Double Duty in Canada

In Ottawa, Canada's capital, foreign correspondents are just about as rare as palm trees. There are only nine: one from Britain, five from Canada's next-door neighbor, the U.S.--and curiously, three from Russia. Why this heavy Soviet news focus on a government not regarded as of prime interest to Russian readers? If Ottawans wondered, last week Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson supplied an answer. He ordered one of Russia's three Ottawa-based newsmen expelled as a spy.

The odd man out was Vasily Vasilievich Tarasov, 36, a blond, stubby correspondent for Izvestia. Canada accredited Tarasov after an urgent request that came straight from the Kremlin. After depositing his wife and young daughter in a modest apartment in Ottawa's Sandy Hill district, Tarasov scraped up an acquaintance with a minor government functionary.

To this man, Tarasov's inquisitiveness seemed to exceed the requirements of journalism, and he confided his suspicions to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Baiting their trap with a harmless but official-looking document, the police let the government man trade it to Tarasov for cash.

Canada has had Russian spy trouble before. The most notorious case was that of Igor Gouzenko in 1945, a Soviet code clerk who defected to the West. His confessions shattered a Russian spy ring. Among the Russians who fled Canada in advance of exposure were two men from Tass, the Soviet news agency.

As a Communist newsman doubling in espionage, Izvestia's Tarasov joins a far-ranging company. Since World War II, Soviet correspondents have been expelled on spy charges from Sweden, The Netherlands, Australia. Testifying before a U.S. Senate subcommittee in 1956, a former Russian intelligence officer who defected that year estimated that some 80% of the Tassmen scattered around the world serve the Russian government as spies. Vasily Tarasov is reputedly the first Izvestia reporter to be unmasked--a distinction that may or may not earn him credit points with Izvestia Editor Aleksei Adzhubei --Khrushchev's son-in-law.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.