The Price of Freedom

[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Just a heads-up listeners, this episode contains some adult language. Previously, on the agency.

One of the things that you often think about, and this is, you know,

they always say everybody has their price.

And you know, I often used to think about what is my price. What is it that would make me turn? But I was always conscious of the fact that they were the other side, that they were the baddies, and that we were the goodies. I'm not going to be in that room when the five eyes minus America, you know,

probably sit down and say, what do we do? Do we share Russia with him? Do we even claim that we're allies anymore? When he's doing this, what do we do? [MUSIC PLAYING]

“How difficult is it to reintegrate to real life after living in the shadows?”

I think it was much more difficult than I realized. I don't think I realized now. I don't think I realized because for me, it was my normal. [MUSIC PLAYING] I don't think it was my fault.

I just think it was it. I don't think it was my fault. I just think it was it. No, I don't think it was my fault. I just think it was it.

No, I don't think it was my fault. I don't think it was my fault. I don't think it was my fault. I don't think it was my fault. I don't think it was my fault.

I don't think it was my fault. I don't think it was my fault. I don't think it was my fault. I don't think it was my fault.

“There were no psychologists, no one spoke me.”

You know, I didn't know why I was, why I didn't want to do it. I don't know why I was better about coming back to the service. But it was just so hard. And while I disliked the director, I don't think he understood either.

So none of us understood. And so over the course of a few months, the job went south for independence. And I became difficult and intractable. And my marriage was collapsing.

It was a disaster. Could Bennett see his dead in hindsight, the work he did for CIA, including that operation against Vladimir in the Philippines, left a mark on him psychologically.

I think that affected me a bit, when I suddenly realized I was playing with the grown-ups. And there were one, possibly two other incidents that I really don't much want to talk to. I don't think it allowed anything.

But they certainly were a bit traumatic. But I was going, how I was fine, but I probably wasn't.

Ultimately, keeping it's got into a personal clash with his boss,

the director of these eyes. I raised a middle finger and ended up being played to go away. And that was just fine. But I was kind of bitter. And they were bitter.

They had suddenly a highly trained and skilled officer and he had gone.

“But the fact is that they now put leaders' names to these things.”

So I probably was suffering from something, PTSD or whatever. But it would be another couple of decades before he would start to understand that. And it came after he'd taken on a new job in law enforcement. At the age of 51, Kit Bennett's enrolled as a frontline police officer in Australia. I've been being one of the youngest officers in a Western intelligence service.

I became one of the oldest officers to pass through the Queensland Police Academy. And I worked in the Queensland Police and I really enjoyed it. And I spent five years on the street kicking and gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer. In Brisbane, he was involved in what he describes as a couple of significant incidents. During one of them, he was badly beaten and attempting in a wrist.

He was 56 years old. The hand was smashed up and broken ribs and subsequently discovered a broken leg as well. And when those sorts of things happened, then the age of souls would come and talk to you. You'd be getting emails. People would come and see you. HSOs are health and safety officers.

And so Kit Bennett's was put in touch with a psychiatrist. This guy said to me, he was talking to me, "Tell me about your childhood."

And I thought, "Oh, here we go. You know, when did you first start hating your horse?"

Kit Bennett says the psychiatrist could see something in him. But he hadn't been able to see himself.

And I said, "I'll always have the intelligence world in the wilderness."

And the mirror is nearly 20 years, he said, "Ah, what did you do in there?" And I said, "Don't you know, I'd have to kill you." And he said, "You said, "Did you do operational work?" And I said, "Yeah." And he said, "With an interesting operation to turn back."

And then he said, "Yeah." He said, "You've got some stuff sitting back to the air. That's probably still evident. And let's come out because of the sensitive." From Bird of Paradise and RNZ, this is the agency.

I'm Geineus Pena. And I'm John Daniel. This is Episode 6. The Price of Freedom. Coming up is the reality of the world.

“You have to have intelligent services like you have to have a transport system.”

Now, what do you think about this statement from a former spy? The people who actually run the country agree.

Intelligence agencies are part of the critical infrastructure of government.

Yeah, this has been true. Of governments of all political stripes, hasn't it? It was interesting to see Jim Anderson, the head of the Alliance, and he was a big skeptic of the intelligence agencies over the years. Certainly, historically, very critical of the SIS,

when he came to power with Helen Clark's Labour government in 1999. After that, he had to grapple with the responsibility for the safety of the nation. He ended up agreeing that the intelligence agencies were essential. So, in this final episode, we're going to dig into what this really means for New Zealand in terms of where the agencies sit in relation to our government and New Zealand's place

in the world today. New Zealand has been part of the Five Eyes Alliance, alongside Canada Australia, the US, and the UK, for nearly a century now. And that Alliance has given us a seat at the top table of the Western security networks,

“making us an important player relative to our SIS.”

