Gouzenko Affair

The Gouzenko Affair was the name given to events in Canada surrounding the defection of Igor Gouzenko from the Soviet Union in 1945 and his subsequent allegations regarding the existence of a Soviet spy ring of Canadian Communists.^[2][3] Gouzenko's defection and revelations are considered by historians to have marked the beginning of the Cold War in Canada,^[4][5][1] as well as potentially setting the stage for the "Red Scare" of the 1950s.^[1]

The Kellock–Taschereau Commission (officially 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)^[6] was a royal commission that began in 1946 with the mandate to investigate the veracity of Gouzenko's information.^[2][3] The Commission was appointed by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King on behalf of the Government of Canada under Order in Council PC 411 on 5 February 1946. It was headed by two judges of the Supreme Court of Canada, Justice Robert Taschereau and Justice Roy Kellock.^[7] Counsel included President of the Canadian Bar Association , , Gérald Fauteux, and John Robert Cartwright.

Gouzenko's information, prior to the Commission, led to a sweeping investigation and arrests under the War Measures Act of 21 Canadians, along with 11 convictions.^[7] Among them was the Labor-Progressive Party Member of Parliament for Cartier, Fred Rose, the only Communist ever elected to Parliament.^[7] Other notable people among those accused of passing over secrets were Canadian Army Captain , and Sam Carr, a senior organizer of the Labor-Progressive Party.^[1]

The proceedings of the Commission have been placed alongside the October Crisis of 1970 as the most extensive abuse of individual rights in Canadian history during peacetime. The controversy surrounding the Gouzenko Affair ultimately led to the formation of several civil liberties organizations.^[4]

Filling 6,000 pages, Gouzenko's testimony was not made public until 1981.^[7]

History[]

Defection and documents[]

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.^[2][3][5][1]

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.^[1] Furthermore, Gouzenko warned that the Soviets were not allies but were planning world domination.^[8]

Pre-Commission action[]

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.^[5][7] 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.^[7]

Gouzenko was finally taken seriously after 4 men from the Soviet Embassy broke into his apartment, on September 6, looking for him and his documents.^[1][7][8] 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.^[5][7][8]

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.^[7]

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 Minister 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.)^[9] The federal government invoked wartime powers under the War Measures Act to detain, interrogate, and prosecute several suspected Communist spies. Habeas corpus was suspended, and people were arrested 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.^[4]

In total, 21 Canadians were arrested, along with 11 convicted.^[7] Among them was the Labor-Progressive Party Member of Parliament for Cartier, Fred Rose, the only Communist ever elected to Parliament.^[7] Another notable person among those accused of passing over secrets was Sam Carr, a senior organizer of the Labor-Progressive Party. On 7 December 1945, Gouzenko’s defection still remained a secret, and only a handful of high-level government officials were aware of the investigation and PC6444. The government’s legal advisor, E.K. Williams (president of the Canadian Bar Association), concluded that the Gouzenko’s (code-name Corby) evidence was sufficient to prosecute perhaps only 4 of the 21 suspected spies.^[4]

Kellock–Taschereau Commission[]

The Canadian government revealed in February 1946 that it had given political asylum to Igor Gouzenko.^[1]

On 5 February 1946, Prime Minister Mackenzie King signed another Order in Council (PC 411), this time appointing on behalf of the Government of Canada a royal commission mandated to investigate Gouzenko’s information and to offer recommendations to protect the state against future acts of espionage. The Commission was hurriedly convened when rumours in Washington suggested journalist Drew Pearson was about to disclose that Canada was secretly investigating Soviet spy rings that might extend into the United States.^[9]

On 15 February 1946, ten days after the Commission was established, the RCMP launched a series of raids and arrested 11 suspected spies (with 2 more being arrested the next day) who were named in Gouzenko's documents.^[9] They were sequestered until summoned before the royal commission. A few hours later, Mackenzie King called a press conference in Ottawa and, for the first time, informed the Canadian public about Gouzenko's defection and the spy ring. (The Prime Minister refused to name the defector’s country of origin, and several months would pass before the public learned of it.)^[9] By February 16, the RCMP arrested 13 suspects and convicted 7, using the War Measures Act as legal justification.^[8][10]

On 14 March 1946, 26 other Canadians were arrested for spying, including Member of Parliament Fred Rose; 11 were convicted; 10 acquitted; and 5 set free without indictment.^[8] Among those 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.^[8]

Evidence before the commissioners suggested at least two Soviet espionage networks were active in Canada in wartime, one targeting the Manhattan Project.^[11] About 20 Canadian suspects were tried in 1947 to 1948 for espionage. Ten were convicted and punished in a range from 5 years imprisonment to a CA$500 fine; seven were judged not guilty; and two more acquitted on appeal. British nuclear scientist Alan Nunn May was arrested in England in March 1946, and pleaded guilty; British nuclear scientist Klaus Fuchs remained at work undetected until identified by Venona in 1949.

