Gouzenko Affair

On 5 September 1945, just following the end of the Second World War, a Russian cipher clerk named Igor Gouzenko (along with his child and pregnant wife) fled the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa with 109 documents that proved the existence of a Soviet spy ring in Canada, wherein Canadian Communists were spying on Canada, Great Britain, and the United States, and handing over secret information to the Soviet Union.[5][6][8][9]

According to the documents, the Soviet Embassy was housing several spies, connected to agents in Montreal, the United States, and the United Kingdom who had been providing Moscow with classified information. This caused a potentially dangerous international crisis, as Canadians targeted by Soviet espionage worked in sensitive positions; they were privy to diplomatic, scientific, and military secrets—including highly classified information regarding research on radar, code-breaking, and the atomic bomb.[9] Furthermore, Gouzenko warned that the Soviets were not allies but were planning world domination.[10]

Gouzenko took his documents to the Ottawa Journal, but the night editor told him to go to the police. He also unsuccessfully sought help from Ottawa Magistrate’s Court.[1][8] Minister of Justice Louis St. Laurent (who later became Prime Minister), keeping in mind Canada's amicable relations with the Soviet Union, would not meet with him until his claims were checked out. The RCMP simply assigned 2 agents to watch Gouzenko's apartment; however, fearing for his life, he opted to hide out at a neighbour's apartment.[1]

Gouzenko was finally taken seriously after four men from the Soviet Embassy broke into his apartment, on September 6, looking for him and his documents.[1][9][10] On September 7, Gouzenko and his family were granted asylum; within weeks, they were taken by RCMP officers into protective custody and were kept for months in a secret location in Camp X, a top-secret spy training school near Whitby, Ontario, while the claims were verified.[1][8][10]

While Gouzenko was interrogated at RCMP headquarters, his documents were being translated. They revealed the existence of a large-scale Soviet espionage system, which Norman Robertson (the undersecretary of state for the Department of External Affairs) said to be "much worse than we would have believed." The Soviet Embassy was evidently a home to several spies connected to agents in Montreal, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and had been providing the USSR with classified information ranging from ciphers to atomic research.[1]

Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King responded later that year by signing a top-secret Order-in-Council (PC6444) passed under the authority of the War Measures Act. The order directed St. Laurent to use whatever means necessary to investigate Gouzenko’s claim. Under the Act, the Minister of Justice had unlimited powers over the "arrest, detention and deportation" of any Canadian citizen, who could be held for an indefinite period. (There was no Canadian Bill of Rights until 1960, thus the government's ability to detain citizens was virtually unchecked.)[11] It effectively suspended habeas corpus and empowered authorities to detain, interrogate, and prosecute suspected Communist spies.[7]

In late 1945, Gouzenko’s defection still remained a secret; only a handful of high-level government officials were aware of the investigation and PC6444.[11] On December 7, 1945, the government’s legal advisor, E.K. Williams, who would later go on to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Manitoba,[12] sent King a top-secret memorandum advising that the evidence provided by Gouzenko (now code-named Corby) was sufficient to prosecute perhaps only four of the suspected spies.[11] Rather, he suggested the creation of a royal commission that would have "full control over its own procedure... It need not be bound by the ordinary rules of evidence if it considers it desirable to disregard them. It need not permit counsel to appear for those to be interrogated by or before it."[13]

The discussion over what to do about Gouzenko's revelations came to an abrupt halt on February 3, 1946, when Drew Pearson, an NBC Radio host, announced that a Soviet agent had surrendered to Canadian authorities and that Canada was quietly investigating a Soviet spy ring that extended into the United States government.[14] The most likely source of the leak was J. Edgar Hoover, as it was not uncommon for the FBI to leak information about suspected communists to the press and the two men corresponded often. Furthermore, an internal FBI memorandum revealed that Hoover had spoken with Pearson by telephone earlier that day.[15]

On February 5, King hurriedly signed another Order-in-Council (PC 411), this time appointing on behalf of the Government of Canada a royal commission chaired by Supreme Court Justices Roy Kellock and Robert Taschereau.[11][16] The Kellock–Taschereau Commission (officially called the Royal Commission to Investigate the Facts Relating to and the Circumstances Surrounding the Communication, by Public Officials and Other Persons in Positions of Trust of Secret and Confidential Information to Agents of a Foreign Power[5]) was mandated to investigate Gouzenko’s information and to offer recommendations to protect the state against future acts of espionage.[11]

The Commission first convened at the Seigniory Club in Montebello. There, on February 13, Gouzenko was sworn in and began to give his testimony. The first Canadian he identified as a spy was the Labor-Progressive Member of Parliament for Cartier, Fred Rose, the only Communist ever elected to Parliament. Another notable person named by Gouzenko was Sam Carr, a senior organizer of the Labor-Progressive Party.[1][17] By the end of the second day, the Commission had the names of 15 suspected spies.[18]

