Harold Edward Holt was an Australian politician and lawyer who served as the 17th prime minister of Australia from 1966 until his disappearance and presumed death in 1967. He held office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia.
Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of fascism and communism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies. As a genre, spy fiction is thematically related to the novel of adventure, the thriller and the politico-military thriller.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation is Australia's national security agency responsible for the protection of the country and its citizens from espionage, sabotage, acts of foreign interference, politically motivated violence, attacks on the Australian defence system, and terrorism. ASIO is part of the Australian Intelligence Community and is comparable to the FBI (US) and MI5 (UK).
Wilfred Graham Burchett was an Australian journalist known for being the first western journalist to report from Hiroshima after the dropping of the atomic bomb, and for his reporting from "the other side" during the wars in Korea and Vietnam.
In espionage jargon, a mole is a long-term spy who is recruited before having access to secret intelligence, subsequently managing to get into the target organization. However, it is popularly used to mean any long-term clandestine spy or informant within an organization. In police work, a mole is an undercover law-enforcement agent who joins an organization in order to collect incriminating evidence about its operations and to eventually charge its members.
The Petrov Affair was a Cold War spy incident in Australia, concerning the defection of Vladimir Petrov, a KGB officer, from the Soviet embassy in Canberra in 1954. The defection led to a Royal Commission and the resulting controversy contributed to the Australian Labor Party split of 1955.
Operation Copperhead was a small military deception operation run by the British during the Second World War. It formed part of Operation Bodyguard, the cover plan for the invasion of Normandy in 1944 and was intended to mislead German intelligence as to the location of General Bernard Montgomery. The operation was conceived by Dudley Clarke in early 1944 after he watched the film Five Graves to Cairo. Following the war M. E. Clifton James wrote a book about the operation, I Was Monty's Double. It was later adapted into a film, with James in the lead role.
The Ministry of State Security is the principal civilian intelligence, security and secret police agency of the People's Republic of China, responsible for foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, and the political security of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). One of the largest and most secretive intelligence organizations in the world, it is headquartered in the Haidian District of Beijing, with powerful semi-autonomous branches at the provincial, city, municipality and township levels throughout China.
Morris Cohen, also known by his alias Peter Kroger, was an American convicted of espionage for the Soviet Union. His wife Lona was also an agent. They became spies because of their communist beliefs.
Yuri Vasilevich Krotkov was a Soviet dramatist. Working as a KGB agent, he (allegedly) defected to the West in 1963.
The Government of China is engaged in espionage overseas, directed through diverse methods via the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the United Front Work Department (UFWD), People's Liberation Army (PLA) via its Intelligence Bureau of the Joint Staff Department, and numerous front organizations and state-owned enterprises. It employs a variety of tactics including cyber espionage to gain access to sensitive information remotely, signals intelligence, human intelligence as well as influence operations through united front activity targeting overseas Chinese communities and associations. The Chinese government is also engaged in industrial espionage aimed at gathering information and technology to bolster its economy, as well as transnational repression of dissidents abroad such as supporters of the Tibetan independence movement and Uyghurs as well as the Taiwan independence movement, the Hong Kong independence movement, Falun Gong, pro-democracy activists, and other critics of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The United States alleges that the degree of intelligence activity is unprecedented in its assertiveness and engagement in multiple host countries, particularly the United States, to which various US officials contend economic damages, prosperity and stolen innovations have resulted in $US320-445 billion annually since its inception and activities.
Graeme Douglas Johnstone was the state coroner of Victoria, Australia from 1994 to 2007. He retired on 29 November 2007, and was replaced by Judge Jennifer Coate. He is noted for often personally visiting the scenes of deaths that fell within his jurisdiction.
Ivan Fyodorovich Kurdyukov was a Soviet diplomat.
Anthony Grey is a British journalist and author. While working for Reuters, he was imprisoned by the Chinese government for 27 months from 1967 to 1969. He has written a series of historical novels and non-fiction books, including several relating to his detention.
The Australia–East Timor spying scandal began in 2004 when the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) clandestinely planted covert listening devices in a room adjacent to the East Timor (Timor-Leste) Prime Minister's Office at Dili, to obtain information in order to ensure Australia held the upper hand in negotiations with East Timor over the rich oil and gas fields in the Timor Gap. Even though the East Timor government was unaware of the espionage operation undertaken by Australia, negotiations were hostile. The first Prime Minister of East Timor, Mari Alkatiri, bluntly accused the Howard government of plundering the oil and gas in the Timor Sea, stating:
"Timor-Leste loses $1 million a day due to Australia's unlawful exploitation of resources in the disputed area. Timor-Leste cannot be deprived of its rights or territory because of a crime."
Ric Throssell was an Australian diplomat and author whose writings included novels, plays, film and television scripts, and memoirs. For most of his professional life as a diplomat his career was dogged by unproven allegations that he either leaked classified information to his mother, the writer and communist Katharine Susannah Prichard, or was himself a spy for the Soviet Union.
Walter Seddon Clayton was a key organiser of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in the 1930s and 1940s and suspected of being the Australian-based Soviet spymaster code-named 'KLOD', although the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and Britains' MI5 were not able to provide any conclusive evidence of this for fear of tipping off the Soviets that their cable traffic was being deciphered and read by Western intelligence agencies.
On 17 December 1967, Harold Holt, the 17th prime minister of Australia, disappeared while swimming in the sea near Portsea, Victoria. An enormous search operation was mounted in and around Cheviot Beach, but his body was never recovered. Holt was presumed to have died, and his memorial service five days later was attended by many world leaders.
The Royal Commission on Espionage was a royal commission established on 13 April 1954 by the Australian government pursuant to the Royal Commissions Act 1902 to inquire into and report on Soviet espionage in Australia. The establishment of the commission followed the defection of Soviet diplomat Vladimir Petrov. Officially titled Third Secretary of the Soviet Embassy in Canberra, it was revealed that Petrov was in fact a lieutenant colonel in the KGB and in charge of espionage in Australia.
Wang Liqiang, or William Wang, is a Chinese defector to Australia and self-proclaimed former spy. In November 2019, Wang sought political asylum in Australia, claiming to be a spy who was involved in the People's Republic of China's intervention in the affairs of Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan. The factual accuracy of his claims is disputed, and some experts suggested he may not be more than a low-level operative. China has claimed that Wang's allegations were "absurd" and that Wang is a "fraud". Wang's case drew worldwide attention, leading to an investigation in Taiwan.
