[ESPIONAGE] Madame Ollier (code name “Olga”), Second Secretary to the French Embassy in Canberra arrested for spying during the Petrov Affair in 1954 : signed Christmas card, December 1953.

Folding card, 135 x 170 mm, the third side inscribed in fountain pen: ‘Avec les sentiments respectueux et le meilleur souvenir de R. M. Ollier. Canberra 17-12-53’; the otherwise blank rear has been annotated by a previous owner: ‘Madame Ollier of “Petrov Affair” fame’; fine condition.

Rose Marie Ollier was employed as Second Secretary to the French Embassy in Canberra at the time of the Petrov Affair. Soviet spy Vladimir Petrov knew her by the code name “Olga”: he was to cultivate her friendship with the objective of obtaining from her the French diplomatic code. In September 1954 she was arrested in Noumea for spying and taken to Paris, where she was charged and imprisoned. However, a year later she was ultimately acquitted by a Military Court of charges of having failed to reveal Russian espionage activities.