The Goalie Who Came in From the Cold
Talk of a non-news story!
Recently the National Post ran an article that the Soviet hockey icon, goalie Vladislav Tretiak, was also (or became) a talent scout recruiter for Russian espionage.
Think about it. While Tretiak was one of the heroes of Soviet hockey in the 1972 series against NHL all-stars, we are now expected to believe he was (and maybe still is) in a more sinister role of the spy business.
When the Soviet Union existed, there was no escaping the tentacles of the KGB.
Tretiak is now president of the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia (the Soviet Union imploded, thanks to Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev after the Berlin wall came down in 1989). The implication is that Tretiak is now busy recruiting hockey players into the Russian Intelligence Service. If so, so what? It seems more silly than sinister.
Damage to other countries’ security, accruing from Tretiak’s alleged recruiting talents, is questionable. Alex Ovechkin, wearing the uniform of the Washington Capitals, and winning the NHL’s most prestigious awards over the past couple of years, has probably enhanced Russia’s reputation more than all its spies and intelligence recruiters combined.
The Post bases its “news” story on a new book, Nest of Spies by former Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canadian Security Intelligence Service officer Michel Juneau-Katsuya (assisted by Montreal journalist Fabrice de Pierrebourg), that claims (ho-hum) that Canada is a favorite incubator for spies.
Since the end of WWII that reality has not only been well understood by all intelligence agencies, but has repeatedly been documented in spy memoirs. Virtually every big international spy case during the Cold War years involved Canada is some way.
The NKVD murderer of Leon Trotsky in Mexico, 1939, carried a Canadian passport. Post-war Soviet spies such as Col. Rudolf Abel, Gordon Lonsdale (Konon Molody), the Kroegers, the Cohens, all made headlines and all had links to Canada. One, Rudi Hermann, a ranking KGB officer, worked as a CBC soundman. When Yugoslavia’s Tito was in the underground he carried a forged Canadian passport.
Former KGB archivist, Vasili Mitrokhin with Christopher Andrew, documents Soviet penetration around the world, including the usefulness of Canada, in his classic book, The Mitrokhin Archive.
Whatever is in this new book about Canada’s role in the ongoing war of Psst and Shhh (intelligence and security) there’s likely little that isn’t already widely known. Still, it does no harm to remind people.
But why pick on Tretiak? If he was a talent-spotter for Russian (and before that, KGB) intelligence, it was not unusual for Russians with foreign contacts. In fact, inside the Soviet Union, every housing complex, every sporting organization, every place of employment was loaded with KGB informers. It’s the nature of the beast.
During the Cold War, and perhaps even today, Canadians or westerners who visited closed societies were often debriefed by their governments. And why not? Citizens should willingly assist their governments. Heck, Canadians enlist to go to war and kill people when required by the government, so why not provide information that is helpful or enlightening?
These days, when Russia is more concerned with domestic issues than external subversion or mischief, why is Vladislav Tretiak’s relationship with his government anymore newsworthy than, say, former Montreal Canadiens goalie Ken Dryden’s relationship with his government?