by Amy Knight
For whatever reason (perhaps simply a sense of guilt or resignation in the face of what he saw as overwhelming evidence against him) that “inner-voice” had still not made itself heard when Lunan appeared before the Royal Commission after confessing to the RCMP. Still without counsel, Lunan readily gave the Royal Commission details on his activities as a contact between the Soviet GRU and their Canadian sources. When he appeared before the Royal Commission for a second time, he noticed that RCMP inspectors Harvison and Anthony were working in the same building, on the floor below, available to the commissioners and their lawyers for advice. As Lunan recalled, “The RCMP had played the cue ball by supplying the commissioners with a script in the form of a transcript of the police interrogation. The job was to get it into the Commission record virtually unchanged. . . . When my testimony seemed to diverge from what the commissioners had been led to expect, they would adjourn briefly for the off-the-record consultation with the RCMP and Justice Department officials. What they were in fact doing was preparing a masterly prosecution brief for use in court proceedings to follow, and who better able to do it than two of the most distinguished jurists of the day.”19
The Order-in-Council authorizing the detentions referred to the “communication of information to agents of a foreign power to the prejudice of the public safety or interests of Canada and friendly powers.” And the act creating the Royal Commission stipulated that it was to determine whether the passing of information was “inimical to the safety and interests of Canada.”
But in fact the commissioners’ criterion for guilt was not whether the passing of such information harmed Canada, nor even whether a suspect had passed information at all. Eric Adams, for example, was not “Ernst,” but his library was full of communist books. Fred Poland may or may not have been the individual referred to by Zabotin in his barely legible notes – and in any case all that Polland, or Holland, gave to the Soviets was a 1943 map not even classified as confidential – but Poland had communist leanings and his roommate in Ottawa was none other than Gordon Lunan. In the eyes of the commissioners, both Adams and Poland were guilty.
Along with Roger Hollis at MI5 and Kim Philby at MI6, Mackenzie King was following the spy case closely. Daily, he received and read many pages of evidence from the RCMP and the Royal Commission on Espionage, including all of Gouzenko's testimony. As time wore on, with most of the suspects still being held for interrogation without access to lawyers or contact with their families and without having been formally charged, the press became critical of the judicial procedures. The Ottawa Journal, for example, commented, “We do not treat murderers that way.” In a letter to Secretary of State Byrnes at the end of February, the chargé d’affaires at the American Embassy in Ottawa observed that “if the most serious charges are not subsequently made against at least some of those detained, the Government will be open to severe criticism, parliamentary and otherwise.”20
King grew increasingly anxious. He knew he would face attacks from the opposition in Parliament. He was particularly upset when he woke up on February 27 and saw on the front page of the Globe and Mail a story about the wife of one of the detainees (later identified as David Shugar), who had returned from a trip to discover her husband gone and their home ransacked. “I was amazed,” she was quoted as saying in the article, “to find that the letters we had written each other while my husband was away two years in the services, and my childhood diaries had been taken away.” She reported that “for three days my husband was refused information as to the authorization under which he was held” and that she still did not know whether he was being held as a witness or a suspect. What particularly upset King was the reference to a letter the woman had sent to him protesting the fact that her husband was being held incommunicado. “I have received no acknowledgement,” she said.21
King was beside himself, all the more so since he had not slept well and he felt he was coming down with one of his frequent colds: “I was much annoyed and distressed to find that no answer had gone to the woman who had written to me about her husband being confined. I had given it to Robertson four days ago and had asked since if a reply had been sent. I wanted it answered immediately.” Robertson, it seems, did not share King's concerns about the legality of the RCMP sweep and the public reaction. When an irate King telephoned him that morning, he merely expressed surprise that the letter had not been answered.
King was uncharacteristically adamant with Robertson: “I said I thought it was wrong that those who are suspected should be detained indefinitely and that some way should be found to shorten the enquiry and give them the full rights of protection which the law allows them. . . . I said at the beginning unless this part was carefully handled we would create a worse situation than the one we were trying to remedy. People will not stand for individual liberty being curtailed or men being detained and denied counsel and fair trial before being kept in prison. The whole proceedings are far too much like those of Russia itself.”22
That afternoon, King met with Justice Minister St. Laurent and Royal Commission lawyers E.K. Williams and Gerald Fauteux. By this time he had calmed down and was persuaded to be patient. Within two days, Williams and Fauteux assured him, at least five or six would have admitted their guilt. (The point being that lawyers and family should be kept away in the meantime.) King did manage to have the commissioners step up the timing of their public report on the hearings, which he felt was essential to legitimize the detentions in the eyes of the Canadian people. As Stephen Holmes, the second-in-command at the British High Commission, made clear in a March 2 telegram to London, King and his ministers wanted a speedy report to offset the “formidable charges of interference with civil liberties.”23
On March 4, the commission released its first interim report, timed to coincide with the completion of testimony by Woikin, Lunan, Mazerall, and Willsher and with their immediate arraignment.24 The brief report focused attention on a long list of demands that Moscow headquarters had given the GRU residency in Ottawa, including requests for information on the atomic bomb. While noting that the four accused had violated the Official Secrets Act, the report avoided the question of how much of that information the GRU actually obtained, and also whether Canada's interests were harmed. The issue of national security was mentioned only in regard to Mazerall. The commission noted that the two confidential reports on radar that Mazerall gave to the Soviets through Lunan were shortly thereafter presented at a conference (where the Russians, incidentally, were present) and that this “should be considered as an extenuating circumstance in Mazerall's favour.” (Mazerall would nonetheless be sentenced to four years in prison on charges of conspiracy to violate the Official Secrets Act.) As for the question of lawyers, the report claimed that “an opportunity was given to have counsel, but none desired to be represented by counsel or to adduce any evidence in addition to his or her own testimony.” In fact the offer of counsel was not given to any of them until after they had testified before the commission, at which point it was useless.
