KGB spy still at large after infiltrating ASIO (long)

[Q]

KGB spy still at large after infiltrating ASIO

By Peter Hartcher
Jun 29 2000 03:10:43

A KGB agent penetrated ASIO, the national spying and security body, 
undetected for a decade and is still living in Australia.

The agent worked in the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and 
rose to a senior position, according to sources familiar with the case.
He was only unmasked when a KGB defector identified him in 1993. But the 
Federal Government did not attempt to prosecute him.

He left ASIO and remains in Australia. Officials said he was not prosecuted 
because of a lack of evidence. Asked about the case, a spokeswoman for the 
Attorney-General, Mr Daryl Williams, said the Government would not comment 
on national security matters.

The Government has kept the case the subject of strict secrecy. But an 
Australian National University espionage expert, Professor Des Ball, said 
government inaction was to avoid the embarrassment of admitting 
penetration. The suspected traitor at ASIO was named by a former KGB 
archivist and colonel, Mr Vasili Mitrokhin, who defected to Britain in 1992 
with the names of thousands of Russian spies and agents around the world.

Mr Mitrokhin's material confirms Australia was "a medium-high target" for 
the KGB, according to Professor Christopher Andrew, a Cambridge University 
espionage expert who has seen all the Mitrokhin material. The Mitrokhin 
files also revealed that another KGB spy was working elsewhere in 
Australia's federal bureaucracy, according to people familiar with the 
matter. It was known for years in Eastern Bloc intelligence agencies that 
the KGB had successfully penetrated ASIO.  Mr Mitrokhin supplied an 
unprecedented trove of Russian secrets to the intelligence agencies of the 
West, running to some 20,000 pages of copied secret KGB files.

His material was "the most complete and extensive intelligence ever 
received from any source", the US Federal Bureau of Investigation said. 
Governments around the world have used it to unearth and prosecute Russian 
spies. One of the more notable was the US Government's prosecution of 
Robert Lipka, a signals operator at the top-secret National Security Agency.

In 1997, he was jailed for 18 years for espionage after being revealed by 
Mr Mitrokhin as a long-standing KGB agent. Most famous, perhaps, is the 
case of the so-called Granny Spy in Britain, 87-year-old Melita Norwood, 
unveiled last year and accused of betraying Britain's nuclear secrets.  The 
case caused a scandal in Britain when it was disclosed that the domestic 
counter-intelligence agency, MI5, had known of the Norwood case for seven 
years, had decided not to prosecute Ms Norwood, and had failed to inform 
ministers.  The Mitrokhin files also led to the unmasking of long-standing 
KGB agents in Germany, New Zealand, and Italy and to the discovery of 
buried KGB caches of bombs and arms in Switzerland.

The KGB was reconstituted as the SVR in 1991 and continues as Russia's 
foreign spy agency. An Australian National University expert on espionage, 
Professor Des Ball, who has done some research on the Mitrokhin files, said 
the Government should have either prosecuted or publicly named KGB agents 
found to have been working in Australian officialdom.

"I regard the argument of a lack of evidence as just an excuse. ASIO has 
only ever attempted one prosecution," the unsuccessful 1993-94 bid to 
convict former ASIO officer David Sadil of spying for the Russians. "Even 
in cases where they have had relatively incontrovertible evidence, they 
haven't attempted a prosecution."

The real reason for official inaction against suspected traitors, he said, 
was the embarrassment of having to admit to successful penetration. 
Professor Andrew said Australia was a "medium-high" target for the KGB 
because it was seen as a backdoor route into the secrets of the US, the 
so-called "main adversary", and Britain.

Professor Andrew co-wrote a book with Mr Mitrokhin, under the supervision 
of British intelligence agency MI5, that contains some of the Mitrokhin 
revelations in the US and Europe. Volume two, dealing with the rest of the 
world, including Australia, will not be published for another two years or 
more, Professor Andrew said.
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