THE DOCUMENTS THAT WEREN'T THERE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605300023-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: July 20, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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ARTICLE APPE,;r- NATION
ON PAGE 11 20-27 July 1985
7-u -
THE GOUZENKO CASE
The Documents
That Weren't There
WILLIAM A. REUBEN
Last March the publication of Soviet diplomat
Arkady Shevchenko's memoir, Breaking with
Moscow, an account of his secret life as an in-
former for the Central Intelligence Aaencv while
serving as an Under-Secret ary General of the United Na-
tions, found its wm to the front pages of the nation's press.
The Shevchenko affair, coming in the midst of other spy
allegations-the latest, the John A. Walker Jr. spy ring, as
Gouzenko took with hirff pointed to the existence o a
twenty-seven-person Soviet spy ring operating in Canada and
other parts of North America. The apparat's primary target,
the commission concluded, had been the secret of the atomic
bomb, which the spies were said to have obtained with stun-
ning success. This winter, the evidence on which the com-
mission based its findings was declassified by the Canadian
government, making it possible for the first time to get a
comprehensive look at the affair.
The Gouzenko case is cited by historians as a watershed in
relations between the Soviet Union and the West, the end of
wartime amity and tbwbeginning of cold war distrust. It was
no coincidence that Winston Churchill, when declaring that
"an iron curtain has descended across the Continent," in his
famous 1946,speech at Fulton, Missouri, placed the Cana-
dian "atom spies" at the top of his list of Soviet perfidies.
Other commentators, like Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in The
Vital Center; said that Gouzenko's evidence made it clear
that Communists' beliefs and speech were inseparable from
"illegal acts" and thus threatened national security.
The standard view of the Canadian spy case, in terms of
the damage to national security, is summed up by William
Manchester in his social history The Glory and the Dream.
The Canadian spies, Manchester wrote, stole "hundreds of
pages of closely written data describing in detail" how to
construct an atomic bomb. He concluded, "The Russians
could scarcely have learned more about nuclear weapons
had they been full partners in the undertaking."
What is not widely known is that all the published evi-
dence for the existence of a Canadian atom spy network de-
rives from the 733-page report the Royal Commission issued
June 27, 1946. The men and women the Royal Commission
identified as spies on the basis of "cover names" contained
in the secret documents Gouzenko removed from the Soviet
Embassy were tried for various offenses in the 1940s. But
not one of them was indicted, tried or convicted of es-
pionage-that is, of passing secret information to a foreign
power-in Canada.* Indeed, in none of the trials did the
government allege they had stolen atomic secrets. Moreover,
sixteen members of the alleged ring were cleared of all
charges. Of the others, five were found guilty of a con-
spiracy to obtain fake passports to enable Canadian na-
tionals to fight on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil
War, and five were convicted of violations of Canada's
sweeping Official Secrets Act. In the end, people went free
or were convicted based on the degree to which they
acknowledged their political beliefs and activities, not
(as far as any documentary evidence shows] because of
what Gouzenko's documents supposedly revealed about
them.
Another nagging issue in the case is the credibility of
Gouzenko himself. The accused were never confronted with
American as apple pie-has fueled the Administration's-
cam paign to restrict freedom in the name of s..
Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger suggested that
convicted spies should be shot. The House of Represent-
atives passed a bill setting the death penalty for military es-
pionage during peacetime and permitting polygraph ex-
aminatioins for as many as 4.5 million civilian and military
employees of the Pentagon. Recently, there have been
calls for wholesale revision of Federal security procedures
new restrictions on the Freedom of Information Act, a
drastic step-uo in counterintelligence activities .and _ a.
C.I.A.-sponsored equivalent of the Official Secrets Acts of
Britain and Canada [see Lois Sheinfeld, '?Washington__vs-
the Right to Know," The Nation, April 131.
Not since September 5, 1945, when Igor Gouzenko, a
26-year-old code clerk in the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa,
defected to the West, has a Soviet turncoat caused such a
brouhaha. Yet the Shevchenko story seems to have begun to
unravel. Edward Jay Epstein, writing in The New Republic,
has identified a series of contradictions and falsehoods in
the Shevchenko account which have led him to conclude,
"Shevchenko's book is a fraud on the same level as Clifford
Irving's fake about Howard Hughes."
