"I No Longer Believe ..."

Vladimir Mikhailovich Petrov seemed rather elderly (about 45) to be only a third secretary, which was the post he filled for the past three years in the Soviet embassy at Canberra. But Petrov appeared to wield more authority than his rank called for. Plump and spectacled, he paid little attention to the rules of purdah for Russians abroad--he was affable, a good mixer, spoke fair English, frequented hotel bars, went on fishing trips with Westerners. With his pretty blonde wife, an embassy stenographer, he lived in a comfortable brick house less than a quarter of a mile from the embassy.

Last week the veils of mystery around Vladimir Petrov were torn away. Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies told an astonished Parliament that Petrov had been Russia's MVD chief in Australia, had headed an elaborate spy ring involving several Australian nationals. How did the Prime Minister know? Vladimir Petrov had defected to the West, bringing with him hundreds of documents that would serve to smash the spy apparatus completely.

Music in Hiding. Menzies read Petrov's statement: "I wish to ask the Australian government for permission to remain in Australia permanently. I wish to become an Australian citizen as soon as possible. I ask for protection . . . and assistance . . . I no longer believe in Communism of the Soviet leadership. I no longer believe in Communism since I have seen the Australian way of living." He sought asylum, and asylum was granted. Oddly enough, he did not ask asylum for his wife, though she knew that he was about to defect. Last week he was in hiding under guard, playing Russian Easter music on his phonograph.

Menzies would not tell Parliament what was in Petrov's documents: a royal commission must first sort out and evaluate it. But many startled Australians thought of the Woomera rocket range, of the new uranium workings in the north, of the British atomic shots off the Montebello Islands. And, remembering the defection of Igor Gouzenko in Canada in 1945, which resulted in the exposure of Dr. Alan Nunn May and Klaus Fuchs, Britain last week hustled two MI-5 (military intelligence) men off to Australia.

Tears & Fire Hoses. Denied more information about -Petrov, Australians' curiosity turned to the fate of his young wife, Evdokia Petrov. Red-eyed from weeping, she appeared at a press interview in the Russian embassy, where Ambassador Nikolai Generalov attacked Menzies' account of the case as "utter nonsense" and backed up Mme. Petrov's statement that her husband had been "kidnaped."

This week the Russians tried to kidnap Evdokia, and almost succeeded. They hustled her into a black Cadillac, sped 190 miles at top speed to Sydney. At the airport, an angry crowd mobbed the Cadillac, tried to overturn the car. The Russian guards dragged Evdokia through the gates while the mob, now 3,000 strong, chanted "Don't let her go." Trying to smile for photographers, Evdokia wept instead, covered her face with both hands. Scores jumped the fence onto the field, broke past police lines to tug at Evdokia and strike at her guards. Witnesses said they heard her cry in Russian: "I don't want to go! Save me!" before she was hustled aboard.

Prime Minister Menzies tried to calm the public outcry over her departure by announcing that Mme. Petrov made no appeal for sanctuary to Australian officials at the airport. Besides, said he, if she wanted to stay, she would get another chance when the plane (bound for Zurich) touched down at Darwin. Menzies was as good as his word. At Darwin, Australian police boarded the plane, disarmed two Russian couriers who were traveling with her--they had .32 revolvers in shoulder holsters--and took Evdokia aside for a 45-minute private talk with a government official. This time she did ask for sanctuary. When the plane left Australia, she stayed behind.

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