On April 15, 2004, almost 60 years after the fact, Canada finally got around to erecting a plaque to the Soviet Embassy clerk Igor Gouzenko who defected with documents proving that a large network of Soviet spies was active in North America. Arguably, this was one of the major events which triggered the “Cold War”.

The plaque is situated in a small park next to the apartment the Gouzenko family occupied at the time.

The story of Gouzenko’s eventual successful defection reads like a farce. The Ottawa newspaper he initially tried to turn to for help rejected him as a crank - as did the Department of Justice in Ottawa.Gouzenko was told there to come back next day, during business hours. Eventually, thanks to the persistence of a sympathetic secretary, he and his family were taken into RCMP protective custody just in the nick of time.

Mackenzie King, the Canadian Prime Minister at the time at first refused to believe the allegations and kept silent for 6 months without notifying his cabinet. Mackenzie King apparently did not want to upset the Soviets. He did, however, fortunately, notify the American government of President Harry Truman.

Eventually, the US press leaked the story. The Canadian spy trials that followed included, among others, that of Fred Rose, the only known Communist MP ever elected and several high ranking scientists. The trials were a major sensation at the time and the ultimate ripple effect in the United States was even greater.

It is most disturbing that for many years the Canadian government downplayed the affair in order not to embarrass the Soviets. It was only long-time pressure from Gouzenko supporters that ensured that the plaque was finally placed.. One can only surmise that the demise of the former Soviet Union and the departure of the main participants helped this to happen.

One is left to ponder what motivated the Liberal Canadian government at the time to cover up and why this cover up lasted so long in view of the incontrovertible documentary evidence that Gouzenko brought with him.

Is this yet another situation where the crimes of the Soviets appear to have been trivialized and swept under the carpet as much as possible whereas those of the extreme right wing governments have been trumpeted to the maximum extent because of some ideological bias on the part of some in powerful positions or was the government pragmatically accepting the dictates of “realpolitik” at the time?

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