What is Five Eyes?
Often, when Five Eyes speaks to other companies, the recurring question is asked:
"What is Five Eyes? What does it mean?"
The first article of Five Eyes will cover the history of Five Eyes, which began during World War II, the developments that followed, and the origins of Five Eyes Ltd.
The Origins:
The informal origins of the Five Eyes alliance were secret meetings between British and US codebreakers at the British code-breaking establishment, Bletchley Park, in February 1941, before the US entry into the war.
The first record of these meetings is a February 1941 diary entry from Alastair Denniston, head of Bletchley Park, reading "The Ys are coming!" with "Ys" referring to "Yanks". An entry from 10 February reads "Ys arrive". British and US intelligence shared extremely confidential information, including that the British had broken the German Enigma code and that the US had broken the Japanese Purple code. For the rest of the war, key figures like Denniston and code-breaking expert Alan Turing travelled back and forth across the Atlantic. The informal relationship established for wartime signals intelligence developed into a formal, signed agreement at the start of the Cold War.
The formal Five Eyes alliance can be traced back to the August 1941 Atlantic Charter, which laid out Allied goals for the post-war world. On 17 May 1943, the UK and US governments signed the British–US Communication Intelligence Agreement, also known as the BRUSA Agreement, to facilitate co-operation between the US War Department and the British Government Code and Cypher School. On 5 March 1946, the two governments formalised their secret treaty as the UKUSA Agreement, which remains the basis for all signal intelligence cooperation between the NSA and GCHQ to the present day.
UKUSA was extended to include Canada in 1948, followed by Norway in 1952, Denmark in 1954, West Germany in 1955, and Australia and New Zealand in 1956. These countries participated in the alliance as "third parties". By 1955, a newer version of the UKUSA Agreement officially acknowledged the formal status of the remaining Five Eyes countries with the following statement:
At this time, only Canada, Australia and New Zealand will be regarded as UKUSA-collaborating Commonwealth countries.
During the Cold War, GCHQ and the NSA shared intelligence on the Soviet Union, China, and several Eastern European countries known as "Exotics". Over the course of several decades, the ECHELON surveillance network was developed to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies.
In 1953, SIS and the CIA jointly orchestrated the overthrow of Iran's Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.
From 1955 through 1975, during the Vietnam War, Australian and New Zealand operators in the Asia-Pacific region worked to directly support the United States, while GCHQ operators stationed in British Hong Kong as part of GCHQ Hong Kong were tasked with monitoring North Vietnamese air defence networks.
In 1961, SIS and the CIA jointly orchestrated the assassination of the Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba, an operation authorised by outgoing US President Dwight D. Eisenhower the year before, in 1960.
In 1973, the ASIS and the CIA jointly orchestrated the overthrow of Chile's President Salvador Allende.
Over a period of at least five years in the 1970s, a senior officer named Ian George Peacock, who was part of Australia's ASIO counterespionage unit, stole highly classified intelligence documents shared with Australia and sold them to the Soviet Union. Peacock held the title of Supervisor-E (Espionage) and had a top-secret security clearance. He retired from the ASIO in 1983 and died in 2006.
During the Falklands War in 1982, the United Kingdom received intelligence data from its FVEY allies as well as from third parties like Norway and France.
In 1989, during the Tiananmen Square protests, SIS and the CIA took part in Operation Yellowbird to exfiltrate dissidents from China.
In the aftermath of the Gulf War in 1991, an ASIS technician bugged Kuwaiti government offices for SIS.
Organisations:
Australian Secret Intelligence Service | ASIS | Human intelligence
Australian Signals Directorate | ASD | Signal intelligence
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation | ASIO | Security intelligence
Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation | AGO | Geo-intelligence
Defence Intelligence Organisation | DIO | Defence intelligence
Canadian Forces Intelligence Command | CFINTCOM | Defence intelligence, Geo-intelligence, human intelligence
Communications Security Establishment | CSE | Signal intelligence
Canadian Security Intelligence Service | CSIS | Human intelligence, security intelligence
Royal Canadian Mounted Police | RCMP | Security Intelligence
Directorate of Defence Intelligence and Security | DDIS | Defence intelligence
Government Communications Security Bureau | GCSB | Signal intelligence
New Zealand Security Intelligence Service | NZSIS | Human intelligence, security intelligence
Government Communications Headquarters | GCHQ | Signal intelligence
Security Service | MI5 | Security intelligence
Secret Intelligence Service | MI6, SIS | Human intelligence
Central Intelligence Agency | CIA | Human Intelligence
Defence Intelligence Agency | DIA | Defence Intelligence
Federal Bureau of Investigation | FBI | Security intelligence
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency | NGA | Geo-intelligence
National Security Agency | NSA | Signal intelligence
The following article will discuss how the history of Five Eyes is tied to the origins of Five Eyes Ltd.
