Former Prime Minister Paul Keating told Russian Spy Ring penetrated ASIO

THE Cold War had only just started to thaw when the ­Keating government was told a Russian spy ring had ­penetrated ASIO.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating, who was told a Russian spy ring had ­penetrated ASIO in 1992. Picture: Supplied.

THE Cold War had only just started to thaw when the ­Keating government was told a Russian spy ring had ­penetrated ASIO.

Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union only two years earlier, Canberra was — and for good reason — still gripped with a Reds-under-the-bed mentality.

Heavily censored intelligence briefings from 1992 and 1993, released today by the National Archives of Australia, reveal a heightened level of fear Russia was listening in on high-level conversations.

The documents, marked “Secret — Cabinet-in-Confidence”, warned the government’s national security committee of the prospect Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, SVR, had bugged and hacked into communication systems.

The briefings shed new light on the pressures facing prime minister Paul Keating to flush out the moles within the ranks, warning Russians and even neighbours in the Asia Pacific region were eavesdropping on phone calls and accessing communications.

The documents reveal ASIO was involved in assessing “possible signals intelligence activity” by the Russian embassy in Canberra, but the full details remain classified.

Highlighting the likelihood of spies working within the country, the document states: “ASIO assesses that personnel from the Russian foreign intelligence service in Australia”, before the remainder of the sentence is redacted.

While suspicions ran hot through the 1970s and ’80s, it wasn’t until early 1992 that US intelligence agencies gave ASIO conclusive evidence Russians had infiltrated the spy agency.

It is now known that under pressure from Western allies to root out the Russian embassy’s links to ASIO — six diplomats were secretly expelled on suspicions of spying in mid-1993.

Although the newly released Cabinet documents do not directly reference the issue — then foreign affairs minister Gareth Evans wrote to Moscow declaring the diplomats were being sent home.

The six were hand-picked on the grounds they were the most likely to have been involved in handling an ASIO mole even though there was no hard evidence.

In August 1993, Mr Keating moved to reassure the CIA and Britain’s M16 he would bust the ring within ASIO with a wideranging inquiry headed by former diplomat Michael Cook.

The report, finished the following year, remains under lock and key in Canberra although it is due to be declassified as early as 2018.

A long-term translator for ASIO, George Sadil, whose job was to monitor telephone calls from the Soviet embassy in Canberra was arrested in May 1993 after the Australian Federal Police set up a highly secretive taskforce.

He was charged after classified documents were found at his home but espionage charges fell over because of a lack of evidence. Mr Sadil always maintained his innocence.

It has been speculated three other ASIO ­officers suspected of leaking information to Russia were retired on full pensions under strict conditions that they never speak of their work history.

Lev Koshlyakov, the Russian embassy’s press and information officer in Canberra who arrived 1977, has been touted as the man that ran a Soviet spy team in Canberra until 1984 — placing a mole within ASIO’s ranks.

Today’s documents also reveal Australian security agencies were on alert for proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons as well as the rise of global ­terrorism.

“Several cases have recently been investigated in Australia of merchants purporting to be in possession of substances useful in WMD obtained from former Warsaw Pact countries,” one briefing note stated.

Cabinet papers also reveal the Defence Signals Directorate, a Commonwealth intelligence agency, found “high-level threats” to government communications that were not properly encrypted.

A secure communication system for voice calls, faxes and data was being fast-tracked for government.