In Washington, Canadian ambassador Lester Pearson received an advance copy of the report late on March 2, and was so unimpressed, as he said in a letter to Norman Robertson the next day, that he hoped it would be held back and revised: “I must say that several re-readings of it do not weaken my opinion that it is not . . . a very impressive document, combining unevenly the sensational and the inconsequential and leaving the reader without any clear impression whether there is any real connection between the tasks laid down for the Soviet intelligence people in Canada and the information which the four persons mentioned were able to supply.”25
Pearson went over the report with both Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson and Secretary of State James Byrnes on March 3. Acheson also found the report wanting. And Byrnes suggested to Pearson that they withhold the report entirely, despite the fact that, as Pearson explained, it was being issued to quell criticism in Canada about violations of civil liberties. Byrnes had given what was for him a harsh
speech on relations with the Soviet Union a couple of days earlier in New York, and he had seen the draft of a strongly anti- Soviet speech Winston Churchill planned to give in Fulton, Missouri, on March 5. He feared it would appear to the Russians that the three governments had deliberately organized these events to coincide. As Pearson reported, “It almost looked as if the three things were stages in a planned campaign.”26
Pearson had also seen a copy of Churchill's speech. Before meeting Byrnes, he had paid a visit to Churchill, who was in Washington, about to depart the next day for Missouri with President Truman. Because Churchill would be making several references to Canada in his speech he had asked Mackenzie King to come down to Washington to meet with him. King was unable to make the trip, so he sent Pearson in his place. When Pearson arrived at the British Embassy, “the great man was still in bed, propped up with pillows, looking pink and white, as always, with a big cigar in his mouth, also as always, and reading a book.” Pearson went into another room to read what Churchill planned to say – “very strong stuff indeed, with some magnificent passages and others that will arouse very considerable controversy.”27 It was his now famous “Iron Curtain” speech.
Mackenzie King called Churchill later that afternoon to convey Pearson's positive reaction. “When talking with Churchill, I mentioned that we would be having a pretty strong statement coming out from the Commissioners tomorrow. He said to me: ‘Oh you are so completely right’ or words to that effect. . . . That if a similar course had been adopted when Britain learned that Germany was rearming this last war might never have taken place. . . . He went on to repeat: ‘Do not hold back anything – go ahead. Keep firm to the position you have taken. I am sure that it is the only thing that will save the situation as it has been developing. It is the same tactics all over again.’ Churchill could not have been more emphatic or stronger than he was.”28
Churchill in fact had not yet read the Canadian report, but he knew what was in it and was no doubt pleased that it reinforced what he planned to say in Fulton. Churchill's Fulton speech set the tone for a new era in East-West relations, making it clear that the wartime alliance was no longer viable because the Russians wanted “the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.” An “iron curtain” had descended across Europe, Churchill said, necessitating a Western alliance to resist the Russians and sustain peace and democracy. He also stressed that it would be “wrong and imprudent” to entrust the secret knowledge of the bomb to a world organization.
Mackenzie King, who seems to have lost interest in the idea of international control of the bomb, thought the speech was wonderful and telephoned Churchill right afterward to say so. He wrote in his diary that “He [Churchill] and the President were together. He was obviously both relieved and greatly pleased that I had rung him up. I told him what I thought about his speech, being all circumstances considered, the most courageous made by any man at any time, having regard to what it signifies at the moment and for the future. . . . He thanked me very warmly, said it was so kind to let him know.” Churchill asked King if he would mind letting Prime Minister Attlee know how he felt about the speech, and he readily agreed to do so.29
King was ecstatic. That evening, he committed to his diary the words of praise he believed he had heard from Churchill: “What he [Churchill] did say most emphatically was something to this effect: ‘I have followed your career over so many years and have been impressed so deeply with it, with your political wisdom and sound judgment that I value very deeply your approval of what I have said.’”30 King was particularly delighted because President Truman had overheard Churchill's words. What good luck! It likely did not occur to him that Churchill's motives were not entirely pure. Churchill had gone out on a limb by delivering such a strong anti- Soviet message. He probably anticipated some criticism back in England, where Prime Minister Attlee was even urged from the backbenches of the Parliament to dissociate himself from Churchill's harsh words.31 It might be useful if he could say the speech had some strong supporters.
