As a result, the commissioners withdrew Evatt’s leave to appear before the inquiry. Evatt became convinced that the Menzies government had orchestrated the defection and planted the incriminating documents in the papers for political purposes.Įvatt took his case before the Royal Commission where he made a series of extraordinary outbursts around these claims. Three members of Labor leader HV Evatt’s staff were named in the Petrov papers as Soviet sources of information. In the May 1954 federal election the Labor Party won the majority of votes but the Liberal/Country Party coalition gained seven more seats than the opposition. Vladimir died in 1991 and Evdokia in 2002. The Petrovs remained in Australia, were given new identities and lived out quiet lives in a Melbourne suburb. She spoke to her husband by phone and, at the last moment before the plane was scheduled to take off, decided she would remain. She was conflicted because she knew that if she stayed her family in Russia would be in danger. There she was physically separated from her escorts and asked if she wanted to stay in Australia. Eventually Evdokia and the guards were able to board the plane.ĪSIO, however, radioed the pilot and made arrangements for agents to contact Evdokia in Darwin. When the crowd saw Evdokia being led away by two burly guards, it surged towards her and tried to rescue her.Įvdokia probably believed the Soviet account that her husband had been kidnapped, but the crowd saw the situation as a struggle between good and evil. When they learned of her departure date, hundreds of people went to Mascot airport in Sydney to protest what they considered to be her forced removal. By mid-April 1954 they had arrived but news of Evdokia’s return to Russia had spread through Australia’s anti-communist eastern European community. Two couriers were sent from Moscow to escort Evdokia back to the Soviet Union. Nine days later, on the last day before parliament rose for the 1954 election, Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced the defection and called for a royal commission to inquire into and report on Soviet espionage in Australia.Īs soon as the Soviet Embassy became aware of the defection they accused the Australian Government of kidnapping Vladimir and placed Evdokia under house arrest in the Soviet Embassy in Canberra. On 3 April 1954 Petrov defected and was immediately taken to a safe house on Sydney’s North Shore. Vladimir Petrov contacted ASIO through Bialguski and the Deputy Director Ron Richards spent six weeks negotiating the details of the move, especially the secret papers Petrov would bring with him. In early 1954 Vladimir decided he would defect. Petrov and Bialoguski spent considerable time together in Sydney in bars around Kings Cross. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) was aware of the Petrovs' activities and assigned the Polish émigré Dr Michael Bialoguski to befriend Vladimir and convince him to defect to Australia. If they were to return to the Soviet Union, they could be jailed or executed. These two issues placed the Petrovs in a precarious situation. In addition, their performance, especially Vladimir’s inability to establish an Australian spy network, was fiercely questioned by Moscow. The Petrovs were accused of being Beria supporters. In the political chaos that ensued, Lavrentiy Beria, the head of the secret police and a close ally of Stalin, was arrested and executed. ![]() The Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, died in March 1953. ![]() Vladimir Petrov playing chess inside the safe house
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