16 - CLIMAX

Abstract

The report of the Royal Commission on Espionage was released to the Australian public on September 14, 1955. The Commissioners reported that all the Petrov documents were authentic and that the Petrov couple was witness of truth. From its establishment in 1943 to its departure in 1954, the Soviet Embassy in Canberra had been used for conducting espionage activities in Australia. They reported that during this period there had existed two quite separate ‘legal’ espionage apparatuses in Australia—of the MVD and the GRU—and at least possible that two further parallel illegal apparatuses had also operated during that time. As the commissioners reported, the greatest achievement of the Soviet intelligence service in Australia had occurred in the years between 1945 and 1948 when secret documents from the department of external affairs—some emanating from Australia's great power allies—had been delivered to the MVD Centre at Moscow. The Royal Commissioners' findings suggested that two former external affairs officers—Ian Milner and Jim Hill—had been responsible for disclosing documents that had made their way to the Soviet intelligence service. They also found that the chief conduit at this time for information passing between external affairs at Canberra and the MVD Centre at Moscow was the Communist Party functionary, Walter Clayton.