How the Cold War Began

by Amy Knight

  At the center of these policy decisions was Nunn May, referred to by the allied intelligence services as “Primrose.” Of all the suspected agents, he was the most important because he was said to have passed atomic secrets to the GRU. The strategic value of the information that May actually produced was later thrown into question. But at the time the allied intelligence services were convinced, after seeing Gouzenko's documents and hearing what he had to say, that May was dangerous. On September 10, Norman Robertson and British High Commissioner Malcolm MacDonald convinced Prime Minister King that he needed to agree to a secret Order-in-Council authorizing May's police surveillance and arrest, if necessary. As King observed, “Robertson and Malcolm [MacDonald] represented that if he [May] got away to Moscow he would be able to inform the authorities there of everything within his knowledge.”67

  Nunn May was scheduled to depart Canada by plane for London on September 15 to take up a position at King's College, London. There was much worry, however, that he might have heard about Gouzenko's defection and decided to flee, perhaps to the Soviet Union. One of the RCMP officers in charge of keeping the suspects in the case under surveillance, Sergeant Cecil Bayfield, was therefore given the brief assignment of shadowing May on his journey. Posing as a courier for the British High Commission, Bayfield sat where he could keep an eye on May, but it was an uneventful flight, and when they deplaned, Bayfield spotted two officers from the British Special Branch waiting to take over the surveillance.68

  It is not known whether May was warned about the defection by the GRU while he was still in Canada. Philby's information sent out first through NKVD stations may have come too late to reach May before he left. In any case, May proceeded with his plans as if nothing were the matter. As allied intelligence knew from Gouzenko's documents, the GRU had originally planned to continue their association with May, and so before May left Canada they had arranged for him to rendezvous with a new Soviet contact at 8 p.m. on October 7 in front of the British Museum in London. May was instructed to carry a copy of the Times under his left arm and to say “Best regards from Mikel” when he saw his contact, who would first ask him street directions. The GRU stipulated that, if the meeting for some reason did not occur, then the alternative dates were October 17 and 27 respectively.69

  British authorities realized they could not arrest May solely on the evidence they had from Gouzenko. As they noted in a top secret report, “It is considered that the evidence at present available is not sufficient to justify the arrest of PRIMROSE or, if he is arrested, to afford a reasonable probability that he would be convicted in a court of law.” So they hoped to entrap May in the act of espionage that was to take place when he met with his designated contact on October 7, or on one of two successive dates thereafter. In order for this to happen, however, nothing should be done that could make May suspect they were on to him: “It is not possible to supervise all the movements and activities of PRIMROSE as to ensure against his passing information to the Russians or even making a successful escape from this country to Russia without at any rate gravely imperilling the chances of uncovering a Soviet organisation here and of providing confirmatory evidence of PRIMROSE's guilt. In practical terms this means that if there is to be any chance of successfully covering the expected rendezvous, PRIMROSE cannot be subjected to continuous surveillance until the first meeting.”70

  MI5 officers clearly wanted nothing to come in the way of the meeting between May and his Soviet contact. In a telegram to the RCMP, Captain Guy Liddell observed that May was working every day at King's College and arranging for lodging in London. “His behaviour gives no ground for supposing that he is at all apprehensive.” The report went on to note that May's luggage would be arriving by ship in two days, but that it would not be searched because they doubted they would find anything of interest and did not want to “prejudice chance of his keeping rendezvous.”71 Of course, Philby in MI6 had doubtless managed by then to make sure that May was warned. There never would be any rendezvous.

  RCMP officials were gathering evidence with plans to ultimately make arrests. But Prime Minister King was about to throw a monkey wrench into the plans. On September 23, when King met for dinner at Laurier House with intelligence advisers, including William Stephenson, to decide on a course of action, he dismayed those present by saying he wanted to talk with the Russians privately “with a view to discovering from them whether they intended to really try to be friends and work for a peaceful world.” One can imagine the eyes rolling when King blurted out this new “diplomatic” strategy. But he was prime minister, and as such had the ultimate say, so he had to be persuaded otherwise. Making the effort, Rivett-Carnac “spoke of what was to be gained by making the whole business public in the way of stopping the communist movement on the continent. That to expose the whole thing might cause our people to cut away from the Russian influence altogether.”72 But King was obstinate, and Rivett-Carnac's words did not sway him.

