Ottawa—Birthplace of the Cold War?

The Cold War was inauspiciously launched at 511 Somerset Street West, in an apartment building now adjacent to the Beer Store. Don’t believe it? On September 5, 1945, Russian-born Igor Gouzenko, posted to the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa as a cipher clerk, walked into the offices of the late daily the Ottawa Journal and, in essence, defected. He brought with him 109 carefully selected documents that he had been collecting for weeks, establishing conclusively the existence of a Soviet spy ring in North America. A royal commission was appointed the following February to investigate. In 2003, a plaque for Gouzenko (who, with his family, was given a new identity and relocated by the Canadian government) was erected in Dundonald Park across from his former home. Gouzenko, who had adopted an assumed name, died in 1982 in Mississauga.