PETROV SPY INQUIRY

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27442, 31 August 1954, Page 11

PETROV SPY INQUIRY

Expert Evidence On Document

(Rec. 11 p.m.) SYDNEY, August 30. Dr. H. V. Evatt, Leader of the Opposition, who is appearing for members of his staff; suggested to the Royal Commission into Espionage today that Document J could be “a palpable forgery.” But a handwriting expert, Detective-Inspector James Rogers, said it could not be. Inspector Rogers agreed with Dr. Evatt that marginal letters in the document had been “clearly overwritten,” but this had probably been due to an ink failure. He said he could find no evidence of letters having been traced on to the document and then overwritten.

The witness would not agree that marginal notes had been the “work of two hands.’’ He agreed that Document J showed a. wretched typewriting performance, but added: “Perhaps beggars can’t be choosers.” Dr. Evatt asked: You say it would be difficult to determine whether one mark was put on first and another mark added later?—lt is not possible. Isn’t it clear that the underlining was not done by the same hand?—l would not express an opinion one way or the other.

You still say that the writing on J is similar to Rupert Lockwood’s?— Yes. (Petrov has said that Lockwood typed the document at the Soviet Embassy.)

Dr. Evatt said: I suggest there is no uniformity with the type of lettering employed in J: It starts in Roman capitals and departs to script capitals. . That’s a very odd thing, isn’t it?—yes. To further questions by Dr. Evatt, Inspector- Rogers said that the invention of the ball point pen had made detection of forgeries more difficult, but he did not -agree that it had made . it enormously more difficult, as suggested by Dr. Evatt. The witness denied that he had apt proached the examination of the docu* ments with any preconceived ideas as to who typed them. He said he had examined the documents with a completely free mind and had made his conclusions in a similar manner. “It appears to me that Document J was put together in separate groups,** he said. Inspector Rogers told the commission counsel, Mr W. J. V. Windeyer.'he had found nothing which showed the document to be in any sense a forgery. (Dr. Evatt last Friday suggested that it had been forged by Petrov.) ■ At the close of the hiring, Dr. Evatt said it was absolutely essential from his point of view to have Document J examined by his own experts. “There has been no real attempt by Inspector Rogers to address himself to our requests for certain examinations,* he said. “We have tremendously powerful arguments against Inspector Rogers’s views.” Mr Justice Owen said that before the commissioners could grant permission, they had to know the identity of Dr*. Evatt’s experts, as they were not going to permit a “widespread” examination of the document