"THE GOUZENKO STORY"
"THE GOUZENKO STORY" Based on Official Secret Documents IT was Igor Gouzenko who revealed the existence in" Canada of a widespread conspiracy to obtain 1 secret official information. Gouzenko,...
...Section sent its messages to the N.K.V.D...
...It ia Indeed a unique event when the student of history snd contemporary affairs inherits such private top-secret materials as those which Igor Gouzenko csrried away with him on the night of September 5th, 1945, when he permanently severed his connection with the Soviet Embassy.' The Russian Bolsheviks once, in 1917, opened up all the restricted confidential archives in a dramatic blow for Truth and against "Imperialist Secrecy...
...Soviet'Mission in Ottawa were located...
...ical Section, which was under Goussarov, communicated directly with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union...
...4—The activities indicated in the documents hsve been admitted by Moscow...
...They are not merely the acts of overzealous Soviet employees anxious to inform their own Government...
...and the, military espionage organization itself-as Gisel...
...A squadron of Russian agents, led by Pavlov, head of the Canadian NKVD, attempted to seize Gouzenko and recover the missing papers...
...passports as shoes...
...In the safe were kept the agents' records, Colonel Zabotin's secret diary, and other documents of the Military Intelligence Service...
...There can be no doubt in'our minds that these attempts, very often successful, to obtain here secret and confidential information cannot lie qualified as casual or isolated...
...He lived with his family at 511 Somerset Street, Ottawa, but he had his own office in the secret cipher department which is located on the second floor at the Embassy, No...
...Having liquidated the sordid record of Czarist plotting they evidently welcomed the tabula rasa to begin a record of their own...
...Some of these men have undoubtedly been wellschooled in espionage and Fifth Column organizational methods, and in political and psychological "development" techniques...
...5—The conduct of retrain Russian officials in Ottawa has amounted to an admission of the Gouzenko story...
...He worked in room 12, one of the eight rooms on the second floor of a wing of the building, the entrance of which ia closed by a double steel door, and the windows of which have iron bars and steel shutters which are closed at night for the purpose of complete secrecy...
...The funds needed by Colonel Zabotin to finance his operations were sent to him from Moscow and the following telegram sent by him to Moscow makes it clear how important it was considered that'the trams— mission of this money should be concealed:— To the Director: Although you are sending us operational sums of money through metro, we nevertheless have to get them through the bank...
...Finally, after further investigation, Gouzenko was sent to Canada...
...285 Charlotte Street...
...Lozovski (Soviet Deputy Commissar of Foreign Affairs) explained to Ottawa: "As goon as the Soviet Government became aware of the above mentioned acts of certain members of the staff of the Military Attache in Canada, the Soviet Military Attache, in view of the inadmissability of acta of members of his staff, was recalled from Canada...
...This extreme secrecy with which the acts of the espionage branches of the Mission were clothed, at tht Embassy, was also exercised with great care by tht Russians in their relations with their agents, and by the agents themselves in their mutual contacts...
...and the Military Section, headed by Colonel Zabotin, the Military Attache in Ottawa, communicated with th« Director of Military Intelligence in Moscow...
...This, surely, is a legitimate curiosity, for never before has it been possible to follow a pattern in Stalin's political course with so much richly detailed reference to the original Russian documents...
...any hiding place as nduboki a legal "front" for illegal activities as a roof...
...3—The connection shown in the Russian secret documents between the various Canadian agents is reflected and amplified in the private documents found in their possession...
...The cipher books which Gouzenko used to encipher and decipher telegrams, were kept in a sealed bag which was handed every night to one Aleksashkin, and in the same bag were also placed the telegrams that came from Moscow and the telegrams sent to Moscow...
...GlOUZENKO has described to us the extreme ^ecrecy in which the espionage operations were conducted here...
...On the night of September Bth, 1945, Gouzenko left the Embassy with a certain number of documents from his own office, including telegrams sent to Moscow, others received from'Moscow, which he had enciphered and deciphered," as well as other documents made either by Russian officials of the Embassy or by other persons living in Canada...
...He was instructed first in coding and decoding In a secret school after having been investigated by the N.K.V.D., which is the official secret political police of the Soviet Union, and it was only after five months of such investigation that he was given access to secret cipher work...
...Alter reading, burn" were standard instructions on written assignments of tasks given by Colonel Zabotin and his associates to the agents...
...Headquarters in Moscow} the Embassy, the messages of the Ambassador and his staff to the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs...
