Introduction by By Ron Gostick

Tags

Canada, Canadian League of Rights, Communism, Communist conspiracy, Marxism, Patrick Walsh, RCMP, Ron Gostick, Whittaker Chambers, World Anti-Communist League

First, a few words about the author, Mr. Patrick Walsh.

Few, if any, can match the first-hand experience of Mr. Walsh on so many fronts battling the Communist conspiracy. His wide experience as a trade union organizer, soldier, undercover agent for the RCMP, lecturer, writer, and researcher on Communism, Marxism, and related subjects, has made him one of the free world’s leading authorities in his field and extremely well qualified to write this little work on Red infiltration and subversion in Ottawa.

In 1953, after his service with the RCMP, Mr. Walsh was a voluntary witness before the USA House Un-American Activities Committee, and received its thanks for the valuable evidence he presented, particularly on the top Communist agent, Alger Hiss.

Patrick Walsh is now an Executive Board Member of the World Anti-Communist League, and research director of the Canadian League of Rights.

Mr. Walsh, in this booklet, does not pretend to deal with more than a few highlights of a long catalogue of Communist infiltration and subversion within the Federal Government. He goes right back to the recruitment of Oscar D. Skelton by Comrade Louis Kon in 1923, and shows how Skelton — the ‘father’ of External Affairs — used his key position to recruit young Marxists and ‘colonize’ the Federal civil service in general, and External Affairs in particular, with Marxists and Red ‘sleepers’ who could be activated in the future.

Perhaps even more incredible than the success in recruiting to the Communist cause of young academics of well-to-do background at our universities, was the support and cover-up these subversives received in their betrayal of Canada from some civil servants in top positions, from Cabinet Ministers, and even from Prime Ministers. As Whittaker Chambers, in his classic, Witness, so eloquently puts it:

Security shatters, not because there are no more locks, but because the men naturally trusted with the keys and combinations are themselves the conspirators.

It should be noted — indeed, emphasized — that while Mr. Walsh exposes a number of individuals within the public service who turned out to be Red agents and subversives, this in no way reflects upon the character and integrity of the tens of thousands of loyal and dedicated men and women working in the Federal civil service. We must always remember that the betrayer is the exception, not the rule; and we should thank God for that great majority of public servants whose only loyalty and commitment are to our country and our people.

As publisher of The Canadian Intelligence Service and other reports for over thirty years, most of the facts presented by Mr. Walsh are familiar to me. But the marshalling of this material in chronological order and its concise presentation in booklet form, should make much easier the introduction of these essential facts and documentation to others.

Therefore, in writing this little work, Mr. Walsh has rendered a significant service to the cause of freedom in Canada. And because he is one of this country’s true patriots, this service in itself will be his reward.

February 20, 1982 Ron Gostick [National Director]
The Canadian League of Rights

Canada’s Watergate – Inside The Featherbed File: Treason in Canada

Tags

Bob Reguly, Canada, David Johnson, homosexuals in government, Igor Gouzenko, John Watkins, KGB spy network, Moscow, Pierre Elliott-Trudeau, RCMP Security Service, Soviet Union

The prevalence of homosexuals in government enabled the Soviet Union’s KGB spy network to score its greatest post-war successes in Ottawa.

—Columnist Bob Reguly, Toronto Sun, March 30, 1981

The publication of Chapman Pincher’s book, Their Trade is Treachery, dealing with the penetration of the Free World’s secret defences by the Soviet KGB secret police, has created concern throughout the Free World. This book was also responsible for the startling revelation that John Watkins, Canada’s ambassador to Moscow for 1954-56, and his successor, David Johnson, were both blackmailed by the KGB through set-up pictures of homosexual encounters.

The RCMP Security Service has likewise disclosed that a third ambassador, his name unrevealed, had also been blackmailed in similar circumstances by the KGB.

Further revelations by investigative reporter Bob Reguly in the Toronto Sun in the spring of 1981, quoted a former top-level RCMP officer to the effect that the Watkins “affair” had unleashed a large-scale clean-out of homosexuals in government as security risks, with the hunt focusing on the External Affairs Department in Ottawa. RCMP sources indicated that they had identified 3,000 homosexuals in middle and senior positions in the civil service and wanted them all weeded out, but didn’t succeed.

Many Canadians were somewhat puzzled in 1967, when the then Justice Minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, spawned his Criminal Code amendments which included legalizing homosexuality. Bob Reguly and others have claimed that when he became Prime Minister, Trudeau was instrumental in easing up the security restrictions on homosexuals, especially in External Affairs. It was around this time that the first inkling of a “Featherbed File” became known, and for the next 13 years all attempts by the Opposition MPs and the mass media to have the “Featherbed File” made public was thwarted by the Trudeau regime.

