Canada Spy Wars

Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney would have preferred to talk about the just adjourned economic summit, at which he had successfully acted as host in Toronto. But the journalists crowded around him in the city's convention center last week were far more interested in a report, aired moments earlier by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., that Canada had uncovered a major Soviet | espionage ring. Mulroney confirmed that six days earlier Ottawa had expelled eight Soviet diplomats and declared nine others persona non grata for "improper and unacceptable behavior." That was a euphemism for what proved to be one of the most brazen Soviet efforts in years to steal supersecret American military technology.

According to Canadian officials, the Soviet diplomats had sought to infiltrate the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, the country's civilian counter-espionage agency. But the most sensitive target was Montreal-based Paramax Electronics, a subsidiary of the U.S. defense contractor Unisys and the prime subcontractor on a frigate- building project for the Canadian navy. In that role, Paramax has access to highly classified American technology involving radar and sonar capabilities and computers that control shipboard weapons systems.

External Affairs Minister Joe Clark insisted that none of the Soviet espionage efforts succeeded in breaching Canadian security or that of the NATO alliance, of which Canada is a member. The Canadians evidently received the assistance of a Soviet citizen, Yuri Smurov, a translator at the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency based in Montreal. Smurov requested and is expected to receive asylum in Canada.

Two days later, Ottawa accused two more Soviet diplomats of participating in spying. With espionage activities alleged against a total of 19 suspects, some of whom left Canada ten years ago, last week's disclosures added up to Canada's most important spy episode since World War II.

Moscow retaliated by expelling three Canadian diplomats and barring ten others from re-entering the country. Despite Soviet charges that Ottawa had committed a "rude antagonist act," the Kremlin's response was relatively restrained, suggesting that the affair was unlikely to seriously disrupt relations between the two countries.