Canada’s integration into global intelligence-sharing networks: from Gouzenko to the Montreal Olympics

ABSTRACT

The following article demonstrates how the 1945–6 Gouzenko Affair and the 1976 Montreal Olympics contributed to Canada’s integration into global intelligence-sharing networks. It also argues that the Olympics instigated a significant shift in national security priorities in Canada from communism to international terrorism. It is based on more than 2000 pages of documents released by the British government related to the Gouzenko Affair as well as over 50,000 pages of RCMP records on the security plan for the Montreal Olympics.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. As Rudner points out, ‘Canadian requirements for foreign intelligence have been addressed through an array of functionally differentiated agencies, most of which were linked to international intelligence sharing arrangements. … Canada’s involvement in Sigint began prior to the Second World War, when the Royal Canadian Navy put in place a monitoring station on the West Coast to supply raw intercepts to the British Admiralty. During the war the Army, Navy and Air Force set up their own respective signals intelligence units in collaboration with their British counterparts. These separate Sigint units were later combined into a so-called “Joint Discrimination Unit”’. Rudner, “Canada’s Communications Security Establishment,” 99. See also Bryden, Canadian Intelligence in the Second World War.

2. The five-eyes (UKUSA agreement) included signals intelligence, threat assessments and military intelligence. Cox, Canada and the Five Eyes.

3. Littleton, Canada and the Western Intelligence Network, chapter 6. Richelson and Ball, Intelligence Cooperation between the Ukusa Countries, 3–6, 135–41.

4. Terrorism, as Whitaker, Kealey and Parnaby explain, raised a different type of threat than communism, and required a different approach: ‘Clandestinely organized terrorist groups capable of bombing, kidnapping, assassination, and intimidation of the state, perhaps drawing on covert foreign support and threatening the delicate fabric of social order, called for extraordinary measures in response, measures that should best be shrouded in secrecy, carried out in the shadows, denied officially’. Whitaker et al., Political Policing in Canada, 293.

5. Molinaro, “The Gouzenko Affair Revisited;” Bryden, Canadian Intelligence in the Second World War; Cox, Canada and the Five Eyes; Forcese and Roach, Radicalization of Canadian Anti-Terrorism; Gibbs, “British and American Counter-Intelligence and the Atom Spies;” Granatstein and Stafford, Espionage in Canada from Gouzenko to glasnost; and Rudner, “Canada’s Communications Security Establishment.”

6. Clément, “Freedom of Information;” Hewitt, “Canadian Censorship under the Access to Information Act;” Hannant, “Access to Information and Historical Research.”

7. Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985, Access to Information Act, c.A-1.

8. Hannant, Investigating the Loyalty of Canada’s Citizens; Hannant, “Rcmp Tactics in Policing Sons of Freedom;” and Kristmanson, Nationality, Culture and State Security in Canada.

9. Hewitt, Rcmp’s Secret Activities at Canadian Universities; Hewitt, “Evolution of International Counter-Terrorism in the Rcmp;” Sethna and Hewitt, “The Vancouver Women’s Caucus, the Abortion Caravan, and the Rcmp;” Kealey, “Royal Canadian Mounted Police;” Kealey, “State Repression of Labour and the Left in Canada;” Whitaker, “How America, Britain and Canada Transformed Espionage into Subversion;” Whitaker et al., Political Policing in Canada; and Whitaker and Marcuse, Making of a National Insecurity State.

10. The National Archives of the UK (TNA), Igor Gouzenko KV 2/1015, KV 2/1419 to 1425; Library and Archives Canada (LAC), Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), RG146, 1976 Montreal Olympics, volumes 2406–2407, 2477, 3205, 4137, 4152, 4249, 4251, 4358 to 4370, 4376, 4464, 4471, 4479–4480, 4486–4487, 4489, 4491–4494, 4512–4514, 4520–4521, 4775, 4800, 4853, 4873 to 4878.

11. Molinaro, “The Gouzenko Affair Revisited.”

12. Whitaker et al., Political Policing in Canada, 149.

13. Ibid., 148–49, 255. See also Whitaker, “Rcmp Intelligence and the October Crisis.”

14. Pickersgill et al., The Mackenzie King Record, vol. 3. See also LAC, Mackenzie King Diaries, MG26 J13, 31 December 1945, page 8, item 29057.