But the world is changing, and there's no guarantee the future will be the same as our past. We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn't mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. That's Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, in January, 2026. Now, he didn't actually mention it,

but the elephant in the room is very clearly the current US administration. And the elephant trainer and chief, President Don Jay Trump. That speech was widely reported, but like a lot of things with her since the start of the second Trump presidency. It's hard to know just how much genuine structural change is happening

behind the headline grabbing rhetoric. Well, in the last episode, we heard Susan Miller a former head of CIA counter intelligence saying Trump shouldn't be trusted on Russia. But she isn't the only former CIA officer to be concerned about the impact of President Trump. I think it's dangerous though.

“The standard story is we're beyond that.”

You know, he will come and he will go. And there's definitely truth in that. What he finds concerning is that underpinning the Trump presidency, that seems to be a widespread appetite for the kind of America first politics that can shred alliances.

We have over the years felt deeply supportive of the United States. We've felt uncomfortable with some of the things we've done.

But we've never ever felt sorry for them.

But we do now. And what troubles me is that just under 50% was never a landslide, but just under 50% of Americans voted to have it again. That's seen at once, that's seen the chaos it caused and they voted to have it again. Good Bennett says, there's no telling quite where this four-year term will take the five eyes.

And this time in the United States there are no adults in the room. As they were, when Bolton was there and when many of those other guys were there, who could run them in, they're gone now. He is surrounded by unstable isotopes. He is a man that doesn't have any principle, any guiding light, any moral compass,

you know, without going into all the emotion. He's the guy with the codes. And that's deeply concerning. Tim Wein and the New York Times security and intelligence specialist agrees that the people at the top of the Trump administration

lack the seriousness of their predecessors. And the president, Erson, who is overseeing American intelligence services and the five eyes, ladies and gentlemen, is a crackpot.

that intelligence on the Russians would not be shared with the five eyes.

And this is madness.

“The people in Trump had supported like Gabbard as director of national intelligence,”

like a fellow named John Radcliffe in the learning CIA. Gashbetel, who is running the FBI, has paid exit, former partner in toast, as Secretary of Defense. Please be clear, attitudes, and their crackpot, and their tunes. And they are in charge of the American national security, and baggage of very dangerous things

by country. Tim Wein is the real world consequences that result from all this. And they could be disastrous.

The danger of Trump placing them in charge of the American national security

is that it increases the risk of another catastrophic intelligence bill. And, you know, the people I talked to, at CIA, think that failure is coming. And they take it likely to do, would not be a catastrophic, and a kind of cosmic mass casualty attack, like 9/11.

“But a series of successful political warfare operations”

by the Russians and the Chinese and other enemies of democracy. To further weaken the American body positive, to further weaken our democratic tradition and to push the President of the United States farther and farther, toward the destruction of not only the architectures of national security that the United States and its allies set up the Apple World War II

in large part to protect the world from Russia's materials. But to through these acts of political warfare, sabotage suppression, espionage, to actually destroy our democratic tradition. Tim Wein is these vacuos, were present and opportunity. I fear that even did the United States were struck again

at Homer abroad by a legal terrorist attack. The President of the United States could love the clear martial law and cancel the next election. And that's the great fear that I'm hearing from the people I talked to in the American intelligence community. The actions undertaken by this new regime have already led to some erosion

in terms of trust in the partnership. We know, for example, that British intelligence, they suspended sharing information in the Caribbean in the latter part of 2025 as the U.S. ramped up a campaign supposedly against drug smuggling boats by blowing them up. And that appeared to be a flagrant contravention of international law.

And so while there is a school of thought that this is all kind of business as usual for American interests minus the usual hypocrisy, more and more people and governments, close the allies of America are concerned that Donald Trump's America is abusing its power to extract short-term gains for itself. And those will weaken the Western democratic alliance in the long run.

And there are multiple flashpoints that could turn very nasty. And turn lead things like, as Tim Wein says, US elections or maybe immigration enforcement that could blow up even further. War with the run might spiral out of control if it isn't really. Or the Americans might go back and push harder on Greenland.

Peps most likely, something that isn't even on anyone's radar right now. Yeah, and look realistically, here in New Zealand, we're not going to have much influence over any of those things. So let's try to understand where we can have an impact. First of all, if we're going to have these intelligent services, we want them to be good

in every sense of the word.

Keep in it says having good people as a crucial staff.

And I am sufficiently idealistic to think that this is done by honest players. In New Zealand, it's done by honest players.

“I believe that the people in there are essentially good people.”

And that's a function of what you find in Western intelligent services because that's a reflection of our society. And intelligent services have to be a reflection of our society. Just like police services have to be a reflection of our society. Like the military.