However the on-going security investigation pursuant to the “Gouzenko revelations ” of 1945-46 (which led to the arrest of fifteen top civil servants involved in Soviet espionage) brought out other aspects which have been carefully concealed by successive federal governments over a 60-year period.

The Comintern-KGB Soviet Nexus

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Canada, Canadian Communist Party, Canadian Royal Commission Report on Soviet Espionage, Comintern, Communist International, Fred Rose (M.P.), Gouzenko Report, Herbert Norman, Jean-Louis Gagnon, KGB, KGB Soviet secret police, Moscow, NKVD, Politburo, Sam Carr, Stalin, Victor Serge, WWII

Some background information is necessary in order to understand the link-up between the Comintern (Communist International) and the KGB Soviet secret police in the context of Soviet penetration of the Federal civil service.

Let us go to the outstanding authority on the Comintern, Victor Serge, who broke with Stalin in 1936 after having been an outstanding member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. In the February, 1947 issue of the magazine Plain Talk, in an article entitled Inside the Comintern, Serge gave this first-hand description of the Comintern:

The central bureaus of the Comintern in Moscow, located in a vast building opposite the Kremlin, guarded by the GPU, became a sort of worldwide intelligence center such as exists in no other country in the world. The central apparatus of the Comintern was subdivided into regional bureaus for the Latin countries, Central Europe, Scandinavia, the Middle East, the Far East, North America, Latin America, etc. These subdivisions varied with the needs of the moment. Each of these bureaus is, in turn, subdivided by countries. Economists, sociologists, political analysts examine with microscopic care the literature, press, secret intelligence, and other pertinent information stemming from the country of their specialization. They study the political configuration of these countries, and on the basis of their forecasts, the activities of Soviet agents throughout the world are outlined. This digested information and the elaborate plans worked out are finally submitted to the Politburo, passing through the hands of the party secretariat.

The ten years since the bloody purges of 1936-37 liquidated the Comintern’s former staffs have witnessed the formation of a new highly qualified personnel in this organization. A colossal set of archives has been accumulated and kept strictly up to date. No government anywhere has at its disposal as complete and documented an archive on its own country! Filed with the Comintern are the dossiers of sympathizers, active Communists, agents, subagents, anti-Communists, intellectuals, politicians, businessmen — all the material showing their usefulness to the Soviet Union, their corruptibility, their value in the struggle against the world. Two years after the “dissolution” of the Comintern, dossiers of the heads of the Canadian Communist party, removed by Igor Gouzenko from the files of the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, included notations such as “Sam Carr, alias Frank, member of the Labor Progressive Party, see detailed biography at the Center, Comintern.”

There has never been any question of “dissolving” or “liquidating” this remarkable inner organization. It has become an integral part of the Soviet state mechanism. And it would be stupid to doubt that these Comintern bureaus continue to gather their intelligence data, to stuff their dossiers, to supply their agents. If the Politburo were to decide to “reconstitute” the Comintern, under its old name or a fancy new one, officially or unofficially, it could do so with the scrawl of a pen — complete to the last dossier and the last pay voucher.

The Sam Carr referred to was the National Secretary of the Communist Party in Canada in the ’40s who was one of the masterminds of the Soviet spy network in the federal civil service. The Communist Party, after being banned in W.W. II, changed its name to the Labour Progressive Party, but with the same leadership as before.

It is not the purpose of this booklet to attempt to give the whole background of the Soviet KGB secret police. The informative book, KGB [The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents] is undoubtedly the most authoritative account of the KGB and is available from Canadian Intelligence Publications (CIP), although pressure from Ottawa has prevented Bantam Book (Canada) from publishing a Canadian edition for very obvious reasons which any careful reader can ascertain.

We must point out that although Soviet espionage generally operates on a parallel but separate level, the Canadian Royal Commission Report on Soviet espionage (generally referred to as the Gouzenko Report because of the involvement initially of Igor Gouzenko, a cypher clerk at the Soviet Embassy who defected and brought with him substantial proof of the existence of a Soviet military intelligence network operating within the Canadian government) did mention that several Soviet spy rings were operating in Canada, including the NKVD (now the KGB), and that the “Centre” (Comintern) had provided dossiers on some of the participants, including Sam Carr and Fred Rose, M.P. for Montreal-Cartier Constituency.

From the accumulation of material “leaked” to various individuals, plus the revelations in Chapman Picher’s book, Their Trade is Treachery, we are now in a better position to link the Comintern-KGB “connection” inasfar as the penetration of the civil service in general and the External Affairs Department in particular are concerned.

