by Amy Knight
With his usual self-absorption, King saw himself at the center of the crisis over Gouzenko, and he could not hide his satisfaction that Canada, for once, was getting some attention from its more powerful allies. On September 23, he remarked at a dinner with the small group of intelligence officers and diplomats involved in the case “that it was strange the discovery of all this business should have come to our little country but that perhaps after all, it was true that it was the weak things of the earth that were chosen to confound the strong.”48 King assumed that his government would be in charge of the case, but once the British and the Americans were called in, Canada was not making decisions on its own. Too much was at stake.
The daily telegrams that passed back and forth from Ottawa to MI6, MI5, and the FBI (filtered through the bsc in New York) attest to the sense of urgency with which Canada's allies viewed the Gouzenko affair. Although he probably resented the fact that he was getting its messages through Stephenson (code-named 48000) in New York, MI6 director Menzies, “C,” was following developments closely, along with his subordinate Kim Philby. Menzies was a quintessential British spymaster – upper-class and slightly eccentric. He wore the bowler hat of a civil servant and a brush moustache that protruded over “an occasional tight smile.” Described as “reclusive, methodical and athletically fit,” Menzies was said to be “an avid pursuer of foxes,” but the scent of Philby, the cleverest fox of all, eluded him.49
J. Edgar Hoover, too, was keeping his eyes on the Gouzenko case, through a constant stream of memoranda from his aides. One of these he sent back with a note on the bottom: “Be certain to give all angles of this case preferred attention.”50 He was anxious to make an impression on the Truman White House, whose interest was not easy to attract when it came to alleged communist infiltration of the government. Earlier, when the letter to the White House about the Gouzenko case reached his desk for his signature on September 12, he had written an angry memorandum to his aides. The letter should have come to him sooner, he complained, because the War Department had heard about the defection and undoubtedly was able to inform the president before his letter arrived. Secondly, Hoover said, the form of the letter was “quite unsatisfactory. It doesn't indicate in any sense of the word that the FBI was playing any part in this situation. As I understand it, we sent a man to Canada to confer about it and we did do a considerable amount of work in the way of translation, et cetera, upon it.”51
Meanwhile, the British had put together a comprehensive report on behalf of the bsc, entitled “Intelligence Department of the Red Army in Moscow and Ottawa, 1945.”52 Like the much briefer FBI document, Evans's and Dwyer's report was based on interviews with “Corby” (Gouzenko) and an analysis of his documents. The report listed twenty-seven individuals who were connected with Zabotin's GRU operation in Canada, including an American scientist named Arthur Steinberg. Steinberg, who was mentioned in the FBI's first report on the Gouzenko case, had come to Canada in 1940 to assume a lectureship in genetics at McGill University and had become friendly with spy suspect Raymond Boyer in Montreal. He returned to the United States in June 1944 to take up employment with the Office of Scientific Research and Development of the U.S. Navy before returning to academia after the war. According to Evans and Dwyer, “Several months ago Freda [a GRU agent] gave this man's name to Grant [Zabotin] and his headquarters expressed considerable interest . . . Steinberg was to be asked [italics added] to work either for Soviet Intelligence or for the Communist Party . . . Corby states that the man assigned to contact Steinberg in the U.S.A. was Zervin (phonetic) of Amtorg [the Soviet Trading Corporation].” (The report did not explain why, if Steinberg had already been living in the U.S. since June 1944, Freda would bother giving his name to Zabotin. But it made clear that, although headquarters “expressed considerable interest” in Steinberg, he did not yet have any association with the GRU. He was merely on the GRU's wish list.)
Evans and Dwyer also mentioned the agent in the U.S. State Department: “Corby asserts that one of the assistants to-? [the part in italics was inserted in handwriting] Assistant Secretaries of State, when Stettinius was head of the State Department, was a Soviet agent. He can give no further details and it has so far been impossible to identify this alleged agent.”
