Source: Radio New Zealand
A New Zealander has revealed details of a years-long stint spying for America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Cold War.
Kit Bennetts, who was born and raised in Masterton, was recruited in Wellington by the CIA Chief of Station at the US Embassy in 1979. At the time he was working for New Zealand’s SIS.
He shared details of his work in hours of interviews for a new podcast, The Agency, which is released by RNZ and Bird of Paradise today.
In the podcast, Bennetts reveals how he worked on behalf of the CIA “belly-to-belly” with a senior Soviet official, trying to funnel “dead-end technology” into the system of America’s Cold War rival.
“I was working in cover, undeclared, targeting Soviet intelligence officers and East European intelligence officers,” Bennetts says.
“I got successful against a couple of Soviets and a couple of east Europeans, and I became friendly with them and that’s where it developed from.”
What was initially expected to be a two-year stint turned into six-and-a-half years operating in cover for the CIA overseas. He reflects on times when he knew he was in grave danger but carried on regardless.
“I don’t think I slept much, because I knew that if this was going to happen, it wouldn’t matter if I was walking around with an M16, they would have got me.”
Listen now to The Agency, a new podcast detailing the story of a Kiwi spy who was close to the Sutch case before spending six years in cover for the CIA
Bill Sutch was accused of spying for New Zealand’s Cold War foe, the Soviet Union Public Domain
New details in the Bill Sutch spy case
The first episode of The Agency touches on Kit Bennetts’ involvement in the country’s most notorious spy scandal, the arrest – and subsequent trial – of Dr Bill Sutch in 1975/6.
Sutch was found not guilty but subsequent evidence has emerged over the decades about his connections to the Soviet Union. RNZ is today publishing details from evidence that was not presented to the jury in Sutch’s trial.
A series of pen portraits of six civil servants were found by the SIS in Sutch’s office. The existence of these profiles has previously been reported but not what they actually said. They offer an insight into the methods and sources used by Soviet intelligence to recruit and run agents.
“They were pretty nasty sort of pen portraits of people who were essentially his [Sutch’s] friends, who he was lining up to take over from him,” Bennetts says.
RNZ has obtained the profiles and published them, together with an analysis by historian Sarah Gaitanos.
Trump, Five Eyes and re-evaluating NZ’s place
The six-part series also explores New Zealand’s ties with the US, via the Five Eyes alliance, which includes intelligence sharing.
Experts, including from within senior levels of the US Government, give a range of views on the ongoing risk – and value – of that alliance. The unpredictability of the current US administration, under President Donald Trump, is a cause for concern but there is widespread agreement on the enduring value to New Zealand of participation in the group.
Andrew Little, the minister in charge of the intelligence agencies in the last Labour Government, tells the podcast there continue to be “exchanges” of personnel between the Five Eyes partners.
“The Five Eyes partners in particular, work closely together, more so than pretty much any other group of intelligence agencies anywhere in the world. … New Zealand’s relationship with each of the Five Eyes partners, UK, US, Australia and Canada, is particularly close.”
In a statement, an SIS spokesman said relationships with overseas intelligence and security partners – particularly within the Five Eyes – are vital to New Zealand’s national security.
“As you would expect, NZSIS does have a small number of staff posted offshore in liaison roles.”
How to listen
The Agency follows on from The Service, another Cold War espionage co-production between Bird of Paradise and RNZ, about a raid on the Czechoslovakian embassy in Wellington by the SIS and MI6.
The series epilogue of The Service also discussed another raid that had taken place as a joint operation – this time between the SIS and CIA, in the early 1990s; the target was the Iranian embassy in Island Bay. Sources within the New Zealand intelligence community have subsequently suggested the wider aim of the operation was to enable US monitoring of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
The first two episodes of The Agency are available now on all podcast platforms, and via the RNZ podcast player. Subsequent episodes will be released this Friday and next Tuesday.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