Soon after Gouzenko began delivering his testimony, the Commission decided that 14 of the individuals identified by Gouzenko (the Commission was reluctant to arrest Rose) should be detained and isolated. On February 10, Pearson had again brought up the espionage case in his weekly radio broadcast and the Commission feared that the suspects might attempt to run. Indeed, Carr had already fled to the United States. In a February 13 memo to MI6, one of the investigators, Peter Dwyer, noted that, "Royal Commissioners suddenly decided today to prevent any further damage by leaks from Drew Pearson by taking action before his next Sunday broadcast."[18][19]

Most of the alleged spies resided in Ottawa or Montreal.[18] However, one of the suspects, Gordon Lunan, was stationed in London as a speech writer for Paul Martin Sr., King's Secretary of State for External Affairs.[20] On February 13, Lunan was sent a cable recalling him to Canada under the pretense that he was being promoted. Lunan was scheduled to arrive at Montreal's Dorval Airport on February 15 so it was that date that was selected for rounding up the suspected spies.[18]

Early on the morning of February 15, ten days after the Commission was established, the RCMP launched a series of raids and detained 11 suspected spies.[19][Note 1] Hours later, King called a press conference in Ottawa and made his first public statement regarding the Gouzenko Affair. He did not mention Gouzenko or the Soviet Union; rather, he said only that secret information had been disclosed to a foreign government and that several people had been detained. The following day, February 16, two additional suspects were arrested.[11][19]

The 13 detainees were sequestered and questioned by the police for weeks. Denied access to legal counsel, they were held in small cells, kept under suicide watch, and guarded at all times.[7]

The Canadian government revealed in February 1946 that it had given political asylum to Igor Gouzenko.[9]

In total, 21 Canadians were arrested, along with 11 convicted.[1] Also implicated by Gouzenko’s documents was E. Herbert Norman, an External Affairs official who was hotly pursued by American officers; Lester B. Pearson, then-Secretary of State for External Affairs (and later Prime Minister), ardently protected Norman. Gouzenko maintained that Pearson had Communist leanings, an allegation supported by Elizabeth Bentley, a Soviet double agent who later withdrew her testimony.[10]

Evidence before the commissioners suggested at least two Soviet espionage networks were active in Canada in wartime, one targeting the Manhattan Project.[22]

• Raymond Boyer: An assistant professor of chemistry at McGill University,[24] Boyer passed on information regarding Canadian work on chemical explosives, namely RDX.[25] He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.[3]
• Sam Carr: According to the documents provided by Gouzenko, Carr acted as a recruiting agent for the GRU and aided a Russian agent named Ignacy Witczak in obtaining a false passport. He fled to the United States where he lived under the alias, "Jack Lewis." He was arrested in New York City in January 1949 and extradited to Canada where he was charged with conspiracy to obtain a false passport.[26] He was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison.[3]
• Harold Gerson: Gerson was a geological engineer with the Department of Munitions and Supply, a crown corporation that produced explosives.[3][24][27] He passed on information regarding the testing of projectiles.[28] He was initially sentenced to five years' imprisonment; however, his conviction was overturned on appeal. He was convicted at a new trial and sentenced to four years.[3][29]
• Gordon Lunan: Lunan was an editor with the Wartime Information Board.[30] He acted as a recruiting agent and attempted to enlist other informants, soliciting whatever information he could and reporting back to Vasili Rogov, an assistant military attaché at the Soviet Embassy.[20] He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.[3][31]
• Alan Nunn May: A British physicist who had worked with the National Research Council (NRC) in Montreal since 1943, Nunn May passed on information regarding his research on uranium. Most notably, he supplied the Soviets with a small sample of enriched uranium-233.[32] He was arrested in the United Kingdom, pleaded guilty, and, in May 1946, was sentenced to ten years' hard labour.[23]
• Edward Mazerall: An electrical engineer with the NRC, Mazerall leaked two research reports on air navigation.[33][34] He was tried by jury and sentenced to four years in prison.[3][35]
• Fred Rose: A Polish-born Member of Parliament, Rose was a recruiter for the Soviets and acted as a go-between for many of the accused spies.[36] He was arrested on March 14, 1946[37] and charged with conspiring to provide secret information about RDX.[38] He was convicted by a jury in June 1946[39] and sentenced to six years in prison.[3] He was expelled from the House of Commons in 1947[40] and his Canadian citizenship was revoked in 1957.[39]
• Philip Durnford Smith: An electrical engineer with the NRC, Smith passed on material on radar systems, radio tubes, and microwaves.[41][42] Smith was convicted in Ottawa and sentenced to five years' imprisonment.[3][43]
• John Soboloff: Soboloff was a Toronto physician who was charged with falsely attesting to know Witczak in order to help him procure a passport.[44] He was convicted and fined CA$500.[3]
• Kathleen Willsher: Willsher was a secretary at the office of the British High Commissioner, Malcolm MacDonald.[34] The only evidence implicating her in the affair was a set of leaked letters that the Soviets had mistakenly attributed to her and that she would not have had access to. However, while under interrogation, she confessed that she verbally communicated general information to the Canadian Communist Party.[45] She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years.[3][35]
• Emma Woikin: A cipher clerk at the Department of External Affairs, Woikin passed on several secret diplomatic cables to a contact at the Soviet Embassy.[46] She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two-and-a-half years plus an additional six months for contempt of court.[3][46][47]