15. In January 1946, John Diefenbaker asked Louis St. Laurent during question period in the House of Commons whether or not there were any outstanding orders in council under the War Measures Act. St. Laurent insisted that there were no more orders. St. Laurent later claimed that he had forgotten about the orders passed in response to the defection. And yet, according to a secret British telegram dated 13 February 1946, ‘St. Laurent has agreed that this action may be taken under order in council of last October’. Earlier telegrams also suggest that St. Laurent was aware in late January and early February of the methods proposed to detain and interrogate the suspects, which were clearly illegal under peacetime legislation. TNA, Igor Gouzenko KV 2/1426, Top Secret Telegram No.124, 13 February 1946. Whitaker and Marcuse, Making of a National Insecurity State, 58.

16. Clément, “Spies, Lies and a Commission.” ‘It is the intention of Government that, after the report of Royal Commissioners has been received, prosecution will be instituted in cases in which evidence warrants it’. TNA, Igor Gouzenko KV 2/1426, Top Secret Telegram No.146, 15 February 1946.

17. LAC, Mackenzie King Diaries, MG26 J13, 31 December 1945, page 8, item 29057.

18. For context on RCMP and FBI coordination on national security matters preceding Gouzenko, see Fox, “Impact of the Gouzenko Affair.”

19. Whitaker et al., Political Policing in Canada, 97–9.

20. For instance, one memorandum describes cooperation around identifying prominent communists: ‘In September last the Canadian Mounted Police supplied us with particulars regarding a man Ukrainian origin, aged about 24, rather prominent in the Communist Movement in Canada, and on 22nd October, 1929, sentenced to 30 days’ imprisonment and a fine of 50 dollars and costs on a charge of being disorderly. This man was denounced to us in August last as a leader of a party of three young men who left the ’White Star liner “Megantic” in the previous May, going to Moscow and thence expecting to get instructions to go either to China or to India. I wonder if anything has come in to you about this individual, about whom are anxious to know further’. TNA, Fred Rose KV 2/1015, letter to V.V., 9 December 1930.

21. There is no mention of Australia or New Zealand in the Gouzenko documents except to share the royal commission’s final report.

22. Rudner, “Canada’s Communications Security Establishment,” 101.

23. Murphy, “Creating a Commonwealth Intelligence Culture,” 135.

24. TNA, Igor Gouzenko KV 2/1425, Top Secret from New York, 26 September 1945.

25. TNA, Igor Gouzenko KV 2/1425, Top Secret Telegram No.18, 23 October 1945.

26. MI5 to RCMP Commissioner, TNA, Igor Gouzenko KV 2/1425, 2 December 1945.

27. Molinaro, “The Gouzenko Affair Revisited,” 79. Similarly, Knight discusses how the British sought to influence issues such as when the royal commission’s reports would be released and how to treat some of the suspects. Knight, The Gouzenko Affair and the Hunt for Soviet Spies, 137–9.

28. Molinaro, “The Gouzenko Affair Revisited.”

29. TNA, Igor Gouzenko KV 2/1425, Top Secret Telegram No.227, 5 December 1945.

30. TNA, Igor Gouzenko KV 2/1421, Top Secret Telegram No.160, 18 February 1946.

31. Knight, The Gouzenko Affair and the Hunt for Soviet Spies, 77.

32. Whitaker et al., Political Policing in Canda, 181, 225.

33. Ibid., 207.

34. Ibid.; Hewitt, “Evolution of International Counter-Terrorism in the Rcmp.”

35. TNA, Igor Gouzenko KV 2/1422, Top Secret Telegram No.197, 22 February 1946.

36. As Kealey, Parnaby and Whitaker note, ‘the Gouzenko Affair was the first to point to treason for ideological reasons, a notion that would become paradigmatic of the early Cold War’. Whitaker et al., Political Policing in Canda, 182.

37. Canada, The Report of the Royal Commission to Investigate Facts.

38. Whitaker, “How America, Britain and Canada Transformed Espionage into Subversion.”

39. Whitaker and Marcuse, Making of a National Insecurity State.

40. Ibid.

41. Canada, Freedom and Security under the Law.

42. Sethna and Hewitt, “Rcmp Framing of English-Canadian Women’s Liberation Groups.”

43. Ibid.

44. This relationship, as Kealey notes, would enhance the RCMP’s credibility within MI5 in later years when concerns emerged that the junior partners in the Cold War alliance were more vulnerable to Soviet espionage. Kealey, “Early Cold War Commonwealth Spooks.”

