Oh the tangled web of spying!

Paul Keating, back in the day, prevented disclosure of the wealthy mole, who passed high-level intelligence to the Soviet Union for more than 15 years, forcing the United States to limit the information it shared with Australia. The traitor - who was never identified - started selling information to the KGB in the late 1970s.

But the 1950/60's were also a time of compromise: in 2006, Les Haylen's files were revealed to show that he took a woman who was high on ASIO's list of spy suspects, Lydia Janovski (Mokras), on a tour of parliament in December 1959.

Now, the elderly Lydia Mokras has been interviewed and features in a new spy documentary as discussed by Mark Colvin on ABC radio.

Interestingly Mark Colvin has his own part in the story

Personally, I also knew a wonderful woman in the '80's who was part of the post-Petrov affair.

Australia is a small place, everybody knows somebody, and spies are everywhere!