Alexandra Stowasser

Tasting the Oyster Alexandra Stowasser

In 1982 the Australian Secret Intelligence Service with the backing of the Australian government at the time, formed its first ever special covert operations team in support of Secret Service agents operating overseas. Similar to UK's Special Operations Executive that was formed during World War 11, this Top Secret team was to comprise of a small number of highly trained civilians whose actions, should they be caught would be government deniable. The team that trained intensely for just one year ended ingloriously during the notorious Melbourne Sheraton Hotel raid at the end of 1983. It then became the subject of a highly political Royal Commission into the activities of the Australian Secret Service for the following two years. In 2013 Federal Cabinet papers were finally released in regards to the raid but much still remains secret. At just 25 years old, Alexandra Stowasser, then Alexandra Dickie was the first and only woman recruited to that team. In 'Tasting the Oyster, ' she relates the many paths that led her to that fateful time in her life, her family and her childhood as an English migrant in Western Australia, the difficulties thrown in her path as she pursued her destiny and the final challenge of leading a secret double life during a year of intense and often highly dangerous training. This is her story ...