bout de papier, Vol. 7, No. 3 (1990), p. 12
by Sidney Freifeld
Although newspapers at the time did not report it, and no mention of it is to be found in External Affairs’ files, the USSR’s vaunted intelligence apparatus seemed, curiously, to have failed for a few days back in 1971. This is what happened.
Mr. Trudeau was making the first official visit to the Soviet Union by a Canadian prime minister and, for the occasion, was accompanied by a small bevy of aides. Foremost among them was an old External colleague, Marshall Crowe, who by 1971 had risen to an exalted position in the Canadian Public Service — Deputy Secretary of the Canadian cabinet and Assistant Clerk of the Privy Council. If for no other reason, he was a figure on whom the Soviet Union’s bureaucracy would assuredly be expected to maintain a curriculum vitae in their omnivorous files.
But there were more important reasons. Marshall had worked in earlier years in the Department of External Affairs and had served as USSR desk officer in External’s Eastern European division. That job had brought him into frequent contact with the Soviet Union’s big Embassy in Ottawa, which would certainly have compiled a detailed profile on him for the foreign ministry – and the KGB – in Moscow. Furthermore, he had served a full tour of duty at the Canadian Embassy in Moscow; any minor lacunae about him in Soviet files would certainly have been filled in while he was there.
You do not have to be an intelligence specialist or one of John le Carré’s characters to be certain that the Soviet authorities, long before Marshall’s visit to Moscow with Mr. Trudeau, would have had data on every facet of Marshall Crowe’s background — his character, foibles, education and Canadian Public Service career.
Furthermore, when an official visit of a high personage is impending, profile sketches of the visitors and the key people they will be meeting are updated and exchanged between the two countries. Thus, when Mr. Trudeau and his party arrived in Moscow, Marshall had no reason to believe that his hosts would not know precisely who he was.
The first night in Moscow, Mr. Trudeau and his party were the guests of honour at an official dinner offered by Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin and attended by a panoply of the Soviet Union’s top political personages and military brass. For this occasion, Marshall, and the other Canadians, wore ordinary, dark business suits; white ties and decorations, or even black tie, are not worn at such state functions in the USSR.
When he was seated, Marshall was surprised to find that he was not located together with his USSR opposite number or comparable Soviet official. And, he became positively astonished to see, as the guests took their seats, that he was being flanked by a full Marshal of the Soviet Union, the USSR’s highest military rank, and a Soviet colonel-general, a rank higher than any in the Canadian Armed Forces. Our Marshall noted with surprise that these gentlemen were not clothed in business suits but were in beribboned uniforms, bedecked with medals, befitting heroes of their exalted rank.
If this clutch of Soviet High Brass were puzzled at finding Canada’s plainclothed and unbemedalled Marshall seated in their midst, they were too polite to show it. When they realized from preliminary small-talk that Marshall spoke their native tongue, they seemed pleased, and the one-“L” Marshal of the Soviet Union soon asked Canada’s two-“L” Marshall what was the largest number of divisions of the valiant Canadian Army that he had under his command during World War II. Marshall replied: “By the end of the war, I had risen to the rank of Captain and the largest number of men I ever commanded during the war was a platoon of nineteen.”
From the looks on the faces of the Russian officers, it seemed they had begun to realize that Canada’s Marshall, somehow, was not like their’s. And, perhaps because they had begun also to realize what a blooper had been made by their side — by those nudniks of the Party bureaucracy and the KGB — they seemed amused. They began to display as much bonhomie to our mere captain as they might have shown to an officer of their own lofty rank.
In the growing conviviality, Marshall Crowe soon thought it appropriate to put a question to the Marshal of the Soviet Union. What was the smallest number of men the distinguished Marshal had commanded during World War II?
Out came the crisp reply: “An Army!” Everyone joined in the laughter.
This strange misunderstanding persisted when Mr. Trudeau and his party visited Kiev. At the official dinner in that city in honour of the Canadian Prime Minister, Marshall Crowe — in his dark business suit again found himself flanked by redoubtable, beribboned, bemedalled, Soviet Highest Brass. Incredibly, the word had not been passed along from Moscow to Kiev.
Which led Marshall and I to speculate, when he told me this story, whether the USSR bureaucracy, with its sinuous intelligence apparatus, is as omniscient as we in the West have so long been prone to believe.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 7, No. 3 (1990), p. 12. Read the rest of this issue →
