The Petrov essays

The Petrov essays In the early 1950s Australia was rocked by the largest spy scandal in its history. In April 1954, a Soviet operative called Vladimir Petrov defected to Australia. His wife Evdokia followed him soon thereafter. It was an instant news sensation worldwide. What made it even more appealing as a news item was the fact that Evdokia Petrov was forcibly removed from the custody of Soviet field agents by Australian security forces, causing an uproar in both Australia and the Soviet Union. The loss of Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov caused serious damaged to the operational ability of the KGB, as both defectors were specialists in encryption/decryption and knew Soviet codes very well. The Petrovs were given false identities and lived out the rest of their lives in Australia. Vladimir Petrov was born in 1907 to a family of peasants living in Siberia. His working life began as a blacksmiths apprentice in 1919. Soon thereafter, he joined the Communist Youth Movement (Komsomol) and finished high school under the system of Soviet indoctrination. In 1930, the young Vladimir Petrov joined the Soviet Navy, but was recalled to Moscow in 1933 and allowed to enlist in the OGPU (later renamed as the KGB) . He began serving in China in 1937, however he returned less than a year later to work in the cipher section of the OGPU as director. By 1943 Vladimir Petrov was a Major. He was sent to neutral Sweden, where he immediately set about creating a spy network, operating out of the Soviet Embassy (located in Stockholm). Following the conclusion of the war, Petrov returned to the KGB head quarters, where he spent the next several years until he received a new assignment: he was to be a consul (effectively spy-master) in the Soviet Embassy in Canberra. His assignment was to create a full-scale spy ring in Australia and then to wage an espionage campaign against the country. His wife (Evdokia Petrov), a cipher clerk, came with him to Australia. Howe ...