Gordon Lunan

Lunan was born December 31, 1914, in Kirkcaldy, Scotland.[1] He had three brothers and his father worked as a commercial traveller. When he was nine years old, his family moved to London where he attended Belmont School and, later, Mill Hill School. He finished school at 17 and begin an apprenticeship with S. H. Benson, a British advertising company. After two years, he earned a position in the copy department and worked as a copywriter.[2]

Lunan immigrated to Canada in 1938 and found work with A. McKim, an advertising agency in Montreal.[3] In 1939, Lunan met Phyllis Newman, a Polish immigrant. The two were married in September that year, shortly after the start of the Second World War.[4]

On January 20, 1943, Lunan enlisted in the Canadian Army as a private. Three months later, he earned a commission as a second lieutenant and was transferred to the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals at the Barriefield Military Camp in Kingston and, on December 16, 1943, he was transferred to the Edmonton Fusiliers. Eleven months later, Lunan was assigned to the Wartime Information Board with the rank of lieutenant.[5] He was posted in Ottawa, where he edited Canadian Affairs, a military journal written for members of the armed forces serving overseas to keep them appraised of current affairs and prepare them for return to civilian life.[4][6]

Lunan became active in a number of political movements, such as the Quebec Committee for Allied Victory and the communist Labor-Progressive Party (LLP).[7] While he never joined the Communist Party, he had several communist connections. He was befriended by Fred Rose, a politician and union organizer who would go on to become a member of Parliament under the LLP banner. He met often with Rose and other communist activists and allowed them the use of his apartment for discussion groups.[4] In his 1995 memoir, The Making of a Spy: A Political Odyssey, he wrote:

I admired the Soviet Union for what I believed then to be its enlightened world view. I wished it well, but like most of my comrades, I suspect, I would not have wanted to live there or to make Canada over in its likeness. RCMP claims to the contrary notwithstanding, the real glue that abound me to my comrades and them to me was the shared desire for a more humane society, a fairer distribution of wealth.[8]

Lunan's espionage activities began in March 1945.[1] Lunan was approached by Rose about supplying information to the Soviets, a proposal Lunan quickly agreed to.[7] There are varying accounts of how the Soviets first made contact with Lunan. According to the testimony he would later give to the Kellock–Taschereau Commission, he arrived in his office one morning to find an anonymous note on his desk, inviting him to meet an unnamed person at a corner on Rideau Street.[9] According to his memoir, he received an anonymous phone call from a young women instructing him to meet her at the Château Laurier. She led him down Sussex Drive where she introduced him to a "shabbily and rather oddly dressed" man.[10]

In either case, the individual was Colonel Vasili Rogov, assistant to Colonel Nikolai Zabotin, the military attaché at the Soviet Embassy, whom Lunan knew only as "Jan".[11] Rogov proved rigidly secretive and their initial meeting was brief; the two men climbed into the back of a chauffeur-driven car and the vehicle took off. Rogov briefly questioned Lunan about his job and handed him a white envelope with instructions to destroy it after he had read its contents. The driver hurriedly circled back toward their starting point and Lunan was unceremoniously dropped off mid-block.[12][11]

The envelope contained instructions to act as a go-between for three prospective informants: Israel Halperin (to whom the Soviet had assigned the code name, "Bacon"), Edward Mazerall (code-named "Bagley"), and Durnford Smith (code-named "Badeau"). The three men attended the same discussion group and Lunan was already acquainted with Smith.[1][13] Lunan was to relay requests for information on Canadian research in a number of fields. Lunan's career in journalism offered him cover for recruiting informants, some of whom were led to believe they were speaking to him in his capacity as editor of Canadian Affairs.[9] Lunan was assigned the code name, "Back."[14]

Smith was the most productive of Lunan's sources. Smith was an electrical engineer with the National Research Council (NRC). From March to August 1945, he passed along 17 secret reports – totalling 700 pages – on radar systems, radio tubes, and microwaves. However, the information proved to be extremely technical and Lunan, with the no scientific background, proved ineffective as an intermediary. Instead, the GRU opted to have Rogov deal with Smith directly.[15][16][17]

Halperin was a mathematics professor at Queen's University who had taken leave to serve in the Canadian Artillery during the Second World War.[18] The Soviets assigned Lunan a lengthy list of objectives regarding Halperin; among other things, they wanted him to provide information regarding Canadian research on explosives and, in particular, supply samples of uranium. Halperin met with Lunan several times, but supplied him only with verbal information on the capacity of Canadian explosives plants – information that was already publicly available – which Lunan wrote up in a one-and-a-half page report. Lunan continued to press Halperin for more information – particularly written information, since Lunan lacked the expertise to convey complex scientific concepts back to the Soviets – but Halperin continually refused. Lunan reported to Rogov, "It is impossible to get anything from him except... verbal descriptions, and I am not in a position to understand everything fully where it concerns technical details." Halperin eventually cut off contact with Lunan entirely.[19][20]

Mazerall was an electrical engineer with the NRC.[21][22] He was reluctant to help Lunan and put off meeting with him for weeks.[21] Finally, in late July 1945, Lunan approached him under the guise that the editor of an army newspaper was looking for information on developments in radar technology. Mazerall gave him two documents marked "confidential" – a research proposal and a paper on air navigation that was set to be presented at an upcoming symposium in London which the Soviets would be attending.[21][23]

