Forewords from Nicky Hager's book _Secret Power_: Once upon a time life was easy for the intelligence community. Michael Joeseph Savage made a mark in the sands of history with his `where Britain stands we stand' declaration. It was only right that we saw the world through British eyes and, when Britain retreated, only sensible that we should go all the way with LBJ as an Australian Prime Minister (in whose memory a swimming pool in Melbourne was named) once declared. The cold war kept us in line and on line. In the mid-1980s we bucked the system. We may have been ahead of our time on matters nuclear, but we were out of step with what was called the `Western Alliance'. It took a break with the United States and Britain to make the people of New Zealand aware that we were part of an international intelligence organisation which had its roots in a different world order and which could command compliance from us while withholding from us the benefits of others' intelligence. Life at the time was full of unpleasant surprises. State-sponsored terrorism was a crime against humanity as long as it wasn't being practiced by the allies, when it was studiously ignored. In the national interest it became necessary to say `ouch' and frown and bear certain reprisals of our intelligence partners. We even went the length of building a satellite station at Waihopai. But it was not until I read this book that I had any idea that we had been committed to an international integrated electronic network. It was with some apprehension that I learned Nicky Hager was researching the activity of our intelligence community. He has long been a pain in the establishment's neck. Unfortunately for the establishment, he is engaging, thorough, unthreatening, with a dangerously ingenuous appearance, and an atonishing number of people have told him things that I, as Prime Minister in charge of the intelligence services, was never told. There are also many things with which I am familiar. I couldn't tell him which was which. Nor can I tell you. But it is an outrage that I and other ministers were told so little, and this raises the question of to whom those concerned saw themselves ultimately anwserable. It also raises the question as to why we persist with the old order of things. New Zealand doesn't have much in common with Major's Britain and probably less with Blair's Britain. Are we philosophically in tune with Clinton's USA? Is he? Does all of that prejudice our new orientation to Asia? There will be two responses to this book. One will take the easy course of dumping on Hager. He is quite small and can easily be dumped on. The other will be to challenge the existing assumptions and to have a rational debate on security and intelligence. I have always enjoyed taking the easier course but we may have been the poorer for it. David Lange Prime Minister of New Zealand 1984-89 ------------------------------------- The world of signals intelligence is one that governments have traditionally tried to keep hidden from public view. The secrecy attached to it by the United Kingdom and its allies in the Second World War, particularly codebreaking operations, carried over into the Cold War. Whether their adversaries were attacking them with weapons or diplomatic strategies, the concern was the same --- that revelations about methods and successes would lead an adversary to change codes and ciphers and deny the codebreaker the ability to read the foe's secret communications. Another aspect of the Second World War that carried over into the Cold War era was the close co-operation between five countries --- the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand --- formalised with the UKUSA Security Agreement on 1948. Although the treaty has never been made public, it has become clear that it not only provided for a division of collection tasks and sharing of the product, but for common guidelines for the classification and protection of the intelligence collected as well as for personal security. But over the last 50 years, codebreaking has become far more difficult, and often impossible --- due to the use of computer based encryption. At the same time, the interception of unencrypted communications (for example, air-to-ground communications) and other electronic signals --- particularly radar emanations and missile telemetry --- has grown dramatically in importance. This expanded role for signals intelligence was made evident in the construction and operation of a vast networkof ground stations spread across the world, aircraft equipped with intercept antenna patrolling the skies (and sometimes being shot down), and eventually the launch of eavesdropping satellites. This activity did not escape the notice of the Soviet Union, which also was busy establishing its own elaborate network. It also became very evident to outsider observers that signals intelligence was an important and very expensive part of the Cold War. That signals intelligence became more noticeable did not, for many years, alter the attitudes of the authorities about the necessity for strict secrecy. In the United States, the National Security Agency, established in 1952, was officially acknowledged only in 1957. For years, what were well known to be US operated signals intelligence stations have been officially described as facilities engaged in the research of `electronic phenomena' or the `rapid-relay of communications.' It took the US over 20 years after the Soviet Union obtained detailed information on a US signals intelligence satellite even to acknowledge the existance of such satellites. Other nations have been equally reticent --- the very existance of Canada's Communications Security Establishment was first revealed by the media in 1975. In recent years some of the UKUSA governments have been somewhat more forthcoming about signals intelligence sometimes with regard to historical events, sometimes with respect to organisation structure, and sometimes about some aspect of current operations. But secrecy is still intense (although no more than in other countries). What the public does know, it knows largely because of the efforts of industrious researchers who have collected and analysed obscure documents and media accounts, and interviewed present and former intelligence officers who can shed light on signals intelligence operations. These researchers have included Desmond Ball in Australia, James Bamford in the United States and Duncan Campbell in the United Kingdom. Nicky Hager's _Secret Power_ earns him a place in that select company. Indeed, he has produced the most detailed and up-to-date account in existance of the work of any signals intelligence agency. His exposé of the organisation and operations of New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) is a masterpiece of investigative reporting and provides a wealth of information. The reader of Mr Hager's book will learn about not just New Zealand's signals intelligence activities, but those of its partners. Specifically, the reader will learn about the origins, the evolution, and internal structure of the GCSB; the Tangimoana and Waihopai ground stations and their operations; New Zealand's role in the UKUSA alliance, and some of the signals intelligence operations of the other UKUSA nations. _Secret Power_ also serves as a fascinating case study of the role of a junior partner in an intelligence alliance. Some, undoubtedly, will object to the unprecendented detail to be found in the book, taking the traditional view that secrecy is far more important than public understanding of how tax dollars are being spent on intelligence. Certainly, revelations that defeat the purpose of legitimate intelligence activities are unfortunate and waste those tax dollars. But the UKUSA governments and their intelligence services have been far too slow in declassifying information that no longer needs to be secret and far too willing to classify information that need not be restricted. A Canadian newspaper made the point rather dramatically a few years ago --- after being denied access to a Canadian signals intelligence facility, the paper promptly purchased on the open market, and published, a satellite photograph of the facility, and its antenna system, first obtained by a Soviet spy satellite. There are many individuals within the services who would prefer greater openness, but they frequently cannot overcome the intense opposition of those preaching the need for tight secrecy. The internal bureaucratic battle to get information declassified can be a long and intense one and those opposing disclosure have an advantage --- often they are those in charge of security, who have developed a mindset which views any revelation as damaging. In the meantime, the public is kept in the dark. A free press, as manifested in books such as Mr Hager's, is large step towards alleviating the problem. Jeffrey T. Richelson Alexandria, Virginia May, 1996 Jeffrey Richelson is a leading authority on United States intelligence agencies and author of _America's Secret Eyes in the Sky_ and co-author of _The Ties That Bind_.