Russian Mole Infiltrated Australian Intelligence, Former MI5 Agent

Jonathan Perlman

August 23, 2015

Russian ‘mole’ infiltrated Western intelligence in Australia, says ex-MI5 spy

A Russian “mole” infiltrated Australia’s spy agency during the height of the Cold War, according to a British-born Australian intelligence agent who has revealed her concerns for the first time.

Molly Sasson, 92, worked for the Royal Air Force intelligence and MI5 before moving to Australia to work for Asio, the domestic spy agency.

She has now gone public with her claims that Asio was infiltrated by a spy in the 1970s but the agency ignored warnings from its own operatives and from the CIA station chief in Canberra.

It is believed Russia considered Australia an easier path to accessing Western intelligence than via agencies in the US or Britain.

“I have no doubt at all that ASIO was penetrated,” Ms Sasson told ABC News.

“The Soviets always seemed to be a step ahead of us. If we put on an operation, it failed. There must have been a tip-off. It can’t have been otherwise.”

Ms Sasson recounted an episode in which a suspected Russian agent named Vladimir Dobrogorsky was believed to be planning to exchange information with an Australian man at 6.30pm in Telopea Park, a leafy park near the centre of Canberra.

Australian agents watched the park but the exchange did not occur and it later emerged that Dobrogorsky had left the Soviet embassy for Moscow that morning.

“He never came back,” Ms Sasson told The Australian. “I am convinced that someone within Asio tipped him off. “

Ms Sasson, who speaks fluent German, began her intelligence career during World War II when she was recruited by British military intelligence.

Following the war, she helped to protect a Soviet defector to Britain, Colonel Grigori Tokaev, a rocket scientist who crossed over from Soviet-controlled Berlin in the late 1940s.

Molly Sasson was offered her job by Australian spy chief Sir Charles Spry Photo: National Archives of Australia

She worked for MI5 before being offered a job with ASIO in Canberra by Sir Charles Spry, its then chief. She moved to Australia with her husband Robert in 1969 and spent eight years compiling daily reports on Soviet espionage activity in Australia.

Despite warning her Asio bosses and a royal commission about the Soviet mole, officials expressed scepticism about her concerns and told her “don’t open this can of worms”.

The royal commission in the late 1970s did not express a firm view, saying that “ASIO may or may not have been penetrated by a hostile intelligence service”.

Ms Sasson retired from Asio in 1983. KGB documents released following the collapse of the Soviet Union indicated that Moscow had succeeded in penetrating Asio.

“I am doing this now because it is a long time ago and because what I have to say needs to be said,” she said.

“Surely the Australian people have a right to know if real spies were operating, and for how long, in our government departments and intelligence agencies.”