PETROV INQUIRY

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27502, 9 November 1954, Page 13

PETROV INQUIRY

Evidence By “In The

Dark” Informants

(Rec. 10 p.m.) SYDNEY, Nov. 8. Evidence of methods adopted by the Soviet to obtain information from “in the dark informants”—those who unwittingly gave information to Soviet agents—was given to the Royal Commission into Espionage today. Mr W. J. V. Windeyer, senior Commonwealth counsel, read extracts from letters from Moscow to Canberra that referred to attempting to secure information. One of these letters referred tb Herbert Body, First Secretary of the Consular Section of the Department of External Affairs. Body said in evidence that he had never supplied information, but he might have been studied as a possible source of unwitting information. Herbert Stanley North, an officer of the Department of External Affairs, said he had served in the Australian Embassy in Moscow from June, 1947, to July, 1951. A letter from Moscow had stated that North was “ill-disposed towards the Soviet” until his marriage, when he seemed to change his attitude.' North said he was ill-disposed to the Soviet regime and to the fear in Russia, but he was not ill-disposed towards the Russian people. He had been questioned by Russian militiamen on his personal details and his quarters had been searched. He married Kathleen Mary Healey, a typist at the New Zealand Legation in Moscow. His wife was a New Zealander and they were married in a Roman Catholic church.