AThe Ottawa Journal Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Tuesday, September 25, 1956 - Page 2 — Five Were RA Chess Members — Special Detail Looked Over Soviet Shoulders by Richard Jackson of The Journal — Five RCMP officers, one of them from the anti-espionage Special Branch, for more than a year have been watching Russian Embassy officials “work on” certain members of the RA Chess Club.
The Federal police were literally “looking over the shoulders” of James Stanley Staples and Gennadi F. Popov when that pair played chess both at the club and at special “club nights” in the Embassy.
Club Members
The RCMP officers were RA Chess Club members in good standing.
Popov has been expelled from Canada at the invitation of the External Affairs Department for attempting to bribe James Stanley Staples, a 30-year-old former Grade Three Clerk in the RCAF Air Material Command at Rockcliffe.
Mr. Staples who has told of accepting and then returning $50 given him by Popov, has been released as a poor security risk by the RCAF.
The former Air Force clerk—who had no possible access to any classified defence information—was “only one of a number” of Chess Club members “approached and cultivated by the Russians.”
And it was done all under the knowing eyes of the five RCMP officers who included Corporal W. Wilson, member of the Special Branch.
Offered Details
RA Chess Club President John Bergevin, an economist in the Economics Section of the Public Works Department today readily gave The Journal the details, largely substantiated from other sources.
Then there were these other developments:
1. The RA Chess Club summoned a special executive meeting to expel the Russians;
2. The RA itself was calling an executive session to amend its constitution to bar membership in all its 60 different recreational activities to the staffs of embassies and legations;
3. President Bergevin did not think Mr. Staples would be expelled by the Chess Club;
4. RA President Len Hill, Chief of Personnel in the House of Commons believed his organization would cancel Mr. Staples' membership.
This contradiction in their membership policies could exist because the Chess Club has its own rather elastic rules admitting non-RA members.
Mr. Hill believed the RA would rid itself of Mr. Staples, if for no other reason than its unwritten obligation to the Government to avoid embarrassing situations.
Mr. Bergevin thought the Chess Club could take no action against Mr. Staples since he “has been convicted of nothing, in fact not even charged with anything.”
The way this new espionage attempt became public has surprised Mr. Bergevin, because the activities of the Russian members around the club had been no secret.
Mr. Staples had been only one “of a number” approached by the Russians, and the Chess Club executive had alerted its five RCMP members months ago as to what had been going on.
Heard Complaints
“More than a year ago certain of our new Canadians who are members came to us with complaints about the Russians putting pressure on them”, related the Chess Club President.
“They told us that if we didn't expel the Russians, they would have to quit the club in self-protection.
What the particular “pressure” applied by the Russians on the new Canadians was, Mr. Bergevin wouldn't say beyond disclosing that it “included” efforts to persuade them to return home.
Elsewhere it was learned and Mr. Bergevin did not discount it, that the Russians had offered “inducements” to some of the new Canadians to be repatriated by their Communist homelands, and on occasions had resorted to threats against relatives still behind the Iron Curtain.
But the Russians “approached” other than new Canadian members of the Chess Club.
Mr. Staples was only one of several.
Couldn't Expel Them.
“The executive met more than a year ago to consider the problem,” related Mr. Bergevin. “It was decided that the Russians couldn't be expelled. Twelve of them belonged to the club at the time, and to suddenly throw them out would have created something of a situation.
“Instead, we told our RCMP members about it. Five RCMP officers including one from the Special Branch are members of our club.
“Actually we didn't have to tell them what the Russians were doing. They already knew and were watching.”
The Russians made no attempt to hide their efforts to “cultivate” certain Chess Club members.
“They bought them beer and drinks and took them out to restaurants on club nights”, reported Mr. Bergevin, “and generally went out of their way to be entertaining.”
Mr. Bergevin recalled having spoken to Mr. Staples about it.
“I told him to watch it, and suggested it might be the discreet thing for him to avoid being seen with them.
“But he laughed and said that if they wanted to treat him to beers and dinners, he didn't see why he shouldn't let them go ahead. ‘Why not let them pay, if they feel like it’? was the way he put it at the time.”
Mr. Bergevin then took the matter up directly with the Russians, telling them to “lay off the new Canadians and Staples and any others they were bothering.”
The Russians, he said, were “warned to behave themselves.”
“We told them to stick to chess playing and drop the social activities and everything would be alright.”
There were few complaints from the new Canadians after the, but there were no noticeable slackening off in Russian sociability.
The Russians at times seemed rather to appropriate the club, and special invitation nights were held at the Embassy.
All Played.
“The entire Russian staff played chess,” recalled Mr. Bergevin. “But they were pretty awful. Only Popov played a game that you could say was anything like decent.”
Mr. Bergevin recalled with a chuckle how “night after night on Thursdays, we'd see the Russians come in and play often at the same table as our RCMP members.
“The RCMP were even included in the club night invitations to the Embassy.”
Mr. Bergevin was skeptical that much spying had gone on.
“If this was an espionage operation, it was certainly very much of the gold fish bowl variety”, he grinned. “The RCMP were peeking over the Russians' shoulders all the time.”
Perhaps a Joke
Mr. Bergevin suggested that from his vantage point of “an inside ringside view of this whole thing”, it was just possible it had been the result of what he suspected might have been “a crazy, fantastic practical joke gone sour.”
He pointed out that only Mr. Staples could have said anything about the $50 given him by Popov.
The information would not have been supplied by the RCMP, he said. That was definite.
Nor, did he think, would the Russians broadcast it.
Last night, the RCMP, according to The Canadian Press, accused Mr. Staples of being the source of the information.
He denied it.
Will Check Lists.
RA President Hill told The Journal that between now and the meeting of the executive, all membership lists would be combed over for the names of Russians or members of the staffs of other Iron Curtain countries.
If any were found to be members of other RA organizations, they would be asked to resign.
Mr. Hill believed that the Russians and their satellites were interested and active only in the Chess Club.
He reported it was “a foregone conclusion” that the executive would bar future RA membership to staffs of embassies and legations.
An exception might be made of those diplomats assigned to Ottawa by NATO countries.
The bar would be raised by an amendment constitution which a general meeting of the membership would be asked to confirm.
11,000 Members
The RA has 11,000 members busy with some 60 different recreational groups from a ski club to language classes.
The membership would have to be purged of Iron Curtain representatives and later closed to all diplomats as a “safeguard against this sort of thing,” said Mr. Hill.
There was a certain obligation owed the Government to keep clear of any embarrassing situations, “and the Lord knows, this is one of them.”
This obligation is underlined by a $500,000 loan the Government has made the RA towards construction of its new $750,000 headquarters, planned for Riverside Drive just west of Billings Bridge.
Five Were RA Chess Members 25 Sep 1956, Tue The Ottawa Journal (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) Newspapers.com
Five Were RA Chess Members 25 Sep 1956, Tue The Ottawa Journal (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) Newspapers.com