Readers of the Canadian Intelligence Service [CIS] for over 30 years and more recent On Target readers, of course, will find nothing startling in this booklet, except the Oscar Skelton “affair.” Had we published all of the CIS material dealing with treason and subversion in Ottawa, a more lengthy book would have been necessary. It is to the credit of the CIS publisher and editor, Ron Gostick, that such explosive material was printed and circulated, albeit to a smaller readership than the CIS has today. In 1982, belatedly, the CIS articles (especially dealing with the Herbert Norman and Jean-Louis Gagnon cases) are now becoming increasingly vindicated.

Comintern Penetrates Federal Civil Service

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Amtorg, Bob Reguly, Canada, civil service, Colonel Zabotin, Comintern, Communist International, Communist Party of Canada, External Affairs Department, Igor Gouzenko, Ivan Avakumovic, Jean-Louis Gagnon, Montreal, Soviet GRU military intelligence, Soviet penetration, Soviet Trade Mission

“Perhaps the most ominous Featherbed File finding from a security standpoint was the conclusion that O. D. Skelton, the revered ‘father of the civil service.’ was a Comintern agent recruited in 1923.”

—Bob Reguly, in Toronto Sun article, “Do
Soviets Run Civil Service?” (Mar. 31, 1981)

The almost incredible story of Soviet penetration into the Canadian civil service has never been written, with the exception of the Gouzenko exposé of the ’40s which uncovered one branch of Soviet spying: the GRU military intelligence network masterminded by Col. Zabotin. However, the Royal Commission Report dealing with Soviet espionage in the ’40s revealed that other Soviet spies active in the External Affairs Department had either fled the country (Jean-Louis Gagnon fled to Brazil, with the cooperation of Mitchell Sharp, then a director of Brazilian Traction Corporation) or could not be positively identified because only their code names were known.

The American government had permitted the Soviets to open a “trade” office in New York under the name of “Amtorg Corporation,” and in 1924 Canada followed suit and the Amtorg Trade building in Montreal soon became a transmission belt for

Comintern agents. In his informative book The Communist Party in Canada, Ivan Avakumovic, a History Professor at the U.B.C. and author of several other books on Communism, refers to this period:

The Communist International, besides issuing general guidelines, expressed its views on specific Canadian problems through the Anglo-American Secretariat, one of the organizational subdivisions of the Comintern. It was composed largely of American and British Communists working in Moscow, who followed events in Canada, read the minutes of leading CPC bodies and reports submitted by Canadian Communists on various topics. Periodically, Comintern officials discussed the affairs and problems of the Canadian Communist movement with delegates from the CPC. On the basis of these discussions and analyses, statements and advice in the form of directives, resolutions, telegrams, “Open Letters” and articles in the Comintern press reached the CPC. Material that could not be entrusted to the mails was sometimes delivered by the special courier service of the Comintern either directly from Europe or via the Communist Party of the U.S.A. Occasionally, in the years 1924-1927, the Comintern would use the facilities of the Soviet Trade Mission in Montreal.

 

Who Was Comrade Louis Kon?

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Amtorg, Canada, Comintern, Communist Party front, Comrade Louis Kon, Federation of Russian Canadians (FRC), Montreal, Moscow agents, Verigins, Vestnik

Featherbed concluded the Federal civil service was riddled by Soviet-sympathizing ‘agents of influence,’ including four deputy ministers.

—Bob Reguly (Toronto Sun, Mar. 31, 1981)

The AMTORG “Trade Mission” in Montreal was run by an old Bolshevik by the name of Louis Kon.

In the late ’20s and ’30s, the Comintern (Communist International) sent hundreds of Red intellectuals, mostly from French-speaking countries like France, Belgium and Switzerland, to help in a massive infiltration project aimed at the civil service of Quebec and Ottawa.

Because of his previous experience as a translator-interpreter for the Canadian expeditionary force in Siberia in 1919, Louis Kon had been able to set up a network of Russian language translators-interpreters from Halifax to Vancouver, mainly in the large centres but also scattered in rural areas among the left-wing elements of the Doukhobors led by Moscow agents like the Verigins. The backbone of this Russian-speaking group was the Communist Party front, the Federation of Russian Canadians (FRC). The Russian language publication, Vestnik, was the official organ of the FRC.

Comrade Kon Recruits Oscar Skelton

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Albert Saint-Martin, Annie Buller, Bella Gauld, Canada, Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA), Comintern, Czarist Russia, David Horwetz, Leon Trotsky, Lester B. Pearson, Louis Kon, Mackenzie King, Marxism, Maxim Gorky clubs, Montreal, Montreal Light Heat & Power Company, Natalia Sedova, NKVD, Oscar D. Skelton, Oscar Douglas Skelton, Queen's University (Kingston Ontario), Soviet AMTORG trading office

Louis Kon, while a student in his native Russia, had participated in the abortive 1905 uprising led by Leon Trotsky. His father owned one of the largest textile factories in Czarist Russia but Louis (like most of the other future Bolshevik leaders) became infected with the Marxist virus and a cell member of the underground social democratic revolutionaries which became the shortlived “Petersburg Soviet.”