Documents that were later obtained by the Kellock–Taschereau Commission suggest that, on at least two occasions, Lunan was given a payment of $100, with an additional $30 for each of Halperin, Mazerall, and Smith.[24] Another document suggested Rogov provided a separate gift of $100 following the birth of Lunan's daughter, whom he had named Jan, Rogov's code name. Lunan would later deny having received any payments.[1] In his memoir, Lunan claimed he was offered money, which he refused. He speculated that the money allocated to him was instead misappropriated by Embassy staff.[25]

On June 5, 1945, Lunan was promoted to captain.[5] He ceased his espionage activities in August 1945 following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.[26] His position with the Wartime Information Board did not give him access to any secret information that would have been of value to the Soviets.[1] Rather, his usefulness was limited to the extent he could extract information from Halperin, Mazerall, and Smith and he did not have the scientific literacy to act as an effective go-between.[27] He noted in his memoir:

My judgment eventually led me to abdicate my role as intermediary. Rogov was not interested in my assessment of Canadian or international affairs and I was not qualified to appraise information of a scientific nature, or to discuss or evaluate any reciprocal information coming from Rogov. Nor, for that matter, was I prepared to pressure or influence the others to do anything against their own judgment.[28]

In September 1944, Igor Gouzenko, a 25-year-old cipher clerk at the Soviet Embassy, learned that he was to be recalled to the Soviet Union.[29] The Soviet Union had been devastated by the Second World War and the standard of living in his country could not compare to that afforded by his post in Canada.[30] Zabotin was able to delay his return by insisting he could not be spared until a replacement could be found and trained.[31] In July 1945, however, his replacement arrived from Moscow and Gouzenko's departure seemed inevitable.[32] Eager to avoid repatriation, he gathered more than 100 documents that implicated a number of Canadians – including Lunan – and defected from the embassy on September 5.[33] Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King responded later that year by signing a top-secret Order-in-Council (P.C. 6444) passed under the authority of the War Measures Act.[34] It allowed police to detain suspects without evidence and suspended the suspects' right to legal counsel.[35]

Rose had received news of Gouzenko's defection on September 6. He passed along the news to his contacts, telling them, "Lie low. Don't talk. Nothing will happen." He assured Lunan that he was unlikely to face any recourse, as King would be reluctant to upset relations with the Soviet Union.[36] As time passed, Lunan appeared to grow more relaxed; on November 7, the anniversary of the October Revolution, Lunan and Rose attended a celebration at the Soviet Embassy.[37]

For five months, Rose' prediction appeared to hold true; Gouzenko's defection remained a secret. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King had been hesitant to get involved out of fear of damaging relations with the Soviet Union and undermining talks about nuclear weapons control.[38] Additionally, the Soviet Union had largely ceased its espionage activities within Canada following Gouzenko's defection and the suspects posed no immediate threat to Canadian security.[39]

On January 9, 1946, Lunan was sent to London where he was stationed at Canada House.[5] He was initially tasked with providing publicity for the first session of the United Nations General Assembly, but he ended up as speech writer for Paul Martin Sr., King's Secretary of State for External Affairs.[9][40] Martin was aware that Lunan was under suspicion of espionage.[41]

On February 3, 1946, Gouzenko's defection was made public when Drew Pearson, an NBC Radio host, announced in his weekly broadcast that a Soviet agent had surrendered to Canadian authorities and that Canada was quietly investigating a Soviet spy ring. On February 5, King hurriedly launched the Kellock–Taschereau Commission, a royal commission chaired by Supreme Court Justices Roy Kellock and Robert Taschereau, to investigate Gouzenko's information.[42]

On February 13, Lunan was sent a cable recalling him to Canada under the pretense that he was urgently needed for an "important assignment" in Ottawa.[41][43] He arrived at Dorval Airport on February 15. He heard his name called over the loud-speaker. He was directed to a small room where several plainclothes RCMP officers surrounded and detained him.[43][44] That same day, 10 others were detained in a series of police raids in Montreal, Ottawa, and Kingston, with two others detained the following day.[45][46] Among those detained were Halperin, Mazerall, and Smith.[47][48] Rose would not be taken into custody until March 14.[49]

Lunan was released on October 20, 1951, after serving four-and-a-half years, with time off for good behaviour.[92][93] His marriage to Newman survived his incarceration, but she filed for divorce in 1952.[94] Lunan later married Miriam Magee, a woman he met at a party celebrating his release. The two were married in Montreal, where Lunan returned to the advertising industry and eventually started his own firm. In 1975, he retired and the couple moved to a rural home outside Ottawa.[95] Magee died from cancer in 1988.[96]

In 1995, Lunan published a memoir on his experiences, The Making of a Spy: A Political Odyssey. In 2005, the memoir was republished as Redhanded: Inside the Spy Ring that Changed the World. The primary difference between the two books is an epilogue in the latter where he said he acted "naively, stupidly and admittedly outside the law" and expressed regret over his role in the Gouzenko Affair and bringing about the Cold War in Canada.[95]

In 2005, Lunan suffered a fall and spent the final two weeks of his life in a hospital in Hawkesbury, Ontario. He died October 3 at the age of 90.[95][97]

• The Making of Spy: A Political Odyssey (1995)
• Redhanded: Inside the Spy Ring that Changed the World (2005)