The Life of a Spy

An Education in Truth, Lies and Power

Rod Barton

• Verlag: Black Inc.
• Jahr: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781743821763
• Thema: History
• Thema: Military Biographies

I was no James Bond with a licence to kill, but I did work with the British intelligence services and for the CIA. I had guns pointed at me, death threats issued, a price placed on my head. In 1971, Rod Barton applied for a junior scientist role in the Australian Department of Defence. Little did he know what it entailed: as the Cold War intensified, Barton was inducted into the murky world of espionage.For the next few decades, Barton lived a life straight from an adventure novel. In war-torn Mogashidu, he disarmed militia, while sleeping in rat-infested barracks. As a UN weapons inspector, he flew to Baghdad on special missions, interviewing top scientists to uncover an illegal weapons program, and raced to chemical firms across Europe, tracking materials sold to the Iraqis. After 9/11, Barton became senior advisor to Hans Blix, seeking the truth on Iraq's WMDs. His clashes with the CIA over what he saw – and what he didn't find – reveal the terrible politicisation of the War on Terror. It prompted him to step from the shadows and share a truth about Iraqi prisoners – and to tussle with the Australian government.This is an extraordinary behind-the-scenes account of a world marked by risk, secrecy and individual acts of courage. The Life of a Spy will introduce you to a man of principle in a time of chaos, and take you to the frontlines of politics and war.'No Australian intelligence officer in recent times has been closer to the centre of world affairs than Barton, or better placed to observe the intense political pressures applied, from all sides, on those searching for Saddam Hussein's elusive weapons of mass destruction.' —Robert Manne

CHAPTER 1
GRUNTERS AND GROANERS

‘It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.’

Winston Churchill

On stage at St Philip’s Christian College, a private school on the New South Wales central coast, I was tense. I had given many talks and lectures, but this was different. Usually I spoke about the nature of intelligence work or the formulation of United Nations Security Council resolutions, or even weapons of mass destruction and the politics of disarmament. This time, I planned to speak about my work as a weapons inspector in Iraq. Although I didn’t want to dumb it down, I couldn’t venture far into theory, politics or technicalities. Fifteen-to eighteen-year-olds are a tough audience.

The students had gathered in the assembly hall, some bussed in from nearby schools, so the mob had now grown to more than 200. I might have had more than one gun pointed at me, but now I was nervous in front of a bunch of schoolkids.

As we waited for the last stragglers to take their seats, the principal leaned over and whispered, ‘Don’t worry if some of the students get up to go to the toilet and don’t come back.’ Seeing my alarm, she confided, ‘This happens when we have guest speakers. It’s nothing to do with you.’

I stood at the podium while the principal introduced me and looked at the crowd contemplatively. Most were staring at their phones or chatting. A small group of boys at the back were flicking spitballs at each other. I wondered who would be left in the hall by the end of my talk.

So I broke a long-standing rule and began, slowly and steadily: ‘I was a spy for the Australian government.’

Down went the phones. The arcs of spittle-laden projectiles ceased.

Not one student left during the talk. Afterwards, the principal told me that this was a first.

No self-respecting spy would ever out themselves as one. The job is ‘intelligence officer’, and it comes in different shapes and forms: some collect intelligence from overseas, perhaps through remote electronic surveillance or by running operatives in foreign countries; analysts make sense of what is collected, and assessment officers put this analysis into some sort of context.

Officially, I was an intelligence analyst and an assessment officer, and later a director of intelligence, but when I was posted overseas, the boundaries between collection and analysis became blurred, as did my role in the intelligence world. In that sense, I was a spy.

* * *

My interest in intelligence began early. I was born in the industrial north of England, in a rather bleak post-war Britain, where my father was a research chemist for a soap factory, and my mother a primary-school teacher. They sought a better life for themselves and their four children, so in 1957, when I was nine, they decided to emigrate to sunny South Australia. The choice of destination was influenced by my maternal grandfather, who had run away to sea as a teenager and gave glowing reports of his port of landing in 1896: Glenelg. I knew what a palindrome was due to this family lore. And so we became Ten Pound Poms.

However, palindromes were not in my future. We moved instead to the new migrant town of Elizabeth. It was a rough-and-tumble place with a mix of cultures, as rock star Jimmy Barnes, who also grew up there, detailed in his biography Working Class Boy. Most migrants were from the United Kingdom, but there were also sizeable numbers from Germany and the Netherlands. Some of my friends had names like Jürgen and Rudolph, which I considered exotic, and I became interested in key differences between us, such as their speech patterns and what was in their lunchboxes.

Elizabeth was very much a working-class town, especially with the opening of the Holden car factory in 1963. But across the railway tracks there was another large employer: the federal government’s Weapons Research Establishment. Some top British and Australian scientists worked on secret projects at WRE. I became curious about what lay behind the double rows of barbed-wire fencing. Occasionally there were exciting clues, such as the roar of static motors, which I later discovered were live-fired in rockets at Woomera, in the state’s far north.

