Life of service, secrecy and sensitivity
Lieutenant General (retired) Donald (Don) Stuart McIver, former Security Intelligence Service director and RSA president: b January 22, 1936, Auckland; m Margaret Brady, 3s, 3d; d August 22, 2016, Wellington, aged 80.
Don McIver dedicated his life to serving his country. From active service in Malaya and South Vietnam to his role as director of the Security Intelligence Service and latterly at the helm of the Returned and Services’ Association, McIver was a man who saw service as his duty.
McIver was the nation’s spy catcher in 1991 under prime minister Jim Bolger’s National Government.
As director of the Security Intelligence Service (SIS), a position he held for eight years till 1999, McIver was the only employee allowed to be publicly identified.
In 2000, he held one of the world’s most sensitive jobs – gathering information about Iraq’s weapons of war.
McIver had retired from the SIS when the chief UN inspector at the time, Dr Hans Blix, rang him at home and asked him to set up a new intelligence position.
Based in New York, he hunted out top-secret intelligence later used by United Nations inspection teams in Iraq. He travelled incognito around the world making contacts with a range of sources, including government agents and Iraqi defectors.
He reported solely to Blix and some of the information he gathered was so sensitive it was seen only by himself and Blix.
McIver’s first job was to establish contacts with people holding clues about Iraq’s weapons. ‘‘It involved ... earning their confidence and getting them to share that information,’’ he told The Southland Times in 2002.
Once he had information he would verify it and sometimes obtain satellite images of the area, then store it in a highly secure area to guard against espionage.
Donald McIver was born in Auckland in 1936. One of four children, his first few years were spent there before the family moved to Dargaville, where his father worked as an insurance agent.
He was educated at Sacred Heart College in Auckland then at Dargaville High School before taking a cadetship in Waiouru from 1952-53 at the age of 16. He went on to attend the Royal Military College Duntroon in Canberra from 1954-57, after which he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the infantry.
He met his future wife, Margaret in Dargaville in 1956, and they married in 1962.
He carried out active service in 1958 in Malaya and later in Malaysia from 1963-65. He also served in South Vietnam, where he was appointed second in command of the Anzac Battalion serving with the 1st Australian Task Force in1971.
In 1973, he was appointed to the staff of Australian Army HQ in Canberra as an exchange officer.
After a period as director of plans on the Army General Staff in Wellington, he was made Commander of the New Zealand Force (South East Asia) in 1980, based in Singapore. In 1984 he was selected to spend a year at the Royal College of Defence Studies in London.
McIver went on to helm the New Zealand Army as Chief of General Staff from 1987 till 1989, having served previously as Deputy Chief of Defence Staff.
He was the first New Zealander to head a United Nations peacekeeping operation, running the multinational force in the Sinai from 1989 till 1991. The 11-nation force was created to verify compliance with agreements made between Egypt and Israel in connection with the signing of the Camp David Peace Accords in 1979.
It seemed fitting that his long military career would lead to his position as national president of the New Zealand RSA from 2010-2014.
It was a difficult period to navigate, with budget blowouts and local RSAs around the country closing down.
In 2013, delegates from Christchurch and Auckland, concerned about an $840,000 head office budget deficit, delivered votes of no confidence in McIver, his national executive and executive management teams. Their concerns referred to poor governance, poor personnel management and financial mismanagement, The Dominion Post reported.
But McIvor saw the storm out and left the organisation in a comfortable position, current RSA national president B J Clark said.
Back in 2004, McIver had cowritten a report on the RSA which was a catalyst for launching the organisation into a new and more stable future.
Among suggestions he made in the report was a focus on getting younger people to join to ensure the organisation’s future. He is widely credited with helping the RSA to become relevant in a modern setting.
He had the ability to talk to anyone, from the prime minister and diplomats to the man on the street, Clark said.
‘‘He was a passionate supporter of the RSA movement and truly personified the Anzac values in everything he did.’’
McIver, who was awarded an OBE in 1981 and made a CMG (The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George) in 1994, is survived by his wife, six children, 16 grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Sources: McIver family, The Dominion Post, The Southland Times, RSA, SIS.
"He was a passionate supporter of the RSA movement and truly personified the Anzac values in everything he did." RSA national president B J Clark