Hist103:Spies, Sex, and Scandal in Cold War Canada

Spies, Sex, and Scandal in Cold War Canada:
Igor Gouzenko, Herbert Norman, and Gerda Munsinger

This lecture will explore the Cold War through three interesting figures. Igor Gouzenko (1919-1982) was a cipher clerk at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa who defected in September 1945, taking with him documents that revealed a Soviet spy network operating in Canada. His revelations heightened the distrust between the West and the East, and help to bring about the Cold War. Herbert Norman (1909-57) was a Canadian diplomat and scholarly expert on Japan. He served with the Department of External Affairs, but during the Cold War faced charges of being a communist. Minister of External Affairs Lester B. Pearson defended his innocence, and Norman was sent as Canadian ambassador to Egypt. But when he faced renewed charges from the U.S. Senate that he was a security risk, he committed suicide. We will debate his innocence or guilt in class. The last figure is Gerda Munsinger, a German immigrant who had an affair with Canada's Associate Minister of National Defence from 1958-61. She proved to be a prostitute and a security risk. Was she a Soviet spy? In 1966, her name was mentioned in the House of Commons, part of Canada's first major parliamentary sex scandal.

Back to Lecture Outline

* Lecture Notes *

PowerPoint Slides

Reading:

Death of a Diplomat: Herbert Norman & the Cold War. Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History website.

The Gouzenko Affair. Available online through the CBC archives.

Politics, Sex and Gerda Munsinger. Available online through the CBC archives.

Further Reading:

General

Granatstein, J.L., and David Stafford. Spy Wars: Espionage and Canada from Gouzenko to Glasnost. Toronto, 1990.

Wesley Wark, "Intelligence and Espionage," in The Canadian Encyclopedia. Available online at: www.canadianencyclopedia.ca

Whitaker, Reg, and Gary Marcuse. Cold War Canada: The Making of a National Insecurity State, 1945-1957. Toronto, 1995.

On Igor Gouzenko

Barros, James. "Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White: The Canadian Connection." Orbis 21, no. 3 (Fall 1977): 593-605.

Bothwell, Robert, and J.L. Granatstein, eds. The Gouzenko Transcripts. Montreal 1982.

Canada. Royal Commission. The Report of the Royal Commission to Investigate the Facts Relating to and the Circumstances Surrounding the Communication, by Public Officials and Other Persons in Positions of Trust of Secret and Confidential Information to Agents of a Foreign Power. Ottawa, 1946.

Clement, Dominique, "Spies, Lies and a Commission, 1946-8: A Case Study in the Mobilization of the Canadian Civil Liberties Movement," Left History (Vol. 7, No.2, 2001): 53-79.

Clement, Dominique, "The Royal Commission on Espionage and the Spy Trials of 1946-9: A Case Study in Parliamentary Supremacy," Journal of the Canadian Historical Association (2000): 151-172.

Craig, Bruce. "A Matter of Espionage: Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White and Igor Gouzenko - The Canadian Connection Reassessed." Intelligence and National Security 15, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 211-224.

Dufour, Paul. "'Eggheads' and Espionage: The Gouzenko Affair in Canada." Journal of Canadian Studies 16, no. 3&4 (Fall-Winter, 1981): 188-198.

Eggleston, W., "The Report on the Royal Commission on Espionage," Queen’s Quarterly 53, no.3 (Autumn 1946): 369-378.

Gouzenko, Igor. The Iron Curtain. Toronto, 1948.

---. This Was My Choice. 2d ed. Montreal, 1968.

Granatstein, J.L. and Bothwell, Robert, eds.Gouzenko Transcripts. Ottawa: Deneau Publishers & Company Ltd., 1982.

Granatstein, J.L. A Man of Influence: Norman A Robertson and Canadian Statecraft, 1929-68. Toronto: Deneau Publishers & Company, 1981.

Hannant, Larry. The Infernal Machine: Investigating the Loyalty of Canada’s Citizens. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995.

Hirsch, Richard. The Soviet Spies: The Story of Russian Espionage in North America. New York, 1947.

Hyde, H. Montgomery. The Atom Bomb Spies. London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd., 1980.

Kavchak, Andrew. Remembering Gouzenko: The Struggle to Honour a Cold War Hero. Toronto: Mackenzie Institute, Apr. 2004.

Knight, Amy. How The Cold War Began: The Gouzenko Affair and the Hunt for Soviet Spies. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2005.

Pickersgill, J.W. The Mackenzie King Record, Vol.3: 1945-6. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970.

Sawatsky, John. Gouzenko: The Untold Story. Toronto, 1984.

Stevenson, William. Intrepid's Last Case. New York, 1983.

Wagner, J. Richard, and Daniel J. O'Neill. "The Gouzenko Affair and the Civility Syndrome." American Review of Canadian Studies 8 (Spring 1978): 31-43.

On Herbert Norman

Herbert Norman: A Documentary Perspective ed. G. Donaghy.

Barros, James. No Sense of Evil: Espionage, The Case of Herbert Norman. Toronto, 1986.

Bowen, Roger W. Innocence is Not Enough: The Life and Death of Herbert Norman. Vancouver, 1986.

English, John. Shadow of Heaven: The Life of Lester Pearson. Toronto, 1989.

Lyon, Peyton V. "The Loyalties of E. Herbert Norman," Labour/Le Travail 28 (Fall 1991). 219-59.

Peake, Hayden B. "A Question of Evidence: The Peyton Lyon Report." Foreign Intelligence Literary Scene 9, no. 3 (1990): 1-2, 8-11.

Taylor, Charles. "Herbert Norman," in Six Journeys: A Canadian Pattern (Toronto, 1977). 105-51.

Whitaker, Reg. "Return to the Crucible: The Persecution of Herbert Norman." Canadian Forum, Nov. 1986, 11-28.

Whitaker, Reg. "Spies Who Might Have Been: Canada and the Myth of Cold War Counterintelligence." Intelligence and National Security 12, no. 4 (Oct. 1997): 25-43.

Whitaker, Reg, and Gary Marcuse. Cold War Canada: The Making of a National Insecurity State, 1945-1957. Toronto, 1995. See pages 402-426 on the Norman case.

On Gerda Munsinger

Van Seters, Deborah. "The Munsinger Affair: Images of Espionage and Security in 1960s Canada." Intelligence and National Security 13, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 71-84.