in the United States began to collapse during his tenure as chief, but
that was not Gorskiy’s fault. Rather, the defection of Elizabeth Bent-
leyin the United States and Igor Gouzenkoin Canada provided crit-
ical insights into Soviet tradecraftand agents. Gorskiy returned to
Moscow, where he worked in the foreign intelligence directorate. He
left, highly decorated, with the rank of colonel.GOUZENKO, IGOR (1919–1982).AGRU communication clerk,
Gouzenko was the first important Soviet defectorof the Cold War.
After having served at the front and in Moscow as a code clerk,
Gouzenko was sent to Ottawa to the GRU rezidenturain 1943. In
September 1945 he took more than 100 classified documents out of
the Soviet embassy and requested political asylum for himself and his
family. Gouzenko’s action flummoxed the Canadian government, but
Prime Minister McKenzie King ordered that Gouzenko be protected
and granted him political asylum. Canada was poorly prepared to
deal with Soviet espionage: at the time of Gouzenko’s defection, the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police had a grand total of two counterin-
telligencespecialists.
Gouzenko’s debriefing by the Canadian and British governments
produced leads to 20 Canadians working with Russian intelligence,
including Fred Rose, a member of Parliament. This led to 12 convic-
tions, including Kay Willsher, the secretary to the British high com-
missioner in Canada, and officials involved in nuclear weapons de-
velopment. Gouzenko’s information illustrated the reach of Soviet
networks: another important Soviet spy uncovered by the British
from his information was Allan Nunn May, who was tried and con-
victed in London.
Gouzenko was a difficult defector to manage. Despite writing two
best-sellers, he was constantly in debt. He sued a number of maga-
zines that dared to refer to him as a defector. Nevertheless,
Gouzenko’s defection marks the public beginning of the intelligence
cold war between the West and the Soviet Union.GPU (GOSUDARTSVENNOE POLITICHEKOE UPRAVLENIE).
The GPU, or State Political Directorate, was the immediate succes-
sor of the Cheka. It was formed on 6 February 1922 and was re-
placed by the OGPUin November 1923.GPU (GOSUDARTSVENNOE POLITICHEKOE UPRAVLENIE)• 10106-313 A-G.qxd 7/27/06 7:55 AM Page 101