And, you know, the esteem with which New Zealand has hold the military in. It's not the esteem that a lot of countries hold their military in because their military is turned on then from time to time. Quite how you guarantee that is an open question. Oversight, that's vital, but a lot of it is going to come from the internal culture.

And going back 50 years, could Bennett's remembers public mistrust of the SIS. And it's height after Dr. Bill's search was found not guilty of breaching the official secrets act.

There was the old SIS headquarters in central Wellington when my mother used to work.

“Gip Bennett says he found himself with a small handful of people,”

including the deputy director at the time. Ron Biggs, looking down on a large crowd. So we were up in the director's office looking down at 10,000 people. It's a lot of people protesting and Ron said this is why we do this job kit. Because all those people are going to go home tonight and go off to parties and go home tonight.

And nothing is going to happen to them. They think we're in here photographing them, we're not. But that's why we do this job.

And always thought that's right, maybe a bit idealistic, but it's exactly right.

And lost to country, don't have that. So we have that.

“And the song says you don't know what you got till it's gone.”

Ultimately, politicians are responsible, not simply for running our intelligence agencies, but the extent to which they are intertwined with our allies. In 2010, WikiLeaks published cables intercepted between the US Embassy in Wellington and the State Department in Washington. The US Embassy at the time described New Zealand as split into two camps when it came to our view of the US. First worlders, effectively a pro-U.S. faction who he said were made up of defence, intelligence, foreign affairs, business leaders, and a few politicians.

Yeah, basically the foreign policy establishment. And while the opposition, they were made up of what's called other worlders, media, academics, most politicians, and a large part of the public, who are skeptical of American power and who see New Zealand as non-line.

Now, obviously, this analysis was never supposed to be made public.

And there was a fair bit of moaning about it as a meaninglessly shallow characterization. But in some ways, it is a useful shorthand. And that division goes to the fact that, while many in New Zealand have been skeptical of American power for decades now, we do remain very much part of the American sphere of influence. And there's a spectrum of responses here.

From thinking this is a great thing gone mad to seeing it as experts who have a strong, responsible hand on the tele, because they're the people who have to actually run national security. Yeah, those are the extremes. The lines here are a bit more blurred or perhaps nuanced than you might imagine. He has kept in its again this time talking about one of the prime ministers under whom he served in the 1980s when we were supposedly breaking up with the Americans, over anti-nuclear policy.

With the nuclear thing, the politicians operated at two levels. And then as smart as David Longie, for example, operated at two levels. So they knew that the intelligence officers were doing what they were doing, and expected you to do what they were doing. They were expected that our liaison would remain strong, but they had a political card to play as well. So, you know, David Longie was quite close with the directors of the service.

I mean, as were all ministers, there was a kind of a pragmatic side to them, but they're not going to ever reveal that. Many years after he'd stepped down as Prime Minister, David Longie told a journalist that New Zealand had helped when the cold war, but he wasn't allowed to tell anyone about it. And that might well have been a reference to the story of the Czech embassy raid that we covered in the service.

Yeah, well, get it come back to this a little bit later on, but in the first episode, we heard from another Labour politician Andrew Little,

who was the minister in charge of the intelligence agencies for six years from 2017 to 2023. And when we spoke with him in September of 2025, he said he was confident five eyes would be strong enough to continue in spite of the current two more. It's been through American political tumult before. I mean, maybe we all think what the centre does, different to what happened 40, 50, 60 years ago.

“And what is having now is, I think, a cause for worry, just about the general sentiment and move, which is undermining democracy.”

But I'm equally confident that the five eyes relationship will endure through that. And without agencies like ours and indeed the other partners compromising their principles, they're a requirement to respect democracy and freedom of expression and all those sorts of things. I think the five eyes arrangement will survive. But Andrew Little does sound a note of caution in terms of how we deal with the Trump regime.

I think given their obligations under the New Zealand legislation, they've got to act independently, and they've to think carefully about their own legal and human rights obligations before sheer intelligence, I'd be surprised if they weren't actively considering how they share intelligence and the current conditions.

We've started out as an intelligence sharing relationship.

That's what it should remain. It's very good at that. We have good legislation. I think that provides good constraints on it and oversight of it. He's echoing criticism around Mission Creek that was made by the former Prime Minister Helen Clark and others.

That sense that the five eyes has been quietly expanding its remit into foreign affairs and defence.

“But you have to ask how realistic is that? Is it possible to have an intelligence gathering network that stops at the door of foreign affairs and the military?”

Yeah, even in an area like immigration, which at first glance seems a long way from those concerns. New Zealand is part of an international alliance that shares information around national security, related to immigration. This one is called M5, Migration 5, but the members are the same as five eyes.

