Igor Gouzenko - Life in Canada

Life in Canada

Gouzenko and his family were given another identity by the Canadian government out of fear of Soviet reprisals. Gouzenko, as assigned by the Canadian government, lived the rest of his life under the assumed name of George Brown. Little is known about his life afterwards, but it is understood that he and his wife settled down to a middle-class existence under an assumed name in the Toronto suburb of Clarkson. They raised eight children together. He was, however, involved in a defamation case against Maclean's for a libelous article written about him. The case was eventually heard by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Gouzenko managed to keep in the public eye, however, writing two books, This Was My Choice, a non-fiction account of his defection, and the novel The Fall of a Titan, which won a Governor General's Award in 1954. Gouzenko also appeared routinely on television to promote his books or air a grievance with the RCMP, always with a hood over his head.

Gouzenko died of a heart attack in 1982 at Mississauga, Canada; his grave was not initially marked. Svetlana died in September 2001 and was buried next to him. It was only in 2002 that the family put up a headstone.

In June 2003, the city of Ottawa and in April 2004, the Canadian federal government put up memorial plaques in Dundonald Park commemorating the Soviet defector. It was from this park that RCMP agents monitored Gouzenko's apartment across the street the night men from the Soviet embassy came looking for Gouzenko. The memorial plaques are the result of four years of effort by history enthusiast Andrew Kavchak, who first came across Gouzenko's case while at university, and decided that "the first major international event of the Cold War" deserved a memorial.