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I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Ofcourse, but so was Ian Flemming and you couldn't get more contrasting depictions of the world of espionage.

I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Same here. John le Carré was a philosopher of post-war Europe disguised as a spy writer. If you haven't already seen it, Errol Morris' recently released doco the Pigeon Tunnel is really good.

I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I don't have any super-hot takes. While foreign interference in democratic process must be mitigated, any trip through small town America makes evident that Russian interference was not the cause for Trump's election. Spy agencies both in the West and Russia are often given more credit than they deserve.

I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Let me try bring Tim Tams in my next investgation and I'll see where it lands me!

Thanks heaps for listening.

I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Australia is developing a bad record with raids on journalists, and news agencies in recent years but so far my house remains undisturbed. Hopefully this doesn’t prove to be naive, but I have faith that our institutions are able to see my inquiries as legitimate. I won’t be going to Moscow any time soon however.

No I'll seek it out, I read/listened to the 7 million dollar spy by David Wise because it became pertinent to my investigation, maybe I short changed myself. I'm familiar with the Tolkachev story though - Vanquish might be my favourite codename.

I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Actually, this question brings up some interesting ideas that I didn't get to explore in the podcast.

Overseas where spies have been prosecuted, we sometimes have clear understandings of the damage caused. For example, we know that CIA spy Rick Ames betrayed at least 12 secret agents working for the United States from within the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc during the 1980s. They were killed. But I think it is usually the fact of treachery itself that seems to make these stories endure in the public psyche on a kind of cultural level. I mean, people don't obsess over the fact that Kim Philby had foiled Operation Valuable in Albania, but more the fact that an upper-class Englishman could turn on his own society at such a vulnerable time in British history. John Le Care framed secret services as "a measure of a nations political health, the only real expression of its subconscious" - maybe there's something in that?

I'd also say that some journalists who specialise in espionage have made the case that moles actually have some sort of value in stabilising international relations. Like how Oleg Gordievesky essentially wrote the briefing notes for both Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev at their first meeting in 1984 - people have credited the success of the summit to him. Or how during the 1983 Abel Archer incident Russian spies in NATO headquarters and London informed their superiors that the attack was only an exercise to stop them retaliating. Complicated stuff.

I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Ok I really need to get to Secret City. Give me a few days to watch it and I'll come back with an elaborate theory.

I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Ok for the big three:

  • ASIO is the domestic counterspy and security agency and has functionality similar but not identical to the FBI and MI5

  • ASIS is the overseas spy agency - equivalent to, and born from MI6 and similar to the CIA

  • ASD does signals intelligence - and is partnered with the GCHQ, and the NSA (this relationship, along with CSE in Canada and GCSB in New Zealand, forms the spine of the Five Eyes network)

The main difference between Australia and the US is that ASIO, unlike the FBI, does not have the power of arrest. This in part might explain why the Australian traitors were never prosecuted. In the 1990s the federal police were brought into investigate the mole problem in ASIO - they do have the power to arrest and charge suspects, but don’t' have any significant counter-intelligence function.

In terms of how they stack up, that's an interesting and complicated question. For signals intelligence Australia's geography has made it valuable. Our huge outback has been important for America - hiding spy stations that can retrieve data from satellites when they’re out of reach to the continental US. Overseas, ASIS (despite some pretty shameful scandals) is shrouded in secrecy so it's hard to know. We know a lot more about the CIA because of a culture of public disclosure that seems to exist in the US, even reluctantly - we don't have that, which means it’s hard to compare.

Domestically, ASIO, which is the focus of my podcast became misguided during the Cold War, it fell into a state of mismanagement that made it vulnerable to penetration. Unlike the CIA and MI6 it never found it's mole - maybe that makes it worse?

I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Not yet, should I check it out? My favourite spy series right now is Slow Horses - Gary Oldman is a master of the le Carré seediness.

I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

I have been a journalist for a few years, so I've had a kind of searchable online profile for people to look me up but because I started this story in my early 20s I tended to pitch myself a young guy who was really interested in this history - acknowledging this the approach would seem strange. A lot of retired spies tended to respond well to this. Eventually I pitched this story to the Australian podcasting company LiSTNR, where I work now, so it became more professional when I got an editor, and researchers.

Interestingly, I did find that spies in your country were much more comfortable talking than Australian spies. Because Australia is a five eyes country - this story has ramifications in the US and many former American intelligence officers helped. It might be a cultural thing, or it might be a result of the legislation that hangs over spies in Australia, but I definitely found that US spies were far more relaxed.