45. According to one Pentagon memorandum, the ‘military intelligence services are seriously concerned that classified documents containing military technical information will fall into the hands of potential enemies, particularly in view of already exposed subversive activities such as the Canadian spy ring’. As quoted in Cain, “Venona in Australia and Its Long-Term Ramifications,” 234. On the Americans’ concern with Canadian security in the signals intelligence field, see Littleton, Canada and the Western Intelligence Network, 97–9.

46. Canada, The Report of the Royal Commission to Investigate Facts.

47. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, 108–9.

48. McKnight, Australia’s Spies and Their Secrets. For a detailed history of these events, see Ball and Horner, Breaking the Codes.

49. McKnight, “Rethinking Cold War History,” 189–90; Cain, “Venona in Australia and Its Long-Term Ramifications;” and McKnight, Australia’s Spies and Their Secrets.

50. Cain, “Venona in Australia and Its Long-Term Ramifications,” 234. See also Aldrich, Britain, American and Cold War Secret Intelligence, 110–3.

51. Cain, “Responses to the Defections of Gouzenko in Canada and Petrov in Australia;” McKnight, “Reassessing the Rosenberg and Petrov Affairs.”

52. Cain, “Venona in Australia and Its Long-Term Ramifications,” 235. MI5 also encouraged the RCMP to develop institutional structures similar to MI5. Among other issues, they wanted to Intelligence Branch to have greater prominence within the RCMP and report directly to the Commissioner. Kealey, “Early Cold War Commonwealth Spooks.”

53. Cain, “Venona in Australia and Its Long-Term Ramifications”; Taylor, “Mi5 and the Security Conversation in New Zealand;” Murphy, “Creating a Commonwealth Intelligence Culture.”

54. Murphy argues that British intelligence agencies’ efforts to improve security practices among Commonwealth countries was an attempt to entrench their influence, particularly among emerging nations (which he describes as a ‘Commonwealth intelligence culture’): ‘The expansion of British intelligence operations across the Empire in the post-war period, largely as a consequence of the Cold War, created a wide-ranging network of contacts. Britain hoped to be able to maintain its influence over colonies nearing independence through their retention of British or British-trained intelligence personnel’. (132).

55. Kealey, “Canada, Australia, and New Zealand at the Secret Commonwealth Security Conferences.” According to Murphy, the British provided training and support in order to ‘centralize responsibility for security intelligence gathering into the hands of a single agency, modelled on MI5’. Murphy, “Creating a Commonwealth Intelligence Culture,” 137.

56. Aldrich, Britain, American and Cold War Secret Intelligence, 114–5.

57. Gouzenko had, among other things, provided information about the GRU’s cipher system. According to James Littleton, plans for ending Canada’s wartime sigint operations were discarded following Gouzenko’s defection. Littleton, Canada and the Western Intelligence Network, 93. See also Rudner, “Canada’s Communications Security Establishment”; Bryden, Canadian Intelligence in the Second World War; Cox, Canada and the Five Eyes.

58. Kealey, “Canada, Australia, and New Zealand at the Secret Commonwealth Security Conferences.”

59. Murphy, “Creating a Commonwealth Intelligence Culture;” and Kealey, “Australia, Canada, and New Zealand and the Secret Commonwealth Security Conference.”

60. LAC, Walter Surma Tarnopolsky fonds, MG31 E55, General Correspondence on Memoranda, v.19, Cabinet Directive No.35 Security in the Public Service of Canada, 18 December 1963.

61. Sethna and Hewitt, “Rcmp Framing of English-Canadian Women’s Liberation Groups During the Cold War;” Palmer, Canada’s 1960s, chapter 9.

62. Ibid, 148.

63. Clément, “Human Rights Abuses under the War Measures Act;” Hewitt, “The Political Consequences of Separatist Violence in Quebec.”

64. Whitaker, “Rcmp Intelligence and the October Crisis.”

65. Hewitt, “Evolution of International Counter-Terrorism in the Rcmp,” 1.

66. Ernhoffer, “Destroy Secret Files, Quebec Urged.”

67. Minister of Justice Quebec, Rapport de La Commission D’enquête Sur Des Opérations Policières En Territoire Québécois.