Louis Kon escaped from prison in Russia and finally made his way to New York and then to Montreal around 1916. He managed to be hired as a translator, and later as an engineer for the old Montreal Light, Heat & Power Company when he returned from the ill-fated Vladivostok expedition in 1919.

He then took over the Soviet AMTORG trading office in Montreal and set up the Maxim Gorky clubs across Canada with the help of Bella Gauld, Annie Buller and other Communists active in the Labour College in Montreal. It was during a meeting of young students at Queen’s University in Kingston that Louis Kon was able to recruit Oscar D. Skelton and to successfully infiltrate him into the federal civil service, where Skelton later launched the External Affairs Department.

When the NKVD (known as “The Neighbours” in Soviet spy lingo — now the KGB) under Comrade Norman Freed succeeded in setting up a network of translators-interpreters from Halifax to Vancouver, the first step had been taken to start a massive penetration of the federal & provincial civil services, the law courts and the universities. Some of the older translators-interpreters were too well known as Bolshevik sympathizers to be able to participate in this “colonizing” of the federal civil service. They included Louis Kon, Albert Saint-Martin and David Horwetz. The latter was the official interpreter (Russian) for the City of Halifax, and it was in Horwetz’s Market Street home that Mrs. Leon Trotsky

(Natalia Sedova) and her children lived during Trotsky’s incarceration at the Amherst internment camp in April 1917.*

The NVKD-Comintern, in close co-operation with the “Anglo-American Secretariat,” had been carefully recruiting young Canadian university students in the British & Canadian universities. Undoubtedly one of their best recruits was O. D. Skelton who later became known as the revered “father of the Canadian civil service.”

In his best-seller, The Canadian Establishment, Peter C. Newman gives only a superficial thumbnail sketch of comrade Oscar Skelton: “During the next 16 years, Skelton founded and built up Canada’s External Affairs department and as MacKenzie King’s closest adviser became the most important civil servant in Ottawa.” In his Appendix I dealing with Ottawa’s Mandarins, there is only a mere mention of Skelton’s belonging to the Rideau Club and having taught at Queen’s University, and no mention of his membership in the Canadian-Soviet Friendship Society & how he also enticed MacKenzie King to join!

Skelton was careful to groom only pro-Soviet civil servants in the External Affairs Department. Most of them were being briefed by the Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA), the Canadian branch of the notorious pro-Soviet Institute of Pacific Relations. Many of them (including Lester B. Pearson) saw service in Washington & London where their counterparts were also members of Soviet espionage rings.

_______
* For more revealing details, read Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution by Dr. Antony Sutton, listed at the back of this booklet.

Washington and Ottawa: Parallel Infiltration

Tags

Arthur Koestler, Brookings Institute, Canada, Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA), Dr. Raymond Boyer, Eric D. Butler, External Affairs, Fabian Socialists, Fred Poland, Hume Wrong, infiltration, Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR), Lester B. Pearson, Marxist-Leninists, Norman Robertson, Oscar D. Skelton, Oscar Douglas Skelton, Ottawa, Prime Minister Atlee, Professor J. L. Granatstein, Sir Stafford Cripps, Toronto, Vancouver, Walter Lippman, Washington, Whittaker Chambers, Zena Cherry

The most important cog in the Soviet KGB apparatus is the “recruiter,” nearly always a “sleeper,” i.e. a secret member or at times even only a fellow-traveller of the Communist Party. Whether this recruiting of potential KGB spies is done at the university level, or within the federal civil service, is immaterial. We have several case histories of KGB penetration into both the universities and the civil service which clearly show the results obtained eventually justified the patient and persuasive characteristics of these “recruiters.” Possibly the two best books dealing

with this question are Whittaker Chambers’ Witness and Arthur Koestler’s Invisible Writing. However, Eric D. Butler’s informative booklet, The Fabian Socialist Contribution to the Communist Advance, contains invaluable material which proves how effective pro-Soviet Fabian Socialists became when they were infiltrated into the civil service of Australia, Great Britain, Canada and the USA. We read (p. 42):

The Fabian Socialists have not only produced a fertile recruiting ground for the Communists; many of them have actively collaborated with the Communists. And when they have not directly collaborated, they have provided an effective smoke-screen for the Marxist-Leninists, both helping to shield Communist activities and to mask the Communist advance.

It was not surprising, therefore, that the secret Comintern agent, Oscar Skelton, was undoubtedly given instructions to concentrate on recruiting or “colonizing” the civil service with reliable pro-Soviet Fabian Socialists, most of them recruited from Canadian and British universities. In the May, 1981, issue of Saturday Night, I. M. Owen, reviewing Prof. J. L. Granatstein’s biography, Norman A. Robertson: A Man of Influence, writes, inter alia:

The three stars of Skelton’s team (in External Affairs —P. W.) were Hume Wrong, Lester Pearson and Norman Robertson. It was Robertson, the youngest of these, who was Skelton’s successor.