The dangers of passing hasty "security" measures in an
overheated political atmosphere should by now be obvious.
(For example, the Internal Security Act of 1950-providing
for, among other things, compulsory detention of "security
risks" in time of national emergency-was passed in
response to newspaper headlines-about cold war spying.)
But for those still harboring doubt, new evidence has
just now come to light in the Gouzenko case that,. at a
minimum, should serve as a dramatic reminder of the im-
portance of insisting on hard facts and documentation
whenever cold war imagery of spies, espionage and threats
to national security are invoked to justify intrusions on our
open society.
According to the two-man Canadian Royal Commission
that investigated the case in 1946, the secret documents
'Alan Nunn May, who was accused of being a member of the ring, pleaded
guilty in England. Under the provisions of Britain's Official Secrets Act,
full details of May's confession are still not available.
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his charges before the commission, and their lawyers were
even denied access to Gouzenko's testimony before the com- nut case" who was ' `money-grubbing" and "thoroughly
mission. After Gouzenko's defection in 1945, he lived under unreliable," a "spoiled brat," a "cheat" and a man in-
the protection of the Canadian government. He devoted the capable of writing anything by himself who stiffed his
rest of his life to keeping his story before the public and ghostwriters. He was also described as an egomaniac. Ac-
silencing critics with lawsuits. It can fairly be said that he cording to the R.C.M.P. deputy who was in charge of his
made a lucrative career out of preserving his image as a security for many years, "Gouzenko thought that only two
Soviet defector. men in the world mattered: Winston Churchill and
He sold the rights to his story to Hollywood for a reputed himself."
$100,000. He collected more than a quarter-million dollars "All he could talk about was worldly possessions,"
from two books bearing his byline, one of which, a Book- recalled a neighbor. Others said he thought "the world
of-the-Month-Club selection, was widely translated. owed him a lot, especially the Canadian Government," and
Laudatory articles by or about him (he was reported to have "he was constantly clamoring for more money from the
charged $1,000 for an interview) appeared over the years. state." (The ' government awarded him a lifetime pen-
He was a frequent commentator Off matters relating to sion which, when last reported in 1975, paid him $1,075
Soviet espionage, making many appearances on television a month, tax free, with a built-in cost of living increase. A
(always wearing a hood) and on radio (at times disguising Canadian businessman, Frank Ahearn, gave him a lifetime
his voice through a filter device). The late Senator Joseph annuity.) A lawyer who. raised more than $67,000 from
McCarthy attempted to get Gouzenko to appear before his anonymous sources ostensibly to help Gouzenko pay off his
subcommittee, but the Canadian government wouldn't per- debts called him "a plain son of a bitch, a cheat from the
mit him to cross the border. In 1979, three years before his word go, as greedy as anyone you'd ever know."
death, the Toronto Star reported that Gouzenko lived on a Gouzenko became not only the key witness but also the
two-acre estate in a house said to be worth $500,000. only unfettered spokesman on the case. Everyone else in-
His litigiousness brought in additional income and served volved was prohibited from talking about it under pain of
to silence and intimidate would-be critics. The files of the five Years' imprisonment. This gag rule applied across the
Canadian Press news service in Toronto reveal that he board, to R.C.M.P.. officers, court attendants, stenogra-
brought more than a dozen lawsuits for libel, winning phers, witnesses called before the Royal Commission and in
retractions, apologies, payment of counsel fees or money the subsequent trials, friends, family members, lawyers and
damages in many of them.* On June 7, 1968, the Star the defendants themselves. The defendants were unable to
published an editorial that characterized as "hate literature obtain transcripts of their own testimony or copies of
and poison" a pamphlet published under Gouzenko's byline. documents used against them by the commission. The trial
Among other things, the pamphlet implied that Prime records are unavailable-either destroyed, "lost" or se-
Ministers Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau were Com- questered in sealed files. For nearly forty years, the only
munist agents. Despite Gouzenko's threats, the newspaper public information on the case consisted of newspaper
refused to apologize or retract its words, and he sued for stories, Gouzenko's writings and the interim and final
libel. In 1974, the court found for the Star and ordered reports issued by the Royal Commission. All the exhibits
Gouzenko to pay the newspaper's legal costs (at the time of entered as evidence before the commission were impounded,
his death, in 1982, he still had not done so). not to be released until 1986.
