The accolades flowing within hours of the passing of Allan Gyngell pay tribute to his remarkable life: intellectual leader, intelligence chief, think tank director, diplomat, author, historian, educator and mentor. Gyngell lived an extraordinary life.
How highly he was regarded in government, academia, diplomacy, the think tank world, the national intelligence community, among journalists, as a podcaster and by everyone he dealt with. He was kind, humble, unassuming, approachable, respectful and always gracious.
A deep thinker, Gyngell wrote a seminal book, Fear of Abandonment: Australia in the World Since 1942. It was originally published in 2017 after Donald Trump was elected US president and updated recently.
His book addresses Australia’s age-old strategic dilemma of protecting a small population occupying a large island continent. It inspired readers to seek to reconcile their history (mainly Anglo-European) with their geography (as an island continent on the edge of Asia). His work captured the truth about the contemporary Australian condition, with insights as powerful as those of Donald Horne’s The Lucky Country a generation earlier.
Starting out in the “most storied” intake at the then Department of External Affairs (now DFAT) in 1969, Gyngell quickly made his mark amongst an impressive cohort (including the likes of former departmental secretaries and agency heads, Ric Smith and Dennis Richardson). He was recognised as outstandingly intelligent, industrious, personable and versatile.
A posting to Rangoon in Burma (Myanmar) from 1970-72 was followed by three years in Singapore (1973-76) and Washington (1981-84). In Australia, in 1974, he was instrumental in establishing Australia as the first official dialogue partner with ASEAN.
From 1991-93 he was first assistant secretary international in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Prime minister Paul Keating saw that this urbane, mild-mannered and thoughtful person was one to have close to him and Gyngell became senior international adviser to Keating from 1993-96.
He was the ideal sounding board and moderating influence as well as being the intellectual equal of the brilliant and extroverted Keating. Together they negotiated a ground-breaking treaty with Indonesia.
Having won the confidence of one of Australia’s leading philanthropists and most successful businessmen, Sir Frank Lowy, he left government service to become the founding executive director of the Sydney-based Lowy Institute for International Policy (2003-2009). There he enlisted great minds including Owen Harries, who had been editor-in-chief of The National Interest in Washington DC from its founding in 1985 to 2001. Gyngell was instrumental in establishing the Lowy Institute as Australia’s leading think tank on international affairs.
Gyngell was then appointed director-general of Australia’s peak intelligence body, the Office of National Assessments (or ONA), where he served from mid-2009 to 2013. He was the lead intelligence analyst for the prime minister as well as the coordinator of the Australian intelligence community, including ONA, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), The Defence Signals Directorate (DSD, now ASD), the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) and the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Intelligence Organisation (DIGO), which is now the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation, or AGO.
This role, which requires intellectual leadership and subtlety as well as highly developed diplomatic skills, is critical to the management of Australia’s national security and intelligence arrangements, and Gyngell as ever acquitted himself outstandingly.
In retirement, he took on the national presidency of the Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA) from 2017 until early 2023. He was an active and collegial contributor to AIIA events, as well as generously sharing his time and thoughts on research and policy papers by the many who were eager for his knowledge and insights.
At the Australian National University, he was an adjunct professor at the National Security College, where he shared his wisdom with hundreds of students. It was only in early 2023 that it was becoming apparent he was unwell. Little did we realise how quickly he would be taken from us by cancer.
Foreign minister Penny Wong described him as “Australia’s finest mind in foreign policy”, offering “sage advice, both official and unofficial, to the Australian government for decades”.
The foreign minister admitted to being a fan of one of Gyngell’s last major contributions to public life — as co-host with ANU academic Dr Darren Lim of the “Australia in the World” podcast. I, for one, was an avid listener on walks and rides around Canberra and many others benefited from listening in to the banter and pearls of wisdom on contemporary international affairs.
Along with Clare Birgin, I’m honoured to be perhaps the final recipient of a Gyngell public endorsement for our book, Revealing Secrets, released two days before his passing on May 1.
Vale Allan Gyngell. Thank you for your service to the nation. What a great contributor you have been to Australia’s engagement with the world.
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