...He was later transferred to the Main Intelligence Division of the Red Army in Moscow, where he spent one year...
...the Polit...
...the Communist Party of Canada or other countries except tho U.S.S.R...
...There is not even a shadow" of a doubt The intrigue, the knavery, the betrayal—a melodrama that could have been the plot of a fiction fantasy—are all historicsl phenomena...
...From time to time, some of these documents were destroyed in an incinerator located in room 14...
...He "has not only told us the names and cover names of the organizers, the names of many of the Canadians who were caught "in the net" (to employ the phrase used by the documents) and who acted here as agents, but he has also exposed much of the set-up of the organization as well as its aims and methods here and abroad...
...the Soviet Embassy as metro...
...Could you send us Canadian dollars by mall...
...In this way the purpose of secrecy Is defeated...
...From Alexander Barmine, from Walter Krivitsky, from Victor Kravchenko, and now perhaps too from Alexeiev, there are further valuable contributions- But from Gouzenko we have even rarer thing...
...In any event Stalin's archives are a closed affair, and its mysteries are difficult to penetrate...
...Cover-names" were used by the Russian leaders of the espionage system not only for themselves, their Russian assistants, and their agents, but also to refer to places, organizations, and things...
...They numbered five in all:—The N.K.V.D., the Embassy proper, the Political Section, the Commercial Section, and the Military...
...Anyway—"it has transpired that this information referred to technical data of which organizations had no need in view of more advanced technical attainment in the U.S.S.R...
...All these cipher clerks operated independently sod each one used a different cipher which was unknown to the others...
...Zabotin left suddenly, without notifying authorities of his departure, and his ship, the SS Suvorov sailed clandestinely at night without complying with port regulations...
...His only defense was that it would "be ridiculous to affirm that delivery of insignificant secret data of this kind could create any threat to the .security of Canada...
...the Commercial Section, headed by the Commercial Counsellor Krotov, sent its messages to the Commissariat for Foreign Trade...
...The set-up of this organization in Canada is the result of a long preparation by trained and experienced men, who have come here for the express purpose of carrying on spying activities, and who have employed all the resources at' their disposal, with or without corruption, to fulfill the tasks assigned to them...
...as The Corporation and its members a* eorporants or corporators...
...Gouzenko himself came to Ottawa only after he had been through the training that his superiors thought essential for the work he was chosen to perform...
...Gouzenko, who had been sent to Canada in June, 1943, with the official title of "civilian employee" of the Soviet Embassy at Ottawa, was the cipher clerk on the staff of the Military Attache, Colonel Zabotin...
...2—The handwritings on the various documents have been checked and their attribution to Colonels Zabotin, Rogov, Motinov, et...
...The meetings of agents at night on street corners and in automobiles, and the use of "cover-names" and "go-betweens," indicate the secrecy with which the operations were conducted...
...The N.K.V.D...
...He has undoubtedly l>cen a most informative witness and has revealed to us the existence of a conspiratorial organization operating in Canada and other countries...
...During that year he saw, in the course of his work, a large number of telegrams to and from many countries, detailing operations there similar to those which he has disclosed in Canada...
...The Dewey Commit,mission collected from Leon Trotsky in the period of the Moscow trials substantial documentary evidence...
...After having gone through the experiences detailed in the first article, printed in last week's New Lender, Gouzenko eventually told his story to the R.C.M.P., who reported to the Canadian Government...
...In this room is a steel safe which contains many of the important documents of the Military Intelligence...
...Gouzenko has unraveled the most important and spectacular true spy story ever told...
...Thus Canada was sometimes referred to as Lesovia...
...confirmed...
...This would ensure full secrecy The Second in a Series: Edited by Melvin J. Lasky THERE has been some doubt and challenge on the part of some readers as to the authenticity and accuracy of the Soviet documents on which The Gouzenko Storj" is based...
...In rooms of this secret wing the cipher clerks of the various branches of the...
...private diaries of secret agents, voucher books, assignments, telegrsms and messages to and from Moscow...
...How authentic are they t -> 1—The stationery has been unequivocally identified and traced to the Soviet Embassy...
...the N.K.V.D., or Russian secret political police, as The Neighbor...
...At 16 he was a member of the Komsomol or "Young Communist League," which is a youth movement controlled by, and preparatory to membership in, the Communist Party...
Vol. 30 • January 1947 • No. 4
