AUSTRALIA'S MOST SOPHISTICATED ANTI-AMERICAN ELITE ORGANISATION:

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)

Since September 11, the Bush Administration has restricted Government information amidst predictable outcries from civil libertarians, media commentators and the usual suspects.  However, no Australian government would even dare to discuss such policies. The following analysis of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade provides insights into the disintegration on security in Australia and its adverse effects on the prosecution of the War against terrorism.

Background

The Australian External Affairs Department later renamed the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) was described in the 1950s as a "nest of traitors” in Federal parliament, by the then Prime Minister. This accurate assessment was subsequently verified by the Soviet MVD defector Vladimir M  Petrov and his wife (also an intelligence defector) and the recently published  200 + VENONA a series of decyphered Soviet intelligence messages  from the Canberra-Moscow-KGB link in the period 1943-1948. The Petrov's debriefings and VENONA revealed a network of communist and Soviet agents in the Department of External Affairs and the office of Labor leader H. V. Evatt.  Walter Seddon Clayton, a key figure in the espionage net received information from Evatt’s office and hand delivered it to officers from the KGB Residency in Canberra.

The then Foreign Minister, H.V. Evatt was later revealed as suffering from a long-time untreated mental illness and at least two identified Soviet agents  on his personal staff. (Over  seventeen Soviet agents remain unidentified). One of the most senior officers and advisors in the department was a GRU asset. Evatt remains a Labor Party icon and the DFAT library is appropriately named in his memory.

DFAT has always been a counter intelligence nightmare. This is partly a product of "client capture". The relevant desk officer for a country will have official "contacts"  with diplomats and intelligence officers under diplomatic cover from that country.  The foreign intelligence service will target the desk officer and attempt to recruit him or her.  Such conducts are a routine part of diplomatic activity but many DFAT officers believe they are immune to compromise or recruitment.

 DFAT contact reports are worth  the paper they are written on.  From their inception they were regarded as  humorous documents replete with systematically misleading expressions, even more so when DFAT was required by the government of the day to provide copies to the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO).

The psychological process of identification with his or her professional interest ensures that the DFAT officer often identifies and operates as a covert agent or overt de facto “ambassador" to their country of professional interest, both within DFAT and the Australian government. “Identification with the  aggressor” is exemplified  by the "pro-China lobby" in DFAT, who can always be relied on to further the commercial interests of their "mates" or the strategic interests of the PRC, if they can tell the difference.  

The Yugoslav lobby which was influential in DFAT and the Office of National Assessments (ONA) in the 1980s has been exposed by events in post -Tito Yugoslavia, however, at that time the "pro-Belgrade group" flourished under political patronage and a sympathetic Director General of ASIO and ONA, who charitably overlooked their covert involvement in partisan party politics, press briefings and contempt for security procedures and controls, and of course, their rabid anti-Americanism.

Predictably, the DFAT mindset is deeply hostile to intelligence and security. Many DFAT officers justifiably fear background checking, although their fears of security vetting are misplaced as virtually no requests for access to sensitive information are refused by DFAT or ASIO.

In the case of DFAT the doctrine of ministerial responsibility has broken down . The hapless Minister, who was featured in a women’s magazine wearing fishnet stockings is a captive of DFAT and reliant on official lubrication applied to him daily by smooth, professional and accomplished liars who typically regard the policies of elected governments as wearisome and untimely intrusions into their personal and professional interests.

Leaks of classified documents

Over the past three decades and despite or because of scores of investigations by ASIO and the Australian Federal Police, there has never been a successful government prosecution of leaks of classified intelligence documents from DFAT.

Investigations into such leaks are widely and correctly regarded as farcical. The recent federal government legislation aimed at preventing dissemination of classified information is an index of desperation.

Due to the veto power of political patronage, widespread accusations of discrimination and “McCarthyism” from the Labor Party, media, trade unions and civil libertarians, the Australian government will not launch an aggressive CI programme. 

