The Stealing of Atomic Secrets - Part 1
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| Igor Gouzenko |
The disclosures that the former Soviet Union had organized a wide network of spies to steal the secrets of making an atom bomb, exploded in the face of its war time allies, U.S.A., England and Canada. They could hardly believe what the defector Igor Gouzenko had to tell them about this stealing. The Anglo-American group was spending money like water on this project, while the Russians got information regarding the atom bomb with ease. It certainly saved them a lot of time on research. This sensational spy scandal caused a permanent rift between the communist block on one side and the western allies on the other.
Igor Gouzenko was greatly troubled. He had been working as cypher clerk to the military attaché in the Soviet legation in Ottawa. He was in Canada for the last two years and had immensely enjoyed his stay. He did not want to go back to the rigorous life in the Soviet Union after having tasted the pleasures of a free Society in Canada. His wife Swetlana and son Andrei were also perturbed about going back to Russia.
It was really a “do or die” decision for him. Either he swims or sinks, he thought as he made up his mind to defect. He amassed a stack of secret papers from the “Soviet Legation”, copies of cables from and to Moscow agent index cards with cover names and pages from the case book of the military attache, Colonel Nicolai Zabotin. The papers also revealed the workings of a spy ring which was supplying information to the Soviet Union that enabled Russia to catch up with the Western countries in the manufacture of atomic weapons.