Yeah, then there's the critical five.

That's five eyes members collaborating on critical infrastructure. And during the early days of COVID, the five eyes were working together on health outcomes. There's another one I came across too. And I hadn't heard of this until I started looking into this podcast. It's called Fallig. I've never heard it said out loud, but I presume that that's how you say it. It stands for five eyes law enforcement group now.

Again, mutual national security interests based on trust that comes from this long standing alliance. And as you see, the tentacles are spread rather wide. It's worth noting, I guess, so that this particular one, the law enforcement one means that New Zealand police find themselves. Part of an interagency network that includes not to see FBI, but also ICE, the very controversial American immigration and custom enforcement agency.

“Again, these systems have existed under governments from both left and right.”

And we've seen that the central intelligence agency doesn't operate in a vacuum. They're going to work with their military and domestic and foreign affairs in a coordinated way to push forward political aims lay down by the government. Yeah, and we've seen recently with news of the death of a New Zealand essay is sold. You're training alongside US special forces in Papakura that we are very tied on defense.

Yeah, and there was a Nikki Harga story on news written about the discovery of papers at a South Asian army thrift store that detailed and meeting in London about the interleking of our military with other five eyes partners in preparation for conflict. With China. Now, these are co-incidences. Well, it's true that we run training exercises with a number of countries.

It's not just if we run them with China or Russia or North Korea or Iran. We're part of the Western block, so broadly speaking, we're allied with our intelligence partners, although we probably retain a bit of wiggle room around foreign affairs. Could Bennett says the ties that bind us to our partners are vital and they're pulled together by the people on the ground. There's connected tissue between the intelligence agencies.

Yeah, you know, your exchange is part of things. Yep. You know, other people who were with ACOs. Yep. We have people from the service to talk to them.

I said this as well. Yeah. So that connected tissue has been strong in the past. Yep. What sort of healthiness, you know, how important is it that there's healthiness?

It's critically important. And in much the same as countries cooperate, all we ever see in here is the politicians. But below that, you know, all the links between defense, for example, and other five eyes partners, other allies and things. These run deep.

“And that's what I think everyone's hunkering down and waiting for the madness to end.”

So we can go back to being, you know, having grown ups in the room. And I'm sure that's what's happening. I'm sure that those ties are strong. If not stronger than when we, when I was there, I'm, well, I hope I'm right.

The problem is from an extreme from an outside as you point.

Is that, as you say, the political bit is what's visible. It's yes. And so now we're talking about, you know, what happens when we're first to is the day to day. Yes. Holding itself to be our holding these other parts, you know.

So you want to be like something invisible in America, dealing with something more invisible in New Zealand. Yes. There's a deep state that is absolutely correct as a deep state, but it's not a malevolent thing. It's a thing that keeps the country going. It makes sure that, you know, that, that we have hospitals that work in the roads that are repaired.

And all of those, that's all done by the deep state. That politicians aren't involved in that. What he's done is made it sound like it's malevolent. And it made Washington sound like a swamp.

It isn't true in New Zealand either, but it is like an iceberg.

The very tip of it is what we see.

“And underneath is what makes the system work, you know.”

Former Soviet ambassador to Defence and Security Academic Professor Ruben Azizian has seen some turmoil in his time. And when we spoke with him in November of 2025, he was relatively sanguine about the situation with the U.S. I wouldn't overreact the Mr. Trump's impact and influence for a couple of reasons. One is with a U.S. his field of democracy. Professors' agencies, governments come and go, but these kinds of long-standing organisations tend to survive.

Because once they've built, it's hard to dismantle one. Secondly, I know that, if you're a bureaucratic point of view, this solving an organization is a very hard thing to do.

You can always find a reason for doing something else that will be based on common interests.

“And he says, in that sense, it's more likely that five eyes will evolve in another direction, because they've got a common concern with the rising superpower.”

Five eyes, I think it has his purpose. I mean, intelligence is about collaboration between countries that trust each other. Historically, culturally, in terms of their military partnerships. To me, there's no sign yet that any of the five countries is moving away from that framework or political or military thinking. So there will be tensions and issues.

Whether it continues to be five eyes or will be more eyes, I don't know. For example, I expect more eyes rather than fewer eyes, because if it is also about trying to understand using a very mild term and react to China, then there are other countries in immediate neighbours of China who wouldn't mind. I'm thinking maybe Japan, for example, or France, potentially, who could be interested in some kind of engagement with five eyes. And we'll come back to China.

There are, in fact, already extensions to five eyes. There's nine eyes, they cooperate on signals intelligence. That's to five eyes, plus Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Norway. Japan is also considered a close-air light of the five eyes partnership. In 2020, the Japanese Defence Minister described Japan as being close enough to the other partners to be able to refer to the organisation as six eyes.

