Guyon Espiner

Stansfield-Turner, wary of the CIA's entanglements through running human or human intelligence operations and impressed by the technical opportunities offered by the new technologies from satellite surveillance and the U-2 spy plane...

A bit like the band.

Thank you.

Was there a sense that, you know, that these Western English-speaking countries were working together, or did that not really form part of it?

Did the CIA think that they were the ones leading it?

Yeah, because that's what you see on the documents.

Yes.

That's what that really means, isn't it?

Yes.

For whose eyes can see this.

OK, there's that phrase again, the good guys.

But you can't help but ask the question, are the CIA really the good guys?

Because we've seen that they've done some pretty bad things, and we haven't even got to the officially approved practice of torture post 9-11.

Okay, well, so what are the examples then?

No, not great.

In fact, it's a bit of an understatement.

I mean, there's, what, 40-odd years of revolutions, counter-revolutions in Guatemala, death squads, all sorts of things, tens if not hundreds of thousands dead.

But the big picture is, of course, the Cold War, the fight against the Soviet Union.

And this is where even Tim Weiner says they ended up on the right side of history.

I guess the crucial question for us is, to what extent is New Zealand on the right side of history by lining up with the US and by extension the CIA, particularly when they are doing some pretty dirty deeds?