Commission's recommendation. Top Secret and undisclosed aspects In a top secret supplement to the report on ASIO Hope stated his suspicion that ASIO had been "penetrated by a hostile intelligence agency" that had succeeded in making the organisation ineffective. He shared the belief of US and UK intelligence agencies that ASIO was fundamentally compromised and that this was part of a global trend or "grand design", possibly referring to the leak of the FBI's COINTELPRO. In 1998, Hope conducted an interview with the National Library of Australia to be released after his death. In the interview Hope revealed a number of controversial things. According to Hope, the Whitlam Government had used Pine Gap to spy on Japanese delegates during 1973 trade negotiations. This was the first of many such instances. By the time of the Second Hope Commission in the 1980s he found the exploitation of Pine Gap had changed and that the Hawke Government was handing raw intelligence to major Australian corporations. He said he found ASIO to be dominated by conservatives who were fanatical about the Cold War and that "the whole system was substantially directed to the left wing of politics”. He found that ASIO was "deliberately designed to shield the organisation from external (and internal) scrutiny". The Secretary of the Department of Defence, Arthur Tange controversially ordered that the Commission "should not be told too much" because this would put the Five Eyes alliance in jeopardy. As a result, the Commission was not granted access to the satellite tracking station at Pine Gap. Release of commission papers On 27 May 2008, the records of the commission were partly released to the public. As of 2014, many declassified documents authored by the commission remain redacted. See also COINTELPRO 1973 Murphy raids Church Committee Watergate scandal References External links Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security Intelligence and Security Gough Whitlam 1974 establishments in Australia Australian intelligence agencies 1977 disestablishments in Australia Espionage by country