The Importance Of Gouzenko: The Right To Privacy

397 Words2 Pages

In the two weeks leading up to the official end of World War II, September 2, 1945, Igor Gouzenko was stealing documents from the Soviet Union’s embassy in Ottawa, Canada. The documents that Gouzenko was stealing were all proof of a Soviet spy ring in Canada. Each day he bent the corners of a few documents that had stolen information on them, most commonly the information that Canada had on the atomic bomb, to mark them as ones that he would take. On September 5, 1945, Gouzenko stuck 109 documents underneath his shirt and walked out of the embassy right under the noses of the Soviet Union’s security agents, or KGB agents, at the embassy. After stealing the documents, he went to the Ottawa Journal to leak the information to the public. Infact, to sell his point, when he got there he said the words, “It’s war. Its Russia.” However, …show more content…

By noon however, the Canadian government took notice of Gouzenko, but they didn’t want to get involved because they didn’t want to hurt relations with the Soviets. Gouzenko then used the rest of the day to applied for Canadian citizenship, for he was struggling to leak the information and to get Canada to take him into protective custody.
At the end of the day, he decided to go and stay in a neighbor 's house in case the Soviet 's chased him. At this point, the Soviet embassy realized that Gouzenko was trying to leak sensitive information to Canada, so they sent in a number of KGB agents to capture him. However, he was staying at a neighbor 's apartment, that was nearby, and he could see his apartment being searched. The Canadian government then picked up Gouzenko when they found out that the Soviet 's had a failed capture attempt on them. The head of British security also informed Canada that he was a “prize catch” and he needed to be brought in. Canada put him into protective custody and investigated the