George Sadil (born circa 1936-37) is a former

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

analyst and translator who worked with the

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO ) is the Intelligence agency, domestic intelligence and national security agency of the Australian Government, responsible for protection from espionage, sabotage, acts of foreign inte ...

(ASIO) for nearly 25 years including during the height of the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

. After it had been revealed the ASIO had been compromised by a Russian

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

(Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti) '

mole Mole (or Molé) may refer to: Animals * Mole (animal) or "true mole" * Golden mole, southern African mammals * Marsupial mole Marsupial moles, the Notoryctidae family, are two species of highly specialized marsupial mammals that are found i ...

', investigations were held and after internal audits conducted by both ASIO (Jabaroo) and the

Australian Federal Police The Australian Federal Police (AFP) is the principal Federal police, federal law enforcement agency of the Australian Government responsible for investigating Crime in Australia, crime and protecting the national security of the Commonwealth ...

(Operation Liver), Sadil was accused of being the mole. After raids on the homes of many of their analysts and translators, the authorities found highly

classified Classified may refer to: General *Classified information, material that a government body deems to be sensitive *Classified advertising or "classifieds" Music *Classified (rapper) (born 1977), Canadian rapper * The Classified, a 1980s American ro ...

documents in Sadil's home, he was then charged with possessing classified federal documents under the

Crimes Act 1914 The ''Crimes Act 1914'' (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia which addresses the most serious federal offences — that is, crimes against the Commonwealth. It was the first major federal criminal law since the Federation of Austral ...

. In 1994 the case against him collapsed. Sadil's profile did not match that of the mole in question, and prosecutors were unable to establish any kind of money trail between Sadil and the KGB. Sadil had worked for ASIO since 1968. Former KGB general

Oleg Kalugin Oleg Danilovich Kalugin (; born 6 September 1934) is a former KGB general (stripped of his rank and awards by a Russian Court decision in 2002). He was during a time, head of KGB political operations in the United States and later a critic of ...

said Australian authorities never discovered the identity of the Canberra-based spy, who was paid thousands of dollars. Kalugin said Moscow used the information to penetrate deep into

MI5 MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

, the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

, and the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

. In 2023, the mole was identified as Ian George Peacock.

References

External links

The KGB spy who came in from the heat
The Australian, 8 November 2014
The Spy Who Wasn't
The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 February 1995
SECRET INTELLIGENCE: New evidence of Soviet espionage in Australia
News Weekly, 7 May 2005

''Four Corners''. ABC TV, 2 November 2004
Australian Security Intelligence Organization
at

SourceWatch The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a progressive nonprofit watchdog and advocacy organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. CMD publishes ExposedbyCMD.org, SourceWatch.org, and ALECexposed.org. History CMD was founded in 1993 by prog ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sadil, George Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people)