Michael Thwaites was educated at Geelong Grammar School, entering Trinity College at the University of Melbourne from which he graduated in 1937.
14 Facts About Michael Thwaites
1.
2.
Michael Thwaites was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford where he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry and the King's Gold Medal for Poetry.
3.
Michael Thwaites was the first Australian to win either of these prizes, and is still the only Australian to have won the Newdigate Prize.
4.
Michael Thwaites joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and was an officer in World War II.
5.
Michael Thwaites proved to be a highly competent intelligence officer and encouraged more analytical recruitment policies.
6.
In 1954 Michael Thwaites played a leading role in the defection of the Soviet diplomat Vladimir Petrov to Australia, which led to the celebrated Petrov Affair.
7.
When Petrov first defected it was Michael Thwaites who debriefed him, and he later spent 18 months with Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov at an ASIO "safe house" in Sydney, helping them write their life stories in the book "Empire of Fear".
8.
Michael Thwaites maintained that Petrov was a genuinely important source of intelligence in the Cold War context, revealing the names of about 600 Soviet operatives around the world.
9.
Michael Thwaites recorded his part in these events in Truth Will Out: ASIO and the Petrovs He ghost-wrote the Petrovs' book Empire of Fear.
10.
Michael Thwaites left ASIO in 1971 to become Assistant Parliamentary Librarian.
11.
Michael Thwaites's best known poems include The Jervis Bay, The Prophetic Hour, and Message to My Grandson.
12.
Michael Thwaites's collected poems spanning 1932 to 2004 were published as Unfinished Journey, which won the 2005 ACT Writing and Publishing Awards for poetry.
13.
Michael Thwaites was made an officer of the Order of Australia in 2002.
14.
Michael Thwaites was an honorary fellow of Trinity College, Melbourne.