SPYING IN CANADA

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21963, 6 March 1946, Page 5

SPYING IN CANADA

SOVIET INVOLVED INQUIRY FINDINGS DIRECTION FROM MOSCOW OTTAWA, March 4. The Canadian Prime Minister, Mr. W. L. Mackenzie King, announced that lour civil servants had communicated, directly or indirectly, secret and confidential information to the representatives of the Soviet in violaion of the Official Secrets Act, 1939. Mr. Mackenzie King identified them as Mrs Emma Woikin, a cipher clerk in the External Affairs Department, who had communicated .to Russia the contents of secret telegrams, Captain Gordan Luman. a member of the Canadian Information Service, who is cies■cribcd as heading groups of .agents under the personal direction of Lieu-tenant-Colonel Rogov, assistant Russian military attache at Ottawa, Edward Wilfrid Mazerall, an electrical engineer in the National Research Council working on radar —MazeraU was a member of Lurnan’s group who furnished two council reports on certain developments of radar —and Kathleen Mary Willsher, employed at the British High Commissioner's Office as deputy registrar and had access to practically all the secret documents of the office and made disclosures from them. Network of Undercover Agents

The interim report of .the Royal Commission investigating espionage said the evidence indicates that many other agents were active and that information intrinsically more important had been disclosed, but the commission is no.t yet in a position .to report on it as .the evidence has not been fully developed. The report explained that .the four persons were named because .the inveslig.a.tion into their part in the spy ring has been concluded. The report made no reference .to the charges which might be laid against .the four named and did no refer to the nine other persons taken into custody since the investigation wag announced on February 35. The report said that .the evidence had established .that a network of undercover agents had been organised and developed for the purpose of obtaining secret and confidential information, particularly from Government employees and employees of the British High Commissioner. Soviet Embassy Officials Named

The report said that .these operations were carried on under the direct instructions from Moscow by certain members of the Soviet Embassy staff at Ottawa and Colonel Zabotin, military attache, was directly in charge of them.

He had as direct assistants Lieut.Coloncl Motinov, chief assistant military attache, Lieut-Colonel Rogov, assistant military attache for air, Major Sokolovjne, the Embassy’s military secretary and also other members of .the military staff, all of whom, in pursuance of their activities, were known by undercover names.

The report continued: “We noticed that each dossier compiled by the military attache’s staff regarding Canadian agents contained a significant question: ‘Length of time in the net?’ We think the word net well describes the organisation established by Zabotin and his predecessor.” The commissioners said that they had examined Igor Gozenko, the cipher clerk of the military attache, who described this organisation and its functioning and pi'oduced the original documents, the authenticity of which they accepted. “The Director’s” Instructions

The report said .that documents produced by Gozenko showed that Zabotin last August received telegrams from “the director” at Moscow under his cover-name “Grant.” Those telegrams committed the following tasks to Zabotin:—

(1) Technological processes and methods employed by the British and Canadians lor the production of explosives and chemical materials. (2) Instructions a s to which members of his staff should contact particular Canadian agents, and also suggested the names of persons in the Department of National Defence for Naval Affairs who might act as agents. (3) Instructions to obtain particulars of materials of which the atomic bomb was composed, its technological process and drawings. The. report said that the telegrams also directed Zabotin to obtain information regarding the transfer of American troops to the Pacific and other data on military moves of specific divisions. Models of Radar Wanted

The telegrams also instructed Zabelin to obtain information of the location. of the first parachute troops and plans for future use, to obtain from the National Research Council models of developed radar sets, photographs, technical data and £>eriodic reports on radar developments. Zabo.tin was told to manoeuvre to discover more details of .the Research Council organisation and "get to their leaders and find out what they do.” Pie was also directed to obtain documents from the council library so that they might. be photographed with the express intention ultimately of obtaining the whole Research Council library and also to obtain particulars of the plant at Chalk River. Ontario, and uranium processing. He was also told to obtain a sample of uranium and details where it was produced and obtain specifications of. the electro-projector of the V bomb. Movements of Canadian Army The report said that Moscow had directed all the agents to obtain during the period March to August, 1945, a list of Canadian Army divisions returned from overseas, the names and numbers of the divisions, divided or reshaped. It also sought information about the number of troops in the postwar Canadian Army, with the system of organisation. It also sought information regarding electronic shells used by the American Navy, information about depth bombs and double-charge shells for cannon. The commissioners said tha.t further interim reports would deal more fully with the evidence and the hidings regarding the four persons named, each of whom had given evidence before the commission and had admitted the substance of the specific actions alleged. The four persons named appeared in the Magistrate’s Court charged with conspiring to provide secret and confidential information to the Soviet. Emma Woikin pleaded guilty and the others did not plead. All were remanded. All four are Canadian born.