Hoover was intent on finding out more about the State Department official, who he already suspected was Alger Hiss. In a message to Mickey Ladd on October 23, Hoover again stressed that the case should be given “preferred attention” and asked, “Has anyone from here ever personally interviewed Gouzenko as to matters of special interest to us such as the Soviet agent in the State Department, etc.? Wouldn't it be a good idea to do so, as interrogations through an intermediary are always unsatisfactory?” Ladd responded that “the results of the interview of Guzenko by the Bureau's representative have been furnished to you in detail most recently in the memorandum to you of October 19, 1945.”53
The memorandum Ladd was referring to was a twenty-two-page report, the most detailed yet on the Gouzenko case, which was also sent to the White House. The report provided a long description of how the Soviet GRU conducted its espionage activities abroad and who the most important recruits were in Canada. And more was said about the suspect in the State Department: Lt. Kulakov, the officer who replaced Gouzenko, had told Gouzenko that while he was still in Moscow he had learned “that an assistant of Stettinius, then the United States Secretary of State was a Soviet spy.”54 In a subsequent, undated report, the FBI observed, “Efforts are presently being made to identify this individual. A review of the Bureau files discloses that Alger Hiss and Donald Hiss, two brothers, who are employed by the State Department, were named by Whittaker Chambers, a former Soviet agent . . . as members of the government Communist underground. Alger Hiss was the individual in charge of security arrangements for the United Nations Conference in San Francisco. The information available to the Bureau relative to Hiss is being carefully reviewed.”55
As for Dr. Steinberg, between the first FBI report to the State Department on September 18 and the memorandum of October 19, he had been transformed by the FBI from a possible GRU recruit into an active agent. In the first report, Steinberg was “being developed as a possible agent.” The October memorandum reads, “In the event a spy removes from Canada as in the case of Arthur Steinberg whose cover name is ‘Berger,’ arrangements are made to turn the spy over to the appropriate Soviet representative in the new country.” And later, Steinberg “has been identified as the Arthur Steinberg, whose cover name is ‘Berger’ who was recruited into the spy organization in Canada and later transferred to the United States.” Why had the status of Dr. Steinberg changed so significantly? Had Gouzenko been prodded by the FBI to provide additional allegations?
The British were also said by Gouzenko to be harboring a spy in the upper reaches of their government. But, as with Hiss and Steinberg, the information about the spy attributed to Gouzenko (there were no documents) was vague. According to the bsc report by Evans and Dwyer, while Gouzenko was still in Moscow he heard about a Soviet agent in England who worked for the British Intelligence Service. The code name of that agent, “Elli,” was noted for the first time in a November 1945 RCMP report on the Gouzenko case. (Coincidentally, “Elli” was also the code name of another suspected spy, a woman who was working as a secretary in the office of the British High Commissioner in Ottawa.) Despite the potentially devastating implications of Gouzenko's allegations, neither MI5 nor MI6 paid them much attention. It was only later that the search for “Elli” would lead to a prolonged and tortuous mole hunt in the British security services, a mole hunt that would cast a deep shadow over Roger Hollis.
The RCMP was continuing to follow up on Gouzenko's information and collect additional evidence against the Canadians who had allegedly been recruited as spies in Zabotin's ring. In Charles Rivett-Carnac's words, “Slowly but surely, we were weaving our net round the agents, gathering up information which had been given us and fitting the odds and ends of details whic
h would later establish without doubt that what Gouzenko had told us was correct. While we ourselves were entirely satisfied in regard to his story, we knew that when prosecutions were entered [into], even with the documents in our possession we would have a fight on our hands.”56
The documents, often difficult to decipher because some were handwritten and in shorthand, included: three GRU dossiers on alleged spies; thirty-three telegrams between Ottawa and Moscow; one of Zabotin's mailing lists for early 1945; and numerous notes written by Zabotin and his assistant, Col. Rogov, about their recruits and meetings with them. Taken together, the documents confirmed that the Soviets were running an extensive program of espionage in the West. There was even a spy ring in Switzerland, an agent of which was working for the International Labor Office in Montreal. But the documents revealed little about what information had actually been passed to the Soviets, and in most cases they were not sufficient to justify prosecutions.
