RCMP tried to gain Soviet naval intelligence from defector during Cold War, records show | 24CA News
The younger Russian seaman who turned up exhausted and bleeding on the British Columbia shore struck a Canadian intelligence official as properly mannered, honest and athletic, constructed like Tarzan of the films.
Less than two years later, defector Sergei Kourdakov would die in a California motel room – apparently by unintentionally capturing himself – after becoming a member of an evangelical Christian group devoted to smuggling Bibles behind the Iron Curtain.
Newly launched archival data of the RCMP Security Service shed recent mild on Kourdakov’s tragic odyssey, which made worldwide headlines within the early Seventies. The labeled memos, messages and reviews additionally element RCMP efforts to glean invaluable intelligence from the sudden customer.
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“He fully appreciated our interest in him and his information, and expressed a sincere desire to co-operate to the best of his ability,” reads one memo.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which assumed counter-espionage duties from the RCMP in 1984, launched the 802-page file on Kourdakov to The Canadian Press in response to an Access to Information request.
Some parts of the file, although half a century previous, have been thought of nonetheless too delicate to reveal.
Kourdakov was a 20-year-old nautical college trainee in early September 1971 when his ship, the fishing vessel “Shturman Yelagin,” moored within the waters close to Tasu in B.C.’s Queen Charlotte Islands.
Born in Siberia, he was eager on economics, historical past and politics, and loved images, writing and newbie radio. If Kourdakov had returned to the Soviet Union, he possible would have acquired a junior naval fee with duties as a radio operator.
But he had turn into disillusioned with the Russian system, considering defection as early as age 17.
“I don’t believe in the idea of the Communist Party of Soviet Union. I think it is not Utopia,” he wrote in a two-page account, translated from Russian, shortly after his arrival in Canada. “It is an invention of fanatically incited leaders like Khrushchev and Brezhnev.”
Late within the night of Sept. 3, Kourdakov sealed his private paperwork and photographs in a plastic bag and plunged off the ship into the chilly water. He turned disoriented within the robust wind and rain, however stored swimming till he lastly made his approach to shore.
He reduce himself climbing a rocky slope and wandered within the chilly earlier than recognizing village lights. “I lost a lot of blood, and my wounds were stinging from the salt water,” Kourdakov wrote. “I don’t remember how I reached the village. I woke up in a clean bed and a nice girl was offering me a cup of tea.”
An RCMP constable later reported “it was miraculous that Kourdakov was able to survive in the cold water and his survival could only be attributed to his excellent physical condition.”
After time in an area hospital, he was turned over to Canadian authorities. Within weeks of his arrival, he was granted landed immigrant standing.
The Mounties started debriefing Kourdakov simply days after he got here ashore.
In addition, reviews primarily based on interviews by the Special Research Bureau, a division of the External Affairs Department, have been shared with the United States, Britain and Australia.
“Source made an excellent impression,” learn one bureau report. “Athletic, built like ‘Tarzan’ of the movies with a West European countenance as opposed to the ‘Khrushchev’ type of Russian, he could blend into any North American milieu.”
The Canadians have been notably interested by naval issues, submarine sightings and fishing fleet operations.
“Kourdakov had no personal knowledge of the use of Soviet fishing vessels for intelligence purposes,” stated one debriefing abstract. “He did say that it is the general understanding of crew members that photos and information of potential value are collected when or if the opportunity presents itself, but he knew of no one trained for that express purpose.”
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He advised interviewers that within the occasion of conflict, the fishing fleet would go instantly to wartime standing and head for a Soviet port. “Trawlers would be converted to transport boats,” stated the abstract. “All trawlers contain specially prepared locations and mountings for armaments. Three times a month the ship had practice drills, and would take up positions as if the armour was in place.” Kourdakov can be liable for broadcasting any assault warning.
The Canadians would have taken a eager curiosity in what Kourdakov needed to say about Soviet radio operations and actions associated to SIGINT, or alerts intelligence, stated University of Toronto historical past professor Timothy Sayle, who has studied Canada’s dealings with Cold War defectors. “I think that would have been the most pertinent and valuable bit of information he could have provided.”
A federal interdepartmental committee agreed Kourdakov was a respectable defector and that $4,000 needs to be put aside for him, to be administered by the RCMP, to complement federal funds to assist him be taught English and settle in Canada.
Committee members hoped the extra cash would discourage him from relying too enormously on a personal supply such because the Russian Orthodox Church in Canada and to permit them “to exercise at least some measure of control over Kourdakov’s activities,” stated a letter signed by the committee chairman.
However, holding a decent rein on the younger defector would show difficult.
His sensational arrival in Canada attracted all types of consideration. Kourdakov reported being adopted by a Russian man. He was handled to lavish lunches and dinners. He even claimed to have acquired a letter from the militant Quebec separatists of the FLQ advising him to not criticize the Soviet Union.
An RCMP sergeant prompt in January 1972 that Kourdakov wasn’t attempting too laborious to be taught English, including the eye from the media and safety officers “has boosted his own self-importance out of all proportion.”
By May, the RCMP lamented that Kourdakov was rebuffing the power’s efforts to remain in contact. He had “inexplicably” moved out of his Toronto residence and “reports from some quarters imply concern over his well-being,” stated an inside Telex message.
Kourdakov had additionally developed an curiosity within the evangelical motion, “we suspect for monetary reasons,” the message stated. “He is assessed as immature, easily influenced by flattery, and extremely mercenary.”
In early June, the RCMP knowledgeable External Affairs that Kourdakov was residing in Calgary and had launched into a cross-Canada talking tour with a reverend who served as Canadian supervisor of Underground Evangelism, a U.S.-based group that raised cash to smuggle Bibles into Communist nations.
“No additional effort will be made to contact him.”
Kourdakov started to inform tales of being enlisted by police within the Soviet Union to hold out raids on Christian worship conferences, usually beating members, however later abandoning his methods and embracing spirituality _ particulars he didn’t share throughout his periods with Canadian intelligence personnel.
The RCMP would later state that Kourdakov was “known to have embellished accounts of his activities,” noting his feedback in the course of the talking tour about his conversion to Christianity “changed from time to time” and didn’t all the time agree with info he supplied in the course of the debriefings.
“I think he actually becomes a major headache, especially with these stories he’s telling on the evangelical circuit,” Sayle stated.
Kourdakov went on to affix Underground Evangelism and was residing with a sympathetic household in California towards the tip of his life. He had borrowed a gun for self-protection and shot himself unintentionally whereas clowning round in the course of the New Year’s weekend of 1973 at a ski resort, in response to the household’s daughter. Following an inquest, the loss of life was dominated an accident.
In probing the capturing that January, the San Bernardino sheriff’s workplace contacted the RCMP with a flurry of questions concerning the mysterious Russian’s background. The murder division wished to learn about any threats towards Kourdakov’s life, whether or not he was as soon as a member of the Russian secret police, and if it was true the Mounties had furnished him with a submachine-gun.
An RCMP response stated there was no cause to suspect Kourdakov’s life may need been in jeopardy whereas in Canada and at no time did he request – or obtain – a firearm from police. Nor did Kourdakov ever point out being related to the key police, the Mounties added.
“Unfortunately the obvious lack of facilities to verify his background with agencies in his homeland often makes it difficult to separate truth and fiction.”
