ThePetrov Affair was aCold War spy incident inAustralia, concerning the defection ofVladimir Petrov, a KGB officer, from theSoviet embassy inCanberra in 1954. The defection led to a Royal Commission and the resulting controversy contributed to theAustralian Labor Party split of 1955.

Petrov, despite his relatively junior diplomatic status, was a colonel in (what became in 1954) theKGB, the Soviet secret police, and his wifeEvdokia Petrova was an officer at theMinistry of Internal Affairs (MVD). The Petrovs had been sent to the Canberra embassy in 1951 by the Soviet security chief,Lavrentiy Beria. AfterJoseph Stalin's death in March 1953, Beria had been arrested and shot byKhrushchevites, and Vladimir Petrov evidently feared that, if he returned to the Soviet Union, he would bepurged as a "Beria man".^[1][2][3]

Petrov made contact with theAustralian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and offered to provide evidence of Soviet espionage in exchange for political asylum. The defection was arranged byMichael Bialoguski, a Polish doctor and musician, and part-time ASIO agent, who had cultivated Petrov for nearly two years, befriending him and taking him to visit prostitutes in Sydney'sKing's Cross area.^[4] Bialoguski introduced Petrov to a senior ASIO officer,Ron Richards, who offered Petrov asylum plus £5,000 in exchange for all the documents he could bring with him from the embassy. Planning for Petrov's defection was codenamed Operation Cabin 12, after a briefer period of being designated Operation Cabin 11, following the standard practice of referring to potential defectors as "Cabin Candidates".^[5][6] Petrov defected on 3 April 1954.^[7]

Petrov did not tell his wifeEvdokia of his intentions; apparently he planned to defect without her. After falsely claiming that Australian authorities had kidnapped Petrov, the MVD sent two couriers to Australia to fetch Evdokia Petrova. Word of this leaked out and on 19 April there were violent anti-Communist demonstrations atSydney Airport as Evdokia Petrova was escorted by the KGB men to the aircraft. On the plane, on radioed instructions from Prime MinisterRobert Menzies, a flight attendant asked her if she was happy being escorted back to the USSR, but she did not give a clear answer, as she was racked with indecision – defection could have severe consequences for her family in the USSR. Menzies decided that he could not allow her to be removed in this way, and when the aircraft stopped for refuelling atDarwin Airport, she was seized from the MVD men by ASIO officials. (In order to separate Petrova from the MVD, the ASIO officials confronted them on the grounds that they were carrying arms, which it was illegal to do on an aircraft.) The ASIO officials offered Petrova asylum, which she accepted, after speaking to her husband by phone. By now it was the early hours of 20 April 1954.

These dramatic events were flashed around the world giving immediate sense to a world public of the real life drama that was at pitch and occurring. The photos of Evdokia Petrova being rough-handled by KGB agents atSydney Airport and her agonised last-moment decision to defect with her husband, made at Darwin Airport, have become iconic Australian images of the 1950s.

The affair grew more dramatic when Menzies told theHouse of Representatives that Petrov had brought with him documents concerning Soviet espionage in Australia. He announced that aRoyal Commission would investigate the matter, theRoyal Commission on Espionage.^[8] Petrov's documents were shown to the commission members, though they were never made public. The documents were alleged to provide evidence of an extensive Soviet spy ring in Australia, and named (among many others), two staff members of the leader of theAustralian Labor Party, Dr.H. V. Evatt, during proceedings. Evatt, a former justice of theHigh Court of Australia and the thirdPresident of the United Nations General Assembly, appeared before the Royal Commission as counsel for his staff members. His cross-examination of a key ASIO operative transformed the commission's hearings and greatly perturbed the government. Almost immediately, the Royal Commission simply withdrew Evatt's leave to appear. Evatt alleged that the judges of the commission were biased towards the Menzies' government in the wake of this unprecedented denial of his right to appear.

Another person who was questioned at length (over a week) about his activities and associations wasRic Throssell, a diplomat and former adviser to Evatt. His mother, the writerKatharine Susannah Prichard, was a committed Communist, and it was strongly suggested he had at least inadvertently, if not wittingly, given her classified information, as well as actively spying for the Soviet Union. The final report did not uphold these charges, but his career from then on was blighted by these suspicions.

As a result of the defections, the Australian embassy staff in Moscow was expelled and the USSR embassy staff in Canberra recalled.^[7] Diplomatic relations were not re-established until 13 March 1959.^[9]

The defections came shortly before the1954 federal election. Evatt accused Menzies of having arranged the defections to coincide with the election, for the benefit of the incumbentLiberal Party.

According to some, partly as a result of the Petrov Affair, Menzies was successful at the election, which Labor had been widely expected to win. The Royal Commission continued for the rest of 1954 and uncovered some evidence of espionage for the Soviet Union by some members and supporters of theCommunist Party of Australia during and immediately afterWorld War II, but no-one was ever charged with an offence as a result of the commission's work and no major spy ring was uncovered. (One was given immunity from prosecution, others who had handled documents had not technically broken the law, one was in Prague and remained there, and evidence against others could not be presented because it would have revealed that Western intelligence services had broken Soviet codes).^{[citation needed]}

Evatt's loss of the election and his belief that Menzies had conspired with ASIO to contrive Petrov's defection led to criticism within the Labor Party of his decision to appear before the Royal Commission. He compounded this by writing to the Soviet Foreign Minister,Vyacheslav Molotov, asking if allegations of Soviet espionage in Australia were true. When Molotov replied, denying the allegations, Evatt read the letter out in Parliament, inviting amazement and ridicule from his opponents.

