John Daniel

Previously on The Agency.

This is Kip Bennett's.

He spent six years working in cover as a NOC for America's Central Intelligence Agency on exchange from the New Zealand SIS in the 1980s.

He says at the end of his time, as the nuclear ships route escalated between New Zealand and the US, going back to the SIS was hard because nobody quite understood the toll clandestine work took on the people doing it.

And so over the course of a few months, the job went south for Kit Bennett's.

Ultimately, Kip Bennett's got into a personal clash with his boss, the director of the SIS.

In Brisbane, he was involved in what he describes as a couple of significant incidents.

During one of them, he was badly beaten attempting an arrest.

He was 56 years old.

Kit Bennett says the psychiatrist could see something in him that he hadn't been able to see himself.

And I'm John Daniel.

This is Episode 6, The Price of Freedom.

Now, whatever you might think about that statement from a former spy, the people who actually run the country agree.

Intelligence agencies are part of the critical infrastructure of government.

New Zealand has been part of the Five Eyes Alliance alongside Canada, Australia, the US and the UK for nearly a century now.

And that alliance has given us a seat at the top table of the Western security networks, making us an important player relative to our size.

But the world is changing and there's no guarantee the future will be the same as our past.

And the elephant trainer-in-chief, President Donald J. Trump.

Well, in the last episode, we heard Susan Miller, a former head of CIA counterintelligence, saying Trump shouldn't be trusted on Russia.

But she isn't the only former CIA officer to be concerned about the impact of President Trump on the Five Eyes.