68. Smith, “Canada’s Counter-Terrorism Experience,” 103.

69. Ibid.

70. Over the next several years, the ‘police and their informers engaged in a pattern of institutionalized wrongdoing and illegal conduct in an attempt to prevent other acts of terrorism in the lead up to the 1976 Montreal Olympics. … Instead of prosecutions, the RCMP employed active forms of disruption and dirty tricks in terrorism cases. One example of such disruption was the infamous burning of a barn to either prevent the meeting of the FLQ and the Black Panthers or force them to a location where there was electronic surveillance. Another example involved false communiques in the name of the FLQ that were, in turn, cited to the government as evidence of the terrorist threat. RCMP illegal conduct also included 400 break-ins targeting, among other things, the office of a separatist newspaper, trade unions, the Parti Quebecois, and the premises of left-leaning groups in British Columbia. The Security Service also surveilled MPs, opened mail, made illegal use of income tax information for non-income tax purposes, stole dynamite and a Parti Quebecois membership list, and spied on universities, unions, Indigenous groups, and political parties’. Forcese and Roach, Radicalization of Canadian Anti-Terrorism, 39.

71. Whitaker et al., Political Policing in Canada, 304.

72. Canada, Freedom and Security under the Law.

73. Hewitt, “Evolution of International Counter-Terrorism in the Rcmp.”

74. See, for instance, Aust, Baader-Meinhoff, 434–5; and Sterling, The Secret War of International Terrorism, 13–16. Hager argues that the Soviet Union sponsored terrorism largely as a byproduct of support for armed conflict in countries around the world (rather than an explicit support for terrorism as a strategy). Hager, “Latin American Terrorism.” Sterling notes that ‘most terrorist bands started out after 1968 without experience, skills, money, weapons, or international connections. They reached their high level of performance over the following decade thanks largely to guerilla training, guidance, weapons, sanctuary, and the right introductions provided by Cuba or the Palestinian Resistance. Cuban’s armed forces and intelligent services have been in bond to the Soviet Union since 1968. … The Palestinian Resistance has been wholly armed by the Soviet Union since 1968. … The terrorists’ primary value to the Kremlin lay in their resolute efforts to weaken and demoralize, confuse, humiliate, frighten, paralyze, and if possible dismantle the West’s democratic societies’. Sterling, The Secret War of International Terrorism, 292, 95.

75. Hager, “Latin American Terrorism;” Sterling, The Secret War of International Terrorism, 192–3, 98–9, 289–96.

76. Director General (RCMP) M.R. Dare to A.M. Hart (Re. Attendance of Representatives of African Liberation Movements), LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4249, f. Black Power: Olympic ’76 Activities, 29 January 1974. The security plan for the Montreal Olympics, however, makes no direct correlation between the Soviet Union and terrorist threats against Canada.

77. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4249, f. Black Power: Olympic ’76 Activities, memorandum re. Security – 1976 Olympic games, 4 September 1974.

78. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4368, f. Planning Documents, External Affairs memorandum Re. Call by Soviet First Secretary B.A. Soukharev, 15 May 1975.

79. Hewitt, “Evolution of International Counter-Terrorism in the Rcmp,” 4.

80. Ibid., 1.

81. Ibid., 6.

82. Ibid.

83. Kitson, Low Intensity Operations.

84. According to Finnane, the ‘hostage-taking and massacre at the Munich Olympics by the Black September wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization was the most significant single event escalating attention to the threat of international terrorism in the 1970s’. Finnane, “The Munich Olympics Massacre,” 834.

Ibid.

85. Ibid., 820.

86. Ibid., 823.

87. According to CIA director William J. Casey, ‘in providing terrorist movements with arms, training, and political support, the Soviet Union and its allies have thus discovered a highly “cost-effective” way of making the point that in today’s world it is not safe to practice democracy’. As quoted in Hager, “Latin American Terrorism.” As Giraldo and Trinkunas argue, state sponsorship declined significantly in the aftermath of the Cold War. Giraldo and Trinkunas, “Terrorism Financing and State Responses,” 9–10, 24–25.

88. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4362, f. Olympic Secretariat, Secret – Olympic Security Planning, n.d.

89. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4363, f. Summer Olympics in Montreal, Agenda: National Civil Aviation Security Committee Meeting, 3 March 1976. Air travel, which was becoming more common by this time, exacerbated the dangers of international terrorism for the Olympics. Many of visitors to the Olympics in Japan (1964) and Mexico (1968) had arrived by plane. The RCMP anticipated that close to 80 per cent of visitors to Montreal would have to be screened at airports. This was a major issue of concern: ‘Recent acts of terrorism world-wide which, in one form or another become associated with airports and/or aircraft, call for manpower to act quickly in containing and stabilizing a terrorist act at major airports. Other airports in Canada, including Ottawa and Vancouver will receive special attention and security will be increased on an as required basis in line with local conditions and security survey recommendations’. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4362, f. Olympic Secretariat – Cooperation 1, Memorandum to Working Group on Security, 16 May 1973; LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4358, f. Wallet, National Security Plan, 1976.

