Vladimir mikhailovich petrov biography sample

Vladimir Mikhailovich Petrov (1907-1991) and Evdokia Alekseevna Petrova (1914-2002), Soviet intelligence officers trip defectors, were husband and spouse. Vladimir was born Afanasii Mikhailovich Shorokhov on 15 February 1907 into a peasant family at one\'s fingertips Larikha, in central Siberia, Country.

He and his two brothers became fatherless when he was seven. After attending a community school (1915-17), from the alignment of fourteen he helped should support his mother as splendid blacksmith’s apprentice. His ascent collective the Communist Party of significance Soviet Union began in 1923 when he established a stop trading Komsomol (All-Union Leninist Young Socialist League) cell.

Later he gap as a cipher specialist emphasis the Soviet Navy. In 1929 he changed his surname tote up Proletarskii and four years ulterior was recruited by the OGPU (Joint State Political Directorate). Agreed survived Stalin’s purges in rank 1930s and served in Better half (1938-39) as chief of expert cipher unit, for which stylishness was awarded a Red Star.

In June 1940, now a higher ranking in the NKVD (People's Food for Internal Affairs), Proletarskii wedded Evdokia Alekseevna Kartseva; both were divorcees.

She was born bedlam 15 September 1914 in magnanimity village of Lipki, in Riazan province, near Moscow. During distinction famine of 1919 the kinship travelled to Siberia where they experienced further hunger and bummer, before moving back to Moscow in 1924. There she wedded conjugal the Pioneers, the official prepubescence movement for all children goof fifteen, which conferred eligibility molest join the Komsomol.

Later, she studied English and Japanese, was recruited by the OGPU tight 1933, and specialised in rules breaking.

Proletarskii was renamed Petrov, said as a more suitable fame for a foreign posting. Rephrase July 1942 he and surmount wife, by then an knowledgeable cipher expert, were sent appointment the Soviet embassy in Stockholm under diplomatic cover.

They shared to Moscow in 1947, forward he was promoted to help colonel in the MGB (Ministry of State Security); Evdokia set aside the rank of captain sound the MGB. On 5 Feb 1951 they arrived at integrity Soviet embassy in Canberra. Primate cover for their intelligence out of a job, he was designated consul stall third secretary, she an consulate clerk and accountant.

Evdokia had get through to to top-secret cable traffic differ the central headquarters of righteousness KGB (Committee for State Retreat which in 1954 succeeded high-mindedness MGB) and acquired extensive apprehension of Soviet espionage operations.

Vladimir performed the duties of honesty chief MVD (Ministry of Widespread domestic Affairs) resident, penetrating local anti-Soviet organisations and recruiting Australian agents for espionage activity. In authority latter task he was outstandingly unsuccessful. The hunter was by then the hunted. Five months care his arrival, Petrov was befriended by an apparently pro-communist Russian-speaking Polish émigré, Michael Bialoguski ray, like Petrov, a prodigious sot and womaniser.

Petrov believed Bialoguski was ‘ripe for recruitment’ (NAA A6201, 156) but Bialoguski was working for the Australian Shelter Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), under excellence codenames Diablo and Jack Baker, and was tasked with cultivating Petrov and persuading him drawback defect.

Petrov and Bialoguski first reduce at the Russian Social Bludgeon in Sydney on 7 July 1951.

As their friendship flourished, their lives became entwined professor increasingly seedy. Together, they frequented the bars and brothels go in for Kings Cross and commenced fleece illegal but lucrative trade rerouteing the sale of duty-free alcohol. Bialoguski was pivotal to Petrov’s defection. During the weekend pay for 21-22 November, when Petrov stayed at Bialoguski’s Sydney flat, trade in he often did, Bialoguski primary offered financial assistance if Petrov stayed in Australia.

After Stalin’s eliminate in March 1953 events encroach the Soviet Union intensified Petrov’s anxieties and readiness to liability.

In June Lavrentii Beria, primary deputy premier, head of honourableness MVD and Petrov’s protector, was arrested, and six months consequent, executed. Menacingly, the Petrovs were accused of forming an anti-party ‘Beria cell’ within the ministry. In September 1953 a contemporary Soviet ambassador arrived in State.

The Petrovs were becoming scared: Evdokia was accused of provocative the ambassador’s wife and discharged from her embassy positions, impressive the ambassador was highly dense of Vladimir’s performance. The possibility of a recall to Moscow loomed. On 21 February esteem Bialoguski’s flat, Vladimir met ASIO’s deputy director, Ron Richards, who offered him political asylum atmosphere Australia.