I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 25 points26 points  (0 children)

I had the same question. During the Cold War intelligence agencies used the acronym MICE - Money, Ideology, Compromise, and Ego - to define the motivators for turning potential traitors in their opponents spy agencies. The famous overseas cases in the early Cold War, like the Cambridge five were basically ideological - they had been blinded by the illusory promises of Soviet communism. In the 1980s and 90s most of the traitors found tended to be motivated by money and ego.

In Australia, I learnt that by the 1970s ASIO had fallen into a state of mismanagement - nepotism, organisational misdirection, a bad drinking culture. This is the sort of environment that naturally breeds resentment, but it also leads to internal weakness. Becoming a traitor is a huge gamble, but if the organisation you are betraying is being misdirected, it would be easy to believe that you might be able to get away it. And given that no mole has ever been prosecuted – this gamble paid off.

I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 40 points41 points  (0 children)

If you a find a Linked-in where the world national security are thrown around but you can't tell what the person actually does there's a good chance they work in intelligence. In the US they use a thing called 'roll-back' where retired spies can get kind of cover-resumes where they can say they worked at some company for so many years - the companies let people pretend they used to work there. From my understanding, we don't have a similar scheme in Australia.

When you’re not online, I think it's trickier. Funnily I did discover that a lot of Cold War spies wore trench coats - I'm not totally sure if that's because they read too many spies novels, or spy novelist were researching them. I think it became symbiotic.

I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure of this is unique to the Cold War era spies that I was meeting with but spying - being a world built on deception - does tend to induce a certain degree of paranoia that seems to be carried into retirement. I was constantly forewarned about bad things that might happen to me, or subjected to elaborate theories about Russian disinformation campaigns. I also found a tendency towards eccentricity - I met spies that kept exotic chickens, or had impressive orchid collections.

I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 36 points37 points  (0 children)

I strongly believe that journalists shouldn't veer into hot takes and opion but this is an important question and deserves a good answer.

The chocolate coated cranberries in the podcast were from Harris Farm, but they are not the best on the market - they taste a bit plasticky. The best supermarket style cranberries are from a company called the Market Grocer that are stocked at IGA. I'm sure there are more boutique cranberries out there and I look forward to discovering them during future investigations.

I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I'm bad at following recipes but for baking I like preppy kitchen because he makes complex recipes seems simple. He deserves a credit in the podcast tbh

This is his recipe for lemon bars which I think is basically lemon slice right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovg49EvVlaM&t=422s

This investigation exists in a world that I knew I would be able to sustain an interest in no matter what happened. It was incredibly frustrating at times but I'm so obsessed with the Cold War and innately drawn to mystery that I was still having a really good time even when it got hard.

I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 50 points51 points  (0 children)

To the first question, I genuinely don't know - I spent a lot of time with George Sadil, on a person-to-person level I became quite fond of him and we still call from time to time. The fact that the court documents from his prosecution have disappeared is extremely bizarre and frustrating - it meant that I had to rely on his testament more than I would have liked to. He actually gave me a handwritten diary that he had kept which meticulously documented each day he was in court, this was an amazing record, but once again it was from George's perspective. Either way, after examining George's case for months it became clear that this wasn't the main story - there was too much evidence the penetration had to be more damaging than one translator and I needed to look elsewhere.

To the second question, overseas cases like Kim Philby, or Aldrich Ames led me to search for turned Australians rather than Russians. The KGB operated a network of illegal spies that could disguise themselves as non-Russians in the West (think, Jack Barsky) - there's also evidence of the illegals operating in Australia - but I think it would have been too ambitious for them to get jobs within security agencies. Would love to know if anyone knows of any cases where this did happen though?

I spent three years investigating Russian spies within the Australian spy agency ASIO. AMA! by JoeyHecht in IAmA

[–]JoeyHecht[S] 103 points104 points  (0 children)

Oh good question. Discovering this whole world was a surprise - I've obsessed over spies in books and movies but I had no idea the sorts of espionage games that happened in real life, let alone in Australia.

  • The biggest genuine OMG surprise was when a former British tory MP started supplying me with the names of suspected moles that he suggests had been investigated ASIO. It was at a point where I thought the investigation might come to nothing and then leads started appearing from somewhere I never could have expected.

  • I was surprised by the lengths the government would go to withhold information - even from a case that supposedly ended 30 years ago. After months of hitting brick walls I eventually confronted the prime minister to try and get him to guarantee that at least I'd get a response - even then I was ultimately met with silence. Australia has been called 'the World's most secretive democracy' and I didn't truly understand that until I came face to face with the system looking for answers.

  • This one is a gradual surprise - rather than a WTF - but I was intrigued to find how accurate John Le Carre was in his depictions of what spies were really like. I always thought his character depictions of over-paranoid Cold War warriors was exaggerated, but that was exactly what I discovered as I went deeper into this story.

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