The Defection of Igor Gouzenko; The Report of the Royal Commission Appointed under Order in Council P.C. 411 of February 5, 1946 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. June 27, 1946.
Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean Park Press, 1984. Presumed First Edition, First printing thus. Wraps. Format is approximately 8.5 inches by 11 inches. This is a three volume set. Volume 1 [0894120662]: {2], 95, [1] pages; Volume 2 [0894120670]: [2], iii, [1], 97-539, [1] pages; Volume 3 [0894120689]: [2], iii-iv, 541-733, [1] pages. These are volume 4, 5 and 6 in the publisher's Intelligence series. This is the complete, unedited, official Report of the Royal Commission. These volumes provide firsthand knowledge of Soviet espionage agent recruiting methods--how citizens of Western democracies were developed through "ideological motivation" and not necessarily by money. Case studies of individual agents, verbatim testimony of witnesses, and actual Soviet espionage documents are included. A Royal Commission of Inquiry to investigate espionage, headed by Justices Robert Taschereau and Roy Kellock, was conducted into the Gouzenko Affair and his evidence of a Soviet spy ring in Canada. It also alerted other countries around the world, such as the U. S. and the U. K., that Soviet agents had almost certainly infiltrated their nations as well. Gouzenko provided leads which assisted greatly with ongoing espionage investigations in Britain and North America. The documents he handed over exposed numerous Canadians who were spying for the Soviet Union. A clerk at the External Affairs, a Canadian Army captain, and a radar engineer working at the National Research Council were arrested for espionage. A spy ring of up to 20 people led by Fred Rose was also exposed. British nuclear scientist Alan Nunn May was arrested in March, 1946. The FBI tracked down a Soviet spy, Ignacy Witczak. Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko (January 26, 1919 – June 25, 1982) was a cipher clerk for the Soviet embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, and a lieutenant of the GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate). He defected on September 5, 1945, three days after the end of World War II, with 109 documents on the USSR's espionage activities in the West. This forced Canada's Prime Minister Mackenzie King to call a Royal Commission to investigate espionage in Canada. Gouzenko exposed Soviet intelligence's efforts to steal nuclear secrets as well as the technique of planting sleeper agents. The "Gouzenko Affair" is often credited as a triggering event of the Cold War, with historian Jack Granatstein stating it was "the beginning of the Cold War for public opinion" and journalist Robert Fulford writing he was "absolutely certain the Cold War began in Ottawa". Granville Hicks described Gouzenko's actions as having "awakened the people of North America to the magnitude and the danger of Soviet espionage". He studied at the Moscow Architectural Institute. While at the institute he met his future wife Svetlana (Anna) Gouseva; the couple married soon after meeting.[8] At the start of World War II, he joined the military where he trained for a year as a cipher clerk. His position gave him knowledge of Soviet espionage activities in the West. Gouzenko worked under the leadership of Colonel Nikolai Zabotin. In June 1943 he and his pregnant wife arrived in Ottawa, Canada. In September 1945, upon learning that he and his family were to be sent home to the Soviet Union and dissatisfied with the quality of life and the politics of his homeland, he decided to defect. Gouzenko walked out of the embassy door carrying with him a briefcase with Soviet code books and deciphering materials. Gouzenko was able to find contacts in the RCMP who were willing to examine the documents he had removed from the Soviet embassy. Gouzenko was transported by the RCMP to the secret World War II "Camp X", comfortably distant from Ottawa. While there, Gouzenko was interviewed by investigators from Britain's internal security service, MI5 (rather than MI6, as Canada was within the British Commonwealth) and by investigators from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. In February 1946, news spread that a network of Canadian spies under control of the Soviet Union had been passing classified information to the Soviet government. Canada played an important part in the early research with nuclear bomb technology, being part of the wartime Manhattan Project along with the US and UK. That kind of vital information could be dangerous to Canadian interests in the hands of other nations. Gouzenko's defection "ushered in the modern era of Canadian security intelligence". The evidence provided by Gouzenko led to the arrest of 39 suspects, including Agatha Chapman, whose apartment at 282 Somerset Street West was a favorite evening rendezvous; a total of 18 were eventually convicted of a variety of offences. Among those convicted were Fred Rose, who was the only Communist Member of Parliament in the Canadian House of Commons; Sam Carr, the Communist Party's national organizer; and scientist Raymond Boyer. Chapman was later acquitted; the judge in her case announced that "No case has been made out and, as far as this trial is concerned, the accused is dismissed." Condition: Very good / o dust jacket issued.
Keywords: Igor Gouzenko, Royal Commission, Defector, Cipher Clerk, Soviet Embassy, Nikolai Zabotin, Military Intelligence, Chalk River, Atomic Research, Espionage, Cold War, Spying
ISBN: 9780894120671
[Book #85261]
Price: $275.00