It is interesting that Prof. Granatstein underlines what he charitably terms “weaknesses” in Oscar Skelton’s career, i.e., the fact that he was an avowed isolationist (it is significant that he opposed Canada’s participation in the war against Nazi Germany which was the Communist “line” during the 1939-41 German-Soviet Pact) and “a notoriously bad administrator,” and also points out that Norman Robertson, his successor, “was a hopeless administrator.”

Surely a Canadian taxpayer must wonder why these two top mandarins of External Affairs had been able to qualify as federal civil servants! Prof. Granatstein seems to think that Skelton’s forte was — you guessed it — “his extraordinary skill and success as a recruiter.”

As for Norman Robertson’s redeeming “skill,” Prof. Granatstein underlines his capacity to “influence the course of events.”

According to a newspaper leak in the “Featherbed File” (from “birds of feather”) it was ascertained that Norman Robertson joined a Communist cell at the UBC in his student days and later worked under direct KGB instruction in Washington and London in his various External Affairs assignments. Reports from the era he was in Great Britain as Canada’s High Commissioner tend to confirm oft-repeated stories that he preferred the company of known Soviet sympathizers who clustered around Sir Stafford Cripps, the pro-Communist Labour Party Cabinet Minister in the Attlee Government. The Vancouver Province (Feb. 29, 1964) mentioned that “Prime Minister Attlee and Sir Stafford Cripps often used to seek his advice on domestic problems over the bridge table.”

Was it a coincidence that Norman Robertson was recalled from Great Britain at the time of the Suez crisis when Herbert Norman committed suicide in Cairo? It is worth noting (although Prof. Granatstein sees no ideological significance in this) that when Robertson (in the spring of 1957) was named Ambassador to Washington he was able to contact friends from his Brookings Institute days, including U.S. Supreme Court Judge Felix Frankfurter (who had recommended Alger Hiss initially) and that top Fabian Socialist journalist, Walter Lippman!

Before we leave the Norman Robertson “case” it might be of interest to note that this “hopeless administrator” who entered External Affairs in 1929 at the age of 25 was given full responsibility in all League of Nations matters until the outbreak of the Ethiopian crisis and was assigned to “United Kingdom and United States commercial relations” and “general economic and financial questions” (Saturday Night, May 1981, p. 54). Was it a mere coincidence that people like Lester Pearson and Norman Robertson became acquainted with individuals in Washington who were later exposed as Soviet spies within the American administration who were being utilized by the Soviet-directed Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) and its Canadian branch, the Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA) of which both Robertson and Pearson were active members?

Prof. Granatstein notes:

Thus began a useful tradition of collegiality, whereby the top job (in External Affairs —P.W.) could be rotated among the top people without the bruised feelings that had attended Robertson’s appointment in 1941.

Long-time readers of The Canadian Intelligence Service report will recall its many articles dealing with the IPR-CIIA nexus which ultimately involved the Herbert Norman “case” and the subsequent move of the IPR from its former American base to the University of British Columbia (see CIS, Vol. 11 — No. I). In this report, we read:

From a Canadian viewpoint, we know that Fred Poland, Dr. Raymond Boyer and Herbert Norman were in the leadership of the IPR council in Canada, known as the Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA). At least twenty other Communist intellectuals across Canada have been identified at one time or another with the CIIA organization in Toronto and Vancouver.

The Globe & Mail (Apr. 13, 1970), in the Zena Cherry column, stated that Lester Pearson “was now the chairman of the advisory board” of the CIIA and that there were 24 Canadian branches with one in New York City (emphasis added —P. W.) with a total of 3,000 members!

The Norman Case

Tags

Bob Reguly, Cairo, Canada, Chester Ronning, CIA, civil service, Commander William Guy Carr, Communist Party, Elizabeth Bentley, Escott Reid, External Affairs Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Hazen Size, Herbert E. Norman, Herbert Norman, homosexuals, Hugh Hambleton, Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR), Lester B. Pearson, Louis Saint-Laurent, Ottawa, Pierre Elliott-Trudeau, President Dwight Eisenhower, RCMP, Red Fog Over America, Soviet infiltration

In a sensational article entitled “New Spy Revelations: Soviets Blackmailed Homosexuals in Ottawa,” Reguly stated, inter alia:

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau tried to stem the drain of senior civil service talent by easing up on security restrictions for homosexuals.

“Trudeau saw the end of the External Affairs department with so many top people being investigated and seen at orgies, that he opted for keeping them if they accepted medical treatment,” said a former top-level RCMP officer.