Well before the release of the interim report and Churchill's speech, tensions had been building in London over the Gouzenko issue. Hollis was becoming irritated at Philby's constant interference. In mid-February, Philby sent Hollis a draft of a paper he prepared on the case for “C” and the service directors of intelligence. Hollis returned the draft, pointing out some “small inaccuracies,” and then added a note to Philby:
I feel that the question of circulating this document from your Office to the Directors of Intelligence is a matter of some embarrassment. The case took place in Canada and has ramifications in this country and in both Canada and here the security responsibility rests on our Office and not on yours. The close cooperation which we have had over this case has, of course, given you just as much information as we have about it and as you know, we have welcomed this. But when it comes to putting out such a paper to the Directors of Intelligence, it may, I am afraid, give the impression that the responsible department is yours and not M.I.5. Would it be possible, in order to avoid this, that you should put out a covering letter when circulating this document, saying that it has been shown to the department responsible for dealing with counter-espionage in the Empire and that M.I.5 agrees that this is an accurate account of the case.32
Shortly before Hollis wrote to Philby, the May case had taken a new twist. On February 15 – the day of the RCMP roundup in Ottawa – two “very experienced” MI5 interrogators interviewed May. They had already had several meetings with top MI5 officials to devise the proper strategy and had decided they would tell May at the outset that the interview was in connection with an inquiry being conducted by a Canadian Royal Commission. In order to prevent May from refusing to discuss his activities because they were scientific secrets, they asked May's superior, the head of the British Atomic Council, to arrange the meeting and give May instructions to withhold nothing from the investigators.33
According to a report MI5 sent to Ottawa, May was caught completely off guard: “primrose turned very pale and was clearly greatly distressed. He frequently paused as long as two or three minutes before answering questions and almost always limited his replies to ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ The impression given was that the interrogation came as a great shock to him, but that once having pulled himself together and overcome this, he was following the pro-gramme of admitting nothing. . . . It will be seen from the statement that primrose made a blank denial of all connection with the corby case. If therefore, your interrogation in Canada produces any information, which implicates primrose, it will be of great value to us. . . . On the conclusion of the interrogation primrose dined alone at the Regent Palace Hotel and afterwards went to a cinema. He made no contact.”34
Philby, of course, knew about the planned arrests in Canada and MI5's intention to interview May at the same time. But he apparently did not see to it that May was warned, as he had done when May was supposed to meet a Soviet contact some months earlier. Philby probably worried that a warning to May might arouse suspicions among his colleagues that there was a spy in their midst. Moreover, he knew that unless May confessed, the evidence against him was insufficient to justify an arrest. As MI5 had come to realize, although May had been acquainted professionally and socially with some of the other spy suspects, he would not have discussed his connections with the GRU with them. Thus the likelihood that any of those interrogated by the RCMP in Ottawa would incriminate May was small.
Less than a week later, however, in a second interview with May, MI5 got a break. May broke down and made a thorough confession. But he was still at large, mainly because the British did not want to complicate the situation in Canada by arresting May before the commission report appeared. On March 1, Hollis and Philby took part in a high-level meeting at the Foreign Office, chaired by Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Neville Butler. Philby told the group that May's confession had been relayed to the Royal Commission on the condition that it would not be used in the commission's next report (presumab
ly because publication of the confession would prevent it being used as evidence against May). The group agreed that, upon the approval of Prime Minister Attlee, May's arrest would take place on March 6 and that, since the Canadians would publicize their report on the spy case, May's trial would be open to the public.35
Another concern was the former employee at the British High Commission in Ottawa, Kathleen Willsher. The British had tried to persuade the Canadians to treat Willsher separately from the others – and to exclude her name from the first interim Royal Commission report altogether. They were afraid that her case would raise embarrassing questions in Britain about the leakage of their top secret information to the Soviets, especially if it was publicized just as May was arrested. In fact, both MI5 and the Foreign Office were caught off guard when they learned that the Canadians’ report would come out earlier than expected, on March 4 rather than March 6, the day they planned to arrest May. They urged the Canadians to delay, especially when they learned the report's scope was much wider than they expected. But the Canadians proceeded as planned.
Stephen Holmes at the British High Commission in Ottawa telegraphed London on March 2 to say that Canadian authorities were under considerable pressure to release the report and bring at least some of the detainees before the court as soon as possible. “The arrest and charging of Willsher,” Holmes continued, “is of course regarded by Canadian authorities as [the] logical outcome of our request that she be interrogated and detained for that purpose and I am afraid that we are in a very difficult and delicate position for asking for Commission to be pressed to modify their report in any way or alternatively for pressing Canadian government to postpone on her account its publication and intended action against their own first batch.”36 London cabled back to Holmes that, in view of the Canadian attitude, “we withdraw our suggestion that action should be postponed.”37