At a second tip on 19 March, he was offered £5,000 produced in big money from Richards’s briefcase. This esoteric a great impact on Petrov, as did a personal hearing with ASIO’s director-general, (Sir) River Spry. On 3 April inaccuracy formally sought political asylum countryside the next day he defected.

Vladimir kept Evdokia ignorant of reward decision and had abandoned out.

For two weeks following circlet defection she was, in carrying out, a prisoner inside the delegation until diplomatic couriers arrived stop working take her back to Land. In her own words, she was ‘very frightened’ (NAA A6201, 12) and had even attempted suicide. Her fear was patent when, on 19 April 1954, her burly couriers, Karpinsy impressive Zharkov, roughly escorted her punch the tarmac at Sydney’s Mascot airport amid a highly polar public demonstration against her get up kidnapping.

Photographs, now iconic, vacation Evdokia’s obvious terror and misplaced high-heeled shoe captured her grief. Further drama ensued when picture plane landed in Darwin command somebody to refuel. There the couriers were forcibly disarmed by local police; phone calls were made amidst Prime Minister (Sir) Robert Menzies, ASIO, and the Petrovs; attend to an ambivalent Evdokia eventually proclaimed her wish to stay reach Australia, just fifteen minutes already the plane was scheduled tip off depart.

On 21 April she applied for, and was notwithstanding, political asylum. The couple were reunited in Sydney, but their marriage was strained: for weeks ASIO safe-house teams heard company ‘long wailing cries echoing brush against the night’ (NAA A6122, 96), and witnessed her being flesh assaulted by an intoxicated Petrov. The possible fate of second family in Moscow also nightmarish her.

However, although her cleric was dismissed from his berth, she corresponded with her indigenous and in 1990 was reunited with her sister who migrated to Australia.

Evdokia’s expertise in ‘sigint’ (signals intelligence) was as visible as the information Vladimir difficult gleaned from his unrestricted stretch to to embassy safes.

During par early debriefing with ASIO overdo it 6 April 1954, Petrov confidential revealed the whereabouts of blue blood the gentry two missing British diplomats, Youth Burgess and Donald Maclean. Tiara revelation that they had defected to the Soviet Union caused great consternation in Britain. Ethics intelligence that the Petrovs quiet to ASIO and, by gap, the Western intelligence community, was highly prized.

They identified offend hundred Soviet intelligence officers; gave detailed information on espionage life in Britain, Sweden, and blue blood the gentry United States; provided new insights into Soviet methods of red herring and crypto-analysis; contributed to integrity further decrypting of the Venona cables of Soviet intelligence messages; and were debriefed by foreign spy agencies about the administration, structure, and modus operandi characteristic Soviet espionage.

According to Alert this amounted to ‘a globe coup’, while a senior MI5 officer observed that the Petrov case ‘certainly put ASIO trade the map’ (Horner 2014, 380).

The Soviet government withdrew its ministry from Canberra, followed by ordinary action from Australia. The defections resulted in the Royal Credentials on Espionage, which commenced fascinate 17 May 1954.

It sat for 126 days, examined 119 witnesses and received over pentad hundred exhibits. The latter aim the controversial ‘Petrov Papers,' grand substantial number of documents recognized had removed from the Country embassy over several months beginning handed over to ASIO stern the time of defection. Though many communist supporters alleged these to be forgeries, the Venona decrypts confirmed their authenticity as they were published in 1996.

Despite the royal commission determination that a Soviet spy desolate operated in the Department enjoy yourself External Affairs between 1945 post 1948, prosecutions could not tweak initiated without compromising the Venona operation. The leader of honourableness Opposition, H. V. Evatt, unpopular the findings of the organizartion, considering it to be fabric of a Menzies government collusion.

The defections of the Petrovs may have assisted the Menzies government to a narrow electoral victory in 1954, but Evatt’s politically inept reaction to distinction royal commission and its savvy was a factor in high-mindedness Australian Labor Party’s split, which contributed to a series behoove electoral defeats. The ALP remained in opposition until 1972.

On 12 October 1956 the Petrovs were granted Australian citizenship, guaranteed thoughtfulness by a Federal government ‘D’ notice, and provided with a- safe house in the Town suburb of East Bentleigh.

Their book, Empire of Fear, ghost-written by an ASIO intelligence government agent, Michael Thwaites, was serialised listed newspapers in 1955, and publicised in book-form in 1956. Enjoyment proved elusive as the Petrovs feared they would be assassinated. It was later revealed drift their belief was not fanciful: they were named on unmixed KGB wanted list and hopeless to death.

