.smh.com.au]

Toohey, Brian, and William Pinwill. Oyster: The Story of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service. Port Melbourne, Victoria: Heinemann Australia, 1989. Port Melbourne, Victoria: Mandarin, 1990. [pb]

Surveillant 1.1 calls Oyster a "fascinating sweep through ASIS's activity." Petersen notes that the book contains "many references to U.S. intelligence, mostly unfavorable."

Harvey Barnett (who retired as Director of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) in 1985 and also served in ASIS for 20 years), I&NS 5.1, finds much wrong with this book, from the presentation of espionage as a "distasteful business," to the treatment of individuals, to the failure to understand ASIS' relationship within the Australian governmental structure. When their "factual evidence runs out," the authors fall into a mire of "conjecture and even conspiracy"; allegations are made "where supporting evidence is missing."

Weller, Geoffrey R.

1. "Comparing Western Inspectors General of Intelligence and Security." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 9, no. 4 (Winter 1996/97): 383-406.

Statutory offices of Inspectors General (or similar entities in the case of the United Kingdom's offices of Security Service Commissioner and Intelligence Services Commissioner) have been created in the Western democracies over the past 15 years as part of an "overall increase in the degree of oversight accorded intelligence agencies.... The Inspectors General have generally built up good reputations for their largely well done ... work.... But ... the IGs have not always been able to anticipate problems and give early warning."

2. "The Internal Modernization of Western Intelligence Agencies." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 14, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 299-322.

The author surveys post-Cold War changes that have affected the internal workings of the civilian intelligence agencies of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. He touches on recruitment policies, increasing representativeness, personnel policies, management practices, and physical modernization.

3. "Oversight of Australia's Intelligence Services." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 12, no. 4 (Winter 1999): 484-503.

Intelligence "agencies should not be so hamstrung that they cannot properly do what they are mandated to do. Yet, their political masters and the general public need sufficient assurances that these agencies will not become inefficient or threats to the political system itself. Australia has made attempts, especially in recent years, to achieve this balance.... But the success of these attempts to find necessary balance in Australia is open to some question."

Woodard, Garry. "Enigmatic Variations: The Development of National Intelligence Assessment in Australia." Intelligence and National Security 16, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 1-23.

In the first 25 years after World War II, "British models were more important" to the development of estimative intelligence in Australia. Since that time, "Australia has moved closer to American practice in refining the estimates machinery and in making it directly responsible to the head of government." Nevertheless, Australian experience has had "its own distinctive characteristics."

Young, P.L. "America's Mysterious 'Space Base' Down Under." Progressive 44 (Jul. 1980): 31-33.

Calder: Pine Gap.

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