There's even a 14 eyes that adds in a number of European countries as well. And Rubin is, as he insists, all of these additional frameworks are broad positives for New Zealand.

Giving us something we'd never have on our own.

Well, a small country is in an intelligence pool with some more influential resourceful countries who want to share some intelligence information. Generally speaking, it's an advantage for the small country, because the small country otherwise wouldn't necessarily have access. We know that not all over information is spread equally. There are issues there. There are kind of firewalls and all of that, but still. Secondly, small countries are generally interested in being part of some kind of a multilateral arrangement.

Because in a multilateral, you have an opportunity to have your voice heard. Professor, as is Ian, says New Zealand needs to push forward some of its own natural advantages. You can bring all these countries, leaders of intelligence communities to where the Queen's town or somewhere. Also, this is a reputational thing. You can hear me smiling about Queen's town, but I don't think it's joking.

And it is interesting. Rubin, as is Ian, has attended and hosted a lot of international conferences over the years. He knows how good will isn't. And he understands the subtleties of pushing back together against someone from a white around. You can also use multilateral to align and cooperate with some in the five eyes on issues where you don't necessarily agree with others in the five eyes are particularly the dominant power. Rubin, as is Ian, says that while there's an agreement in place between the five eyes, not to spy on each other, everyone else is fear game.

In a world that is increasingly hard-nosed around security, there's no point in being too precious about the basic necessity of spying.

“I think everyone has to agree whether we're like it or not, that the intelligence world, they're basically no untouchable friends, if I say.”

We know that countries have spied on each other.

I can say, seem back to Russia situation, Russia and China are very tightly connected today, but there are Chinese spies being caught in Russia.

No, that's not publicized, but that's the reality. I'm sure Russia continues to do spying in China and elsewhere.

“So if we agree with the cynicism of intelligence work as an important part of foreign policy making, then I think five eyes should be kept and using is has a place in it.”

But at the same time, Rubin is as he insists that as a democracy, we need a more open and transparent discussion around foreign policy, rather than keeping it inside the corridors of power. And that's been the case for too long. So you have to make that foreign policy discussion more open or transparent. It's not just about a respectful professional scene and fat or an experienced minister. It is a time, I think we are at the crossroads, which way we go, and we need a major discussion and debate. I see issues like Pila 2 of walkers, the defence alliance between three of our five eyes partners, including our closest ally Australia, these really need to be discussed in public and not just hammered out behind closed doors.

We don't have a foreign policy strategy as such.

The documents that are produced by MFA are produced by MFA with some experts, but we need a public conversation, because we know that there will be time when the orchestra tier two thing will be resolved on the other. Rubin is in the current climate, there's a real danger to running a foreign policy that doesn't bring the public along with it. He says, "What ever is decided won't satisfy everyone because we're a democracy, but we do need to feel like it has been openly discussed." We don't want a foreign policy issue to become too explosive for this country, and to avoid that, we need some level. I mean, we can't have a full consensus, some level of consensus and understanding about what New Zealand should be.

“And do we just follow Trump or we do something different?”

We put this to Andrew Little, who was the Minister for the Intelligence Agency and Minister of Defence, as recently as 2023. You're on the record of saying it's really important that New Zealand has healthy conversations around this sort of stuff around the threats. And so, and you've named Russia, China, and North Korea as being in particular places, you know, there are kinds of places that we need to look out for. That issue for me is that in order to have that conversation, we need to be able to have the information in the first place, right?

And we don't seem to be able to get levels of information around the stuff. I mean, when we were doing the service, for example. For clarity, John's talking here about previous podcast series, The Service. That was about a Cold War raid on the Czech Embassy, carried out by Britain's MI6, and New Zealand's SIS also known as The Service.

We went to the service and asked for confirmation, ultimately, it appears that they lied to us. Now, they were allowed to do that according to the bill, right? Is that, am I right about that?

Yeah, and in the USI-US Act, there is a clause which says they're allowed to lie. I picked through at one day, it's even on a page, but they are allowed to lie. They're allowed to, there's a bit of provisions about concealing the rightivity. You're basically, it seems, they've got a hold of Jill Hensley, who had oversight of the operation in turn. That's right. It looks like they turned our main source and then ran him back at us. We asked him about this story three times, and each time the answer was different.

“So, when you say that you have a dim recollection that there was an operation involving the Czechoslovakian embassy, do you recall it being a successful operation?”

No, you're pressing me on this one, going harder than I can go. I really see it all again on this one. John, I have to go to you. We should, we'll turn off the recording twice. Yeah, and then we can zoom in. Okay, I was still where they wanted to ask you, because I haven't talked to the service about this for years.