Evatt's actions aroused the anger of the right wing of the Labor Party, influenced by the Catholic anti-Communism ofB. A. Santamaria and his clandestine "Movement". Evatt came to believe that the Movement was also part of the conspiracy against him, and publicly denounced Santamaria and his supporters in October 1954, leading to amajor split in the Labor Party, which did not win office again until1972.

The Petrovs, having been given political asylum, were eventually settled in suburban Melbourne under the names Sven and Anna Allyson, and given a pension. Prior to this, they spent an 18-month period in a safe house in Palm Beach, Sydney, with the then ASIO officerMichael Thwaites, who ghost-wrote their memoirs, published in 1956 asEmpire of Fear.

They lived in relative obscurity for the rest of their lives. The press was formally requested by the Department of Defence, by way of aD-Notice, not to reveal their identities or whereabouts,^[10] but this was not always honoured. Vladimir died in 1991 and Evdokia in 2002.

The belief that there had been a "Petrov conspiracy" became an article of faith in the Labor Party and on the left generally for many years, although even pro-Labor historians acknowledged that Evatt's eccentric conduct had contributed greatly to the Labor split. The "left" version of the Petrov story was given in 1974 inNest of Traitors: The Petrov Affair, byNicholas Whitlam (son ofGough Whitlam, who was Labor Prime Minister at the time of publication) andJohn Stubbs.^[11] This book was written without access to classified documents.

Menzies always denied that he had had advance knowledge of Petrov's defection, although he did not deny that he had exploited it and Cold War anti-Communist sentiment. ColonelCharles Spry, head of ASIO at the time, when interviewed after his retirement, maintained that, although it had taken some months of negotiations to bring about Petrov's defection, he had not told Menzies about these negotiations and that the timing of the defection had no connection to the elections.

In 1984, the ASIO files on Petrov and the records of the Royal Commission were made available to historians. In 1987, the historianRobert Manne publishedThe Petrov Affair: Politics and Espionage, which gave the first full account of the affair. He showed that Evatt's suspicions were unfounded, that Menzies and Spry had been telling the truth, that there had been no conspiracy, and that Evatt's own conduct had been mainly responsible for subsequent political events.

But Manne also showed that although there had been some Soviet espionage in Australia, there was no major Soviet spy ring, and that most of the documents given by Petrov to ASIO contained little more than political gossip which could have been compiled by any journalist. This included the notorious "Document J", which had been written byRupert Lockwood, a member of theCommunist Party of Australia expressing his beliefs on the matter. Page 35 of the document sourced the information to Evatt's staffers, Fergan O’Sullivan, Albert Grundeman, and Allan Dalziel. Evatt insisted that page 35 was misinformation added specifically to damage the Australian Labor Party. He managed to prove that his staff had not authored the document. The Royal Commission concluded that Document J was entirely Lockwood's work.^[12]

The Petrov Affair has inspired a number of fictional works, many of which have won awards.

• The Hunted One (1954) - radio serial
• The Case of Colonel Petrov (1956) - episode of American seriesArmstrong Circle Theatre^[13]
• Defection! The Case of Colonel Petrov (1968) - a British television play^[13]
• The Petrov Affair, a 1987 television mini-series.^[14]
• True Believers (1988) - Australian mini series that touches on the Affair
• The Red Shoe, a novel byUrsula Dubosarsky, which won theNew South Wales Premier's Literary Award and theQueensland Premier's Literary Award in 2006.^[15]
• Mrs Petrov's Shoe, a play by Noelle Janaczewska, which won theQueensland Premier's Literary Award for drama in 2006.^[16]
• The Safe House, an animation by Lee Whitmore, narrated byNoni Hazlehurst, which won Best Animation at theSydney Film Festival 2006.^[17]
• Document Z, a novel by Andrew Croome, which won theAustralian/Vogel Literary Award in 2008.^[18]
• The Petrov Poems, a 2013 verse-novel byLesley Lebkowicz. This book was shortlisted for the 2014 ACT Book of the Year Award and won the 2014 ACT Writing and Publishing Awards: Poetry Book Category.

• Australia–Russia relations

• Gouzenko Affair - A similar defection by a Soviet official in Canada in 1945

• Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov,Empire of Fear, Frederick A. Praeger, New York, 1956 (these memoirs were ghost-written for the Petrovs by the then ASIO officerMichael Thwaites)
• Nicholas Whitlam and John Stubbs,Nest of Traitors: The Petrov Affair, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 1974
• Michael Thwaites,Truth Will Out: ASIO and the Petrovs, William Collins, Sydney, 1980
• Robert Manne,The Petrov Affair: Politics and Espionage, Pergamon Press, Sydney, 1987
• Ursula Dubosarsky,The Red Shoe, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 2006
• Rowan Cahill. "Rupert Lockwood (1908–1997): Journalist, Communist, Intellectual", Doctor of Philosophy thesis, School of History and Politics, University of Wollongong, 2013
• Andrew Croome,Document Z, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 2009
• Ann Curthoys and John Merritt (editors),Australia's First Cold War, 1945-59, Vol. II : 'Better Dead Than Red', Chapter 6: "A Labor Myth?", Allen & Unwin, 1986

• Mrs Petrov's death brings bizarre affair to end – an article by Robert Manne inThe Age newspaper
• Cahill, Rowan, "The Making of a Communist Journalist: Rupert Lockwood, 1908–1940",Working Lives, 2003. Account of the career development of the journalist associated with authorship of Document J.
• Neely, Francesca,Menzies and the Petrov Affair at theWayback Machine (archived July 5, 2011),Clio History Journal, 2010.
• ozhistorybytes – Issue Eight. Peter Cochrane. [National Centre for History Education, homepagehttp://www.hyperhistory.org/]

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