[1][2] Describing Watkins as "sophisticated, erudite and fluent in Russian", Michael Dobbs of The Washington Post wrote that he was the "perfect ambassador" to Moscow.
[3] He is credited with organizing a historic meeting between Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Canadian External Affairs Minister Lester B.
[12] Near the end of his post in Moscow, Watkins began to develop health issues – heart and circulatory weaknesses that were not diagnosed at his medical examination upon entering the DEA – that would affect him for the remainder of his life.
[16] After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, Georgy Malenkov expressed a willingness to resolve issues of conflict between the East and the West,[17] and there was an apparent easing of tensions within Canada–Soviet Union relations when Dmitri Chuvakhin was appointed Soviet ambassador to Canada.
[19] In the fourth quarter of 1954, Watkins met a young man named Kamahl in a Muslim area of one of the southern republics of the Soviet Union and invited him back to his hotel room.
[20] Watkins entertained Kamahl in Moscow, and the two men engaged in a brief romantic affair consummated in the younger man's hotel room.
[22] In contrast to his first post in Moscow, he found himself enjoying access to top officials within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and invitations to social events that other Western Bloc ambassadors could not get.
[23] In April 1955, Watkins met then befriended "Aloysha", who introduced himself as Alexei Mikhailovich Gorbunov, a historian and consultant to the Soviet foreign ministry.
[25][19][26] "Aloysha" would soon play an important role in Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester Pearson's visit to the Soviet Union.
[28] What has been described as the most memorable event of the trip is a drinking party that occurred when Pearson, Watkins, Ignatieff, and Crépault visited Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin at the Yusupov Palace in Yalta on 11 October.
[39] In retirement, Watkins prepared his move to France by donating his valuable collection of Russian and Scandinavian books to various Canadian universities.
[39] His collection of paintings by Pablo Picasso and Russian avant-garde artists, including Marc Chagall, were distributed to friends for safe-keeping.
[39] He was a frequent dinner guest of the Canadian ambassador to France, Jules Léger, and his wife Gabrielle, and Basil Rakoczi was among the many unknown artists he befriended.
[39] In April 1962, two British officers from MI5 and MI6 who had assisted the United States Central Intelligence Agency in the debriefing of Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn travelled to Ottawa to update the Security Service.
[44][c] Security Service officers Charles Sweeny and Leslie James Bennett – considered to be the RCMP's counterespionage guru – wanted to question Golitsyn for further details but were told they had to wait in line behind the Americans, British, French, Germans, and Dutch.
[48] Like Golitsyn, Krotkov said he did not know the ambassador's name, but he confirmed that the diplomat had fallen into the trap and the timeline he presented seemed to overlap with Watkins' post in Moscow.
[32] In February 1964, Yuri Nosenko, a KGB captain who had served in the Second Directorate, defected while in Geneva and in debriefing with the CIA identified the Canadian ambassador as Watkins.
[32] Bennett was the obvious choice to lead the investigation, and William Higgitt selected corporal Harry Brandes over veterans Lloyd Libke and Murray Sexsmith as the interrogator to back him up.
[43] That evening at an already scheduled dinner party at the embassy, Léger led the frail-looking Watkins into his office where he was introduced to Bennett and Brandes, the purpose of their visit from Canada described to him as a matter of national importance.
[50] Watkins was picked up at his apartment the following morning and taken to a CIA safehouse where he admitted to having a liaison with someone apparently under KGB control and failing to report it.
[51] In London, Watkins met with John Wendell Holmes, his close friend and confidant who preceded him as chargé d'affaires in Moscow, and told him that he was being investigated as a possible security risk.
[22] After verifying Watkins' statements with the lengthy dispatches he had written in Moscow nearly ten years earlier, Bennett and Brandes were convinced that the former ambassador had been truthful and that the KGB attempt to blackmail him had failed.
[53] On the evening of 12 October 1964, the interrogation was essentially finished when Watkins, while reminiscing about his diplomatic career, suffered a heart attack and died instantly.
[59] Kerner only externally examined the body and observed no unusual markings, and an investigative report stated "coronary thrombosis in an unexpected, sudden, and accidental death".
[60] Chapman Pincher's March 1981 book Their Trade is Treachery was reported to have caused a "sensation in the press" with the claim that Watkins died while being questioned in a Montreal hotel room.
[59] After a two-week recess in the proceedings, John Wendell Holmes testified that he initially "took it as a joke of some sort" when Watkins told him in London that he was being investigated by the RCMP as a security risk.
[7][52] Holmes stated that Watkins behaved as someone "who felt he didn't have much longer to live, because of his heart attack", but believed him to be on good terms with those interrogating him.
[65] On 23 June 1982, the inquest concluded when Dery ruled that Watkins died from natural causes unrelated to intensive police questioning.
[1][66] In his 1999 book Agent of Influence, Adams suggested that the CIA had schemed to destroy Pearson, who had become prime minister, and had tried to get Watkins to implicate him.
[67] Watkins and his friend, fellow diplomat Herbert Norman, were the inspiration for "Harry Raymond", the central character in Timothy Findley's play The Stillborn Lover (1993).