Guyon Espiner

I mean, pretty much everyone we spoke with, and they do come at this from multiple different angles, they were all clear that they felt we need to stay in Five Eyes.

Yeah, I mean, the calculation has been pretty simple, right?

It's always felt safer under the wing of America than pretty much anywhere else.

Yeah, these are hard questions and we do need to be able to discuss them and think about them as a society, right?

Hopefully this has been the kind of story that helps us bring some of those elements into the light where we can all see them.

Because while the story of Kit Bennett's and his time with the CIA are kiwi at the heart of American intelligence operations...

It took place four decades ago or so now.

There's every chance something similar is still going on today.

Remember what Andrew Little told us in the first episode.

No, but he still has the photos that made him very much look like one, to the GRU at least.

Yeah, then after he was a cop in Brisbane, getting beaten up on the front line in his 50s, he decided to put a PhD to good use.

So Dr Kit Bennett's now lectures at universities in Australia and China in aviation and business.

He'll be, what, 75 this year?

I mean, I can see it in your eyes.

You loved that time.

The Agency was produced, written and hosted by John Daniel and me, Guy Nespina.

Our executive producer for RNZ was John Hartevelt and our executive producer for Bird of Paradise Productions was Noel McCarthy.

The visual director at RNZ was Cole Easton-Farrelly and our camera operator was Jess Charlton.

Thanks also to Sarah Gaitanos for the article about Bill Such that appears on rnz.co.nz.

Just a heads up listeners, this episode contains some adult language.