So, we turned off the tape and had a quick check off the record and then turned the tape back on. And just to remind her, the aim of the raid was, for a small team of SIS and MI6 operators, to get these code box used by the Warsaw Pact countries, copy them and return them and detect it to the safe of the Czech embassy in Wainstown. And did they get the books? They're no recollection of.

No, and at all. Six months later, having had plenty of time to communicate with the service, he told that story quite differently. Yes, it's a long time ago, and but I do have fairly clear recollection of the failed that we didn't get a hand on the books. I mean, come on.

Then, don't keep me wrong. I like Jill Hensley, who sadly passed away in 2024. I enjoyed his company, he was smart and funny, and he had an extraordinary career as a civil servant and diplomat, but he also loved the spy game.

“And I believe he was, as more than one former SIS officer has said to me, also a dreadful, unconvincing liar, at least in this case.”

And when I rang him to say that we were entertaining the possibility, he might be lying. Jill Hensley laughed and laughed and he said, "He thought it was very wise." Which is ironic, right, because we hear a lot from the intelligence agencies about the dangers of misinformation and disinformation. But if you're right about this, they do it when it suits them. I guess the purpose of intelligent agencies is they do act covertly.

And in the end, I suppose you could ask, "Isn't that just the way it has to be?" Certainly, Andrew Little thinks so. And he's the one who's set in that hot seat. And they're required to do an annual three-to-segment published annual three-to-segment, which they do, and that is public.

But there's always going to be, because the nature of their work, there's always going to be limitations on what they disclose.

In particular time, and maybe 50 years or 20 years, Hens, that that stuff was maybe open to disclosure. But it's always about protecting methods today, sources today, intelligence today, so that they can more effectively, where they see it through it, respond to it. So we're back here again, trying to square the circle. We need intelligent agencies to defend our democracy. But they say, they need to do that in secret.

And that can feel anti-democratic. Keep minutes is alert to the risks of keeping the public in the dark. I'm a long way away from intelligence work nowadays.

“But I do understand, first principle, so one of the things that I think you have to do is you have to be able to justify your position.”

And I think, in many respects, from what I read about what's happening in New Zealand, that I think the service does a pretty good job. But you've got to stay on that all the time, because if you lose the face of the people in a modern society, you know, it's very dangerous. And intelligent services, you've got to have them. He says, as times have changed, there's been something of a shift in public expectation. In the past, in my time, people were saying, "Yeah, what is the ESI is doing for it's money?"

Well, we can't tell you that. It's a secret, I'm afraid. And in those days, people would say, "Well, let's fair enough, I suppose that's what they do." Now, days, the new generation says, "Yeah, that's all very well." But what are you doing? I mean, we can't tell you that. Well, I can't, well, we could properly spend the money on health and education. You know what I mean?

We can accept that there's always going to be tension around what the intelligent services can and can't tell us.

But it is frustration. We do know that those times between SIS and CIA remain tight. We know that engineers, SIS, has certainly historically had a close relationship with CIA. We're talking here with Susan Miller, the former high-ranking CIA officer. Did you have any experience of working with the engineers, SIS? Absolutely. I came down there. I even met your, it was a female prime minister.

I met. I might have been dissentered in. Was it dissentered in?

“Yeah, that's what it was. I was talking about China. I wasn't when I was head of counterintelligence.”

I do remember talking to Kiwis and other five eyes more at headquarters about counterintelligence when I was there before, you know, during this period with Trump. But, you know, it was later, yeah, when I was head of China Mission Center, I got to talk to her. She's lovely. In late 2021, so under the administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden, CIA announced it was establishing a mission centre to specifically target the people's Republic of China.

The then CIA director William Burns said its purpose was to, quote, further strengthen our collective work on the most important geopolitical threat we face in the 21st century.

And increasingly adversarial Chinese government. Now, you have to say, it's quite interesting that Susan Miller, the person who heads up that new CIA mission centre, targeting our largest trading partner, gets face time with the New Zealand Prime Minister.

We in New Zealand, does seem to be adding value.

“And your team there, it's a very small group that works in your intelligence service. They're righteous.”

I mean, these guys are super smart. Feel like I was talking to somebody who had been trained, you know, together and yet we aren't. You know, we do a lot of stuff together, but whoever invented the five eyes is right. And we need to keep it going. Yeah, although again, it is slightly frustrating how little we really know about this.

And it's worth mentioning that when we put together real blind our podcast series trying to grapple with Chinese influence here in New Zealand.

We approached the service on background.

And then we now have to try to interview other people. But they turned around and told the entire New Zealand intelligence community not to talk to us. You know, better about that. Are you doing? Well, that's it. The guy from the New York Times seems to know more about our intelligence agencies than we do. He's Tim one or again. The Kiwi intelligence service punches far above its way.