  The next day the RCMP sent King the bsc report on the Gouzenko case, which he spent two hours reading. With his usual naïveté, he was appalled by the perfidy of the Russians: “As I dictate this note, I think of the Russian Embassy being only a few doors away and of there being there a centre of intrigue.” Nonetheless, King still was not convinced it was a good idea to arrest the spy suspects. At the very least, he wanted to confer personally with the Americans and British before any decisions were made, which meant a trip to Washington and then London as soon as possible.73

  Anxious to prevent King from arguing for a quiet diplomatic solution to the Gouzenko case, RCMP commissioner Stuart Wood wrote to Minister of Justice Louis St. Laurent, explaining why the RCMP believed it was important to carry through with arrests and make the affair public: “While we have a most acute realization of the very important diplomatic and political aspects of this case which, of course, have to be given precedence . . . from a purely police and intelligence standpoint I must say that I am very much in favour of arrests and consider that prosecutions should be entered in every instance where the evidence is available and that the whole matter should be brought to the attention of the public.” Wood went on to request Mr. Laurent make his opinion known to the prime minister before the latter left Ottawa.74 Although Wood was eventually able to carry out arrests – and see the Gouzenko case attract a level of public attention he had never imagined – he would have to wait several long and frustrating months for it to happen.

  Chapter 3

  “PRIMROSE,” MISS CORBY, AND THE POLITICS OF ESPIONAGE

  Soviet Espionage was Siberia time: the enemy just went on and on; when you got rid of one spy, another would take his place. How would you get satisfaction?

  Robert Lamphere, The FBI-KGB War

  On Saturday, September 29, 1945, Mackenzie King flew to Washington, D.C., with his able lieutenant Norman Robertson to visit U.S. president Truman. Once that was done, he would leave from New York for London. Characteristically, King had dithered about the trip to Washington from the beginning, and had it not been for the prodding of Robertson, he would not have gone at all. King could be a prima donna. Told that President Truman would be leaving for Missouri on the day he planned to arrive in Washington, King churlishly refused the White House's suggestion that he come a day early. Truman had to postpone his trip to accommodate him. Still, King balked at the idea of flying, apparently because it depended on the weather, but also considered it too expensive to go by train. In the end, he did fly, but he was miffed at the Americans. He complained to his diary, “In conversation with Atherton [Ray Atherton, the American ambassador to Canada] toward the last, in his way of speaking, one might have thought that the going to Washington was rather something for which I was asking rather than something which I felt was in part acceptance of the President's invitation and in part obligation which Canada owed to an ally.”1

  In preparation for the visit, Truman had received a background report from the State Department, which included a biographical sketch of King,
national leader of the Liberal Party since 1919 and prime minister of Canada, on and off, since 1921: “As a speaker and writer he is lacking the essential gifts of clarity, force or ease. On the floor of the House he is a past master at evasion in answering questions but in rough and tumble debate he scores many more points than he loses. He is primarily a student. He is a bachelor and devotes a large part of his leisure to reading and abstract thinking.” The sketch went on to note that King's three main goals were to ensure Canada's recognition as an independent nation, bound to the Commonwealth only by loyalty to the Crown, to support Great Britain, because this was in Canada's best interests, and to promote a closer relationship between Canada and the United States. As for the agenda of discussion between the prime minister and the U.S. president, the State Department made no mention of Soviet espionage. Rather, the focus of the talks was to be a proposal for Canada to start a program of military integration with the United States.2

  King's agenda was different. During the three-hour plane trip he spent the time rereading the contents of a green folder containing, according to King, “a copy of the statement prepared by our police of the statements of information secured from an examination of corby and other sources.”3 This was probably the report he had studied a few days earlier, written by the British Security Coordination.

