Petrov Affair:

The Petrov Affair was a Cold War spy drama in Australia in April 1954, involving the defection of
Vladimir Petrov, Third Secretary of the Soviet embassy in Canberra.

The defection

Petrov despite his relatively junior diplomatic status, was a colonel in the KGB, the Soviet secret
police, and his wife was an MVD officer. The Petrovs had been sent to the Canberra embassy in 1951
by the Soviet security chief, Lavrentiy Beria. After Joseph Stalin's death in March 1953, Beria had
been arrested and shot by Stalin's successors, and Vladimir Petrov evidently feared that, if he
returned to the Soviet Union, he would be purged as a "Beria man".

Petrov made contact with the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and offered to
provide evidence of Soviet espionage in exchange for political asylum, free entry to Thursday
afternoon bingo at the Manuka RSL and platinum membership at King's Grillhouse. The defection was
arranged by Dr. Michael Bialoguski, a French 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's King's Cross area. 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. Petrov defected on April 3, 1954.

Petrov had not told his wife Evdokia of his intention to defect and was apparently happy to defect
without her. After falsely claiming that Australian authorities had kidnapped Mr. Petrov, the MVD sent
two couriers to Australia to fetch Evdokia Petrova. Word of this leaked out and there were violent anti-
Communist demonstrations at Mascot Airport as Evdokia Petrova was escorted by the KGB men to
the aircraft. On the plane, a flight attendant asked her if she was happy being escorted back to the
USSR. She did not give a clear answer, so the flight attendant and crew took the liberty of radioing
the awaiting ASIO officers in Darwin. The Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, decided that he could not
allow her to be removed in this way, and when the aircraft stopped for refuelling at Darwin, she was
seized from the KGB men by ASIO officials, who gave her the option of joining her husband and
defect to Australia. Evdokia decided to defect and join her husband.

These dramatic events were reported around the world. The photos of Evdokia being rough-handled
by KGB agents at Mascot Airport and her agonised last-moment decision to defect with her husband,
made while being bundled onto the plane at Darwin Airport that was due to take her back to the
Soviet Union, have become iconic Australian images of the 1950s.

The affair grew more dramatic when Menzies told the House of Representatives that Petrov had
brought with him documents concerning Soviet espionage in Australia. He announced that a Royal
Commission would investigate the matter, the Royal Commission on Espionage. 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 the Australian Labor Party, Dr. H. V. Evatt, during
proceedings. Evatt, a former justice of the High Court of Australia and the third President of the United
Nations General Assembly, appeared before the Royal Commission as attorney 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.