Aftermath[]

The impact of the Kellock–Taschereau Commission was far-reaching, first because people implicated in Gouzenko's documents were secretly arrested and denied legal advice, under emergency wartime regulations, and an "Emergency Committee for Civil Rights" assembled to defend them. Executive members included C.B. Macpherson, Leopold Infeld, and A.Y. Jackson. Their advertisement in the Toronto Star said that the Commission endangered the "basic rights of Canadians" and did "violence to the rights of free men." They compared the Kellock–Taschereau Commission to the trial of Lt.-Col. John Lilburne during the English Civil War of 1649, stating "the methods of the Commission are not new. They were used against Englishmen in 1649 and against Canadians in 1946.^[12]

Whatever the implications for civil and legal rights, the "Gouzenko inquiry" provided the first judicial evidence in North America of proved Communist spies, among the first events of the Cold War, and prompted both increased investigation (which discovered such spies as Julius and Ethel Rosenberg) and McCarthyism. In the Literary Review of Canada, Margaret Atwood listed the report of the Kellock–Taschereau Commission as one of Canada's 100 most important books.^[13] Many later writers on espionage cite its evidence as the first detailed narratives of how Soviet agents cultivated sympathetic acquaintances so as to turn them into active spies on secret topics. Gordon Lunan, one of the spies most harshly punished (5 years in prison) later published personal memoirs.^[14]

In 1966, a decade after his defection, Gouzenko agreed to appear on live television for the first time, as a mystery guest on CBC's Front Page Challenge, wearing his signature bag over his head.^[7] Following his appearance, Gouzenko went on to opine on the activities of the Soviet Union; he spoke out on the Munsinger affair of 1966, as well as on the claims in 1981 that Roger Hollis, a high-ranking MI5 agent who interrogated Gouzenko in 1945, was actually a Soviet mole.^[7]

Filling 6,000 pages, Gouzenko's testimony was not made public until 1981.^[7]

In pop culture[]

Films and series:

• The Iron Curtain (1948) — a film based on the memoirs of Igor Gouzenko.
• Operation Manhunt (1954) — a film fictionalizing the aftermath of the defection of Gouzenko,
• On Guard For Thee (1981) — a 3-part CBC/NFB documentary series about Canada's national security operations and civil liberties; its first part, "The Most Dangerous Spy", focused on the Gouzenko Affair.

Television episodes:

• "Gouzenko defection exposes Soviet spy ring," Front Page Challenge, CBC Television (1958 February 16)^[15]
• "Igor Gouzenko on Seven Days," This Hour Has Seven Days, CBC Television (1966 March 13).^[16]

See also[]

• Canada in the Cold War
• October Crisis
• Fred Rose (politician)
• List of Canadian Royal Commissions
• McCarthyism
• PROFUNC
• Soviet espionage in the United States

References[]

Further reading[]

• Black, J. L.; Rudner, Martin (2006). The Gouzenko Affair. Penumbra Press. ISBN 1894131916.
• Cross, L.D. 2005. Spies in Our Midst: The Incredible Story of Igor Gouzenko, Cold War Spy.
• Gouzenko, Igor. This Was My Choice.
• Granatstein, J. L., and David Stafford. 1990. Spy Wars: Espionage and Canada from Gouzenko to Glasnost. ISBN 1-55013-258-X.
• Herd, Alex. 2006 February 6. "Canada and the Cold War." The Canadian Encyclopedia (last edited 2021 March 6).
• Hristov, Alen. 2018 December 8. "The Gouzenko Affair and the Development of Canadian Intelligence." E-International Relations.
• Knight, Amy. 2005. How the Cold War Began: The Gouzenko Affair and the Hunt for Soviet Spies.
• Lunan, Gordon. 1995. The Making of a Spy: A Political Odyssey.
• McShane, Brendan. 2021 February 21. "It's War. It's War. It's Russia." Canada's History. Canada's National History Society.
• Stevenson, William. 1983. Intrepid’s Last Case.
• Whitaker, Reg. c. 1984-1987. "Spy Scandal." Horizon Canada 10. Brampton, ON: Centre for the Study of Teaching Canada.
• Whitaker, Reg, and Gary Marcuse. 1994. Cold War Canada: The Making of a National Insecurity State, 1945–1957. ISBN 0-8020-5935-X. 511 pp.
• Whitaker, Reg, and Steve Hewitt. 2003. Canada and the Cold War. Toronto: Lorimer. 256 pp.
• "Cold War Culture: The Nuclear Fear of the 1950s and 1960s," CBC Digital Archives.

External links[]

• The Report of the Royal Commission
• "Cold War Canada | Comfort and Fear" – Canada: A People's History, CBC Learning
• Project Rustic: Journey to the Diefenbunker – Diefenbunker Canada’s Cold War Museum, Canadian Heritage. Archived.
• "Gouzenko: The Series" (podcast) – Canada's History, Canada's National History Society
  • "Gouzenko Deciphered" (2020 September 8), interview with Evy Wilson, daughter of Igor Gouzenko
  • "Gouzenko Deciphered Part 2" (2020 October 7), interview with Calder Walton
  • "Gouzenko Deciphered Part 3" (2020 October 21), interview with Andrew Kavchak