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. Gouzenko's defection and revelations are considered by historians to have marked the beginning of the Cold War in Canada, as well as potentially setting the stage for the "Red Scare" of the 1950s.
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) was a royal commission that began in 1946 with the mandate to investigate the veracity of Gouzenko's information. 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. Counsel included President of the Canadian Bar Association E.K. Williams, D.W. Mundell, Gérald Fauteux, and John Robert Cartwright.
Gouzenko's information led to a sweeping investigation and arrests under the "War Measures Act" of 21 Canadians, along with 11 convictions. Among them was the Labor-Progressive Party Member of Parliament for Cartier, Fred Rose, the only Communist ever elected to Parliament. Other notable people among those accused of passing over secrets were Canadian Army Captain Gordon Lunan, and Sam Carr, a senior organizer of the Labor-Progressive Party.
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.
Filling 6,000 pages, Gouzenko's testimony was not made public until 1981.
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.
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. Furthermore, Gouzenko warned that the Soviets were not allies but were planning world domination.
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. 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.
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. 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.
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.
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.) It effectively suspended habeas corpus and empowered authorities to detain, interrogate, and prosecute suspected Communist spies.
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. 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, 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. 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."
Kellock–Taschereau Commission.
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. 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.
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. 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") was mandated to investigate Gouzenko’s information and to offer recommendations to protect the state against future acts of espionage.
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. By the end of the second day, the Commission had the names of 15 suspected spies.
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."
Most of the alleged spies resided in Ottawa or Montreal. 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. 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.
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. 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.
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.
The Canadian government revealed in February 1946 that it had given political asylum to Igor Gouzenko.
In total, 21 Canadians were arrested, along with 11 convicted. 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.
Evidence before the commissioners suggested at least two Soviet espionage networks were active in Canada in wartime, one targeting the Manhattan Project.
Arrests.
In total, 21 suspected spies were arrested as a result of Gouzenko's revelations. Of the 20 Canadians arrested, ten were convicted and received punishments ranging from a CA$500 fine to six years' imprisonment. British nuclear scientist Alan Nunn May was arrested in England in March 1946 and pleaded guilty.
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.
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. 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.
In 1966, two decades 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. 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.
Filling 6,000 pages, Gouzenko's testimony was not made public until 1981.
In pop culture.
Films and series:
Television episodes: