Thwaites, Michael Rayner

▪ 2006

      Australian poet and intelligence agent (b. May 30, 1915, Brisbane, Queen., Australia—d. Nov. 1, 2005, Canberra, Australia), served 21 years (1950–71) with the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and was instrumental in supervising the defection (1954) of Soviet spies Vladimir and Yevdokiya Petrov. During the 18-month period that Thwaites lived with the couple in a safe house, he served as a ghostwriter for their book The Empire of Fear (1956). He recounted his own version of the experience in Truth Will Out: ASIO and the Petrovs (1980). He penned several other important works, including the epic war poems “The Prophetic Hour” (1940) and “The Jervis Bay” (1942), the memoir Atlantic Odyssey (1999), and Unfinished Journey (2004), a volume of poems written between 1932 and 2004. Thwaites was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2002.

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