On this day in 1977, spycraft and espionage were the buzz words in the public discourse. The United States ambassador-designate to Australia, Philip Alston, held a special meeting and investigated allegations four of his Canberra staff were CIA agents.
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The meeting came on the back of the impending deportation of Philip Agee, who claimed five CIA agents had been operating in Canberra. He also stated the CIA had a presence in Australia since its founding, revealing the Canberra embassy had a station area set aside for them to operate.
Agee divulged the names of the supposed agents including naming the station chief at the Canberra embassy. He shared the names he provided were only those on the diplomatic list.
Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser, in taking questions about the reported CIA activities in Australia, often shifted the attention towards the spy operations of the KGB. He said "people seem to have a great delight in saying: "Uh oh, something terrible - the Americans have done something terrible. I have not noticed a single word in recent times about concern about what the KGB is doing."
One of the men accused of being a CIA operative, Gerald Jacoby, agreed to a chat with The Canberra Times. He ironically referred to himself as "super-spook" while lifting his hands in a mocking way.
When asked about the allegations, he said: "I have a lot of comments I would like to make but it is the policy of the United States Embassy that no comment is made on matters such as this, and I support them in that. I have never done anything in this country detrimental to Australia, nor has anyone in the American Embassy."
Another of the accused spies, Burton Hutchings, was thankful there was a non-violent response to the accusations and if it had occurred in another country, he would have had to leave with his family.
In 2021, ASIO recently publicly shared a "nest of spies" was told to leave Australia without any charges and a security clearance-holder was cultivated to provide access to secret defence technology.