So RCMP investigators attempted to gather additional evidence that could be used in court. Much of this information was shared among all three allied governments and also sent to the Canadian Royal Commission established in early February 1946 to investigate Gouzenko's allegations. By the time the commission published its final, 733-page report in July 1946, it had accumulated more than six thousand pages of witness testimony and exhibits (classified as secret until the early 1980s). Whereas the Gouzenko documents accounted for thirty separate exhibits, the commission had altogether over six hundred exhibits presented in evidence. So Gouzenko's papers and testimony served as building blocks for what would become an enormous edifice of spy cases, with hundreds of new names brought in.
Early on in the case, Rivett-Carnac and John Leopold enlisted two RCMP officers to maintain surveillance on eleven suspects in the Ottawa area, to see if they made contact with the GRU or incriminated themselves in any other way. They continued with the surveillance (with no results) throughout the winter.
The RCMP also added two experienced and tough investigators from Western Canada to the Gouzenko team – Clifford “Slim” Harvison and M.E. Anthony. Their job was to verify the authenticity of Gouzenko's documents and to gather more evidence. They had also been designated to interrogate the suspects once they were arrested, so they spent much of their time familiarizing themselves with the case and also getting information, indirectly, from Gouzenko. Harvison, who would eventually become RCMP commissioner, met Gouzenko personally some months later and came to admire him greatly: “In addition to having a remarkable memory, he was obviously a highly intelligent and gifted man. This early appraisal was borne out by the calm, cool manner in which he withstood the attacks of the many defence counsels during the subsequent trials.” But Harvison did allow that Gouzenko was far from humble. Indeed, “one got the impression that his considerable talent was somewhat outstripped by his estimation of that talent.”57
In those early days at Camp X, Gouzenko was easily distracted and had difficulty concentrating, partly of course because his wife and two-year-old son were with him constantly. RCMP Intelligence chief Rivett-Carnac wanted a complete statement from Gouzenko that incorporated all his knowledge of GRU operations in Canada, including names and code names, but it took a long time. In a letter to Rivett-Carnac in mid-October, Inspector George McClellan at Camp X explained why: “I would like to point out that under the living conditions at Rexall [Camp X] at the moment, Black [the interpreter] laboured under much difficulty in obtaining the statement already submitted herewith, and it will take some days to get a complete statement in the manner in which you want it. This is due to the fact that Corby has somewhat of a dreamer mentality and it is extremely difficult to pin him down to the business at hand.”58 On November 2, McClellan explained to Rivett-Carnac why the statement still was not ready: “This, as has been previously mentioned, is a painstaking task and cannot be rushed. Corby's mind is most difficult to pin down to matters at hand, but the statement is being completed and will be forwarded at the earliest possible moment.”59
Gouzenko eventually complied, providing a detailed picture of Soviet espionage agencies, how they were organized, what their connections were with the Communist Party leadership, and how they went about recruiting spies. He told his interlocutors about so-called illegal agents, who entered Western countries on fake passports and lived under false identities. He discussed spy arrangements in the embassies and how they communicated with Moscow. He talked about the attitudes and motivations of Soviet intelligence officers abroad, and how they might be persuaded to provide information or to defect. The most vulnerable time for Soviet intelligence officers was just before they were to be sent back, when they did not know what to expect upon their return – promotion or arrest.