It is particularly adept again to try to target as adjusting these kinds of capabilities with the Chinese military. Kind of trying to spot services. And it is a vital part of the five eyes system, which is essentially an intelligence sharing system. And which signals intelligence, that is electronic aid, Strapping and espionage primarily is shared among the five nations in the compact.

And the CIA depends on its length on what foreign intelligence services can understand what is going on in the world.

“This is another important point to understand.”

While the Trump administration doesn't seem massively invested in its European partnerships. We're capturing Russia as top of mind. The US is focusing on its rivalry with China. And New Zealand has something to offer. The CIA is only about 22,000 people strong.

If you wouldn't have those people are actually smiling about what we're saying. You know, we're American. We don't have the languages or the country knowledge to spy on the entire world.

So these liaisons, the five eyes system, almost cheap among them, are essential to the CIA.

And indeed, the national security of the United States. That doesn't mean the road ahead will be straightforward. So I don't know where this is going to go with regard to five eyes. This is Susan Miller again. She says, even if we can't trust President Trump on Russia.

And even though she too is evidently skeptical of those political appointees at the top of the intelligence and defence agencies who are very much Donald Trump's people. Our people should keep in touch. Keep up the dialogue and keep working together. I would recommend that they do talk because we've got to keep that door open. Keep the door open to anybody, you know, his chief of CIA, his secretary of state, his head of the Pentagon, whatever. Keep all those doors open.

But Susan Miller says intelligent sharing is now something of a political calculation. The New Zealand Intelligence Community is going to have to make ongoing risk assessments around what kind of information to pass on to their American colleagues. Also remember who the ultimate person is going to see the report from that meeting if it's at that high level. If it's a lower level person, it's, you know, not necessarily going to go to him. But, you know, the thing is is that when your leaders are talking, I'm sure it's already on their mind.

I'm not telling you anything that I don't think they're already thinking. And so unfortunately, and as an American, that makes me sad.

“We should remember that even at the height of the route between the U.S. and New Zealand of a nuclear ships in the mid-1980s, intelligence was shared and cooperation continued.”

By early 1986, Keep Bennett had finished his time with CIA, but was still with the U.S. He was based in Wellington. I was then the head of the research and analysis part of the Soviet, so this is by then I was completely dissolution. I wanted to get out and hate it everybody. But one of the things I was on a joint defense committee, and we would look at with Soviet maritime stuff was, you know, where ships and submarines and all that sort of stuff were, whether they were in our vicinity. So we're working on intel from the Brits and the Americans and Australians and the stuff that our rides would be doing because Soviet subs did come. They did come. Oh, yeah, they did come. Yeah, they did come. Yeah, they did come. Yeah, they did come. Yeah, they did come. Yeah, they did come. Yeah, they did come. Yeah, they did come. Yeah, they did come. Yeah, they did come. Never mind the submarines. A little after 530 p.m. on February 16, 1986, the Soviet cruise liner, the Kyloomentov, head of rock in the Malbra sounds.

The kid Bennett sent the SIS still had tight links with the CIA. We had this emergency meeting the next morning, and we got the Americans that got onto us, and I've sent to this meeting, and I had this, I was allowed to demand things. I went to the meeting and said, well, this is what we want. All Soviet vessels have what we used to call the war plans, but the ships commissar would have in his safe. The envelope that you open in case the balloon goes up and what the ship has to do, because it's a Russian flagship.

And obviously the Americans were keen to get a hold of that if they could. Well, the moment of as a passenger ship wouldn't have been involved in any fighting.

Information carried in the ship's safe would help five ice intelligence agencies understand more about potential Soviet war plans. We needed to get the Navy diving team down, so they flew the Navy diving team down from Auckland, so there's a couple of hook captains that only be a big time, because they have to fly them low level, because they were going to go down. They couldn't fly them high. Given that the Navy divers were going to have to dive to an unknown depth, they couldn't be submitted to the pressure of flying at high altitude.

So they came down between three and five hundred feet all the way down to Marlborough, and a bit they didn't go out to see a bit. They spent their time over the land flying the naval team down there. But as the divers arrived in Wellington, so did the survivors from the Lumentoff. Then we found out from television, because they provided the best intel when they had the photograph taken by the press of the guys coming off the ship. There was the KGB resident with the ships commissar.

The ship's commissar was a political appointing who oversaw crew discipline and security on all Soviet vessels.

If a heat hit to a bayonet ship before you hit the safe, the papers might still be down there. But that wasn't what happened.

“The ship's commissar had his briefcase, and we knew that that's what he had got. The American said he won't lead the ship without it, but you never know.”