90. Library and Archives Canada (LAC), Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), RG146, volume 4359, Final Report Security Service, 1976, 76.

91. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4359, Final Report Security Service, 1976, 43.

92. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4874, f. Estimates-Supplement, Programme Memorandum to Solicitor General, 1974–1975.

93. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4359, f. Wallet Attachments, Final Report Security Service, 1976, 4.

94. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4874, f. Wallet Final Report, RCMP Final Report, 1976.

95. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4363, f. Summer Olympics Olympic Secretariat Cooperation volume 6, Plannification et Preparation de la Sécurité pour les Jeux Olympiques de 27 July 1976, 1977. FONT PROBLEM.

96. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4362, f. Olympic Secretariat – Cooperation 1, Memorandum to Working Group on Security, 16 May 1973.

97. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4359, f. Wallet Attachments, Final Report Security Service, 1976. The Security Service’s final report appears in two separate folders. The following content, which appears at the end of this sentence, was redacted in one of the reports but not in the other one (the reason for the redaction is unclear): ‘, to assess the Foreign Intelligence Officers and any potential operational opportunities which might arise’. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4363, f. Olympic Secretariat Cooperation, Security Service final report, 1976.

98. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4359, f. Wallet Attachments, Final Report Security Service, 1976, 30.

99. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4359, f. Wallet Attachments, Final Report Security Service, 1976, 28..

100. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4359, f. Wallet Attachments, Final Report Security Service, 1976.

101. Ibid.

102. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4361, f. policy security screening files, 1976.

103. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4367, f. Cabinet Committee on Security and Intelligence – Planning & Threats, Security Assessment, 20 February 1976; LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4249, f. Black Power, General Conditions and Subversive Activities Among Negroes, 17 February 1976; LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4249, f. Black Power, Deputy-Director General (Ops) to Commanding Officers A and H Division (Black Power), 6 February 1974.

104. In fact, most of the references to communist countries in these reports suggest that the Olympics were an opportunity to develop positive relationships with security personnel in those countries. For instance, in one report on the Soviet Union, the author suggests that ‘there were of course some interesting encounters from a counter espionage perspective but these had no bearing on Olympics security per se. … This programme in respect to the Yugoslav, Czech and E. German interest areas was well conceived and of real value to “B” Ops in that it provided an ideal milieu for face to face informal contact between investigators and designed Mission personnel (who were prepared to talk about “security”). As the programme proceeded, the rapport between our members and these Block Attaches increased – to the extent that the Czechs and Yugoslavs have displayed some willingness to engage in post-Olympic liaison’. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4363, f. Olympic Secretariat, memorandum Division B final report, 22 September 1976.

105. See note 100 above.

106. As Rudner has suggested, the ‘Canadian Sigint operations were also targeting other perceived threats to Canada’s national security and territorial integrity. Among the countries now targeted were those whose foreign policy behaviour was considered inimical to Canada and its allies, and those whose embassies or representatives were suspected of engaging in illegitimate political activities, inappropriate dealings with Canadian residents, support for subversive or terrorist groups, or illicit arms procurements’. Moreover, during the 1970s, ‘CSE, acting at behest of NSA, began mounting external interception operations from Canadian diplomatic posts abroad in an operation codenamed “Pilgrim”’. This shift complemented the counterterrorism programmes developed for the Olympics. Rudner, “Canada’s Communications Security Establishment,” 106.

107. See note 100 above.

108. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4363, f. Olympic Secretariat Cooperation with [redacted] Ops volume 1, A Division Security Service Report, 14 September 1976.

109. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4363, f. Olympic Secretariat Cooperation with [redacted] Ops volume 1, security service planning, 15 September 1976.

110. See note 100 above

111. Ibid.

112. Fox, 70.

113. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4363, f. Olympic Secretariat Cooperation with [redacted] Agencies, Classified Memorandum, 30 August 1976.

114. LAC, RCMP, RG146, volume 4363, f. Olympic Secretariat – Information, classified telegram on foreign services, 2 September 1976.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dominique Clément

Dominique Clément is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta. His website, HistoryOfRights.ca, is an expansive teaching and research portal on the history of human rights in Canada.