Walter Seddon Clayton (24 March 1906 – 22 October 1997)[1] was a key organiser of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in the 1930s and 1940s and suspected of being the Australian-based Soviet spymaster code-named 'KLOD', although the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and Britains' MI5 were not able to provide any conclusive evidence of this for fear of tipping off the Soviets that their cable traffic was being deciphered and read by Western intelligence agencies.
Clayton spent most of the 1940s and 1950s underground, playing a game of cat and mouse with the police and officers of the Australia's newly formed security service (ASIO).
[3] Fearing that Clayton was about to defect to the Soviet Union, the Menzies government arranged for the cancellation of his and his wife's passports the day before they were due to depart Australia.
[3] Suspecting that Clayton might rendezvous with a Soviet submarine off the NSW coast, ASIO had reportedly even recruited the services of local fishermen in the Port Stephens area to monitor his movements at sea.
Having failed in his attempt to defect to the Soviet Union, Clayton moved to a small home in Salt Ash, near Nelson Bay on the NSW coast.