Occasionally one finds, despite familiarity with someone for several years, that the person’s full life story was quite different from what one imagined. For many who knew Neil McInnes during his later life as a senior public servant in Canberra, that is likely to be true of his earlier days. Neil McInnes’s career as a Commonwealth public servant began in early 1978 when he took up the position of Deputy Director-General (Economic) at Australia’s leading intelligence analysis authority, the Office of National Assessments (ONA). The ONA was only then beginning under Director-General Robert “Bob” Furlonger. It was established as a…