“But the Russians never eased up one bit in blackmailing homosexuals in government. Many had families to conceal it from. It’s still a Sodom and Gomorrah in Ottawa.”

The RCMP investigation of the blackmailed ambassadors, helped by the CIA and FBI, delved deeply into the chain in External that had promoted suspect ambassadors, at least four, to sensitive posts.

Part of that investigation was directed at Pearson, a friend of Watkins who had served as external affairs minister before becoming prime minister.

The FBI had 4,000 transcript pages of testimony, interrogation and cross-references from and about Elizabeth Bentley, long-time secretary of the Communist Party of the U.S. Included in the bundle sent to Ottawa was Bentley’s secret testimony before the U.S. Senate Internal Security subcommittee.

She testified that during World War II, Pearson as ambassador to Washington, had fed details of top-secret deliberations among western Allied powers to a Soviet agent, Hazen Size.

Bentley said Pearson knew that Size was a Soviet agent. Size, an architect, came to Ottawa after the war and worked for the National Capital Commission until his retirement. He died in Montreal several years ago.

The U.S. spooks were also unnerved by Pearson’s vigorous defence of his colleague, Herbert Norman, ambassador to Egypt who had jumped to his death in Cairo in 1957.

While Pearson was denouncing in Parliament the senate committee’s “witch-hunt” in identifying Norman as a communist, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower held a CIA dispatch from Cairo.

The message told him that on the night before Norman died, he had dined with a doctor friend and, according to the doctor, Norman said he feared that a royal commission would be called into the U.S. allegations.

If called to testify, Norman said he would be forced to implicate “60 or 70″ definite and possibly up to 400 Canadians and Americans in a Soviet spy network. He said he’d rather kill himself.

The most startling disclosure in the suppressed “Featherbed File” deals with almost similar statements by two former top officials in External Affairs, Herbert Norman and Hugh Hambleton (now of Laval University). In both cases, these exposed Soviet infiltrators expressed concern that if they admitted their own complicity “many others would be involved in top places.” Here is what the August, 1957, CIS issue reported on the Norman Case:

Early this month Willard Edwards, head of the Washington bureau of the Chicago Tribune Press Service, filed a most significant story relating to the “Norman Case.” Because it was widely suppressed by Canadian press and radio, we are reproducing, in part, the release which appeared in the July 12th Tribune.

“Washington, July 11 — Canadian Ambassador Herbert E. Norman leaped to his death in Cairo last April 4 because he could not face the prospect of an investigation in which he would be forced to involve a large group of American and Canadian officials.

“This is the gist of a highly secret report in the files of Canadian and American intelligence agencies which has deeply disturbed the government*; of both countries.

Norman’s Confession

“Norman’s suicide has remained officially a mystery. Originally, the Canadian government, then led by Lester B. Pearson, secretary of state for external affairs, attacked the senate internal security subcommittee for ‘slanders’ and ‘unsupported insinuations’ regarding the ambassador’s alleged communist background which caused him such mental grief that he ended his life.

“But new evidence from Cairo has furnished an entirely different motive. It came from an agent, given the highest classification for trustworthiness, who reported as follows:

“On the eve of his suicide, Norman had dinner with his personal physician and confessed to him his mental tribulations over the international storm aroused by the senate group’s disclosures.

Would Involve 60 or 70

“‘I fear that St. Laurent is not backing me up in this affair,’ Norman was quoted as saying. ‘I am seriously thinking of suicide. If there is an inquiry and I am forced to testify, I would have to involve 60 or 70 Americans and Canadian officials.’

“Early the next morning, Norman went to the top of the highest building in Cairo and jumped. He left two suicide notes, the major portions of which have been impounded by the Canadian government.”

Who Is Involved?

Willard Edwards, in the closing paragraphs of his story, relates Norman’s activities in the Institute of Pacific Relations, which was found by a Congressional committee to be “an instrument of communist policy, propaganda and intelligence.”

At the present time two of the key figures in the External Affairs Department are Chester Ronning and Escott Reid, Commander William Guy Carr, on page 213 of Red Fog Over America, gives the details of the pro-Communist backgrounds of these officials, both of whom were members of the Institute of Pacific Relations.

Are these key figures, operating at the policy-making level of our government, two of those whom Norman would have had to identify?

Would several figures prominent in the annual Lake Couchiching ‘Conference’, sponsored by the Institute of International Affairs and the CBC, have been identified?

These vital questions cannot be brushed aside just because Mr. Pearson was removed from his ministerial post a few weeks ago. The others involved still hold key posts in Ottawa.