Gouzenko, clearly with a view to what he hoped his future would be, emphasized the example that would be set by the way he was treated, suggesting that if he was treated well, he could be used to recruit others. Gouzenko told his investigators, “It would be desirable to let word get out in a year or so in the press of Canada, the U.K. and U.S.A. etc. that Gusenko [sic] had settled down to a decent comfortable Canadian life – to prepare the ground psychologically for others. Perhaps a press photograph could appear, he suggested, showing him skiing somewhere.”60
According to Gouzenko, the weak point in the Soviet espionage ring was the morale of the Soviet staff. “The idea of escaping or ‘going over’ crosses many minds,” he asserted. Gouzenko told the RCMP that “many members of the Soviet mission in Ottawa, and hundreds in their missions in the United States, the U.K., Australia, etc. will be studying the press reports of Gouzenko's case with intense personal interest. Will we use him, extract the last drop of information from him perhaps finally by torture to make sure of all,” Gouzenko wanted to know, “and then discard him, shoot him or maybe send him to a labour gang?” That Gouzenko even considered this a possibility shows how little he trusted or understood the motives of his Canadian hosts. He even suggested that, if they did cast him aside or shoot him, they should do it secretly and arrange to have the press cover it up. As his interlocutor observed, Gouzenko “still is apt to attribute to us the technique and controls of the Soviet system which he is accustomed to.”61
When the RCMP produced its report in November, the debriefing of Gouzenko was completed. As the report noted, “Gouzenko has been thoroughly and extensively interrogated. He has been questioned and cross-questioned in an effort to extract every last particle of information possible.”62
But the RCMP had another problem – Anna's pregnancy. Gouzenko's former colleagues at the Soviet Embassy, including Vitalii Pavlov, probably knew that she was expecting (although Gouzenko insisted they did not). The Mounties worried that the Russians would be checking at hospitals around the time of the birth and might be able to figure out where the Gouzenkos were located. Their fear was likely unwarranted, given that the Russians had limited resources and were lying low as a result of the defection. But the RCMP wasn't taking any chances.
McClellan devised an elaborate plan. A former doctor at Camp X described for George Mackay, “to his considerable consternation,” the symptoms that would necessitate going to the hospital. The doctor himself would deliver the baby and facilitate Anna's entry into the hospital without attracting attention. Igor would not be there for the birth; instead, Mervyn Black would pose as the father. Anna was coached so that she could use only her very broken English, which she had apparently learned in the months since the defection. According to McClellan, “She impresses me as an intelligent woman with a very strong personality and should be able to carry this thing through quite successfully.”63
In early November, McClellan reported that they had purchased all the supplies necessary for the arrival of the baby: “This was done with some difficulty as all purchasing had to be done by either D/Sgt Spanton [a Mountie at Camp X] or myself, whose knowledge of the necessary requirements is, to say the least, meager. The new baby will now be completely equipped and clothed, and I might
say that this fact has done more than any thing to put Mrs. Corby's mind completely at rest.” These supplies were soon supplemented by a layette from Saks Fifth Avenue in New York, sent by William Stephenson. Anna Gouzenko gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Evelyn, in early December 1945. 64
Back at RCMP headquarters, Rivett-Carnac was greatly relieved that the Gouzenkos’ presence had not been discovered. But this had been only one of a great many complications that for months had caused him to work fourteen-hour days and suffer sleepless nights. To follow up on Gouzenko's leads and keep track of what the spy suspects in Canada were doing without arousing suspicion required a tight balancing act. In his words, “I had to correlate all the different angles of the case, giving direction for the safety measures of Gouzenko, maintaining contact with the government and keeping in touch with those who were engaged, each within his own separate sphere, in all their different tasks. It was like trying to lead a group of mountaineers roped together along the side of a precipice – a single mistake could mean that all might be swept down.”65
A high priority for Rivett-Carnac, and all those working on the Corby case during its early stages, was to keep the suspects from finding out they were being investigated. Before any of them could be arrested, however, the three allied countries involved had to agree on how to proceed. As Dwyer and Evans expressed it, “Whilst [the RCMP] are of course following up whatever leads they can which do not involve any risk of prematurely ‘blowing’ the case, vigorous prosecution of the matter is now impossible until high level decisions of policy are taken, since the magnitude of the disclosures places the matter squarely in the diplomatic and political sphere as much as in that of intelligence and security.”66