We should be ready to dive on their just in case he didn't. I guess the point here is that just because we can't see something doesn't mean it is an important. No, I see what you did there, very clever. Like we all need to pay attention to what's happening beneath the surface. It's right, the world of espionage, the wilderness of Marlborough, it does invite a major thought. It does, and look, there's been a hell of a story. These spy games that play out in the shadows,

being able to see how they're played by real people for high stakes, and with a real-world impact that spreads out across the political landscape. And we are now in a period of geopolitical turmoil, potentially even upheaval. As a nation, we need to ask ourselves some hard questions about who our friends really are, and about how we work with them.

“Is this the bit where you lecture me about the difference between spycraft and stakecraft?”

I have heard Russian statecraft and the Vladimir Putin described as an extension of KGB tradecraft. It's also this situation with Trump. I mean, we can't just ignore what's going on. Given what we know. No, well, it's interesting, right? I mean, pretty much everyone we spoke with, and they do come at this from multiple different angles.

They were all clear that they felt we need to stay in five eyes.

At the same time, I'm always skeptical when I hear there is no alternative.

It feels like there's an internal logic that's built up over decades. And so at our security institutions, we're being aligned with America is just a no-brainer because of those massive US resources. And look, that might be understandable. Yeah, I mean, the calculation has been pretty simple, right? It's always felt safer under the wing of America. Then pretty much anywhere else.

But the people in power haven't really taken the time to explain that to the public because it's politically awkward. Given the US, they just get it wrong sometimes.

“Now, those smart people in the corridors of power must be wondering, how much worse would it have to get with President Trump before something breaks?”

Yeah, these are hard questions, and we do need to be able to discuss them and think about them as a society, right? Hopefully, this has been the kind of story that helps us bring some of those elements into the light, where we can all see them. Because while the story of Benets and his time with the CIA, a keywee at the heart of American intelligence operations, it took place four decades ago or so now. There's every chance something similar is still going on today.

There are exchanges I suppose is probably from one to the better word.

We approach the Israelis about this.

“They use different language, but essentially, they can feel that, yes, a "small number of staff"”

opposed to offshore in liaison roles in quotes. They say that relationships with overseas intelligence and security partners, particularly five eyes, are vital to New Zealand's national security. And when we asked about any changes in that five eyes dynamic, since the election of the second Trump administration, they did know that the global environment

continues to be dynamic.

They said the intelligence sharing partnership continues to function largely as it always has.

So, quite business is usual, but close. And that underlines just how useful it's been to hear this story about the specifics of that relationship.

“Anyway, just to wrap up, keep Benets did end up finding his way out of the wilderness of Marys.”

He never became an actual fighter pilot. No, but he still has the photos that made him very much look like one to the CIA, at least. He also managed to get the girl for more than 30 years now. He's been happily married to Jackie, who he first knew when he was a schoolboy in the water upper. They've had adventures all over the place, lived in Papua New Guinea for more than a decade,

where he worked with an airline. Yep, then after he was a cop and Brisbane, getting beaten up on the front line in his 50s, he decided to put a PhD to good use, so Dr. Bennett's now lectures at university in Australia and China in aviation and business. He'll be, what, 75 this year?

“And in spite of the sense that it didn't end the way he would have liked.”

And he regrets the damage to the relationships around him. Keep Benets's, he wouldn't change his time with CIA. I mean, I can see it in the eyes and you loved that. Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it was wonderful. You know, I really got to that, that's the sharp end.

Yeah, everyone thinks that it's James Bond and Fast Cars and that sort of thing, but really doing what I was doing, doing recruitment in place. You know, we're attempting recruitment in place. That's the glamouring of, of human, definitely years. And there I was, kid from Madison doing this.

And as I say, the vocational guidance officers never mentioned that opportunity to me.

So yeah, I loved it. I regret not a moment of it. The agency was produced, written and hosted by John Daniel and me, Guy and Espenham. Our executive producer, four RNZ, was John Hardvelt and our executive producer, four bird of paradise productions, is Noel McCarthy.

Original music by Anthony Tonin, graphic design by Oliver Wall. The RNZ sound production and final mix was by Mark Chesterman. Production coordinator was Brianna Euritage Creek. Thanks to Steve Varage, Ellie Marston, Jeremy and so, and William Saunders. Thanks to Megan Willan and thanks also to Susan Beldachin.

The visual director at RNZ was Cole, Eastom Farley and our camera operator was Jess Chalton. Thanks also to Sarah Guy Tarnos for the article about Bill Sachs that appears on RNZ.co. Thanks also to CNN, TVNZ, BBC, the ABC, Universal and Paramount. To read more about the documents and articles we've mentioned, you can go to RNZ.co.nz/theagency and you can see the links in the show notes.