Strange Case of Professor Hugh Hambleton

Tags

Canada, Canadian Intelligence Service (CIS), civil service, Col. Rudolph Albert Herrmann, Communist East Germany, espionage, FBI, Hansard, Members of Parliament, Order Paper, Ottawa, Otto Jelinek, Patrick Walsh (RCMP), Paul Fromm (Toronto journalist), Pierre Elliott-Trudeau, Professor Hugh Hambleton, Quebec City, Robert Kaplan, Solicitor-General, Soviet KGB, Tom Cossitt (Tory MP for Leeds), U.S. Department of Justice

“From 1962 to 1968, after a 6-year residency in Canada, Col. Rudolph Albert Herrmann, a Soviet KGB illegal resident, was instructed by Moscow to proceed to the United States. Col. Herrmann’s 25-year career with the KGB began in the 1950’s while serving in the military of a Soviet-bloc country. His initial training in espionage techniques such as secret writing and cipher systems took place in Communist East Germany. More advanced training was received in the Soviet Union. Not long after his arrival in the USA, Col. Herrmann was identified by FBI agents and then decided to co-operate with the FBI.

Through Herrmann’s co-operation, the FBI has achieved significant and sustained counter-intelligence objective and is pursuing additional leads developed from Herrmann’s information. The Herrmann family has been granted asylum in the United States and has been resettled under a new identity.

Herrmann has also provided significant leads on previously unidentified Soviet agents including Hugh George Hambleton, now (1981) a professor at Laval University in Quebec City. Hambleton, whom Herrmann identified as a long-time and
trusted Soviet agent, has recently been interviewed by Canadian authorities. (Emphasis added)

— Excerpts of correspondence from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to Patrick Walsh, March 3, 1980

Upon becoming acquainted with the above FBI statement, the mass media located Professor Hambleton in Quebec City and he acknowledged that he had been a Soviet spy while working with External Affairs and CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) in Ottawa, as well as for the Canadian government and Crown corporations in France, Israel, Saudi-Arabia, Spain and Latin-America. He also stated he had no fear of being arrested because if he were “a lot of big names in Ottawa are going to go down with me.’*

For several weeks the mass media splashed Professor Hambleton’s declarations on the front pages and on the TV screens. Hambleton gave an interview to the Ottawa Journal in which he boasted of his many “achievements” during the 30 years he admitted working for the Soviet KGB in Ottawa and foreign countries. Repeated attempts by federal MPs to get some kind of confirmation from the federal government failed to even get on the “Order Paper” at question time.

However, on April 15, 1981, the fighting Tory MP for Leeds, Tom Cossitt, did succeed in getting two questions on the Order Paper. Here is the Commons Debates [Hansard] report on Questions 990 and 991, with the usual cover-up reply from the Solicitor-General, Robert Kaplan:

PROFESSOR HAMBLETON OF LAVAL UNIVERSITY

Question No. 991—Mr. Cossitt:

1. To the knowledge of the government, did Professor Hambleton of Laval University, work for the KGB in (a) Canada (b) France (c) Israel (d) Saudi Arabia (e) Spain (f) certain sections of Latin America (g) any other country?

2. To the knowledge of the government, did Professor Hambleton make the statement, that if he was charged and put on trial “a lot of big names in Ottawa are going to go down with me“?

Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General): The Government of Canada believes that it would not be in the public’s interest to either confirm or deny or provide additional information on this investigation.

Question No. 992—Mr. Cossitt:

1. Did Professor Hambleton of Laval University admit to having contact with a known agent of a foreign power and, if so, was he charged under the Official Secrets Act and, if not, for what reason?

2. Was he receiving coded wireless instructions from Moscow, depositing messages in “dead letter” drops, etc?

3. What is a complete history of all employment directly or by contract with the government or any Crown corporation by Professor Hambleton, and did he perform certain duties in connection with the Canadian International Development Agency and, if so, what are the details of such duties?

Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General): The Government of Canada believes that it would not be in the public’s interest to either confirm or deny or provide information on this investigation.

As Toronto journalist, Paul Fromm, stated in the August 1981, issue of the CIS:

“To all his questions he received from Solicitor-General Robert Kaplan the Canadian Cabinet Minister’s equivalent of the Fifth Amendment: ‘The Government of Canada believes that it would not be in the public’s interest to either confirm or deny or provide any additional information.’ Professor Hambleton has never been charged.

“These cumulative revelations well merit Otto Jelinek’s description of them as a “stinking mess.” Jelinek called on Prime Minister Trudeau recently ‘to initiate a full-scale investigation into espionage activities in Canada, both past and present, where they are connected, for the sake of national security.’ Trudeau responded: “Presumably espionage has been going on, is going on, and will go on. If we know of any spies we will get rid of them. If we do not know of any, I fail to see how an investigation by some public body will turn up any names of spies.’

“For the moment the deeply penetrated Canadian civil service, diplomatic corps, and academic community can breath easier. There’ll be no full-scale inquiry. Nobody will be embarrassed. For the moment.”

