So Red the Rose

It was getting on towards midnight. Robert Kenneth Taylor, Ottawa correspondent of the Toronto Daily Star, suddenly had a hunch. He called the Beechwood Avenue apartment of Fred Rose, the lone Communist in Canada's House of Commons. Taylor, as well as every other newsman in Ottawa, had heard persistent rumors that Rose had been arrested--or would be--in Canada's spy investigation. Now he asked Rose: what about it?

"Well, I haven't been," said Rose. "Here I am. . . ." There was a pause. Then: "Oh, oh. Two men have just come in."

"Police?"

"Of course."

Later, Rose's wife told what had happened: "Never so much as a knock. . . . They just came in and took Fred away."

Mounties whisked him off to Montreal. There, next day, in the highceilinged, dusty Police Court, Fred Rose (born Rosenberg), 38-year-old native of Poland, naturalized Canadian, was arraigned on grave charges: that he "did unlawfully, for purposes prejudicial to the safety . . . of Canada, obtain, collect, record, publish and communicate to other persons, sketches, plans, models, articles, notes and other documents and information . . . intended to be . . .useful to . . . the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

In court, Rose entered no plea, was released on $10,000 bail. On Monday he appeared in the Commons. Fellow members paid him no heed.

The arrest of an M.P. was not the only dose of wormwood for Canadians. In a crisp, 4,000-word report, the Government ticked off the identities of four other persons accused of giving secrets to the Russians: 1) Dr. Raymond Boyer, a McGill University chemistry professor who had worked on a super-explosive known as "R.D.X."; 2) Harold Samuel Gerson, a scientist who worked for the Department of Munitions & Supply; 3) R.C.A.F. Squadron Leader Matt Simons Nightingale; 4) Dr. David Shugar, who worked on anti-submarine devices while in the Canadian Navy. Five other "detainees" were still to be identified.

Another gagging dose was deep in the Government's report: some of the spy suspects had already confessed "under oath that they had a loyalty which took priority over the loyalty owed by them to their own country."

Finally, on Monday night, Prime Minister King rose in a hushed House of Commons. First he went out of his way to be conciliatory to the Russian Government ("I hope we can establish the friendliest relations"). That done, he charged Russia with some unfriendly business. Russia, he said, was making Canada "a base for securing information of great importance to the United States and Great Britain." Inside the Dominion, he said, Russian infiltration was approaching fifth column proportions. He said: "It was as serious a situation as had arisen in Canada at any time."

If there had been any lingering doubts among the Canadian people about the seriousness of Russian espionage in Canada, they were now shattered.

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