Only after Gouzenko's death did Canadian authors On January 7 of this year, however, the government
publish critical books about him. In the past year, three released almost all of the exhibits before the Royal Commis-
books have appeared, all written before the release of the sion. Solicitor General Elmer MacKay said that 580 of the
Canadian Royal Commission documents. They are: approximately 1,000 exhibits the commission had examined
Gouzenko: The Untold Story, an oral history by John would be declassified. The declassified materials, he assured
Sawatsky; Emma, by June Callwood; and Merrily the press, included all "those conveyed by Mr. Gouzenko
Weisbord's The Strangest Dream, a heart-wrenching ac- personally to the Canadian authorities."
count of how the Canadian left has" for forty years Although the bulk of the material had to be catalogued
"bought" the Gouzenko story lock, stock and barrel. and microfilmed, MacKay did release to the press photo-
Sawatsky, a prizewinning journalist with a strong copies of nine handwritten pages in Russian which were
background in security matters, interviewed just about every identified in the press kit as the texts of eight telegrams sent
living government official, officer of the Royal Canadian from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa to Moscow in July,
Mounted Police (R.C.M.P.), lawyer, journalist and August and September 1945. They were signed by "Grant,"
neighbor who ever had dealings with Gouzenko. Although identified in the Royal Commission report as a cover name
Sawatsky takes no position on the findings of the Royal for Col. Nikolai Zabotin, Soviet military attach6 in Ottawa,
Commission and of the Canadian courts, he has assembled and addressed to "the Director." According to the accom-
a collection of eyewitness portraits that variously describe panying English translations, the telegrams contained nu-
Gouzenko as a "son of a bitch," a "scoundrel," a "bit of a merous references tb presumed espionage activities (clandes-
Some of these suits were settled by defendants for various reasons, in-
cluding unwillingness to bear the costs and risks of lengthy litigation.
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tine meetings and the like) and also to espionage targets ing and, for the most part, no indication of when t
(government
olicies and
l
f
f
i
b
b
p
p
ans
var
or
s o
om
ous types, placed in evidence at the hearings, it is impossible to deter-
including the atomic bomb that was "thrown on Japan," as mine their significance, authenticity or relationship to other
the translation put it). These allusions to espionage were evidence. And what of the most eagerly awaited
ascribed to various mysterious individuals, known as prize of all:
the 108 secret documents the Royal Commission said
d
Debouz, Prometheus, Gray, Alec, Alek, Grant, Bacon, the Gouzenko took with him from the embassy? As with the
Professor, Martin, Dekanzov, Piat and Badeau. The press eight telegrams, there is no physical evidence to prove that
kit identified these as cover names for the accused spies, but the on nals t
t e
d
this attribution seems puzzling in light of the commission
report's statement that Gouzenko had never known, seen or
worked with any of these persons.
These materials are of dubious provenance. The press
kit contained no proof that the nine handwritten pages in
Russian were the texts of telegrams sent by the Soviet Em-
bassy to Moscow, or that the handwriting belonged to Colo-
nel Zabotin. Also curious was the four-page handwritten
statement Gouzenko made on October 10, 1945, included
among the documents MacKay released. In it he explained
why he defected, charged that the Soviet Union was prepar-
ing for a war with the West and castigated his homeland for
having committed all manner of crimes save one: atomic es-
pionage. The charge that would emerge as the central find-
ing in the commission's report is not even mentioned.
Moreover, he said nothing about any documents.