  King and Robertson were met at the airport by the Canadian ambassador to Washington, Lester (or “Mike”) Pearson, who later reported (tongue-in-cheek) back to Ottawa: “We went to particular pains to see that the Prime Minister's visit was a pleasant one and for that purpose kept off a storm until ten minutes after their arrival; arranged to have the temperature drop from 92 to 68 within three hours of their arrival, and had the clocks put back that night one hour so that Mr. King would be able to get some additional sleep. I don't really see how hospitality could go further!”4

  Pearson, an Oxford graduate and a former history professor at the University of Toronto, had a bright future in front of him. In three years, after being elected a member of the Canadian Parliament, he would become minister of external affairs, in 1958 he would become leader of the Liberal Party, and in 1963 prime minister of Canada. Pearson would also achieve international prominence when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1956 for his role in resolving the Suez crisis. What led to this success? In the words of his biographer, “He saw his opportunity and devoted himself wholly to grasping it. He was, in fact, extraordinarily ambitious, able to work twelve-hour days year after year, to deny himself pleasures he savoured, to mingle with and even flatter those he loathed.” Pearson was exceptionally witty and had a powerful charm, but he was also shrewd and decisive. These qualities would be put to a severe test later, when the Gouzenko case had some unpleasant and difficult repercussions for him.5

  After King had gone to bed, Pearson and Robertson paid a visit to U.S. undersecretary of state Dean Acheson and “went over the whole ground with him far into the night,” including the impact that the Gouzenko case would have on efforts at international, civilian control of the bomb, which was of special interest to Acheson and Truman.6 Pearson had faced an uphill struggle since coming to Washington in 1943. His job, first as assistant Canadian ambassador and then as ambassador, was to “educate the Americans about the sovereignty of Canada” and disabuse them of the idea that Canada was still part of the British Empire. According to Pearson's biographer, Acheson, whose mother was a Canadian and the heiress to a whiskey fortune, tended, ironically, to look down on Canadians, or at least on the idea of Canadian statesmanship, and “he suffered Canadian fools badly.” A graduate of Yale and Harvard law schools, Acheson, “with his beautiful, chalk-stripe English flannel suits, his striking carriage, his bristling guardsman's mustache,” cut a formidable figure. Someone wondered how he and Truman, a humble product of Missouri, could possibly get along, but they got along famously. After Truman named Acheson secretary of state in 1949, he said Acheson was “doing a whale of a job” and was his “top brain man” in the cabinet. Pearson evidently had his reservations about Acheson, but as an adept and convivial diplomat, Pearson managed to get on well with him, as did the more retiring Robertson. In fact, Pearson and Acheson had something in common. Both would eventually be called upon to publicly defend protégés who were accused of spying in connection with the Gouzenko case.7

  Acheson conveyed the information about the spy case to Truman the next morning before King arrived to see him. King, who studied the contents of the green folder again before going to the White House, was seemingly unaware of his subordinates’ meeting with Acheson the night before and thought that what he had to say would surprise Truman.8

  According to King's diary, the president “extended a cordial welcome.” After they had covered the rather mundane complications of King's plans for his visit, King launched into a discussion of the espionage case. He apparently went into considerable detail, starting his narration with the story of Gouzenko's defection. Truman then pressed for information on American spies: “He said 2 or 3 times that he was particularly interested in anything I could tell him of what had happened in the U.S. or would give evidence of espionage there. I then said perhaps it would be best were I to read from the report I had with me.”

