The Cipher Clerk and Canada’s Atomic Cold War Awakening, 1945-1950
On the night of 5 September 1945, a 26-year-old Soviet cipher clerk walked out of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) embassy in Ottawa with 109 secret documents stuffed under his arm. Igor Gouzenko had decided to defect, and he carried with him documents that would transform Canadian security policy and the world’s understanding of Soviet espionage in the aftermath of World War Two. These papers exposed an extensive spy network inside Canadian institutions, including public servants, military officers, and even a communist Member of Parliament, Fred Rose. Additionally, they highlighted that Soviet espionage was more concerned with science than politics. Gouzenko’s files showed that Soviet intelligence was targeting nuclear research, then tied into the broader Anglo-American effort that produced the atomic bomb. As a result, organizations such as Canada’s Chalk River Laboratories, which were part of the American nuclear ecosystem, were no longer thought of as a symbol of scientific modernity but as the frontline in a clandestine struggle over atomic secrets. Broadly put, Igor Gouzenko, the subsequent fallout from his defection, and the resulting government commissions and policing represented the pivot from domestic “red menace” policing to a fully internationalized conception of economic security.
Ottawa’s initial reaction to these findings was one of trepidation and secret dealings. The Soviet Union had emerged from World War Two as an ally, and Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King feared that revealing such knowledge would trigger a diplomatic crisis. For months, Gouzenko’s defection was kept a secret, even from much of the Cabinet. However, Prime Minister King knew that such information would inevitably come to light amid rumours beginning to spiral, and the government should not be seen as merely reactive; thus, he established the Royal Commission on Espionage, chaired by Supreme Court Justices Roy Kellock and Robert Taschereau, on February 5. When Gouzenko’s defection and the content of the files he carried out were revealed to the public in February 1946, “[n]ews of the ring of spies made headlines around the world as the RCMP seized and interrogated twelve Canadians and one British civil servant on suspicion of espionage,” in the words of historians Reg Whitaker and Steve Hewitt.[1] Moreover, on February 16, 1946, the Globe and Mail had reported that the “atom secret” had been shared with the Soviet Union.[2] Drastic times called for drastic measures.
The Kellock-Taschereau Commission was sweeping in scope and thorough in discovery. Extraordinary powers were granted to it under the War Measures Act, allowing those involved to detain, interrogate, and search suspected communists or spies. This work led to the arrest of more than twenty alleged Soviet agents or sympathizers, and ultimately, to eleven convictions, including that of Fred Rose. Even the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) joined Ottawa in its espionage probes.[3] Moreover, the possibility that scientific and industry secrets might be leaked or stolen to advance the Soviet Union’s acquisition of the atomic bomb was enough reason to infringe on individual liberties. Indeed, the Western world reconciled with scientific treason when British scientist Alan Nunn May was accused of passing uranium samples and bomb details to Soviet handler Pavel Sudoplatov in 1945.[4]
The first, and arguably largest, primary industry in Canada to be impacted by investigations was mining. Located approximately 180 kilometres north-west of Ottawa, Chalk River Laboratories is a nuclear research facility that began in 1945. By the spring of 1950, Chalk River was extracting approximately 50 grams of plutonium per week and, ultimately, had sent over 254 kilograms of used plutonium reactor fuel to the U.S. Department of Energy to be used in the production of nuclear weapons between 1955 and 1985. This made Chalk River a prime economic and strategic target for scientific espionage and economic sabotage. Canada’s nuclear program, which included Chalk River and the Montreal Laboratory (producing Tube Alloys), was rife for Soviet spies. Bruno Pontecorvo, a scientist at Chalk River who conducted cosmic-ray work, defected to the USSR in the 1950s with nuclear reactor designs, prompting RCMP loyalty probes and FBI collaboration.[5]
Another site of concern was the Montreal Laboratories, founded in 1942 at the Université de Montréal by the National Research Council. Included among Canadian and British scientists were Hans-Heinrich von Halban and Lew Kowarski, both of whom joined from France. The Montreal Laboratories played a pivotal role in developing natural uranium-heavy water reactors, reporting on neutron physics and criticality, and ultimately contributing to the development of fissile material production that would go into the development of the Manhattan Project (the U.S. creation of the atomic bomb). Gouzenko’s files had named Montreal Laboratory spies, including that of Dr. Alan Nunn May, who had been working at the Montreal laboratory in 1943.[6] The extent to which Gouzenko’s files were tied to atomic secrets (or the economy more broadly) is hard to determine, but by the 1950s, enhanced RCMP surveillance strategies were aimed at protecting billions of dollars’ worth of intellectual property due to the threat of infiltration. Indeed, nuclear physics, cryptography, and radio were all valuable foci for espionage because they were integral to the larger Western innovation system and defence industry. The question was no longer whether radicals might sabotage a factory or military base, but whether foreign intelligence could secretly copy and acquire the blueprints and records of the most advanced science Canada possessed.
—Prof. Nicholas Hrynyk
[1] Reg Whitaker and Steve Hewitt, Cold War Canada: The Making of a National insecurity State, 1945-1957 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), 27.
[2] Author unknown, “Atom Secret Leaks to Soviet, Canadians Suspected,” Globe and Mail, February 16, 1946.
[3] “FBI Joins Ottawa Spy Hunt: Investigation Now Focused on Munitions Department,” Globe and Mail, February 18, 1946.
[4] “Dr. May Released,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 9, no. 1 (1953): 30.
[5] Giuseppe Fidecaro, “Bruno Pontecorvo: From Rome to Dubna (personal recollections)” (December 1996): 6. https://cds.cern.ch/record/1543889/files/PONTE_5.pdf
[6] Henry Gass, “Montreal in the Age of the Atom,” The McGill Daily, November 10, 2010. https://www.mcgilldaily.com/2010/11/montreal_in_the_age_of_the_atom_/