• Eric Adams: Adams was an economist with the Bank of Canada. He was identified by Gouzenko as a spy code-named "Ernst" who, in late 1944, passed along information regarding the dispatch of munitions to the United Kingdom and whom Gouzenko described as a Jewish employee of the Bank of Canada. However, Adams was not Jewish and was working at the Canadian Industrial Development Bank at that time. Furthermore, Adams was not involved with any military committee, either at the Canadian Industrial Development Bank or the Bank of Canada.[48] He was nevertheless arrested and tried by jury. He was acquitted on October 22, 1946,[49] but his career was ruined and he found himself unemployable.[50]
• James Scotland "Scott" Benning: An employee of the Department of Munitions and Supply, Benning was accused of passing on an assortment of information.[51] He was convicted on October 29, 1946 and sentenced to five years' imprisonment.[52] His conviction was overturned on appeal in April 1947.[53][54]
• Agatha Chapman: An economist for the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Chapman belonged to a number of socialist study groups and had connections to most of the accused. She was not mentioned in any of the documents provided by Gouzenko, but Willsher claimed she was a GRU contact and she was arrested.[55][56] She was acquitted on November 27, 1946,[57] but she found herself ostracized from the civil service and left Canada for several years. She committed suicide in 1963.[58]
• Israel Halperin: Halperin was a mathematics professor at Queen's University who had taken leave to serve in the Canadian Artillery during the Second World War.[59] He was mentioned in four of the reports Lunan submitted to Rogov. Although Lunan never cited him as a source of any secret information, Halperin was nonetheless charged and tried.[60] He was acquitted on March 24, 1947 due to lack of evidence.[61][62]
• Henry Harris: Harris was a Toronto optometrist who was charged with procuring a false passport for Witczak.[44][54] He was convicted on January 27, 1947 and sentenced to five years, but his conviction was overturned on appeal on May 27.[63]
• Matt Nightingale: Nightingale had served a telephone specialist with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF).[64] He admitted to meeting with Rogov, but there is no indication he had passed on any information.[65] He was tried by jury and acquitted on November 7, 1946.[29]
• William Pappin: A clerk in the passport office at the Department of External Affairs, Pappin was accused of tampering with records in order to help procure a passport for Witczak. He was charged with conspiring to obtain a false passport, but he was acquitted on October 18, 1946 when the only witness admitted she had "given an untrue statement" to the Commission.[66]
• Frederick Poland: Poland had been a squadron leader in the RCAF before transferring to the Wartime Information Board in 1944. One of the documents provided by Gouzenko – a notebook belonging to the military attaché to the Soviet Embassy, Colonel Nikolai Zabotin – made a partially illegible reference to a "Holland" or "Polland," a Toronto-based RCAF officer who had passed along a map of training schools in the area. Given his communist leanings and the fact he had shared an Ottawa apartment with Lunan, investigators surmised that the individual was Poland, even though Poland had lived in Ottawa since 1942, a year before Zabotin was assigned there.[67] Poland was acquitted on January 16, 1947,[62] but was barred from working for the federal government.[50]
• David Shugar: Shugar had worked as a radar specialist who specialized in submarine detection research for the Royal Canadian Navy.[24] There is no indication Shugar had acted as an agent for the Soviet Union; rather, he had been identified as a potential recruit in what was effectively a GRU wish list. The charges against him were dropped at his preliminary hearing; however, they were later revived and he was tried in December 1946.[67] He was acquitted on December 7, but he lost his job with the federal government. Finding himself blacklisted, he moved to France and, later, Poland.[68][69] In 1957, the Government of Canada tried unsuccessfully to revoke his Canadian citizenship.[70]

• Freda Linton: A secretary to the Commissioner of the National Film Board of Canada, John Grierson, Linton was mentioned in two of the documents provided by Gouzenko. Gouzenko also testified that she had given Zabotin "some materials." Although there was no evidence she had passed on any secret information, she was subpoenaed in May 1946 but could not be located. Three years later, she surrendered to police in Montreal. Her lawyer, Joseph Cohen, managed to get the charges dropped, but she lived under a false identity for the remainder of her life.[71]