Threats from abroad: organising for the secret war: Jim Rolfe discusses the evolution of New Zealand's Security Intelligence Service.

• Author: Rolfe, Jim

Security and intelligence agencies have always attracted attention both as to the subjects with which they interest themselves and the controls under which they operate. The organisation devoted to security intelligence in New Zealand has evolved from being an adjunct of the Police Force concerned with 'bolshevists' and other threats to the country's peace and security, through a period in the Second World War where it had, for a period, considerable autonomy to the situation today. The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service now operates against specific legislation and under independent political and official oversight, although many argue that the legislation is flawed and the oversight is insufficient.

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'While such an organisation may be required for the protection of the State and Government in wartime, the public are also entitled to protection from the accusation and suggestions made by any dangerous rascal who may succeed in foisting his services upon this department'. That comment, in the New Zealand Truth in July 1942, was aimed at New Zealand's wartime security agency, but secret organisations have always attracted suspicion and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) is no exception.

Two issues dominate whenever secret agencies are discussed:

* what threats should the security organisation concern itself with;

* how should that organisation be managed and controlled?

The concept of threat has changed over the years, but the concerns about control remain now as they have for more than 80 years.

The Police were the first 'security' agency to concern themselves with foreign threats. In 1919 they worried about 'industrial and other unrest ... reported from other countries' and feared that people advocating 'lawlessness or disorder' might arrive from those countries. (1) To guard against this, the Commissioner of Police required all districts to keep lists of 'all persons resident in your district who have extreme revolutionary, socialistic ... tendencies and who as such would be likely to cause disorder or lawlessness'. Soon, Police districts were required to give 'increased attention ... to ascertaining to what extent revolutionary organisations or movements exist' and had to detail a 'discrete Detective capable of handling such inquiries' to the task of determining the size of the problem.

In 1919 also the New Zealand Military Forces had designated an officer to correspond directly with the war Office in London on 'enemy aliens, "Bolshevism" and other intelligence subjects'. (2) By the mid-1920s the duties of the Army's intelligence branch included the collection of information on 'aliens', on 'agitators, suspicious characters and their movements' and on 'persons making public utterances throughout the world with decided anglophobist tendencies'. The Army worked closely with the Police, and a committee consisting of the Army's senior administration officer and the Commissioner of Police was formed to organise 'an intelligence system for New Zealand which shall embrace both Civil and Military Departments of State and thus be in a position to coordinate information from all sources'.

New proposals

By 1940 proposals for an independent 'Security Service' were being floated. Officials were concerned with the relatively ad hoc nature of New Zealand's wartime security system, which was based on an Organisation for National Security. That agency had a remit somewhat wider (in that it was concerned with the overall war situation) than that of the proposed security service, which was to be designed to safeguard 'the armed forces and the property of the Crown from injury by espionage, sabotage, malicious damage ... by hostile persons'. It was 'axiomatic' that a Security Service should use the services of the Police as far as possible, but some investigations 'could be more effectively handled by men outside ... the existing Police Organization'.

The War Cabinet approved the formation of a Security Intelligence Bureau (SIB) with responsibilities for both civil and military security in November 1940. Contrary to the military recommendation, the director of the Bureau was, at Prime Minister Peter Fraser's insistence, to be directly responsible to the Prime Minister on all matters. The SIB was formed on 10 February 1941 with a strength of some 50 personnel and offices in Auckland, Wellington, Palmerston North and Christchurch.

Valuable work

The SIB was initially successful, carrying out valuable work in pointing out security deficiencies to the armed forces and in civil security matters. However, in 1942 the Bureau was taken in by a confidence-trickster named Ross, who claimed to have knowledge of a...