Society & Culture
The defection of the Russian cipher clerk, Igor Gouzenko, in September, 1945, revealed to Canadian authorities a web of Soviet espionage spun throughout Canada, with threads running through atomic military research, Canadian parliament, and across the world – in Washington DC, London, and Moscow. Seventy-five years later, we can observe how this single defection sent ripples and cracks throughout the global military and political landscape. Dr. Calder Walton, a historian of espionage, grants us a peek behind the Iron Curtain, describing the intentions, perspectives, and practices of Soviet spying coordinated by Stalin and his officers. He explains how the various Western nations responded to the knowledge of these spying rings revealed by the Gouzenko defection. Dr. Walton explains how the first Cold War defection has relevance that extends across the West, the world, and to the present day.