Ric Throssell (10 May 192220 April 1999) 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. Early life Richard Prichard Throssell was born in 1922 in Western Australia, in the Perth suburb of Greenmount. His father was Hugo Throssell, a winner of the Victoria Cross at Gallipoli in 1915, and son of a former Premier of Western Australia, George Throssell. His mother was the writer Katharine Susannah Prichard. Ric was their only child. He was nicknamed after his father's late brother Frank Erick "Ric" Cottrell Throssell, who was killed at the 2nd Battle of Gaza in 1917. He attended Wesley College, Perth, and was a founding member of the Wesley Hundred, a charitable organisation that worked with the poor. On 19 November 1933, while his mother was on a six-month visit to the Soviet Union, his father Hugo committed suicide. His business ventures had failed in the Great Depression, and he had been offered just ten shillings ($1) by a pawnbroker for his Victoria Cross. In his suicide note he entertained the hope that his wife would now qualify for a war widow's pension, which was approved. Army and diplomatic service Ric Throssell enlisted in the Australian Army in World War II, and was promoted to lance corporal. He was offered the opportunity of officer training on the basis of being the son of a VC winner, but declined on principle. He served in New Guinea. In 1943, he joined the diplomatic service, his first posting being to Moscow in 1945, as Third Secretary. His first wife, Elwyn Hague "Bea" ( Gallacher), a stenographer in the Attorney-General's Office in Canberra, died suddenly in 1946 while they were in Moscow. After returning to Canberra, he met and married Dorothy "Dodie" Jordan in 1947. Like his mother Katharine, Dodie was born in Fiji. In the late 1940s he was an adviser to H. V. Evatt in the latter's capacity as President of the United Nations General Assembly. From 1949 to 1951 he was posted at the Australian Embassy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His mother was a founding member of the Communist Party