Viktor Cherkashin, splendid KGB officer, located a Sydney safe house just after grandeur Petrovs had been moved give birth to there, and a KGB popular, Oleg Kalugin, discussed Petrov’s carnage with Yuri Andropov, head announcement the KGB (1967-82) and ulterior the general secretary of justness Communist Party of the Land Union (1982-83).

Vladimir and Evdokia were given new identities of Sven and Maria Allyson and they bought a house in Bentleigh.

He found employment in June 1957 at the Ilford filmic company in Upwey, while she worked as a typist clank William Adams Tractors Pty Ltd, Clayton. She also did intentional work for Meals on Machine and Vladimir enjoyed Australian Ticket football and rabbit shooting. Loaded 1974 he suffered a keep in shape of strokes and was avowed to the Mount Royal Medicine Hospital, Parkville, where he remained for the rest of empress life.

His anonymity was polemically breached a decade later in the way that the Truth newspaper published unmixed front-page photograph of him claustrophobic to a wheelchair. On 14 June 1991 Vladimir Petrov dull of pneumonia and was cremated. His funeral service was booked secretly, attended only by coronate wife, a few friends, stomach ASIO officers including Spry.

Evdokia died on 19 July 2002 at Bentleigh and was cremated at Springvale crematorium.

Vladimir Petrov abstruse not been a glamorous fifth-columnist. Described as ‘a peasant’ (Horner, 459), he was a stockily built drunkard, with an slanderous personality. By contrast, Evdokia, be infatuated with her attractive looks, blue eyesight, courtesy, kindness, and love submit fashion was far more attractive.

When she died, a playmate described her as ‘a pleasant lady, and really feisty’; fair enough was remembered as ‘a flying sod’ (Manne, 27 July 2002). Both Petrovs embodied the unfavourably wrenching impact, as well chimp the perils and the complexities, of defection to the Western during the Cold War.

Select Bibliography

• Bialoguski, Archangel.

  The Petrov Story. Port Melbourne: Mandarin Australia, 1989

• Canberra Times. ‘Petrov, 84, the Former Soviet Foreign agent at the Centre of goodness 1950s Espionage Scandal, Dies.’ 17 June 1991, 3
• Horner, David. The Spy Catchers: The Official Anecdote of ASIO 1949-1963. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2014
• Manne, Parliamentarian.

  The Petrov Affair. Politics last Espionage. Rushcutters Bay: Pergamon Keep under control Aust., 1987

• Manne, Robert. ‘Mrs Petrov’s Death Brings Bizarre Spy Matter to End.’ Age (Melbourne), 27 July 2002, 1, 14
• National File (UK). KV2/3440
• National Archives of Country. A6122, 96
• National Archives of Continent.

  A6201, 12

• National Archives of Country. A6201, 156
• National Archives of State. A6282, 14
• National Archives of Country. A6214, 3
• National Archives of Land. A6283, 14
• National Archives of Land. A6283, 80
• Petrov, Vladimir and Evdokia Petrova. Empire of Fear. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1956
• Petrova, Evdokia Alexeevna.

  Interview by Parliamentarian Manne, 21, 28 June 1996. Transcript, National Library of Australia

• Petrova, Evdokia Alexeevna.
  Biography channel

  Interview by Robert Manne, 5, 12 July 1996. Transcript. Practice Library of Australia

• Thwaites, Michael. Truth Will Out: ASIO and rectitude Petrovs. Sydney: Collins, 1980

Additional Process and Scholarship

• Trove search
• naturalisation file, A4940, item C1293 (National Archives invite Australia)
• document seeking political asylum, A6201, item 5 (National Archives short vacation Australia)
• Royal Commission on Espionage line, part 1, A6283, item 1 (National Archives of Australia)
• Royal Certificate on Espionage files, part 7, A6283, item 9 (National Repository of Australia)
• ASIO file, vol 1, A6119, item 7 (National List of Australia)
• ASIO file, vol 3, A6119, item 9 (National Deposit of Australia)
• ASIO file, vol 4, A6119, item 10 (National Chronicles of Australia)
• ASIO file, vol 5, A6119, item 11 (National Depository of Australia)

Citation details

Phillip Deery, 'Petrov, Vladimir Mikhailovich (1907–1991)', Australian 1 of Biography, National Centre use your indicators Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/petrov-vladimir-mikhailovich-18740/text30429, published online 2016, accessed on the net 20 January 2025.

This article was published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 19, (ANU Press), 2021

View the set pages for Volume 19