  King read aloud from the green folder about the Russian espionage system, about “Primrose” (Alan Nunn May), and others. Then, as he wrote in his diary, “also the statement that an assistant secretary of the Secretary of State's Department was supposed to be implicated.” Truman did not seem surprised. (He not only had been briefed by Acheson, but had also received the two FBI reports, the second of which had similarly “promoted” the spy to an assistant secretary.) As King recalled, “Acheson then said that they had thought the report [in the green folder] had reference to an assistant to an asst. secretary. I said of course I knew nothing but what was in the statement as recorded there.”9 As noted earlier, someone had inserted the words “assistant to” followed by a question mark in the bsc report. If King was in fact reading from this document he may have left these words out.

  Whatever the case, Acheson realized that the wording was no minor nuance. Getting right the question of whether the spy was an assistant to an Assistant Secretary or an assistant to Stettinius was essential both to knowing where to begin a search and determining how deeply compromised the American policy-making apparatus might be.

  The claims emanating from Canada about a State Department spy so bothered Acheson that he requested a conference on “developments in the Canadian case” with FBI chief Hoover, who came to Acheson's office on October 9. Acheson asked Hoover if he had any information on the Soviet agent “who was one of the assistants in the State Department,” thus avoiding specific terminology. According to an FBI memorandum, “The Director told Acheson we had not been able to definitely establish the identity of this man. He [Acheson] inquired as to whether the Director had any suspects. The Director said we had one party in mind as a possible suspect, though there was no direct evidence to sustain this suspicion. He [Acheson] inquired as to who this was and the Director told him Alger Hiss, but the Director did not feel it was the time to make any accusation in this matter as there was no direct proof of the same. . . . Acheson stated the Secretary of State was greatly concerned about the matter and it was desired that every effort be made to ascertain definitely the identity of the person referred to.”10 This was troubling news for Acheson. Alger Hiss was a friend and a protégé, whom he admired and trusted. Alger shared with him the same deep commitment to internationalism and the United Nations. Alger's brother Donald had worked directly under Acheson at the State Department a few years earlier and was now a member of Acheson's former law firm. If Alger Hiss really was a spy, it would have immense repercussions for the State Department and for Acheson personally.

  The focus of attention in the Gouzenko case, however, remained Alan Nunn May and his possible arrest. Before King had left Ottawa, Alexander Cadogan, British undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, sent telegrams t
o both Ottawa and Washington saying that British authorities expected to arrest May soon and proposing that the Canadians and the Americans make arrests in the spy case as well. The British were clearly nervous about acting on their own. King and Robertson considered immediate arrests a bad idea, in part because they had been told there was not sufficient evidence in many of the Canadian cases. Even the RCMP now agreed that more time was needed. And King was still leaning toward simply discussing the matter quietly with the Soviets. In Washington, Robertson had conveyed their views to Acheson, who was in complete agreement. And in his meeting with King, Truman repeated the view more than once “that nothing should be done without agreement between the 3 [allies] and above all nothing should be done which might result in premature action in any direction.” So anxious was Truman that the Gouzenko case not come out in the open that he had Acheson give a message to the British ambassador to the United States, Lord Halifax, in which he urged the British not to arrest May unless it was absolutely necessary for the sake of security.11

  A key reason for Truman's and Acheson's concern about publicizing the case was their belief that it would interfere with efforts to reach an international agreement on the atomic bomb. Truman was trying to get Congress to agree to the transfer of authority over the bomb from the War Department to a civilian commission under the president. He and Acheson were convinced that, since the secret of the bomb could not and should not be indefinitely maintained, it was important to have all nations, including the Soviet Union, participate in a treaty that would ensure open exchanges of atomic information and peaceful use of scientific knowledge. These views were expressed forcefully by Walter Lippmann in theWashington Post just a few days after King and Robertson's visit. Lester Pearson, for one, noticed the similarity of Lippmann's views with what Acheson had said to him and Robertson. He sent the Lippmann article to a colleague in Ottawa, noting, “Dean [Acheson] discussed this matter with Norman and me last Saturday night in almost exactly the same terms as this article. I suppose that he and others are using Walter Lippmann's column as a trial balloon in this matter.”12