Olivia Forsyth

From May to November 1981, Forsyth worked at the Department of Foreign Affairs (now the Department of International Relations and Cooperation) in Pretoria as a foreign service officer.[4] She was assigned to the Protocol Department, based in the Union Buildings, where she was approached by the National Intelligence Service (NIS). Forsyth joined the Security Branch of the South African Police (SAP) in November 1981 during which time she was recruited by Craig Williamson and trained at the spy training center known as Daisy Farm.[5]

Forsyth operated at Rhodes University under cover as a student from 1982 until 1985, becoming a leader in anti-apartheid groups. She became chairperson of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) local committee at Rhodes, media officer on the Rhodes Students' Representative Council, chair of the local End Conscription Campaign (ECC), treasurer of the campus Women's Movement, and editor of the student newspaper Rhodeo and of the community paper Grahamstown Voice.[6] Janet Cherry, a former underground operative for the African National Congress (ANC) and leading activist in the Eastern Cape, said Forsyth had led a double life by completely "integrating herself into student life".[7]

From June 1985 Forsyth travelled to various Frontline States – Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Tanzania – from the Johannesburg office of a Security Branch front company called John Fitzgerard and Associates, in an operation entitled 'Operation Olivetti'. Forsyth arranged for journalists and exiles to write reports, including some on the eleven-nation Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC). One of the journalists said they had been paid $150 from a numbered Swiss bank account.[8] Forsyth also obtained accreditation as a journalist to one of the SADCC conferences in Harare. There, Forsyth made contact with the ANC and subsequently defected. After revealing the names and details of a number of Security Branch agents, Forsyth offered to become a double agent for the ANC. In Lusaka, Forsyth met Ronnie Kasrils, then-Intelligence Chief of Umkhonto We Sizwe.[9] The ANC assigned her several missions in South Africa.[10]

In June 1986, on a trip to Lusaka, a number of ANC officials stopped believing Forsyth's credentials as a double agent.[11] ANC Security Chief Mzwai Piliso decided to send Forsyth to Quatro, the ANC detention camp in northern Angola, where she was held prisoner for seven and a half months. In February 1987, Forsyth was released from Quatro following the intervention of Kasrils and Umkhonto We Sizwe leader Chris Hani.[9] She was taken to an ANC safe house in Luanda, where she remained for the next fifteen months. During this time, the ANC tried to negotiate with the South African government to use Forsyth in a prisoner exchange with ANC members who had been sentenced to death.[12]

Forsyth escaped to the British embassy in Luanda on 2 May 1988.[2] Forsyth's presence at the embassy made headlines on 31 July 1988.[13] The Angolan government initially refused permission for Forsyth to leave the country, with the Angolan ambassador to Zambia, Luis Neto Kiambata, saying she was "a regional problem" because she was "spying in all the Frontline states" and that "President Kenneth Kaunda, as the Frontline States' chairman, should decide on whether she should be given a visa".[14] Sources in the ANC and anti-apartheid movement claimed that Forsyth had been captured and escaped twice.[15] The Angolan government offered to release Forsyth in exchange for a number of important anti-apartheid prisoners in South Africa.[16] The British government reportedly rejected the deal.[17]

British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe raised the Forsyth issue with Angolan ministers as an obstacle to good relations, and the British government informed Angola that a planned visit by Foreign Office Minister Linda Chalker was out of the question until the matter was resolved.[18] Forsyth remained in the embassy compound until 16 November 1988, when she was granted an exit visa. The Angolan News Agency reported that Forsyth had been a spy since 1981 and that she was being expelled from Angola.[19] Forsyth was accompanied by embassy officials to the airport in Luanda and flew to Paris and then to Heathrow Airport, where she was reunited with her father.[20]

Forsyth and her father eventually returned to South Africa.[21] To pre-empt the ANC's revelation of her defection, on February 3, 1989, the SAP launched a propaganda campaign through its Strategic Communications arm, Stratcom. Called 'Operation Yurchenko', the campaign claimed that Forsyth had been a highly successful spy. The claim received pages of coverage in the South African newspapers.[22][23][24][25]

The ANC issued a statement confirming that they had approached the South African government in an attempt to swap Forsyth for condemned ANC members, including the Sharpeville Six and Robert McBride. The statement also gave details of police agents whose details Forsyth had revealed to the ANC.[26] ANC sources in London said the Forsyth operation had been a huge espionage blunder for South Africa.[27] At a press conference, officials of the NUSAS and other anti-apartheid organisations said the revelations were an attempt to discredit white activists and an elaborate cover-up for a botched operation; they were concerned that this could be an attempt to build up Forsyth's credibility to use her as an “expert” witness in political trials.[28]

Forsyth resigned from the Security Branch in November 1989; she now lives in the United Kingdom, having taught English at an independent senior school, The Grange School Northwich where she revealed her previous secret identity in a whole school assembly, for several years. In July 2015 Forsyth published her memoir, Agent 407: A South African Spy Breaks Her Silence.[29][30][31]