Elizabeth South Primary was the only school in this rapidly growing town, and almost 1000 students crowded into its rows of portable classrooms. There was an enthusiastic but stern choirmaster. To audition for his choir, we all had to learn the national anthem. He would pace the long lines of students assembled in the schoolyard, listening to our angelic voices individually. Every so often a child was grabbed by the collar and ousted. And so it was for me: ‘Barton, out. Join the grunters and groaners.’

Had I a voice like Jimmy Barnes, no doubt I would never have become a spy. The grunters and groaners – there were about thirty of us – were banished to a classroom to learn geography while the strains of ‘The Song of Australia’ wafted in through the windows. I didn’t mind the extradition, as foreign countries interested me even then. I learnt about faraway places with fascinating names such as Mogadishu, Mombasa and Baghdad. As a wide-eyed ten-year-old, I decided that I would one day visit these places.

The Boy Scouts propelled me further on the path of adventure. On overnight trips, we were taught basic survival skills: cooking on an open fire, reading maps and bush camping. Then, when I was fifteen, the Cuban Missile Crisis entered our world.

The crisis was sparked by the Soviet Union’s construction of a base in Cuba, with a plan to equip it with nuclear missiles that could readily strike anywhere in continental America. President Kennedy and Congress declared this intolerable and authorised a blockade of the Soviet ships carrying the missiles to Cuba. The world came close to a nuclear war, but eventually the Russians saw sense and turned the ships around.

Our scouting weekend venture was loosely based on the crisis. Our objective was to find a ‘Cuban missile base’ hidden somewhere near Adelaide and destroy it. On a cold Friday evening, we were divided into pairs, driven up into the Adelaide Hills and dumped somewhere on the quiet backroads. Sealed instructions revealed that we were to rendezvous the following day, where another car would take us to our next location.

Our second location was the city of Adelaide, where, according to our next set of instructions, we were to proceed to Balfours café on King William Street. At a designated time, we would see a man arrive wearing one pink shoelace. Upon hearing the code phrase ‘The roses are in bloom’, he would pass us a note with the map coordinates of the hidden missile base. Saturday night was spent back in the Adelaide Hills.

On Sunday we realised that, despite our best efforts in working out the shortest route to the missile base, we had miscalculated. We didn’t quite reach the ‘electrified fence’ in time for the ten-minute window when the power would be cut by resistance fighters. We stood forlornly on the hillside looking down on the fence (rope strung around poles) that protected the missile base and its plywood missile cut-outs. We had failed, but we could see that our fellow adventurers had succeeded. Choking on the taste of disappointment, I vowed to be a better secret agent.

My imagination over spies and special missions had been fired. Although nothing more would come to pass for many years, I was on my way.

* * *

I still harboured ambitions to travel to foreign places, but the next few years were consumed with getting an education. Like my father, I had an interest in science, and I gained degrees in microbiology and biochemistry at the University of Adelaide. But I was still looking for an escape from the confines of Elizabeth.

It came when a recruiter from Canberra visited the university, seeking graduates to join the public service. His mission was not to find members of the secret service but something less illustrious: examiners at the patent office. I knew next to nothing about patents, but I signed on enthusiastically and packed my bags for Canberra.

After nine months of training to qualify as an examiner and a few months of on-the-job experience, I summoned the courage to knock on the Commissioner of Patents’ door with a suggestion. Since Australian patent law was based on English law, I suggested, it would be a good idea for me to gain work experience in the British office. The commissioner seemed only half convinced, but nevertheless granted me twelve months’ special leave and wrote a letter of recommendation to hand to his counterpart in London.

Three months later, in January 1971, I was on a ship to London, excited by the adventures that lay ahead. Not quite Mogadishu yet, but I could see that this step might eventually lead there.

I managed to spin out my time at the British Patent Office to more than eighteen months, which gave me the opportunity to take trips to Europe from time to time. I was particularly interested to visit East Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union. The world was still in the depths of the Cold War, and these communist countries had been off-limits to Western tourists, but now the doors were opening, albeit slowly. Since I was an Australian public servant working for the British civil service, I had to receive briefings from both governments on the political perils I might face.

For the British briefing, a rather ordinary man, who did not tell me his name or position but I assumed was from MI5, came to my office and asked me to read a short note. This all seemed rather understated and disappointing for my first real contact with the mysterious world of spies.

The Australian briefing was held at Australia House in the Strand, in what, I was to learn later, was the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) office. The experience was more intriguing: I entered a secure cell through doors with special locks. Introductions were first-name only. I doubted that ‘Peter’ and ‘James’ were the real names of the men I met anyway.

I was told that on entering the Soviet Union, the little group I was travelling in would be assigned an Intourist guide, a staff member from the primary Soviet travel agency for foreign tourists, but that this guide would really be working for the KGB. I was warned of the possibility of entrapment by attractive Russian women also working for the KGB. This latter was rather good news for a 24-year-old.

Disappointingly, I did not meet any alluring female secret agents on my trip. I did visit the Kremlin for a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet, a particular highlight. It was 4 July 1971, and being at the centre of Soviet power on American Independence Day made it even more memorable. But I knew then that I had to see the other side of the political equation.

