Peter Barbour
Australian security intelligence director
| Peter Barbour
| |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Australian |
| Occupation | Intelligence officer; intelligence director; diplomat |
| Known for | Director-General of Security, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation 22 January 1970 – 28 September 1975[1] Australian ambassador to Venezuela |
| Predecessor | Charles Spry |
Peter Barbour led the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) as director-general of security, from 1970 to 1975.[1]
Office held
| Office | Start | End | Predecessor | Successor | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director-General of Security, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation | 22 January 1970 | 28 September 1975 | Charles Spry | Frank Mahony | [1] |
Early intelligence work
Peter Barbour joined the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation after initially being considered as a recruit for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service. David Horner records his posting to The Hague in 1953 and training with MI5 in London, in a period when ASIO’s training arrangements were still largely ad hoc.[2]
Relations with the Whitlam government
Reporting on John Blaxland’s official history, Paul Daley wrote that Peter Barbour maintained informal contacts with the Central Intelligence Agency after Gough Whitlam ordered a break in those links in 1974. The account attributes Barbour’s decision to his belief that severing the relationship would harm Australia’s intelligence interests. Daley also reported Blaxland’s conclusion that the ASIO files did not establish the more extensive allegations of CIA involvement in Whitlam’s dismissal.[3]
Barbour was followed by interim director Frank Mahony in September 1975, according to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation’s own chronology.[1]
The Murphy raid and CIA pressure
Brian Toohey and William Pinwill describe Lionel Murphy’s 1973 visit to Australian Security Intelligence Organisation headquarters as a dispute over whether the service had supplied its minister with material about Croatian extremists. Their account says that Central Intelligence Agency station chief John D. Walker then pressed Peter Barbour to criticise the Labor government publicly. Barbour refused. The authors present this disagreement as a limit to the assumption that relations between the Australian and American services were invariably harmonious.[4]
Subsequent diplomatic work
After his removal from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Peter Barbour was transferred to a consular post in the United States, according to Brian Toohey and William Pinwill. They later identify him as Australian ambassador to Venezuela and describe his reporting as a counterweight to uncritical acceptance of American intelligence on the region.[5][6]
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Directors-General of Security, archived 12 February 2010, accessed 8 November 2026.
- ↑ David Horner, The Spy Catchers: The Official History of ASIO, 1949–1963, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2014, chapter 7.
- ↑ Paul Daley, Asio chief defied Gough Whitlam’s order to cut ties with the CIA in 1974, The Guardian, 16 October 2015, accessed 8 November 2026.
- ↑ Brian Toohey and William Pinwill, Oyster: The Story of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, Port Melbourne: William Heinemann Australia, 1989, pp. 145–146.
- ↑ Brian Toohey and William Pinwill, Oyster: The Story of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, Port Melbourne: William Heinemann Australia, 1989, p. 178.
- ↑ Brian Toohey and William Pinwill, Oyster: The Story of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, Port Melbourne: William Heinemann Australia, 1989, p. 261.