The Petrov Affair

The Petrov Affair
Vladimir Petrov was a Soviet-Russian spy who defected to Australia in April of 1954 and on the 13th of April in 1954 Robert Menzies announced the defection of Petrov and called for a Royal Commission to investigate evidence of espionage contained in the documents brought by Petrov. He was also the lieutenant in the MVD (secret police in Russia). He managed to become the Third Secretary at the Embassy and this gave him cover for his regular travel to Sydney and Melbourne to carry out his spying activity.

Part-time ASIO agent, doctor, violinist and Polish emigré Michael Bialoguski was an eccentric yet key player in Petrov’s defection and the two became friends. Petrov then confided Michael about his troubles at the Soviet Embassy and this resulted in Michael contacting the ASIO to tell them that Petrov might want to defect in exchange for information. He decides to defect because he will probably be executed when he returns to the Soviet Russia because he sort of failed his mission and also by the fact that his boss was killed in Russia. He also 'prefers a Western lifestyle' although it was mainly that he was scared of going back. He also gets offered 500 pounds to defect.

After Petrov's defection, the Soviet government accused Australian authorities of kidnapping and then they took Evdokia (Petrov's wife) and placed her under house arrest in the Soviet Embassy and then two armed couriers arrived who escorted her back to Russia. When she arrived at the airport, a large enraged crowd was waiting for her and she 'lost her right shoe' in the frenzy but managed to get onto the plane. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) then contacted the pilot by radio and made arrangements to meet Mrs Petrov in Darwin so that she could seek Asylum in Australia if she wished to.

The Royal Commission was to investigate the evidence of espionage contained in the documents Petrov bought with him as he defected. The document contained sensitive information about the Opposition (Labour) as it listed the names of several members of Evatt's staff and this caused Evatt to claim that these documents were 'forgeries sold by Petrov to the government to damage the Labor Party' and this lead him to take this to the Royal Commission. However, on Sept 7 1954, the Commissioners to appear before the Royal Commission and argued 'that he was representing his own political interests as Leader of Opposition and not as his clients' interest'. The final report concluded that the Petrov's documents were genuine and that they were 'witnesses of truth'.

Notes on the Royal Commission (April 1954 ~Sept 1955)
The Split - Labor Party split into The Labor Party and the DLP.

'Dr Evatt and Communism: Study the Facts' - a pamphlet that linked Evatt to Communism

Russian Foreign Minister - Molotov

Evatt talks to Molotov and Molotov replies saying that there was no Russian spies and Evatt took this information to Parliament. People laughed at him (Russians don't go telling everyone they have spies) and thought he was communist because of his commnication with the Russians.

April 1954 - Menzies announces that Petrov defected and the documents listed 3 members of the Labor party who supposedly provided information to the Russian spies and Evatt accuses Menzie of setting this up with the ASIO to win the election

May 1954 - Federal Election - All the polls indicated that Labor was going to win the election but Liberal wins with a 7 seat majority

Menzies calls for an earlier election Dec 1955 and wins with a 28 seat majority

Evatt was a lawyer who helped fight the Communist bill

He wants to represent his staff