The DFAT Ministerial nexus

The employment of DFAT officers on the staff of Labor Party "shadow "ministers and ministers (when in office) enables them to  provide sensitive intelligence documents to each other under cover of official duties, to friendly Labor Party contacts and Labor parliamentarians and media assets. The employment of DFAT officers as parliamentary staff is a critical and therefore, neglected dimension of the DFAT security problem.

Leaked classified documents from DFAT officers attached to Ministers' staff or shadow ministers' staff, follow the criteria:

( I) Timing:  in a period of tension or perceived crisis in the region or Australian policy disagreement with the US government, a document will be leaked to “prove” that Australian interests are at variance with the US or that Australian “independence” is being compromised

(ii) Government embarrassment: the government will face a barrage of questions from the Opposition in parliament (often these questions are drafted and replies drafted or written by DFAT officers!)

(iii) Destabilisation of US Australian relations: overall the purpose is to destabilise Australian US relations and US interests in the region.

A minority of officers, some particularly gifted, through unusual character strength and undeniable ability ,do not share the prevailing  DFAT anti US consensus. They have been and always will be a lonely crowd as DFAT is a self recruiting organisation, which socialises staff into an anti US orthodoxy.

In 1944, US intelligence described Australia as "unreliable” as information was being provided to Russian intelligence officers at the Soviet embassy in Canberra from the Department of External Affairs, which was used as battlefield information against allied and Australian troops.

In 1947 the US government insisted that Australia not receive classified information, until appropriate security measures were taken to protect US and allied secrets from communist agents. US pressure lead to the establishment of ASIO in 1950.

In the war against Terrorism, so critical to US and Western interests, Australia and DFAT in particular remains “unreliable" indeed, treacherous to US and Western interests.

Three illustrative cases of DFAT conduct

#1 A former DFAT officer working with the Office of National Assessments asked an unwitting colleague to steal NSA/DSD sigint from the ONA office and sold it to a '"mate", a commercial consultant. He was never interrogated and subjected to a mock interview. He is now a consultant to the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). The “consultant” currently employs a former secretary DFAT/ONA officer who was in regular contact with a YIS officer stationed in Canberra, and subsequently “advised” an Australian Prime Minister on foreign policy.

#2 A DFAT officer attached to the Australian embassy in Washington stole Australia’s most sensitive intelligence secrets from an allegedly secure location and passed them to a senior DFAT diplomat stationed in South East Asia.

The diplomat  was a notorious paedophile, whose proclivities were know to the foreign minister and the DFAT secretary prior to his appointment.

The diplomat leaked the documents to a national newspaper at the height of an ongoing spy scandal. The classified information, described by then Prime Minister as the “most damaging ever” deflected media and public interest to an anti US position.

The paedophile diplomat was placed under surveillance in Melbourne where he was observed delivering pornographic material. He was never questioned as to the security scandal.

#3 A former DFAT secretary was in regular contact with a KGB  line R officer. These meetings were allegedly reported back to the Australian intelligence service. The case officer of the diplomat is believed to have been at worst a soviet agent or at best, compromised.

The same DFAT secretary was also known to have carried a brief case of the most sensitive US NSA/CIA documents to his residence. The documents revealed US PRC sigint targeting and collection priorities.

The significance of these cases is that they illustrate that counter intelligence in Australia is in a parlous state. All of the above individuals were never targetted for investigations and profited professionally and personally from their activities.

Government officers who leak NSA and other US material believe correctly that their actions will not come to notice as there is no deterrence. Political patronage via the Australian Labor Party and the “good bloke and mate” networks render them invulnerable to investigation. Legislation should compel former DFAT officers who are acting as “consultants” to foreign governments, to register, as in the US, as foreign agents. In the meantime, the US government should regard sections and anti-US enclaves in DFAT as hostile to US interests and the War against Terrorism.