OFFICIAL HISTORY OF ASIO

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Latest release: October 26, 2016
Series
3
Books
The Spy Catchers: The Official History of ASIO, 1949-1963
Book 1·Oct 2014
3.3
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Winner of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History

For the first time, ASIO has opened its archives to an independent historian. With unfettered access to the records, David Horner tells the real story of Australia's domestic intelligence organisation, from shaky beginnings to the expulsion of Ivan Skripov in 1963.

From the start, ASIO's mission was to catch spies. In the late 1940s, the top secret Venona program revealed details of a Soviet spy ring in Australia, supported by leading Australian communists. David Horner outlines the tactics ASIO used in counterespionage, from embassy bugging to surveillance of local suspects. His research sheds new light on the Petrov Affair, and details incidents and activities that have never been revealed before.

This authoritative and ground-breaking account overturns many myths about ASIO, and offers new insights into broader Australian politics and society in the fraught years of the Cold War.

The Spy Catchers is the first of three volumes of The Official History of ASIO.

'The Spy Catchers is a fascinating account of ASIO's early years when the main threat Australia faced was from the Soviet regime.' - The Hon. John Howard, OM, AC, former Prime Minister of Australia

'This is one of our most important official histories.' - The Hon. Kim Beazley, AC, Australian Ambassador to the United States of America
The Protest Years: The Official History of ASIO, 1963-1975
Book 2·Oct 2015
5.0
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$16.19
By 1963, Robert Menzies had been prime minister for thirteen years, Australia had its first troops in Vietnam, and change was in the air. There would soon be street protests over women's rights, Aboriginal land rights and the Vietnam War and unprecedented student activism. With the Cold War lingering, ASIO was concerned that protests were being orchestrated to foment revolution.

The Protest Years tells the inside story of Australia's domestic intelligence organisation from the last of the Menzies years to the dismissal of the Whitlam government. With unrestricted access to ASIO's internal filesand extensive interviews with insiders, for the first time the circumstances surrounding the alleged role of ASIO in the demise of the Whitlam government are revealed and the question of the CIA's involvement in Australia is explored. The extraordinary background to the raid on ASIO headquarters in Melbourne by Attorney-General Lionel Murphy and Australia's efforts at countering Soviet bloc espionage, as well as the sensitive intelligence activities in South Vietnam, are exposed.

This is a ground-breaking political and social history of some of Australia's most turbulent years as seen through the secret prism of ASIO.

The Protest Years is the second of three volumes of The Official History of ASIO.
The Secret Cold War: The Official History of ASIO, 1975-1989
Book 3·Oct 2016
5.0
·
$16.19
The Cold War between the West and the Soviet Bloc didn't end with detente in 1975: it just went underground. Until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, tensions between the superpowers continued to play out across the world.

Until now, few would have known of the surprising extent of clandestine operations in Australia by foreign intelligence operatives and the violence-prone activities of local extremist groups from the Middle East, Armenia and Croatia in the 1970s and 1980s. Meanwhile, prompted by probing royal commissions and reviews, ASIO was being systematically transformed into a modern intelligence organisation.

The Secret Cold War uncovers behind the scenes stories of the Hilton bombing in Sydney, assassinations of diplomats, the Combe-Ivanov affair, and the new threat from China. It reveals that KGB officers were able to recruit and run agents in Australia for many years, and it follows ASIO's own investigations into persistent allegations of penetration by Soviet moles.

The Secret Cold War is the third and final volume of The Official History of ASIO.

'The Secret Cold War concludes the seminal trilogy of the Official History of ASIO, and provides an unabashed perspective into ASIO's inner workings throughout the 1970s and 1980s.' - His Excellency General the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove AK MC (Retd), Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia