Petrov's Influence On Australia

This source was selected as it affords an overall perspective on this politically charged and socially sensitive affair as well as revealing the implications it had for Western global national security networks. The source is not merely a heresy document, but a legal occurring event recorded in the annals of parliament. It presents a compelling overview of these controversial events and parties involved. By appealing to the Cabinet for Australian citizenship to be granted to the Petrov’s, it reveals the strategic value the Australian government and ASIO had placed upon the Petrov’s during this cold war period. In a moment of exuberance for information gathering, Australian security agencies believed that the Petrov’s were a walking encyclopedia, ready to expose vast amounts of Soviet activity regarding espionage within Australia and its allies. Prominent historian on Australia’s Cold War past, Robert Manne, reinforces the value that had been placed regarding the Petrov’s disclosures …show more content…
Whitlam and Stubbs propose that Australia experienced its own form of McCarthyism during the 1950s, accompanied by the fear and hatreds towards persons accused of being communist sympathisers. Military historian David Horner, acknowledges the necessity to understand both political and social attitudes during the context of the Cold War, especially since the threat of invasion had seemed a probable reality. The Cold War had firmly characterised Australia’s identity in the global scene, were the Menzies government created a political culture around an atmosphere of international turbulence. Therefore, the Petrov affair was used to justify Menzies anti-communist stance, highlighting the extent of Soviet espionage and its capacity to pose a threat to the Australian way of