The Commission, appointed on February 5, 1946, by Governor General the Earl of Athlone, on the advice of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, was headed by two judges of the Supreme Court of Canada: Robert Taschereau and Roy Kellock.

[16] By the later years of the war, RCMP resources were spread thin guarding military installations and it was unable to provide effective screening for new hires within the rapidly expanding public service.

[24] Fred Rose, a union organizer and frequently jailed communist activist who would go on to become a member of Parliament under the LLP banner,[25][26] reportedly approached Sokolov sometime in 1942 and expressed interest in working for the GRU.

[25] Together, Rose and Sam Carr, a national organizer for the CPC,[27] actively helped the Soviets whenever possible and served as go-betweens for recruits, as Sokolov was leery of contacting agents directly.

[28] Both men were actively involved in Marxist study groups in Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa and, as such, had a broad array of connections with civil servants, academics, and scientists with sympathies to the Soviet Union.

The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the Soviet secret police and precursor to the KGB, also operated out of the Embassy, headed by Vitali Pavlov, who had arrived in Ottawa in 1942 when the legation was initially established.

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.

[68] However, Zabotin's wife found Andrei's persistent crying intolerable so Gouzenko and his family were given special permission to rent a separate apartment on Somerset Street West.

"[70] According to his memoir, although he had been carefully screened by the NKVD for his political reliability, Gouzenko quickly developed an affection for Canada and began to grow disillusioned with the Soviet Union soon after his arrival.

[70] In 1939, Lavrentiy Beria, the newly appointed head of the NKVD, had large numbers of Soviet operatives imprisoned or executed in order to purge any lingering influence of his predecessor.

[108] Finally, she reached out to another contact at the RCMP, an inspector named John Leopold, who reluctantly agreed to meet with Gouzenko in his office in the Confederation Building on Wellington Street at 9:30 am the following day.

The popular belief is that the "eminent officer" with whom he had met the night before was William Stephenson, the British Security Co-ordination Chief and spymaster who, by coincidence, had made a rare visit to Canada and was staying at the Château Montebello, not far from Ottawa, and persuaded Robertson to intervene.

Because of this condition his speech was rather incoherent and his train of thought and expression were confused to the point of being extremely difficult to comprehend... these Headquarters were convinced from Gouzenko's actions and temporary mental instability that the weight of his precarious position would have driven him to the murder of his wife and final suicide.

[144] Four days later, Robertson wrote to Georgy Zarubin, the Soviet Ambassador, apologizing for the behaviour of the local authorities and offering assurances that every effort would be made to find Gouzenko.

[162] Truman was insistent that no action be taken with regard to the suspects, as he was concerned that exposing the Soviet espionage network could undermine talks about reaching an international agreement on the atomic bomb.

[164] While the two were en route, St. Laurent, who was serving as Canada's acting prime minister in King's absence,[159] and evidently in anticipation of Nunn May's arrest, had the Governor General issue a second order-in-Council (P.C.

[167] King met with British Prime Minister Clement Attlee on October 11[168] and, in the end, the three leaders agreed to postpone the matter of Gouzenko entirely until mid-November, when the three men were scheduled to meet in Washington for talks on atomic energy.

[176] Meanwhile, one of the key American suspects, Ignacy Witczak, a GRU agent who had been living in California under a fake Canadian passport and likely establishing a spy network on the West Coast, near the Manhattan Project, had disappeared.

[194] He denied that the timing of the investigation was related to Pearson's announcement and insisted that he had delayed acting on Gouzenko's information in order "to give the U.S. an opportunity to follow up the revelations that they had received.

In a February 13 memorandum to MI6, Dwyer noted that, "Royal Commissioners suddenly decided today to prevent any further damage by leaks from Drew Pearson by taking action before his next Sunday broadcast.

His statement was brief – just 250 words[61] – and he did not mention Gouzenko or the Soviet Union; rather, he said only that secret information had been disclosed to a foreign government, that several people had been detained, and that a royal commission had been established.

[61] In Pearson's following broadcast on February 17, he claimed that the unnamed Soviet spy had provided Canadian authorities with the names of at least 1,700 agents operating in Canada and the United States.

[217] Fearing the suspects may attempt to escape, the RCMP kept the barracks "bathed in the glare of search-lights" and guards, who were made to swear an oath of secrecy, were issued live ammunition.

[229][230] The report also identified four of the detainees – Lunan, Mazerall, Willsher, and Woikin – but read as though the four suspects had already been convicted, claiming that, "The evidence heard so far... establishes that four persons, namely Mrs. Emma Woikin, Captain Gordon Lunan, Edward Wilfred Mazerall, and Miss Kathleen Mary Willsher... have communicated directly or indirectly secret and confidential information to representatives of the U.S.S.R."[231] The report also claimed – erroneously – that the detainees had been offered counsel, but refused.

[234][235] Rather, prosecutors opted to charge the suspects under the Official Secrets Act, a seldom used 1939 law that was so broadly worded that it could be interpreted to mean any contact with an "agent of a foreign power" was a crime.

John Diefenbaker led the charge, arguing that King's orders-in-Council had effectively swept aside Magna Carta, adding, "When, in the history of the British Empire, was any man ever denied counsel, except under order-in-Council passed by this government?

[239] On March 29, 42 days after the detentions began, the Commission released a third interim report identifying the five remaining detainees: Eric Adams, Scott Benning, Halperin, Fred Poland, and Smith.

[258][259] The report identified several other suspected agents, including six who would eventually face charges: Carr, Agatha Chapman, Henry Harris, Freda Linton, William Pappin, and John Soboloff.

[289] In January 1946, Carr had travelled to Cuba for a Communist Party conference and was returning via New York City when he was tipped off – likely based on the information supplied by Philby – that he would soon be facing arrest.

[346] Relations between the Soviet Union and the Allies were already deteriorating quickly following the Yalta Conference in February 1945 when it became clear that Stalin was determined to extend the reach of communism throughout Eastern Europe[347] and the Gouzenko Affair was only a step in what was a long-term trend.