Fabian Socialist Penetration in Ottawa

Tags

Al Johnson, Alan Gottlieb, as Jean-Louis Gagnon, Bernard Ostry, Bob Bryce, Camille Dionne, CBC, Chester Ronning, CIDA, Comintern, Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), CRTC, Ed Clark, Eric D. Butler, Escott Reid, Fabian Socialists, Fabian Society, former NDP Socialists, Gérard Pelletier, George Bernard Shaw, Graham Spry, Gui Caron, Harold Laski, Hazen Size, infiltration, Jacques Roy, Jean Chrétien, Jean Marchand, John Grierson, John Switzman, Julien Benda, Kent Rowley, Liberal Party, Madeleine Parent, Mark Starowicz, Marxist, Michael Pitfield, National Film Board, Oscar D. Skelton, Oscar Douglas Skelton, Pierre Elliott-Trudeau, Professor Frank Underhill, revolutionaries, Robert Rabinovitch, Socialist, Soviet agents, Stanley B. Ryerson, technocrats, University of Montreal, William (“Bill”) Lee

At this stage, the reader might begin to wonder how in the world I’ve neglected to mention Pierre Elliott-Trudeau and the clique which surrounds him, including Gérard Pelletier, Jean Chrétien, Jean Marchand, and a few others who were elected on the Liberal Party ticket from 1968 on, but previously were identified in Quebec with Socialist and Marxist groups. I shall have a word to say about them shortly. At least these infiltrators were elected. But how about that coterie of assorted revolutionaries, Soviet agents, former NDP Socialists and Unilateral Disarmers who, although they were never elected, have held and still hold influential positions in the upper civil service, in ambassadorial posts abroad and in top positions of the CBC, the CRTC, the National Film Board, CIDA, etc.? People such as Jean-Louis Gagnon, Al Johnson, Graham Spry, Bob Bryce, Jacques Roy, William (“Bill”) Lee, Hazen Size, Alan Gottlieb, Mark Starowicz, Robert Rabinovitch, Ed Clark, Michael Pitfield, John Grierson, Bernard Ostry, Escott Reid, Chester Ronning, and so many others who were able to worm their way into key positions in the Establishment and to keep these positions even when there was a change of government in Ottawa.

Long before the “Three Wise Men” from Quebec (Trudeau, Pelletier and Marchand) took over the federal Liberal Party in a typical Fabian Socialist coup d’etat, the civil service, the CBC, the National Film Board and other Crown agencies had been deeply penetrated by a group of Fabian Socialists, most of them graduates of the London School of Economics.

The most valuable short work on the deadly subversion of the free society by the Fabian Socialists is Eric Butler’s The Fabian Socialist Contribution to the Communist Advance. This 44-page booklet is listed at the back of this booklet. It’s “essential reading” for all who want to be equipped to really defend freedom.

The famous French writer, Julien Benda, created a sensation in the ’30s when he wrote a book which became a classic: La Trahison des Clercs (The Treason of the Intellectuals). A similar book could be written in the Canadian context, as it has been largely our universities which have produced the leadership of the whole Marxist Conspiracy — both the revolutionary Communist leadership and the elite echelons of the ‘gradualist’ Fabian Socialists.

The Comintern agent O. D. Skelton, to whom we have already referred, had been a professor at Queen’s University in Kingston. Another notorious Comintern agent, Stanley B. Ryerson (alias E. Roger), of the famous early Toronto Ryerson Family, recruited the future leadership of the Quebec Communist apparatus from among his students at Sir George Williams University in Montreal, including Gui Caron, Kent Rowley, Madeleine Parent, Camille Dionne and John Switzman.

However, it was Professor Frank Underhill, tutored by such Fabian masters as Harold Laski and George Bernard Shaw when he was at Balliol College, who later was responsible for hundreds of his pupils being able to infiltrate the civil services of both Ottawa and the provinces. In an article in the Toronto Daily Star of Nov. 27, 1969, referring to the testimonial dinner given old-time Liberal Party advisor Frank Underhill, Peter Newman wrote:

“They were all there, the big ‘L’ and small ‘l’ liberals — Lester Pearson, Frank Scott, Eugene Forsey, Bob Bryce, Escott Reid and

Graham Spry among them — all moving out of public life now and watching their ideology being assaulted on the outside by the radical young, and on the inside by the technocrats.”

Further on, in the same article, we read:

While at Balliol himself, from 1911 to 1914, Underhill joined the Fabian Society and came under the influence of Bernard Shaw…

And then the significant revelation:

Underhill drafted the original Regina Manifesto which launched the CCF.

It’s the old familiar story of the Fabian Socialist who works openly in the Socialist camp and then infiltrates the Liberal Party. Most of those mentioned above were in this category, with Bob Bryce being the grey eminence of the federal civil service and Graham Spry acknowledged as the “father” of the CBC.