Any hope I had that the rest of the material would shed
light on the affair was dashed this spring when I examined
it. The remaining documentary evidence-and I use the term
advisedly-is a hodgepodge, reminiscent of one of Professor
Irwin Corey's 'doubletalk monologues. Taking up six reels
of microf,lm, it consists of numerous official government
documents, originating in the United States, Britain and
Canada, and a welter of other materials, including:
the 1943 Montreal telephone directory, passport applica-
tions, travel and expense vouchers, job applications, army
service records, blueprints of defense plants, government
manuals, identity cards, voting records, registration forms,
hotel and meal receipts, newspaper clippings, copies of
editorials from Canadian Communist Party newspapers,
leaflets from the Young Communist League, June 1935 cor-
respondence of the National Conference of Friendship-with
the U.S.S.R., pamphlets from the National Council of
Canadian-Soviet Friendship, a brief history of the Soviet
diplomatic mission. to _ Canada from 1924 through, 1945,
passenger lists of steamships, oaths administered by the Im-
migration Office and the Royal Commission, income tax
returns, library cards, private correspondence going back to
1939, railroad timetables, photographs of individuals named
in the final report and their private correspondence going
back to 1939, pre-Gouzenko R.C.M.P. dossiers on the ac-
cused, samples of the handwriting of Colonel Zabotin and
other diplomats from 1943 through 1945, records of all sta-
tionery and other office supplies purchased by the Soviet
Embassy and an itemized list of four cartons of books, in-
cluding standard works by Marx and Lenin removed from
an alleged spy's home-and so on and on.
What is one to make of this jumble? With no indication
as to when any. of the exhibits were obtained by the
R.C.M.P., how they related to espionage or any wrongdo-
g
e
xrs or came from the Sovit Embassy. It is
also interesting to note that it was not until March 2, 1946,
that the commission or any Canadian official stated publicly
that Gouzenko had taken the embassy materials. That was
more than two weeks after the alleged spies were arrested by
the R.C.M.P. and Gouzenko began testifying, and more
than six months after he left the Soviet En)bassy for the last
time.
In addition to all of the above, the record contains a glar-
ing and critical gap. The recent books on the Gouzenko case
reveal that he spent five and a half months at Camp X
before his defection was made public. The Royal Commis-
sion did not ask Gouzenko a single question about this
period, and no investigator has got through the govern-
ment's stonewall about what happened there. Sawatsky
describes the process Gouzenko underwent as "debriefing."
But throughout World War II, Sir William Stephenson,
head of British intelligence in North America, maintained -a
laboratory at Camp X which produced forged letters and
other documents of high quality.' How do we know that the
representatives of the British, Canadian and U.S. in-
telligence services who spoke with Gouzenko at Camp X
were not giving as well as receiving information?
So despite the voluminous evidence that has become
available, questions persist. We may never know which of
Gouzenko's revelations were fact and which were fiction.
The point is that the temptation for Western governments to
manipulate facts in order to create anti-Soviet hysteria is
considerable. As this case shows, evidence once trumpeted
as "definitive" or "damning" may, years later, turn out to
be an undifferentiated mass of items that are questionable,
or worse. This is not to say that Gouzenko's story was a
complete or partial fabrication but to point out that after
forty years, crucial evidence is still being withheld and im-
portant questions remain unanswered. It is merely to call for
subjecting the evidence in such cases, when it appears, to
what Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes called "the acid bath
of cynicism."
The current rash of spy cases may signify an escalation in
K.G.B. activities or, more likely, an escalation in the
number of cases brought for political reasons. We should
not let them be used to damage arms control negotiations,
suggest that all liberals and radicals are spies and traitors
or justify antidemocratic regulations and legislation.
Too many unknowns remain to draw any morals from the
Gouzenko case. But we would do well to keep in mind the
'Those forgery operations have been described in No chip on my shoulder,
by Eric Maschwitz; Room 3603, by H. Montgomery Hyde; and A Man
Called Intrepid and Intrepid s Last Case, by William Stevenson.
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comment made to Sawatsky by Canadian journalist Ian
Adams, long before the recent release of documents:
[Gouzenko's] defection came at a wonderful time when there
was tremendous resistance from the scientists involved in
developing the atomic bomb. They wanted to see an open
book on the development of nuclear power with everybody
collaborating so that it wouldn't become the ungodly arms
race that it did become and is today. So if Gouzenko hadn't
fallen into the western intelligence services' lap, they would
have had to invent somebody like him. F-1
William A. Reuben is the author of The Atom Spy Hoax,
which includes a critical analysis of the Canadian Royal
Commission's findings and procedures, and The Honorable
Mr. Nixon (both Action Books).
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