Farewell Appearance?

Igor Gouzenko, the Russian who ripped the veil from Soviet espionage in Canada, made last week what might be his final public appearance under his own name. The occasion was the trial in Montreal of Dr. Raymond Boyer, onetime Government explosives expert who is charged with conspiring to give secret information to Russia. While seven Mounties guarded the courtroom, Gouzenko testified briefly that Boyer's name had been on the list of Canadians who were helping the Russians. Then, his job done, he turned in the witness box, bowed to the Bench, walked to a door at the rear of the court and stepped out of the limelight to live in hiding under a different name. Only if the police caught two spy suspects who are still at large, needed him for testifying, would Igor Gouzenko make a brief appearance again.

Convict the Guilty. Eighteen months have elapsed since the young (28) cipher clerk, fed up with Communism, stuffed 100-odd secret documents inside his shirt and walked out of the Russian Embassy in Ottawa. It took him 36 frantic hours tb persuade anyone to listen to his shocking story--that a handful of traitorous Canadians had sent to Moscow information of the greatest importance about radar as well as samples of precious uranium 235 from which the atom bomb is made.

Since then Igor Gouzenko has been the most closely guarded man in Canada. His testimony has resulted in ten convictions (Boyer's trial is the last of those arrested).

As the Dominion Government's guest, he has been living with his wife Svetliana, his son Andrei and his baby daughter, in different places in eastern Canada. Always moving, he has been guarded 24 hours a day by from one to eight R.C.M.P. constables. When his daughter was born, his wife entered an Ottawa hospital under an assumed name and a Mountie posed as the father. Mounties shopped for his baby's clothes.

The number of Canadians who have seen Gouzenko face to face is comparatively small. At the Government's request, no paper has printed his picture, or described him any more closely than to say that he is a stocky blond. Between trials he has busied himself with landscape painting and writing.

Earn a Reward. What the Government planned to do to keep him and his family in safety from now on, it was not saying. Presumably the Gouzenkos will be granted Canadian citizenship and then quietly settle down where no enemies will be likely to find them.

Financially, Gouzenko is fairly well fixed. Cosmopolitan magazine paid him a reported $50,000 for his story of the spy ring. In addition, he is assured of a small but steady income. A fortnight ago a Canadian industrialist walked into the Justice Building at Ottawa with a plan for Gouzenko. He explained that he knew "seven or eight other men" who would be willing to contribute a fund to buy a Dominion Government annuity for Gouzenko. Told that $24,000 would buy an annuity paying him $100 a month for life, the businessman said:"Never mind the other fellows, I'll do the whole thing myself. Let's let Russia and the Communists know that we're at least grateful enough to Gouzenko not to let him starve."

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