(Please boost for reach, and try to CW your answers)
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what is my name?i’m known as the _______ affair
nothing salacious, but
a Cold War spy incident in Australia
where a high-ranking KGB officer
from the soviet embassy in canberra
defected in 1954
The defection led to a Royal Commission and the resulting controversy contributed to the Australian Labor Party split of 1955
when a soviet colonel at the embassy learned he might be in trouble back home
(following a purge of stalin’s cronies)
he contacted ASIO seeking political asylum for himself
he did not tell his wife
happy for soviet MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs men)
to believe he had been taken by australia
the MVD came to fetch his wife
triggering violent anti-Communist demonstrations at Sydney Airport
on the plane, a flight attendant asked Mrs _____ if she wanted to go home or defect, but she was concerned about repercussions for her family if she stayed
while plane re-fuelled at darwin airport, ASIO wrestled her from MVD custody
and she agreed to defect
the photos were very dramatic
Menzies announced australia was now in possession of vital information
establishing a royal commission on espionage
(no one was ever charged as a result of its findings)
there had been allegations some major Labor people were part of a spy ring
The defections came shortly before the 1954 federal election. Evatt accused Menzies of having arranged the defections to coincide with the election, for the benefit of the incumbent Liberal Party.
The belief that there had been a "conspiracy" became an article of faith in the Labor Party and on the left generally for many years