On my way home to Australia at the end of my attachment in London, I bought a Greyhound bus ticket and spent six weeks touring the greatest capitalist system the world has ever seen. The contrast with Russia was stark, and although I could see problems in the United States, particularly for the poor, I knew which regime I would rather live under. I was beginning to develop an interest in political systems – a scientist slowly becoming a political scientist.

By the end of 1971, I was back at the patent office in Canberra. Now that I’d had a taste of adventure and travel, the job seemed especially dull, and I was on the lookout for new opportunities. One would appear early the next year, when the Australian government gazette advertised for a junior scientist to perform some vague-sounding duties in the Department of Defence. I decided to apply, even though I couldn’t work out what the job actually involved.

On the morning of the interview, I gained some insight. A colleague at the patent office had interviewed for the same position, and he confided some of the questions he was asked. A few were scientific in nature, but most had to do with international politics. ‘This is a job where your intelligence may come in to play,’ he said with a wink.

This gave me some time to prepare my answers. I had no qualms about this: after all, if the job was in intelligence, surely it was a plus if I used all the intel available to me.

I turned up at the Defence headquarters, where I was given a visitor’s pass and escorted to a complex marked Building L, where another visitor’s pass was assigned. A short distance along the ground-floor corridor, my escort stopped outside a large steel door and ushered me inside. As the door closed behind me, I found I was in a windowless vault equipped with a combination lock. This was going to be some interview!

Behind a desk in the centre of the room sat a man in his fifties. I was struck by his tidy dark hair and military bearing. Off to one side sat his secretary, ready to take notes. He introduced himself as Robert Mathams, Director of Scientific and Technical Intelligence. Did I feel comfortable with all the security? Yes, I lied, as any budding intelligence officer would. I had entered a different world, but strangely I felt comfortable.

He said there had been a terrible mistake: when the job descriptions were sent out, I received one that related to another role. He slid a single piece of paper across the desk without releasing his grip on it. ‘This is the correct duty statement,’ he said.

Stamped in red ink on the top and bottom, in bold capitals, was the word CONFIDENTIAL. The text was headed JOINT INTELLIGENCE ORGANISATION. I’d never heard of this branch of government. With all the excitement and anxiety flooding my brain, I had difficulty taking in anything on the paper. I wondered if this was a test of memory under stress, and whether I would pass.

I needn’t have feared. That morning’s rushed preparation had served me well. I managed to answer his questions and keep my cool.

Despite my interest in the world of spies, stretching back to the geography classroom and my scouting days, I had had no real plan to become an intelligence officer. But now, serendipitously, I was about to be one. For me, the world would become a very different place.

CHAPTER 2
SPY SATELLITES AND YELLOW RAIN

‘A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.’

Mark Twain

I was a junior analyst in the Joint Intelligence Organisation’s Defence Science and Technical Intelligence directorate, but I had little idea what that meant.

The JIO was Australia’s primary assessment body for keeping the government informed of overseas developments of security interest, I soon learned. It also provided strategic intelligence to the various branches of Defence, both military and civilian.

As expected, there was some training on what intelligence involved and how to be an analyst, but mostly the learning was on the job. Robert Mathams – who we always referred to as Mr Mathams in his presence out of respect but as Bob among ourselves – took me under his wing and assigned me the task of monitoring the strategic nuclear competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. This was a relatively new field for Australian intelligence, with a lot of political interest attached, because Australia was involved in the Cold War indirectly, through the joint US–Australian facilities at Pine Gap, Nurrungar and North West Cape.

The work seemed rather strange to me. I could understand gathering intelligence on the Soviet Union, but I was also building files on our close ally, the United States. However, I relished the technical details of the missiles, such as range and accuracy. I played with blast calculators to estimate what nuclear warheads could destroy given distance, height of burst and target hardness.

I struggled with the politics of the Cold War, particularly when it came to the convoluted negotiations on limiting nuclear weapons. Nothing was quite as it seemed. Although both sides said they wanted to restrict and even reduce their nuclear arsenals, their actions seemed in contrast. I expected misleading statements from Leonid Brezhnev, the general secretary of the Communist Party, but not from Richard Nixon, the president of the nation I’d so enjoyed visiting.

There was one proposed treaty, the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, between the United States and the Soviet Union that I could never quite get my head around, but it was my duty to monitor and report on it. It was designed to enshrine the concept of mutually assured destruction: if either the United States or the Soviet Union started a nuclear war, each side would be allowed to retain enough nuclear warheads...

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Author’s Note
• 1. Gruntersandgroaners
• 2. Spy Satellites and Yellow Rain
• 3. The Art of Biological Annihilation
• 4. London Calling
• 5. Welcome to the CIA
• 6. Into and Out of Africa
• 7. Busting Biological Weapons
• 8. The Free Agent
• 9. A Special Advisor
• 10. Camp Slayer
• 11. The Search for the Truth
• 12. Going Public
• Picture Section
• Afterword
• Acknowledgements
• Back Cover